#robert jordan i have one question and it is: why

[markantonys]

“the leader of a circle can burn the other members out against their will” is a much simpler check on the power of linking than whatever the hell is going on here

#robert jordan i have one question and it is: why #i feel like the math lady meme reading this #wot #the wheel of time

[moghedien]

Okay so to be clear I have no stake in this since I haven't seen any of the shows you mentioned in your post and I'm not asking you to defend your point. That being said, because Legend of the Seeker has been on my "to watch" list since I was like 16, I have to ask - is there an extra bad reason why it shouldn't be compared to Wheel of Time or is it just general "just because it's middle fantasy doesn't mean it's similar" vibes?

Gonna answer both your asks separately just to avoid going too long on either

but yeah, there's reasons not to compare Wheel of Time to Legend of the Seeker, and its because the guy who created Legend of the Seeker is a piece of shit

basically Legend of the Seeker is based on a book series called the Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. Terry Goodkind was a libertarian shitbag who definitely seemed to plagiarize a whole lot of other fantasy series of the time period, including of Wheel of Time (which was published first), but at best just happened to write a lot of things that were very, very, very, very, very, very similar

Now you can argue that both series have inspiration from Dune, and sure, they do. But there's a difference from being inspired by stuff (which Wheel of Time upfront is) and outright stealing plot points and worldbuilding aspects and pretending like they're wholly original and groundbreaking (which Terry Goodkind tried to do). And its not just that Goodkind didn't acknowledge that he was inspired by things like Wheel of Time. He outright talked shit about fantasy as a genre and hated his books being called fantasy because he thought they were elevated literature that should be held above fantasy. He didn't just deny that he was inspired by other fantasy works, he was outright offended at the suggestion and called people stupid for pointing it out. Also if you asked him who his favorite author was, he'd always say Ayn Rand and basically no one else.

But the absolute worst thing with Wheel of Time specifically is that when Robert Jordan (the author of Wheel of Time) was literally publicly known to be dying and unable to make convention appearances he was scheduled for, because he was literally dying, Terry Goodkind decided that the best thing he should do as an author was show up at those conventions and make fun of Robert Jordan's health and talk about how he personally as so healthy and his heart was great (Robert Jordan died from a heart disease)

He was also just like massively disrespectful to everyone, including his fans who he thought were all idiots if they did things like had simple questions about his work or categorized his fantasy books as fantasy. And one of the last things he got attention for before he died was mocking the art work for the covers of one of his books publicly online for being poorly done (it was literally fine) only for the artist to come out and point out that they did the cover exactly as they were directed by him and his representatives.

So yeah, fuck Terry Goodkind and Legend of the Seeker and Sword of Truth. There's a bad history between WoT and SoT and its all because of Terry Goodkind being a shitty excuse for an author

#wheel of time

[jasminedragonart]

My goal for this year is to read more books. There were a lot of books I avoided when I was younger just because I thought they weren't for me. I'm starting to realise that a lot of books are and it just wasn't time for me to read them yet. Others I've found are as badly written as I thought they would be and it makes me question why I want to read books by author's I haven't read from before.

Anyway, so far the books I've read that I've enjoyed are:

The Wheel of Time: Books 1 and 2. I have book 3 and plan to read it, however I fond out that this is an unfinished series since the author died. While it is technically finished, it was finished by Brandon Sanderson and while I have his books on my reading list, I don't think reading without Robert Jordan's penmanship will really bring justice to the world I've invested in. THAT BEING SAID, the first two books are SO good. I picked this book up by chance when I was away last year and put it back because the blurb was the vaguest thing I've ever seen. Except, then it haunted me once I heard there was a TV show. I haven't watched it, nor do I plan to since they seemed to have taken it in a different direction. But if you're looking for a good fantasy series to read, even if it's just the first few books, this one hasn't let me down yet.

The Raven Boys: I haven't finished this one yet but the book is good so far. I have the other 3 on the way that's how invested in this series I am right now. I've read other works by this author before, the Shiver one, and while I don't remember hating it I don't remember liking that one much. This book is good though. I'm enjoying it.

