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swtorpadawan · 5 months

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SWTORpadawan Headcanon: The Unforgiven

There are several passing references in the game to what happened on Tython during the five-year gap in Knights of the Fallen Empire. Right out of the gate, Lana specifically informs the Outlander that the Jedi Order took devastating casualties during the war and doesn’t know anything about any surviving leadership. The romanced Nadia Grell letter specifically mentions the attack on Tython, while Kira concludes her own letter by informing us that the Jedi Order was “dying”.

Much later, of course, we meet the Jedi who evacuated to Ossus in Jedi Under Siege, who are completely unaware of everything that’s happened around the galaxy in the past five or six years.

The conclusion we come to is that the Zakuulans attacked Tython, and some of the Jedi escaped to Ossus. (Even bringing some of the Kalikori villagers along with them.)

In my Halcyon Legacy Storyline, I’ve featured this largely unchronicled event in a couple of short stories: This Moment and How We Came to This Point. We have almost no “canon” details about it, although from what we see later on Ossus, it is clear that some or all of the Kalikori villagers went with the evacuees. (In my story, this was a minority of the Twi’leks who chose to join the exile, and Kalikori Village still stands on Tython.)

But let me expand on all that: One head-canon I have is that when the Jedi were preparing for the attack and their evacuation, they realized that they would need several defense teams to slow the Zakuulans down. A sort of “rear guard” if you will. Given their experiences with the Eternal Empire up to that point, they knew that losses to these special groups would be extremely heavy, assuming any of those Jedi made it off Tython at all.

One of these combat teams of volunteers (one that formed organically rather than by design) was made up entirely of Force-users who had experienced the touch of darkness in their respective pasts. Each of them carried a degree of responsibility and guilt for the circumstances of their lives. That didn’t mean they didn’t believe in the Jedi Order and their precepts; on the contrary, most of them were quite grateful to the order for their help. But individually, each of them came to the conclusion that if the Order was to begin anew, they would need to save as many Jedi of all ranks as they could, even at the cost of their own lives.

At the suggestion of one of their members, the group would call themselves ‘the Unforgiven’.

When the remaining members of the Jedi Council – Archivist Gnost-Dural and Barsen’thor Ulannium Kaarz – protested that it went against every principle the Jedi held dear to place individuals at risk of being sacrificed on the basis of their past experiences. The nominal leader of the Unforgiven – one Bengel Morr –countered that they weren’t seeking forgiveness from the Council or the Order; they were thankful they had already been given that. Rather, they were seeking to forgive themselves.

The Council still objected to the name but under the circumstances, they could not deny the group’s right to fight for the Order.

As the might of the Eternal Empire descended upon Tython, the Unforgiven held the line. Every time it appeared the Knights of Zakuul and their legions of Skytroopers would break through and turn the retreat into a massacre, the Unforgiven were there, forcing the Eternal Empire to pay for every inch and making sure that as many Jedi as possible were saved.

In the aftermath of the exodus, in recognition of their sacrifice, Gnost-Dural vowed that the courage of the Unforgiven would forever be remembered in the Jedi Archives.

Without further ado, I present the Unforgiven.

Master Surro and the two survivors of the Seventh Line. We first encounter Master Surro and the Seventh Line on Ziost. [There’s a whole bunch about the Seventh Line that I find controversial, including whether or not Satele Shan and the Council even knew about them and what they were doing on Ziost. Instead, we only hear about them from Theron or Lana, even if we are playing a Jedi Master sitting on the Council.] Nevertheless, Vitiate’s possession of Surro and the others was one of the best subplots of the Rise of the Emperor story. Naturally, during my playthrough with Corellan Halcyon, he spared Surro (despite Lana’s protests) and the two other unnamed Seventh Line members, as well. (They couldn’t have given them names???) In the months that followed, Surro and the others were treated with kindness by the Jedi, but when the Eternal Empire appeared poised to strike at Tython, remembering the harm they had done on Ziost under Vitiate’s influence, they were among the first to volunteer for the defense teams.

Among the Unforgiven, they would be among the first to die during the retreat, covering the final withdrawal from the Temple.

[Tagging @swtorramblings and @starknstarwars ]

Fortris Gall. Seventeen years before the fall of Tython, Fortris Gall had been an impressive young Jedi Knight during the closing days of the First Great Galactic War. A hero during the first battle of Balmorra, Gall bitterly opposed the conditions of the Treaty of Coruscant. Joining a conspiracy led by Master Dar’nala, Gall took part in the bombing of the Galactic Senate on Coruscant in an effort to vacate the Treaty by blaming the Sith for the act of terrorism. After a fateful encounter on Dantooine with Satele Shan, Darth Baras and Darth Angral, Gall realized the extent of his error, abandoning Dar’nala to her fate.

Gall understood that if he returned to the Jedi and the Republic, he would be held responsible for his crimes. Unable to face his former Master – the legendary Orgus Din, who sat on the Jedi Council, Gall withdrew into the Outer Rim. There, far from the frontline galactic conflicts, he rediscovered what it meant to be a Jedi in his own way, helping isolated colonies to resist attacks by pirates and slavers.

He eventually found a measure of peace.

When the Eternal Empire began its campaign against the known galaxy, Gall initially declined to get involved. He was well aware of his own legacy and was worried that he would repeat his mistakes.

But when he heard that Orgus Din had been slain years before while fighting Darth Angral at the start of the Second Galactic War, Gall realized he had to make peace with his time as part of the Jedi Order. He arrived on Tython mere days before the attack, and – after meeting with Bengel Morr, another former apprentice of Din’s – immediately joined the Unforgiven. During the fighting, he bravely felled three Zakuulan Walkers single-handedly with his twin lightsabers before finally being cut down by an Exarch.

Fashk. Growing up, the Flesh Raider known as Fashk always knew he was different from most of his people. He saw things that they didn’t. Felt things that they didn’t. Eventually, during the Flesh Raider uprising of 10 ATC, he realized he shared the gifts of the hated Jedaii. Desperate to earn his place with the Order and learning that they had recently begun supporting the Kalikori villagers, Fashk abducted a young Twi’lek named Viyo Kobbeth. This led him to the attention of a talented Padawan on Tython in Corellan Halcyon, who sought to rescue the pilgrim. Despite the severe nature of the situation, Corellan agreed to support Fashk’s introduction into the Order. At last, he would become a mighty hunter.

The next few years were difficult for Fashk. Although he was talented in the Force, denying his own aggression went against every instinct that had been ingrained in him as a Flesh Raider, both genetic and cultural. Nevertheless, he managed not to attack any of his fellow trainees, so he maintained his place with the Jedi, tentative though it was.

Finally given the chance to see combat on the world of his birth, Fashk was quick to volunteer for the toughest combat assignment available to cover the evacuation, and that meant the Unforgiven.

During the attack, the Flesh Raider lashed out with the Force with a ferocity that startled the Zakuulans, briefly driving them back and buying the Jedi precious moments.

Fashk was never happier than in the last moment of his life.

Loyat. Loyat was a life-long Sith, trained on Korriban and apprenticed to Darth Arho, a Dark Councilor and Loyat’s eventual lover. Later as a Sith Lord, Loyat fought under Arho’s command during the Battle of Ilum. Abandoned by her master during a Republic counterattack, Loyat was defeated and captured by Corellan Halcyon and Kira Carsen. Realizing that everything Arho had taught her had ultimately been a lie, she abandoned the teachings of the Sith. After a relatively short time in a Republic prison, Loyat – at Corellan’s recommendation – was sent to Tython to begin her recovery and possible training as a Jedi, should she accept it.

Although grateful for the chance to work through her trauma, Loyat struggled to fully embrace the Jedi path. Her emotions were too close to the surface for her to make that commitment. When the Eternal Empire was poised to attack Tython, the Jedi were prepared to designate Loyat as a dependent and prioritize her evacuation. Partially out of gratitude and partially out of pride, Loyat insisted on joining the defensive combat teams. Knowing her history with Corellan on Ilum, Bengel Morr recommended her for the Unforgiven.

Loyat fought bravely against the Zakuulans, destroying dozens of Skytroopers until she was eventually knocked unconscious in an artillery explosion from an Eternal Empire walker as the Unforgiven fell back.

Loyat was officially listed as “Missing – Presumed Killed” in the Jedi Order’s after-action report. After all, it seems implausible to believe she could have survived…

[Author’s Note: Tagging Loyat’s #1 fan girl, @raven-of-domain-kwaad as well as @alexsrandomramblings ]

Sajar. Once a member of the Dark Council years ago before his defeat at Tol Braga’s hands, the path to redemption has been a long one for Sajar who faced numerous setbacks over the years. His lapse on Quesh while commanding Republic troops led to him executing several prisoners of war and led to a fateful encounter between the Hero of Tython, Corellan Halcyon, and the Emperor’s Wrath, Lord Scourge.

Sajar spent years recovering from his ordeal on Quesh determined not to falter again. When he heard that Tol Braga, who had been his master, had succumbed to the Emperor’s mind control techniques, it led to another crisis of faith, this time leaving him catatonic for a time. While in this state, Sajar experienced several Force-visions involving Corellan Halcyon.

