#anti-got

[hamliet]

Daenerys Targaryen: The Romantic Hero

In which I dissect more thoughts on ASOIAF brought on by House of the Dragon and my reread of Fire & Blood, and in which I make the argument that, despite the flaws of HotD as a show and F&B as a novel, its pure existence backs up this main idea:

Daenerys Targaryen is not and will never be a villain. She's a goddamn romantic hero with a bittersweet--not tragic--ending. In the books. If we ever get the books.

Jon and Tyrion are also Romantic heroes, by the way.

Okay, sure, that's not exactly a new take. But what exactly do these terms mean?

Literary Tropes and Archetypes

Obviously, when you're talking about something as subjective as literature (subjective in the sense that we all bring our outside baggage, experiences, and assumptions to our reading experience), you're going to get some variation on what terms mean. That's even without considering inherent linguistic shifts.

However, there are general consensuses of what these terms mean. I'm going off the general consensus.

So going forward, before I delve into analysis, let's look at the terms and how they are generally understood, and indeed understood in this meta.

Nihilism and cynicism: Nihilism at its philosophical core is not necessarily hopeless (positive nihilism does exist). However, the colloquial use of "nihilism" does mean hopeless and bleak, and even positive nihilism asserts that nothing exists with meaning, not even concepts like free will. What I'm working off here is the colloquial association of nihilism with grimdark cynicism. That's technically reductive for nihilism, so I'm going to use cynicism more for grimdark pessimism, but nihilism for the literal "nothing matters."

Tragedy: I wrote a long elaboration of what tragedy consists of for RWBY here. The basics apply to this meta, as well. Tragedy is usually not equivalent to nihilism, nor is it pessimistic. There are a million different variations, but the point is to stimulate grief and satisfaction (catharsis) in the audience.

Tragic Hero: Again, this differs depending on the type of tragedy you're writing. I'll just quote what I said in the RWBY piece:

Tragic heroes are great people. They are more than just their worst traits, and yet in the end we, the audience who have access to their complex legacy in ways most characters don’t, are left with the grief that comes with things ending in a sad way when they could have ended so triumphantly. 

In ASOIAF, I've argued before that Arianne and f!Aegon are classic tragic heroes, as is Stannis Baratheon.

Villain: An antagonistic character who, despite how sympathetic they may be, is always destined for destruction and for whom we don't see much other option. We're meant to root against them, unlike tragic heroes, in which we're meant to be torn at worst and rooting for in other sense.

The perfect example here is Cersei Lannister. We care about Cersei, we can see why she became the way she is, but there's no hope for her. A tragic hero can admittedly become a villain (see: RWBY's Ironwood), but their crossing the line completely depends on framing.

Antagonist: A character who opposes the goal of a protagonist. They may be villains, but they are also fairly likely not to be, especially in a morally gray world like ASOIAF. The role is easily slipped in and out of.

Romantic Hero: A Romantic hero is a societal outcast who... yeah I'm just gonna quote Northrop Frye, a literary critic:

[The Romantic Hero is] placed outside the structure of civilization and therefore represents the force of physical nature, amoral or ruthless, yet with a sense of power, and often leadership, that society has impoverished itself by rejecting.

This is very clearly Jon, Dany, and Tyrion, far more so than the other three obvious protagonists (Sansa, Arya, and Bran). A bastard, an exile, a dwarf. All three are leaders with moral different than the society's they're raised in and society is poorer for it. Jon is the most Ned Stark-like of his siblings, but has been rejected. Dany is anti-slavery. Tyrion is practical and actually good at ruling unlike pretty much everyone else in King's Landing.

Of course, their rejection has all three heading for straight amoralism by the end of ADWD. Jon's already taken an infant from his mother, and the baby's probably going to die as a result. Plus, he is not gonna come back from the dead caring about duty anymore. Dany's embracing "fire and blood." Tyrion's full-on plotting savage revenge. When Dany lands on Westeros in The Winds of Winter, she's going to be a literal force of nature (fire).

Romanticism: Romantic doesn't mean romance as in kiss kiss fall in love. I mean, it often does involve that, but when I say romanticism I'm referring to the literary movement. Romanticism focuses on the internal even more so than the external, on the individual development of a character. It focuses on free will, on beauty, which in some ways does indeed make it opposite to nihilism at its most technical. It suggests there is meaning to be found in our experiences and in the world beyond us, too.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a Romantic work. That's not debatable. Why? Well, George RR Martin has said it. Twice. At least.

The human heart against itself is Romanticism at its core.

Also, Martin himself has insisted he is not a nihilist:

My worldview is anything but nihilistic. I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers… which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose.

I mean, that's explicit. There you go. Thanks George. Fight yourself and finish the books, I beg of you. The events in his story matter, therefore.

Deconstruction: This gets tricky because general consensus does actually differ more so than the other terms (besides maybe nihilism). It's literally defined as:

a philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical oppositions (as between key terms in a philosophical or literary work) are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers

Deconstruction can mean the complete and utter decimation of a literary trope to show why what's good is bad and what's bad is good, actually.

Or, it can mean the dismantling of tropes to get to what the core of the trope is, and decide whether or not that trope is worth affirming. As in, maybe as we unravel the various parts of a trope or genre, we uncover a stable foundation.