The Neverending Story: This one I enjoyed reading but I found that it's definitely a children's book. I picked it up in the hopes to read this to my niece when she's a little older. I thought it wouldn't be until she was around 10 before I could read this with her, but I'm happy that it's simple enough that I'll be able to read it to her maybe when she's around 3-7 Not too scary, not too detailed and while the movie is phenomenal, I really enjoyed this book as well.

The Folk of the Air series: I read them all. There were things in this I enjoyed. I liked the world building of the faerie realm. I also enjoyed some of the politics. But the book had its faults too. It's very teenager-ish. Which isn't inherently bad. The Raven Boys is proving to be better at it though. Jude and Cardan were... at times hard to read. It was quite predictable at times and it's not the best enemies to lovers book out there but I managed to finish it and I did enjoy it. It's something I would recommend to people, but not something I would rave about like I would the Wheel of Time.

I'm looking for other books to read after this. So far my list is:

The rest of the Raven Cycle (3 books) The Way of Kings series (These are so long and there's like 4 books) The Wheel of Time (Book 3 and maybe 4) God of War Inkheart

If there's anything else you would recommend let me know. If anyone has read any Robin Hobb books let me know if they're any good, I'm looking for a good fantasy series.

Also also if anyone knows if someone has written a Davy Jones and Calypso book let me know. I wish Disney had decided to do a prequel on them or at least release a book but I have yet to find one.

#books #book recommendations

[stormcloudrising]

Secret Song of Florian and Jonquil Part 8: Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies

December 7, 2023

Jenny of Olstones by Jesse Ochse

This latest chapter is in response to an anonymous ask for additional information on a question I answered here, about what would have happened to Sansa if Lady was not killed. In responding to the question, I referenced how the show heavily used the dragonfly motif in Sansa’s costumes and what that implied about her story on the show that D&D didn’t carry through on, but more importantly about her arc in the books.

My response to the question elicited a request for further expansion on my comment about dragonflies and Sansa. It is a good question, and one I debated whether to answer at this time because to do so would reveal two theories I’ve been planning to propose in upcoming chapters of the series.

For many different reasons, it has taken me a long time to complete the series. Part of it has to do with the time constraints of my job, but a bigger cause is probably the difficulty in getting up the energy or excitement to write an in-depth analysis when George is taking so long to deliver the next book.

Nonetheless, I am going to answer the anonymous question, and I will propose one of my theories here as well because the question got my essay writing juices flowing again. Thus, though it was not planned, before the super rush of the holiday season gets here and the writing juices stops flowing, here is Chapter 8 of my Florian and Jonquil series.

It is slightly out of order, as this topic was scheduled for 2 to 3 chapters hence. However, it is not that out of place to follow the last chapter. And so, it’s time for Jenny of Oldstones, and her Prince of Dragonflies. I will attempt to show you how the legend of Jenny and her Prince rhymes with that of Florian and Jonquil and as a result, with Jon and Sansa.

"You may read it here. It is old and fragile." He studied her, frowning. "Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said.” A Feast for Crows – The Kraken’s Daughter

You may wonder why I am quoting Asha’s nuncle words about Archmaester’s Rigney’s teachings here, and it would be for two reasons. First, while Archmaester Rigney’s comment is George paying homage to Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time, his words have great meaning in the story of ASOIAF. The past or rather events do repeat in ASOIAF, but not exactly. I would say that instead of a complete repetition, events in the story rhyme…possibly because of alternate timelines, but that’s for another chapter. It’s why we find echoes of the same story repeating over and over in the text and in-world historical references.

The second reason I’m including the quote from an Ironborn is because their myths…specifically that of Nagga the sea dragon has important implications in the story of Jenny; and Duncan, her Prince of Dragonflies. And as I will shortly show you, Ironborn myths…specifically the one about Nagga answers the question posed to me about dragonflies.

More importantly, this ancient myth has implications in the tale of Florian and Jonquil and thus ultimately leads us back to the current incarnation of those characters, Jon, and Sansa.

