Point - Tumblr Posts
i think it’s so fun that westeros is not remotely an imperial or political or trade power outside of westeros and no one gives a shit about it and everyone in essos thinks of it as an irrelevant backwater, which it is. that scene when xaro gives dany the big map and is like and westeros is … somewhere off to the side over there somewhere i don’t know who gives a shit. you should go there. take your ass back to nebraska
Hello, in a recent post you mentioned that if you were Aegon IV you would want to start Blackfyre rebellions due to hatred of Daeron II. Why did Aegon despise Daeron so much?
Plenty of reasons.
Certainly the simplest is that Daeron was the living embodiment of his despised marriage to Naerys Targaryen. Aegon made no bones about how much he disliked the marriage, and having Daeron around let him know it still existed. Worse, as Aegon’s heir, that elevated the marriage in importance over his many flings or lovers.
Let’s also not forget that Daeron was the polar opposite of Aegon. Daeron was an intellectual who shunned physicality, while Aegon was well-regarded in his youth as a horseman, hunter, dancer, and so on.
The Dornish question also loomed large over everything. Aegon openly courted war with the Dornish and tried to go to war three times. Daeron, this point the Crown Prince, stopped the first politically, and the second were lost via a storm that sank the fleet and Aegon’s wildfire siege engines falling over, setting fire to the Kingswood. Aegon actively fought in Daeron’s war, he would have experienced the highs of the successful conquest and the lows of Daeron I’s murder and Baelor’s pardoning. Daeron courting the faction of his wife would be seen as just shy of treasonous to Aegon IV.
Thanks for the question, Super.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
I don't think GRRM hates Sansa but more in the like of he despises what Sansa as a character represents in AGOT .
Hello Anon,
Martin doesn't hate Sansa, that's for sure.
And I don't think that he despises her character's position in AGOT either.
Tbh, I don't know what exactly you mean by what her character represents in AGOT? So I'll try to assume.
Do you mean naive and romantic girl who wants to become a queen? Who was in kind of denial to achieve her Disney princess dreams?
Let's look at his thoughts about romantic ideals:
He was asked or mentioned most of the stuff that's already been covered, but one thing he talked about that I found particularly interesting was Romanticism. He said that he is a romantic, in the classical sense. He said the trouble with being a romantic is that from a very early age you keep having your face smashed into the harshness of reality. That things aren't always fair, bad things happen to good people, etc. He said it's a realists world, so romantics are burned quite often. This theme of romantic idealism conflicting with harsh reality is something he finds very dramatic and compelling, and he weaves it into his work. Specifically he mentioned that the Knight exemplifies this, as the chivalric code is one of the most idealistic out there, protection of the weak, paragon of all that is good, fighting for truth and justice. The reality was that they were people, and therefore could do horrible cruel things, rape, pillage, wanton killing, made all the more striking or horrifying because it was in complete opposition to what they were "supposed" to be. Really interesting stuff. [SSM 2005]
As you can see, Martin faced what Sansa faced in Agot in his life... So I doubt that he can despise her for what she represents because she represents a part of himself. And this is not just Sansa you know.. we see this in characters like Samwell, Brienne, Jon, Young Jaime etc. He doesn't despise what she represents in AGOT, in contrary he works on this in his books and he makes this one of the central themes of the series.
I found this passage in an article and I want to share it here:
This first paper tackled “Disney Medievalism” by examining the way in which authors like George R.R. Martin smash the traditional fantasy genre with “gritty” medieval realism. Martin takes the reader through this process with Sansa Stark, a character who represents this notion of the “idealised medieval” i.e., knights, fair ladies, chivalry and camp merriment at every turn. Martin destroys Sansa and the reader’s fantasy of the medieval through constantly forcing her into real life situations as far from her perceived ideal as possible.
[...]
“Disney Medievalism” descends from Victorian medievalism. Disney medievalism is for children and Martin’s work breaks from that and is purposely written for adults. Martin sets up situations and characters to show his audience that his books will not be the usual Disney trope common with most fantasy series.