Hunter x Hunter is a great example of this for shonen manga, as is Attack on Titan. Both ultimately affirm the main cores of friendship and love in shonen, but they do that through taking different angles to look at common tropes. For example, Gon's self-reliance is actually a trauma response that we're supposed to be horrified by as it destroys our plucky protagonist, and Eren becomes a villain protagonist but his core motives never change. He's always wanted to kill the enemy, every last one, from chapter one.

Tragic Heroes and House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon has some interesting ideas, albeit its taking a very flawed approach to them (dare I say, a reactionary approach in which they're leaning too hard in the other direction from what GoT did and whitewashing their female characters... which makes them seem less human, not more so).

Still, despite its flaws, HOTD is carrying the tragic arc that Dany-villain theorists argue she'll have. Rhaenyra and Alicent both go mad, even if not in terms of mental illness, and Rhaenyra is determined to rule whatever the cost. Innocents pay the price. However, I see issues with this argument.

Repeating this arc with Daenerys in the main saga then is cynical and nihilistic, because it renders the entire existence of Fire & Blood pointless.

So then, why did Martin write Fire & Blood? Besides procrastinating on The Winds of Winter, anyways? Regardless of his intent, Rhaenyra's story is Daenerys's if she becomes a tragic hero (arguably a villain, but with a well-written fall from grace that makes her more tragic), give or take a century. Why tell the same story twice, the past story instead of the future?

Yeah, parallels are a thing in literature. I've even talked about how Daenerys does parallel Rhaenyra, and that's intentional. So does Stannis, so does Arianne, so does Cersei. But parallels are not 1=1 copies, or that becomes repetitive writing.

Unless Martin is trying to reinforce that nothing changes and nothing ever will (thanks, D&D, for your discussion of brothels as a priority in the very last five minutes of season 8!), so it doesn't even matter to try, there's got to be a reason for the parallel that isn't just lazy writing. Don't get me wrong, lazy writing exists even for the best of writers, but then why would you write Fire & Blood as a full story and go on to produce a story about it unless you're a cynical nihilist who truly, truly, truly hates women and thinks they can never, ever rule?

Female Leaders Bad: Misogyny in Fire and Blood

Yes, admittedly George RR Martin has issues with how he writes women. There's some subtle sexism in his works. No doubt.

That said, he also seems largely aware of other aspects of misogyny in society, and particularly of societal misogyny driving tragedy. If he hadn't written Cersei's chapters in A Feast for Crows, we might have a different story, but he did write those. Cersei's a villain, but she's so undeniably human and complex in her chapters that we can't help but see her as a person and appreciate her, even if we still want her stopped.

What makes Cersei sympathetic is precisely that misogyny. We see how her father's expectations of Jaime and even Tyrion differ from his of her. She was sold off to the highest bidder, in essence, and subjected to Robert's humiliating and public affairs, marital r*pe, and abuse. Is it any wonder she sought comfort where she could find it? Any other man would have been caught and Cersei executed for betraying the king who's doing the same thing and in public, but her twin brother has plausible deniability for being close to her.

As much as Cersei's actions are "ew" at best, we feel for her. During her walk of shame, we're outraged on her behalf even if we know she's going to plot a revenge that will destroy innocents, and indeed that her ending up having to take that walk is a result of her scheming against an innocent sixteen year old girl (Margaery Tyrell).

Fire & Blood only expounds on the concept of misogyny ruining lives and the realm. Rhaena. Aerea. Rhaenys. Laena. All passed over for the throne on account of their sex, and noted to be upset by it.

In fact, Alysanne, one of the few queens who does maintain equal power with her husband, has her attempts to educate women and protect her daughters from being married off too young (and then dying in childbirth) thwarted, and this thwarting is framed as wrong. Throughout Alysanne and Jaeherys' reign, the question of letting females rule as queens is a major point of contention between Alysanne and Jaeherys. The treatment of female rulers as "lesser" is honestly one of the longest-running motifs in this story, and it's never once held up as positive or justified.

Of course, the most clear "misogyny bad" characters are Rhaenyra and Alicent.

Alicent does everything the realm asks of a woman of good breeding, and she expects a reward for it: power and her legacy of her children sitting on the throne. Her legacy is literally only to arrange the power for the men in her life: her father, her husband, her sons.

And then you have Rhaenyra. She lives like a modern woman. She sleeps with whom she wants when she wants, and upon being forced into marriage with a gay man, lets him pursue men. She has a relationship in the books that is romantic/sexual with Laena as well as with Daemon. In other words, Rhaenyra has a consensual open marriage with poly elements. Laenor loves her sons as his; in fact, they are his, even if not in blood. Very modern indeed.

But society doesn't see it that way. Society, traditional, homophobic, and misogynistic, says Laenor's sons are bastards despite his loving and raising them. It says Rhaenyra pursuing her sexuality far less openly than certain past kings who sat on the Iron Throne makes her unfit. And the tragedy is that it does, but it shouldn't be this way. It's not her actions but her ignorance about how her actions will be perceived, her hubris in assuming she is exempt from society's strict rules for women.

One of the TV show's better decisions was to intercut Rhaenyra and Daemon's first almost-sex scene with Alicent and Viserys. Rhaenyra's pursuing what she wants. It's consensual. They're both into it, aware, and Daemon doesn't have power over her--in fact, that's the point. In Viserys and Alicent's scene, where they're married, Alicent so does not want to be there. Intercutting Daemon and Rhaenyra's passion with Alicent's misery reminds the audience that Rhaenyra doing this is not going to end well.

