Virginia Woolf To Vita Sackville-West (c. October 1928)

Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West (c. October 1928)

Phoebe Bridgers, Moon Song

Franz Kafka (misattributed)

Leo Brynielsson, The Moon Has Fallen

Mitski, Happy

Richard Siken, Anyway

Richard Monckton Milnes, Lady Moon

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Hymn to the Moon

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) dir. Frank Capra

Rumi, Some Kiss We Want

George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Margaret Atwood, Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later

A string that pulled me Out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire Chains around my demons Wool to brave the seasons One single thread of gold Tied me to you

What the fuck kind of drugs is r/asoiaf on???

I’m not into the whole Jon snow and who he’d date, I’m more into the Lannister or past targs. I read some good posts on mediaeval queens expressing their soft power in a clever way but was surprised to see you don’t feel that way. As someone who enjoys your posts I was hoping you’d elaborate on your no soft power comment regard asoiaf and mediaeval if that’s alright.

Soft power was coined as a concept in the 1990s and relates to the way modern day nation states use cultural mores, media power, and foreign policy to coerce other nations into agreeing to their demands.

It’s about economic strength, rather than military power. For example, the USA wields immense soft power via its films, TV, and music, all of which dominate globally.

Soft power doesn’t really have a place in discussion of medieval monarchy or queens.

Most women who ruled in their own right during the Middle Ages relied enormously on hard power to uphold their place at the top of the feudal system.

This does not mean they were never diplomatic, and they certainly used religion and arts to their advantage as well, but ‘soft power’ is generally misused in discussions about ASOIAF.

To enact change on the level that Dany does, for example, you must use military might. The threat of violence is necessary to prevent the former slavers from revolting, unless you intend to kill them all to begin with.

So, this is pretty cool.

Someone on Reddit did some math wizardry on just how much trouble do Targareyen women have in having a healthy pregnancy and birth. MaesterLies had a few requirments for what would count against a healthy pregnancy:

no miscarriage,

stillbirth,

infant death or mother dying from childbearing complications in the 1st year after birth.

For twin pregnancies, both twins must be born alive and live past infancy for it to be considered successful (Naerys' 171 birth of Princess Daenerys and stillborn son is not "successful" since one of the twins died). Pretty much, no death for anyone involved.

So there are plenty of ways for a pregnancy to be listed as failure. Even then, Tagraryen women had a 76% success rate!

Rhaella is by and far the anomaly here (that and Aemma Arryn). I am gonna be biased here and say that the maesters were involved. Something footy is afoot. Both times a Targaryen queen suffers from a huge amount of pregnancy complications precedes a huge civil war?

Anyway, this definitely puts to rest the idea that the Targaryens suffered from a higher than normal amount of pregnancy complications.

I know people like to blame the show for all the misinterpretation that happened to the characters, but I really wish people wouldn’t forget that the misinterpretation of Dany’s character didn’t come just from the show. There were plenty of self-titled book snobs who dedicated years of their lives to write thousands of metas on several forums and social media (Westeros.org, Quora, Reddit, Tumblr and even Wordpress) about how horrible Dany was, mischaracterizing her on everything, saying she was arrogant, that she lacked self reflection, that she was stupid, nothing without her dragons, tyrannical, etc. Blaming it all on the show erases the role that these antis had in shaping the fandom to be what it is today in regards to Dany. And that’s something that bothers me, because I consider the role these people had in influencing the fandom to be crucial for the view the fandom has of Dany as a villain, and it might have even influenced D&D to do what they did.