#i just hate when i see those takes about how the misinterpretation of dany is just because of the show

[leesielex]

Awww look. I got more Dany hate for a post that said Dany was Mother of Dragons. And so many of these trolls then theorize or fanfic that THEIR fave hatches their own dragons. Why would GRRM have TWO characters hatch dragons giving the same plot to both? Cersei is already becoming the mad queen with an attraction to wildfire, please tell me how it would make sense to have two mad queen stories in the same series too? Like How unoriginal and boring are you? Obviously you are at least as unimaginative as D&D, ya know the dude bros that claimed to read the books but didn't know Sam was a POV chap and thought a show where the confederacy won and kept slavery was a fantastic idea.

It also shows you completely miss the whole point of the series, that they all bring something to the table, that it's about the collective and greater good, that no one is perfect and it's about the struggle, the journey, the mistakes and learning from them. That they must put aside petty squabbles and the war for the iron throne to defeat the Others and save the realm.

Please tell me how they defeat the Others WITHOUT dragons? They don't. They all die. If you don't like fantasy with dragons then what are you doing here? If you so badly hate a woman with power &are a misogynist, just say that.

Seriously, show me a single character that has better judgement than Dany? That hasn't made a bunch of bad judgements, terrible decisions, been impulsive or let their emotions get the better of them, more than once, in the ASOIAF series? There isn't a single character in the whole story, especially those in positions of power like Stannis, Jon, but even Sansa and Bran that there isn't a list of poor judgements they have made that often result in the deaths of themselves, their loved one, or their people. (Except Bran but he is literally 7-9 in the books and has already committed 2 of the 3 abominations that skinchangers should never do). Like no one gets as much hate as Dany, no one is held to as high as standards as Dany and yet Dany is one of GRRMs fave characters, one of the key five, and the whole world of Planetos would be fucked w/o her and her dragons.

According to GRRM, Dany is a hero. “My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones."

And from Fevre Dream, written by GRRM I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended."

And when asked if the dragons are like nukes-

"it’s often been said that the dragons are the nuclear weapons of my imaginary world. They are the most devastating weapon, and they cause great destruction, massive loss of life. but they’re not necessarily, you know, I mean, this is part of Dany’s storyline and the original novels."

Dany sacks Astapor and takes Meereen and yet she DOESNT USE HER DRAGONS IN THE BOOKS BUT ONE TIME TO KILL BURN ONE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE SERIES SO FAR!

Y'all either never read the books and are going only off D&D's fanfiction show, you haven't read the books in so long that you remember the show scenes better than the books and conflate the two, or you let the Internet forum hate of Dany dictate your thoughts without zero confirmation or critical thinking of your own.

So gtfoh with that "nuke" bs. Even GRRM backtracked on that recently. Prob cause he saw how badly D&D and so many of the fandom has misinterpreted this story due to misogyny and media illiteracy.

#anti antis #daenerys targaryen #daenerys targaryen deserved better #daenerys defense squad #Dany is my queen #the dragons will end the long night

[rainhadaenerys]

I know people like to blame the show for all the misinterpretation that happened to the characters, but I really wish people wouldn't forget that the misinterpretation of Dany's character didn't come just from the show. There were plenty of self-titled book snobs who dedicated years of their lives to write thousands of metas on several forums and social media (Westeros.org, Quora, Reddit, Tumblr and even Wordpress) about how horrible Dany was, mischaracterizing her on everything, saying she was arrogant, that she lacked self reflection, that she was stupid, nothing without her dragons, tyrannical, etc. Blaming it all on the show erases the role that these antis had in shaping the fandom to be what it is today in regards to Dany. And that's something that bothers me, because I consider the role these people had in influencing the fandom to be crucial for the view the fandom has of Dany as a villain, and it might have even influenced D&D to do what they did.

#fandom wank #daenerys targaryen #rambling #i just hate when i see those takes about how the misinterpretation of dany is just because of the show #it isn't

[esther-dot]

If Martin can finish his story in 2 books is something I have though about too. We drag d&d for rushing the last seasons & reducing number of episodes. But they still had 3 seasons after s5. GOT had also removed minor characters by merging storylines. I do think many major plot points will be same in next books. So I am not sure how he will manage to do all that without adding one more book. Unless he follows d&d, who moved characters across Westeros in one episode, it seems impossible to me lol

(in reference to this ask)