Although he again recovered, word that Halcyon had been killed aboard Darth Marr’s flagship darkened his mood. When it was clear the Zakuulan’s attack on Tython was imminent, he was among the first to volunteer for the combat teams.

During the fighting, the Unforgiven were briefly at risk of being encircled, which would have allowed the Eternal Empire to bypass their defense and strike at the Jedi ships as they lifted off planet. Recognizing that the Order’s survival meant far more to him than the inner peace of a single faltering Jedi, Sajar reached out to the Dark Side and embraced the power that had once been his as one of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. The Zakuulans, unprepared to face the tactical challenge of a potent Sith amongst the Jedi, were briefly stunned. As he unleashed a fearsome storm of lightning against the Knights of Zakuul, the last three survivors of his team were able to pull back and continue the fight, allowing the last of the evacuation ships to escape.

In the final seconds of his life, Sajar received the gift of one final vision from the Force. With tears trailing down his cheeks, he let out a cry of laughter as he saw that Corellan Halcyon had not only survived but that he would one day meet with the survivors of Tython, many of whom would owe their lives to Sajar.

Sajar did not die as a Jedi, but his sacrifice allowed many other Jedi to live.

[Author’s Note: Special thanks to @taraum for the bit about Sajar having visions concerning Corellan’s future, as that concept was shamelessly pilfered from her amazing Motivations story that you should definitely go read. Also tagging @shabre-legacy ]

Ako Domi. A hero during the First Great Galactic War, Domi was captured by the Sith Empire during the Battle of Sullust, a conflict that earned him a legendary status in the Republic. Imprisoned at Shadow Town on Nar Shaddaa, Domi was subjected to horrific torments, and watching his fellow prisoners turn on each other eventually broke him. Now a Sith, Domi and his apprentices would eventually encounter Corellan Halcyon and Kira Carsen years later during the Power Guard Crisis. The two Jedi defeated the Sith, but Corellan refused to strike the killing blow on the former Jedi, instead insisting instead that Domi be sent to Tython in an attempt to recover his humanity. (Satele Shan later would commend Corellan for his decision, though predictably Jaric Kaedan would not.)

Domi’s return to the Jedi path was a slow and arduous one. Part of him embraced the familiarity of the Order and its teachings. But with the guilt with everything he had done, of the lives he had destroyed in Shadow Town, it took him years before he could trust himself to hold a lightsaber again.

But recover he did. Just in time to meet the Zakuulan invasion.

It was Ako Domi who dubbed the defense team ‘the Unforgiven’. None of the other members objected.

As the battle of Tython waged on, no one fought with greater zeal and determination than Domi. For a few hours, he was once again the Hero of Sullust, fighting in a hopeless battle.

He was one of just three Jedi left still fighting at the end.

Domi gave his life to allow Bengel Morr and Nalen Raloch a few fleeting moments to fall back to their last defensive trench, where they reported their status to the evacuation fleet in the final transmission from Tython.

Bengel Morr. Another former padawan of Jedi Master Orgus Din, Bengel Morr was traumatized by the destruction of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant during the Sack at the end of the last war. Withdrawing from the Order and the Force, Morr spent years navigating the galaxy’s criminal underworld, learning the ways of power. A decade of preparation later, he reemerged on Tython with an apprentice, determined to destroy the Jedi Order by controlling the Flesh Raiders.

Morr’s defeat at Corellan Halcyon’s hands at the end of the uprising was a revelation to him. In that moment at the Forge, he saw the true future of the Jedi, and he finally understood his own role to play in that destiny.

In the weeks that followed under the care of the Masters of Tython, Morr slowly started to recover. With his pain eased, he started to remember his old self. Bengel realized what he had done, and was left guilt-ridden, even more so when he learned of the death of Orgus Din at the hands of Darth Angral. But the consoling messages he received from Corellan helped ease his suffering, and by the Battle of Corellia, the short-handed Jedi were willing to send the recovered Nautolan into battle.

Morr distinguished himself during the fighting against the Sith, though witnessing the horrors of war first-hand once again raised the specters of Coruscant in the dark corners of his mind. Sensing his unease, the Masters allowed him to return to Tython as part of a training cadre; one that included Nalen Raloch, formerly of Kalikori Village. The very people who Morr had tormented during the Flesh Raider uprising he led.

Facing Nalen Raloch and his resentment on a daily basis proved to be one of the greatest challenges of Bengel’s life. The Twi’lek harbored considerable hatred towards the Nautolan for everything the pilgrims of his village had endured.

It took years for Bengel to earn Nalen’s trust and respect. But in the process, Bengel made peace with some of his own demons. The two became close friends.

The training cadre missed the fighting on Tython during the Sith Empire’s assault on the Temple before the Revanite Crisis as they were hundreds of kilometers away on a survey mission scouting the Flesh Raiders. A year later when it became clear that the Zakuulans intended to attack Tython, Bengel – who had endured two sackings of Jedi Temples – vowed he would not allow a third.

The Unforgiven were born, with Bengel as their nominal leader. And on Tython, Bengel Morr finally met his destiny, making peace with his past.

Nalen Raloch. Nalen Raloch had always been a protector. When the Kalikori pilgrims were driven from Ryloth, he protected them from their orthodox Twi’lek persecutors as a young warrior. After they settled on Tython, he emerged as his village’s champion, holding off the predators in the Flesh Raiders and other indigenous species.

But serving as a protector is a double-edged sword for every being; when he found the holocron of Rajivari, Raloch was seduced by the promise of power he needed to defend his people, and in the promise of striking back at the Jedi who had ignored his peoples’ suffering for all their posturing assertion of moral superiority.

It was only after his confrontation with a talented young Mirialan padawan named Ulannium Kaarz that Nalen realized that everything he was trying to do to protect his people would have led to their destruction had he not been stopped.

Nalen, under the care of the Jedi, slowly began to rebuild his life and his sense of identity.

He came to see the value in defending not just his own people, but all people. He came to understand that he could be a protector without letting that consume him.

When he was confronted with training beside the man who had led the Flesh Raider uprising, he was beyond disgusted. He nearly quit the Jedi on the spot.

But as time went on, he began to see Bengel’s compassion. His dedication. His commitment not only to the Jedi but to his own redemption for his actions.

Nalen would learn more from Bengel than he’d learned from anyone.

When Bengel volunteered to lead one of the defense teams, Nalen didn’t hesitate to join him, despite knowing the likely outcome.

During the Battle of Tython, Nalen fought hard, but he found himself increasingly distracted. As the Eternal Empire fell upon the Jedi home world, he was terrified that the Zakuulans would turn their eyes towards Kalikori Village, knowing that his people would have been wiped out had they sent even a handful of Skytroopers in that direction.

Had Bengel not been by his side, he would have abandoned the Jedi and returned to his old home in a desperate attempt to save his fellow Twi’leks.

As it stood, Nalen and Bengel were the last two living document Jedi on Tython. In the final message from the retreating Order, Ulannium, now a master on the Jedi council, exchanged kind words. The Barsen’thor further revealed that the Zakuulans had bypassed Kalikori Village, much to Nalen’s relief.

Nalen and Bengel were alone.

Before the end, the two exchanged a fleeting moment. They acknowledged the possibility of what might have been between them in another life.

Nalen had found what he had sought for so long; the strength he’d needed to defend his people.

@grandninjamasterren @swtorhub

Thanks for reading.

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cantsayidont · 6 months

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Summer (?) 1992. The final game supplement for the Mayfair Games DC HEROES ROLE-PLAYING GAME was a loose-leaf WHO'S WHO supplement, intended to complement DC's loose-leaf WHO'S WHO update. Only three of the four planned volumes were released before Mayfair lost the DC license. The first volume includes this entry for Legionnaire Brainiac 5, also covered in 2995: THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES SOURCEBOOK, which came out months later.

Brainy's game statistics are mostly the same (although this entry gives him 20 more Hero Points), but the special Psychological Instability rules are unique to this version. This wasn't really a problem anymore in the period when this supplement was published, since it really refers to one particular story from 1979 (a guy loses his shit and creates a universe-destroying super-monster ONE TIME and nobody ever lets him live it down …), but it's an interesting mechanic, so I can see why it was included. The reverse side also has a handy checklist of Brainiac 5 appearances, for completists:

The Personality/Role-playing section on the front side makes some dubious assertions. The first paragraph says:

He might be incredibly intelligent, but Brainiac 5 has a great deal of difficulty when it comes to expressing his emotions. When he first joined the Legion, he tried to concentrate on his feelings to fit in with his teammates, none of whom was Coluan. He even fell in love with Laurel Gand and spent a number of peaceful years with her. But inevitably, he became so overwhelmed with leading the team and protecting the universe that he was forced to forgo the luxury of emotion so that he could use his intelligence to its capacity.

