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wolfsneedles · 3 years

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Probably biggest misconception is how catelyn is flawed as mother. I dont understand how obviously you can have 5 children to be accurate who are all further apart from you, and some are unsafe and as hostages in KL, other is fighting war and remaining are in home, the home was taken from them which is winterfell after war of 5 kings erupted. Logically talking, takes days and months to reach one place in westeros that by time she would have reached winterfell to be with bran and rickon maybe that time would have been taken by ironborn to reach winterfell when they sacked it. You cannot just say she should be with all her children and starklings and also hope robb wins, and she gets her daughters back and all is well?? Obv so many things and her mistakes which makes her a flawed character happens as result of wrong judgements and then it was impossibility to go back or leave robb. Catelyn assisted robb too a lot in war. Her eldest son did need her as someone near to her because she was TULLY! she and her son needed their support and that of riverrun. She even knew The Freys and made pact with them not mentioning how pact turned out all wrong not bcs of their mistakes only but also freys and boltons betraying and killing them in cold blood which was very unlikely. She is even sent by Robb to deal with Renly and Stannis, hoping she makes them take their crown off and fight to similar cause, then she brings brienne on the way too, and later learns of what happened in winterfell. How does that make her terrible conflicted mother, im sorry? She was doing whatever she could to help her son win war because winning that was their only chance and losing it was their permanent demise. Also she left winterfell and bran alone as people say?? Well why? Because i wonder bran was crippled and was on bed when an assasin was sent to kill him in front of her and that to in their own home, own room. Had it not been for brans wolf they both would have died yet she so bravely wrestled with the assassin as lady. As normal lady with no tactful skills or strength. of course we know later who sent it to kill bran, but her biggest last straw to leave winterfell and go to Ned ( wondering ned is also responsible for more things as in not being coming back home when given the chance 500 times to, to escape Kl, or even ask for forgive of cersei or flee with renly....but he didn't well and left them alone too knowing robb was only elder stark there and...benjen was gone) and she even comes again, back to her home when she sees tyrion, and vows to capture her because again,,,

1) She thought dagger was his we all know littlefinger told her.

2) Now her trusting LF is dumb but why? grrm made him smart and not entirely evil for purpose of telling us too how so many ppl including tyrion and cersei are fooled by him for so many times so how was cat and she knew him btw, was supposed to mistrust him, lets say even if she is somewhat naive and made mistake in this matter? Ned even trusted him. And so many. It was definitely not mistake as people push on the fact that trusting her fathers former ward who also loved her, in foreign land was dubious

3) And she still gave tyrion a trial. this makes jamie also very grey for killing ned's men, a stark, and HAND OF the king at that time openly in place, Also tyrion was suspected again which is told since dagger could have been his was made up lie by LF. infact most od jon arryns story was all a lie by LF,,, but we did not know that neither did she

And setting tyrion free, brought her back to her son's war and ned getting beheaded although i do not remember all timelines but before robb is announcement as king in the north, she even urges them all to vow and make peace and get her DAUGHTERS back. So ppl who think she was more of mother to sansa and not arya is another misconception. This is mostly used by extreme antis and others to turn them against one another when half of the diff bw them arya and sansa are result of mistake and negligence by both ned and cat and even septa mordane! Yet it is all a child's matter....arya and sansa learn a lot through their journeys about importance esp arya, of importance of having a wolf pack and not just lone wolf. Catelyn herself confessed how arya was so difficult and different not in negative way!! but to define her traits that she was always playing, in a mess "half a wolf pup, half a girl" is clearly not said as a terrible statement towards a daughter. She thinks sansa on the other hand is very sensitive and sentimental which she was, and there is nothing wrong with her being a conventional lady however she no longer believes in so many fairytales even, and arya defying the norm of being feminine lady for which you almost must be dressed as lady. Catelyns worries for her daughters and them being so apart was literally a mothers worry backed by toxic mindset and patriarchal values. Yet even then she like most mothers, never thought of only marriage and children as fate of her daughters which for e.g tywin treating cersei; only as beautiful gem of daughter to get excessive betrothals and better claim of lands and titles via her daughter only.

Ned and Cat didnt even had their daughters betrothed which was disadvantage in far sight but also kind of how their approach on their children were. Rickon was too small and definitely last of her children. Bran was precious to her not because he was bran....but because he did lose his legs and was about to get killed which made him wonder what bran did or knows which led to such vivacious attack. How is that being unequal to your children. Similarly her thoughts on arya and sansa are both realistically embodying the nature of two very different sisters. She LED JAMIE FREE to trade her daughters. SHE KNEW most likely arya was dead yet she still did it definitely not to get sansa only back but as diminishing hope for exchange of both her daughters. Long before she got to know arya might have been dead , just like bran and rickon, THEN obv her worries shifted from one child to the only alive kids she had: Robb and Sansa. Sansa was betrothed to Tyrion. And Robb was leading a war. Yet she still impulsively and as they said " a plight of mother" released jamie. Surely does make her a conflicted worrisome and passionate mother - not just to her some few children only.

Throughout acok and asos, there isn't single thing that means to describe her resentment and unequal treatment of children. Catelyn's upbringing had an effect too. Her mother died too young, she was left as woman on mercy of a terrible father in my opinion and an uncle who did love her and comforted her! She was even married to someone she didn't see. She is or did have conventional mindset about marriage and children. Her entire thing to ned and her children were embodiment of Family, duty, honour. A lot of other ppl in asoiaf aren't really always tied intrinsically and loyally to families esp ones whose families have been terrible to them. Duty is another important thing. She never even asked Ned for Jons mother purely as duty yet her outburst on young child is definitely worthy of criticism. She and Cersei in a way had both same kinds of husbands in different ways, and yet both used diff ways to climb a male dominated society - and both have different way of loving children even and a different demise (so far as we know cersei is still alive)

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turtle-paced · 4 years

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Revisiting Chapters: The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD

I know, I know, I promised this for last week, but I had to pace myself with that last scene. The recap is also available on my wordpress.

The story so far…

Having opened the Neck and secured some support from Barrowton, Very Definitely Theon Greyjoy is not so cordially invited to the wedding of Very Definitely Arya Stark and Ramsay Very Definitely Bolton.

Content warning: this chapter ends with a rape scene. The recap contains discussion of the sexual violence depicted. Fourth subheading, if you want to avoid it.

False Identities

That’s the thing this chapter. With his return to Winterfell to assist in the marriage of a girl who is not Arya Stark, Theon’s starting to feel the cracks in the Reek identity that’s been forced on him. Once again he’s been jammed back into playing Theon. His first reference to himself in his internal narration this chapter is Theon Greyjoy.

The girl Theon starts the chapter attending to is referred to as “the bride,” and she is terrified. Jeyne starts by trying to convince herself that it will be okay.

“I will be a good wife to him, and t-true…I will please him and give him sons. I will be a better wife than the real Arya could have been, he’ll see.”

In case anyone was thinking that Jeyne deserved something bad to happen to her because she was mean to Arya, this fact is brought up again. In the context of Jeyne desperately seeking validation that she’s pretty enough not to be brutalised by the man she’s being forced to marry. As if that might work. She knows the problem. She can’t maintain that lie.

“He knows who I am, though. Who I really am. I see it when he looks at me. He looks so angry, even when he smiles, but it’s not my fault. They say he likes to hurt people.”

Jeyne is not Arya. She is not another Stark for Ramsay to torment. Which only means she’s going to be hurt for that particular offence as well. Theon models her some denial, telling Jeyne that Theon deserved to be hurt for making Ramsay angry, and that Ramsay is a sweet and kindly man. He advises (begs really) that Jeyne stop even alluding to the fact that she’s supposed to be someone who isn’t Arya Stark - just like Theon isn’t supposed to be Theon anymore.

This is made damn near impossible because Theon and Jeyne have been shoved into Theon- and Arya-shaped molds to enact a bit of political pageantry.

Theon Greyjoy had grown up with Arya Stark. Theon would have known an imposter. If he was seen to accept Bolton’s feigned girl as Arya, the northern lords who had gathered to bear witness to the match would have no grounds to question her legitimacy.

And therefore Ramsay’s claim to Winterfell through his wife.

Theon, meanwhile, is thinking of his own forcible return to being Theon for a time. The mummer’s farce. Theon cannot bear to trust even in part Roose’s comments about possibly installing Theon as Lord of the Iron islands. Note that the one detail of Theon’s wedding outfit that’s given to us is a crude iron kraken cloak pin. Much like Theon, it has been roughly hammered into a Greyjoy shape.

For all Theon says the solution for him and Jeyne is to keep up the pretenses forced upon them, in his internal monologue he’s got mixed feelings about it.

For a long moment [Jeyne] did not speak, but those eyes were begging. This is your chance, he thought. Tell them. Tell them now. Shout out your name before them all, tell them that you are not Arya Stark, let all the north hear how you were made to play this part. It would mean her death, of course, and his own as well, but Ramsay in his wroth might kill them quickly. The old gods of the north might grant that small boon.

Jeyne does not say it. Theon does not say it. The wedding proceeds, and Theon is left alone beneath the heart tree to continue his existential crisis (the one he has on top of all the other bad stuff that’s happened to him).

He was ironborn, a son of Pyke, his god was the Drowned God of the islands…but Winterfell was long leagues from the sea. It had been a lifetime since any god had heard him. He did not know who he was, or what he was, why he was still alive, why he had even been born.

And then he gets an answer.

“Theon,” a voice said.

It’s so perfect it actually could be divine intervention. Not only is this one of the most grounding things Theon could have heard, an affirmation that yes, he’s Theon, it’s quite possibly Bran himself speaking to Theon. A Stark, and a Stark injured by Theon’s actions, recalling Theon Greyjoy with all his mistakes and failures. Whether maybe-Bran intended it or not, whether or not Theon fully realises it, it’s a stunning if subtle act of cosmic grace.

With that prompting, Theon starts to think back. He gets annoyed at Jeyne for looking to him for a rescue, “like some hero in the stories she and Sansa used to love”. Most importantly,

I learned to fight in this yard, he thought, remembering warm summer days spent sparring with Robb and Jon Snow under the watchful eyes of old Ser Rodrik. That was back when he was whole, when he could grasp a sword hilt as well as any man. But the yard held darker memories as well. This was where he had assembled Stark’s people the night Bran and Rickon fled the castle. Ramsay was Reek then, standing at his side, whispering that he should flay a few of his captives to make them tell him where the boys had gone. […] None of them would help me. I had known them half my life, and not one of them would help me.

Now that’s some Theon! The good and the bad. This is key to Theon recalling the real Theon, in total, the sum of all his past choices. Not anyone’s image of Theon, but the person Theon made himself. The Theon who isn’t Ramsay’s plaything.

A Ghost of Winterfell

This is the first time since ACoK we’ve had a chapter physically set in Winterfell, so the time spent on describing how the place looks and feels now is time well spent.

Beyond [the godswood’s] confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell. The paths were treacherous with black ice, and hoarfrost sparkled in the moonlight on the broken panes of the Glass Gardens. Drifts of dirty snow had piled up against the walls, filling every nook and corner.

It’s not as though there’s no frost on Winterfell when the Starks are in residence, but the language here definitely reflects the new regime. (See also ‘A Ghost in Winterfell’.) No associations of cleanliness or purity here (see ‘Sansa VI, ASoS’) - Winterfell under Bolton occupation is full of dirt, treachery, and broken glass.

However, emphasising the soul of Winterfell, the godswood is in some ways unchanged and unaffected. Even by winter. The ground is unfrozen and the visible signs of Bolton occupation don’t touch the physical aspects of central point. That said, even Theon notes the empathic weather going on during the wedding:

He had never seen the godswood like this, though - grey and ghostly, filled with warm mists and whispered voices that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Beneath the trees, the hot springs steamed. Warm vapors rose from the earth, shrouding the trees in their moist breath, creeping up the walls to draw grey curtains across the watching windows.

Basically, the place is haunted, another thing that’s made explicit.

It felt like some strange underworld, some timeless place between the worlds, where the damned wandered mournfully for a time before finding their way down to whatever hell their sins had earned them.

Though that much is probably Theon projecting. He’s not the first one to find Winterfell’s godswood almost oppressive to outsiders. Specifically, in the godswood, Theon feels watched and judged. The people around him don’t feel (or look) like people. And there are a bunch of ravens roosting in the trees, thickest on the heart tree. The entire scene is claustrophobic and almost self-consciously a setpiece. A wedding in a quiet, wintry hell.

As we leave the wedding and therefore the godswood, we get a sharper, clearer look at the damage to Winterfell. “More ruin than redoubt.” Roofs have fallen in, the crops are dead, people are living in the ruins. Hanged workers are along the walls. The doors are new and roughly made. The interior stone is smoke-stained and the new roof timbers raw.

In total, everything in Winterfell castle is ruined, violent, and ugly, when Theon recalls Winterfell as a place of summertime safety. The wrongness of the setting shows the wrongness of the current administration.

Beyond the Walls

Even though this chapter is a setpiece, we’re reminded of the things going on around Winterfell. First, ‘Abel’ the bard shows up. Hooray, a random singer, appearing out of nowhere in a northern late autumn! Abel and his ‘washerwomen’ are going to become a bit more prominent in the next Theon chapters - and of course, readers already know from Jon’s chapters just who Abel is and why he’s there.

The context of the entire feast is, of course, preparation to fight Stannis, as Roose’s wedding speech recalls.

“I am sorry that our good friend Stannis has not seen fit to join us yet,” [Roose] went on, to a ripple of laughter, “as I know Ramsay had hoped to present his head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift.”

Beyond Stannis, we get a look at what Barbrey Dustin’s thinking about the past and future of the North. First she sizes up Wyman Manderly and judges him a coward. She thinks he’ll piss himself when Stannis shows up. She also tells Theon that Roose knows exactly how treacherous Manderly is. Specifically, she tells Theon how Roose is watching for Manderly to poison him.

Theon has his doubts about Barbrey’s assessment, based on what he saw of the younger Manderlys in battle. Given what the reader knows about the pies, and what the reader has seen in Davos’ chapters, we know that Theon’s right and Barbrey’s wrong. Manderly’s got one over everyone here.

But Barbrey goes further.

“Truth be told,” she said, “Lord Bolton aspires to more than mere lordship. Why not King of the North? Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks. Old Walder Frey would not object to his fat little Walda becoming a queen. White Harbor might prove troublesome should Lord Wyman survive this coming battle…but I am quite sure we will not. No more than Stannis. Roose will remove both of them, as he removed the Young Wolf. Who else is there?”

“You,” said Theon. “There is you. The Lady of Barrowton, a Dustin by marriage, a Ryswell by birth.”

Interesting. Now, Barbrey’s political judgement has just been called into question by her assessment of Manderly, but it’s something to keep an eye on. (Note also the complete omission of Queen Regent Cersei Lannister from Barbrey’s list of Lannisters there. Barbrey hasn’t even met any of the Lannisters, so far as we know. Cersei’s not entirely wrong when she thinks people disregard her because of her gender.) But it’s a look at what some parties might want from the future. Barbrey paints a picture of a man who will seek out power not because he has anything in particular he wants from it, but because he can. Theon’s suggestion that Barbrey herself could make a tilt at the throne is weaker, but Barbrey clearly likes the idea of having power.

As soon as maesters enter the room, we get a better idea of what she might like that power for.

“If I were queen, the first thing I would do would be to kill all those grey rats.”

Barbrey believes that maesters conspire to rule through the people they advise. There’s a decent measure of anti-bastard prejudice to her beliefs, blaming maesters for getting rid of their bastard names and ‘laundering’ their identities. If anything, Barbrey seems to get carried away here, railing against one Maester Walys, who advised Rickard Stark back in the day, and who Barbrey seems rather bitter about given “the Tully marriage”.

This is interrupted by the announcement of more news about Stannis, which the maesters came to deliver. Roose announces he’s received word that Stannis has left Deepwood Motte, recruited the hill clans, and is heading for Winterfell. Hosteen Frey shows some of his own temperament by shouting advice to ride forth and attack; Theon’s internal monologue notes the pre-arranged treachery Roose has waiting in the Karstarks. The feast winds up as the lords present go to meet with Roose…and while the marriage that opened the chapter is consummated.

Another Grim Wedding

It’s just that everyone’s pretending that it’s not.

The disregard for Jeyne’s wellbeing starts from the word go, as we see her in her wedding dress, which Theon sums up as “pretty, but not warm.” For an outdoor, late autumn wedding at a northerly latitude. Jeyne as a prop is more important than Jeyne as a person. No help is coming, because Theon’s participation is intended to silence any questions about Jeyne’s identity as Arya: “if a few entertained private doubts, surely they would be wise enough to keep those misgivings to themselves,” as Theon thinks.

The wedding feast itself is opened by Roose joking about giving Jeyne Stannis’ head as a wedding present, which sounds like a registry gift that Ramsay would arrange, all right, if not useful or desirable otherwise.

Wyman Manderly provides the catering, and this quietly furthers the mystery of the three missing Frey guests. Amongst the other food and drink Manderly brought, he brings three gigantic pork pies. Wyman himself serves it to Roose Bolton and Walda Frey Bolton.

“The best pie you have ever tasted, my lords,” the fat lord declared. “Wash it down with Arbor gold and savour every bite. I know I shall.”

So that’s where the missing Freys got to. Manderly’s pie. Which he served to their relatives at a wedding. In case you missed it, after the feast, when Manderly’s drunk, Theon passes him in the hall mumbling a request for a song about the Rat Cook (who slew a guest beneath his roof and served that guest to his father in a pie).

What makes the entire party even more awful is the knowledge of what comes when it’s over. Neither Jeyne nor Theon manage to eat much (pie included! Symbolically, neither are partaking of vengeance against the Boltons, being more concerned with their own survival). Theon notes that Jeyne is petrified and considers what he might do about it.

I have no way to save her, he thought, but I could kill her easy enough. I could beg her for the honour of a dance and cut her throat. That would be a kindness, wouldn’t it? And if the old gods hear my prayer, Ramsay in his wroth might strike me dead as well.

And after the political detour with Barbrey, we get to the end of the party, as we had to. Jeyne and Theon, alone in a room with Ramsay, completely within his power. It’s about four pages in my ebook version. Four harrowing pages.

Just like Ramsay’s wedding clothes were made to resemble bloody wounds, he’s gone and applied Dead Stark Chic to his bedroom as well. Specially brought in from Barrowton, Theon points out. The canopy of the bed is blood-red velvet. The chair is black oak with a red leather seat. The OTT nature of Ramsay’s aesthetics speaks to his deadly serious insecurity.

It’s also clear that he’s getting off not just on violence alone, but on violence against people with the surnames of Stark and Greyjoy.

“You gave the wench to me. Who better to unwrap the gift? Let’s have a look at Ned Stark’s little daughter.”

She is no kin to Lord Eddard, Theon almost said. Ramsay knows, he has to know. What new cruel game is this?