I agree. In some things, the fandom conflates valid criticism of D&D with unreasonable expectations. Martin said that he was writing an unadaptable story. He purposed to do that. The man worked in TV, we have to believe he knew what he was doing with all the locations and characters. He knew a truly faithful adaption couldn't happen, and he consistently said GoT was a faithful adaptation, so I think what D&D and HBO gave him was beyond what he had expected. They fucked it up in the end because nothing made sense, but deleting characters and redistributing stuff...that's standard when adapting a work. People do this for much more straightforward books. Of course they had to streamline something as massive as ASOIAF. It’s on D&D that they failed to make sense of the main characters/the ending as a whole even though they took these measures to get there, but a lot of people hate on GoT for things that Martin has since confirmed (Stannis burning Shireen, King Bran) or will 100% happen in the books (Dark Dany, Sansa in the North, Arya sailing away…). It’s not D&D’s fault a lot of us hate certain developments. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, Martin doesn't have to worry about budget, the ability of his actors to deliver certain things, viewership, getting renewed, etc etc all those things showrunners have to deal with. And then, instead of the books ever reaching a point where things are simplified, he keeps adding more characters, and they each have their own cadre which just takes what is already beyond the scope of a show to new levels of un-doable. And, I need to point out that he is so good at writing these additional characters, the fandom, people who are obsessed with these books and have been for years and years, don’t even know who is a main character and who's been introduced for a narrative purpose in someone else's arc anymore. We’re still routinely told Sansa doesn’t matter, that she isn’t part of the big five, so some of the criticism D&D get is more a reflection of the fandom’s misinterpretation of things than a failure on their part.

I also think that Martin’s belief that he would stay ahead of D&D was a problem. If he hadn’t thought that, hopefully he would have been more direct and told them exactly who matters and why, the entirety of their arcs from the get go which I think could have reigned in D&D’s worst instincts if they’d been schooled on it all from the beginning. The fandom thought this story was about the rise of House Targaryen, and since it looks like D&D knew Dany was bad news from s1, in some ways, they understood the story better than a huge chunk of us (scary thought). But I don’t think they had it impressed upon them that this was actually about the rise of House Stark or why Bran would be king until they’d gone too far down a certain path. Seeing as none of us can really answer the how or why of King Bran, it’s unreasonable to expect them to understand the importance of things the writer hasn’t written yet. I’m very curious what Martin told them in their conversations because I had the feeling they were trying to get his story out but found it impossible to do so due to their limitations/the direction they had taken and that’s why the ending is tacked on. Anyway, I agree with you that we can bitch about D&D, but there’s a lot of ground to cover to reach an end point that leaves a chunk of the book fandom scratching their heads and some of us in denial. They should have done more to get there in a reasonable way, but how was always going to be messy because right now, with what we have, it’s inexplicable. 

Recently I wondered if the biggest mistake was Martin not explaining why the precanon stuff matters. As in, the pre canon stuff establishes that it is the Martells who need justice against the Lannisters and the Starks who have bad blood with the Targs. The show really focused on the Stark v Lannister idea so as a show watcher, I found that resolution entirely unsatisfactory. And, a lot of show fans didn't understand the horror of a Targ with dragons arriving in Westeros, the history of wrongs that the Starks have with them, so they thought Sansa was at fault for having an issue with Targs and they didn't understand the position Jon was in when he found out he was a Targ. His grandfather murdered his grandfather. His grandfather nearly nearly ended the Starks. Jon being the one to end the Targs...it’s a nice response to that precanon stuff/Ned’s torment over his decision to hide the Targ baby. Knowing the facts about characters doesn't mean you understand why it matters, how it works in the story, and if the point of this pre canon stuff wasn't impressed on D&D, it doesn't feel like a problem to delete Aegon and Arianne, to rewrite Dorne, because they don't understand why they're being written into the story in the first place. They guessed R+L=J, but clearly didn’t understand why it mattered.

As for Martin managing to bring it home in two books, I follow people who believe that Dany will never go North, and if that’s the case, the zipping across the country will be far less. She will finally get to Westeros, remain in the South, and Jon will go South for Dance of Dragons 2.0. No back and forth. So, the traveling around really may not be the big problem. There is a lot that needs to happen though, and I’m not sure what all will happen when. The Starks have to retake the North, and I’m not sure that they’ll defeat the Others in Winds. But if we push that to ADOS, that becomes a very busy book. 👀 And after that (or possibly concurrently?) we have Dance of Dragons 2.0, and the political situation to resolve. Bran will have to end up South for a kingsmoot, right? As people die off Martin will be eliminating POVs which feels like it should be helpful, and going from Winterfell to KL is something they happened in the first book, but Martin has so many more characters/POVs/storylines now… If the show was accurate in the Dany & co going North idea and then everyone going South (which I entertain), that is a whole heck of a lot to fit into one book. 😬 You’re right. Looking at the endpoint and where we are, it’s a Herculean task to bring it home.

#ask dot

[fedonciadale]

Hi Fedon! I’ve been following the Jonsa community for a while now, and obviously I’ve experienced the nastiness and absurdity of the Dany and Arya stans. But where did they get the idea that we (as in Jonsa and/or Sansa stans) bully and oppress them? I mean, from what I’ve seen it’s exactly the opposite. Are there really Jonsas or Sansa stans that “hate every woman who isn’t traditionally feminine”? That don’t want Arya to grow up beautiful because then she would “threaten Sansa’s beauty”? Did some of us really have racial tendencies towards the Dany fandom? And misinterpret Sansa’s character? I mean, actually misinterpret it, not the “misinterpretation” as they see it, which is recognizing her importance in the narrative and loving it when she finally breaks free from her abusers and can speak her mind without fear of the consequences. I’ve read such wild takes, and I wonder where it all started. I mean, are they making that shit up? Are they taking bits from metas out of context? I’m asking because never, in my experience, I’ve found a single Jonsa saying the things they claim we say. I’m genuinely confused, and wonder if there are really some people who say those things and I’ve missed it. My experience in this fandom has been absolutely lovely, and this is honestly one of the best I’ve ever been in. I’m sure that there’s a “black sheep” everywhere, but I’ve never witnessed anything remotely similar to what Dany/Arya stans claim we say. Condoning slavery? Xenophobic? Patriarchal? Where???

