Asoaif - Tumblr Posts - Page 2
TEAM BLACK ICONS:: 2.05 - PART 1/3
PART 2 - PART 3
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What if i made my own a song of ice an fire RP? Hmm? Would people join? I DONT CARE IM MAKING IT
Why must everyone fight about ships! As long as your happy, you don’t need to fight ! Please! Get along!
What even is a Draco in Leather Pants?
Look, I really like the Television Tropes website. It’s fun and you can spend a lot of time reading it. The tropes it has formulated are, for the most part, the tropes you can actually discern and find quite often in fictional works, and the descriptions are usually quite witty and well supported. The examples and their justifications can be…questionable, since anyone can provide them, and may lead to a debate between contributors (i.e. anyone who has bothered to register and post), but still, usually the majority of examples make sense and more or less fit with the description provided at the top of the page.
But not always.
There’s supposed to be a trope called Draco in Leather Pants, which I had been vaguely aware for a while (basically, that it had something to do with people in the Harry Potter fandom stanning the character of Draco Malfoy and thinking he’s hot), and have been recently reminded because I’ve recently seen at least a couple of mentions of “leather pantsing”in various comments in fandom discussions, or links to the Television Trope page for said trope (for instance, a link to that page was provided in a page of a podcast about Jaime Lannister… who isn’t even among the examples listed on that page, BTW). So, it seems that this is supposed to be an actual trope and that people know what it’s supposed to be about.
Well, since I’ve actually looked at the above mentioned page, read the description and looked through the list of examples from various media given on that page, I understand even less what it’s supposed to be about. If anyone has a better understanding of it, please help me.
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genuinely do think house hightower is cooler and more interesting than the targaryens, like dont get me wrong i like both but the hightowers take it. easily. their shadowy history of alchemy and necromancy, patronage of westeros' cultural and religious institutions, and big fuckass taller-than-the-wall lighthouse has bewitched me body and soul. dragons, blood magic, and a destabilising obsession with incest is all well and good - but institutional corruption and the delicate mastery of soft power? just too tasty. been on the wrong side of several wars and never lost a head or a penny from their main line because they know how to play the game. one of the richest houses in westeros and they know how to do it right ! funding the arts, sciences, faith. controlling the narrative. every message goes through the maesters, them and septas tutoring little lords and ladies, all roads lead to oldtown, and thats just how its done why would you even question it. how could you question it. and all the while the lord of the hightower sits up in the clouds in a tower built atop an unsettling ancient labyrinth of black stone, burning a flame that can be seen for miles, lighting the city every night. like good luck getting away with shit when theres no shadowy corners to hide in. the metaphor isnt subtle. every other house would wish they were the hightowers if they could conceptualise the higher plane this familys operating on.
I need all of the actors of HotD to start dropping audiobooks, I don't like audiobooks but I would gladly start listening to them if they were the ones narrating stuff...
“No hammerblow to the heart could have felled her half so hard.”
“The hammer was like part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he made.” -A Clash of Kings - Arya IX
“As the swish of oars faded, she could almost hear the beating of her heart. Suddenly she was somewhere else . . . back in Harrenhal with Gendry.” -A Feast for Crows - Arya I
She dreamed of Gendry because her heart’s beats recalled Gendry’s hammer beats, the music he made with steel. And when Brienne first saw Gendry she thought he is Renly and get excited and characterized her feelings with “hammerblow” image. Even she didn’t know he is a blacksmith at this point. It is something Arya can say about Gendry actually :)
honestly, i don't blame anyone for not making the connection between rhaegar targaryen and jon snow. they are such different guys to me. you could organically stumble upon rhaegar playing a silver harp in a clearing in the woods, silently weeping into the flowing waters of a crystalline stream. jon is the teenage manager of a fast food chain who sometimes shows up to work dripping wet because he doesn't own an umbrella.