While the 2995 sourcebook was written by Legion scripters Tom and Mary Bierbaum, this supplement was not, and I'm not sure what Winninger was talking about in the final sentence. What had happened in the latter third of the 1984–1989 Levitz series was that Brainy had fomented a conspiracy to avenge the death of Superboy by destroying the Time Trapper, one of the Legion's most powerful enemies, a plan that involved sacrificing Brainy's old friend Jaxon Rugarth. The other Legionnaires then put Brainy on trial for violating the Legion code, and although he was exonerated, he was so annoyed by their attitude that he resigned in a fit of pique and went back to Colu. He returned during the Magic Wars and sort of mended fences, although the team subsequently collapsed and he went on to other things during the five-year gap (principally trying to find a cure for the "Validus plague" afflicting Saturn Girl's kids). Some of the specific circumstances were subsequently retconned in ways not reflected in the actual comics, but that was still basically the gist at the time this supplement was published. It was messy, but it was certainly NOT a matter of his forgoing "the luxury of emotion."

The second paragraph says:

As a Brainiac, Dox has an affinity for pure logic. As time goes on, he seems less and less interested in establishing normal relationships with his teammates in the reformed Legion.

This was not at all true. Indeed, one of the charming aspects of the "Five Years Later" period was that Brainy had actually mellowed quite a bit. He was still a little awkward, and there was unresolved baggage between him and Laurel (who in the interim had had a baby with his best friend!), but he was more at peace with himself, and more patient with the people around him, than he'd ever been in past Legion stories. According to the Bierbaums' sourcebook, he was even writing sweet little haiku about his former teammates in his spare time — hardly the action of a cold-blooded logician.

#comics #who's who #mayfair games #dc heroes #brainiac 5 #querl dox #legion of super heroes #legion of superheroes #laurel gand #the conspiracy storyline showed brainy being ruthless #but hardly unemotional #the actual game statistics are whatever #the dc heroes game designers tried three times to come up with workable gadgetry rules #none of them successful #and modeling a “super-genius” character like brainy in game terms is tough

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speaker-of-the-void-cats · 1 year

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Pattern is system and system is sequence, but what is sequence?

Of course!

Phoenix Protocol

Do not grieve the dying star. Its death kindles newer life, and thus the wheel turns again. "Warlocks are edging in on Titan territory, I tell you." "What do you mean?" "Well, first I started losing fistfights with them in the Crucible. That's an affront to everything Titans stand for. If Wei-Ning were here, she'd die of shame!" "I'm sure she'd be thrilled, honestly." "That's beside the point. This thing with the fancy rift? It's basically Ward of Dawn." "It doesn't block ballistics." "But it does everything else! It's the same thing as the Ward we had before the Red Legion! It's outright plagiaristic!" "It doesn't blind people either." "Won't you just let me have my outrage?"

Astrocyte Verse

The ideocosm contained within this helm transforms the wearer's head from flesh and/or exoneurons to the pure, raw stuff of thought. Ghost, record this. Trial 1: I am now putting the Astrocyte Verse on my Ending Beginning of all endings Dying into infinite composite All nothings begin therewhen Fear is very small and it is everywhy and it is not fear it is a brutal spark a nerve ending straining under weight multimyr iteration could not foresee even though it is just that because there is no other— Acausals whickering away become jagged umami zeroes Awe yourself toward reddening shift For We Am Aaaaaaah Aaaaaah AAAAAAH [Ghost note: key of Eb minor] [silence lasting 4.22 minutes] Good work, Ghost. Now, let's go again. Trial 93. I am now putting the Astrocyte Verse on my head—

Mantle of Battle Harmony

There is no strength in letting go. Crash Site, Nessus Terrae, Day Two ** Panesh could see the Cabal warrior's eye pressed against the gap in the torn metal hull. The frigate crash had trapped them both in the wreckage, and only a haphazard cascade of heavy metal beams separated the two. The Cabal had an entire length of hallway to prowl, yet here she was again, her rumbling voice filling the space where the Lightbearer was crouched. "Do you truly think you could do it?" she asked. "I am curious." Panesh shrugged. "Sure. You're a big target. I'd shoot until you stopped moving." "No," she snarled. "In a real fight, with blades. No guns, no Light-magic." "Vargessus," Panesh said patiently, "you're five times my size. Guns and Light-magic are my only choices here." Vargessus pulled back from the opening in disgust. "Cowards. Your kind relies too much on your magic." She paced in her hallway like a caged animal. "It gives you the luxury to be soft." She was interrupted by a metallic twang from somewhere far above them. For a moment, the steady dripping of foul, brackish water in the corner of Panesh's cell became a weak stream. He pushed his empty helmet beneath the flow. "The Light gives us the freedom to accomplish great things," Panesh said. He laid one of his metal greaves flat on the ground and carefully poured half of the water into it. "The best of us can be strong just by holding that power inside us—we don't have to let it out." Panesh slid the makeshift trough under the lowest beam and into the corridor. There was a quiet moment as the two survivors drank. "Ignovun, the leader of Empress Caiatl's fleet?" Vargessus grumbled. "His helm was crafted by Psions and contains their very will. It grants him power over flame." "What does he do with that power?" Panesh could hear the shrug in Vargessus' voice: "He kills." Panesh chuckled and his stomach cramped in protest. He drew his knees up to his body. "Right now, I'd fight the empress herself for something to eat," he groaned. There was a rustling near the collapsed beams. Panesh looked up as a thick finger pushed a chunk of fatty meat ration through a gap in the metal. "There. Eat," said Vargessus. "I want you strong when I kill you."

Starfire Protocol

13.4 billion years ago, the first stars kindled out of darkness, seeding the future of all life. The Protocol is contained in the patterns on the robe that, if scanned at the molecular level, describe a Turing-compatible virtual computer and program that, when executed on said computer, calculates the entire Protocol, exactly as it was determined in the Precipice of Flame. This is of little interest to most Guardians, who can subconsciously "load" the program simply by looking at the pattern. In execution, the Protocol enhances the use of Solar Light to catalyze fusion. It is up to us to remember the deeper truth—that the Precipice showed us the uses of fire, that the highest form of fire is the stellar flame, and that no life would exist, anywhere in the cosmos, without the apocalyptic detonations of supernovae. Those who fear fire have forgotten that it is their true ancestor.

Sequence is pattern.

The Warlocks will make a difference. Mark my words.

Have you ever ventured into the DEEP texts? Not just into the DEEP reaches of the Cryptarchy. DEEPER. DEEP into the system. DEEP beyond it. DEEP into yourself. Repetition, building. Rising. DIVING. It can change you. Kill you, bit by bit, yes. But then, redefine you anew.

The repetition can be maddening though, can it not? It can make your understanding DEEPER... or it can blind you to even the simplest shape. DIVE too DEEP too fast and the word stops being DEEP. You have to take it slow. DIVE. Get used to the pressure. Understand it. Equalize. DEEPER. Don't lose yourself. Your eyes and ears might start to bleed. You don't want to DROWN IN IT. Don't DROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDROWNDRO /anomaly:detected//MARIANAPROTOCOL:active//quarantineprocess:active//anomalyaudit:negative//ABYSSALMARINERINITIATIVE:pending//LAUNCH? Y/N

#destiny #destiny the game #destiny 2 #destiny lore #truth to power #master rahool #follow the daito rabbit #rahool would love it there #call me the grandmaster of semiosis #sagira #the witness #the traveler #the void #destiny warlock #put a pin in this guardian

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nerds-yearbook · 8 months

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Vol 3 of Legion of Super-Heroes concluded with issue 63#, cover date August, 1989. While vol 4# was issued only a couple of months later, cover date November, 1989, there was a five year story gap between the two series. ("Magic Wars pt 4: Where Has All the Magic Gone?" Legion of Super-Heroes 63#, Vol 3, DC Comic Event)

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lilihasabadweek · 2 years

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Anakin walks back to the bedroom and sinks onto the edge, putting his head in his hands as he processes it all. Fives. Hardcase. Echo. A third of his legion. He’s married. He has a child. There’s a three year gap in his memory.

He cries quietly and runs his hands through his hair and spends about twenty minutes in the bedroom before coming back out to the two of you.

We’re settled under a blanket while I feed Luca and also message Ben with one hand.

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thefoldedbird · 2 years

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Someone submitted an ask of a nearly exact scenario I have drummed between Orla and Vol’jin and I’m fairly sure it’s a smaller-scale trope. And I love it. So here’s more Vol’jin and Orla stuff, but bullet style.

So I postpone shadowlands stuff during Orla’s time with Vol’jin. Basically while Orla’s traveling around Azeroth during those two years before Vol’jin’s revival Sylvannas is Warchief. Sylvannas’ leaves the horde shortly before he is revived. There’s like a three/five year gap I insert between Sylvannas leaving and the beginning of shadowlands a la the splitting of the lich kings helm.

However, Vol’jin does die again before the events of Shadowlands.

Well, I haven’t decided that either. Loa can call upon shadow hunters to do tasks.

…it works, he’s still dead because of legion and all the way through BFA and then alive for the gap before shadowlands. It works.

I can’t find the ask and I don’t remember where I was going with this. I started this days ago…

Probably had something to do with him dying again or becoming a Loa or my indecision on whether I even want him to become a Loa.

