sirius-lives

[sirius-lives]

Whenever the text suggests the world isn't fair or kind there's always an unspoken "but it should be, and I wish it was".

Yes, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

It’s always very odd to me when I read criticism of A Song Of Ice And Fire online (by which I mainly mean: on Tumblr) which takes for granted that this is some sort of obsessively dark and edgy and mean-spirited fantasy, because ... that's not what the series is actually like at all?  

I mean, yes, some awful (and graphically described) stuff happens in these books, but this is at heart a deeply optimistic and almost embarrassingly romantic story, full of a very obvious sympathy and tenderness for the unhappy and the hurt and the powerless.  The weird gritty-for-the-sake-of-it books that the series's detractors describe wouldn't have recurring POV characters like Sansa Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Davos Seaworth or Samwell Tarly or Brienne of Tarth.  They certainly wouldn't obviously empathize with and respect these characters to the extent the actual books do.  They wouldn't be so obsessive about the importance of hope and kindness and understanding in an otherwise uncaring world.  Whenever the text suggests the world isn't fair or kind there's always an unspoken "but it should be,and I wish it was". You are clearly not meant to think that characters like Roose Bolton or Twyin Lannister are being held up as role models to emulate!

I mean, maybe the TV show is more like that -- I gave up on the show after only a couple of seasons, it was a terrible adaptation of the source material, even before the final season that everyone apparently hated -- but so much of the open disdain for ASOIAF I come across on here reads like the people writing the posts haven't even read a single one of the books. Yes, the popularity of ASOIAF inspired a lot of "dark" fantasy novels that actually are bleakly nihilistic and seem to revel in their characters meeting pointlessly sad and violent ends, but Martin's books are just not like that.

Yes, lots of the world-building for ASOIAF is patently ridiculous, and yes, key parts of the plot are just cribbed from the War of the Roses (or, rather, from historical novels like Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendour)  and yes, Martin has said some very stupid things in interviews while busy not writing the series.  And no, I'm not sure I could actually bring myself to recommend the books to anyone who's not read them before (especially when it's so unlikely that the series will ever be finished, let alone in a satisfying way).  I haven’t reread them myself in years.

But honestly, back when I was a quietly miserable teenager these books really meant a lot to me, in part because they are the opposite of the caricature often discussed online.  Yes, they acknowledged that sometimes the world was awful and unbearable.  It is!  But they also suggested that it was still important to try to be fair and kind and to appreciate the moments when things were better.  They are books about trying to do the right thing even when it’s so hard as to seem impossible and nobody else will even know that you tried, written in a way that takes for granted that “the right thing” is also the just and the optimistic and the quietly heroic thing; that doing the right thing when you afraid is more praiseworthy than never being afraid at all. And it is baffling to me how often I see people talking about them now who don't actually seem to have ever even skimmed them but are still vocally passionate in their hatred of something that, as they describe it, simply doesn't exist.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta

[sirius-lives]

She was not sure who as yet, but she knew she would find someone.

Eleanor Tomlinson as Alayne Stone/Sansa Stark

Max Irons as Harry Hardyng

Yuri Chursin as Sandor Clegane

#asoiaf #she would have made a great sansa #sansa stark #house stark #accidental sansan

[sirius-lives]

Fire and Blood' were the words of House Targaryen, but Dunk once heard Ser Arlan say that Aegon's should have been, 'Wash Her and Bring Her to My Bed'.

#asoiaf #house targaryen #aegon iv targaryen

[sirius-lives]

top 20 favourite book-only asoiaf characters (as voted by our followers) ⤷ #3. jeyne poole

Arya had her father's eyes, the grey eyes of the Starks. A girl her age might let her hair grow long, add inches to her height, see her chest fill out, but she could not change the color of her eyes. That's Sansa's little friend, the steward's girl. Jeyne, that was her name. Jeyne Poole.

#jeyne poole #asoiaf

[sirius-lives]

365 relationships; jon snow and sansa stark

the north is as beautiful as your brother claimed, as are you.

#jonsa #jon snow #sansa stark #otp: where will we go?

[sirius-lives]

#sansa stark #house stark #asoiaf

[sirius-lives]

Michael Fassbender as Edward Fairfax Rochester in Jane Eyre (2011)

dir. Cary Fukunaga

#jane eyre #michael fassbender

[sirius-lives]

     Slender and tall she was in her white robe girt with silver;            but strong she seemed and stern as steel, a daughter of kings.

#eowyn #lotr #tolkien

[sirius-lives]

nikolaj coster-waldau for flaunt

#nikolaj coster waldau #got cast

[sirius-lives]

GALADRIEL appreciation 01/∞

#galadriel #rop #her face!! #illegal #tolkien

[sirius-lives]

Like mother, like son

based on this post by @terrorofthetrident

#aemond targaryen #alicent hightower #house targaryen #house hightower #hotd #asoiaf

[sirius-lives]

top 20 favourite book-only asoiaf characters (as voted by our followers) ⤷ #5. satin

Satin, they called him, even in the wool and mail and boiled leather of the Night's Watch; the name he'd gotten in the brothel where he'd been born and raised. He was pretty as a girl with his dark eyes, soft skin, and raven's ringlets. 

#satin flowers #asoiaf

[sirius-lives]

faces of people about to make the worst decisions of their lives

#aegon ii targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #hotd #asoiaf

[sirius-lives]

I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

[sirius-lives]

Can I have a bit of earth. A bit of earth? To plant seeds in. To make things grow.

THE SECRET GARDEN (1993) dir. Agnieszka Holland (requested by anonymous)

#the secret garden #love love love

[sirius-lives]

JAIME LANNISTER 6.06 | “Blood of My Blood”

#d&d really wasted that gorgeous face #jaime lannister #house lannister #got

[sirius-lives]

in my opinion, rhaenyra's line would have worked much better in the context of episode 8 in which alicent is directly using her "own self righteousness" to promote aegon and vaemond's causes.

that way, we'd have two back to back episodes with a "green victory" (e07: aemond's claiming of vhagar, alicent's rightful accusation of entitlement) and a "black victory" (e08: luke's claim to driftmark, viserys showing up to save rhaenyra's ass). it would also help to balance the clear bias season 1 has for rhaenyra, and would imply that the animosity between the branches extended over years and years, on both sides.

Nothing hits hard than Alicent saying,

“And now you take my son’s eye and even that you feel entitled too.”

But the direction decides that, “now they see you as you are” is what they hold on. It’s such a weak line and I know Emma is giving it their all but it just doesn’t make sense! They see Alicent as a mother willing to defend her son? Someone who’s not putting up with Viserys’ bullshit?

Alicent should get 10 minutes to attach all of them to her heart’s content with the amount of shit she’s been put through.

#hotd meta #rhaenrya targaryen #alicent hightower #the dance of the dragons #hotd