D&D: "It Was Chilling How Calm [Dany] Was About Her Brother Being Killed," And Using This Reaction To

D&D: "It was chilling how calm [Dany] was about her brother being killed," and using this reaction to her abuser's death (the same one who had just threatened to cut out her unborn child from her womb) as one of her "first steps to madness". Ahem, also D&D on Sansa killing her abuser Ramsay:

 “At the end of Battle of the Bastards, when Sophie does a walk away. You don’t actually see the death; you see some of it in the background. You don’t really see the death, but what you do see is Sansa's smile. And it was all in one shot,” he said.

"We did it, you know, seven times. I remember standing there with Dan [Weiss]. When she finally nailed it on the seventh or eighth time, it was just that feeling of, ‘That’s so epic.’ Sophie was so good, and when she got that shot, I felt like, ‘I can now die happy.' Maybe I should have died happy right then."

And we all know what D&D gave unto Sansa in the end (ie. a crown, a kingdom, and of course "the smartest person I ever met") while Dany got... yeah.

I NEED your opinions about this

https://twitter.com/WtDasoiaf/status/1774489198499684598?t=PPxX9vIyxF8IERTu0pQ8MA&s=19

That post was deleted since I started writing this earlier today, so I'll do my best to sum up what it said really quick. Basically it was some leaked script where Alicent is secretly meeting Rhaenyra at Dragonstone to negotiate peace. She offers to split the realm, Rhaenyra angrily refuses and Alicent is upset (because of course). Rhaenyra says she will spare any who bend the knee but Alicent says that that isn't going to happen. That's all I saw of it. Now, onto my rant:

I fucking knew they were going to try to make Alicent a "peacemaker". Condal and Hess are just going to keep shoving that goddamn rhaenicent narrative down our throats. Even after Rhaenyra's children have been murdered along with Alicent's grandson.

Like why the fuck would Rhaenyra go to meet Alicent alone? Alicent is her enemy, her son murdered Luke, her other son stole her throne. Alicent abused Rhaenyra for ten years, any goodwill between them now just makes no sense! The writers are constantly willing to prioritize their bullshit ship over cohesive storytelling and consistent characters.

There's a chance that the leak is fake, which might be why it was deleted so quickly (but that might also be because it's true). However, the fact that the scene is something I can definitely see them having in there speaks volumes. It wouldn't be the first time Alicent and Rhaenyra were randomly shoved into almost reconciling, and it still makes no sense.

To be clear though, Alicent's offer was actually in the book, however the setting is very different. In the book, Rhaenyra has taken KL and is in the process of hunting down Aegon and his supporters. Alicent offers it as a last ditch effort to secure power and security for her family. It's very obviously a power grab on her part, one that Rhaenyra quickly rejects, just like in that scene.

My main issue with this scene isn't the offer, it's the circumstances in which it happened. Alicent offered it because Rhaenyra was winning and was planning on killing Aegon as soon as she got her hands on him. She wanted power, her whole motivation in the book is power. She offers to split the realm because Rhaenyra has KL and has imprisoned Alicent. That scene is turning Alicent's blatant power grab into yet another scene of "poor Alicent, she just wants peace 😔". Something that makes no sense considering that she started this whole fucking thing when she declared war on Rhaenyra sixteen years ago. It's just frustrating and shitty writing.

Friendly reminder Daenerys is only two years older than Sansa in both book and show canon.

Books: Sansa is 11, Dany is 13 (when she’s wed to Drogo, finds out she’s pregnant on her 14th name day).

Show: Catelyn says Ned road off to war with Robert 17 years prior and came back a year later with baby Jon - making him 16 at the start of the show. Dany is roughly 9mo younger than Jon, making her about 15. Sansa tells Cersei she’s 13 in Ep1.

Today (April 8) is The International Romani Day. The Romani people (also called Rromani, Romany, Roma) are Europe's largest ethnic minority with an estimated 10-14 million people, though knowing exact figures is hard because the Romani often live on the fringes of society and many Romanis choose not to disclose their ethnic identity. The Romani are unique among peoples in the sense that they've never identified with any territory or claimed they have a homeland where they came from. Their origin was somewhat a mystery for a long time (the slur "gypsy" comes from Europeans thinking they came from Egypt) but later genetic research has traced their ancestry to northern India and more specifically to the casteless Dalits. The Romani arrived in southeastern Europe by the 1300s and in western Europe by the 1400s, and in modern times the live in every continent.