Hi there!

I honestly can’t say that I’ve seen any of this either, but that does not necessarily mean that it is not there. I think there are several aspects as to why A and D stans claim this.

a) Ship wars can be pretty nasty and since A and D stans don’t accept the show ending as canon, there won’t be a solution any time soon. So there is no way how this can die down (unless GRRM spills his ending).

b) Jonsa or even only the idea that Sansa is one of the main characters has fucked up so many theories that were around for decades and people who have believed these ideas have reacted rather nasty to the idea of Jonsa. Hence the vitriol.

c) By now the Jonsa fandom (and to a lesser extent the Sansa fans) are the scapegoats of the fandom. Even character stans or ship stans who have absolutely no interaction with us react the same: When in doubt blame a Jonsa. It’s a knee jerk reaction. You can sure count on getting notes if you claim you’ve seen something on a Jonsa blog. Or just cut out the sentences that you can make fun off. And nobody is going to check.

d) It has become common (or maybe it always was) to not be very picky about how fandom questions are discussed. You could of course try to differentiate, but usually people do not want to do it. It makes things too complex, too difficult and at the end of the day you might have to admit that on the other side of the screen is a real person and not some hateful ‘enemy’. For this reason discourse is reduced to some ready to go insults. The best example for this is the following thought chain: Dany fights against slavery - This person is anti-Dany - Therefore they are condoning slavery. There are several logical fallacies there: The first is obviously that Dany does not really fight slavery (she wants an army) - The second is that criticizing Dany’s actions does not necessarily mean you are anti - The third is that you even can dislike a character and that still doesn’t mean that you are against Dany’s goals (if the abolition of slavery were her goal, but I digress). People take a short-cut, jump to conclusions and decide that this is how Jonsas think. It’s not that Jonsas think that it’s that they take our opinion and extrapolate what this opinion might mean and they do it in such a way that they can blame us of holding opinions that are absolutely despicable.

You can look at that anon that discussed with me about the fact that me being a fan of Sansa means that I support partriarchy, that Sansa supports patriarchy. You can actually see with every ask how they jumped to conclusions.

I want to stress that a) I don’t think all A and D stans (there are many I’ve never seen) do that and b) I actually think that they don’t necessarily do that by intention. It’s just the tendency of ‘othering’ Jonsas and that makes it easy to jump to conclusion and end somewhere that makes the Jonsas look as bad as possible.

TLDR: What they see on Jonsa blogs: “I really dislike Dany”

What they make of it: “Look at that despicable person who condones slavery.”

What they see: “I don’t think Dany has a valid claim to rule the North”

What they make of it: “Dany was born outside of Westeros. If they don’t want her as a ruler they must be xenophic.”

What they see: “Sansa is an important character that is actually feminine.”

What they make of it: “They want feminine, gender conforming women to win. They must be pro-patriarchy.”

So, I just try to stay away from them. And I agree, the Jonsa fandom and Sansa fans are usually a nice place!

Thanks for the ask!

#anon ask #Jonsa #Sansa Stark #Sansa Stark defence squad #Why is Jonsa hated? #Some misconceptions of the antis

[aerltarg]

2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 26, 27 from ask game

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

oh, it's actually hard to answer bc pretty often my otps can work as brotps for me as well. it also means that when i can't ship some characters they don't work for me as friends either. not to mention that in asoiaf i'm open to many ships, and if i'm not very passionate about some it's not a sign i can't see them in romantic light.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

may i say any sansa ship? 😭 as well as sansa herself lmao. idk generally i can't ship characters i don't like because i'm just not interested. and it's not to say i don't like book!sansa (show!sansa is another case 💀), i just don't find her arc as intriguing and epic as arcs of some other characters. however, it's absolutely her obnoxious fandom's fault that i don't want to touch anything about her now, pairings including. sansaery? pass. sansan? i used to have a soft spot for them in my heart but now? nah. sansa x anyone? pls have mercy, she's already a fandom bicycle.

and jonsa ofc. i would never mind some crack ship as i do this one if not for their obnoxious stans that did way too much to list there right now. but this burning desire to persuade every rock on the street that your crack ship is canon will never stop being ridiculous lmao

also braime. tbh i used to low-key like them but some of their stans weirded my away lol. i get that not all of them are like that but still. it's generally my great pain when i see braime/brienne/jaime stans who are also dany/targ antis. every time i see them i cackle and run away as fast as i can crying from disappointment lmao. it's really a pity because i'm either very neutral or like in my own way all three of them.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

jonrya it is! i never hated them, you know, but they never were more than siblings and brotp to me. however, later i encountered the deluded crack ship fandom that shall not be named and understood that if there is any possible romance for jon with any of his sisters-cousins we all know which one it will be lmao. also their stans are very sweet and i really like many of their takes on arya and jon! i generally love relationships of jon and arya very much so it wasn't that difficult in practice to see them in a quite different light.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can't stand now?