[...]
Sansa struggles to digest this cruel reality and eventually realises that life is not a song. She finally starts to see that her vision of life is immarture just before the Battle of Blackwater however, she still acts like a lady even if her circumstances aren’t ideal. It’s her way of clinging to a vestige of the idealised world she craves.
[...]
Martin’s work is often shocking to fans who come from reading traditional fantasy novels. He writes to portray the realities of the human condition, not the idealised Victorian medievalism that is rampant in most fantasy tales. While he is smashing the mould, he still gives the reader hope that virtue is not entirely out of reach for Sansa and Jamie, it comes from within, not from romaticised ideals, songs and fairly tales.
source
I think this article was on point enough. Sansa faces the harsh reality but Martin still shows the gleams of hope that come from inner romantic ideals. Martin crashes her world view but not her spirit. He makes sure that her weakness AND strength come from the same romantic ideals. She is not wrong to have those ideals... she just needs to face the reality to know better and still hold on to that ideals to make her statement against the world. This is a very powerful message. I hope I managed to explain it well.
BUT do I think he was wrong to write her in less sympathetic light? Yes I do, I can see that he wanted to make readers see her as a mean older sister to Arya "on the surface".
Do I think he made her face the harsh reality too much? Yes I do... she is the only character who can't catch a break. He made her face the same reality over and over again by keep writing perverts molesting her and etc.
And do I think he doesn't examine her inner struggles enough? Yes I do... He doesn't examine the reasons of her so called betrayal to her father enough... he doesn't examine her bitterness towards her family/abusers enough and so many other things.
SO I do believe that he uses her to represent one of the most important themes of the series but when it comes to her as a character he owes her a lot.
BUT he doesn't hate her. And he doesn't despise her. He just failed to utilize her character and he made some mistakes by writing her in bad light sometimes but that's all.
Thanks for the ask. Have a nice day.
More than Snow I need the Aegon the Conqueror show to never see the light of the day. Ideally, we will never see either. However, if I have to weigh it: Jon can't be butchered any further. Another Targ show though...woobifying Targs and lacking consistency and everyone acting like its deep because it's reframed as Visenya and Rhaenys' love story and the tragic circumstances that make them conquerors will drive me crazy.
And to add more on my previous post, all of the main female characters (with the exception of Arianne Martell) in the main series of ASOIAF are representations of white femininity.
Every single one.
And that is because they are literally white. It doesn’t make them bad characters or anything.
I’ve talked about it before hand, but anytime George is writing a character of color, especially a black woman, he uses racist stereotypes and imagery. Every time.
There’s a reason why Dorne and the Summer Isles are sexually liberated, and why the Dothraki are portrayed as vicious ‘savages’ with hardly any redeeming values to their culture.
There’s a reason why Arianne’s exposure to sex and intimacy at ten years old is not framed the same way as say, Sansa’s.
There’s a reason why Chataya and her daughter are brutalized and reminiscent of the Jezebel trope.
Because god forbid we show three dimensional characters in their apex of grief, rage and pain - No actually here’s a female rat catcher that Aegon is killing because he hates all females and that’s the only reason why.
When Daemon & Rhaenyra scorch and kill an innocent servant to facilitate Laenor’s departure- no biggie. When Rhaenys kills hundreds of smallfolk in a “badass” stunt at the Dragonpit - no biggie, the smallfolk don’t matter.
However when Aegon commit murder after his mother, wife and daughter were beaten, threatened with r*pe and tortured until his son was murdered before their eyes - it’s for no reason except he hates poor innocent women.
Daemon can grieve the “loss of his son & do anything for his family including killing many innocents” but anyways here’s a female rat catcher so you can understand truly how much the Greens just hate women in general. That’s it. Nothing else. Remember who the bad guys are everyone!!!
We need to talk about the reason for the Night's Watch decline are the Targaryens and the Targaryens alone.
