#qarl the maid

[jeyneofpoole]

some asoiaf characters would thrive if displaced into another environment. for example dany should be in a 2010’s horsegirl movie, sansa should be in a glee-esque teen love quadrangle where she’s at least three separate gay guy’s beards, and rickon should have access to mountain dew and cheetos and one of those ipads with the rubber handled cases and disgusting screen protectors. i do think however that if you took like. theon. out of asoiaf he’d fit right into the modern world but his ass would not be doing well. i know five theons and they’re all the most insufferable men to ever walk this earth. he has six separate instagram accounts for all facets of his personality and his tweets from 2012 where he calls greenlanders physiologically inferior to #ironbornmight get drudged up and he becomes unemployable. asha won’t let him bunk with her because qarl is convinced that he’ll steal their silverware and pawn it (he will.) this being said like he should have been born in this time he just wasn’t. like he was created to get roofied in shitty clubs and have complexes about wearing eyeliner as a guy and get called slurs by his dad for wearing crop tops unfortunately he was written into a storyline about being subject to five saw traps at once and also being nineteen and gay in george rr martins’ magnum opus fantasy series a song of ice and fire.

#i’m going to SLEEP!!!!!! #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #theon greyjoy #asha greyjoy #balon greyjoy #qarl the maid #daenerys targaryen #sansa stark #rickon stark #modern asoiaf

[angelwingtrap]

Love in this very serious chapter (Theon I TWOW) when Stannis is interrogating Theon and both of them momentarily pause to mutually roll their eyes at Asha bringing her pirate polycule to the party.

Mind you Theon is currently chained up like this:

(Couldn’t find a fucking image that worked so I had to use one from Shrek 2 I’m so sorry)

#maybe I’m exaggerating a little but omfg this could be so funny visually #here comes my wretched sister and her malewife boytoys 🙄🙄 -Theon #once again hogging the qarl and Asha tags sorry #theon greyjoy #asha greyjoy #asoiaf shitpost #qarl the maid #tristifer botley

[imjustapoorwayfaringgeek]

Peach Fuzz

#asoiaf #fan art #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf fanart #asoiaf art #my art. #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #house greyjoy #grrm has a problem with peaches #and i'm into it #i believe in ironborn makeup supremacy #asha is the best greyjoy alive #and her relationship with qarl is one of the most wholesome in the series imo #it's a healthy relationship!!! #zoom in tho it's for the better quality

[emprcaesar]

big part of being a girl is reading straight up smut to each other and dying laughing. i showed my friends the wayward bride chapter in adwd when asha and qarl get freaky. they were appalled yet intrigued.

#that part was really out of no where and made me scream the first time I read it #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #asoiaf #asoiaf books #girlcore #just girly things #a dance with dragons #wayward bride #game of thrones #smut #fanfic #girls being girls

[wodania]

I do wish Qarl and Asha was more popular like that is a straight ship for gay people. The gender? Qarl the Maid? Asha, the daughter who had to become a son?? Yessss I love iron born people and their weird trend of fucking up gender. The power they hold.

#qarl the maid #asha greyjoy

[agentrouka-blog]

What is your opinion on Asha and Qarl's consensual non con? Is it just me or was it weird? I mean I don't like kink shaming but I am tired of dominant woman outside of bedroom, submissive inside the bedroom trope.

Let's say I never really spent any time thinking about it in depth apart from appreciating that GRRM abstained from working in any of the maritime analogies that so pain us all in the scene between Sam and Gilly. And what with Asha being ironborn and all, that likely took some restraint.

That said, it never really quite struck me as the particular trope you mention.

Asha is Very Stressed after an unsatisfying discussion with her men about how to proceed at Deepwood Motte, and Qarl seems to know her well enough to follow her up to her bedroom and immediately initiate a fairly violent role-play to help her blow off some steam. It's clearly not a genuine, spontaneous attempt to actually force himself on her. The lines both use seem rehearsed and corny. "Girl." and "Beardless boy". It's a play to pave the stage for a little bit of roughness and struggle. Nor do they overfocus on submission or defeat on her side. It's about the physical fight, which is dangerous in theory but utterly harmless in practice. (Except to her clothes.) Just a play fight and the release.

She forgot Moat Cailin and Ramsay Bolton and his little piece of skin, forgot the kingsmoot, forgot her failure, forgot her exile and her enemies and her husband. (ADWD, The Wayward Bride)

She's calmer afterwards, and the second time they have sex is fairly gentle, with none of the same power play as before. There's no attempt to paint her as having a submissive kink at all. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that.) It's about giving her a little opportunity to fight - because she can't fight her way out of her real troubles. It intensifies her release to match the stress she is under.