The emphasis he places on them during this scene is on the stations they hold in public. Jeyne as a Stark, Theon as the former conqueror of Winterfell. Ramsay clearly finds pleasure in controlling and degrading them, as well as simply physically hurting them. Earlier, Barbrey Dustin said that Roose enjoyed playing with men. It’s clear that Ramsay does the same, from the power games he plays with both Jeyne and Theon. Instead, he uses them to act out something else:

“Would you like to fuck her first?” He laughed. “The Prince of Winterfell should have that right, as all lords did in days of old. The first night. But you’re no lord, are you? Only Reek.”

Given what we know about Ramsay’s bio-parents (and what Ramsay quite possibly represses), Ramsay holding a “first night” themed rape on his own wedding night is a whole ‘nother psychosexual level of urgh. With some class resentment thrown in.

He does not allow Jeyne even as much control as undressing herself, instead ordering Theon to render her clothing unusable. When she’s naked, Theon and through him the reader are reminded how young she is.

A child. […] Sansa’s age.

Thirteen. Theon can also see that someone’s whipped Jeyne in the past. She also says that she’s been “trained” to please a man. That, we can put at Littlefinger’s feet.

Ramsay further demonstrates his control over Theon by not only allowing Theon to wield a knife throughout the scene, but ordering him to use it. Theon is aware that he could turn it on Ramsay himself. Theon is aware that he could use it on Jeyne. He thinks of both over the course of the evening, going to far as to weigh up the advantages he might gain from surprise.

Another trap, he told himself, remembering Kyra with her keys. He wants me to try and kill him. And when I fail, he’ll flay the skin from the hand I used to hold the blade.

Note the “when”. Theon considers his failure a foregone conclusion. He is so terrorised by the prospect of yet more pain and so mentally beaten down that he cannot truly imagine a way out of his situation. All thoughts of killing Ramsay and helping Jeyne escape are reduced to ineffectual fantasising when Theon’s confronted with the real prospect of acting on those thoughts. This culminates in some of the final lines of the chapter, when Ramsay orders Theon to directly participate in raping Jeyne (a situation which is also rape of Theon).

Somewhere in the godswood, a raven screamed. The dagger was still in his hand.

He sheathed it.

Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with weak.

Theon is acutely aware that Ramsay put him into a situation where he had everything he needed to kill Ramsay and escape - except will. He is acutely aware that Jeyne is suffering from his failure to use the knife. This is not portrayed anything like Brienne’s internal condemnation of the knights who stood by, though. This is a depiction of lack of action through enforced weakness. Theon too is a victim in this scene. If anything, he’s even further trapped by Ramsay’s forcing him to participate.

And on that horrible confirmation that both Theon and Jeyne remain in Ramsay’s power for the time being, suffering and aware of their powerlessness, the chapter ends.

Chapter Function

The political action of the chapter is pretty clear: this wedding in Winterfell is intended to help the Boltons co-opt the Stark claim to the North. However, the chapter also serves to remind us that people aren’t planning to sit down and accept it. Our PoV character for this event is one of a very few people present who can tell us for sure that Jeyne is not Arya, and this whole thing’s a political sham. The fact that it is a political sham is front and centre. Nobody’s being real here except maybe the Boltons. Barbrey’s hiding her grudges, Manderly’s starting work on his revenge, and central to the entire chapter are Jeyne and Theon, forced into playing parts they don’t want for a cause they don’t support, regardless of the harm it does to them.

In terms of Theon’s character arc, I tend to consider this the midpoint. Theon is aware of what he’s been made by Ramsay’s torture, and now he’s become aware of the Theon he once was. He sees the gap and starts bridging it by recalling his past. Including his bad choices. With awareness of his bad choices, however, comes the awareness that there are better choices out there. It’s just taking Theon a bit of time to work himself up to them, in light of what he’s suffered.

Politically, we get the usual mishmash of various plots advanced incrementally, all leading up to that big treacherypalooza we might end up calling the Battle of Winterfell. Stannis is marching on Winterfell with the hill tribes. Mance Rayder’s scoping out the situation on behalf of Jon Snow. Manderly’s feeding Freys to other Freys. Arnolf Karstark’s nearly in position to betray Stannis. Roose and Barbrey are considering a post-Stannis and post-Lannister winter.

Admist all of that, Theon’s pondering about how he and Jeyne could possibly escape Ramsay is a bleak little thing, because as yet he’s thought up no options besides death.

Miscellany

This is not Mance’s first time at Winterfell. This is not Mance’s first time at Winterfell while Theon was there. Theon doesn’t recognise him. He also describes Mance’s voice as “passable” and his playing “fair.”

We get the Poole coat of arms here - a blue plate on white, framed by a grey tressure. This really, really screams “steward!”

Clothing Porn

Jeyne wears white lambswool trimmed with lace, with freshwater pearls on the sleeves and bodice, plus white doeskin slippers and a white wool cloak trimmed with grey fur. This is replaced with a pink cloak spattered with teardrop-shaped garnets (Ramsay not being one to tone down even sartorial representations of violence) and the Bolton flayed man on the back in red leather.

Ramsay wears a black velvet doublet slashed with pink silk, garnet teardrops sewn in, with high grey leather boots.

Barbrey Dustin dresses for the occasion in unadorned black wool. It’s never out of style.

Food Porn

Manderly provides for the feast! Cod cakes, winter squash, lots of neeps, lots of cheese, beef ribs, and wedding pies filled with carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, mushrooms, and long pork.

Next Three Chapters

Brienne VIII, AFFC - Jon VII, ACoK - Jon IX, ADWD

#ASoIaF #valyrianscrolls #cw: rape #cw: violence #cw: abuse #theon greyjoy #jeyne poole #ramsay snow #roose bolton #barbrey dustin #revisiting chapters #a dance with dragons

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jonathanrook · 3 years

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legally i have to give you intern 2

em you have awoken an ungodly beast inside me so i need to warn everyone that this post is. incomprehensible. but so is mymusic so i guess we're all used to it.

How I feel about this character:

i watched mymusic as it was airing/running/coming out specifically bc i'm a jack stannie, and as a kid melvin was my second favorite character (w scene being in first, obvs) for mostly that reason. he basically hovered around this ranking until my most recent rewatch in the summer of 2020, which was actually spurred by some events in my personal life that vaguely reminded me of scene's season two arc w jeff, and i thought it'd been a funny/nostalgic way to get my mind off things.

(i want to side note here that -- i know you didn't ask, but -- i love jeff. i have since i was a kid. like, obviously not as a person but i think he's honestly the best written character in the series, w indie close in second. idk what it says about the f*nes that their most interesting and well rounded characters are the villains, but i digress. to this day i'm salty that jeff never got added to the theme song and wasn't really included in promotional merch.)

however, in said rewatch, certain things about how he was written started to really get under my skin, and certain moments in particular have really stuck out to me in a negative way. like, for the entirety of season one and a good chunk of season two he's one person, and then he leaves mymusic and we have an entirely different person, but not in a nuanced character building sort of way.

i've said a few of these points before but i'll repeat them here regardless. at the risk of sounding like i've put on a tin-foil hat, it's my sneaking suspicion that scindie was supposed to be endgame, but since fan reception to it was pretty neutral, and scenechart stans were, at the very least, more vocal, changes were made to the intended finale, which is why in the last scene he's basically just. indie. like, if everything about the show was exactly the same but indie was the one who had ended up w scene in the end that would have made so much more sense since a) scene had a crush on indie that he/everyone knew about and b) indie was kind of a dick despite the half-assed attempts at redemption, so both combined make it slightly less weird/out-of-nowhere that he kisses her w/o her consent (since, even though like. implied consent is not real at worst and a fuzzy subject at best but you could argue that scene would want indie to kiss her); and this isn't even taking into consideration that c) melvin is heavily queer-coded in both seasons, with his friendship with nerdcore being, dare i say, homoerotic at times, and his arc about leaving the company and changing his name mirroring nerdcore's almost perfectly (with nerdcore being a character who b*nny [at least] has all but confirmed is actually gay).

i've also been on the fence about melvin's behavior in that final scene making more sense for indie's character being an intentional decision as a way of shoe-horning in a theme about the lasting effects of abuse/cycles of abuse/the corruption of power but i also don't think the f*nes are smart enough for that. however, for the sake of defending my straw theory, i also point to the scene where indie comes to visit the acid factory after melvin told him to shut up, and we see melvin use reggie as a foot-stool, going as far as to say that it feels good to do so (which, in all honesty, i think is a bit that was entirely improvised, since the f*nes were "notorious for never saying cut" [paraphrased from a bts video], but work w me here). he's also given a seltzer mug that perfectly resembles indie's kombucha mug. in these moment melvin is directly emulating the behavior of his previous abuser, purposefully or not, literal moments after being promoted to an equal position of authority, which was totally just included as a joke, but could also be argued is meant to show that he's becoming indie; or, if we acknowledge that the f*nes have no fucking clue what they're doing and were just directing like chickens with their heads cut off, it at least shows that melvin's new position of power is leading him to understand where indie was coming from, which is supported by their conversation in the finale.

the following contains a couple brief mentions of irl sexual assault so if that's something you'd like to avoid skip to the next section!

HOWEVER, that alone isn't what i have a problem with, since i think melvin is completely justified in being a dick to indie (and also reggie enthusiastically consents to being used as an ottoman so good for him i guess). the issue comes completely in how he treats scene in the scenes where the f*nes clearly thought what they were writing was super romantic. like, the fact that the only thing he's got hung on his cubicle wall is a single picture of scene taken from the fucking opening credits (like. how hard would it have been to have. literally any other photo[s] esp since there's an abundance of cute bts pics of the cast in costume that could have been put there) and him scrolling through her twitter at work really creep me out (and at the risk of oversharing the weird, like, social media stalking angle really fucks w me bc that may or may not have been the exact fucking thing i was trying to escape in rewatching mymusic in the first place). also, having him sexually assault scene as a means of comforting her after she had just been sexually assaulted in the same way by someone else was... a choice (which is also, uh, personally familiar).

again, i recognize that demonizing melvin wasn't what the f*nes were trying to do here, and i perhaps seem hypocritical for opening liking jeff, but what makes jeff work is he's intentionally "the bad guy." having melvin do the same things as indie and jeff uncritically only proves further that the f*nes can't write for shit, and ruins his character which had, up until he quit mymusic, been unironically good. like, it's obviously not beneficial that the exact asshole things he does are personally triggering, but the character would still be a mess and i would still dislike him regardless.

i want to say though that jack delivers a surprisingly great performance despite how shoddily his character is constructed and how little experience he has as an actor. like, it's clear he was having a lot of fun on set and i would love to see him in something, like, good; i think he could pull off even like, guest television roles, which is a lot more than can be said for other youtubers.

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All the people I ship romantically with this character:

nerdchart should have been canon i'm sorry. i know that close, nonromantic male friendships are valuable, esp between queer men, but also gd wouldn't it have been baller to have a canon interracial mlm ship. like. c'mon. and they could have been such a good friends to lovers story! we already got to see how melvin was the only person nerdcore could really be himself around so it would have been so cool if melvin's self-advocacy arc/flowchart arc had revolved more around nerdcore with a little role-reversal! and then they kiss! like god intended!

also i ship him and indie bc i'm a grubby little gremlin man ohoho. enemies w weird sexual tension? sign me up. not even enemies to lovers i'm not saying this one should have been canon i just love the vibes. do you think melvin and indie ever explored each other's bod-- *gunshot*

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My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i wish him and scene had just been bros. god remember in season one when they were just bros that was the life.

alternatively, i wish we'd seen more bonding w him and metal, as a means of reconciling that. uh. moment from season one. along similar lines i would have loved to see him get closer w rayna in a similar way to how she bonded w nerdcore in season two. i think that could have also worked to show how she'd grown between the two seasons.

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My unpopular opinion about this character:

HIM. AND. SCENE. SHOULD. HAVE. JUST. BEEN. BROS. (though i think my general dislike of him is pretty unpopular, lmao).

when the show was coming out i don't think it's unfair to say that scenechart/scenetern 2 was the most popular ship (aside from potentially techstep whatever) but luckily we're all gay and have better taste now. unfortunately i totally fell into this camp and scenechart was even my otp for years (until it was arguably more unfortunately usurped by reddie in 2019) and i didn't even realise that it's a hot mess until, again, the summer of 2020.

when actually watching the show the choices the f*nes made in regards to how the ship actually became canon are so odd and out of place, too? okay, so, on one hand everyone just shipped scenechart bc it was the whitest hettiest ship in the show (esp in season two when idol left) aside from scindie (and we already discussed what's wrong w that). but, on the other hand, lainey and jack clearly also just got along? and i suspect that lainey probably also admired jack's work and was happy to be working with him bc we have so many shots throughout even the first season when the ship wasn't the intended endgame of lainey scene looking really fondly at jack melvin at times when it doesn't make much sense at all, esp since she's smitten w indie? this trend continues into the second season which arguably works but it still seems really out of place for him to be the one to ultimately make the first move on her since it's clear she was the one crushing this whole time and also he's gay! this bitch is gay what the fuck!!

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One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon:

at this point i'm struggling to think of anything i haven't covered yet. oops.

i've talked at length before about how he should have been a woman/lesbian, but the tl;dr is that it would have solved a lot of the queer-coding "problems" that just didn't get resolved in the show. if he'd been a lesbian then not only would the friendship w nerdcore still made sense, but scenechart would have as well (not even mentioning that both of scene's other relationships w men make a lot of sense as comphet anyway).

#long post #this took me an hour to write i literally had to get a snack in the middle of it #mymusicshow #mymusic show #question #mlentertainment #also having a character named scene when you have to write about scenes like. in a story is an absolute bitch

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a-libra-writes · 4 years

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Imagine Being the Sister of the Baratheon Brothers

heyyyy, this is … not my usual thing, i’ve only done it one other time, but it kinda got away from me! I started brainstorming the backstory for the requested Davos x Baratheon!Reader fic and idk what happened? w/e here we go

You were the third child of the Baratheon household, born several years after your two older brothers. Lady Cassana was so pleased to have a girl. You distinctly remember how she’d brush your hair and teach you songs. She’d embroider little turtles in your clothes - the sigil of her House Estermont - because she knew you adored them. Your lord father was just as doting. He liked carrying you on his shoulders while he walked around Storm’s End, talking to his men with a straight face as if there wasn’t a toddler pulling at his ears.

Your father would seriously lecture Robert about not teasing you, telling Stannis to set a good example, and insisting to both of them that you were to be protected. You were their only sister, he’d say, and your virtue and safety was important. These lectures just embarrassed you and bored Robert; Stannis seemed to be the only one paying attention.

It was a great surprise when your mother had Renly. You were delighted to not be the youngest anymore, and you were fascinated by him. You liked to carry him around and insisted on helping look after him. Storm’s End had become so boring since Robert went off to foster with Lord Arryn, and while your mother liked your enthusiasm, she also put Stannis in charge of dragging you out of the nursery when you kept pestering the baby.

You were often restless and left to your own whims. Robert thought you were too much of a child to play with, and a girl besides; Stannis wasn’t one for your silly games and Renly was a baby. Your parents indulged you and allowed you to play and run far more than other young ladies, and you had become an adept rider at a young age. Your childhood was carefree, for a time.

Robert was visiting the week it happened. You didn’t recognize him, and he could carry you on his shoulders like your father did. He talked all about the Stark boy he was friends with, and you asked if they could really turn into wolves. As the sun was setting, you carried Renly as you followed Robert and Stannis to a high point on Storm’s End. All of you wanted to watch your parents return from Essos. They’d been gone so long.

You’d never seen a ship crash, although your father had told stories of it. You didn’t expect the noise of the wood breaking against the rocks to carry in the wind and reach you, nor did you expect the horrible silence that came afterward. Robert screamed and cursed and ran off the wall, as if he could make it to the bay. Stannis was so still he could have been a statue. You just sunk to your little knees, holding the babbling Renly in your arms. He was crying, but he didn’t understand. Robert’s yelling had scared him.

The nightmares were constant for the first few months. Ships breaking against giant waves, bodies sinking to the bottom, screams drowned by water. You’d run crying to Stannis’ room in the middle of the night, and he’d walk you back to your’s and tuck you in. During the day you’d want to look after Renly yourself, because he was young and confused and kept asking for your parents. You didn’t know what to say. You often left Storm’s End to ride in the forests around the castle, sometimes for hours, and Maester Cressen was exasperated with how you’d skip your lessons.

It took a long time, but you soon became the Lady of Storm’s End, having to take on a number of duties, just as Stannis had to do. While the two of you usually worked well as a team, you often butted heads on Renly’s education and talk of your marriage. You were confident in making your own matches, and besides, Stannis hadn’t even considered his own. In hindsight, it was all silly bickering compared to the war that followed. You knew Robert. He’d stop at nothing until he felt his vengeance was satisfied, and you were petrified at the idea of him and Stannis dying in battle, leaving you and Renly alone to defend Storm’s End.

You don’t like remembering the siege, and it’s awkward when ladies bring it up in pitying voices. You remember how terrible it was at first, how hungry you were, but then the days and weeks began to blur. You were cold all the time, your head hurt, but most of all, the blanket you stayed under felt like an impossible weight. Every action took too much energy, energy you didn’t have. The last words you remember speaking, before speaking became too difficult, was telling Stannis to feed Renly first. He’d gotten so thin and pale, and had become too weak to cry anymore.

Then one day, someone put food in front of you, and you scarfed it down without questioning what it was. In your delirium, you tried to get up and bring it to Renly, but Stannis caught you before you toppled down and hit your head. You stayed in bed for a week while servants fed you - onions, you later learned. It was mostly onions you were eating.

Even today, it was difficult to eat them without bringing up a slew of troubling memories. A smuggler brought them in, you heard, and later you heard Stannis had knighted the man after taking his fingers for his crime. It wouldn’t be until long after the siege when you’d meet this Ser Davos, and he was taken aback by the tight hug you gave him.

Your dear temperamental brother was crowned, and he had the rest of his siblings move into the Red Keep. You’d only visited it once or twice as a girl, and it still amazed you. Renly took to the court life right away, and Stannis couldn’t stand it, both outcomes you expected. While you didn’t like the foolish self-serving politics that carried on, you ended up finding your own place. Between attending balls with Renly, debating this policy or that with Stannis and trying to curb Robert’s temper and vices, you were quite busy.

Nevermind the poor suitors that tried to impress you. Yes, you were the sister of a king, but courting you meant contending with all three of your brothers. Renly was full of thinly-veiled mockery and japes at the lord’s fashion or family, Stannis could make the largest man feel an inch tall with his judging gaze and high standards, and Robert would just tell the men to fuck off. If he was in a more sporting mood, he’d ask for a proper duel, which you always had to talk him down from.

Some days your brothers and the Red Keep’s politics truly tried on you, but you could escape to the Kingswood to ride your favorite mare. You could attend whatever galas, feasts and tourneys you wanted. It had been years since you’d felt this free of worry, and you couldn’t help but think back to your easy childhood days. Things were completely different now, of course, and your brothers quarreled worse than old women, but you had endured much, and you were just happy to have all your brothers safe and close by.