meta culture lmao. reading different analysis and interpretations of the text used to be very interesting to me (and still is tbh but in other fandoms) though asoiaf is a different case. imo many people aren't honest in their so called theories and analyses. i get that all of us are biased but some "meta writers'" denial of their own biases influence fandom in a bad way. it looks like too many people run to them to get answers to their questions about any minor detail as if they were grrm himself. yk instead of using their own reading comprehension lmao. you see how this meta culture ruined fandom just looking at the most delusional stans and shippers who spread their agenda by writing endless text posts full of nonsense and bullshit but styled as oh so intellectual and thoughtful analysis. it's insane how many people actually buy it and don't check canon accuracy of such claims themselves. it got to the ridiculous point when random people try to argue with you with some far-fetched embarrassing "theories" as if they were canon facts or quotes straight up from a fanfic because they read somewhere some other confused soul's post and got from a context that this quote is canon (despite the fact that it wasn't written in grrm's style at all but some people can't use their brains even if their lives depended on it it seems).

anyway it's become too long and rambly already so tldr. because of such "neutral unbiased" analyses i got the habit of fact checking almost everything i see in such posts. there's only a small amount of meta writers from targ/dany/jon/arya stans that i trust because i know by practice and following them for some time that they don't pull anything out of nowhere, back up everything they say with canon quotes, don't decontextualize anything and (that is the most important thing to me) are reasonable and open to discussion unlike so many bnfs nowadays.

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?

ah, not in this fandom yet, god bless! i think i'm not loud enough for the needed amount of time to deserve it lol. but since i'm not going anywhere soon maybe one day i will 😂

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

robert baratheon and tywin lannister, obviously. tbh it's pretty hard for me to hate any characters because you know. they're fictional lmao. just lines on paper, they can't hurt you. and even such dudes as tywin or robert don't get real distaste from me if they're written well enough. my problem with them lies not only in their canon crimes and shitty consequences of those but in fandom's (or at least some parts of it) unwillingness to acknowledge that they're canonically written as shitty, not as stan/pity/worship material. tywin isn't as clever as some think and robert is a coward outside of battlefield, not to mention some absolutely disgusting denial of his nature from targ antis only because the man happened to be the most vocal targ hater in-universe so these folks feel like he is their main book representative and whitewash him completely lmao

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

uugh idk even. i'm either low-key interested (or used to be at least so i can stay pretty neutral for the sake of nostalgia lol) or too indifferent to really care.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

all my faves have their own crowd of haters i'm afraid 😭 but let me say rhaegar. even among some dany/targ stans my man is so misunderstood lmao. it's not even his fault i dare say it's fanon about his half-imagined crimes that somehow got widespread to the unbelievable degree. and when i say they're half-imagined i'm being very generous actually. ofc he isn't perfect, no one in asoiaf is. and yes, he's a pre-series dead minor character but almost all little information about him is actually positive, not to mention the narrative itself that doesn't paint him as a villain or just a shitty dude. on the contrary, he's an idealized to some degree dead prince who could've been a good king (like some other historical targaryens, jacaerys, baelor breakspear, aemon son of jaehaerys, etc.), a mysterious yet tragic figure. i have much to say about why it's so popular to shit on him in fandom but yeah. his haters should send their complaints to grrm instead, no one forced the man to write him like that lol. and i mean that no one has to like him ofc. but it's misinterpretation of the text to claim he was intentionally written as a villain or smth by grrm.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

i don't know if it counts as unpopular but i would say tyrion's arc as a whole because i enjoy his character and like in my own way. i can get why some people don't like him but this man will always have his own place in my heart i must admit.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

is this unpopular tho?.. ok but renly wouldn't make a terrible king. i dare say he would be better than both robert and stannis. yes, he wasn't shown as perfect and i don't claim this. he wouldn't be the best or the most brilliant or the most just or noble. yet still better than his brothers. his flaws weren't anything other high lords didn't have, his mistakes weren't anything other lords and kings didn't do. in many ways he would make a better job than robert or stannis, too bad he died so early, even though i get why it was important for the narrative.

26. Most shippable character?

well generally for me it's the ones i love the most lol. jonerys/snowstorm is my never dying otp but i admit my sins, sometimes i just see dany with other characters (often from other fandoms pls don't @ me). however, since dany is THE fave of mine it means i would rather twist the other guy or girl to fit into the good match for her than twist her for another character in my new born crack ship lol. and i never stay for too long with the ships with which i feel they don't really fit and don't do justice for each other lol. maybe that's the reason i'm not much of a rare shipper / crack shipper afshdjdb

27. Least shippable character?

everyone i don't like? 😭 as i've said sansa for the reasons above lol. you can insert many others in her place lmao

#thanks for the ask! #.txt #mypost #ask game #anonymous #*answered

[asoiaf-source]

Fighting Hate with more Hate. That always works, right?