I like the angst of him being immortal and Orla being mortal and having to deal with the issues that brings. Like the fact that Loa aren’t supposed to take invested emotional interest in mortals.

But also I suck at resolving angst because I always end up pushing it so far I can’t come up with a resolution that doesn’t sound like OOC bullshit.

Also fuck angst, these are borderline comfort characters at this point.

The big blue motherfucker went through enough. Lost his dad, lost his best friend, lost his home a few times, had his throat slit by order of the worst Warchief, and his dying legacy is naming the new worst Warchief. Let him rest.

Only similar ask I can find is the one I’m writing out as a story for Pinned where Orla pins Vol’jin to the floor and teases him by telling him all the things she loves about him.

Haven’t really landed on an inciting factor yet. Nothing I’ve come up with sounds in character. Probably just going to be pointing out that normally humans don’t find trolls attractive and vice versa.

#two spirits au

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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LaserWriter II

“LaserWriter II” is Tamara Shopsin’s fictionalized history of Tekserve, NYC’s legendary Apple computer repair store. It’s a vivid, loving, heartfelt portrait of an heroic moment in the history of personal computing: a moment when computers transformed lives and captured the hearts of people in every field of endeavor.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374602581/laserwriterii

Shopsin, of course, is one of the Shopsins, of Shopsin’s Restaurant, the famously eccentric, floridly weird, and completely and utterly amazing NYC institution (also: quite possibly the best restaurant in the world). It’s a restaurant with hundreds of menu items, where parties of five are prohibited. A restaurant whose chef, Kenny Shopsin, blocked all print reviews by the simple expedient of telling any newspaper fact-checkers who rang up that the joint was permanently closed.

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/10/16/eat-me-memoir-and-cookbook-from-shopsins-the-best-most-eclectic-eatery-in-greenwich-village/

A restaurant, in other words, that is run as much out of a commitment to how things should be as a how they are. Not a mere market-seeking entrepreneurial venture aimed at capturing value, where the customer is always right: rather, a work of passion, integrity and love.

The world was once full of such places: restaurants where the chef served the food they loved, not the food that was most profitable; publishers who published the books the world needed to read; clubs that booked the bands they needed to hear. Even the largest firms were not exempt from this: Walt Disney won public admiration for lavishing detail on his themepark far beyond anything justifiable under market conditions.

Today, those places have been mostly steamrollered by remorseless financialization, the vampiric process of extracting all slack and kindness, leaving behind a cruel mechanical husk.

The first Apple computers shipped with schematics, Woz’s hacker-friendly diagrams that both showed off his brilliant engineering and invited follow-on tinkerers to try their hand at it. The Mac sealed up the Apple box, but its core apps — Filemaker, Hypercard, and more — invited everyday users to design and share their own tools.

From the Apple ][+ to the Mac, legions of people who didn’t think of themselves as “computer users” discovered the life-altering power of creative automation. They fell in love — more, they became obsessed.

As we all know, computers aren’t particularly reliable. Steve Jobs’s insistence that the Mac ship without a fan created mountains of Macs with burned-out power-supplies. The creative love-affair with the Mac soured — the computer that seduced and enthralled its owner had betrayed it.

Into that gap sprang Tekserve — a computer repair company run and staffed by misfits, beloved by bike messengers for its $0.10 Coke machine. A place where the UPS guy was always welcome at the weekly catered lunch and where the laser-printer techs will spend an hour on the phone with you, troubleshooting your stuck rollers.

No charge.

LaserWriter II is the story of Claire, a 19 year old who stumbles into a job as a laser-printer tech at Tekserve. In some ways, it’s a love story, as Claire falls head-over-heels for repair and troubleshooting. There’s romance in understanding how devices work and how they fail. There’s heroism in putting them to rights again, beating back entropy and returning them to the people who rely on them.

This is a hymn, then, to the #RightToRepair, to service, and to the frustrating and complicated relationship that humans have to machines, and how that complicates and enhances our relationship to one another.

Shopsin is a tremendous and dryly hilarious writer, whose work I’ve enjoyed since reading her previous book, Arbitrary Stupid Goal, a memoir of life at Shopsin’s:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/07/22/arbitrary-stupid-goal-a-memoir-of-growing-up-under-the-tables-of-the-best-restaurant-in-new-york/

In LaserWriter II, Shopsin shows us how she can wield understatement and blunt metaphor together. The story arc is complexified by the creepy older man, a Tekserv alum, whom Claire is obliged to call upon for help in repairing the legendary LaserWriter 8500 — the biggest and most complex printer Apple ever made. The creepiness of his persistent advances is painted in muted colors, but no less creepy for it, and serve as reminder of the way that tech culture has pushed talented women to the margins. As counterpoint to this light-touch social commentary are passages in which Shopsin anthropomorphizes the components of the computers Claire is fixing, their existential dread of the looming repair and their joy at being put back into service.

Notwithstanding the fantasy dialog between printer subassemblies, LaserWriter II is a perfect addition to the techno-realist literature: tales whose drama and arc depend on the real-world capabilities and limitations of real computers in the real world. Its precision and rigor and matched by its sensitivity and humor.`

#pluralistic

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coochiequeens · 3 years

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Women outperforming men in education didn’t do much for all the women who lost careers during Covid. Another question that never makes it into these articles is what is wrong with a lot of corporate workplaces if men who continue to make more money then their better educated women colleagues?

UNITED STATES

📷

With 50% more women than men enrolling, is HE failing?

Nathan M Greenfield 23 October 2021

With the exception of a few luminaries such as former Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust and feminist professor Judith Butler at the University of California, Berkeley, from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (Princeton) to the linguistics professor and social commentator Noam Chomsky (MIT), the public face of American colleges and universities is predominantly male. But the hyper-masculine world of National Collegiate Athletic Association’s conferences – the Big Ten, Pac-12 or Southeastern Conference – and their legions of college football and basketball fans differ markedly from who is actually on the campuses. On the quadrangles of the nation, women outnumber men by 60% to 40%. “There is a gender gap in education generally, but that gap is magnified and illuminated once we hit the university level,” says Dr Richard V Reeves of the New York-based Brookings Institution. “We see it in the transition from high school to university, and we see it in the ability to stay at university. The gender inequality that we see with regard to college is not just with enrolment but in completion. The US has a real problem with completion by comparison to enrolment. But getting onto campus is not the same thing as leaving the campus with a credential.” Gender gap reversed Since 1970, the number of students enrolled in America’s colleges and universities has more than doubled, to 16,686,893. Over this period, the male-female ratio has changed by 26%. In 1972, the year (Federal) Title IX laws designed to promote gender equity came into force, there were 12% more males on campus than females. Over the next decade the gap vanished. By 2019, a 14-percentage point gap had opened, this time with there being more women than men. This change is manifest in almost every department and faculty. In 2018-19, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in psychology, for example, women earned more than three and a half times the number of degrees men did: 92,223 to 24,313. In the same year, 32,704 men earned diplomas in communications while almost 60,000 women did. Before Title IX was passed, 11% of the veterinary students were female; by 2007, 75% were. According to a Pew Research Center report published last April, in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), women earn 35% of mathematics masters degrees, 37% of physical sciences, 27% of engineering and only 19% of computer science degrees. However, women earned 58% of life science (agriculture, environmental science and biology) degrees and 83% of degrees in health-related fields. In 2019, the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that women made up 52.4% of matriculants. We know that education is good for the economy and for society, says Reeves. More educated people tend to be healthier and there is a well-established link between education and economic growth. “That’s one of the reasons why, even today, we work so hard to get more women into education. The cause of women’s education has always been one of gender equity, of course, but it’s also been one of economic development, and that is just as true today, just as true of men.” Pandemic impact The COVID-caused drop of 603,000 in last year’s enrolment did not affect men and women equally. The percentage drop for men was seven times larger than for women: -5.1% to -0.7%. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, over the past five years, as the university-aged cohort has declined nationwide, university enrolment has declined by 1.5 million; 1.1 million or 71% of these vacant chairs would have been filled by men. Writing in a report titled The male college crisis is not just in enrollment, but completion, published by the Brookings Institution earlier this month, Reeves and Ember Smith have sounded the alarm about the length of time it takes men, as compared to their female peers, to either attain an associate bachelor degree (from a two-year college) or a bachelor degree from a four-year college or university. (Two-year community colleges provide both

technical education and college-level courses, thus providing a pathway to four-year colleges and universities for academically weaker students as well as for underprivileged students, a disproportionate percentage of whom are black or Latinx.) In addition to men making up more than half of the 40% of undergraduates who drop out from college, many of those who remain follow what Reeves calls a “zig zag” path that contrasts starkly with the “smoother path we see women taking” through higher education. According to Reeves and Smith, only 40% of men graduate from college or university in four years as against 50% of women. In five years, a total of 55% of men will have graduated while the figure for women is close to 65%. After six years (that is, 150% of the ‘normal time’ needed to earn a four-year degree), a total of 60% of men and 67% of women will have a diploma. The problem with this ‘stop-start’ trajectory is not just that men take longer to graduate (and in many cases end up paying more for their degree because they were enrolled over more semesters). “It has consequences,” Reeves says, “because it means that men are easier to derail.” The dating gap In an interview on CNN in late September, after host Michael Smerconish introduced viewers to the 20-percentage point differential between the number of women and men on campus, Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said that this gap in education negatively impacts the formation of couples. While the number of men and women on the dating app Tinder is equal, Galloway continued, women are interested in only 4% of the men. “What do those for women have? They signal success with a college degree. Women aren’t interested in mating with men who don’t have college degrees.” (Galloway’s point belongs to what psychologists call ‘assortative mating’, whereby couple-formation decisions are based on such observable characteristics as religion or, in this case, education. Though important on its own, education also acts as a stand-in for interests, ability to commit to and carry through with a long-term project and future prospects.) According to Galloway, the mismatch between the number of college-educated men and women risks destabilising American society. “You are going to have,” he told Smerconish, “the most dangerous person in the world: a broke and lonely male. “If you look at the most unstable, violent societies in the world, they all have one thing in common. They have young, depressed men who aren’t attached to work, aren’t attaching to school and aren’t attaching to relationship.” Galloway then warned that the “mating inequality that’s going to come out of this dearth of men in college poses an existential risk to our economy and our society”.