#game of thrones #game of thrones x reader #house baratheon #got imagines #game of thrones imagines #yeah no one asked but here we are

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yeniayofnymeria · 4 years

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Answers for Jonerys

The arguments put forward for the X theory are level by level. Level 1 arguments often contain the strongest sign. Second level arguments support level 1, but alone have only "thought-provoking" effects. Third level arguments, on their own, have no effect, and are additional arguments that support level 1 and 2.

> Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness… . mother of dragons, bride of fire …

The strongest argument naturally ranks first. In fact, the whole theory is based on this argument. There are two problems with this argument.

The first problem is that this is the only level 1 argument. No other level 1 argument was presented, whereas a strong theory must have more than one level 1 argument. (It is not completely necessary, though.)

The second problem is the misinterpretation of this quote.

We need to understand what a shipper theory is. Both sides have to fall in love with each other, have a relationship together, and something (even if it doesn't end with a happy ending) at the end of the day.

For example, one-sided love or forced coexistence can never be a shipper theory. Or something like a one-night romance. (An example is Arya and Gendry on the show. This is not a ship.)

Let's go back to the argument. When interpreting this argument, Jonerys fandoms overlook a fact.

Dany is warned by the Undying Ones. They told her that some events would happen and that it would be her disaster. Dany didn't understand the jigsaw words. So Dany asked them to explain and show her and they did.

This vision is an image shown to explain those disasters. To show Dany things and people that will hurt in the future ... The blue flower on the ice is Jon Snow. This flower emits sweet scent into the air. This is not a "love" sign, but a "death" sign. In books, the word "sweet" appears to be a sign of death in weight (or to face death). In addition, the word sweet and death are used side by side. So we need to pay attention to the places where this word is used.

For example, Sweet Raff, nicknamed "sweet", shows that GRRM sentenced this person to death. He died in his Mercy POV. Dany remembers Sir Willem smelling "sweet" when he was on his death bed. (Sickness)+dead=sweet We see that later. Bran's fall. Before fall he felt sweet pain in his body and also he used "sweet peach" word and he almost died, he was in coma. Who gave poison to Jon Arryn? "A sweet old friend."(Lysa and LF). Varys calls Lancel as "sweet boy" And Tyrion too in second book. He almost died in Battle of Blackwater and he may die in the future. Dany's wine was described as "sweet" The wine was poisonous. Drogo's wound smeel "sweet" He died. Jorah even gave Dany a sweet peach. Just like the Renly and Stannis scene (both brothers are dead, will die) (These are just a few examples, more dozens. https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/cr8me0/a_death_mark_in_asoiaf_sweet_spoiler_main/ )

If we pack it all up, Jon Snow will have a direct or indirect stake in Dany's death in the future. So, Jon Snow = dead for Dany.

No one can draw ship theory from such a fate.

> These quotes make a subtle connection between Dany and Val. Jon as we know is very attracted to Val. He first describes Val’s hair as pale silver; Dany of course has pale silver hair. In fact it is one of the most distinguishing features about her. So the connection here is that Val is a substitute for Dany. Also, note that the moon is mention, which as we know is strongly connected symbolically to Dany throughout the series, ex. “Moon of my Life”.

Val's hair is blond. Just once looked like silver hair because of moon. Okay, this is a second level argument. Available.

Dany's contact with the moon covers her relationship with Drogo only in book 1. No one except Drogo calls him "my moon" and has no reference to the moon in the future. So we cannot say that there is a "very strong" moon reference. Ned also calls Arya "the moon" in the first book. By showing this; Can we say Arya = Moon? No, this alone cannot be used. However, for 5 books, Arya has many moon references, unlike Dany. (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/eo3ghb/arya_stark_and_braavos_moon_and_water_spoiler/ )

This alone does not matter. The word moon shows signs similar to death as the word "sweet".Even though it does not cover all the words of the moon, there has been a death many times before or after the moon appears. Moon Door is a dead place, the moon and moonlight are mentioned all over the place in AGOT’s prologue. The Others appear after a half-moon rises, and there are multiple references to the moonlight reflecting off the Other’s blade. There is a moon icon all over the FM house, even at the door. FM = death. Braavos is a moon city from the beginning. They are enemy of Valyria and dragon lords, and probably all Braavos played a role in the Doom of Valyria (with FM) So Drogo called Dany all the time “my moon” and Dany killed him with a pillow.

That's why it's hard to use the Val and Jon scene for Dany and Jon. At least we can't use it for Jonerys.

What does the moon and sweet weather mean for Val? Death. Twice a death mark. (Jon smelled sweet in book 5 before he died.)

> In these quotes we find a connection between a dream lover of Dany and Jon Snow. In her dream/vision Dany’s lover is a comely young man whose face is hidden in shadows. Jon is described by Ygritte as having a sweet face (comely) and in the two additional quotes below we see Jon describe himself as being in the shadows and we see Mel describe his face as hidden in shadows. These descriptions associate the young lover Dany sees with Jon Snow.

Maybe it's available but I'm not so sure. This sound a bit like a pushing.

The word dream used in the quote of Dany is not a dream seen asleep. This word is a dream used to imagine. Something you do consciously while awake. Here, Dany naturally (awake) dreams of a younger and handsome man for herself. Jorah is old and ugly for him. The word shadow comes naturally from Dany not thinking about a particular man. Because there is no type of man she desires around. Already later she met Daario and found the man she desired. That shade now has a face, and Dany fell in love with him. She constantly thinks about him, and we even see Dany thinking about him in her last POV. (Just like Jon thinks about Arya and Rhaegar thinks about Lyanna. ;) )

> Although the timeline is unclear, Jon was stabbed and presumably killed within the same time that Dany found herself alone in the Dothraki sea. Dany hearing the wolf howl could be the author making a connection between Jon’s death and how Dany would feel about it.

>If Dany knew who Jon was to her, his death would be incredibly sad but most importantly it would be lonely. Jon of course is Dany’s last living relative, although she does not know this. That this wolf howl brought such strong emotions to Dany is definitely something of interest.

Jonsa fandoms also used the same argument. Sansa heard a howl of wolf, and they interpreted it for the same thing. Which of you is correct to interpret?

I'll say it. None of you. There is one to four months between Jon's death and the scenes of these two characters. Another important detail is that in the scene where Jon is dead, the Ghost is not howling in any way and making a sad voice.

In the second book, Jon has the Bran scene, and the Ghost is howling sad and long. A few chapters later, Arya hears the howl of the wolf, which is described in the same words while in Harrenhall. (Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/5cw18j/spoilers_extended_something_strange_about_aryas/d9zw29r/ )

> There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him. “

Yes, Young Griff is probably is fake Targaryen and Rhaegar’s son is Jon. But this level 3 argument doesn't mean anything for the Jonerys ship alone.

Dany is not talking about a love subject here, but a traditional “political” Targ marriage. We also see in the same book that Rhaegar's son has a character named Aegon, and he is(was) coming to her to marry Dany. So it's all about the two character stories that Dany and we think are real Aegon ... We will not see a happy marriage anyway, as we know Dany's arc end. So this argument is invalid for Jonerys in any way. (Even if we assume that Jon is in psychology who can marry his aunt)

Most likely, all that is done is the GRRM throwing a fishing rod to us(Dany-Aegon.. or not and we can see those two can marry, maybe, i do not know. Not sure when i think about Euron, whatever).

> Here the author winks and nods at us as Jon is wishing for the very same thing Dany has, three dragons.

> “He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three.”

Yes, I smile when I read this scene. I just couldn't understand how you interpreted this for Jonerys. It's hard to say even a level 3 argument. It seems a little bit of pushing again.

Jon asked for 1000 men and then he took it, Jon also asked for 3 dragons. Maybe he will take all Dany's dragons? He's a Targaryen and probably a powerful warg. He can take it all for himself. Or as a matter of "alliance" for the danger of the Other, it is more correct to accept it as a weapon. Already, at first, Jon wanted 1000 men for defense, just as he wanted to defend all three dragons. There is no romantic reference from this.

> Finally, this pair of quotes is both a parallel and a connection between Dany and Jon. Both find themselves laying next to the person they love/are attracted to, as Jon ponders his lost of Ghost and Dany wakes from her nightmare not even the presence of these people they care about can drive the deep loneliness that they both feel.

Parallel scenes can be used as arguments. Sometimes level 2, level 3 ... However, they do not make sense on their own.

Remember, level 2 arguments are to support level 1 strong arguments, but there is no level 1 argument. You put forward one, but that is also completely misinterpretation.

Parallel scenes do not mean anything by themselves, because logically all characters have parallel scenes, life stories. Jon and Arya; Arya and Dany; Jon and Tyrion; Dany-Tyrion-Jon and Dany-Arya ... this is how it goes. For example Arya and Dany https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/ew2z2y/ice_and_fire_two_sides_of_a_coin_spoiler_main/ and even Dany and Davos: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/gj1wnp/spoilers_extended_a_big_parallel_between_davos/ Should we call a new ship “Daverys”? :D

Parallel scenes may be a reference, but never a FS. “You are going to marry a King...” This can be FS. “My heart sometimes like a stone...” (Cat) is a FS. Sweet and Moon signs maybe can be a FS.

If this is the case, we can produce ship theories for all characters by looking at all these parallel scenes. There are too many parallel scenes between Arya and Bran. Shall we write another incest ship theory? For example, we can make a very crazy romantic ship theory between Dany and Arya, their life stories and their psychological developments are so similar to each other .. it's almost hard not to say their fate is one. Jon and Arya have similar parallel events too. If we can say Jonerys, we can say JonArya, right? How many characters will Jon have a romantic relationship with? I hope I was able to explain what I mean?

I have read the pov of Jon and Dany many times. I could not see a FS that there would be a romantic relationship between these two. If something is going to happen between two important characters, we cannot say that GRRM does not mark it. He does that. When I read Sansa povs, many signs for SanSan are laid before me without the need for a search. Or Jonarya signs.

First of all, it is necessary to wait for an infrastructure for a love relationship. Foreshadowing sentences are a sign for events that will happen, but is there any meaning unless there is character and story development?

In his speech, Jon and Ygritte, we saw that Jon had no problem with his love affair with foster sibling if he had no blood ties. So have we seen Jon volunteer to have a relationship with his own aunt? No. He can never be comfortable with incest because he wasn't raised that way.

This could happen without Jon knowing his identity, you might think. Just like in the show ... Possible. But we know that Dany will come in the 7th book, and they will probably meet in the middle of the book at the earliest. If you especially believe that the 2nd Dance will be between Dany and Aegon, the other kind seems hard to me.

So I'm asking, when will Jon learn about his real identity? At the end of the book? It is not possible. He needs to learn either at the end of Book 6 or at the beginning of Book 7. For his other danger, Jon is the real weapon and leader ... His family history will be his strength and superiority in this war. That's why he needs to know. Lord Reed knows everything, he will warn and inform Jon about everything. So when Jon meets Dany, he will either have learned his identity or will learn soon after meeting. So it's hard to wait for Jon to have a romantic relationship with a Dany. Another issue is that when these two characters meet, there is no suitable environment and time to form a love relationship between the two. Others have come and war has begun, death is everywhere and will these two find time to fall in love? Will it be possible to develop a story in this way? How? This book is not written by D&D, so let's not expect a disgrace like the show's script.

Thank you for read(Sorry for may bad English).

#jonerys #anti jonerys #jon snow #danerys targaryen #asoiaf #theory

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shipping-receiving · 5 years

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Fictober 2019 Day 13: “I never knew it could be this way.”

Rating: T | Word Count: 1936 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones Relationship: Jaime Lannister / Brienne of Tarth Tags: Alternate Universe – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Fusion

(read on AO3)

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My name is Jaime Lannister.

When I was fifteen, I was bitten by a radioactive spider. Since then, I’ve been the one and only Spider-Man. Or so I thought. But I’ll get to that part later.

I’ve saved King’s Landing again, and again, and again. And yet, the people of King’s Landing hate me. The things I’ve done for them have been twisted over and over by my enemies, and I’ve never had the chance to tell the true stories behind them. No one would listen.

A few years ago, I married someone I shouldn’t have married. But I never told her about this other life of mine. I managed to keep it a secret from her, even though I’d known her pretty much my whole life, even though she was my other half. Even though being Spider-Man was half of me. She knew me only as Jaime Lannister.

Through all of this, I just kept saving the city. I couldn’t seem to stop. Until one day, a few months ago, the city and its enemies decided for me.

I lost my right hand. I couldn’t be Spider-Man anymore.

Then, my wife left me. And it felt like I couldn’t be Jaime Lannister either.

I didn’t know who I was after that. I’ve not known since.

Three days ago, I discovered that even when I thought I was the one and only Spider-Man, I was wrong.

About the ‘one and only’ part, that is.

——————————

Jaime Lannister had been minding his own damn business in his own damn universe when he was thrown into this one.

All he really remembers is that he was lying in his bed, contemplating the futility of life, as he was wont to do these days. He was also in his full suit, without the right glove of course, because how else can a former Spider-Man missing a right hand best contemplate the futility of life?

Suddenly, there were violent tremors, and funny colours, and the distinct feeling of wanting to vomit. Not just the contents of his stomach, but all the internal organs in his body.

And then he was in the middle of King’s Landing.

But it wasn’t King’s Landing.

It called itself King’s Landing, but it was different. Everything just seemed slightly… off.

At first, he thought he was dead. But everyone else could see him, and bump into him on the street, and give him strange looks, and say the words “disrespectful” and “impostor” under their breaths. Not the cruellest things the people of King’s Landing have said to him while he’s been in his suit, but they might have been the strangest.

He soon discovered the reason for those words. There was another Spider-Man in this universe, and it hadn’t been a Jaime Lannister. It was, bizarrely, Renly Baratheon. The brother of one of his own nemeses, in his own universe. And this Spider-Man had just died.

In this universe, the people of King’s Landing had loved Spider-Man. Jaime stood at Renly Baratheon’s grave under the dark of night and looked at the massive pile of flowers and gifts and candles and assorted Spider-Man memorabilia that had been left for him. Gods, the man had memorabilia.

That was where he had met her. Brienne Tarth.

And by ‘met’, what he really means is, she had body-slammed him into the ground.

Then it was all, Who are you? How dare you come here dressed like him? and then they were struggling, and making far too much noise for a cemetery at night, and then there were cops, but the cops weren’t interested in him, they were interested in Brienne, for some reason, and then they were running, and then he very conveniently ran up the side of a building—he didn’t need a right hand for that—before he realised that Brienne was following close behind him. Running up the side of a building. She was far too awkward and uncomfortable about it, like he had been when he was first bitten, magnified a hundred times by her too-tall and too-broad physique. She had no litheness to her, not like a Spider-Man—or Woman, or Person really should. But there she was, defying gravity.

He would find out later that everyone thought Brienne was involved in Renly’s death. She had been his personal assistant—because in this universe, Spider-Man actually had need for a personal assistant—and she was the last to see him alive, the one who found his body. His death had been so quiet. No fanfare at all, unlike his life, from what Jaime could tell. But there was something about it, Brienne said. Something she thought might have been related to how Jaime was flung into their universe in the first place. She thought, in fact, that it might have had something to do with Renly’s brother. (The other one, not the one who was Jaime’s nemesis in his own world. The Baratheons were truly a choice bunch in any universe.)

Before the police had really got their bearings about whom they wanted to blame for Renly’s death—bearings likely provided by Stannis Baratheon—Brienne had been trying to conduct her own amateur investigation, which Jaime thought was the most absurd thing in the world for a personal assistant to do. But she had apparently managed to break into Stannis’s apartment, so she must have had skills, or perseverance, or dumb luck on her side. She had been at Stannis’s apartment, in fact, when she had felt a sting on her hand. Brienne had thought nothing of it—she was too preoccupied with trying not to get caught—but then, on the way home, she was getting stuck to everything.

Sure, Stannis obviously had something to do with his brother’s death, if there had been a radioactive spider loose in his apartment. But when Jaime first met Brienne—when she had first body-slammed him into the ground—she was a mess. A Spider-Mess, as he took to calling her. When she realised he had the very same powers, she had badgered him to teach her. Train her. He had refused vehemently, and pointed at his stump equally vehemently.

She had just looked at him with those unnecessarily blue eyes of hers, looked at him like it didn’t matter that he was missing a right hand.

Jaime gave in, after that. What’s the point, he supposed, of having superpowers if you didn’t know what to do with them?

They had spent the past three days training. Figuring things out, while keeping under the radar, though Jaime knew Brienne was anxious to get to the bottom of whatever Stannis Baratheon was planning. Brienne knew how to fight, even before she had been bitten—she had wanted something to do, with a body built like hers, begged her father to send her to a variety of martial arts classes since she was a kid. But being a Spider-Man, or Woman, or Person—that takes a different approach to the body. And Brienne was stubborn. She had such set ways of using her body, and Jaime had to get her to break all those habits. Even more so when he finally started her on the whole web-shooting part of it. Gods, that had been disaster after disaster, and he had honestly been concerned that they might end up breaking her nose a third time.

Now, three days in—during which Jaime had felt, maybe, a little bit like Spider-Man again—they are finally getting somewhere. They’d had to split his two existing web-shooters between them, so far, so they will need to sort that out first thing tomorrow, but in the meantime, they had earned themselves a break. A break far away from the city they’re meant to protect, though Brienne hadn’t quite gotten to the city-protecting stage yet.

In Jaime’s opinion, far above the city works just as well as far away. So they are lying on a rooftop—his favourite rooftop, from his own universe, and he is glad it exists in this one too. He is using his mask as a pillow, and Brienne is doing the same with her own makeshift one. (They’ll need to sort out her suit too, tomorrow, in addition to the web-shooters.)

For the past hour, they have been doing nothing but talking. He doesn’t remember ever doing this with anyone, not even his ex-wife. And Brienne knows. She knows he is Spider-Man, and Jaime Lannister. He tells her some of those true stories behind all the times he had saved his King’s Landing, and she actually believes him. Doesn’t have any preconceived notions about a hateful Spider-Man. As Jaime stares up at the handful of stars he can see in the light-polluted night sky over King’s Landing, he thinks perhaps that he might be feeling something stir within him, with Brienne.

“I’m not sure what it’s like for you, Jaime,” she is saying now, “But I never knew it could be this way.”

Jaime feels his heart beat a tiny bit faster, but he’s frankly relieved that he resists the urge to say something stupid like, “Me too,” because he soon realises Brienne isn’t talking about what he thought she was talking about.

“My body—it was always strong,” she muses to the sky. “All muscles, and brute force. That was how I had always moved. Always fought. I was strong, but I was also… dragging this huge weight around. I learned to use that weight to my advantage, but it still hung heavy on me, you know? Then, this happened.” She lifts her arms up, looks at them like she is seeing them for the very first time. “Suddenly my body has this agility, this—this lightness to it, that I’d never thought I’d feel, in a body like this.”

Jaime takes some time to consider her words. “I don’t think I can claim to understand, not exactly,” he replies, after a while. “But the truth is, before I met you three days ago, I’d forgotten what being Spider-Man can feel like. The freedom of it, of soaring through the air, of going places no other person could ever go. Even with all the shit I had to endure back in my world, that was always a solace for me. When I lost my hand—I didn’t know who I was, anymore.”