“Sansa’s fans are so defensive of her because of the rest of the fandom demonize her and hate her for no reason.” - helenakey

So then the answer is to demonize the other women characters for no reason?

Of course there are going to be ‘fans’ that hate on a character for no reason, I’ve seen people post unnecessary and unreasonable hate on many of the characters, not just Sansa, and they can be as annoying, but they are not representative of the entire fandom. Not ALL fans are hating on her, and some are just looking at the character critically. I’m new to the tumblr metas (avoided for a long time due to the toxic reputation), but i’ve been on ASOIAF forums for a long time and there are plenty of Sansa supporters, even if she is still quite a polarizing character due to how people wish to interpret her... but Sansa stans on tumblr take it to the next level!

I’ve never seen this side of her fans before, or at least so much nearly every day, and subsequently the many rebuttals! And how often they like throwing other characters under the bus, often for hypocritical reasons. Like the OP yendany said, they ignore the trauma in other characters or dismiss it as not as bad, when it is often much, much worse. They criticize and attack other female characters to prop up Sansa ‘better’ survival skills, or attribute qualities to her she doesn’t possess (I see this a lot in fanfiction, before I realized the self-insert aspect), or use her age as excuse when all the main characters are young or even younger than her. The line porcelain to ivory to steel... can really apply to any character that has to grow up and face the harsh realities of the world... so it is really hypocritical to think Sansa is special in some way for overcoming her situation, all the characters are going through the same struggle, and many have it much worse. That is where I think so much of the anti-sansa stans come from, the hypocrisy and the tearing down of other just as deserving of sympathy/empathy characters, especially other women characters. It is a weird juxtaposition, that anyone with a reasonable sense of objectivity can pick up on and often do.

I mostly see it done against Arya and Dany, the two more prominent female characters in the books (thus the 2 who draw more focus than #3 Sansa?). The two female characters GRRM is telling a lot of his story through and spending a large amount of the text (right from book 1) to develop their growth as characters and showcase their strengths, intelligence, determination, fortitude, agency, cleverness, resilience and so much more. It’s as if because the other women are not ‘pure’ or see themselves that way and stronger in personality and character that somehow their suffering doesn’t affect them as much because they are tougher and didn’t let anything that happened to them stop them from growing stronger. They aren’t dwelling in victim-hood too long before they pick themselves back up and move forward.

And yet, they cheer when Sansa starts to grow stronger... Sansa’s growth has been much slower, we are moving into book 6 and she is just starting to gain a bit of agency, but she is still heavily under the tutelage of Baelish. We will see how far she gains in the next book and if she will break with Baelish by the end of it and be a fully independent player. But her development isn’t nearly on the same scale as Daenerys and Arya. That isn’t to imply that she isn’t going to be important, but it is clear from the text that she is not one of the main focuses for GRRM, or he would have developed her faster and given her more to do. We will see how much ground he can cover in 1-2 books, but there is only so much he will be able to accomplish and have it be believable, especially with so many POVs and story lines that he needs to develop.

I actually think their attempts to (over) defend her backfire, as so many feel the need to point out the falsehoods and misinterpretations, especially when they are wildly mean-spirited and completely refutable by the text. As I traverse through the ASOIAF metas I often come across fans metas writing rebuttals to other posts, to ‘correct’ their conclusion or ‘facts’. I’ve read so many of these they are starting to get repetitive, I also read some of the Sansa-stan posts they are rebutting and, yeah I can see why so many get upset. If you don’t like it when others tears down or dismisses Sansa, why do you think fans of the other characters wouldn’t comment when you go after their favs, especially so mean-spiritedly.

I don’t think I ever felt so much negativity towards the Sansa character until I had to read so many skewed and biased metas turning her into some kind of saintly YA Disney princess type that is just too good for this cruel world. That kind of character has no place in a series like this. You can’t help but want to point out the wild inaccuracies, and it makes me feel a negativity towards a character I didn’t feel negative to before. And I don’t want to feel negative towards her, she is a Stark and I root for the Starks, especially the kids. I often defended her against those who (I feel) just don’t understand what it is like to be a preteen girl, I relate to a lot of Sansa’s weaknesses and how she feels, especially at that age, and that is her appeal (to me) - the fact that she starts off very weak.

Sansa is weak both physically and mentally, she cares too much about rank, privilege, and what others think about her, her desire to conform, for everything to be proper, and properly in their place. She has the luxury to think that way because she is a rich, pretty, noble girl who ranks at the top of society, of course she sees life as great and never questions it... she is already at the top and winning from birth. This is why (I think) she is so hard on Arya, she messes with her idea of what is proper/good/right.  Arya isn’t pretty and doesn’t try to be, she acts more boy than girl, she plays with dirty, smelly, poor children, etc... Those are all an embarrassment to Sansa and go against what a proper lady of her rank should do and care about. Once they head south, all the things Arya gets away with at home will stand out even more and reflect badly on Sansa, by association. So, she criticizes and distances herself even more, because she wants to join the elite glamorous world of the nobility.