Reeves eschews the apocalyptic rhetoric and notes that while the female-male discrepancy on campus had been growing for almost two decades, marriage rates among college-educated men and women have remained relatively stable. He is, however, concerned about the long-term impact that the education gap and the “delayed adulthood” of many men has on both family structure and the economy. Delayed college graduation means, he told University World News, that these men are getting into the labour market later and, thus, become economically independent later than the women in their age cohort. This, then, delays both family formation and buying the first home. When I asked Reeves about the fact that in most academic disciplines, women outnumber men at the postgraduate level, he answered: “Let me be really blunt about it. The problem is not that more women are getting masters degrees while their husbands are only getting bachelor’s degrees. The problem is we have a lot of men who are not getting any kind of qualification or very little. “This is especially true of men who come from poor backgrounds and men of colour. There’s a real class gap here. Men who come from poor backgrounds are badly served by the education system, and, honestly, they’re nowhere near a bachelor’s degree.” No surprise A 2006 study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectivesby Harvard University professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F Katz and their researcher Ilyana Kuziemko showed that the reversal of the college gender gap should not have come as a surprise. The gap had nothing to do with women’s academic abilities, as was clear during the first three decades of the 20th century when the numbers of men and women attending institutions of higher education were roughly equal. Rather, the gap was a post-Second World War phenomenon, the result of the GI Bill, which saw 2.2 million men go to college and university in the late 1940s, which pushed the number of Americans in higher education from 1.1 million before the war to 2.4 million in 1949. In 1947, my mother was one of two female sophomores in Brooklyn College’s faculty of music, so it came as no surprise to read that that year there were 2.3 men for every one woman on America’s campuses. In 1957, IQ tests in Wisconsin, Goldin et al noted, revealed an “almost identical distribution by sex”. In 1972, high school tests in Wisconsin showed the well-established pattern of girls being ahead in reading while boys were ahead in maths; two decades later, after educators had reworked the maths curriculum to remove gender bias, the maths gap narrowed, while girls pulled further ahead in reading. By 1992, girls had achieved parity in maths and maintained their lead in language arts. Further, Goldin et al underlined, “one source of persistent K-12 performance and the new female lead in college attainment is the higher incidence of behavioural problems (or lower level of non-cognitive skills) among boys.” These ‘non-cognitive skills’, what psychologists call ‘executive functions’, Reeves explained, are central to understanding why young men struggle in college and university, and why Reeves thinks that both the K-12 and even post-secondary levels are biased in favour of girls and women. At every level of K-12 education, girls and young women are one to two years ahead of boys and young men, with the gap being the widest in adolescence, precisely the age when they enter college or university. (It should be noted that the millions of men who attended and graduated in record numbers from college and university on the GI Bill intake were not just older than the average undergraduate by six or seven years but, as former soldiers, they would have had much more developed non-cognitive organisational skills.) “Executive functioning skills allow you to turn in your homework on time and keep on top of your work. They allow you to stay in and study rather than going out and party,” says Reeves. “There’s a maturity gap on those skills in favour of girls and young women at just the point in the

education system where they really count for a great deal.” Demotivating for boys Lakeland Community College, not far from Cleveland, Ohio, is perhaps the only institution of higher learning in the United States with a Men’s Resource Centre (modelled on the centres designed to help female students that are found in almost every college or university in the country). Jim Shelley, who has directed it for 25 years, has worked with thousands of both prospective male students who need support and matriculating ones who are at risk of dropping out. He thinks that for many the “failure to launch” into a successful college career has roots stretching back to elementary school and, especially, to their experiences learning to read and write. On average, he told me, “boys are a year behind girls in terms of literacy when they begin school. And this continues in place through high school and into college.” This gap affects more than report card grades. It affects boys’ fluency with literacy. “Boys want to be good at what they do or they don’t want to do it. And, if you start school and you’re in effect a benchwarmer on the literacy team, you’re never going to be the best in that category. You are going to lose interest. You’ll still have to do it, and so boys do it [read and learn to write] reluctantly,” Shelley says. As did Reeves, Shelley decries the fact that there is no state or federal government programme (or even much consciousness of the problem boys and the male students who come to him have with reading and writing) that is comparable to the programmes designed to enable girls to achieve equity in math. He added, with a note of envy, that the British government is taking steps to address the literacy gap. (For its part, through the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish government has set a target to reduce the gender gap in Scottish universities by five percentage points by 2030; every university is required to submit a plan to achieve this goal.) Shelley and his staff help students with a myriad of problems, including financial, legal, family problems as well as homelessness. For students who cannot organise themselves, that is, students who display weaker ‘executive function’ skills vis-à-vis college, Shelley or his staff help them to develop study plans. With almost every student, Shelley risks touching a raw nerve, telling them that “to advance in any career and here at Lakeland if they want to take advanced courses, they have to develop written skills”. Those students in need are directed toward other programmes at the college designed to help students who are struggling with reading and writing. Lakeland has articulation agreements with a number of universities that students can transfer to and receive full credit for courses taken at the community college, so improvement in these areas opens the door to a student being able to realistically think about going on to a four-year university to get a bachelor degree. Among the changes Shelley would welcome would be a return to the quarterly system, under which there were four quarters, fall, winter, spring and summer (though most students did not attend the summer quarter). Under the semester system now in place (and used by most American colleges and universities), there are two main semesters, fall and winter, each of 15 weeks. Male students, especially at-risk ones, Shelley told University World News, do not seem to do as well in the semestered system because it is longer. They don’t do as well with delayed gratification (ie getting a final grade). “I’ve had students who have started my classes in January and they’d be gone by March.” Under the quarterly system, they would be getting a grade in March. The very fact that the Men’s Resource Centre (MRC) has been operating for 25 years indicates that the college’s administration sees it as providing a net benefit to male students who are battling and might otherwise drop out. Determining how many of these at-risk students Shelley and his team have kept in school is, he told me, rather

difficult. Instead, he pointed to a study comparing students who were recipients of Pell Grants (a federal programme that helps support students from lower economic backgrounds) who sought out help at the MRC with those Pell Grant recipients who did not seek out help. Those students that came through the MRC’s doors had a grade point average one quarter point higher and a credit completion rate (courses completed vs attempted) 8.3% higher. Cause for celebration The news that after hovering near the 60:40 split, the reality on America’s campuses today is that there are six women for every four men, did not surprise Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The large number of women in and completing higher education is, he told University World News, something to be celebrated. “This is a huge success story for women in terms of their long-term historic transition into the labour force.” It didn’t take long, however, for Shapiro to note that implications of the ongoing gender disparity across the entire field of American institutions of higher education – including private four-year colleges where the gap is 65%, 2,271,247 to 1,476,674 – is not an unalloyed good. Even though in comparison to the past, there are more men graduating from college and university, the trend line has unsettling workforce implications. “Most of the new jobs that have been created since the Great Recession (2008-09) require some form of post-secondary education,” he says. The trend “raises questions about who will have access to these well-paying jobs in the future”. “If you are looking at a larger group, a larger percentage of females who will be able to enter the knowledge economy, to use that hackneyed term, that has obvious implications for society and for men’s employment.” For his part, Reeves summed up the pecuniary and educational or social policy arguments by saying: “The economic return for college education is pretty similar for men and women. So, if you see a group that is lagging behind, then you should worry.”

”On average, he told me, “boys are a year behind girls in terms of literacy when they begin school. And this continues in place through high school and into college.” This gap affects more than report card grades. It affects boys’ fluency with literacy.” Many instead of blaming women for outpacing boys, or a “feminized“ education system, everyone but the boys themselves maybe blame the dads who put way more importance on sports then reading. Or the families that allow their boys to spend too much time playing video games instead studying, reading anything vaguely academic.