He sees Brienne turn her head out of the corner of his eye, and he turns his head to meet her unnecessarily blue gaze. “Didn’t you ever try?” she asks. “Figuring out how to make it work, without your hand.”

“Not really. Between that, and—and how everything unfolded with my ex. And the whole population of King’s Landing hating me. I suppose I—I never really had the motivation to try. When I go back—”

Jaime pauses. Brienne had flinched a little, when he said those last four words.

“If I go back—” He’s not sure, really, how things are going to unfold—whether he can even stay in this universe, with Brienne, and whether he should. But that ‘if’ is what he can offer her, now. “If I go back, I don’t know if I could keep going. I was… Just before I came here, I wasn’t sure if I could—go on.”

Brienne grabs hold of his wrist, then. “Jaime,” she whispers, so faintly he thinks he might be dreaming it. “You must. Go on, I mean.”

“I thought I’m the one who should be telling you what to do, Spider-Mess,” he quips, but she doesn’t laugh.

“Live,” she demands, and it seems to Jaime that this one word drowns out everything else but them, lying here on this rooftop. “Live, and fight, and take revenge.”

#fictober19 #jaime x brienne #braime #my fic #ANYWAY THIS HAPPENED #it's not all in first-person i swear.#you might need to have watched the movie to have any clue what's happening

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7deadlycinderellas · 4 years

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If the summer of our lives could just come again, ch 17

AO3 link

King’s Landing

Robert hasn’t even been dead two days before Joffrey dismisses Ned, and Sansa and him are turned out. The snow has barely had a chance to settle on the ground.

They are given a day to pack their things.

A tiny part of Sansa’s heart is sad. There are fond goodbyes of course, Tommen hugs her as tightly as though he were her own brother.

Tyrion is even more despondent. Joffrey’s selection for his replacement hand is, of course, Tywin Lannister.

“Couldn’t you convince him to send you back to Casterly Rock? I mean, if he dislikes having you around so much…”

“I’m afraid he distrusts me possibly taking control of Casterly Rock more than he dislikes my face.”

Sansa gets lost in thought at that. She’s unsure who even would have ended up warden of the west had the dead stayed dead. She knows there are Lannisters scattered about the whole region, one she’s never heard of likely.

She pauses a bit before her next line.

“Why don’t you ever leave? You’re a clever man, there’s a whole world outside Westeros where no one knows you as Tywin Lannister’s son.”

Tyrion exhales noisily, and sets down his glass.

“No one may now me as that, but the whole world will still take one look at me and see a fool or a toy.”

She thinks her next words over, thoroughly.

“We have a mutual friend,” she tells him, “A friend with a great many legs. One who considers his greatest loyalty to the whole realm. You should ask him about our friend overseas. She needed your help before.”

Tyrion actually looks confused for a moment.

“You got shipped there is a crate before, hiding in disgrace. That might not be necessary. You could sail away a free man.”

Her next words are grim.

“There’s enough horrors to come to Westeros that I would flee if I could.”

Throughout the rest of their goodbye, a sweet ache forms deep in Sansa’s chest.

“I…I’m going to miss you. Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he tells her, his voice nearly breathy. It’s an odd sound coming from him. He was always good at playing things off, but not this.

“If you hear tell of monsters coming from the north, run.”

She reaches into one of her pockets, pulling out the roll of paper she’d scribbled hastily that morning.

“Dragonglass can kill them. Valyrian steel too. There’s a blacksmith in Flea Bottom named Mott, there’s instructions in here, he can follow, but…”

There’s tears pricking at the back of her eyes, and her words are stumbling. It’s not just because if the others reach this far south, it means the north has fallen, fallen so far she can scarcely imagine.

Before Tyrion can react, she reaches out and grasps the fingers of his right hand, raising his knuckles and pressing her lips to each of them in turn, much as he had once before.

The act calms her enough, that when she rises to her feet, her words are more steady.

“You never caught my words for their meaning. My father did, but you didn’t. I said Tysha was your first wife, you never asked me who your second was.”

She turns and leaves, without stopping to look at his face. An errant tear creeps down her cheek. She wipes it off.

Whatever feelings the encounter stirred inside her are pushed down by what happens later that morning.

Sansa and Ned are waiting near where their horses are being packed, when they approached by a flustered looking Brienne and Shireen.

“Have either of you seen Lord Stannis?”

“He left yesterday after supper,” Sansa tells, “To retrieve his men and head for the Wall to aid the Night’s Watch.”

Brienne curses. Sansa’s never heard her do that before, and it shocks her.

“Renly’s rushed off. There’s reports of Ironborn ships attacking Shipbreaker’s Bay. Some of them men have swum ashore and are attempting to lay siege to Storm’s End.”

Sansa is astonished.

“What are they stupid? That could garrison a whole army in that hold, and withstand siege for at least a year. And if the storm’s don’t take it out, raiders certainly can’t!”

She’s heard tell that the Kingsmoot ritual involves drowning the participant for a time. Perhaps that ritual has done a number on their brains.

Brienne shakes her head.

“I know. But Lord Renly didn’t want Shireen anywhere near it, I was going to take her back to her father-”

Ned interrupts,

“They left by ship, there’s no way you’ll catch them in the winter weather, and the Wall is no place for a girl.”

Brienne looks lost for a moment, before Ned continues.

“Come with us. We can put the two of you up in Winterfell for a time. It’s a hard season, but we manage every winter, and we’ll be closer to her father than she is if she stays here. We’ll send a raven a head once we leave.”

He regards Brienne,

“You are the girl’s sworn shield correct?”

Brienne nods, solemn.

“Then you should know that this is likely the safest route we can take.”

And after a time, Brienne agrees.

When her and Ned begin to work out the logistics, Sansa moves and takes Shireen’s hand. The girl is quiet, but her hands are shaking.

This is going to be harder than she imagines.

Winterfell

Blizzards drive them inside.

Northerners can still work in snow, they know the snow, the landscape. But a true blizzard, with thick snow and fog and wind and deep,deep darkness will drive even the most hardy of them cowering for shelter.

It was in one of these deep blizzards that Robb drew up his letters to their bannermen.

Davos had returned some moons before, with a ship full of evacuees and a nightmare.

He has a flashback to something Osha had asked them when they were ferrying the first ship full south.

“Do you have a family, Davos?”

She never called him ser, but he never minded truly.

“A wife and seven sons.”

“And you’re fine with being here with all of this, instead of with them?”

Davos had shaken his head.

“Of course I’m not. I miss all of them every day. But my wife is one of those rare women who is content being by herself, and my eldest is old enough to have his own family. I’m filling a need here, helping these people stay with their own families, and trying to protect my own from afar.”

That had been the first of the four voyages he had made, expertly avoiding the Night Watch partrolled waters, hold full of refugees. He never let them off in the same spot twice. A few he expected, even tried to sail off on their own, into the open sea.

He told them the story of an entire Free Folk coastal settlement completely overrun by the others. How the wights had piled up upon each other until they could climb the walls of the city, with no care that they were getting crushed under each other and just kept coming.

They didn’t have to be told about it. Jojen had woken up screaming that morning, with a vision he couldn’t tell from a nightmare. They weren’t sure if it had been Hardhorne, but it had sounded just like it.

“And we still don’t know what’s become of Jon,” Arya tells him, hugging herself, “He hasn’t been at Castle Black in years.”

“He wasn’t there,” Davos tells her grimly, “If he had been I’d have sought him out. It was chaos, no one leading, no one guiding. I just shoved as many as I could on the ship, thanked every god I could think of that they can’t swim and fled.”

“We’ll start sending weapons to other keeps,” Robb tells him grimly, “Along with orders that every able man, woman and child to be trained in their use. Take some of the free folk with you to help begin the training.”

“Tell them,” Bran adds, “To make up lists. Add the names of anyone too old, young or sick to train.”

“We’ll start planning, see if we can identify safe places to evacuate them to if the wall is breached.”

Bear Island has become a possibility, since Davos has reminded them that the dead do not swim. After the death of Jeor Mormont in the mutiny at the wall, Dacey and Alysane Mormont had come to Winterfell to seek acknowledgement of their mother’s continued rule.

They had met no resistance at this, but when given the same instructions that the Stark’s other sworn house’s had been given about dealing with fleeing wildlings, they had been met with mirth.

“Wildlings used to try to raid our island, “ Dacey had said, “Now even the Iron born know better. We can do what you say, but I don’t any of them are still foolish enough to try fleeing to our little island.”

“You may be surprised,” Robb tells them grimly, “Most of them seem to be fleeing to whatever’s south of where they currently are.”

Arya watches the two of them from the side of the room, wondering if Lyanna would have resembled them when she grew up. She knew both Alysane and Dacey had been killed at the red wedding. Neither them or their mother had husbands, they all swore their children had been sired by bears.

And with a sudden spark, Arya wonders if she could ask one of them if one of these bears had had red hair and a long beard.

The blizzards also stopper news. Even Bran can’t guide his ravens through them. They have no idea what’s occurred in the capital since Robert’s death. This is one of the few times in his second life that Bran has missed the ability to see through the weirwoods.

And with the onset of winter, Arya is suddenly quite grateful for her mother’s insistence that she marry.

She occasionally will grumble will Gendry wraps her in her arms, his head over hers and his legs bracketing hers.

“Why do you always get to be the big spoon?”

“Cause if I let you be the big spoon I’ll end up missing a limb one of these mornings.”

Her childhood bed is slightly too small for the two of them, but in winter the crowding is welcome.

One morning, when they rise, Gendry spies a fairly dark mark she’d left on his shoulder the night before. It’s not the first- a few weeks prior Robb had leaned in close to examine a pink love bite on his neck, and then backed away, horrified, when he’d recognized it for what it was, but something about it niggles at him.

“I think you can see teeth here…Something bothering you?”

At her bewildered look he clarified,

“I know they call you a she-wolf, but your teeth don’t usually come out unless you’re upset or scared.”

In the old days, so long ago it seemed, she had put up a tough facade, but then melted atop of him. It had been fun to discover that Arya, who fought so hard to keep her outside cold, loved to be held and kissed gently. But when the dead had kept rising and people had kept dying, her kisses got harder, her hands gripping tighter, often leaving him increasingly black and blue. He hadn’t minded, not particularly, except for what it made him think of her mental state.

She sighs, and moves to kiss the mark, trying to soothe it away.

“I didn’t realize that having everyone I loved back would leave me even more scared of losing them again.”

Gendry throws an arm across her back, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck.

“What was that thing in High Valyrian? That thing that weird red and white haired fucker said when he got us out of Harrenhal?”

Arya laughs, “Valar Morghulis. All men must die.”

“Seems a bit morbid to me, but that’s the point I guess. We’re all going to have to die eventually. But you have us all here again.”

Arya’s face looks unconvinced, but she steps back to pull off her shift and begins dressing without another word.

When the blizzard finally passes, everyone in Winterfell has gone stir crazy. Enough for even Gendry to ask to join some of the others to go with Meera and Jojen to go forage for mushrooms.

It’s a bright clear day, and the sun is high in the sky when they’re turning over logs and digging out tree trunks to look for growths to examine and see if they looked edible.

Gendry had never known there were so many kinds of mushrooms, looking through his sack at all the different sizes and shapes. Though, he thinks as Jojen finds a small, spotted one, looks at it and shakes his head, he never really realized how deadly the wrong ones could be either. It wasn’t something that ever came up in King’s Landing, and when on the road, it had never occurred to him to even bother with mushrooms.

They’ve all been out maybe an hour, when Jojen stops suddenly.

When he falls over into the snow, it’s Arya who reaches him first. She rolls him over, runs a hand over his mouth and nose, and then under his chin.

“He’s breathing,” she assures Meera. The other girl’s face has gone ashen, and she’s standing stiff, pulled tight like a lute’s string.

“Rickon, run back to the keep, have them bring Maester Luwin down to meet us,” she says, in a single breath.

Before Gendry can move, and before Rickon’s even out of sight, she moves and grabs Jojen under his arms,

“Gendry, help me,”

He finally snaps out of his haze, and goes to help, and between the three of them, they manage to life Jojen, who remains motionless. He’s not too heavy, but he’s long, and his boots make his feet harder to handle.

It takes doing, but they weren’t too far out, so they get back to Winterfell quickly enough. When the guards Rickon has alerted come out and take Jojen from the three of them, Gendry feels his muscles burn as they go slack.

Arya grabs his hand quietly as they step aside. Meera stands at the end where they had dropped him and she looks frozen to her spot, and like she might fall over herself.

Bran hadn’t gone with them, for obvious reasons, but having been drawn out of the keep by the ruckus, he awkwardly makes his way to join them.

He approaches Meera quietly, and when he reaches out to gingerly touches her hands, she heaves and presses her face into his neck.

Gendry feels Arya pull his hand, and whisper, “leave them be.”

Her voice when she speaks again is incensed, but her face has that same faraway look it had the morning he’d questioned her biting him.

“Jojen better be pretty sick if he scared us that bad,”

“Are you going to yell at him when he wakes up,”

She shakes his head,

“I’m going to set Mother on him.”

The next time they see Jojen is the next day when Meera goes to bring him his supper. Maester Luwin tells them he has a fever and a bad chest infection, and shouldn’t have gone outside. He plies him with ointments to ease the cough he wakes with and makes him a tea to help the fever.

He also still looks suitably terrified by whatever it was Lady Catelyn said to him.

It’s a few weeks later, when Gendry’s by himself in the forge, when Jojen asks if he can come in and sit for a while.

Even this long after, his cough is lingering, so Gendry tells him,

“Sure, but you should stay by the door away from the smoke.”

He sits quietly for a while, reading a book he’s brought with him.

“You’re from the capital right?”

Gendry nods, “Grew up in Flea Bottom, Biggest slum in the whole place.”

“Someplace with that many people, is there anywhere you would go if you got sick?”

Gendry laughs wryly.

“Barely. If you were lucky you might know an old woman who knew about healing or someone at a tavern who was used to sewing up brawl wounds. Mostly if you got sick enough you just died.”

Jojen’s face at this point looks an awful lot like what Arya’s occasionally has.

“After Lady Catelyn scolded me…throughly, I asked her how the maesters learned all they did about helping the sick.”

He’s never met one before Luwin, but even Gendry knew about the citadel. He also knows that no maester would bother himself with the problems of the common folk.

“It’s a big undertaking,” Gendry says, “You basically have to give up your whole life to become one.”

“And that’s stupid,” Jojen replies, forcefully, “Why should they keep all the knowledge just for themselves? People get sick everywhere. Lords have to pay to receive one at their castles, that’s why we don’t have one at Greywater Watch.”

He’s quiet for a bit longer, then admits.

“It didn’t surprise me at all when Meera told me I died young. I always thought I would. In the swamp, it’s much the same. You get sick enough and you just die.”

Gendry thinks long on his next words, before saying.

“Valar Morghulis,”

Jojen nods, having learned enough High Valyrian to know the saying.

“Sounds like an excuse if you ask me.”

Over the Wall

The boy is walking steadily, pointing and babbling when Gilly finally decides on a name for him.

Jon had told her about his friends at Castle Black, and she had liked the sound of the name Aemon. It makes Jon’s heart twinge, wondering if one of his only remaining relatives was still living, but happy to know he would be remembered if not.

“It’s not so bad,” she tells him, “Lots of us don’t name our babes until they walk. They die too easily when they’re small.”

The cave really isn’t a good place for a young child, but it’s safer than above ground. And when Aemon begins to talk, he begins to whisper the same words Jon does.

These are the words Rowan has begun teaching him. Maester Luwin had taught all of the Stark children High Valyrian, but Jon doesn’t believe it ever sounded like this coming from him. He recalls his words sounded stiff, practiced. Luwin had waved them all on, saying that reading it was more important. The words the trees speak are different. It’s like they speak in all the senses.

Ygritte had listened to them one day, and said they didn’t even sound like words.

“Almost sounds like you’re singing.”

Sometimes Jon sits and listens to the wind outside the caves, blowing through the trees that dot the hillside. Singing seems an appropriate word, he hopes that what he sounds like.

Gilly and the other’s don’t always make it back for supper, their map-making taking time, though their paths through the caves are unobstructed. Sometimes Ygritte leaves and hunts something to roast. The moss Rowan seems to favor doesn’t seem to do much to bolster a human’s strength. She dries some, and sends them with Henneh and Petra, Gilly’s youngest sisters. When she gives it to them, sometimes they’re gone overnight.

Jon still feels overwhelmed, and one day, he finally asks Rowan,

“So, what’s the endgame for this? What is it all for?”

Rowan looks contemplative, and reaches out to touch his hands.

“What brought you over the wall Jon Snow?”

He is confused,

“Duty? Following my commander’s lead?”

Rowan smiles, almost amused.

“Why specifically?”

Jon pauses for a long time.

“We were hoping to find my uncle Benjen and the other rangers who’d gone missing. And to find out why the wildlings were fleeing their villages.”

Rowan nods. She reaches out and touches the root of the dead tree.

“All of the trees speak the same language, and they all speak to one another. Perhaps you could ask them if they had seen your uncle?”

The question should be bizarre, but it’s become almost normal.

“This one’s dead, will it be able to answer?”

Rowan shakes her head.

“But I can take you to one that will.”

The journey isn’t far, it’s down one of the close caverns Gilly has already mapped. The little weirwood is barely larger than the one Rowan had rooted, maybe a few years. Its trunk is skinny, and it’s only maybe ten or twelve feet tall.

When he realizes he must look apprehensive, Rowan touches him.

“Go ahead. It’s not a person, it can’t take offense.”

Jon’s words whisper his memories of his uncle. His height, build, his long hair. Who his parents were, his siblings. These words become his image, his voice giving shape to his very self.

Jon is so shocked when the tree responds he nearly falls over. Listening he finds, is easier than speaking. Maybe it always was.

He doesn’t see it, not really, not in the way he’d heard Bran speak of his visions. It’s like he was there, and he’s remembering it.

He remembers seeing Benjen being surrounded by the others. He recognizes their piercing blue eyes without a word. He remembers them pierce his heart. He remembers him fleeing, beginning to turn blue himself. He remembers Rowan, as clear as she is standing beside him right now. He remembers seeing her take him by the hand, to one of her caves.

When Jon pulls himself out, he asks her,

“He’s still alive.”

“For want of a better word. He is not whole, but he is still himself.”

Jon feels a weight lift off his chest as the two of them make their way back to the main cave.

They make more journeys out to the weirwood, sometimes day after day in a row, when Rowan feels Jon needs to work on his speech, or she remembers something she feels he needs to see more than others.

He spies Gilly and the others carrying rough crosses.

“Iron and dragonglass,” Rowan acknowledges, “I buried one far north. They are doing the same south towards the wall. If we get them in the ground before they manage to breach it, then they shouldn’t be able to keep rising. The long dead should stay down.”

Before? Jon thinks, more than a little alarmed.

One night, he returns from his lessons to only a fire and Ygritte.

“No one else back yet?”

Ygritte shakes her head. She’s holding a sword.

Jon feels the back of his neck prickling.

“Where’d you find that?”