That's why Jon and 40 other dudes were out here trying to fight like 100,000 windings and 1 million white walkers.
The fact that people debate book Rhaenyra’s fatness as if it was great character flaw piss me off. Rhaenyra was fat - that’s okay, she can still be beautiful you can still like her, she can still be your fav - it doesn’t make her a “lesser character” and you don’t have to defend her from it. This also applies to book Aegon II & Helaena & Viserys who was father to all three of them.
It’s not “anti/maester propaganda” that these characters are fat and the fact that you’re saying it is speaks volumes.
i know that targ incest is very normal in westeros but at the same time i cant help but imagine all the non targ wives being brought in and looking down at their little babies and just grimacing. Like do you think they just spend their kids whole childhoods hyping themselves up and trying to make themselves okay with it like "yes theyre mine but theyre also targaryens. theyre my children they belong to the kingdom. theyre my kids i love my kids, this is the best thing that could happen to my kids..." kind of choking on that last sentence lol. anyways.
Sansa, Dany, and the Fandom's Shit Takes on Child Marriage
'12 is considered an adult in ASOIAF! stop projecting modern morals onto the series!'
first of all... it's not lol. multiple characters in ASOIAF express disgust and reluctance at the idea of marrying off children, particularly in the case of kids marrying adults. Tyrion himself brings up how young Sansa is. Ned describes Lyanna as a 'child-woman' at 15/16. Viserys expresses doubt that Drogo would find Dany, who is only 13, appealing. adults being sexually attracted to kids is not seen as a 'norm' or 'standard' in the series.
second of all, even though child-marriage does occur in the series, if your takeaway is that anyone critiquing this is 'missing the point', you are so tragically stupid i literally don't know what to say. do you think GRRM included this to celebrate it? to argue that in a morally dubious setting, the onus is on the victim to ‘make the best of it’? that the system can't change, and might makes right? really? that's your takeaway?
third of all, the idea that, had a character like Sansa actually 'embraced' the older men preying on her, she would have succeeded politically and become a 'player' is fucking ludicrous. Littlefinger would not hand Sansa significant power the moment she 'allowed' him to assault her. that's not how he operates.
he has never intended to let her become his equal or co-ruler in any regard. he views Sansa as a plaything and an emotional replacement for her mother. he might actually come to believe he loves her, he might show her affection and support, but he would never regard her as an equal or let her dominate the relationship in any way.
finally, in the case of Dany, if you view her relationship with Drogo as in any way healthy, triumphant, or an assertion of feminist power... I literally don't know what to tell you, lol. yes, Dany is able to use Drogo's affection towards her to secure some safety for the enslaved women of the khalasar.
however, at no point does she begin to actually command Drogo, and the second she displeased him the tables would have turned immediately. bargaining with your rapist is not the same thing as a consensual alliance of power between equals. Dany had as much autonomy within the khalasar as Drogo permitted.
“sansa is a smart girl” and “sansa is a little kid being manipulated and groomed by an older man who sometimes messes with her judgement” are two statements that can, should and do coexist
really funny to me when you're reading Fire & Blood, and it's mentioned that Daemon's clearly grooming behavior towards Rhaenyra was angering people at court and making them uncomfortable, including Alicent, and people somehow twist this around to be, "well Alicent was just bitter about their pure Valyrian love! jealous old hag!".
like I am not denying that Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship very quickly degraded in Fire & Blood, and Alicent was not kind or fair towards her as a child, but like.... come on, lol. she can dislike Rhaenyra and also be like 'yeah this is fucked up, step away from the literal 14 year old, Daemon'.
Jaehaera dying doesn’t devastate me because of the green bloodline dying off
It’s truly not what bothers me about the situation
It makes me feel icky because Jaehaera was neurodivergent.
GRRM could have chosen to make her non-neurodivergent or he could have made her a Septa and killed off the Green bloodline in a different way.
But he specifically made her non-neurotypical and made her Queen and then killed of this neurodivergent girl in the most violent manner so she could be replaced specifically by a “more perfect” happier girl to be Queen.