Hello! So i know that I am WAY! less knowleged than u re: asiof but I have a question about the Prophecy (AA/PTWP). I did a deep dive on it and GRRM spoke repeately about handling prophecy carefully/not too literally etc 3 weeks ago at Oxford he repeated: "you cannot have a prophecy that comes true way it was written and everbody understands it(..) it has to come true in a way you didnt understand(..)so it bites you in the ass" So rather than "who has the most obvious PTWP clues" shouldnt we theorize "how will the idea of AA/PTWP backfire on the believers" or "how can a unique/unpreditable element fill the role"? Since Im assuming GRRM stance will likely apply to the biggest prophecy in the books. What do you think? do you know theories like that? If anything, I only see "the prophecy is just nonsense!!" but that is clearly also not what GRRM says: not prophecy is bogus but has to be unexpected or "bite you in the ass".
Hey! No, you're far too kind 😭
I completely agree with you, and you raise some interesting and important questions, especially when considering how these ideas reflect back on our protagonists.
The tricky thing with interpreting prophecy is that the characters are operating on second-hand, third-hand, or even more distant accounts, all filtered through their cultural understandings of what a hero should be. Their beliefs are shaped by the information available to them, which is often incomplete or distorted. This means each character's idea of who is the subject of prophecy is largely subjective, influenced by their biases and specific cultural narratives and thus might never present the whole truth! So as readers, we should be very cautious about how we interpret the declarations presented by any character as absolute truth. We will probably never know until the final book is published, and even then it might be murky at best.
I saw GRRM’s comments a few days ago, and they really resonated with me because they align with how I’ve been feeling lately, particularly regarding Melisandre's role in all of this:
“[…] It is written in prophecy as well. When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone.” (Davos III, ASoS)
It's often amusing in fandom to discuss how wrong Melisandre is, and she certainly is almost all the time. But lately, I've been wondering: what if we're wrong too? We focus so much on Melisandre misidentifying Azor Ahai, but what if she completely misunderstands her own role in all of this—and we're too blinded to notice it?
Because the issue isn't just that she's chosen the wrong person. The bigger problem is that she's fixated on providing what she believes are the necessary tools to defeat the Others. She wants to "wake dragons out of stone”, repeatedly asserting that "two kings" are needed to wake the dragon so they can serve Stannis Baratheon. This thinking leads to the burning of Shireen—because someone must die to forge the hero's weapon. Melisandre even sees herself as expendable in this grand scheme. But what if her entire understanding is flawed—not just about who the hero is, but about the very dragon she is trying to awaken?
I've been considering all this because "dragons" in the text don’t always refer to actual winged creatures—they're often symbolic descriptors for Targaryens in visions. For example, Moqorro's visions show dragons old and young, true and false; Baelor Breakspear appears as a dragon falling on top of Dunk; and a dragon egg hatching essentially symbolizes Aegon V. So if we're taking prophecy at face value, just as Mel does, we're left wondering where in seven hells she expects to find her "sleeping dragons".
But the thing is, she already has one: Jon Snow. In fact, her visions in Dance suggest that Jon is the one she is truly searching for. And I often think of these visions as moments where I go, "Oh, come on, Mel! It's not that guy; it's the other one!" Yet I've come to realize that even if she identifies Jon correctly, Mel would still face the dilemma of needing another sacrifice to "wake" Jon's dragon. However, she is likely to resurrect Jon before reconnecting with Stannis, which means that by the time she and Stannis consider burning Shireen, she may have already awakened the dragon - and thus fulfilled the prophecy.
If Jon is the awakened dragon, that adds a tragic irony to the whole situation with Mel and Shireen. Legend has it that the woman (Nissa Nissa) dies for the hero’s glory. But if Jon is the dragon, then does that make Melisandre Azor Ahai in this case? After all, we don't know much about the original prophecy so who knows how much it has been distorted over time?
But wouldn't that be such a twist? Mel isn’t a noble lady or royal; she's a former slave, a mere priestess—a tool, a guide, but not the hero. She never considered that she, a woman, could be R’hllor’s chosen. Yet she would perform an actual miracle in bringing a dragon back to life. And if, like me, you believe that Jon will be born from a funeral pyre (inverting Khal Drogo and Dany's dragon eggs), then the prophecy is turned entirely on its head.