“One of these caverns. Rowan said it belonged to the tree-man who lived here before. More fun than the axe.”

Brynden Rivers, Jon recalls, is what she had said was the original name of the man who became the Three-Eyed Raven. A bastard, just like him.

He goes to take a look at the handle, and something about the blade catches his eye.

“May I?”

She shrugs.

The weight gives it up.

“This is Valyrian steel,” he tells her, astonished, “Like Longclaw. There’s less than a dozen of these left in Westeros.”

“So a good find?”

He recalls his siblings telling him to hold tightly to Longclaw, because it could destroy Others.

“Hold onto this,” he tells her, passing the sword back. She raises an eyebrow.

“Sure I’m not going to lob any important bits off in your sleep now?”

He laughs.

“You would have done it by now if you were.”

Maybe it’s the peace of the moment, or the joy of finding the sword, or maybe it’s the firelight catching her hair.

“Can I kiss you?”

Ygritte’s face turns contemptuous. He can feel the mocking in her words before they even start. Whatever despair her memories had brought to her, there is no sign of.

“All these years throwing myself at you and all you’re going to do is kiss me?”

He snorts.

“I know nothing remember, I have to learn.”

And before she can get in a retort, he leans over and follows through.

He kisses quite a lot of her that night, and though she isn’t quiet the whole time, none of her words are complaints.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #gendrya #sanrion #jongritte #breera #time travel fix it #fic

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sepedarodatiga · 5 years

Text

Valar Morghulis - 2x10

Writer: David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

A baby. Traitor father. Whore mother. Broken vows. King.

A little while ago based on a parallel between Jaime-Cersei-Robert and Margaery-Renly-Loras with Sansa-Jon-D/enerys (three brother-sister-spouse triangle), I opened myself to a possibility of a j0nerys marriage before we got a jonsa endgame. However, as I was completing this jonsa parallel post from 2x10 when we saw Joffrey break his betrothal to Sansa for Margaery, I decided that maybe we won’t see a j0nerys marriage at all. All we need to see is Jon breaking his vow to D/ny, it could be a betrothal or perhaps his “pledge” that has happened in the Dragonpit meeting in season 7 was enough.

Before I delve into that discussion, first I’ll just present the parallels between Jon and Sansa’s scene in this episode, as usual.

1. Traitor Father

Joffrey is thanking the people who helped him defeat Stannis, including the Tyrells. Loras is asking him to marry Margaery but Joffrey is still betrothed to Sansa. Cersei remind him that Sansa is a daughter of a traitor.

Meanwhile Jon was captured by the wildlings with Qhorin Halfhand. Qhorin taunted Jon, forcing Jon to fight with him and kill him so the wildlings would trust Jon. He taunted him by saying that he has a traitor father.

Jon killed him and earned the trust of the wildlings.

2. A Vow

Joffrey said that he took a holy vow in front of the Gods. But later Grand Maester Pycelle told him that the High Septon release him from that vow.

Qhorin reiterates their holy Night’s Watch vow as Jon push his sword to him.

Both Sansa and Jon were in a limbo situation at that time. Sansa is in King’s Landing and she was supposed to marry Joffrey who she already hated at that time while Jon already has one of his foot in the wildling camp but is still considered as a crow. Sansa’s betrothal with Joffrey and Qhorin Halfhand acted as a tether for Sansa to the Crown and Jon to the Night’s Watch. They both are being released from that tether in this episode.

Joffrey was asked to set aside Sansa in favour of Margaery.

At that time Margaery had been married to Renly but they never consummate their marriage before Renly died. She is much like book Sansa who had been married to Tyrion but never consummate their marriage. In the show, because Sansa was given the Ramsay storyline, this parallel doesn’t hold, but probably it will hold in the books?

Joffrey breaking his betrothal in this episode could be a foreshadowing for what will happen with Jon in season 8.

The Gods do indeed hold betrothal solemn, but your father, blessed be his memory, made this pact before the Starks revealed their falseness. I have consulted with the High Septon and he assures me that their crimes against the realm free you from any promise you have made to them.

Grand Maester Pycelle in 2x10

What would qualify as the Starks revealing their falseness in season 8? That they hid a certain Targaryen prince? Jon is a false Stark bastard? Or political Jon? Whatever it is, afterwards, a certain pledge would be broken.

Which crimes against the realm would free him from his promises? Jon’s crime because he lied to D/ny or D/ny’s crimes to the realm?

I also made a theory that Sansa will be pregnant and gave birth to Jon’s bastard. One of the past scene that supports it is by using a whore (Ros) as Sansa’s foreshadowing character and that as of now, Cersei is calling Sansa a murderous whore. Now please check out a few interesting dialogues in this episode.

(Traitor father scene)

(then the scene where Jon killed Qhorin while Qhorin said his Night’s Watch vows)

You look like a baby with a rattle.

Or was it your whore mother?

Time to meet the King-beyond-the-Wall

A baby, traitor father, whore mother, broken vows, King.

I can only speculate that the story would be: Jon and Sansa can’t hold back their feelings anymore and consummate their love. Sansa kidnapped by Cersei, found out that she’s pregnant and give birth to a bastard boy. Jon will break his pledge with D/any, marries Sansa and become a King. In between those there will be a lot of disasters (don’t ask me what).

Yes I think they will have a bastard baby first before they get married. Baby first before marrying. That’s the sequence of foreshadowing in this episode, and it’s also the sequence of foreshadowing from 4x05 (Bran is going to be Uncle Bran, and Sansa to marry a brother turn cousin). My theory is based on the thinking that Jon and Sansa’s bastard child actually would help strengthen Jon’s claim to the throne and this becomes a threat to D/ny’s claim. Initially with the Renly parallel, I thought D/ny will be pregnant at first and therefore Jon is forced to marry her. I thought that was equal with getting stabbed in the back with a shadow baby like how Renly died. But now I think D/ny is the one getting stabbed in the back with a shadow baby which is Jon and Sansa’s bastard child. In the other triangle couple, Cersei never let Robert put his seed in her so all her children are Jaime’s and Renly couldn’t bring himself to have sex at all with Margaery, and D/ny is barren.

I think that all the talk about D/ny can’t have children is not a j0nerys baby foreshadowing or even a red herring (or at least I hope so...I could be wrong). I think that it is what it is, which is to highlight that she really can’t have children and will have an issue with succession. Jon’s baby that comes from a union with a highborn Lady with a strong family background will challenge her claim even more. I have a theory of what will happen but that’s for another post.

#jonsa #jonsa parallels #kidnapping plot #pregnancy plot #got 2x10 #jonsa parallel 2x10 #anti jonerys #anti daenerys targaryen

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ifyoucouldholdme · 5 years

Text

Brave Angel

Words: 2735

Read on AO3

Bill had a collection of journals. It began with a large lined composition notebook from his little brother, Georgie. The cardboard cover, ornamented with a menagerie of sailboat stickers and blue stars drawn in crayon.

“It’s for you to keep track of all of those stories you tell me,” the boy had cheered when Bill tore away newspaper wrapping. Bill smiled softly in gratitude, but Georgie knew it was the perfect gift when he discovered that Bill had filled over half of the notebook over the following week.

That was the last present Georgie had given him before that summer. Before the sewers. Before It. While the pages were now yellowed and lovingly worn, the journal remained unfinished. Bill couldn’t bring himself to add to it, leaving it preserved in a time when that precious child still smiled, much as his parents had preserved his room in the years after.

So Bill bought more journals. Over the years, he amassed quite a collection of folios and notebooks. Leatherback, spiral-bound, handcrafted, and dollar store brand alike overflowed the shelves of his dorm in no particular order.

“Damn Bill,” an already tipsy Richie whistled when he spotted the piles. “I know you’re a writer, but do we need to hold an intervention? Eds has been binge-watching Hoarders, so I’ve absorbed some stuff through osmosis.” Stan, gliding past the louder than usual Trashmouth, to the one and only actual chair in the room, threw him a “Beep, beep. This is Bill’s personal space, don’t be rude.” Bill shot him a grateful look. He absolutely adored Richie. Out of all the Losers, the lanky goofball understood him the best. He was even the first person that Bill spoke to after they lost Georgie. But it was nice to have Stan nearby, since he could maneuver Richie like no one else. Just a given glance and a soft spoken word was all that he needed to let Richie know when teasing was close to drifting into inadvertently cruel, and Bill admired about him. In fact, he admired more than Stan’s interpersonal skills.

The look had lasted long enough that Bill knew no one would believe him if he called it anything but a stare. Stan didn’t seem to mind though, smirking and sending an unexpected wink in reply.

Bill’s breath caught in his chest. His fingers twisted knots into his bedspread. How could Stan not know the grip his existence alone had on the boy, much less such a gesture.

“Have you thought that maybe he has so many journals because he wants to be an author?”

“Well yeah,” Richie muttered, “but that’s a metric shit ton of books.” Bill chuckled softly at that. “I guess I do have quite a collection now. It’s mostly just fragments of stories and ideas.” That was only half true. Sure, some were just a place to dump the random assortment of thoughts and inspiration that he discovered throughout the day while others he reserved for more specific purposes.

Stan gracefully swiveled around in the chair to face Bill, his gaze landing directly back into his own. “Have you ever thought about doing anything with them?” he inquired, absently toying a stray curl around his finger, on which Bill refused to fixate any further than he already had. As much as he tried to repress is growing infatuation with Stanley Uris, the author in him continued romanticize every little thing about him. He dreamt of those slender fingers intertwined with his. He yearned to wrap his arms around the boy and bury himself in that mop of autumn curls. An added touch, Stan had worn Bill’s favorite of his kippahs this day, sky blue to complement his somber eyes and embroidered with a small flock of turtle doves. Beautiful and swift, just like Stan.

“Paging Big Bill! Hello?” Richie’s booming radio announcer voice, which had improved considerably since high school, blasted Bill back into the moment with an actually articulated, “Huh?”

Richie, scrunching his brow a little in confusion said, “Stanny boy asked you something and you just stared at him.”

Dammit Richie, shut up! Bill thought. Instead of shouting that and outing himself right then and there, he turned again to Stan. His gaze had not fallen, however Bill thought that there might have been a slightly rosier tint sprinkled across his normally pale cheeks. “Sorry St-Stan. What did you s-say?”

“I asked if you planned to do anything with them. Like publish one or enter something in a contest. “Bill automatically reacted with a light scoff. “Nobody would want to publish those. I’m nowhere near good enough f-for that.”

“Don’t do that, Bill.” Stan’s face wore a calculated blank expression, but he could see the dull frustration lingering just behind those glistening irises and the corner of his mouth. “You are more than you think.”

He still disagrees, but he would do anything if it would make Stan happy, so he bites back any rebuttal.

Richie, noticing the tension, jumps in to alleviate the energy hovering between the two. “ You ever show them to your professors? Maybe they could help you submit something to some creative writing shit or whatever.”

Bill drops his head to stare now at his hands tracing invisible patterns in his bedspread. “Except for G-Georgie, nobody ever cared enough to ask if they could read anything.” The silence that followed didn’t help the boulder he felt in his stomach.

Richie didn’t even crack a joke, and he always had something to say regardless of the situation. Why didn’t Bill just agree and steer the conversation towards something less uncomfortable for the others? Maybe finding a party somewhere nearby or what all Richie had already drunk, or-

“I’d like to read them.” Bill had never heard Stan’s voice so timid since they emerged from the sewers in their receding childhood. “I mean, if that’s ok,” Yes Stan, please, anything you want. “S-sure, Bill managed, “I g-guess so.” Richie leapt to the shelf with a “Hell yeah, man!” and grabbing the first few he saw, dropped onto the floor, fidgeting into the perfect reading position. Stan on the other hand, scanned through the books, tracing his fingers across every spine. The reddening light drifting in the only window outlined every contour of his face, even the pocked craters of scar tissue lining each side from temples to jawline. Normally he was acutely aware of these souvenirs left from that summer, actively avoiding his reflection and constantly rubbing the marks as if he tried hard enough then he could wipe them away like a splattering of mud. Today must have been one of his better days, because Bill had only caught him once briefly brush a small scar on his left cheek. Stan eventually settled on a small pocket journal, one filled with fragments of a fantasy novel Bill had attempted a year or two ago. The room hushed again, this time they welcomed the shared silence in amicable comfort.

By night fall, they were still deep in the mass of Bill’s literary work. Richie lay upside down on the floor skimming through his fifth selection, pausing intermittently to give his commentary. Stan had finally finished the first journal, now absorbing a collection of short horror stories. Over time he had gradually moved to a new perch on the foot of Bill’s bed, his posture still as straight as if he had still been in the desk chair. Bill curled himself against the headboard with his favorite sketchpad. Stanley’s rapt expression and relaxed half smile had inspired him too much to ignore, plus he had the perfect match to the blue of Stan’s kippah in his pastel set. He wished every moment could be like this. Special peace spent with his oldest friend and his…crush? Or whatever he could call the boy in his bed. The boy on his bed. That realization forced him to slump behind his sketchpad. He would be mortified if Stan discovered the furious blush radiating from his cheekbones. “What the hell, Billiam?” Richie suddenly erupted from underneath a somewhat forgotten collection of Bill’s attempts at poetry, startling the other two from their silent focus. “You told me you were finally over Bev!” At this point Stan would inevitably see Bill’s flushed face, for now he grew even redder in embarrassment.

“Yeah,” he growled through a clenched jaw, “and I also told you that in confidence.” He tried to glance silently to see Stan’s reaction, but that infamous Uris poker face was back. “Seriously Bill, writing a whole poem about how beautiful she is and wanting to protect her and never leave her and shit doesn’t sound like being over her.” What love poem was he talking about? Although he had fallen for Beverly when they first met, he never really wrote anything about her.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Stan interjected, “Beverly is definitely amazing.” His gaze held still, but there was a hint of something in his voice that Bill couldn’t quite comprehend. “You two would be good together.” His eyes stayed glued to the bed beneath them.

“It’s much cheesier than I would’ve thought for a Denbrough original. Check it Stan, “ Richie continued then, putting on a voice he claimed as his Masterpiece Theater voice and read an excerpt.

“My Brave Angel.

How can I show you what you mean

You hide your face

When all I want is to see your smile”

Bill didn’t remember writing anything like this about her. He didn’t ever feel anything more than an adolescent infatuation with Bev or anyone. In fact, the only person he could say he ever truly loved was-

“Here’s the part I don’t get,” Richie said in his own voice before jumping back into his recital,

“When the doves rest in your hair

I wish that I could grow wings

Wrapped inside your autumn locks

I wish that I could live there.”

Oh shit, THAT poem.

“But Bev doesn’t have curly hair, at the most it’s a little wavy, not like Stan’s frigging tumbleweed of a mop over there. That’s what curls look like Bill.” Richie jerks to a halt, the puzzle in his thoughts clicking together into the full image. For once, his words left him, his rant defaulting to a low, “uhhh…”

The boys tentatively look to Stan. “Oh please, let him not understand, “Bill futily prayed to God or the turtle or whomever was listening, “Please let him!”

Stan’s hand was timidly grazing the raised figures of the doves adorning his kippah, a dreadfully endearing braille.

“Shit, he understands.” Bill desperately wanted to deny everything, to say it was about a girl in his Bio lab, Ha ha Trashmouth, you’re too drunk to know what you’re talking about. Stan, isn’t he crazy? But his throat sealed shut and his tongue grew enormously heavy, just waiting for a laugh or sound or anything from Stan. He didn’t expect the trembling insecurity in their heartbreaking eyes or the wet trails slowly tracking down from them. Richie’s grown jumped to a buzzing hum upon seeing Stan’s tears. In a gangly mess of limbs, he leapt off the floor and with a frantic, “I need another drink,” bolted down the hall. Neither of the remaining two acknowledged the puzzled yells of “Shit, shit, shit, Eddie! I fucked up bad!”

They just sat on the bed, each unable to look the other in the eyes. Bill’s pulse drowned every other sound in his ears. He hates me now. He’s going to leave me behind and never speak to me again. Why do I have to write down every fucking feeling? “S-Stan. P-p-please say s-something” he managed despite his mouth repressing his words. He flinched as Stan met his gaze. Those beautiful eyes held even more of that undescriptive thing, forcing such an anxiety upon him as he hadn’t felt since the poor child disappeared into the mass of sewer pipes they’ve tried to repress.

“Is it true Bill?” Stan asked, his lips tight, but a barely noticeable tremor breaking through his voice. “Did you write this about me?”

Say no Bill. Say no and let him forget it. Dear God, I can’t lose him. Instead all of the fear and embarrassment and shame rushed up and vomited out in a frenzy of stutters and sobs. “I’m s-so sorry S-Stan. N-n-nobody ever r-reads my journals. S-so I thought it’d b-b-be s-safe. P-please d-don’t hate m-me. I just l-like you s-so much, p-please d-d-d-don’t, “Spit it out Bill, spit it out before he runs away, “p-please don’t l-l-l-“ Then his panic overcame him and the only noises he cried out were violent sobs as he lost any dignity he had left. “Oh God, he’s never going to speak to me again.

In the throes of his shaking, he vaguely noticed arms embracing his crumbling frame and supporting his head. The warmth pressed against him soothed his manic hyperventilation, and Stan’s voice, although breaking in tears itself, brought him back down to relative stability.

“You’re ok, Bill, you’re ok. Please don’t cry. Just breathe with me, ok?” Bill obeyed, inhaling the scent of peppermint embedded in his crush’s dress shirt. After what felt like days, he finally whispered, “P-please don’t l-leave me…” The warmth and the mint receded much to Bill’s dismay, but Stan’s arms stayed. He leaned into the hand wandering through his hair, against his own better judgment.

“Bill, look at me.” Unwillingly, he did. Stan’s face looked just as disheveled as his must surely be. The boy looked hurt, striking pain through Bill’s shuddering chest.

“Why would I ever leave you?”

“B-b-because I’m g-g-g-“ he sputtered beginning to work himself up again when Stan pulled them flush against each other again. Bill let himself sink into that pressure and scent, shamefully enjoying the fingers gently stroking short trails across his shoulder blades and the crown of his scalp. Stan’s heart played a rapid pattern against his own ribs. His breath pressed against Bill’s beet red ear as he whispered so softly it may have been only a thought. “Me too, Bill.”

Everything stopped. The world froze and fell away leaving only the warmth and the mint and the rhythm. Bill lifted his head just far enough to connect their eyes, finally comprehending that mystery in Stan’s gaze. It was that same secret desire that tormented him.

“Did you mean it? Do you really want to see my smile?” The question dripped with such a self-deprecation it crushed Bill to think that Stan loathed himself to this degree. Throwing his own self-pity aside, he boldly put his hands on either side of Stan’s cheeks, thumbs tenderly sweeping over the dreadful marks laid there. With a strength and calm he forgot he knew, he said, “Scars or no, your smile is precious to me, and it kills me to see you try to hide it.”

This broke the calculated façade and Stan disintegrated in Bill’s hands. He cried at length, almost screaming as he finally let himself feel all those years of fear and abuse and longing. He sobbed until his voice gave out and only fell as rasping heaving sighs.