The other girls don’t have those weaknesses, that is why they are seen as better able to cope than Sansa does.  They grow quicker and stronger faster because they are not as inhibited by what the ‘rules’ are. This isn’t a criticism of Sansa, this is an observation and I think it is the entire point of including a character like her in the story. GRRM could have followed the original outline for her, but he wanted to ‘reform/rescue’ her character and give her (I hope) a better path back to her family and happiness. I think it is GRRMs way to show how young girls should NOT romanticize noble life or being pretty will lead to a ‘perfect’ life. That thinking of yourself as a lady or being a princess/queen isn’t what is important. That marring a ‘title’ (lord/prince) or a handsome face is not enough to lead to happiness. It is what you do with your life, and how you care about others and who cares about you - that is what is important. But some Sansa fans seem to miss that and want her to have all those thing and more... they want it both ways, her to learn all those things, and yet still get all those things... a beautiful princess life clear of the harsh actions to gain it and also a happy family married to the best, more heroic and honorable man - a fairy tale ending. And that is not ASOIAF.

They are reducing her entire arc to becoming a nicer, more pure, and pretty, prize for a man to love, marry and make their queen. If so, GRRM will botch the ending of his series and all the points he *seems* to be making thus far.

A major theme (to me) in Sansa arc is her lack of value in her home and family. Sansa (to me) is like the small town girl who can’t wait to leave her family / Winterfell behind and to move to the big glamorous city (King’s Landing) and become royalty. But once she got there wasn’t able to accumulate with its more complicated and corrupt realities of the court. Even setting the cruelty of Joffrey aside (he is an aberration, not a normal example), how everyone else ostracizes or ignores her (except the hound, and to some extent Tyrion - although he isn’t all that great). The way the Tyrells treat her before and after her wedding is much more representative of how typical court life and nobility behaves normally (I think). Sansa never saw the true value of being surrounded by people who love and care about YOU and whom you can trust and rely upon - until that is all taken from her. She slowly sees how the people at court are corrupt and deceitful under all the beauty and glamor she so aspired to only after being fooled more than once, and (to me) no longer wants any part of it, but is forced to play, thanks to Baelish.

This is a point I find many of her fan miss, they think Sansa is going to learn to play the game, destroy everyone with her cunning and beauty and rise to the top to be queen or a ruler - a path which will ultimately lead to down a very dark and cynical path... but somehow they think Sansa will be different, and her rise will be more like a Disney princess story, one where she will gain power without having to sink low to do it. That is NOT the kind of book GRRM is writing.

”I’ll make them love me.” - another childish statement, you can’t make people love you, you earn love and respect. And Sansa hasn’t done that once the entire series, she hasn’t made a single friend. No one is looking to follow or fight for/beside Sansa, save Baelish, and we all know that plan is doomed to fail, as he isn’t to be trusted or relied upon and wants to use her. I would even question her friendship with Jeyne Poole as it is clear she never saw them as equals, and that is not real friendship... more like Jeyne was a companion/lady-in-waiting type.

The few people who care about her (other than family) either are working on behalf of an oath to Catelyn, or have their own ambitions/sexual desires/pity for her and not necessarily care about her for herself because she was a good and loyal friend to them. Maybe this will change in the next book, but with Baelish keeping close tabs and guiding her, who knows how well she will be able to make any genuine relationships with others given all the secrets she has to keep.

Her only realistic path to leadership is through marriage and that is hardly giving her agency as a heroic rise to a leader of a men... more like sleeping her way to the top.  Not something I want for Sansa, and I hope her ‘marriage’ to Tyrion works as plot armor against her being used like that.

Besides GRRM has kinda stressed that ‘real’ leadership comes from understanding people, observation, and experience, and not just from strategics marriage (Margaery, Cersei) or inheritance (Joffrey, Tommen, Cersei - she could prove the point all on her own :). Every leader in the book so far has to make compromises, make hard decisions and even make harsh, sometimes very bad decisions and live with those consequences. None of the characters in the series have escaped this as much as Sansa has, since so much of her story thus far is about her lack of agency, and being a pawn used by others (and to some extent she still is with Baelish). For her to make it to the end w/o doing anything and staying ‘pure’ and that is how she ends up on top, by essentially not taking many large personal risks, allowing others to do all the heavy lifting morally, mentally and physically. If winning means standing on the sidelines watching everyone else do the WORK, and just giving suggestive nudges here and there to have things turn out in your favor so you can just coast to the top (that is the Baelish way)... well, that is kinda the worst message GRRM could leave us with.