It's not fair. It's not right. It's tragic.

Tragic Heroes and Fantasy Deconstruction

Okay, so now we're going to discuss fantasy tropes.

Let's start by addressing Martin's statements on fantasy and tropes. A lot of ASOIAF's tropes pull at least in part from exactly what most modern fantasies draw from: The Lord of the Rings, the same work Martin has said he wants to pull apart and explore what its ideals mean.

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

I think this quote gets grotesquely taken out of context, honestly. I really don't think this is Martin saying that he literally wants to explore tax policies or only what happens after someone becomes king. Instead, he's speaking of how he wants the reader to look between the lines, look at how a good person can be a terrible leader precisely because of the goodness (Robb Stark) while a more morally dark person can be a great leader (Tyrion). Martin's saying that his works are messy and ask the questions, not that he literally wants to destroy everything Tolkien upholds because he thinks it's bullshit or because he thinks good people can't be good rulers without going insane.

In other words, he wants to deconstruct it and examine what makes someone a good or a bad ruler, what makes someone a good or a bad fantasy hero. Which he then literally said:

The battle between good and evil is a legitimate theme for a fantasy (or for any work of fiction, for that matter), but in real life that battle is fought chiefly in the individual human heart. Too many contemporary fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle, so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they're inevitably ugly and they all wear black. I wanted to stand much of that on its head. In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

Okay, yay. Now that's done. Let's look at some actual tropes.

What is Aragorn's? He's the long lost heir coming to claim their throne after their heroic mission. This is the most classic fantasy arc.

It's the same archetype both Daenerys and Aegon are based on.

I talked about this at length here, but in short: Aegon is the stereotype of this trope. But it's deconstructed. How?

Because while Aegon truly believes he's a long-lost prince come to claim his birthright, he's wrong. Being wrong doesn't make him a bad person. It doesn't make him a villain. It just makes him wrong.

This is a far more interesting and thematically rich development than Daenerys finding out she's not the real trope and getting mad about it. She's the one with dragons and she wasn't alone for years (Viserys).

Aegon embodies another trope, too: that of the long-lost secret prince/princess/hero who grew up not knowing that they were special. Think Harry Potter. Also think about Jon Snow, who is Rhaegar's actual son.

But rather than Jon Snow's heritage mattering to him because of a claim to the throne, Jon's heritage will likely matter far more for his internal self-perception. Romanticism, baby. That's what it's all about.

And then you have Arianne.

Arianne is the princess who wants to rule/fight and is righteously angry at sexism. This is another common fantasy trope (see, Eowyn). Daenerys is also this. However, Arianne finds out she's a pawn. Not so for Dany, who has to struggle and face abuse and numerous betrayals. This isn't to say Arianne doesn't struggle and that her pain isn't valid because it is, but Arianne is the more typical embodiment of these tropes. Daenerys is them pulled apart and looked at from new angles. Dany wants to be a savior when she rules, to set people free, not just because of her birthright (though that's a part of it for sure!) but because she knows what it's like to be bought and sold. Arianne wants to rule because of her birthright. Arianne's motives are far less internally explored; she just doesn't want to bow. Which is valid! But not quite up to Romantic standards.

Lastly, Arianne and Jon both have daddy issues, and I'm not talking about Rhaegar for Jon. Ned's his dad even if not in blood. The "my father's not whom I thought he was!" trope is present in both of them: literally for Jon, and for Arianne, in terms of Doran actually planning for a Targaryen restoration.

But again, Arianne's trope points outwards more than it does inward. Her goal is still simply to rule as queen. Aegon's is to restore the Targaryen dynasty. These are pretty typical goals for characters in fantasies. They're external.

Jon's goal, however, is to save people from the Others, the undead. Daenerys's goal is to save people from slavery. See how there's a difference?

Plus, there's development towards both of Jon and Dany having to take long, hard looks inward in order to accomplish these goals. Now Jon's dead, temporarily. I'm pretty sure that's gonna give him a complex even though he won't be an Other when he's resurrected. Pretty likely she's going to end up killing a lot of people at King's Landing, even if she doesn't intend it to have as far-reaching of consequences as it does, to get her to consider who she is and who she wants to be.

The tragic irony of focusing on restoration and rule without considering what that means is that Arianne and Aegon are likely to go up in flames. Martin's not saying that these tropes are bad, but he is saying that they're shallow (the tropes not the characters) and don't fully capture the human heart against itself struggle. He's not wrong, either.

Hence, you already have characters whose desires to restore Targaryen rule and to be queen of the Seven Kingdoms gets them killed, even if they are good people who do not deserve what happens to them. Why repeat this with Daenerys? That doesn't offer us much of anything in terms of literary parallels.

But, if we want to talk about literary parallels, let's turn again to Fire & Blood, where there's another Princess Daenerys born to Jaeherys and Alysanne. She's described as a loving, kind child who adores her siblings, her parents, animals, and more. She dies of the Shivers, a disease that manifests through symptoms of cold that kill you. Gee, I wonder what that's foreshadowing. It's not like Dany's facing off with an army of the living embodiment of Cold and Ice... oh wait.

Dany's Tropes Deconstructed

It's also true that as the Chosen One, Daenerys fulfills many villain tropes too. She's leading an outside force to invade a kingdom. She's also the daughter of a mad King who terrorized the land years before, come back to seek what is hers with fire and blood. The assumption seems to be that because she has these tropes, she must be a villain.