When the deluge ended, the two just lay on Bill’s comforter, drinking in each other’s embrace. Wrapped in the tangle of their arms, they tried to comprehend all that had happened over the past few hours. “Bill,” Stan was the first to disturb their quiet, “After…after I got there, I always thought that no one would ever be able to love me. Like even my own reflection is a constant reminder that I’m… I don’t know, broken”

Bill leaned closer into his…whatever Stan is to him now. “Stan,” he whispered, “You are even more beautiful now. You f-faced It alone, and you’re still here. And you still hit It with a f-fucking pipe.” He chuckled lovingly at the imagery. “You are the bravest of all of us. How could anyone see you as less than perfect?”

Stan hummed a still disbelieving yet pleased hum, snuggling against Bill. “You know, “he barely said, quietly giving himself over to exhausted sleep, “You’re reading the rest of that poem to me later.” Bill smiled the brightest smile he has since Georgie was alive.

“Of c-course I will, Stanley.” He quickly buried his face in the mass of curls like he always dreamed. “Of course I will.”

#stenbrough #it #it stephen king #it 2017 #it 2019 #bill denbrough #stan uris #stanley uris #richie tozier #eddie kasprak #the losers club #fanfic #gay #reddie #movie canon #drunk richie

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noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth · 5 years

Note

For the Jonsa prompt: they spend a lot of time together, and people start to notice. ;)

This is literally a million years late and is set during S6-S7 because I cannot yet cope with the current season. I feel like you don’t even ship Jonsa anymore? Also it’s not even really a story so much as a few connected scenes. But here this is anyway: a fic in which Davos notices Jonsa, and notices LF noticing Jonsa.

***

At first, Davos didn’t question it.

If he’d been through what Jon Snow had, he’d think twice before spending his time with, well, much of anyone, so it’s no surprise that Jon would stick close to his sister. The way they came together at Castle Black, their joy at their reunion, it was clear for all to see that they trusted each other. Since there was little enough for Jon Snow to trust just then, Davos could only be happy for the lad; his brothers in black had turned their backs on him, but at least he still had some family in the world.

It was apparent enough that the lady had known horror and betrayal too. She did not speak much to the men who followed Jon, always courteous but cautious, but once over supper, when he told her some of his history, she mentioned that she’d been in King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater. She said she’d prayed for Stannis victory, for the defeat of the Lannisters. “Fate had other plans,” she said ruefully, and he thought of Matthos with a twinge of pain.

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

No, Davos could not begrudge Sansa her reticence, her suspicion of others. Like Jon, she’d earned her wariness. And when her sworn shield — the one who killed Stannis — set off for Riverrun, it was only natural that she should turn to her brother for protection.

So Davos didn’t question it, not when they campaigned through the North, desperately seeking allies, and every time he turned around there were Jon and Sansa, side by side, sometimes deep in conversation, sometimes in the midst of a heated argument, sometimes silent and contemplative, their gazes communicating something their mouths could not. He did not question it when he left Jon’s tent in the evening and Sansa remained behind, always the last to depart, or when on Bear Island he’d woken very early and stepped out of his room to find Sansa in the corridor, just outside Jon’s chamber, her hands clasped together in front of her as she stared at the door. When she caught sight of him, she said in a firm voice, “I need to speak with my brother about something,” and he just shook his head and went back into his room. He was tired. They all were.

It was only once they’d won Winterfell and Jon Snow had been named King in the North that Davos began to wonder and to worry.

It was that scoundrel Baelish’s fault, for he’d been the one whose shrewd green eyes had done nothing but track Jon and Sansa’s movements for days. He watched them as they sat at the head of the Great Hall, addressing their bannermen; he watched them as they walked through the yard, supervising repairs; he watched them as they ate their suppers and drank their wine and shared their laughter. Baelish watched and watched and watched, and so Davos started to watch too.

The pair couldn’t spend all of their time together, even if they wanted to, for Lady Stark had a castle to run, and the king, when he was not warning of the coming war and strategizing in the hopes of their survival, spent hours training in the yard, sparring with those far less capable than him, as if he were still nothing more than a man of the Night’s Watch. But sometimes, when she had a free moment, Sansa would come to survey the sparring, looking cooly over the yard with Lady Brienne or Baelish at her side, and Jon’s eyes would rivet to her and remain fixed for much too long. There were other times when Sansa would praise Jon, comment on his skill with the sword or his handling of a lord’s request, and he would duck his head, hiding his face, something about his reaction too private to show anyone else.

Soon Davos realized that Jon had a way of looking at his sister, an affection so intense it was almost tangible, it almost took up half the space in the room. No, not affection: adoration. At times Jon even looked at Sansa with longing, and when she turned her attention on her brother, he practically vibrated to life, eager to speak with her, eager to challenge her. To step into her space and argue his point through heavy breaths.

When that happened, Davos couldn’t help but remember that he’d already lost one king to a woman with red hair.

Of course Sansa Stark was nothing like Melisandre, who was a murderess and a witch — except that Sansa too had beauty enough to make men thoughtless. It wasn’t just Jon. For all his supposed cunning, Petyr Baelish was shockingly open about his desire for Sansa, and whenever Jon wasn’t watching his sister with soft eyes, he was glaring at Baelish as if he might run him through with a look alone. Once, Davos had asked Jon whether he thought Baelish meant to ask for Lady Sansa’s hand and Jon had growled something incomprehensible and stormed out of the meeting.

Davos liked Jon. He believed in him. He was a good man, a better man than Stannis had been in the end.

He was also, it seemed, in love with his sister — and if he wasn’t more careful, soon everyone would notice.

Since the Battle of the Bastards, Davos hadn’t had many opportunities to speak with the Lady of Winterfell, and when one finally arose, he was all too conscious that her new shadow, Petyr Baelish, might appear at any moment. So too might her brother.

It was evening. She was in her office, or rather, the office she shared with Jon, but for once Jon was not there with her, bent over some letter or another, likely begging for more men to join the fight against the dead. Tonight, Sansa was looking over accounts, judging by the book filled with columns of figures laying open on her desk, but from the moment Davos entered the room, he had her full attention.

“What can I do for you, ser Davos? Are you looking for Jon?”

“Ah, no, my lady.” He pitched his voice lower, wary of ears in the walls. “It’s you I’d like to speak with.”

“Very well. How can I help you, then?”

“I’ve gotten to thinking,” he began, choosing his words carefully, “that now may be the right time for His Grace to think about taking a wife.” Before she could respond, he continued, “A Northern girl, maybe, to keep their favor. I know that your brother’s marriage was … unpopular amongst his people.”

Nothing showed on her face; she was like stone, like ice, the cold blue of her eyes enough to burn.

“Has Jon told you he wants to marry?”

“No.”

“Have you been approached with a marriage offer for Jon?”

“Well, no, not as such.”

“Do you have reason to believe the support of the Northern lords is wavering?”

“No, my lady, I don’t.”

“Then tell me,” she said, her voice clipped and hard, “why you think, as Jon establishes his rule and prepares for the coming war, he ought to spend time trying to find a suitable wife. Don’t you imagine that’s something that can wait until the war is done?”

With a sigh, he asked, “Do you mind if I speak freely, my lady?”

“Go ahead.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. He could hardly tell her that her brother was in love with her, and nor could he accuse her of being in love with him (if he did such a thing, she’d probably be within her rights to have Brienne lop his head off), but he had to find a way to caution her about Baelish, whom he half expected to slither out from the shadows at the very mention of his name.

“I am concerned about your allies from the Vale,” he said at last, and saw her brow crease in confusion before smoothing out once more. That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear.

“You’re referring to Lord Baelish?”

“I am.”

“He hasn’t — ” She shook her head. “What does he have to do with Jon marrying?”

“I’m afraid he will try to sow dissent among Jon’s followers. He seems to have a, er, keen interest in you, my lady, and I worry he may use the relationship you have with the king to his advantage.” Her eyes narrowed, and Davos plowed on, “I only ask you to be cautious of Lord Baelish. He watches you, both of you. He’s looking for anything he can exploit. Be careful what you allow him to see.”

For a long moment she simply stared at him, a burning brightness in her eyes, before she rose to her feet, somehow even taller than he remembered, and her shuttered face was a clear dismissal.

“Thank you, ser Davos. I am aware of the kind of man Littlefinger is, but I will take your words under advisement. Now, if there’s nothing else … ”

The conversation was over. “No, my lady.” He scraped out a half-bow. “I thank you for your time.”

When he closed the door behind him, he sagged against it. Had she understood his warning? Had she realized what it was he truly feared? Did she even know herself how Jon looked at her, or how she sometimes looked at Jon? Or did she understand all too well what Davos meant, for there’d been something in the flash of her eyes that reminded him of a jealous lover? Had she and Jon already crossed that line? Surely not.

Davos scrubbed a hand over his face. He was too old for this. He’d been too old when it was Stannis he followed, and he felt decades older since then, after losing Matthos and Shireen, after losing Stannis himself.

It didn’t matter how old he felt, though, because he had pledged himself to Jon Snow, a good man, a good king, and if he had to tell the fool boy to stop whatever it was he was doing with his sister, then, by the gods, he would do his duty.

The next day, he intended to confront Jon. He’d hardly slept, working the words out in his head all night, trying to find a way to soften the blow. Jon had suffered; he had died. Such a thing must change a person, make him forget the laws of gods and men. This thing with his sister was wrong, of course, but he could be set on the right path again, surely. He could be reminded of what was right. Davos hadn’t been able to save Stannis from himself, but he would do better with this king. He had to.

Then came the letter from Dragonstone.

At first, it seemed too risky to let Jon go, but as Davos considered the possibilities, he began to see the value in it. The North did need allies, and badly, and a dragon queen would certainly be no small get. What’s more, rumor had it she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and a queen would make a fine match for a king — a much finer match than his own sister.

He didn’t want to be overhasty. The dragon queen may have already accepted a marriage offer, and even if she hadn’t, there was no reason to suppose she wished to marry. Jon would certainly need convincing. Still, when Jon came to him with a grave face to talk about dragonglass and alliances, with a pained look in his eyes as he spoke of leaving Sansa alone in the North, Davos knew what he had to say.

“I think it best you accept the invitation, Your Grace.”

Jon’s expression was still grave as he looked down at the scroll, unfurled across the table, but Davos suspected his king had already memorized the words written in Tyrion Lannister’s neat hand: the offer, the trap, whatever it was. “I’ve only just gotten Winterfell back.” Jon squinted thoughtfully at the scroll, then at Davos. “I can’t leave it already. I can’t leave it undefended.”

“It will hardly be undefended,” Davos replied, before adding meaningfully, “and neither will your sister. That’s what you truly fear, isn’t it?”

Jon went still.

“I don’t pretend to be a godly man, Your Grace.” Davos met his eyes, willing him to understand that what he said was said with care — for him and for Sansa both. “But I know wrong when I see it. Your sister … ”

Color rose to Jon’s cheeks as he turned his face away. “It’s nothing.” His chin dropped, his gaze landing on the floor or his feet, refusing to lift even when Davos stared at him expectantly. “It’s — ” His voice sounded strange, and then, after a long pause, he rasped out, “Does she know?”

Davos felt his eyebrows raise. “Lady Stark, you mean?”

A nod. “Does she?”

Davos considered these words, relieved to know that there’d been no affair at least, no trysts in all those long moons of their closeness. Jon thought his sister unaware of his feelings, and maybe she was. Maybe she was unaware of her own feelings too.

“I don’t believe so, no,” Davos said. “But for both of your sakes, you can’t let her know. You need … you need some distance, I think. You need to focus on the coming war. Staying here, with her, will only make matters worse.”

Jon blew out a breath, his shoulders slumping, and he tapped his fingers on the scroll. “So,” he said, “I go to Dragonstone?”

“Aye. Go to Dragonstone. Do it for her, if you won’t do it for the alliance. Go to Dragonstone, and let your sister go.”

It was only later, when Jon gave Sansa the North, his eyes too earnest, too warm, her pretty face unusually open in its pain, that Davos realized his mistake. For when Jon proclaimed Sansa his regent, he pledged his loyalty and his love in words his bannermen may not have understood, but Davos did — and so did Petyr Baelish. Jon gave Sansa control of the North, and with it gave away the truth of his feelings, and the smirk that spread across Baelish’s face just then made Davos’s stomach go cold.

Davos had solved one problem, but he had most certainly created another.

#my fic #prompt fill

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mesillusionssousecstasy · 5 years

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Review of “A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold” by George R.R. Martin

Wahou, this part 2 of the third book blow my mind entirely! We started with 5 kings, now only 2 left in Westeros that are known. So many unexpected death and expected death in a certain way. It's here also that the tv-show differ from the book; for example with the ghost of high heart and lady Stone Heart. Also some senses finally came at the wall with the arrival of Stannis. Jon's chapter are much better (beside his relation with Ygritte). We learn the story of the Laughing tree (aka Lyanna Stark?) at the tournament of Harrrenhall, which led to the disastrous consequences that we know today. As always best chapter go to Daenerys and Tyrion ones. Unfortunately too few of Daenerys again. But having Jaime's POV was a great surprise. What's incredible is that we already know the scam / plot of Littlefinger at this point of the story. We also learn important fact about Dragonglass and the Other at page 505, and that the two Valyrian swords, Oathkeeper and Window's Wail are very special blades, they will have an important part to play in the upcoming story, knowing that they are Red and Black, as Targaryen's colours, maybe one day they can be the swords of Daenerys and Jon/Aegon, respectively? (hahah reading that after finishing GOT season 8). So many details, and as we know the devil is in the details. Also a foreshadowing of the House of the Undying is fulfilled regarding the treason for gold: “Jorah trading whispers to the spider for gold and promises. (p. 220 of ‘A Storm of sword: blood and Gold’)” + “I am no man’s creature. I took the eunuch’s gold, yes. (p. 414 of ‘A storm of sword: blood and gold’).” Analyse after a reread: P. 11: “I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen’s sister,” Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile. “Aye,” said Arstan Whitebeard, “and a queen as well.” → Daenerys is good. P. 15: “House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.” → Major foreshadowing for the end plot. P. 17: “Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late.” She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. “If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would have not have needed the Stark girl.” “Perhaps so, Your Grace.” Whitebeard paused a moment. “But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy.” “You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested. “Not sour, no, but… there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense… “ The old man hesitated again. “Say it,” she urged. “A sense…?” “… of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.” “Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. He would go there from time to time, with only his harp for company. Even the knights of the Kingsguard did not attend him there. He liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings (Jenny’s song?), you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved. → Parallel with Daenerys? P. 213: “But as Brown Ben was leaving, Viserion spread his pale white wings and flapped lazily at his head. One of the wings buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man’s head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. “He likes you, Ben,” said Danny. “And well he might.” Brown Ben laughed. “I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know.” (…) “Well,” said Brown Ben, “there was some old Plumm in the Sunset Kingdoms who wed a dragon princess. My grandmamma told me the tale. He lived in King Aegon’s day.” → Dragons can recognize someone with Targaryen blood. Foreshadowing for Jon? P. 214: “If you were grown,” she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, “I’d fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag.” But it would be years before her dragons were large enough to ride. And when they are, who shall ride them? The dragons has three heads, but I have only one. Again on page 406: “The dragons has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.” → Foreshadowing: Dany, Jon will ride the dragons and? P. 409: “All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror.” → Daenerys is conscience of her wrongdoing. P. 413: “I am no master to quote history at you, Your Grace. Sword have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” (Barristan Selmy) → Important foreshadowing? P. 417: “Viserion is hunting. They grow bolder every day. Yet it still made her anxious when they flew too far away. One day one of them may not return, she thought.” → Foreshadowing of the faith/death of Viserion. The only thing I didn't like was the sentence from the ghost of high heart, page 23: "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells." → That's a total reference to Daenerys and the bells in her hair, but why sad because she will die??

#review #livre #book #book lover #bibliophile #book therapy #book addict #book community #book worm #book reader #book blogger #book blog #book account #goodreads #asoiaf #a storm of swords #grrm #grr martin #daenerys

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fortunatelylori · 5 years

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You may have answered this already but what are your thoughts on a Targ baby? I'm 50/50 on a pregnancy with more certainty on it never being born if she is pregnant. Story wise there really is no reason for a baby. The only thing it does is give Dany a baby she didn't think she could have show Jon honoring his vow of not having a bastard by marrying her. So foreshadowing a Targ baby is either a legit foreshadowing or a misdirect.

This misdirect can be a complete mislead where nothing happens or it can be a misdirect where if it does happen there will be a twist. Because let’s be real this foreshadowing has also helped with the whole Dany is Fire and Jon is Ice and together they make miracles. (I want to add real quick that for me this Targ foreshadowing has nothing to do with Sansa writing Cat’s wrong and loving a bastard baby. She already loves that bastard baby. Cat not loving Jon had to do with Ned’s choices

and what she assumed about Jon’s mother. It was about their marriage.) This is why I’m 50/50 because I can see it as a misdirect which can be for 2 reasons. I do think it might happen but not exactly how people think it will. (Targ miracle baby). Jon saying he will never father a bastard. After learning what Ned did for him and the choice he made I can see Jon making a similar choice. Choosing to make the baby a bastard for whatever reasons. My guess is to go against Dany.

As far as Dany maybe she has something to do with the child not being born like she did with her Drogo baby?

Hey, nonnie!

I swear this Targ baby foreshadowing business will be the death of me. lol I actually haven’t answered any asks regarding this but this theoretical “b0atie” (isn’t that what the cool kids are calling it these days?) is just everywhere.

I really don’t know what to say about it honestly …

My main gripe with this baby business is that I don’t like that it’s being brought into the story, particularly since Cersei is apparently pregnant as well. What is this? Days of Our lives?!? How is this supposed to be remotely interesting to me? We have a zombie apocalypse to get through, a Dance of Dragons, Jonsa to finally happen as well as a host of other well loved characters that I want to see through to their endgames. Why the hell bring the whole idea of “b0atie” into this?!? I really, really would hate for this theoretically baby to rob me of precious time with Arya, Brienne, Jaime, Tormund, Bran etc., etc. I genuinely do not care about D*ny and Cersei’s baby drama and in many ways it cheapens their characters. They have enough to do without having to check if they’ve gotten their periods. Just leave well enough alone.

My second and biggest gripe with b0atie is not so much Sansa related, as is Jon Snow related. Fathering a bastard has been Jon’s greatest nightmare to date. This man stopped himself from having sex with a prostitute because, and I quote: “I didn’t want to father a Snow. It’s not a good life for a child”. This would be a catastrophic event for Jon and he’s been through enough of those, thank you very much.

But … since Cersei is actually going around telling people she’s pregnant and the writers essentially held a huge, neon sign above D*ny and her womb, the b0atie and the lion cub will come into play one way or another. I have no doubt about that. So I don’t think it’s a complete misdirect.

Now … the real question is will these babies be born? I’m going to go with no on that one. The fact that both Cersei and D*ny’s fertility is brought up at about the same time feels to this simple brain to mean they are paralleling these two supposed pregnancies. Which would make sense since both Cersei and D*ny were given children related prophecies. Cersei’s been told that she will have 3 children and they will all die while D*ny has been told that Drogo will come back to her when her womb quickens and she’s able to give birth to a living child (meaning never).