If GRRM wants Sansa to become a leader, she will have to get her hands dirty too, she will have to take great personal risks to gain power and accept the consequences good or bad that result, learn from them and move forward... otherwise it defeats one of the main points of his series and turns her into a simplistic cliche version of a character.  Every character with a POV has gone through this, it is one of the major themes in ASOIAF, a more realistic, less easy way of looking at how you obtain power and learn by experience and a series of victories and defeats. Thus far Sansa has also avoided examining her actions and how they have affected her, she either never thinks about them, changes the facts to suit her better, or blames others without seeing the part she also played... I’m not blaming her, but her action did contribute to the situation... she never seems to realize this and I feel it is going to eventually hit her hard, she has to mature and grow out of her ‘unreliable narrator’ eventually, and it must lead to something for GRRM to make it such a large part of her narrative of coping with her trauma. I assume he wrote her this way for a reason and is going to do something with it.

I’m looking forward to a darker more realistic Sansa who has more agency and understanding, and I expect her to make her own mistakes and moral compromises (well she already has, but there was some coercion - but it also means she is capable of doing so) just like all the other POVs have had to do. I also look forward to her finally owning up to her past actions and how they also contributed to where she is now. If she can’t take some personal responsibility she will never grow. That is a part of having agency, understanding how your decisions and actions affect you and others.

I wish all the back and forth would stop, cause I’m tired of seeing it in my feeds, but I guess it has been going on for years - the same arguments/rebuttals - so I guess it will continue, even after we get the next book... I think only the completion of the entire series will end some of these arguments, but who knows - after some of the meta I’ve read, there will probably be even more, lol.

Well, I wanted to comment and give my two cents, but it ended up being longer and I guess for me all this is still new and offsetting.  I guess I had more to say that I thought, even though I edited A LOT out because I wanted to keep it focused. I’ve just started to dip my toes into this crazy platform, so I’m sure this is just the tip of the toxic metas that I heard can be found here... can’t wait to read the anti-dany metas... that is sure to fill me with a sad rage as well, i know the show did her no favors, sigh....

#topic anti-sansa-stans #topic toxic fandom #topic sansa stark stans

[him-e]

@anons

(cut for ship wank)

I'm usually neutral about jo*nerys, but I found the S7 spoilers very off putting. My biggest worry is that jo*nerys will be overbearing to Jon's identity arc. He will have no breathing room to digest and explore the implications r+l=j has on him and his identity because from the very start Dany will be involved, so it will be, 'oh my god rhaegar and lyanna are my parents not ned..OH MY GOD I FUCKED MY AUNT.' It will be about complicating a romance, rather than just about Jon and his parentage.

This is a valid concern. We have been waiting for Jon to react to this reveal since season one, and now... it has the potential to become more about Dany than about Jon himself. Well, not about Dany per se, but about their relationship. I would hate it if the crucial identity issues coming with the parentage reveal were eclipsed by ship-related angst. 

note that this would also apply if the show was headed towards a j*nsa endgame. In that case, the risk would be making jon’s parentage a mere plot device to pave the road for jon/sansa and allow jon to be able to *feel things* for his sister-turned-to-cousin. Then again, I suspect grrm always intended the parentage reveal to be heavily tied to Jon’s romantic arc, see asoiaf’s original outline. So it’s complicated---the romantic aspect isn’t necessarily extraneous to the reveal, but I’m simply not confident the show will handle it well.

anyway, I thought about the spoilers over and over again and I’ve concluded I’m okay with most of them... except the boat sex. Not only it sounds incredibly corny and cheap, but J*nerys sex in general is one of those things I wish were delayed to the final season, if anything to give the audience an emotional peak to look forward to. I’d also prefer it if Jon developed feelings for Dany while knowing they’re related, as opposed to his finding out later, when the deed is done.

Anonymous said: What I hate is when people dismiss things with an iron hand and state their opinions as if they're fact. It's so condescending and far reaching the way they will present their speculation as the only truth or what 'makes sense'. I hate it when people do it to J*onsa shippers and as of recently, I hate it when some J*onsa shippers do it with Joen//ys. I think you handled it well though and wish most shippers were like you :)

aww thanks! :))

personally I have a live and let die attitude towards this sort of wank. It’s par for the course in ship-centric fandoms, so I don’t get mad or anything. there’s a moment when a ship is growing but is still relatively small and there are all those brilliant metas and analyses being like “what if the story is actually going in this direction? here are some possible hints, and hey, don’t you think this makes A LOT OF SENSE for both characters and for the overall story?” And when it’s like that, it’s good. At that point, it’s still about presenting neutral fans a possibility, an alternative to the dominant narrative. Then the ship gets bigger and bigger, you start regurgitating the same theories over and over until they start looking like facts, you begin reacting with anger and “not a true fan!” arguments to people voicing perplexity and advising for caution, and before you realize it, you are the dominant narrative. And you alienate other fans. It’s just a cycle that exists in almost every ship with *some* (real or perceived) possibility to become canon.

to be clear, I enjoy meta, and I don’t think it’s cool to tell other fans that they shouldn’t care for canon validation or learn to enjoy their ship independently from it. There are thousands different ways to fandom, and caring for canon and speculating on how your ship could possibly “happen” is just as legitimate as other approaches are.