Before I get into answering the question about dragonflies, let me again state what I do in almost every essay, and that is, George like many great writers writes in symbolism—except he takes it up to the 9th degree.  As a result, this is one of the main ways I analyze ASOIAF. It’s not the only way to look at his magnum opus, but if you understand this, and you’re a fan of symbolism, whether mythological, literary or your garden variety type, I think you can discern clues and or pick up on possible answers to the great mysteries of the books.

I also suggest reading, if you have not done so previously, the earlier chapters of my Florian and Jonquil series. It’s not necessary to read all at this time, but you should especially read Chapter 7, Parts 1 and 2. In those chapters, I break down a lot of the symbolism that implies Sansa is a greenseer as well as discuss how this symbolism closely ties her to Nissa Nissa and the corpse queen, the two ancient female figures at the center of the book’s great mystery. This idea that Sansa is a greenseer heavily ties into the symbolism of the dragonflies.

In the two previous chapters of the series, I also discussed how Sansa’s name is a full anagram Nassa, which in Latin means weir, and how that and her little bird moniker among many other things, ties her to Nissa Nissa and implies that she’s a secret unknowing goddess of the weirwoods.

As you read this essay series, you should also always keep in mind that George has set up his weirwood net as a hive; and there is a hive mind theme running throughout. The interesting thing about hives is that they have queens, not kings. This is one of the ways you know that the legend of Ellyn Eversweet and the King of the Bees is a tale of usurpation of the rights of the woman. We know this because there is no such thing as a King Bee.

I also referenced Ravenousreader’s brilliant essay about George’s symbolic use of the sea as a stand-in for the astral plane to which the weirwoods grant access, and how Patchface mad rantings about “under the sea” are about what the fandom calls the weirwood net. You can read RR essay in this westeros.org thread here.

By the way, her theory was written years before it was confirmed on the show in season 6 Episode 2 when Bloodraven describes travelling the astral plane of the weirwoods to Bran as being “beneath the sea.”

Bloodraven to Bran: “It's beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long, you will drown.”

Bran: I wasn’t drowning. I was home.

You can watch the clip from the show here at 2:42.

Of course, we’re not talking about real drowning because we’re not talking about a real sea. Rather George is using the sea as a metaphor for his astral plane version of the river of time.

Bran is not drowning because he’s being trained on how to properly swim the green sea. That’s part of the reason why they are so many dreamers impaled on icy spires in his first weirwood dreams. They couldn’t swim the green sea. There is other symbolism in the passage about the dreamers that have to do with the icy spires I may get to another time, but the point I’m trying to make now is that the green sea is dangerous to traverse…especially for those without training. You can become trapped by the weirwoods.

I mention RR’s essay so that you can understand that often when George references the green sea or other natural water tributaries in the text, he’s talking about the weirwood net and you should be on the lookout for symbolic greenseer activities. Often, these scenes symbolize someone trying to sneak into the green sea/weirwoods; escape from the weirwoods; or being trapped by the weirwoods, which are gnarly bridges across the green sea and can grant access to the special ones—the greenseers.

So, when you see a myth in the text like the Ironborn one about the Grey King, and his battle with Nagga, the great female sea dragon which he slew, you should stop and consider if there is more implied in that tale than that of a king killing a giant sea monster. Let’s look at what we’re told about this legend.

Grey King Battles Naga; Complete Guide to Westeros - Game of Thrones - Season 1 Blu-ray Edition

The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous. It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. The Grey King also taught men to weave nets and sails and carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh. The Grey King's greatest feat, however, was the slaying of Nagga, largest of the sea dragons, a beast so colossal that she was said to feed on leviathans and giant krakens and drown whole islands in her wroth. The Grey King built a mighty longhall about her bones, using her ribs as beams and rafters. From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. Only then did he cast aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful place at his right hand. —The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

George names his Nagga sea dragon after the real world mythological Naga of South Asian culture who are seen as demigods. 