Listen, Martin does not play tropes straight. Ever.

Think about Sansa, and how her arc is dismantling her fairy tale simplistic ideas of what knights and chivalry and kings are like. However, Sansa maintains compassion at the core of her character in the books. She still loves. Martin's not saying that chivalry and believe in love are stupid little girl ideas. He's critiquing simplistic ideas, while showing that someone can maintain her compassion while being a shrewd politician. Through Sansa, we have cynical knights like Sandor learning how to become the courageous knights of old. That's idealistic more than anything else.

Why would Dany's supposed villain tropes be played straight? What if... the invading force is actually the saving force? I mean, I do think that Daenerys will do Bad Things in Westeros with her dragons and invading forces. But does that make her a villain?

"Everyone is the hero of their own story!" Well, sure. Yes. Very true. Martin even said this. That's not a novel idea, nor is it a terribly interesting deconstruction by itself. "Our hero is actually a villain" already exists in the series, because Martin has zero problem narrating through villains (see, Cersei).

What if that question is precisely what we're supposed to be asking: what makes a hero from a villain? What if the keyword from "everyone is their own hero" isn't the word that's never mentioned--villain--and instead "hero?" As in, the question is how someone can become a hero regardless of perception, rather than how readers' perceptions are actually warped?

In other words, the onus might be on the character's journey, not the reader's perception.

Bittersweet Romanticism

Dany's motives have always been wanting to free people. That's a far cry from Arianne's desire to be queen and an even farer cry from Eren Jaeger's "I want to kill all the enemies." In Daenerys's first chapter, she thinks about how she wants to be home and safe, and how she wants to please people.

Dany giving her all to save the world after burning the people she wanted to help, and doing it knowing that she won't be remembered well except by those who loved her and she'll be thought of as a villain--what could be more heroic in the scheme of the world? To know you will gain absolutely nothing from saving the world, and to do it anyways?

Of course, people in King's Landing who think her a villain for their losses aren't going to be entirely wrong, either. It depends on perspective, indeed.

Still, this gets to the heart of what it means to be a hero in principle, and what makes a hero heroic. It's beautiful, haunting, and cathartic. It doesn't taunt the reader with what they didn't realize, but instead satisfies with Dany achieving her goals: to create a safe-ish world to live in, a world with freedom and possibilities.

Even if she won't be a hero in the eyes of history, she will be in her core, in her heart of hearts. The individual focus, the heart against itself--readers will be privileged to know her story of heroism, even if her world doesn't.

That's Romantic to a T. That sounds like Martin to me. And, it sounds peak "bittersweet," the word Martin used to describe the broad strokes of his planned ending.

There's an additional beautiful aspect here, in that Dany would comment on her ancestor's legacy. Let's not forget that Valyria was a slave society founded upon mass human sacrifice. Daenerys as a liberator who destroys not just slavery, but who leaves room for progress away from feudalism and who saves the world from the Others whose primary value is seeking to destroy human life and turning everyone into a mass army of corpses (sounds like extreme slavery to me)... that means she destroys her family's legacy in all the right ways.

It should burn. But Dany won't be Mirra Maz Duur tied to a pyre for the Starks to ignite like in the show. She'll be doing what she did at the beginning: lighting the pyre. Her beloved won't be lying in the flames to be consumed, but instead supporting her. And this time what emerges from death will be not dragons, but human life.

#daenerys targaryen #jon snow #tyrion lannister #jonerys #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #daemon targaryen #arianne martell #f!aegon #young griff #aegon vi targaryen #eren jaeger #gon freecs #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf meta #got meta #anti-got #romanticism #asoiaf theory #valyria #cersei lannister #deconstruction

[agentem]

Emilia Clarke tells Phase Zero what she learned NOT to do from Game of Thrones and Ben Mendelsohn literally falls out of his chair laughing.

They are very cute together. I bet their father-daughter scenes will be good but I am scared Talos is going to die.

#emilia clarke #ben mendelsohn #talos #gi'ah #secret invasion #game of thrones #anti-got #phase zero #youtube #Youtube

[mutter-of-dragons]

I just want to take this off my chest, but I absolutely HATE when I see videos trying to ‘amend’ or ‘correct’ Dany’s “madness arc”, making it ‘more beliavable’. I mean, DO YOU FUCKING READ THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FIRST? DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE CHARACTER FROM THE SHOWS IS DIFFERENT?? DO YOU KNOW OF THE NEGATIVE BIASES OF BENIOFF AND WEISS WHEN IT CAME TO DANY?? I have no chill or patience to deal with this, to be honest. Not only D&D forever ruined the show for me (can’t watch without feeling sick and knowing the shitstorm that was the end), but I can’t even try to find decent discussions or analysis outside my trusted sources on tumblr. It became normal to shit on her just because of the show. And book fans who are her haters also love to parrot the same bullcrap, as if it’s some sort of foreshadowing from the books, when Benioff and Weiss pulled that shit ending from their asses. I’m never going to be open to discuss if Dany will or not be mad. This is out of question. I believe in Daenerys. Moreso than any idiot who wants to make money off of her. then write her as a ‘crazy, hysterical woman’. Stop that crap.