We know that Cersei’s baby, if she indeed is pregnant, won’t be born. Does that tell us anything about D*ny and b0atie? I would say yes. Now if you think D*ny’s story is one of triumph and heroism, this might seem like a juxtaposition instead of a parallel. So where Cersei fails to have the baby, D*ny delivers b0atie and she and Jon will be the happy parents of a lizard controlling second coming of Renesmee Cullen (Gods! That’s a stupid name!). Yay! Fun!

If you have been around my blog for long enough, you know that I don’t believe D*ny is the hero of this story but rather the ultimate antagonist, hidden under our noses since the beginning of this story. So going by that, the reason why Cersei and D*ny seem to be sharing this baby story line is in order to draw parallels between the two of them, instead of setting them up as foils. Which means, by extension, that D*ny will not give birth or at least not to a baby. A lot of things can come into play here, of course. D*ny could in fact become pregnant but lose the baby. D*ny might think she is pregnant when she isn’t, in a play on Bloody Mary with her phantom pregnancies which would keep in line with the historical references that GOT/ASOIAF are littered with.

My favorite theory, though, and one I’ve seen only a few people mention (sorry I don’t have a link on this. I saw it a while back) is that D*ny will give birth … she’ll just give birth to a shadow baby. GOT/ASOIAF has always played with the idea of monstrous motherhood: Lysa Arryn comes to mind, D*ny and her dragons, Cersei and Jofferey and … Melisandre and her shadow king killing baby.

We know Melisandre is coming back in season 8. Now … it’s pretty obvious that Jon isn’t going to welcome her back with open arms. He promised he would hang her for the murder of Shireen and Jon is a man of his word (or he tries to be … lol). D*ny on the other hand took a liking to Mel instantly, once she heard of the possibility of being even more special than she already thinks she is and adding a new title to her list of monikers: “The Princess that was Promised” ( I agree with Tyrion. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it :))) ).

Mel’s intentions are good in that she wants to stop the Long Night and the WW. However she is a religious fanatic with a penchant for burning people alive. She really did a number on Stannis and Stannis was much harder to sawy than D*ny would be. Stannis didn’t believe in the Azor Ahai prophecy, at least not for the most part. D*ny is already inclined to believe just about anything that confirms how awesome she is. So I could see Mel working on D*ny much in the same way she did on Stannis. And what better way of ensuring D*ny trusts her and keeps her around than to give her what Mirri Maz Duur took away from her?

Of course, Mel’s plans are never truly successful in the long run and she bungles everything she touches (with the exception of bringing Jon back - incidentally the one thing Davos had to talk her into doing) so instead of a baby, D*ny gives birth to a shadow. It would also be a nice parallel to Rhaego and Mirri’s description of him as being monstrous and having been dead for years. And also in another parallel, since I also believe D*ny is Azor Ahai, she will end up burning Melisandre, fulfilling Mel’s dream of dying in the service of the true savior but flipping the whole story on its head because Azor Ahai would not be a savior, she would be an antagonist on the same level as the Night King and Mel would die basically for nothing.

That’s essentially all I got on that, nonnie and I’m sticking with it until Renesmee- come-again rips it from my trembling fingers! :)))))

Thanks for the ask!

#anti-daenerys

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castaliareed · 6 years

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We need allies, powerful allies: Re-thinking the subtext of season 7

This got long...really long I’m a bit embarrassed by how long this got. If someone has already written about this...apologies. If it seems overly obvious...apologies. TL:dr It’s all about getting rid of Littlefinger.

Game of Thrones and the ASOIAF books can at times feel like one big puzzle you as a fan are trying to put together. Often you are staring at the puzzle feeling like you are so close to understanding it all. Except that one piece is missing. That one thing that connects all the characters actions. Season 7 very much had this feeling.

This meta is me trying to figure out this piece in season 7. Until the next season comes out, we really can’t know. I started this as a response on another meta. As I wrote that response. It all sorta dawned on me. A piece missing that had been really bothering me. That one piece that I couldn’t see for a long time but is of course so obvious. The piece that connects many of the characters actions in season 7 was uttered by Jon in episode 2.

“We need allies, powerful allies”

Of course, this is an obvious straightforward statement. We all know what this is about. Jon is trying to sell his going to Dragonstone to treat with Daenerys to the Northern Lords. He does this by saying it is necessary to fight the White Walkers. They need dragonglass. Dragons would be an even bigger boon to their cause. But he adds that they need powerful allies. It’s about more than trading for dragonglass or getting dragons-for-hire. We all know how that went. Jon went to Dragonstone things didn’t go smoothly and he eventually pledged himself to Daenerys amongst other things.

As a book reader, I’ve long thought that if Jon goes to Dragonstone in the books it will be for more than just Daenerys’ help in the fight with the White Walkers. I assumed that the show did away with those reasons, choosing instead to focus on the big war and the fight against Cersei while leaving Sansa and Arya to deal with Lord Baelish while Jon was away.

I’m starting to think I was wrong. I’m starting to think the show was telling us there was more to Jon leaving Winterfell. And that more was all in the subtext. The subtext of needing ‘powerfull allies’.

Picking your friends

Jonsa shippers love to talk about the ‘subtext’ mentioned in the s.7 ep. 1 script. The script says that when Jon and Sansa argue/discuss/mildly flirt there are issues that come to fore like Sansa needing to be more supportive of Jon at public meetings and the fact that they could very well be fighting wars on two fronts in the middle of winter. The script also says there is a lot of subtext going on. We don’t have a clear understanding of what this is. But we can sure speculate...There is subtext going on throughout this conversation and the whole season. The underlying motivations of the characters that aren’t directly in the script bubble underneath the surface. This is where the books still very much play a role in the story.

The show and the books (future books included) work together. They are telling versions of the same story whether certain fans like it or not. (Kinda like how the New Testament has 4 different Jesus stories…). The show is hitting the major plot points of the current and future books. One major point is Jon-Sansa-Littlefinger at Winterfell together. If we don’t have this by the end of TWoW or beginning of ADoS, I will be shocked. There is one other possible scenario...but it would be a stretch. book!Sansa’s compass is pointing North at this point.

Jon-Sansa-Littlefinger at Winterfell in the books just as it was in the show is not going to be a cozy situation. The show tends to make things a little less of a nightmare than they are in the books. Lord Baelish aka Lord Protector of the Vale aka Littlefinger aka Creepy guy is Jon and Sansa’s ally on the show. The books my find him and the Knights of the Vale in a more complicated partnership. Whatever that is, for a time at least I imagine he will be their ally of sorts.

Picking your enemies is easy. Picking your friends can be much much more difficult. Picking your friends requires trust, openness, equanimity, even forgiveness. An ally is a friend. Except what happens when you don’t trust that ally very much? When it comes to friends this usually means you find new friends. Same goes for allies. Follow the money

On twitter recently some book fans were talking about Littlefinger’s motivations. This is where we can use the books to help us understand the show plot. Book!Littlefinger is all about the money. He’s running debt schemes all over the place. Book!Littlefinger has his eyes on two places, the Riverlands and the North. A few other things to note about money, debt, and the North from the books. Before Jon is betrayed by his Night’s Watch brothers, he takes out a loan for the Watch from the Iron Bank to buy food to feed the Wildlings he let through the Wall. Not to mention the IB is going to give Stannis a loan. If Stannis dies and Jon becomes King in the North, what will happen to this debt? Not sure...And let’s remember the show went ahead and showed Stannis getting the loan. They also showed Cersei taking on debt. (Feel free to refresh my memory but the IB went to her because Stannis was dead…) Why they’ve kept Jon in the clear on this idk...and I don’t think they have time left to show this but maybe they will. The show has also not dealt with the fact that Lord Baelish would most definitely be offering to fund or find funds for the re-building of Winterfell and preparations for Winter or the fight against the White Walkers.

Even when the show doesn’t run with an aspect of a character or plot, it is still important because the books and the show are hitting the same major plot points. The point here is Littlefinger has significant interest in the North and in Sansa because it is to his advantage, his financial advantage. This money trail leads him and the Knights of the Vale north.

Leaving Winterfell in ep. 2 of s.7, Jon leaves Winterfell in a flurry after nearly choking Littlefinger to death. There is another good meta about show!Jon and show!Sansa’s feelings for each other. You should read it. I found it Here. To summarize this meta, the OP (@fedonchiadale) says that by the end of s.6/beginning of s.7 Jon is aware he has inappropriate feelings for Sansa. He believes he is alone in this. Sansa for her part knows she feels safe and secure with Jon but is a little slower to understand what that really means. It becomes clear to her by the finale episode.

This meta also suggest that one of the unsaid reasons Jon leaves Winterfell is to put distance between himself and Sansa. To try to temper those inappropriate feelings because we know that always works.

I have long believed that the books will be more explicit about another reason Jon leaves Winterfell. That other reason is Littlefinger. This works whether you believe Jon has romantic feelings for Sansa or not. (And I believe he does…and that those feelings do contribute to him wanting to put distance between himself and her)In my headcanon, I’ve theorized that book!Jon’s needing to leave Winterfell because of LF would come about in a very underhanded, complicated manner. Perhaps, Sansa was afraid LF would hurt him. Or LF is manipulating him because of debt. Or other political machinations. I've theorized that it could become too dangerous for Jon to stay at Winterfell in the books.

I will say, at first I was disappointed that the show didn’t give us more of something like that. I wondered maybe I was getting it very wrong. (That could still be the case…). The show does simplify things. A visual medium often requires that. Then I started to re-think season 7, to think about all that subtext. The things we saw. The things our characters weren’t saying but doing.

The choking scene confirmed there was tension between the two men. Maybe I wasn’t so far off with my headcanon. In that scene at the fore is Jon being the protective brother. It’s obvious Jon’s not going to like the man that sold Sansa to the Boltons. The man she wanted nothing to do with but still had to accept help from.

We know because we’ve been told by Jon in s.6 and Sansa in s.7 that Jon wants to protect Sansa. He also wants to protect the North. Sansa is the representation of the North. He couldn’t ride off and help Robb or save Ned. Bran crossed the Wall and he didn’t even know it. Arya is still lost at the beginning of the season. show!Rickon died in his arms. The Night’s Watch ‘brothers’ betrayed him. Sansa is it for him. And yes, he also most likely has inappropriate feelings for her. Why else show such rage toward Littlefingers declaration of love for Sansa in the crypts.

The focus is on his desire to protect her. His threats seem like idle claims. How is he going to protect Sansa if he is leaving? One way is by leaving Ghost there. Which fans were later told Jon did in a cutscene. Ghost is like a bodyguard. This keeps her from immediate harm. It doesn’t do much to ensure her long-term safety and security. The only way to keep Sansa safe and secure over the long haul is with allies, powerful allies.

Of course, it’s still all ‘subtext’ according to the scripts. Sansa again tells Jon he can’t protect her in episode 1. This must grate on him. Sansa says it not to emasculate him. She is stating what has been a fact in her life up to this point. No one has been able to physically protect her from harm. At the same time that is not completely true. People have helped her. Put an end to some abuse or suffering eventually. Yet, these people often wanted something from her. Take the Hound for example, he saved her from the angry mob, only to later ask her for a song.

Jon is not hearing all this though. He’s hearing Sansa tell him, he can’t give her security, safety. He desperately wants to prove her wrong. Littlefinger with a sizable army at this disposal, wealth, connections in the south etc. etc. has the upper hand. He brought the army that won the Battle of the Bastards. (Note: the Knights of the Vale aren’t LF’s army. He controls them through Robyn Arryn...it’s the optics here) While the Northern Lords have declared Jon their King. Jon knows it’s not enough, he needs help. He needs a powerful ally.

In the scene after Jon and Sansa talk about their problems, we skip to another brother and sister with inappropriate feelings, Jaime and Cersei. Jaime points out to Cersei that they need better allies to fight their enemies. Enter Euron Greyjoy, a man who wants to marry Cersei just like Littlefinger wants Sansa. Jon must understand that to keep Sansa safe this includes being safe from creepy men he’s going to need the better allies, too. It seems that Jon isn’t taking the Cersei threat seriously when Sansa warns him about her. This is what I thought at first. I’ve come to disagree with this. I think Jon starts taking Cersei very seriously. Another reason, he decides they need more powerful allies. At the end of ep. 1,. we see Brienne ask why Littlefinger is still there. Sansas tells her ‘we’ need him. That ‘we’ is Sansa and Jon. I believe that the books may go into more detail about the whys of it and I’m sure money will be involved along with the army the Knights of the Vale provide. Sansa can see very clearly that Littlefinger is the only ally the North has. The only ally with any power. Contrast that with Daenerys’ packed house of wealthy useful allies at the beginning of season 7. Too bad she gets several of them killed….

In ep.2, Jon looks very troubled when he is watching the children train in the yard with Sansa and Davos. On the surface, we assume he’s worried about the Night King, surviving winter, annoying Northern lords. The man has his plate full. But those were the same problems he had the episode before. There is more weighing on his mind. Could it be his feelings for Sansa? Maybe...It seems like there would be so much going on at Winterfell off-screen. Littlefinger is lurking around. We’re meant to think Jon is consumed with preparing for Winter. Preparing to fight the White Walkers. This is what he told the Lords and Sansa in the first episode. He’s banging the same drum in episode 2. He’s going to treat with Daenerys because they need powerful allies to fight the White Walkers. But something is different. At the end of the first episode, he was reminded of the other threats they face in the south. At the end of the first episode, Littlefinger was lurking around Sansa and we are reminded of the threats Jon faces at home.

Littlefinger who as of the beginning of s.7 is the only powerful ally they have. Let me repeat that for the kids in the back, the only powerful ally Jon and Sansa had was the Lord Protector of the Vale aka Petry Baelish aka Littlefinger who by the end of e. 2 we know Jon hates.

Jon needs to find new allies. Not just to fight the White Walkers. At this point the Wall still stands, he has no reason to believe it won’t remain. They have some measure of protection. He needs allies to keep Littlefinger in check. And he won’t find those hiding under the snow at Winterfell. The danger isn’t in staying at Winterfell. The danger is in not going. The danger is in inertia. Jon has to act or Littlefinger will.

Northern Fools and Stealing Dragons

Sansa told Jon at the end of s.6, “Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.” This is the same scene where some fans believe Jon becomes aware of his feelings for Sansa. Jon tells Sansa they need to trust each other. He tells her ‘They have so many enemies, now.’ This isn’t a man consumed only with the White Walkers. This is a man who knows what they’re up against.

The showrunners have said this is one of the most important scenes in the entirety of s.6 maybe one of the most important scenes in the whole show. Not to overstate the case, the only ally Jon and Sansa have to help them hold onto the largest territory in all of Westeros is the very untrustworthy Littlefinger who definitely wants something for helping them. In the show, that something is Sansa. Jon may play the Northern fool card just like Sansa plays the stupid girl/slow learner card. Yea right...they know what’s up. They’re working towards solutions.

The crypt scene gives us so much information. This scene left non-Jonsa fans a bit confused. Jonsa fans were cheering. It was visceral, violent, over the top. Jon went psycho on Littlefinger. He was always going to hate the man. Jon wants to be the one protecting his family which at this point consists of one other person. Littlefinger saying he loves Sansa, is what tips Jon over the edge. What he hates the most, is that not only does LF claim he loves Sansa, they (Jon and Sansa) still need him.

This brings us back to why Jon leaves Winterfell or the ‘subtext’ of why Jon leaves. It’s all about Littlefinger. Or more specifically its all about replacing Littlefinger. Neither he nor Sansa can say that though. Sure he wants to protect Sansa and the North from the White Walkers. It’s more than that.

Ultimately, what makes treating with Daenerys and by extension Tyrion Lannister attractive is the potential for a very very powerful set of allies. (Note about Tyrion...Tywin is dead, Jaime has no children, has been a King’s guard and doesn’t seem to be wife hunting, Cersei’s kids are dead...Tyrion could find himself in a position to make a claim for Casterly Rock) These are allies that could rival Littlefinger’s influence.

AND there are dragons! Jon tries to dissuade Daenerys from using the dragons on a city. He definitely doesn’t seem to be a big fan. One thing he does see is a means to an end. From what he can deduce, with dragons they will have the advantage against the White Walkers. This was his fatal mistake in s.7, he doesn’t know it yet. The moment he sees the Night King’s Ice dragon. Jon will know he misjudged the potential of the dragons.

In ADWD, Quentyn Martell teaches us how not to take one of Daenerys’ dragons. In s.7, Jon Snow and the Night King show us how it’s done. Daenerys’ believes one of her dragons is dead when really it has been stolen from her by the Night King. She believes Jon wants her help in the Great War. This is mostly true. He wants her dragons to help. This is why he requests that she take the boat North instead of flying Drogon. Sure, he doesn’t need to risk Daenerys losing control or getting angry and burning half the North before the War even starts. Jon figured out that if he can influence her, he can influence the dragons. To influence her, he needs to keep her close. Let’s call this the Jon Snow version of how to steal a dragon. Not to be forgotten, he’s also taken a dragon North to be close to Bran an extremely powerful warg. He might not realize that yet. He will find out soon enough how powerful his younger half-brother cousin has become. Maybe Bran will take wightViserion back from the Night King. But it’s just as likely that enabled by Jon, Bran’ll take Rhaegal or even Drogon.

Jon is going to show up at Winterfell with two dragons overhead. As far as we know, he doesn’t know Sansa has executed Littlefinger. He saw how Dany used Drogon to intimidate him when he first arrived on Dragonstone. They’re the ultimate power move. Jon showing up with them. Not an emissary. Not Daenerys coming on her own. No, Jon is going to walk through those gates with dragons flying above him. Sure Daenerys will be there with him. It doesn’t matter. Jon’s an understated guy. No one expects pomp and circumstance from him. He’s a guy that everyone knows came back from the dead. He doesn’t need the ceremony.

I imagine Jon’s thinking “Hey creepy finger, you brought an army. I brought dragons.”

You think he wants to marry her?

Sansa’s famous words to Littlefinger after he suggests Jon might want to make his alliance with the dragon queen more formal. Sansa’s reaction here is measured but also she seems surprised by Littlefinger’s assumption. In a world where everyone marries for an alliance, this suggestion shouldn’t really surprise Sansa. She was married for political purposes twice. She was friends with Margaery for was passed from king to king. Sansa’s surprise suggests she might have a very different understanding of why Jon was going to Dragonstone. She knows they need help. Littlefinger fails to see how united Jon and Sansa are in the belief that they need allies.

The last few episodes of the season Littlefinger is trying to sow discord between Sansa and Arya. Which given the sisters' history wasn’t hard to do. Sansa even expresses to Arya that they need to get people to work together. They need to be friends with the Lords even when it’s difficult.

The wheels start to click for Sansa when again Littlefinger tries to push a dragon-sized wedge between her and Jon. The person she has expressed missing on multiple occasions throughout the season. Littlefinger fails to see how united they are in the belief that they need allies, they need people to work together. He fails to see even when apart, their goals are aligned.

