starksinthenorth

[starksinthenorth]

"i cant watch shows about fantasy kingdoms without thinking about how they should be abolishing the monarchy" that my friend sounds like a skill issue

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What a year this week has been.

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i want there to be more fanfic aus where everything is the same but for one minor detail. everything is the same but there’s sentient animals wandering around. everything is the same but everyone is called gerry. everything is the same but two characters are siblings for no reason

[starksinthenorth]

i want there to be more fanfic aus where everything is the same but for one minor detail. everything is the same but there’s sentient animals wandering around. everything is the same but everyone is called gerry. everything is the same but two characters are siblings for no reason

[starksinthenorth]

When Was Aegon I’s Dream Lost?

Aegon I “foresaw the end of the world of men. It is to begin with a terrible winter, gusting out of the distant North. Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds and whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living … if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen must be seated on the Iron Throne.”

Aegon I tells Aenys, who is his heir.

Aenys becomes king and Aenys tells his heir, Aegon the Uncrowned.

Maegor maybe learns from Visenya, if we assume Aegon tells Visenya and Rhaenys cause they’re a power throuple.

Jaehaerys becomes king. Maegor isn’t around to tell him (if Maegor knew at all). But he knows to pass it down to Viserys, so we can probably assume Aegon the Uncrowned told Rhaena before he took on Maegor, and she later told Jaehaerys. Jaehaerys went through multiple heirs - Aerea, Daenerys, Aegon the Unborn, Aemon, Baelon, Viserys. I’d bet he told Aemon and Baelon, and then told Viserys after the Great Council.

Viserys didn’t tell Daemon but he did tell Rhaenyra. He presumably doesn’t tell Aegon II.

The question becomes, does the dream die with Rhaenyra?

Rhaenyra may tell Jacaerys. He’s her heir, she’s officially queen, he’s the age or so she was when she learned, it makes sense. But he dies. So does she tell Joffrey, who is younger than Jace?

Aegon II will almost certainly will not know ever.

But it would be an interesting plot point to include in the Harrenhal musical and the Hedge Knight TV Show. So: how might the information pass on in an interesting way?

Answer: Corlys Velaryon

Maybe this is a crackpot theory, and it really is only relevant in the show, but it was a thought so here goes:

Rhaenyra realizes after Jace’s death how perilous war may be. Her three heirs are very young. As close kin who supports her reign and is her Hand and a potential regent, she tells Corlys in an act to protect the kingdom if she died before her heirs come of age.

Aegon III eventually learns from Corlys, probably on his deathbed

Aegon tells Viserys, who is his heir for many, many years.

Daeron I learns from his father

Baelor learns from Daeron or Viserys or never

Viserys tells Aegon IV but recognizing his son sucks, also tells Daeron II since he’s 19 when Viserys dies.

Daeron II tells his slew of heirs, including Maekar

Maekar tells Aegon V eventually

Aegon V tells Duncan, then Jaehaerys II. Part of the reason Jaehaerys isn’t disinherited is because too many know at this point. Aegon V tries to bring back dragons at the end of his life because he thinks the end times are near.

Jaehaerys tells Aerys II.

Aerys II does tell Rhaegar, who learns more through his books.

Instead of Harrenhal just being a love story you can also have Rhaegar agonizing over whether the Song of Ice and Fire is his destiny or if his dad is just crazy.

#aegon’s dream #rhaenyra targaryen #Harrenhal the musical #the hedge knight

[starksinthenorth]

While show canon is not book canon, I do wonder how many Team Green fans realize that in Fie & Blood, Luke is FIVE when he takes out Aemond’s eye, and Aemond is TEN.

The show also doesn’t include Aemond:

Pushing three-year-old Joffrey Velaryon into a pile of dragon dung

Breaking Luke’s nose

Hitting six-year-old Jacaerys on the head with a wooden practice sword

Laenor is dead at this point, not still alive, so not only is Aemond push his seven-years-younger nephew into a pile of dung, but he did it the days after said nephew’s father’s funeral.