#daenerys defense squad #anti-d&d #anti-got #daenerys targaryen #i stand by daenerys #edited for typos

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

game of thrones did dany/tyrion so dirty like their relationship had so much potential

Clarke and Dinklage had far better chemistry with each other than with any of their other onscreen romantic partners (possibly excepting Dinklage and Sibel Kekilli, but once again the show ruined that by framing Shae as the villain -- and yes, it was always an unhealthy power balance).

I'm just a sucker for their kind of dynamic. Dany, forced by circumstances into a serious and single-minded path, surprised and intrigued by Tyrion's eccentricities and ability to find dark humor in every situation. Tyrion, browbeaten into a deeply cynical worldview, astonished to meet someone who genuinely cares and is changing the world for the better. Gimme it, you stupid show!

#tyrion x daenerys #tyrion x dany #daenerys targaryen #tyrion lannister #game of thrones #got #asoiaf #anti got #anti-got #peter dinklage #emilia clarke

[dontbotherwiththepronunciation]

Kind of whiny anti-got post because I’m still thinking about Jeyne and I’m slowly linking her to other characters from other media:

In regards to the other post. I’ve been thinking about this and I believe my strong affection for Jeyne Poole is linked to my affection for Wakaba Shinohara and the way the narrative plays with her emotions by having her be a social circle filler character, only to then suddenly deconstruct the character archetype she embodies, be given a plot and complex emotions and now that the audience is feeling tremendously for her, transforming her back into the social circle filler character.

The difference is that with RGU this is done purposefully and it is intended to make us feel the tragedy of Wakaba and her perpetual sense of inferiority over Utena and Anthy. It is intentionally meant to be ironic and in the very end the narrative still somehow subverts this by letting her turn into a car too (haha now I fully alienated anyone who hasn’t seen Utena but was still reading this) and being a pivotal element in Utena & Anthy’s liberation.

Jeyne doesn’t. Her situation isn’t an intentional critique from D&D. It’s them wanting to profit from the sensationalist rape plot without having to pay another actress or making a narrative more complicated by taking off the Stark goggles and showing Theon as a victim of them.

#speaking #this is the same level of nihilism done by Todd Solondz when he decided to give Dawn a happy ending but #also decided to recast the actress for a more conventionally attractive one and by doing so he reinforced the previous points of the movie. #the real Dawn killed herself. the Dawn who got a happy ending could only get it because she was now profitable. #it’s the same nihilism but in Solondz and RGUs case it’s intentional and coherent #In GOT it’s completely accidental and it makes me care for her so so so much to the point I feel like I need to protect her. #which is stupid. #the narrative didn't doom me it just ditched me #characters #anti-got #i always feel so bad about using that tag but I just want to make sure

[nossbean]

Anyway thinking about how Jaime’s narrative arc is in part about rejecting patriarchy and living an actively anti-patriarchal life, and how the ~~true subversion~~ of THAT trope would be to let him live and let him thrive coz patriarchy says that’s not possible, that at best it’s ruinous, miserable, at worst it’s a death sentence even if there isn’t some Official Patriarchal Enforcer swinging a literal blade for crimes against patriarchy. but also because the ways in which patriarchy punishes (short of death) Jaime’s already endured and survived, and the ways Jaime is likely to thrive do not align with the ways all Westerosi patriarchy dictates a thriving/successful man’s life must be (which we know to be a lie constructed upon cruelty and the holding of power to the detriment of all else)

so to not only survive but to thrive... SUBVERSION.

#like his tv counterpart didn’t! #jaime lannister #meta: asoiaf #anti-got #also of course brienne's arc is also on this theme; i just do not think there's a chance she'll die so #patriarchy here as in he's literally rejecting his father but moreso i'm focusing on the systemic side of things #though how much can tywin's priorities be divorced from cleaving to systemic patriarchal norms not at all i think #not the first person to speak to this and i'm sure others have done it better

[brydeswhale]

I honestly think out of all the “not so great” casting choices made in Game Of Thrones, casting Natalie Dormer as Margaery Tyrell was, like, honestly the worst.

Dormer is MY age. Watching her with Joffrey was bad enough, but then seeing her literally go AFTER Tommen was just gross.

I dk, I dk, it was just messed up.

And then the writers kind of… wrote her as the same teenager she is in the books, so she kind of came across as malicious and slightly unhinged, instead of as a teenager caught up in a political game she isn’t old enough to understand.

Also, when ppl do those edits of her with Sophie Turner’s Sansa, it’s honestly messed up. That is an actual child, folks. It also ruins the characters as friends, because Margaery just seems like another predator out to destroy Sansa for her claim.

I think a more age appropriate actress would have solved those issues. I get that Dormer is very much a name, but she made Margaery just another predatory adult who used Sansa, Joffrey, and Tommen, instead of the kid she is in the books.

Yeah, imo, worst casting choice in the whole show.

#anti-got #asoiaf #margaery tyrell #i know we all hate Joffrey but it was still gross

[triviavenus]

Decided to watch some Daenerys edits and it's very funny how every time I open the comment section of these type of videos I expect to see a variation of "If the show gave itself more time Daenerys ending would be perfect!!!" and "In the books the foreshadowing is more clear!!!". Aren't you tired of justifying the unjustifiable @show fans, be honest

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #in defense of daenerys #juju scrambled posts #i guess I am talking now #anti-got #if you ask how so to any of the ppl in the comments #you shall be answered with radio silence #or a weak attempt of clapback easily broken by a single sentence

[cannoli-reader]

According to House of the Dragon, the Targaryens are even worse.