That’s what disgusts me, as if neurodivergent people don’t deserve good things.
I’m gonna catch heat for this, but I’m gonna say it anyway:
The Velaryions should have stayed white and racebending them was a racist decision disguised as representation.
I can’t expand on this without giving away spoilers, so read more.
As a black latina woman (giving y’all my credentials before anything else), since it was announced the Velaryons would be white, I didn’t like it. Which was a conflict for me because hellow, of course I love to see shows where the characters aren’t all two shades of beige.
But the racebending of the Velaryons was made the for the sake of appearances only, and the lack of real representation inside the writer’s room is clear in the ramifications of what this decision brings to the table. To add more salt to the injury, racebending them absolutely undermines the original narrative’s essence.
Valyrians are white, and this plays a significant role in the story.
The reason why this is annoying the hell out of me is because spoilers suggests that Addam Velaryon (Corlys Velaryon’s bastard) won’t have his Valyrian white-silver hair. So to anyone else’s eyes, he is a black man with no blood of Valyria running through his veins.
Which means that Nettles and her entire arc is severely compromised, because a lot of her story is based on the points that:
she is the only black character with a crucial role to play in The Dance and
she has no Valyrian looks.
Nettles journey lies in her distinctiveness: she is a black woman who lacks typical Valyrian features. The narrative emphasizes her experiences with racism from the white Valyrian families, who consider themselves divine. It is IMPORTANT that this happens to her.
Yet, the showrunners chose to racebend the Velaryons, and by doing that, took away from the experiences and uniqueness of Nettles and her story. And what happened when they changed their race? They treat the Velaryons like shit.
And I can’t help but think it’s because they are, now, black.
The only conclusion I can infer from this is that the choice of changing the Velaryon from white to black was solely for appearance’s sake, because the writers clearly not only don’t know how to write for black characters, they also surely have the biased view that a character once turned black will definitely lack in comparison to a white one. What the Velaryons got in return for being black was their storylines made worse, as if they don’t deserve the same treatment now they are no longer white characters.
An example is Laena Velaryon.
Laena went from being universally acknowledged as the woman Daemon Targaryen truly loved/loved the most by the fandom before the show aired (because funny enough they ignore the existence of Nettles, which is a whole other topic for discussion)… to become “second best”, to be portrayed as a secondary choice, feeling inadequate and as if she would never be enough in comparison to the white thin woman. Her death was changed from a sad bittersweet scene between herself and her husband to a violent traumatic scene where she suffered until the very end.
And now, if Addam Velaryon indeed has absolutely no Valyrian traits whatsoever to his physical appearance, then what this changes will mean is that the sole canonical black dragon rider in the entire lore of ASOIAF, who endured racism and discrimination due to her non-Valyrian looks, will be stripped away from several key aspects of her story. Nettles distinctiveness is minimized, and the absence of Valyrian traits in one of the Velaryons further erodes the significance of her narrative.
Nettles’ importance is already being downplayed in certain discussions across several HoTD boards. Nettles “isn’t that special anymore, is it even necessary to have her in the story” and “you can’t say that rhaenyra is racist because she married Laenor, Addam will be her ally according to several spoilers, it makes no sense. The maesters lied to make Rhaenyra look bad”. In an effort to make the white Targaryen family (and the white Targaryen woman) more appealing and palatable to the public, they stripped away the only canonical black character of important plot points in her story, all to prevent the Targaryens from coming off as antagonists.
Like I said before, the fact that Targaryens and Valyrians in general are white is important to the narrative. Their whiteness encapsulates their sense of racial superiority. Black characters never get to have their own “I’m special” moment, they never get to have a hero journey like white characters often do, and then we have a story where a black character has exactly that, where her story arc mirrors the ones often given to the white heroes, in all of its tropes and awesome achievements… and that gets stripped away from that black character as much as possible just so your show looks diverse? (Although we know the real answer: it’s so your white characters don’t come off as shitty as they are in the original story).