The Romani experience a very high level of discrimination and marginalization and are among the most persecuted groups of people in the world. The entire history of the Romani people has been filled with ostracization, deportations, slavery, and systematic abuse ranging from segregation to forced sterilizations. Anti-Romani sentiment reached its peak during the Holocaust when 25%-50% of the European Romani were killed in the genocide called Porajmos, and some countries' Romani populations were destroyed completely. After the war the communist Central and Eastern European states tried to forcibly assimilite and suppress their Roma populations. In the present day anti-romani racism continues to be extremely common, with the studies showing most Europeans (especially Eastern Europeans) have unfavorable views of Romani people, hate crimes against them being common, and many of them living in poverty and marginalized.

People have many misconceptions about the Romani that often trace all the way back to the Middle Ages. The Romani are often confused with other itinerant groups like Irish travellers which are culturally and ethnically a completely separate group. Despite being almost synonymous with the nomadic lifestyle most Romani nowadays are not migratory, and with those who are it's often not by choice but because of persecution or homelessness. Most Romani are Christians or Muslims and they don't usually practice witchcraft, and if they do it's never to try to curse of hex anyone. There is a prevailing conception that Romanis are seductive and hypersexual despite that Romani communities tend to be fairly sexually conservative. Fetishization harms especially Roma women who are often victims of sexual violence. While it may be true that there's more crime among the Romani populations (there are conflicting studies about this) majority of Romanis are not thiefs or otherwise criminals, and it's important to understand that the crime is a direct result of poverty and deprivation, with it often being almost impossible for the Romani people to get jobs or higher education and being generally rejected by the society around them. The Romani themselves are frequently victims of crime, for example being extremely overrepresentated among the trafficked people.

Despite all this, the Roma people have persisted for hundreds of years and managed to retain their culture and identity. The Romani populations around the world have very diverse cultures and traditions but have many similarities too. A very high value placed on the family and deep love that the Romani people have for each other is something i think has helped them to survive. Despite all the challenges i'm optimistic about the future and i believe that the Romani will continue to survive and the things will get better even though it may take time.

I saw a tiktok comparing Paul Atreides to Daenerys and it made me want to gouge out my eyes and break my phone.

I just don't understand how Dany and Paul are comparable in any way. For one thing, Dany's ending in GOT only happened because of bad writing. There's no foreshadowing, no buildup, or reason for her fall.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually read the Dune books yet, just watched the movies and read Wikipedia stuff. So anyone who has read Dune, please please please correct me if I'm misunderstanding things.

From what I saw in the movies and read from secondhand sources, Paul was never meant to be a hero. Sure, he was a good kid, but his arc isn't that of a fallen hero. The moment Paul chose to exploit the fremen and the Bene Gesserit's false prophecy, he solidified himself as anything but a hero. He was set on vengeance and survival.

Paul is a fascinating character, but he's not a hero in any way, and wasn't at any point in his story (to my understanding).

Dany is a hero, whether you like it or not. From book/season one, she's been protecting those weaker than her to the best of her ability. She sacrifices her own desires and ambitions for the sake of others.

...this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer. (ADWD - Tyrion VI)

Dany chooses to prioritize the innocent and the oppressed in her mission. Paul chooses to lead a holy war that will kill billions of innocents.

They're not comparable characters, because they're very different archetypes and communicate very different things from the authors. Dany is an underdog and someone who fights for justice while maintaining her gentleness. Paul is someone who basically embodies "for the greater good", sacrificing billions for the future.

Dany is written to be a hero, Paul is not. Dany is only turned from being a hero because of bad writing and sexism. Paul's descent is well written and clearly foreshadowed. Paul's story is what D&D wanted to gaslight the viewers into believing Dany's was. Unfortunately, that seems to have worked for certain parts of this fandom. Also, the poster had a Sansa pfp, so I think it's easy to tell why they view Dany this way.

Paul and Dany's characters aren't even in the same ballpark as each other. Comparing them is stupid.