In the pilot episode (spoilers, duh) of House of the Dragon, King Viserys, having decided to name his daughter Rhaenyra his heir, has a private conversation with her, where he reveals a family secret.  Which will be under a cut for spoilers.

According to Viserys, Aegon I, who conquered Westeros and founded the Targaryen monarchy, was motivated by a prophetic dream akin to the one that warned his ancestors to flee Valyria ahead of the Doom and settle on Dragonstone.  In this dream, he foresaw a threat to the whole world, coming out of the North, which the Targaryens and their dragons would be needed to fight, and which would require all of Westeros to stand together.  And this secret is passed on from King to Heir, which is why he is now telling Rhaenyra, because his wife and son are dead, so she’s next up. 

First of all, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep a secret. Yes, it looks bad if the threat never manifests, and maybe people get sick of a kingdom-wide multi-generational preparation and vigilance effort, but on the other hand, the Wall is still there, and the Nights Watch is still active, and the people of the North still honor and support them (despite the Targaryens giving them ample motive to feel otherwise on at least two separate occasions, see below).  This is not exactly new information to Westeros.  Spreading the news would validate a lot of current behavior and beliefs.  

Furthermore, it’s not exactly a dangerous secret to reveal.  There is no word of a clandestine magic fail-safe or superweapon that the Targaryens are preparing in secret labs, that cannot be allowed to be known, because people will try to steal or sabotage it.  As near as I can tell, the Targaryens plan to oppose this through entirely mundane means, plus dragons. The plan is to face the Others - “White Walkers” in show parlance - with overwhelming force, not secret tactics or traps, so it can hardly matter if word trickles back beyond the Lands of Always Winter that the Targaryens are onto them and getting ready for them. 

Second, the behavior of the Targaryens over the centuries does not bear this out.  There is absolutely nothing described in any of the backstory lore indicating the Targaryens making special efforts to prepare for the White Walkers. What things they do are almost incidental, or cited to have other motivations.  They name the Starks hereditary Wardens of the North, which would, in theory, allow them to rally and command troops from other regions to face this enemy, but they also created three other Wardens for the other cardinal directions, which might give them the perceived authority to defy such an effort from the Warden of the North as his equals and in the name of maintaining their own wardenships in their own spheres.  

The Targaryens have occasionally helped the Nights Watch, but not in any meaningful way.  Queen Alysanne funded the construction of a new castle on the Wall, but she did so to allow the brothers to move out of the Nightfort, with its magical history and mystic gate.  In no case should the Targaryens have been encouraging the abandonment of a fortification, much less the largest on the Wall. Alysanne also encouraged the expansion of the Gift, the lands which support the Night’s Watch, to improve their income and support, but those lands came at the expense of the Lords of the North, and the revenues that went to the black brothers were denied to the Starks and their vassals, who are the second line of defense, with Winterfell’s construction strongly suggestive of being built with fighting the Others and their wight armies in mind.  When it comes to the defense against this paranormal threat, Alysanne basically robbed Peter to pay Paul, a gambit which, over time has proven foolish, as the Nights Watch lost their ability to make the most of the lands, while the North could have been doing a better job of settling them and fortifying them against invaders over the last 200 years. 

This brings me to yet another point, that along with the Nights Watch, the Targaryens should have been taking special care to support House Stark and their role as protectors of the North. They have been staunch backers of the Nights Watch, and backstopping them when the black brothers fail or err.  Stannis Baratheon, for instance, when coming to the Wall to fend off the very threat his Targaryen ancestors moved to the mainland to stop prioritizes getting House Stark and Winterfell on his side, going so far as to scrounge for even the thinnest connections, offing the Lordship to a bastard of that House or their distant kin in the Karstarks.  

Not only is that support apparently absent, one could make a strong case that the Targaryens arrival was one of the worst things to happen to the Starks.  The marriage between ex-King Torrhen’s daughter to the ex-King of the Vale caused division within the family and amounted to nothing, when she and her husband with no known issue, were murdered by his brother seeking to seize the Eyrie for himself in a time of perceived weakness on the Iron Throne. As mentioned above, Alysanne’s donation to the Watch came at the expense of the northmen, leaving the Lord of Winterfell to appease the dispossessed lords.  

Worse, this comes of the heels of Jaehaerys I dumping a mass of politically inconvenient soldiers on the Nights Watch. They were religiously motivated rebels against his uncle and predecessor, who, for some reason, needed to be punished after Jaehaerys, seemingly in agreement with the idea that Maegor was a bad king, took the throne and mutilated many of Maegor’s servitors.  For some reason, the massive influx of a group of experienced fighters, whose primary loyalty was to a religion unlikely to put much stock in the traditions and legends of the First Men, and with some good reasons to resent their transportation by a king who rebelled against the same tyrant, did not do much for the unity of the Watch, the rebels rebelled again, taking over castles on the Wall and the Lord of Winterfell died putting them down.  