In various Asian religious traditions, the Nagas are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. —Wikipedia

In Indian religions, Patala (that which is below the feet), denotes the subterranean realms of the universe – which are located under the earthly dimension. Patala is often translated as underworld or netherworld. — Wikipedia

Nagas are associated with bodies of waters such as tributaries, rivers, lakes, seas, and wells. They are also seen as guardians of treasure. In George’s world of ASOIAF, the weirwood net is the underworld, and what greater treasure might there be to guard than one that could give access to immortality. Keep this thought, as well as the fact that they are said to sometimes take half human form in mind as I will come back to both later.

The Ironborn gives us a legend about their ancient king killing a sea dragon. Were there such things as giant sea dragons in ancient Westerosi history, and might they still exist? Possibly. After all, the story has giant flying fire breathing dragons.

However, that’s not the point of the legend. Keeping in mind that George uses the sea to symbolize the weirwood net, might the Grey King’s slaying of Nagga be there to tell us something else. Might it be there to tell us not about a battle between a king and a sea monster, but rather about one in or over access to the green sea/weirwood net. Let’s see what else the books tell us about this legend.

On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron's heart beat faster. Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars against the Storm God. From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga's teeth. —A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man

There is an overabundance of symbolism and clues drop by George in the above passage. I could have bolded the entire chapter, but I only did a few lines for this discussion. Here we see that Aeron’s thoughts about Nagga and the Grey King build upon what we’re told in the World Book. What I especially want to discuss now is his thought that Nagga’s stone ribs look like the trunk of great pale trees. Hmmm! Great pale trees…where might we have seen such a reference before?

The sun was sinking below the trees when they reached their destination, a small clearing in the deep of the wood where nine weirwoods grew in a rough circle. Jon drew in a breath, and he saw Sam Tarly staring. Even in the wolfswood, you never found more than two or three of the white trees growing together; a grove of nine was unheard of. The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, bloodred on top, black rot beneath. The wide smooth trunks were bone pale, and nine faces stared inward. The dried sap that crusted in the eyes was red and hard as ruby. Bowen Marsh commanded them to leave their horses outside the circle. "This is a sacred place, we will not defile it." —A Game of Thrones, Jon VI

Nagga’s bones sound and awful lot like the limbs of a weirwood tree, but is that just happenstance? Let’s dig a bit more.

They seated the hedge knights well below the salt, closer to the doors than to the dais. Whitewalls was almost new as castles went, having been raised a mere forty years ago by the grandsire of its present lord. The smallfolk hereabouts called it the Milk house, for its walls and keeps and towers were made of finely dressed white stone, quarried in the Vale and brought over the mountains at great expense. Inside were floors and pillars of milky white marble veined with gold; the rafters overhead were carved from the bone-pale trunks of weirwoods. Dunk could not begin to imagine what all of that had cost. —The Mystery Knight

If those passages are not enough to convince you that the famous bones of Nagga are not of a giant sea dragon, but rather a weirwood tree cut down by Grey King to build his longhall, don’t forget that we have a more recent record in the text of an Ironborn king cutting down weirwoods to do just that. I’m of course talking about Harren the Black.

In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in all Westeros. Forty years it had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shore of the lake while Harren's armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and workers. Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams and rafters. —A Clash of Kings - Catelyn I

The Grey King’s crown is another clue that Nagga’s bone are the limbs of a petrified weirwood. Note up above, it was said to be made from Nagga’s teeth and yet we also get this passage from the world book that seems to contradict this idea.

The Grey King built a mighty longhall about her bones, using her ribs as beams and rafters. From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. Only then did he cast aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful place at his right hand. The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

So was the Grey King’s crown made from the teeth of a sea dragon, or was it made of wood? George put the icing on the cake regarding Nagga’s bones being a petrified weirwood with this little bit about Galon Whitestaff, a past ironborn priest.