#Women doing better in education #Women still don’t make the same money their former male classmates do

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evilhorse · 7 months

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I just saw the news that Keith Giffen died. He was one of my favorite writers/artists of all time, mostly for his Legion of Super-Heroes work in the Five Years Later/Five Year Gap series. I met him at the 2013 Baltimore ComicCon where he had a short line for autographs, so I asked him to sign the first 12 issues of this Legion run along with my Great Darkness issues and some Justice League issues. We talked a lot about what he had planned for the FYL run and how DC ruined it; I praised my favorite storyline, “The Terra Mosaic” which he accepted readily. We were jiving well when I made the mistake of saying I liked this issue as he was signing it. He stopped and looked at me, grumpily retorting “You liked THAT?!?” I realized at that moment, he had little to nothing to do with that issue aside from the cover and a framing sequence. He finished signing the books, but it was clear his opinion of my taste was irrevocably ruined. Regardless of my sin of poor taste, I still treasure that interaction and all of the comics of his I’ve read throughout the years. He was a magnificent plotter and artist, and I’m disappointed I won’t have another chance to meet him.

#keith giffen #death #sad #legion of super-heroes #five year gap legion #five years later #Baltimore ComicCon

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path-of-my-childhood · 4 years

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Can Taylor Swift's "betty" Help Country Radio's Gender Imbalance?

By: Annie Reuter for Sounds Like Nashville Date: August 17th 2020

Taylor Swift officially returns to country radio today (Aug. 17) with her new single “betty.” Featured on her eighth studio album folklore released July 23, the descriptive harmonica-driven ballad details a young love triangle written from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy named James who has lost the love of his life.

“betty” is being worked to country radio through Universal Music Group’s MCA Nashville imprint and debuted at No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart on Aug. 8 and at No. 60 on Country Airplay. A welcomed return to the genre, “betty” marks Swift’s first single shipped to country radio since 2013’s “Red” and the addition of another much needed female voice on airwaves.

While 2020 shows promise for women at country radio, there is still more to be done. Female artists currently rank at 14.3% of the weekly airplay, according to Dr. Jada Watson, a professor at the University of Ottawa who reports on the genre’s gender imbalance.

“While there have been more Top 10 and No. 1 songs by women this calendar year - including the current No. 1 for Maddie & Tae, chart representation is going to enter another period of considerable inequity,” Watson tells Sounds Like Nashville. “There will be just two female acts in the Top 30 (6.7%) and five in the bottom 20 positions (25%), meaning that women will make up just 14% of the 50-position chart [this week].”

With the addition of “betty” to country radio, listeners will be hearing one more female voice on airwaves with the hope that more will follow. Watson stresses that while Swift on her own won’t even out the gender imbalance within the country format, with radio already embracing “betty” it is a start that stations are adding another female into regular rotation.

“While there has been an increase in airplay for songs by female artists over the last six months with three stand-out weeks with about 17.6% of the spins for their songs, the gap is still much too wide for one artist alone to close with one song,” Watson explains.

2020 has seen the most No. 1 songs by females in the past four years on the Country Airplay chart. Maddie & Tae (“Die From a Broken Heart”), Miranda Lambert (“Bluebird”), Gabby Barrett (“I Hope”), Carly Pearce (“I Hope You’re Happy Now” with Lee Brice), Gwen Stefani (“Nobody But You” with Blake Shelton) and Maren Morris (“The Bones”) all saw chart toppers this year.

Despite pursuing a career in the pop world over the past six years, Swift has remained embedded in the country community. In 2016, she penned “Better Man” for Little Big Town and was also featured as a guest vocalist on Sugarland’s “Babe.” Her 2019 collaboration with The Chicks on “Soon You’ll Get Better” also landed her on the charts.

While the verdict is still out on how Swift’s “betty” will be received at country radio, she remains a familiar voice that has made an indelible impact in breaking down barriers while continuing to introduce her legions of fans to the genre.

“Songs by women are receiving more airplay than in previous months and years and this will be a bumpy ride to correcting the imbalance,” Watson says, while remaining hopeful that Swift’s “betty” will be accepted. “This is all encouraging - not just because it’s a sign of radio getting behind a truly good song, but because it also has the potential to encourage meaningful change for female artists within the genre.”

#that is 14.3% after all the initiatives that were started for more equal radio play distribution... yup #I'm not even remotely optimistic but let's see...#article #taylor swift #radio play #betty #country radio #Country Music #sexism #folklore era

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laboratorioautoral · 4 years

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The original outline and why it is still relevant to ASOIF

Since the original outline for A Song of Ice and Fire was leaked there’s been a massive effort, both in fandom and mainstream media, to discredit everything that was revealed there as a potential clue for the future of the story.

Although I agree that some changes happened, I don’t subscribe to the idea that the outline is irrelevant at this point. This little essay is my attempt to analyze the outline and compare it with what has already happened and still could happen in the future books, how much was changed and more importantly, how it was changed. I won’t say this is an impartial analysis (because I don’t believe that such a thing exists) but an honest effort of textual interpretation.

Here we go:

“Dear Ralph,

Here are the first thirteen chapters (170 pages) of the high fantasy novel I promised you, which I'm calling 'A Game of Thrones.' When completed, this will be the first volume in what I see as an epic trilogy with the overall title, 'A Song of Ice and Fire.'”

First things first. A Song of Ice and Fire was first imagined as a trilogy and the fact that GRRM extended it to 7 books obviously has an impact in terms of structure. It seems quite reasonable to assume that a lot more would have to happen to fill the gap occupied by 4 additional books. That alone is a huge influencing factor, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the essence of the story was changed as we can see in the following paragraphs.

“As you know, I don't outline my novels. I find that if I know exactly where a book is going, I lose all interest in writing it. I do, however, have some strong notions as to the overall structure of the story I'm telling, and the eventual fate of many of the principle characters in the drama. Roughly speaking, there are three major conflicts set in motion in the chapters enclosed. These will form the major plot threads of the trilogy, [unclear] each other in what should be a complex but exciting (I hope [unclear] tapestry. Each of the [unclear] presents a major threat [unclear] of my imaginary realm, the Seven Kingdoms, and to the live [unclear] principal characters.”

Here we have Martin admitting that he usually doesn’t outline his novels over fear that he will lose interest while writing it. However, he also clarifies that he has “some strong notions” for the story he is telling, especially in which concerns those he considers to be the main characters.

In some of interviews Martin already said that the ending he had planned many years ago is still in place and he has known the characters’ endings ever since. It’s safe to assume, I think, that the core of his plans hasn’t changed much. What might have changed is the path that leads the characters from one point to another.

“The first threat grows from the enmity between the great houses of Lannister and Stark as it plays out in a cycle of plot, counter-plot, ambition, murder, and revenge, with the iron throne of the Seven Kingdoms as the ultimate prize. This will form the backbone of the first volume of the trilogy, A Game of Thrones.”

Can anyone say that this didn’t happen? Of course not. This is the spark that lights the fire that will consume the Seven Kingdoms throughout the story, with major and minor consequences that will shape both the narrative and the characters’ development. The conflict between Starks and Lannisters is the first of three conflicts that represent the core of the story.

“While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarian hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume, A Dance with Dragons.”

Here we have the second major conflict and with this one in particular I’ll have to take my time to elaborate some points. First of all, A Dance With Dragons became the 5th book of the series instead of the second. So far everything we saw about Daenerys was her preparing to take her place at the center of the stage.

Dany has her own arc which hasn’t integrated to the events in Westeros so far given to her geographic location. That doesn’t mean that Daenerys has no relevance to what’s happening in Westeros, but her existence wasn’t directly noticed by the seven kingdoms yet. Daenerys is preparing for her role in the main story: She is gathering a military force based on the Dothraki to invade Westeros.

We already know that Daenerys will have more than just the Dothraki on her side. The Unsullied were added to the plot and my guess is that they exist to humanize Daenerys and make us sympathize with her cause as she creates the great narrative of “Breaker of Chains”. This makes Daenerys sound heroic and noble, but I would like to point that Martin is very specific about one thing: The fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn is first and foremost a threat. She is ready to invade Westeros and invasions are not peaceful.

At this point we already know two things worth being mentioned that are related both with Daenerys and the title of this book: The Dance of Dragons was a civil war involving two Targaryen claimants to the Iron Throne. On one side we had Rhaenyra, firstborn of the king and rightful heir if gender wasn’t an issue in Westerosi succession laws. On the other side we had Aegon, a son born from the king’s second marriage. His claim was mostly based on gender norms that favor male heirs in detriment of primogeniture.

It isn’t much of a dance if we only have one dragon, is it? Yes, Daenerys is the first half of this equation, but there is another half that Martin hadn’t created yet (or didn’t mention) when he wrote the outline. There is a second Targaryen, or at least someone who claims to be one.

Aegon VI, or Young Griff, is actually the first one to arrive in Westeros with invasion in mind. Does it mean that Dany is less of a threat or that she was suddenly placed in a heroic position? Absolutely not. No one with three dragons is a harmless creature and Dany is even more dangerous now that she has a direct enemy in position to take away everything she fought for.