This would not be the first time a Lord of Winterfell died on the job, with the Targaryens at least peripherally responsible, and in light of their purpose, somewhat negligible.  Barthogen Stark was killed suppressing a rebellion on Skagos, with no mention of aid from the Crown. Willam Stark died fighting a wildling incursion after the Nights Watch failed to catch them climbing the wall, again, with no help from the Crown.  When Dagon Greyjoy began terrorizing the west coast of the continent, the Starks and Lannisters were forced to defend themselves, during the reign of King Aerys I, while his Hand, Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers prioritized defense against the Blackfyre pretenders in Essos. The fighting claimed the life of Beron Stark, inciting another succession crisis in the family, which will presumably be detailed in a future story The She-Wolves of Winterfell whose completion may require necromancy, given GRRM’s output pace (not the first such crisis, either, as Rickon Stark, the Heir to Winterfell died fighting beside King Daeron I in his conquest of Dorne, leaving some referenced trouble between his brothers). 

Why did they leave the Starks to handle all of this on their own?  Targaryens  have intervened to suppress rebels in the Vale and disorder in the Westerlands, under kings as bad as Maegor and as good as Aegon V.  But never when a threat arises that could endanger the first lines of defense against the threat they came to Westeros to fight!  Aerys I and Bloodraven were probably the most paranormally tuned-in regime in Westeros’ history! If any Targaryen monarch should have been aware of the importance of the North and Winterfell, it should have been this one.  

Bloodraven would later go to the Wall, with Aemon, beloved brother to King Aegon V, and both black brothers with the blood of the Dragon would eventually involve themselves with the issue, Maester Aemon researching the prophecies and corresponding with his great-great-nephew Rhaegar on the matter, while Bloodraven went beyond the Wall and became a greenseer, and is currently one of the active leaders of the efforts against the Others.  One might argue that this was not a coincidence, that they chose the Wall to prepare for the fight, but why was there no coordination with Aegon?  Why did Aegon’s agenda focus on reforms in favor of the peasantry, at the expense of the power of the lords?  While admirable in its own right, it makes little sense for a king who is trying to prepare Westeros to fight a powerful enemy.  Aegon also planned to build a  supporting coalition of powerful nobles through marriages to his children ... but why was House Stark not one of them?  One of the marital choices was House Redwyne. If there were no eligible spouses available from Winterfell, surely a lesser northern House would serve, since scion of a House Paramount was not a requirement? 

It really looks like Aegon V, like Bloodraven before him, was primarily focused on House Targaryen and mundane concerns.  As was Aegon the Conqueror.  If anything, his method of leaving the kingdoms largely to rule themselves under him, leaving their old laws and customs in place seems counterproductive to an agenda of unifying Westeros against a future threat.  At the very least, he should have been establishing a royal seat for his court in a more central location, to shift the political center of gravity in the realm closer to the direction from which the threat would come, rather than keeping it close to his beloved Dragonstone.  Dragonstone itself should have sufficed to keep control of Blackwater Bay, especially with Aegon’s closest companion and Hand as Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, while Aegon moved somewhere like Harrenhal, or ideally, on the Trident, which would have made a superb artery linking the center of Westeros together, allowing armies moving by riverboat to quickly reach the borders of the West, Reach, Vale and North. Instead, Aegon established his court about as far from the battle he brought his family to Westeros to fight as he could short of Oldtown or succeeding at conquering Dorne (speaking of which, he expended an awful lot of effort and resources conquering a poor, sparsely-populated desert that would add little to the effort against the Others, not to mention being the furthest away from the battle zone). 

Meanwhile, attempting to hold onto the Iron Throne distracted the family from their mission and cost them their dragons in the war Rhaenyra is going to start on this same show, leading to their decline and eventual destruction, as Westeros rose up in rebellion when Rhaegar Targaryen’s own inept attempts to work for the prophecy created an irreparable breach of trust with their subjects. While it is extremely likely that in the book series, Targaryen descendants Daenerys, Jon Snow and Stannis Baratheon will play a role in fighting the Others, they will almost certainly do so without the combined resources of Westeros or a unified polity.  So Aegon’s Conquest, all the blood he spilled, proved unnecessary, since the Targaryens won’t need the Throne to win his fight!

What’s worse, is that Rhaenyra, armed with the knowledge that there is something more important at stake, will still presumably press her right to the throne, not only reducing the resources available for the greater mission, in order to reduce the chances of success, by imposing an undesired female monarch on the realm.  The lords of Westeros who control the wealth and military power of the realm made it clear they wanted a male ruler in the very beginning of the first episode. So even if she wins, she has an uphill road to getting them to buy in to her mission.  We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out, but based on the books, to which the show, this particular addition aside, has been rather more faithful than Game of Thrones so far, the right course of action for Rhaenyra and Daemon to do would be to sit down with Alicent and Aegon II and set them straight on the threat Viserys confided in her.  Maybe obtain some concessions toward that mission in exchange for their support for his reign.  In the books, Aegon offered her Dragonstone, where their faction notes dragons grow best.  Couldn’t they have concentrated on breeding magical anti-ice weapons there and leveraged their draconic superiority to keep the ruling branch of the House on track?  I say all this as a supporter of Team Rhaenyra (I know she’s a shit ruler, don’t @ me; just saying, she has the right over Aegon).  There are some things that are more important than who sits on the Iron Throne, as the books remind us over and over again and the first show clearly forgot, and the second show seems bound and determined to ignore. 