This also raises the question: what about Shireen? What does she, an innocent little girl, die for? Why should she have to die for a dragon that is already living? Why should she have to die to exalt a false hero, when the true miracle worker is actually the "expendable" woman who stands before her? Then we have Melisandre carry the baggage of killing a child for something she had successfully completed before...It doesn't matter if she's able to perform some bastardized miracle and create a shadow dragon, because it would all be all for naught and a wasted effort. To me, this is more satisfying from a character development perspective because Melisandre is no longer a background character. She’s got POV chapters now, which means she has an arc that needs to reach its natural conclusion. It cannot begin and end in service of the men around her. She must reflect on her role and come to terms with her actions—both good (waking the dragon in Jon) and bad (sacrificing Shireen for something she had already accomplished and for a prophecy she had already fulfilled); and this could lead to some compelling writing. This might also answer your question about "how will the idea of AA/PTWP backfire on the believers?”. Because “incorrect” interpretations not only hinder progress, but the cost of human life is perhaps too high :/
Oops, so sorry for the long tangent.....
lil jon things i am obsessed with/think are hilarious in the order they occurred to me at 3 am
-spends the first book telling anyone who will listen that he’s Not Afraid To Die and then a wight shoves its whole hand down his throat and he’s like wow that was actually extremely scary and never says that shit again
-always got little Things he says to himself but they’re all awful. very bad affirmation game no wonder morale is low
-“did lord eddard father you on a fish wife”
-the doubts that plague me can’t catch me if i just keep making Decisions!!! let’s hear it for Decisions!!!!
-arguably contender for top woman respecter but batting absolute zero at successfully comforting crying women. unless you consider “making her mad at you instead of upset” a success
-i’m not a wolf! i’m not a wolf!! i’m not a wolf!!! while warging like almost constantly with zero control. babe i don’t think your affirmations are working you’re experiencing non consensual smells at an alarming rate
-i wish mormont was my dad wait no i wish benjen was my dad wait no i wish qhorin was my dad wait no i wish donal noye was my dad. will someone be my dad please i just keep making decisions
-constantly having Agonies over ethical decision making while the rest of the continent hasn’t even really invented the concept of ethics yet? on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to his constant Agonies
-related: love is the death of duty but having strong ethical convictions/clear moral vision is also kind of the death of duty oops! aemon didn’t warn you about that one!
-stannis wants to davosify this kid mega bad
-“jon felt like he was fifteen again” (said when he’s literally sixteen)
-has a terrible violence in his heart but it’s kind of the least of his problems tbh. like yeah my fire and blood levels are a little elevated but i’ve got paperwork i need to take care of
-RUNNING DOWN THE TABLE AT YOU WITH A KNIFE!!!!!
-last of the giants fixation. god he’s gonna be so mad when he comes back and wun wun is dead. this one isn’t hilarious it’s deeply moving and endearing
-an eagle almost rips his eye out and he’s like well i guess i have no choice but to have sex with ygritte at least one dozen times. it’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it
-just a crazy amount of anime main character pre-loaded swag (bastard of winterfell skin changer with an albino direwolf and a cool sword which he can really SWANG and cool facial scars etc etc) and is actively working against it. rolled super high on charisma and is trying to balance it out by being as much of a boring fuddy duddy as he possibly can. the devil works hard (at making me cool) but i work harder (at being very uncool). it is an honorable thing to be swagless by choice…….
-pretty sure he actively enjoys saying no to people. just for love of the game (the game is being disagreeable). very capricorn coded. likely brushes his teeth in the shower.
-REMEMBER WE KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP 😈
OHHH everyone was in their acting bag for this week's episode!! Tom Glynn-Carney's fits of rage born out of grief, Phia Saban looking straight out of a renaissance painting as she mourned, and that confrontation scene between Emma D'Arcy and Matt Smith??? damn
Why?
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 2.02 ⬩ Phia Saban as Helaena Targaryen
i know in my heart that modern au sansa has an instagram entirely devoted to lady and posts videos captioned "bath routine of my direwolf 🥰 #dogbath #doggrooming #direwolf" where she's filing lady's nails and applying lotion to her paw pads while lady sits there with big loving eyes and all the comments are like "GIRL THIS IS AN APEX PREDATOR WHY IS IT IN YOUR HOUSE"