And really, GRRM can’t math, so Luke should be four during this incident. Specifically because Luke is born in late 115, the Vhagar Incident occurs in early/mid 120, so Luke had just turned four.

Like the books are so anti-Green during this incident, it’s insane. Alicent is calling for a 4/5 year old to also lose his eye. It would be laughable for anyone say that’s reasonable.

So when people say the Vhagar incident is pro-Black and the show runners are being bad to the Greens, they should consider how much the bias has been dialed back.

#house of the dragon #hotd #aemond targaryen #lucerys velaryon #Vhagar #Joffrey Velaryon #Jacaerys velaryon

[starksinthenorth]

Corlys Velaryon, the Blacks’ double agent on the Green Council

Can we talk about Corlys for a moment, and how TG stans like to praise him for switching sides? Did he really do that? It doesn’t seem like it.

Rhaenyra and Corlys had a falling out which got Corlys imprisoned, under suspicion that he helped Addam (suspected traitor) escape. After Rhaenyra’s death, Corlys was released by the Greens and invited to join their side. The war was not yet over, however.

Now, I have seen so many people talk about how Corlys is just like Otto in his ambition for the Iron Throne. They couldn’t be more wrong.

When the Greens released Corlys and invited him to join their Council, Corlys had many conditions. The first being that Aegon the Younger, Rhaenyra’s son, be named Heir to the Throne. The second was that he wed Jaehaera, in order to permanently end the war. Other requests included that the Blacks’ men all be pardoned, including his granddaughter, Baela. Alicent and her usurper son both spat in his face at hearing these conditions.

Now I ask you this: what did Corlys have to benefit from these conditions? The answer is nothing.

In canon, Corlys has always viewed Rhaenyra as the rightful Queen and that has never changed. Despite being a known misogynist, he himself told Rhaenyra in the book how he considers her an exception to tradition because her father, the King, chose her as his heir. And with no succession law in place, the King’s word is law. Despite his own male primogeniture beliefs, he still saw the reality of the matter: Rhaenyra was the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Even after he and Rhaenyra had that falling out, Corlys never betrayed her and never strayed from the Blacks’ cause. With her dead, her remaining son, Aegon the Younger, was the rightful King. He needed to make sure that the boy would end up on the throne.

Corlys had no reason to join the Greens, and he never truly did. His remaining family, Alyn, Baela and Rhaena were still fighting for the Blacks’ cause. Not to mention that the Greens murdered his beloved wife, Rhaenys.

And if he truly was like Otto Hightower, and didn’t care which side he took as long as it benefitted him, I’ll tell you what he would have done:

Rhaenyra was dead. The war was not over but the Greens were in the advantage. Aegon the Usurper had no wife and no male heir to succeed him. Alicent herself was looking to find him a new wife so that she could prevent Rhaenyra’s son from inheriting.

If Corlys were like Otto, he would have made a different proposal to the Greens: agreed to join their cause, on the condition that the usurper marry Rhaena, his granddaughter. This way, with Rhaena as the new Queen, Corlys would get his wish: his kin on the throne.

That’s exactly what Otto would have done. That snake has no problem sacrificing anything or anyone in order to get the Iron Throne. He has no morals, no limits, no nothing.

Corlys is not like that. Despite his own ambitions, they come second to what he perceives is the right thing for himself and his family, and he has proven that.

Aegon the Younger being named heir and him marrying Jaehaera offers Corlys nothing. Nothing. The only thing it does is achieve his goal of putting the rightful King on the Iron Throne.

So, despite the fact that Aegon the Usurper was not honoring the proposal agreed upon, Corlys remained on the Green Council, and he plotted their demise along with the traitor, Larys Strong.

Corlys was outraged when he heard that the usurper wanted to execute Aegon the Younger and called the Greens “fools, liars and oath breakers.”

So, I don’t want to hear anymore bullshit of how Corlys Velaryon switched to the Greens, because that is the last thing he did. He promoted the Blacks’ interests, helped kill the usurper and have Rhaenyra Targaryen’s son ascend the throne.