I know that there’s a lot of speculation on whether Aegon is a Blackfire or not, but honestly I think his true lineage will be irrelevant as long as he has at least a drop of Targaryen blood and the right looks. Legitimate or not, Aegon looks like a Targaryen, has the house’s ancestral sword and a story that is convincing enough. More than that, by posing as Prince Rhaegar’s legitimate son, Aegon makes his claim stronger than Daenerys’. On top of that, he would be the Targaryen male heir in opposition to a Targaryen woman, repeating at least a part of the scenery that led Westeros to the Dance of Dragons.

Aegon and Daenerys are bound to become enemies because of their own ambitions. I don’t see Dany accepting him as a suitor or even the rightful heir. She doesn’t need Aegon to take Westeros and a queen without a king is, historically speaking, more powerful.

Everything said about Aegon can also be applied to Jon once his true parentage is revealed. Jon and Daenerys are a threat to each other and only one will survive this.

“The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and an endless night is the Wall, and a handful of men in black called the Night's Watch. Their story will be [sic] heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.”

The third and greatest danger also remains just the same. The Others are still the core of the last book and the major battle. There isn’t much to elaborate on in this part except for the title of what was supposed to be the last book, The Winds of Winter.

I don’t think A Dream of Spring will be some sort of extended epilogue, but most of the action and conflict should take part during The Winds of Winter. At the very least the center of the whole debate will be both the North, with all the plots there, and what lies beyond the Wall.

“The thirteen chapters on hand should give you a notion as to my narrative strategy. All three books will feature a complex mosaic of inter-cutting points-of-view among various of my large and diverse cast of players. The cast will not always remain the same. Old characters will die, and new ones will be introduced. Some of the fatalities will include sympathetic viewpoint characters. I want the reader to feel that no one is ever completely safe, not even the characters who seem to be the heroes. The suspense always ratchets up a notch when you know that any character can die at any time.”

Needless to say anything about this. The books are well-known for these hallmarks. Now we are getting to the juicy part.

“Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.”

I would like to make a point here. The five characters will grow from children to adults, changing the world and themselves in the process.

Although I believe that Martin made a bit of a mess in which concerns the characters’ ages, I think we can understand that the characters will not only be forced to act like adults, but also will be perceived as such by those around them and given positions of power or leadership.

Specifically in which concerns the female characters, both Daenerys and Arya will be perceived as adult women by Westerosi society and this is important for several reasons, mainly in that being an adult noblewoman is a relevant component to form political alliances via marriage. In Arya’s case in particular, it reinforces the idea that she won’t be a nine year old girl forever. This impacts her relevance in the political game (something people usually overlook or ignore) and also makes it possible for Arya to have romantic interests.

“This is going to be (I hope) quite an epic. Epic in its scale, epic in its action, and epic in its length. I see all three volumes as big books, running about 700 to 800 manuscript pages, so things are just barely getting underway in the thirteen chapters I've sent you.”

Can anyone say it isn’t an epic? Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so intense so the books would come earlier, but here we are.

“I have quite a clear notion of how the story is going to unfold in the first volume, A Game of Thrones. Things will get a lot worse for the poor Starks before they get better, I'm afraid. Lord Eddard Stark and his wife Catelyn Tully are both doomed, and will perish at the hands of their enemies. Ned will discover what happened to his friend Jon Arryn, [unclear] can act on his knowledge [unclear] will have an unfortunate accident, and the throne will [unclear] to [unclear] and brutal [unclear] Joffrey [unclear] still a minor. Joffrey will not be sympathetic and Ned [what appears to say] will be accused of treason, but before he is taken he will help his wife and his daughter Arya escape back to Winterfell.”

Here we have proof that Ned and Catelyn were doomed from the start. Basically everything in this paragraph happened, even the part in which Ned helps Arya to escape by giving her position to Yoren. The only problem is that Arya never reached Winterfell and her mother had left the capital before Ned was arrested. Also the part that says that “things will get much worse for the poor Starks before they get better” makes me think that it’s quite clear that the Starks (or some of them) are the main protagonists of this story.

Why am I saying the Starks (or some of them) are the main heroes? Because being a charismatic character, created with the intention of getting the readers’ sympathy, isn’t necessarily what makes this character a protagonist. You can like whoever you want in the story, this doesn’t make a secondary character a main character, nor does it make a likable character the ‘hero’. The structure of the story and who are the main players is already given.

“Each of the contending families will learn it has a member of dubious loyalty in its midst. Sansa Stark, wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue. Tyrion Lannister, meanwhile, will befriend both Sansa and her sister Arya, while growing more and more disenchanted with his own family.”

Tyrion and Sansa were set to be the ones with dubious loyalties to their families. This also happened with slight differences. Tyrion befriends Jon and is somewhat sympathetic to Sansa and Bran. Sansa didn’t marry Joffrey, but she did choose him over her own family the moment she went to Cersei to tell her Ned’s plans to get Sansa and Arya out of the capital. This might or might not indicate that she will have the chance to repent and atone for this, but her dubious loyalty is consolidated. Also Sansa has no children so far.

“Young Bran will come out of his coma, after a strange prophetic dream, only to discover that he will never walk again. He will turn to magic, at first in the hope of restoring his legs, but later for its own sake. When his father Eddard Stark is executed, Bran will see the shape of doom descending on all of them, but nothing he can say will stop his brother Robb from calling the banners in rebellion. All the north will be inflamed by war. Robb will win several splendid victories, and maim Joffrey Baratheon on the battlefield, but in the end he will not be able to stand against Jaime and Tyrion Lannister and their allies. Robb Stark will die in battle, and Tyrion Lannister will besiege and burn Winterfell.”

Bran’s arc is pretty much the same. We saw all of these things happen to him. The biggest change is in Robb’s part and even so most of it remains untouched. Robb did win splendid victories and in the books he even strategically beats both Jaime and Tyrion. What changed is that Robb and Joffrey never fought each other personally. Also Robb’s death was not on the battlefield but during the Red Wedding and Tyrion wasn't the one to sack Winterfell and burn it.

Tyrion’s first act of explicit villainy in the outline was transferred to Houses Bolton and Frey with participation of Theon Greyjoy. Still it was all part of the Lannisters’ plot and it was executed by their allies.

“Jon Snow, the bastard, will remain in the far north. He will mature into a ranger of great daring, and ultimately will succeed his uncle as the commander of the Night's Watch. When Winterfell burns, Catelyn Stark will be forced to flee north with her son Bran and her daughter Arya. Wounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night's Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon's anguish. It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran. Arya will be more forgiving ... until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book.”

Here we have some changes. What doesn’t change is that Jon becomes a member of the Night’s Watch and ultimately ascends to the position of Lord Commander. Benjen is a famous member of the Night’s Watch and I believe he was the first choice to take the position of Lord Commander after Mormont, but Ben’s disappearance accelerated Jon’s ascension.

Catelyn and Arya never fled Winterfell, since their paths had already taken them somewhere else, but Bran did and his first impulse is to go to the Wall. Given the fact that the three eyed raven calls him, Bran’s magical journey leads him to go beyond the Wall before he can be reunited with Jon.

Arya and Cat had completely different journeys, or at least partially. Cat seeks her eldest son and stays by Robb’s side during his campaign. Arya, on the other hand, is stranded all over the Riverlands trying to find her way to either Winterfell or the Wall, although she explicitly says that she prefers to go to Wall, where she can find Jon. There was a clear intention to send both Bran and Arya to the Wall, but as the story progressed this decision might have been abandoned temporarily.

Thanks to his vows, Jon can’t take part in the realm’s politics. When news of Ned’s fate arrive at the Wall, Jon is devastated by the impossibility to help his family and fight side by side with Robb. Jon’s moral boundaries and his code of honor become a huge issue for him in the books, and they are tested the most whenever his family is involved. This seems to be his main dilemma in the outline as well.

Jon’s relationship with his family is also ambiguous in some aspects, especially when it’s revealed that his greatest dream since he was young was to be the Lord of Winterfell. This implies a level of rivalry and envy of his true born siblings. Jon repressed these feelings as much as he could out of love for the Starks.

Now I’ll make some guesses here, I don’t think it’s impossible for Bran and Jon to have some bitter estrangement between them, but it won’t be because of the Night’s Watch: If Jon is released from his vows once he is resurrected and takes back Winterfell along with the titles, it will undoubtedly lead to a succession crisis involving not only rights of conquest but also Robb’s will. Bran’s rights are directly affected in this scenario and, unlike the show, Bran never once questioned his position as Robb’s heir. It’s not impossible to imagine that factions will gather behind both claimants and this can cause another crisis in the North and bitterness between brothers in a moment when union is crucial.

Arya has a close relationship with both Bran and Jon and she is someone both of them feel inclined to listen to. I think Arya will be the bridge between them and the one to diplomatically avoid a rupture in the North, but it doesn’t mean the bitterness between Bran and Jon will disappear.

Now we reach the hugest taboo of the outline and the main reason why people claim “it’s no longer relevant” or that “Martin changed his mind”. Jon and Arya falling in love.