And speaking Game of Thrones and their handling of the Battle for the Dawn, in this universe, as opposed to the print one, the Targaryens did not defeat the White Walkers!  Daenerys contributed dragons and troops, none of which really mattered.  All the wights killed by the Dothraki flaming arakh charge, or the Unsullied stupidly heroically holding the line before the gates of Winterfell, or incinerated by dragonfire, were reanimated when the “Night King” raised his arms.  The actual defeat of the White Walkers was effect by Arya stabbing the Night King, on her home turf, where he was pursuing Bran Stark, for his magical powers, on ground they selected. When you get right down to it, this was purely a Stark thing, and as mentioned above, the whole Targaryen mission to save the world from the Others was the single greatest factor limiting the power of House Stark and crippling their effectiveness. 

#anti-got #house of the dragon

[soundwavefucker69]

bastille has done more for the queer community by just making all of their love songs about "you" instead of specifying a gender than taylor swift has in all of her discography. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#shrooms is talking #anti taylor swift #i can't believe y'all got mad at this woman for being straight #of course she's fucking straight #gods bless #stop trying to turn her into a queer icon #she's never gonna be a queer icon

[rebouks]

click this..

then click your blog(s)

scroll all the way down and click this..

profit?

#uhm #anti ai #? #idk how to tag skdjk #but everyone should probs do this #for every blog u got too

[getvalentined]

[source]

So, in spite of suing multiple other companies with the assertion that scraping user content for generative AI training is illegal, Long Rodent has decided that the dead bird is going to do the same thing! Natively! On-platform! To train his own new generative AI engine!

With this in mind, I cannot impress this vehemently enough:

If you are on Twitter as a creator of any kind, it's time to pack up your work and GET THE HELL OUT.

#signal boosts appreciated #twitter #anti ai #rodent murders bird adventures #I had a whole rant in the tags #but it got kinda personal #so I'll do that elsewhere #just bad timing #for me specifically

[agentem]

Pedro Pascal talking about how much he loved getting killed on Game of Thrones makes me happy. Watch Hot Ones. But he talks about how it was so hot and the blood was cool and it was relaxing so he fell asleep.

Honestly, it's making me a little less mad Oberyn died in the books knowing it was such a great experience for him.

I'm so glad that Pedro got out of GoT before it went really off the rails. Unbowed. Unbent. Unbroken. Unawakened.

#asoiaf #anti-got #pedro pascal #oberyn martell #house martell

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike meets Jeremy Fitzgerald

#myart #chloesimagination #comic #jeremy fitzgerald #michael afton #mike schmidt #fnaf #fnaf 2 #fnaf fanart #five nights at freddy's #FINALLY more of Jeremy!! #sorry it’s taken so long for more of this boy but he returns 🩵 #Mike doing a self burn here too #HE knows very well he doesn’t have friends so how Michael got one #(​Mike has one friend too and that’s Jeremiah) #Least Mike made Jeremy laugh- #Jeremy just got here and his homie already being out on blast #I love the idea of Jeremy and Michael actually being friends #like Michael is awful anti social monster and he’s buddies with the most chipper guy ever #it’s good bit I think it’ll be fun to explore that more! #I gotta draw Jeremy more after this #there’s sm to draw with him 💜💜 #I hope yall like him and his design!!

[they-them-pussy]

new metric for media literacy for film bros is if they understand the barbie movie.

the kens are first presented as accessories to their barbies and it's pointed out loud that they don't even have places to stay in barbieland. one of the barbies straight up asks "wait, where do the kens stay?". they're just arm candy made to look pretty and cool while the barbies run their world.

but that's fucked up!!! the film presents it as fucked up! that's why ken screams "YOU FAILED ME!" and why he is insecure in the first place because he wanted to be respected and seen as a person, not someone who only exists in relation to someone else. should he have done what he did? no!!! that's why it's part of the conflict! the root of both of their breakdowns was in their society in that the barbies are supposed to be perfect and the kens exist in relation to them! it's barbie and ken. he was a footnote. that's why barbie apologizes to him in the end and tells him he can be himself. she doesn't have to exist by some set of rules and neither does he! it's barbie and it's ken! sure, the resolution to the whole barbieland issue wasn't perfect, BUT KEN'S WHOLE ARC IS ABOUT HOW THEIR WORLD FAILED MEN. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS MOVIE WAS 'WOMEN GOOD MAN BAD'. WHAT ABOUT THE NUANCE

#barbie #headcanon he got her house by the end btw. it's the mojo dojo casa house but it's also the dreamhouse dhdgdhshsj #look im sick of seeing the takes that are like hurr durr it's just another anti man movie #okay explain why they portrayed ken in a sympathetic light. his actions were fucked up but you could see exactly why he did them. #and in the end he is berated for his wrongs but also told that he doesn't have to continue down that path. did you miss the critique #did the pink blind you so much you couldn't see past it. did you american psycho this shit again dhdgdgdhd #barbie spoilers

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.

i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.

i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.

nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.

the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.

what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.

that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.

but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.

i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.

the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.

if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.

even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.

children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.

which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.

individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.

if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.

#oops this got really long #cd.ask #proship #disk horse #tw pedophila mention #uhhh what to tag #tw shipping discourse #this doesn't even get into the antis that i've seen proudly professing that they care more about fictional characters than real people #because i don't know how to explain to someone that real humans matter more than cartoon characters #or how to avoid content on platforms other than tumblr bc frankly thats a lot of the reason i don't use them #i don't trust an algorithm #also im turning anon off after posting this so if you want to send me hate you cant be a coward about it #also be prepared to get blocked and ignored #the only reason i answered this person is bc they weren't being hostile