At the same time, Sansa seems unhappy with Jon’s message. He tells her he has promised to pledge their forces to Daenerys after the Great War. He says that Cersei has agreed to join them. It’s really hard to know how Sansa feels about all this. My hope is this gets explored in s.8. More than anything the message pushes her to act.

Lots of great metas have dissected this scroll. I won’t re-hash those here. Jon’s wording is odd. The show released the scroll knowing fans would pick it apart. I do think he is hoping Sansa understands what he is trying to do. And I think he is trying to absolve her of any promises to Daenerys if anything should happen to him.

The real thing the message tells Sansa is that they have a new ally coming North. A new ally with dragons coming North. Is it the next day? Or the same day? Or who knows...all we know is after that message arrives, Littlefinger’s crimes are revealed and Arya slits his throat.

There is a lovely crack theory that says Jon and Sansa communicate in secret during s.7 either through secret messages or codes. Not sure I believe this per say. I do think they both understood they needed a new strong ally. They needed to replace Littlefinger. Sansa may have just seized on the opportunity Jon’s letter presented. She also may have sensed that Littlefinger around Daenerys could be a very bad idea. Either way, they got a new ally which meant the old one could go. The game has just changed. Advantage! Jon!.

I wrote this massive meta to say that Littlefinger was the major unspoken reason for Jon leaving Winterfell. This reason exists whether or not Jon and Sansa have feelings for each other (they do…. however, repressed they might be…) It exists independent of how Jon feels about Dany. It exists no matter what happens in s.8. The need for a powerful ally isn’t only about the fight against the White Walkers or even Cersei. It’s about the enemies within Winterfell's walls.

ASOIAF/GoT is so often about the battle within the human heart. What’s more fraught than leaving the only family you have, the family you’ve sworn to protect because it’s the only way you can protect them.

#jonsa meta #got s 7 meta #jonsa #jonxsansa meta #got meta #jon snow #sansa stark #littlefinger #casty rants #this got really really long #i dont' know how that happened

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turtle-paced · 6 years

Text

Revisiting Chapters: The Griffin Reborn, ADWD

You know, I’ve been writing ASoIaF meta on tumblr for a while, and I’ve hardly ever written about JonCon. Time to change that.

The story so far…

After years of patience and planning, not to mention an unexpected Tyrion-inspired change of said plans, Jon Connington has landed in Westeros with the Golden Company to take back the Stormlands for Aegon VI Targaryen.

Storms Brewing

The action of this chapter is the takeover of Griffin’s Roost, and the plans to take the rest of the Stormlands. We start off with everything going swimmingly.

Griff expected to lose a hundred men, perhaps more.

They lost four.

Far better than swimmingly, in fact. Events are conspiring to give Jon Connington and his men an easy path to conquest. The woods around the castle have grown up to within twenty yards of the gatehouse for free concealment. The gates aren’t barred. The surprise attack means that other defensive measures can’t be prepared. The archers take down the ravens sent to warn of attack with ease.

And quick as that, Griffin’s Roost was his again, and Jon Connington was once more a lord.

Insta-lord. Exile ended, foothold in Stormlands gained. Yet despite this, JonCon still feels the distance his exile imposed between him and his home.

Clad in a long red-and-white tunic embroidered with the twin griffins of his House, counterchanged and combatant, he looked an older, sterner version of the young lord who had been Prince Rhaegar’s friend and companion ... but the men and women of Griffin’s Roost still looked at him with strangers’ eyes.

Still, they don’t plan to stay here. This is only the start, as JonCon thinks.

Griffin’s Roost was strong but small, and so long as they sat here they would seem small as well. But there was another castle nearby, vastly larger and impregnable. Take that, and the realm will shake.

The Golden Company shipped 10k men over, and after getting caught by a storm, about 5k have landed in the general area, a physical location that JonCon knows well and a political situation he’s less familiar with. Boy howdy, though, is that political situation looking pretty good for anyone setting up a new king.

Only a few years ago, he would never have dared attempt a landing on Cape Wrath; the storm lords were too fiercely loyal to House Baratheon and to King Robert. But with both Robert and his brother Renly slain, everything was changed. Stannis was too harsh and cold a man to inspire much in the way of loyalty, even if he had not been half a world away, and the stormlands had little reason to love House Lannister.

He’s wrong about Stannis’ ability to inspire loyalty (hell, part of JonCon’s lands were probably redistributed to Davos), but not wrong that he’s a long way away. Nobody likes the Lannisters. There are still vague Targaryen sympathies floating about in the area that could be encouraged to take a more concrete shape, if they focus on the more positive image of tragic Rhaegar and his murdered children, rather than on Mad King Aerys. The Halfmaester’s “meanwhile, in King’s Landing” is informative.

“The Lannisters make enemies easily but seem to have a harder time keeping friends. Their alliance with the Tyrells is fraying, to judge from what I read here. Queen Cersei and Queen Margaery are fighting over the little king like two bitches with a chicken bone, and both have been accused of treason and debauchery. Mace Tyrell has abandoned his siege of Storm’s End to march back to King’s Landing and save his daughter, leaving only a token force behind to keep Stannis’s men penned up inside the castle.”

[…]

“In the north the Lannisters are relying on the Boltons and in the riverlands upon the Freys, both houses long renowned for treachery and cruelty. Lord Stannis Baratheon remains in open rebellion and the ironborn of the islands have raised up a king as well. No one ever seems to mention the Vale, which suggests to me that the Arryns have taken no part in any of this.”

It’s an executive summary of how the Lannisters have screwed themselves. Plus the Vale and the Ironborn are mentioned, both areas now controlled by dangerous men who’ve been biding their time.

The Halfmaester glanced at another parchment. “We could scarcely have timed our landing better. We have potential friends and allies at every hand.”

There are still a few snags, potentially. JonCon’s waiting on the Martells, who themselves are waiting. They have an army in the Boneway. The Golden Company needs a big name to go up against the Lannisters. The leadership is split on whether Doran’s a coward or just cautious; readers know the latter to be correct.

And, of course, there’s no sign of Dany.

The Halfmaester proposes exploring a match between JonCon and Arianne to secure the Martells in the absence of ferocious firebreathing lizards, which JonCon rejects by staring Haldon down, and monologuing internally about his greyscale.

The next morning, JonCon learns that the Golden Company has accidentally taken Greenstone (on Estermont) in the process of washing up on Westerosi shores. Bonus. JonCon sends for any hostages, and for Aegon.

The plan, then. JonCon’s been sowing confusion, shutting down messages, keeping banners hidden, and the like. He wants the powers that be in King’s Landing to think it’s just JonCon alone, coming back to claim his lands, for as long as possible. The other castles that fell? Pirates. Definitely pirates. This gives the Golden Company time to contact potential allies - and to take Storm’s End.

“We did not cross half the world to wait. Our best chance is to strike hard and fast, before King’s Landing knows who we are. I mean to take Storm’s End. A nigh-impregnable stronghold, and Stannis Baratheon’s last foothold in the south. Once taken, it will give us a secure fastness to which we may retreat at need, and winning it will prove our strength.”

The captains of the Golden Company exchanged glances. “If Storm’s End is still held by men loyal to Stannis, we will be taking it from him, not the Lannisters,” objected Brendel Byrne. “Why not make common cause with him against the Lannisters?”

“Stannis is Robert’s brother, of that same ilk that brought down House Targaryen,” Jon Connington reminded him. “Moreover, he is a thousand leagues away, with whatever meagre strength he still commands. The whole realm lies between us. It would take half a year just to reach him, and he has little and less to offer us.”

Fair enough. We know full well that Stannis would not accept this alliance.

There’s no more detail of the plan given than “we win it by guile.” GRRM’s giving us an Unspoken Plan Guarantee, so we know that it’s going to work, and JonCon’s going to succeed in taking Storm’s End. Aegon too, since the chapter leaves off on Aegon’s declaration that he means to lead the attack. Cliffhanger!

Nah, not really. This chapter contains the seeds of eventual failure, but otherwise this is a pretty significant success for Team Aegon.

The Battle of the Backstory

Retaking the castle of Griffin’s Roost naturally leads JonCon to think on how he lost it, which in turn gives us more info about Robert’s Rebellion (and quite a bit of post-match analysis). JonCon identifies the Battle of the Bells as the tragic moment in his life. He starts it wrapped up in hubris:

Robert Baratheon had been hiding somewhere in the town, wounded and alone. Jon Connington had known that, and he had also known that Robert’s head upon a spear would have put an end to the rebellion, then and there. He was young and full of pride. How not? King Aerys had named him Hand and given him an army, and he meant to prove himself worthy of that trust, of Rhaegar’s love. He would slay the rebel lord himself and carve a place out for himself in all the histories of the Seven Kingdoms.

Also, if anyone seriously still thought JonCon just wanted to be Rhaegar’s bro…they can put that notion to rest.

The basic narrative matches what Harwin told Arya back in ASoS. Robert was wounded and holing up in Stoney Sept and JonCon arrived in force and started searching the town thoroughly.

His knights went house to house, smashed in every door, peered into every cellar. He had even sent men crawling through the sewers, yet somehow Robert still eluded him.

Unfortunately for Jon, the local smallfolk were on Robert’s side, and kept moving him from house to house. As his narration shows us, JonCon might have been a warrior of repute, but he’s got some strong prejudices and sucks at thinking things through from someone else’s perspective.

The whole town was a nest of traitors. At the end they had the usurper hidden in a brothel. What sort of king was that, who would hide behind the skirts of women?

He doesn’t appreciate the motives of the rebels (he’s a hardcore Targ loyalist - there’s a shocker - who considers the redistribution of his family’s lands following Targaryen defeat to be theft), nor the agency of the smallfolk. And he’s a misogynist, which to be honest is kind of expected for the setting, but here it helps to lose JonCon a battle. This is a crucial, crucial bit of characterisation, in terms of the larger stakes with Aegon so called-Targaryen, and I’ll get to that in the next section, so just hang on to the thought for a second. The entire battle sounds incredibly dramatic, with Ned Stark and Hoster Tully providing last-minute reinforcements and setting the stage for Robert’s theatrical combat on the steps of the Stoney Sept itself. It’d probably make an excellent movie. And now that I’ve mentioned it, I want to see it.

Back on track, here.

Following the battle JonCon refused to accept responsibility for the defeat in battle that resulted in his exile. He believed he couldn’t have done anything else, but Myles Toyne told him otherwise.

“Lord Tywin would not have bothered with a search. He would have burned that town and every living creature in it. Men and boys, babes at the breast, noble knights and holy septons, pigs and whores, rats and rebels, he would have burned them all. When the fires guttered out and only ash and cinders remained, he would have sent his men in to find the bones of Robert Baratheon. Later, when Stark and Tully turned up with their host, he would have offered pardons to the both of them, and they would have accepted and turned for home with their tails between their legs.”

This is, in all likelihood, what Tywin would have done. Nevertheless, what Toyne and by extension JonCon ignore in their post-match analysis is the fact that Ned Stark, at least, could not possibly accept a pardon from Tywin-on-behalf-of-Aerys. He might as well engrave ‘PLEASE MURDER ME’ on his breastplate. For riding into battle with him, Hoster Tully might well be in a similar position. Ditto Jon Arryn. Robert’s death at this point might have been a significant blow to morale, it may have changed the course of the war, but the backbone of the Stark-Tully-Arryn alliance was still in place, and Storm’s End still held. I doubt that it would have been the decisive blow JonCon imagines.

Unfortunately, JonCon does not take a step back and consider his own importance or lack thereof in the grander scheme of the Rebellion. He’s still got pride issues, in a different way; he’s now putting the failure of the loyalists in the Rebellion, and Rhaegar’s death, on himself. And so, rather than conclude that there were bigger issues in play - whose fault was it that the smallfolk would rather hide Robert than give him up to royal “justice”? - JonCon decides differently.

I wanted the glory of slaying Robert in single combat, and I did not want the name of butcher. So Robert escaped me and cut down Rhaegar on the Trident. “I failed the father,” he said, “but I will not fail the son.”

But even now, JonCon finds it hard to fully embrace the idea behind the Tywin Lannister method, as we see early in the chapter with his instructions for how the defeated parties should be treated, and in his attempts to get to know Ronnet’s siblings and bastard a little better.

“Ser Franklyn,” he said, “go through the keep and kitchens and roust out everyone you find. Malo, do the same with the maester’s tower and the armory. Ser Brendel, the stables, sept, and barracks. Bring them out into the yard, and try not to kill anyone who does not insist on dying. We want to win the stormlands, and we won’t do that with slaughter.

Much like Doran Martell, JonCon knows better and considers worse anyway. Combined with his desperation to see Aegon on the throne before he dies, this does not bode well for anyone in Jon Connington’s way.

I tried to grasp a star

Motivating all this is JonCon’s love for Rhaegar. It’s priority one once he gets home to climb to his favourite tower and think about Rhaegar. Just aside, note that he lies to make the space to go think about his dead crush.

“You must excuse me, Captain-General. My lord father is buried beneath the sept, and it has been too many years since last I prayed for him.”

[…]

Yet when they parted, Jon Connington did not go to the sept. Instead his steps led him up to the roof of the east tower, the tallest at Griffin’s Roost. As he climbed he remembered past ascents—a hundred with his lord father, who liked to stand and look out over woods and crags and sea and know that all he saw belonged to House Connington, and one (only one!) with Rhaegar Targaryen.

While book!Westeros might not be as violently homophobic as show!Westeros, it’s still apparent that JonCon conceals his sexuality as a matter of course.

As JonCon reminisces, it becomes apparent how shallow his actual relationship with Rhaegar was. Having succeeded in getting Rhaegar away from the party and up to the tower to see this stunning vista (which honestly does sound stunning), Rhaegar says…

“Your father’s lands are beautiful,” Prince Rhaegar had said, standing right where Jon was standing now.

Right. I don’t know whether to think it’s pathetic, or tragic, or darkly comedic, but there’s something Monty Pythonesque in Rhaegar admiring JonCon’s literal tracts of land, apparently oblivious to JonCon’s pining. As if that’s not bad enough, JonCon immediately realises that his tracts of land aren’t huge enough to impresss Rhaegar.

The point is, not only weren’t Jon’s feelings reciprocated, there was no emotional or intellectual intimacy there. Jon’s thinking

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

while Rhaegar’s saying “nice weather you’re having here.” This isn’t even the stuff of a particularly strong friendship. We know this must be the case, because JonCon’s apparently ignorant of what mattered most to Rhaegar - prophecy. Unlike Arthur Dayne, who was entrusted with helping Rhaegar’s prophetic plans, JonCon doesn’t even seem to know they existed. He never thinks on Lyanna or why Rhaegar started up his affair with her, while for contrast his thoughts on Elia are…well, let’s just say he’s got some nerve trying to ask for Martell help.

Jon Connington remembered Prince Rhaegar’s wedding all too well. Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the first, and childbirth only left her weaker.

Git.

There’s a general lack of proportionality to JonCon’s feelings about Rhaegar. He’s gone past devotion and into obsession. Now recall what I said earlier about JonCon’s characterisation as a man lacking creativity, not having highly developed practical empathy, and blinded by his prejudices. That lack of creativity and empathy plus those prejudices mean that JonCon is rather susceptible to underestimating Varys and Illyrio’s capacity to deceive him regarding their plans for Aegon, while his obsession with Rhaegar means JonCon’s vulnerable to deceiving himself about Aegon.

The better part of an hour had passed before he finally turned up in the solar, with Duck at his side. “Lord Connington,” he said, “I like your castle.”

“Your father’s lands are beautiful,” he said. His silvery hair was blowing in the wind, and his eyes were a deep purple, darker than this boy’s.

Just something to keep in mind there. Notice the distance JonCon’s internal monologue imposes between Aegon and Rhaegar. “This boy.” Not “his son.” In this moment, with this direct comparison between father and supposed son, JonCon does not think of Aegon as Rhaegar’s son, but “this boy.”

So why continue the self-deception? Aegon’s is JonCon’s chance of redemption. The last one, before he dies. His own mortality, and his need to keep his greyscale secret, is going to figure into his actions more and more.

He dare not let the greyscale become known. Queer as it seemed, men who would cheerfully face battle and risk death to rescue a companion would abandon that same companion in a heartbeat if he were known to have greyscale.

We’re already seeing him prioritise his role Aegon’s cause over his health, as he considers chopping off his infected fingers. He rejects this option because he couldn’t explain it, and would likely therefore be kicked out of the war effort. JonCon redeeming himself to Rhaegar’s memory is more important than anything else.

Tragically, it’s even more important to JonCon than Aegon himself is.

Chapter Function

From a narrative perspective, this is all far too easy for Aegon and his supporters, and this chapter goes a long way towards showing what “too easy” looks like in practice. Team Aegon roll Griffin’s Roost with four casualties, and there are two more castles expected soon. They’ve got the best archers around. They’ve got elephants en route. They’re the best discplined company in the known world. They pick up Greenstone by accident. They’ve got Storm’s End on the unspoken plan guarantee.

“Too easy” is the point. Aegon and company have not been tested. I suspect this is going to end up in a head-to-head between Aegon, armed with the experience and resources Varys and Illyrio gave him, and Dany, armed with the experience and resources she’s gained through several books of trying experiences. This chapter pushes Team Aegon higher, so the fall is all the more precipitous.

As with all JonCon chapters, he’s running down the clock. So’s everyone, technically, but JonCon knows his days are numbered, and those numbers don’t amount to as many as he’d initially thought. He can see the end, and he’s desperate to accomplish this one last thing before he dies. Every chapter tightens the time frame available, and puts JonCon under a bit more psychological squeeze.

On top of this, a ton of military plot gets done here. This is a full-scale invasion that’s going to reshape the southern plot for the next book and more.

Miscellany

Harry Strickland continues to show that he’s not a brave man - as soon as he notes that it was easy to take Griffin’s Roost, he’s focusing on how easy it is to defend from here, and making sure of the way out. Further conflict between him and JonCon seems likely.

I find it nigh impossible to take Rhaegar seriously when, apparently at the drop of a goddamned hat, Rhaegar will get out his harp, the strings of which accessorise with his hair, and sing “songs of love and doom.” Seriously, at a welcoming feast? Is that really the best time? Does he know how to find the right song for the right party?

There is a continuity snafu in this chapter. In Arya V, ASoS, Harwin tells Arya that the battle never brought Robert and Connington together; here JonCon recalls that Robert nearly killed him.

I see Aegon appointing Rolly Duckfield to the Kingsguard described as a sign of his genuine egalitarianism, and that may be so, but after Renly’s treatment of Brienne I am incredibly cynical about someone setting up a Kingsguard with the sole requirement being willingness to act as a meatshield. To me, that doesn’t speak of an employer who values the humanity and skills of their employees.

Clothing Porn

JonCon’s got a long red-and-white tunic embroidered with his house’s sigil.

Food Porn

Boiled eggs, fried bread, and beans. The breakfast of conquerors.

Next Three Chapters

Dany X, ADWD - Davos IV, ASoS - Brienne II, AFFC

#ASoIaF #revisiting chapters #jon connington #aegon 'vi' targaryen #a dance with dragons

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