She later emphasizes his softer qualities, the beardlessness, shy smile and devoted gentle praise. GRRM takes time to point out that it was Asha who had more experience in every respect and took the lead when they met. That stuff turned her on, too.

The scene very much mirrors Dany and Daario's encounters (that we witness), which are similar on the surface (passionate, borderline violent, talk of blurring gender, used for stress release, their identities as queens, marital infidelity, etc etc) but utterly lack the intimacy and familiarity of Qarl and Asha. She doesn't feel lonely when Qarl drifts off into sleep. Dany is a young teenager with an emotionally manipulative adult. Asha is an adult in an adult relationship with a man who genuinely knows and likes her.

Her sexuality has a range between what is fairly functional (distraction, release) and what is fairly emotional (affectionate, intimate).

Most of all, she is confidently in control of it. With Qarl. With others. With herself. It may be one of the healthiest portrayals of sex in the book series, honestly.

#asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #sex in asoiaf #parallels

[unexpectedasoiaf]

« When Asha had first met him, Qarl had been trying to raise a beard. “Peach fuzz,” she had called it, laughing. Qarl confessed that he had never seen a peach, so she told him he must join her on her next voyage south.

It had still been summer then; Robert sat the Iron Throne, Balon brooded on the Seastone Chair, and the Seven Kingdoms were at peace. Asha sailed the Black Wind down the coast, trading. They called at Fair Isle and Lannisport and a score of smaller ports before reaching the Arbor, where the peaches were always huge and sweet. “You see,” she’d said, the first time she’d held one up against Qarl’s cheek. When she made him try a bite, the juice ran down his chin, and she had to kiss it clean.

That night they’d spent devouring peaches and each other, and by the time daylight returned Asha was sated and sticky and as happy as she’d ever been. Was that six years ago, or seven? Summer was a fading memory, and it had been three years since Asha last enjoyed a peach. She still enjoyed Qarl, though. The captains and the kings might not have wanted her, but he did. »

—A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #asos #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #summer #memories #love

[ironbornsource]

ASHA GREYJOY APPRECIATION WEEK

Romantic Interests- Qarl the maid

#ashaweek2022 #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #asoiaf #ashagreyjoyedit #asoiafedit #asha x qarl #valyrianscrolls

[shebsart]

part of a small personal project where i wanted to draw some ironborn characters that are underrepresented in fanart.

I have more characters planned but not sure if i will draw them any time soon

#qarl the maid #cotter pyke #wex pyke #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #ironborn #my art #fanart #grrm #book #A Song of Ice and Fire

[oathkeeperoathbreaker]

“I’ve brought you a peach,” Ser Jorah said, kneeling. It was so small she could almost hide it in her palm, and overripe too, but when she took the first bite, the flesh was so sweet she almost cried. She ate it slowly, savoring every mouthful, while Ser Jorah told her of the tree it had been plucked from, in a garden near the western wall. “Fruit and water and shade,” Dany said, her cheeks sticky with peach juice. “The gods were good to bring us to this place.”

Daenerys I, A CLASH OF KINGS

Renly’s hand slid inside his cloak. Stannis saw, and reached at once for the hilt of his sword, but before he could draw steel his brother produced . . . a peach. “Would you like one, brother?” Renly asked, smiling. “From Highgarden. You’ve never tasted anything so sweet, I promise you.” He took a bite. Juice ran from the corner of his mouth. “I did not come here to eat fruit.” Stannis was fuming. ... “A man should never refuse to taste a peach,” Renly said as he tossed the stone away. “He may never get the chance again. Life is short, Stannis. Remember what the Starks say. Winter is coming.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Catelyn III, A CLASH OF KINGS

When Asha had first met him, Qarl had been trying to raise a beard. “Peach fuzz,” she had called it, laughing. Qarl confessed that he had never seen a peach, so she told him he must join her on her next voyage south. It had still been summer then; Robert sat the Iron Throne, Balon brooded on the Seastone Chair, and the Seven Kingdoms were at peace. Asha sailed the Black Wind down the coast, trading. They called at Fair Isle and Lannisport and a score of smaller ports before reaching the Arbor, where the peaches were always huge and sweet. “You see,” she’d said, the first time she’d held one up against Qarl’s cheek. When she made him try a bite, the juice ran down his chin, and she had to kiss it clean. That night they’d spent devouring peaches and each other, and by the time daylight returned Asha was sated and sticky and as happy as she’d ever been. Was that six years ago, or seven? Summer was a fading memory, and it had been three years since Asha last enjoyed a peach.