[starksinthenorth]

if the catholic church was so smart why didn’t they make Parasocial Relationships a SIN. Marks failed to consider this

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I would like to wish everyone an uneventful new year

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Reblog to kill it faster

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how is it 2024 next week. that's not even a real year that's a caption on an establishing shot in a sci-fi story.

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just saw this on the website of a company that manages carousels in malls

This is a Carousel because it revolves counter clockwise, whereas Merry Go Rounds revolve clockwise.

and that sure feels like the very edge of some Big Unseen Discourse

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genuinely stunned at the fantastic choice for Percy not to pray to his absent and unknown father—like he did in the books—but to his mother.

the show is really taking us to one of riordan’s central theses straight off the bat.

parenthood isn’t about power and legacy and the recognition of shared blood.

It’s about the incredible act of showing up for your child—again and again and a-fucking-gain. That’s how you inspire respect. That’s how you become a child’s patron and beloved god.

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Likes to charge, reblogs to cast

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someone needs to talk about the fact (presumably) livia cardew's great niece was plutarchs assistant fulvia cardew

this is smth i think about so much.

[starksinthenorth]

Thinking about common law and faeries and coercion and contracts

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In common law contracting this would probably make the contract non binding as well since it’s coercive

What are your opinions on that scene in Acotar where Rhys twisted Feyre's arm to force her into that bargain? I read a comment somewhere that talked about Rhys having to twist her arm to heal her.

hi anon!

i think it was not only unnecessary, but is also another example of rhysand's actions working in contradiction to his proposed intentions. and this is - again - kind of a consequence of the bad writing. ive always thought that the way acomaf attempts to recontextualize rhysand's actions in acotar by essentially dubbing them as tactical and intentional steps backfires when we try analyze the validity of them.

(1) even -- and i mean even - if the argument is that rhysand is just "setting the bone" the story would have (a) told us straight up just told us in the 40 page monologue rhys gives. (b) thats not how you set a bone. he twists the bone twice - he doesn't pull it out. he twists the bone into her infected, oozing wound. that's torture. he could literally just heal her at any time and NO ONE would know. there's no one there with them, and the guards are easily warded against. he could also just take the pain away and tell feyre to pretend, as he did with clare beddor. he could literally do anything else than what he did. his explanation doesn't even make sense from a objective pov.

in this post, i talked about how the established arsenal of rhys

(2) as we know, feyre's cell is a relatively safe space. she receives hot meals everyday, her guards are explicitly warded against hurting, touching, or maiming her, if even they so much as try, rhysand commands they have to poke their own eyes out. she is also not responsible for any household duties if she does not want to do them. so not only is the cell private, but there are also no eyes and ears to ever overhear what is said between feyre and rhys. we also learn that amarantha has earnestly completely forgotten about her by the time rhysand has decided to display her.

im saying this all to say - none of the violence that rhysand uses against feyre/tamlin is ever earnestly justifiable; nor do they make any tactical sense. if anything, the violence and sa are literally counterproductive to the help feyre initially receives from rhys. in theory, amarantha isn't actively involved with feyre - rhysand is. its rhysand who tells amarantha that feyre is a hunter - hence the midggardian worm. its rhys that affects how much food she can actually get down, its rhys that takes her clothes away and leaves her shivering in that cold cell essentially naked for hours on end.

like at one point, i think rhys has the AUDACITY to call himself a pragmatist. and thats what is problem -- its not even that rhys is doing this things that is the problem. the problem is that the story treats rhysand's actions as smart, tactical, and intentional decisions...and they literally aren't. and by comparison - i think tamlin's "non-action" in some ways is more tactical than rhysand's. (im saying tactical for a reason, as tamlin specifically understands that less is more with amarantha and essentially often saves feyre's life by not giving amarantha anything; this is a departure from rhysand's tactical decisions with seemed symbolic and counterproductive in nature).