Let’s get one thing very clear, Jon and Arya already love each other in the books. This is not my opinion, this is the literal text.

Jon’s best friend was Robb and still Jon affirms that he missed Arya the most. Just go back to the books and count how many times and how affectionately they think of each other. They repeatedly say how they miss finishing each other’s sentences and how Jon loves to mess Arya’s hair. “The memory of her laughter kept him warm during the long journey north.” and “Needle was Jon Snow’s smile” are two small quotes that speak volumes of how deep this love is.

Am I saying this is a romantic sort of love? No. I’m not saying this. What I’m doing is highlighting the fact that this particular relationship stands out as one of the strongest (if not the strongest) bond in the books to the point where it’s not even questionable that Jon and Arya love each other the most. It’s strong enough to make Jon forsake his vows and decide to march to Winterfell to rescue a girl he thinks to be Arya. It’s strong enough to make Arya lie to Ned because she would never betray Jon.

Jon didn’t break his vows for any other sibling, no matter how much he wanted to, but he did it to save whom he thought was Arya. His love for her is the cause of Jon’s death in the books. He committed treason the moment he received the pink letter and decided to march against Ramsay Bolton. Jon’s last thought is “stick’em with the pointy end”.

I think it’s safe to assume that Jon will be resurrected and Melissandre is probably the one to perform the ritual. We already know that resurrections have some side effects in the asoiaf universe, the most evident one being some sort of obsessive thought that keeps guiding the resurrected’s actions (like Beric Dondarrion’s obsession with keeping the king’s peace, and Lady Stoneheart killing Freys to avenge Robb’s death). Jon’s last thought was directly related to Arya and there’s no other possible interpretation. His last thought is likely to become his obsession.

I also think it’s safe to say that Jon’s memory will stay inside Ghost at least for a while and we will have to wait and see the effects that will have on Jon’s personality once he comes back to life.

Varamir said that Ghost would be a second life fit for a king and I think this is a clear foreshadowing of Jon’s true identity. There are also some other aspects of wolf pack dynamics that deserve some consideration: Wolves are social animals that have hierarchy and well divided roles inside the pack and although Ghost is a lonely wolf that was separated from his original group, it would only take one female for him to start his own pack. Curiously Nymeria is an alpha female already, leading a pack of regular wolves, but she rejects her smaller cousins as potential mates. Ghost and Nymeria are the alpha male and female of a new pack. The wolves of Winterfell will come back; stronger and more dangerous.

I think all of these elements will play a significant role in how Jon and Arya’s love will change once they are reunited. It won’t be immediate, but as the story goes the sexual tension will become evident. Jon’s perception of Arya as a sister will be blurred as a teenage Arya starts to see him as a love interest. At this point Arya will already be perceived as an adult woman according to Westerosi society, as I pointed out before. My guess is that she will be close to Daenerys’ age when she married Drogo. I’m not judging if this is right or wrong by our own moral standards. What I’m saying is that it’s acceptable in the world created by GRRM.

As the outline says, their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until Jon’s true parentage is revealed. This necessarily implies that: 1) they are not siblings; 2) their passion brings a lot of moral issues and they are not comfortable with it; 3) their agony has an end when Jon’s parentage is revealed. Jon’s true parentage is a moral free pass for them and, at least from what we can read in the outline, this is more relevant than any potential succession rights.

This moral free pass wouldn’t be applied in a romantic relationship between Jon and Daenerys for example. It would actually have the opposite effect, giving Jon reason to question his moral choices and torment himself with doubts. This plot point is not applicable to Sansa either, mostly because Sansa and Jon don’t have a close relationship that’s already been established. They have a distant one and don’t even think much about each other. The whole point of Jon and Arya’s strong bond is to lay the foundations for a romance, establishing a relationship based on love, mutual loyalty and respect.

Do we have any indication that Jon and Arya’s romance was scrapped based on the books? No. Do we have any conclusive evidence in the text that Arya was replaced by any other female character? No. Why do I think Jon and Arya are endgame? Because we have only two books left and a lot of events that must be covered by them. It’s way easier to use an already established loving relationship with 5 books of consistent development and make it a romantic one (and make it believable as an epic romance because all the dramatic elements are already there), than to write a brand new one from scratch and make the reader believe that this is the ultimate love story.

“Abandoned by the Night's Watch, Catelyn and her children will find their only hope of safety lies even further north, beyond the Wall, where they fall into the hands of Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall, and get a dreadful glimpse of the inhuman others as they attack the wilding encampment. Bran's magic, Arya's sword Needle, and the savagery of their direwolves will help them survive, but their mother Catelyn will die at the hands of the others.”

Catelyn was meant to be killed by the Others. It’s not hard to conclude that she would have become one of them. The major difference from the outline to the books is that Catelyn died elsewhere, however she was brought back to life by fire magic as Lady Stoneheart. I can also see Bran and Arya fighting against the Others with the help of their direwolves in the event of a great battle by the end of the books. There’s nothing indicating that this part was cut, it just hasn’t happened yet.

“Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Danerys [sic] will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak. There, hunted by [unclear] of her life, she stumbles on a [something about dragon eggs] a young dragon will give Daenerys [unclear] bend [unclear] to her will. Then she begins to plan for her invasion of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Daenerys’ arc here didn’t change much. What changed was her motivation to kill Drogo and how she gets the dragons. Everything else that happens to her since the second book is her preparing to invade Westeros.

“Tyrion Lannister will continue to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones, finally removing his nephew Joffrey in disgust at the boy king's brutality. Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders. Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with the surviving Starks to bring his brother down, and falling helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he's at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon Snow.”

There’s only one character that was replaced, I think. The Jaime Lannister of the outline seems to have been replaced by Cersei in the books, and it makes much more sense. The Baratheons are briefly mentioned and we know Joffrey to be officially one. We know that Tyrion and Jaime are Lannisters and that Tyrion and Jaime are brothers. Unless Joffrey’s official father was a Lannister, Jaime would have no place in the line of succession to the throne whatsoever and this is important even when you want to use the rights of conquest. Cersei could have one, by becoming her son’s heiress in case there’s no one else left.

Also, although Sansa didn’t marry Joffrey, her wedding to Tyrion still makes her a Lannister and ties her to the enemy. Her loyalty was put to the test because of Joffrey, but her ties to the Lannisters were consolidated with Tyrion. Her arc is still in place. Her marriage wasn’t declared null so far and I don’t think it will happen anytime soon. As far as public knowledge goes, Sansa is Lady Lannister.

As for the love triangle Jon Snow x Tyrion x Arya, I don’t think it’s impossible at all. While it’s true that so far Tyrion hasn't interacted with Arya and I doubt he even remembers her face from the short time he stayed at Winterfell, the Arya he will eventually meet will be an educated young woman that had many intriguing experiences in Braavos, is very charismatic and makes friends with everyone and anyone. Tyrion, being a man profoundly affected by his physical condition would gravitate towards her. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine him falling for someone capable of seeing him as an individual as Arya is.

There’s also an argument to be made that this love triangle might have been replaced by Ramsay x Arya x Jon in some ways. After all Tyrion didn’t burn Winterfell, Ramsay did. He also married a fake Arya (Jeyne Poole) to claim Winterfell in her name, leading to a violent rivalry between Ramsay and Jon.

This plot point might have just been either altered to replace Tyrion with Ramsay, or it hasn’t happened yet.

“[The next graph is blocked out.]

But that's the second book ...

I hope you will find some editors who are as excited about all of this as I am. Feel free to share this letter with anyone who wants to know how the story will go.

All best,

George R.R. Martin”

With everything said so far we can conclude a few things:

1) The three major conflicts remain the same.

2) Ned, Cat, Robb, Viserys and Drogo’s fate didn’t change.

3) Bran still went through a coma and can’t walk anymore. He also developed magical abilities. An eventual strained relationship with Jon is still possible.

4) Tyrion and Sansa’s dubious loyalties to their families weren't removed from the books and Sansa still got tied to the enemy via marriage, although to a different character.

5) Tyrion continues to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones. He didn’t kill Joffrey, but was blamed for it anyway. Eventually he will make alliances with enemies of his house.

6) Jon joined the Night’s Watch and became Lord Commander. His vows are constantly challenged, especially when his family is endangered. His incapacity to help them keeps torturing him and in the books it leads to his death.

7) Jon and Arya share a strong bond, based on love, mutual trust and loyalty, and respect. This relationship remains one of the most important ones in the books. This relationship was consistently developed throughout the 5 books already published and turning it into a romantic one is still possible.

8) Jon’s true parentage is super relevant.

9) Daenerys’ arc didn’t change.

10) The love triangle Jon x Arya x Tyrion was either replaced by Jon x FArya x Ramsay, or could still happen in its original form once Tyrion and Arya have the chance to interact with each other.

This was my lengthy analysis of the original outline and why I think it’s still valid. I hope you enjoyed it.

#ASoIaF #origial outline #waterstone letter #a song of ice and fire #jon and arya #jon x arya #jon/arya #jonrya #jonarya #meta

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