however, when fans of the ship repeatedly tell you that you’re going overboard with spec, the wise thing to do is take it into account. when your spec is heavily based on another (canon or soon to be canon) ship being treated horribly by the narrative, you might want to revise it. another thing to keep in mind is that the amount of meta, foreshadowing and textual “hints” for a ship aren’t directly proportional to the chances of said ship “happening”. There’s plenty of examples in fandom of ships you could write entire academic essays on, that were never “canon”.

and finally, romantic subtext is HEAVILY subjective and easily misinterpreted. as someone who’s noted and abundantly discussed how the j*nsa scenes were shot in a way that weirdly suggests romance, I also feel it’s important to realize that certain visual tropes and camera angles and shit are ubiquitous in modern media, and are used to convey a wide variety of things that fall under the umbrella of “intense, troubled dynamic” without being necessarily about romance.

#anon #asks #multiask #got asks for ts #got for ts #got wank #ship wank #jon x sansa for ts #jon x dany for ts #got spoilers #got leaks

[daniedoodles]

Danie’s Dilemmas Ep. 28: Unfiltered Thoughts (fr)

Everyone has said it, and I’ll say it again: this summer did not feel like summer at all. Sort of relating back to the previous episode, I feel like so much shit happened but when I really think about it, not much did. A recap of my summer can be summed up in a short list: internship (work), quick hang outs, calls, and piercings. Maybe the reason why I feel like a lot has happened is because I’ve thought of countless different possibilities for how each scenario has gone or will go down. This past week, I’ve been thinking about how everything that happened last summer are slowly but surely reaching their one year anniversary because Snapchat’s just so keen on reminding me of my past. However, all these thoughts from last summer circle back to one prevalent thought: I don’t want them to repeat themselves. Obviously not all, but some for sure. I think about the friendship I made this summer and I fear of how it might end the way it did with the previous person - saying the wrong thing, and drifting apart because of it. I’m so tired of seeing people leave my life because they don’t care as much as I do to have them stay in it, then there’s just this inevitable feeling of worthlessness that follows. I’m the type of person that does not simply want to be wanted in someone’s life, but needed as well. I may not express it on the surface level, but deep down, I feel so much more accomplished when I know I’ve fulfilled a role right in someone else’s life, knowing that I somehow contributed to make it better. (please ignore the fact that I said “life” so many times in those last three sentences)

I’ve been wanting to cover this topic for some time now, but just couldn’t find the right words to say it, or perhaps because I also didn’t feel quite ready to purposely put myself in a vulnerable position. There are a lot of things about me that I never care to admit to others because, let’s be honest, I do care (most of the time) about what other people think of me. But I figured, since not a lot of people read these episodes to begin with, and the select few that do are all very close to me, it gives me no reason to keep it in any longer. 

I suck ass at getting closure. This one is probably the most known fact about me, especially if you’ve been reading these episodes from the very beginning. It takes a LOT of effort for me to get over something. Just when I think that I’m over it, I reminisce and then it just hits me all over gain. It does get annoying, and I’m sure my friends are not fun of it when I revisit those times, but I can’t help it. 

I remember everything. Doesn’t matter if it was something as small as the first conversation we’ve ever had, or something as big as that one secret you told me to never tell a living soul, I remember. Being able to remember a majority of what has happened to me is by far one of the most fundamental aspects of my personality. I’ll remember your birthday, regardless of whether I like you or hate you, or if you don’t know me back, expect me to greet you because I think that everyone deserves to feel special on their birthday (okay, now I’m obligated to say that you should be able to feel special everyday because it is 2019 and everything can be pegged as “offensive”... so just to be safe, there’s my disclaimer. It’s not just your birthday that you should be able to feel special.)

I love hard. I expressed my love for my friends very sparingly in the past, up until recently. But one thing remains unchanged, and it’s that I love hard. When I love someone, I love them unconditionally. I may not be that great at letting them know because the way I was raised just naturally calls me to be more conservative about the way I express affection, but it’s there. 

I get jealous easily (but on the DL). This is probably one of the few things that I really wish I could change about myself. I think being raised as an only child has a lot to do with that, because I’ve been so used to having the limelight all to myself without fear of someone else taking it away from me, at least in the familial setting. But with friends, or when I like someone, the female instinct to overthink fuels the jealousy. Luckily, I’ve been fairly good at keeping this under control. I suppose you can classify this as a sign of personal growth. 

I’m always afraid that I bore someone. Being a Capricorn, almost every astrology site, horoscope or tarot card reading will tell you that we are boring and cold-hearted. In most cases, I feel as though we’re one of the most misinterpreted signs because they only read us from our outward facade. Yes, I’ll admit, I can look unapproachable sometimes (rbf does not help), and when I’m not interested in having a conversation with you, I will be dry on purpose. But it’s a whole new case when someone that you’re wanting to really talk to, finds that you are just as boring as they say. 

I should have a more serious concluding sentence to all of this, but in the middle of writing, I took a phone break and now I can’t stop watching Tiktoks again... so umm, yeah. I think that’ll be all. 

Kinda don’t need y’all to read this lowkey.