The Wayward Bride, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #meaningful peaches #daenerys targaryen #jorah mormont #renly baratheon #stannis baratheon #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid

[daenerysoftarth]

asha and qarl are a classic bi4bi couple you cant convince me either of those bitches are straight

#asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #asoiaf #got #valyrianscrolls #my posts #like come tf on #i cant tell if germ is doing a bit by assigning the most gnc lesbian looks and behaviors to asha #and then making qarl a sissy by westerosi standards #or if hes throwing one out there for the eljibbity community but #either way #its canon

[jeyneofpoole]

modern ramsay runs theon over in his obnoxiously red kia soul and theon has to limp to the nearest payphone to call his dad who doesn’t pick up so he hitchhikes to asha and qarl’s apartment instead and makes asha cauterize his toe stumps by heating a butter knife over a macintosh apple yankee candle (gift from alannys when asha moved out but qarl has debilitating asthma so they never light it) and obviously this doesn’t work and he gets an infection and almost dies and he calls barbrey (manager at the mildewing two-screen movie theatre he “works” at) in a fevered haze to tell her that he’s dying from foot necrosis so he can’t come in today so sorry!!!!! she fires him and keeps his last paycheck.

#orrrrr they work at subway. hi jasmine. #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #theon greyjoy #ramsay bolton #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #balon greyjoy #alannys greyjoy #barbrey dustin #modern asoiaf

[angelwingtrap]

“When Asha had first met him, Qarl had been trying to raise a beard. “Peach fuzz,” she had called it, laughing. Qarl confessed that he had never seen a peach, so she told him he must join her on her next voyage south.”

-

“It had still been summer then; Robert sat the Iron Throne, Balon brooded on the Seastone Chair, and the Seven Kingdoms were at peace. Asha sailed the Black Wind down the coast, trading. They called at Fair Isle and Lannisport and a score of smaller ports before reaching the Arbor, where the peaches were always huge and sweet. “You see,” she’d said, the first time she’d held one up against Qarl’s cheek. When she made him try a bite, the juice ran down his chin, and she had to kiss it clean.”

—A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

#not deleting this time I swear #house greyjoy #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #asoiaf art #she’s (trying) to braid his hair #my biggest reservation abt posting was the messed up foreground but idk I gave it my best shot

[alleyskywalker]

#asha greyjoy #asoiaf #qarl the maid #tristifer botley #sansa stark #arya stark #robb stark #jon snow #alysane mormont #arianne martell #margaery tyrell #hagen's daughter #op #my polls

[muadweeb]

peach and love in the world <3

#peach symbolism my beloved #the fruit of hope and love #renly baratheon #stannis baratheon #daenerys targaryen #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #jorah mormont #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #🍑 #❤️

[st-clements-steps]

Asha, Qarl and the consent quandaries in asoiaf

Which canon romantic (and/or sexual) relationships are you comfortable with when you read asoiaf? Which ones are you uncomfortable with? Why?

What about the sexual encounters GRRM describes, which ones seem consensual? Which ones don’t?

Every reader is going to answer this slightly differently, we each bring our own baggage around consent and romance and sex to the page when we read anything. Asha and Qarl, who we see in close up for a few pages of Dance, offer an interesting lens through which to view consent in asoiaf. [this discusses non-consent below the line]

Here are two adults in their twenties, caught in the midst of a war that is not going in their favour. We know already that Qarl stands with Asha when she makes her claim for the Seastone Chair in Feast. Clearly we assume, since she is his captain and he is her ally, there is some kind accord between them and yet:

Qarl followed her up to Galbart Glover's bedchamber. "Get out," she told him. "I want to be alone."

"What you want is me." He tried to kiss her.

What is this? We ask ourselves, Asha after all, is not some confused teenage queen, apparently caught between grief and her burgeoning sexuality, and the unwanted advances of someone on who she relies; she is not a thirteen year old girl being groomed by her only protector; she is not a confused fifteen year old boy, desperate to maintain the lie he feels is his duty.

It continues:

One quick slash unlaced her jerkin. Asha reached for her axe, but Qarl dropped his knife and caught her wrist, twisting back her arm until the weapon fell from her fingers. He pushed her back onto Glover's bed, kissed her hard, and tore off her tunic to let her breasts spill out. When she tried to knee him in the groin, he twisted away and forced her legs apart with his knees. "I'll have you now."

"Do it," she spat, "and I'll kill you in your sleep."

But then:

She was sopping wet when he entered her. "Damn you," she said. "Damn you damn you damn you." He sucked her nipples till she cried out half in pain and half in pleasure. Her cunt became the world. She forgot Moat Cailin and Ramsay Bolton and his little piece of skin, forgot the kingsmoot, forgot her failure, forgot her exile and her enemies and her husband. Only his hands mattered, only his mouth, only his arms around her, his cock inside her. He fucked her till she screamed, and then again until she wept, before he finally spent his seed inside her womb.

Hang on? What? GRRM requires us as readers to immediately retcon* what appeared to be a rape as a game, a non-consent role-play. At no point did we get any sense that Asha is thinking Yes, I love this or even Oh this again, thank the drowned God Qarl is such a good fuck, otherwise I wouldn’t put up with this nonsense. No, he forces her legs apart and we get no sense that this combat is thrilling to her until the very last minute.

Afterwards Asha does muse on him, she muses on their first meeting, she muses on all his good points, and it is a long list, at the end of it, the reader is surely half in love with Qarl themselves; A shy smile, strong arms, clever fingers, and two sure swords. What more could any woman want? She would have married Qarl, and gladly, but she was Lord Balon's daughter and he was common-born, the grandson of a thrall. She concludes before she initiates further sex. “My sweet queen.” Qarl calls her after, he himself as soft and sweet as anything, despite his brutality earlier in the chapter.

We shrug and swallow it, she is sexy and he is sweet, as sexual encounters go in this world, this one falls closer to alluring and adorable than most.

What are we to do then with all the times the characters themselves retcon the coercion, the force, the fear and reconcile themselves to an idea that their admirers(abusers?) are alluring and adorable? What are we to do with Dany’s somersault from forced bride to loving careful wife? What are we to do with Sansa misremembered moment with Sandor Clegane, switched from too frightened to defy him to nodding to responding to Myranda’s talk of the marriage bed with thoughts of how he'd kissed her? 

And this happens again and again with initial sexual experiences in asoiaf, even the ones off the page; is there is something amiss with Robb’s encounter with Jeyne Westerling possibly, him delirious on grief and pain (and more, we wonder)? Meanwhile Theon’s careless use of the captain’s daughter, turns out to mirror the advantage that was taken of him when he was an inexperienced thirteen year old. What’s more Asha sexually assaults Theon whilst pretending to be someone else, directly after we’ve heard the captain’s daughter try to cling to some idea of her encounters with Theon as alluring.  As readers we’re caught in some uncanny Russian doll of non-consent with Theon, here he is abusing someone, open it again and we’ll find the situation reversed, then just as we think we know what to expect, Theon as victim, Ramsay’s instructing him on what to do with Jeyne. It’s a desperate spiral.

Tyrion’s experience with Tysha, turns the trope on its head in a different way, he has been forced (though he does not acknowledge this, readers, with their greater objectivity can see it) to retcon what he thought was love as non-consensual (a paid for sham cannot be consented to). This story is framed by the (apparently faked) attempted rape at the beginning and the (initially unacknowledged) multiple rape at the end which Tyrion is forced to witness then take part in. The whole of Tyrion’s story of first love and sexual awakening is bound then in non-consent, (and untruths) over and over. Later, of course, Jaime will unbind it, just a little, reframe Tyrion’s experience with Tysha as genuine, and what are we to do then? The story has become a hall of mirrors where nothing can quite be trusted. How are we to judge consent through this skewed prism? How are we even to judge truth? It is, after all, all just a story.

We read all this with the weight of our own burdens on our shoulders, free to judge these situations however suits us. We can lower our expectations of these characters, how can they be expected to judge the consent of others when their lack of consent has gone unacknowledged? We can raise our expectations, surely they should each be able to empathise with those whose consent has been disregarded? We can loathe characters or excuse them, whichever feels best for us, but whatever we feel for them, we must remember that in canon they are GRRM’s puppets, they explore the themes that he chooses. Surely, if we want to read with care we must see that GRRM must write with the weight of his own burdens and what he writes spins around this very theme so often. Why does this non-consent happen so often in asoiaf? Often as readers we want these parallels to be a roadmap to the future but what if they are simply an exploration of the author’s own concerns? For whatever reason in asoiaf this non-consensual start to things, akin to Qarl’s pushing of Asha onto the bed, is often spun into something more complicated, more felt, more tinged with the love Asha almost voices. Why is this theme repeated so often in asoiaf?

Why doesn’t GRRM let us in earlier on the game Asha and Qarl are playing? Are they playing a game at all? They are fictional after all; if it is actually forced does it matter? Perhaps her switch to enjoyment is intended to be arousing for the reader? Perhaps it is intended to make us feel uncomfortable? Perhaps we will always, in a world delineated by class and power, as modern readers feel uncomfortable about the sexual encounters that take place? Perhaps in a world where everything is a game, where fear and force rule, where misinformation is king, consent becomes impossible?

*am I misusing retcon here? Possibly. I mean that uncanny double take we are forced to do when the story shifts suddenly and also the way characters are unreliable about their own feelings, when they attempt to shift situations which are clearly problematic to something more palatable. I think retcon works in this context.

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #asha greyjoy #qarl the maid #tw non con #theon greyjoy #tyrion lannister #I really am very interested in which canon relationships people are comfortable or uncomfortable with