The power wielded by these prophets of the Drowned God over the ironborn should not be underestimated. Only they could summon kingsmoots, and woe to the man, be he lord or king, who dared defy them. The greatest of the priests was the towering prophet Galon Whitestaff, so-called for the tall carved staff he carried everywhere to smite the ungodly. (In some tales his staff was made of weirwood, in others from one of Nagga's bones.) —The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

In some tales Galon’s staff was made of weirwood and in others from Nagga’s bones. Seems obvious that George is deliberately conflating the two and wants the reader to do the same. What other evidence is needed?

The petrified bones of some gigantic sea creature do indeed stand on Nagga's Hill on Old Wyk, but whether they are actually the bones of a sea dragon remains open to dispute. The ribs are huge, but nowise near large enough to have belonged to a dragon capable of feasting on leviathans and giant krakens. In truth, the very existence of sea dragons has been called into question by some. If such monsters do exist, they must surely dwell in the deepest, darkest reaches of the Sunset Sea, for none has been seen in the known world for thousands of years. So say the legends and the priests of the Drowned God. —The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

Nagga's Hill by Lake Hurwitz © Fantasy Flight Games

Those maesters, always questioning and discounting the ancient myths, but this time, they might be on to something.

This is all pretty strong evidence that Nagga’s bones are the limbs of a cut down weirwood and not those of a sea dragon. However, while not the bones of a sea dragon, there is one other option other than just a cut down weirwood tree, and this one may make more sense.

As proposed by many in the fandom, the bones that Aeron views upon the hill might be the petrified remnant of the Grey King’s longship, carved from the cut down weirwood tree.

The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous. It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. The Grey King also taught men to weave nets and sails and carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh. —The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

A demon tree of hard “pale wood” that is said to have fed on human flesh. As there are major clues that men were sacrificed to the weirwoods in the books, this passage seems to imply that the Grey King’s longship was also made of that special wood. Ygg is of course, George’s homage to Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology.

Viking Longship wreck - Roskilde Viking Ship Musem

It was there beneath the arch of Nagga's ribs that his drowned men found him, standing tall and stern with his long black hair blowing in the wind. "Is it time?" Rus asked. Aeron gave a nod, and said, "It is. Go forth and sound the summons."— A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man

As you can see, a Viking longship more closely matches up to the arch of Nagga’s ribs than would be the case of an actual tree. Also, as Crowfood’s Daughter has pointed out in her awesome video essay series on the ironborn, for trees to remain curved or arched in the manner of Nagga’s ribs, they would need to retain their limbs of leaves.

We also see from this Jon’s passage that longships would have the shape of Nagga’s bones.

He swiveled the eye east and searched amongst the tents and trees till he found the turtle. That will be coming very soon as well. The wildlings had skinned one of the dead mammoths during the night, and they were lashing the raw bloody hide over the turtle's roof, one more layer on top of the sheepskins and pelts. The turtle had a rounded top and eight huge wheels, and under the hides was a stout wooden frame. When the wildlings had begun knocking it together, Satin thought they were building a ship. Not far wrong. The turtle was a hull turned upside down and opened fore and aft; a longhall on wheels. — A Storm of Swords - Jon IX

And as Jaime notes in ADWD, weirwood trees or the wood it generates never rot. It simply turns to stone over millennium.

"The Brackens poisoned it," said his host. "For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot." — A Dance with Dragons - Jaime I

There are lots of other passages in the text where boats are compared to sea dragons, including the one Petyr uses to take Sansa to the Vale. However, we are specifically discussing the Grey King, and so we’ll leave those other comparisons alone for now. Nonetheless, I’m sure that you can see that the textural evidence supporting the theory that Nagga’s bones are those of a petrified weirwood longship is quite strong.

You’re probably now asking yourself, what does the ironborn’s holy relic on Old Wyk whose legend is built around the myth of the Grey King slaying of a sea dragon have to do Florian and Jonquil or more specifically, the original question about dragonflies. That’s a good question, and so let me attempt to answer.

I said up above that battles in the sea or the pools of water are often meant to represent battles in the weirwoods or over the weirwoods to gain entry to their magic. So, if Nagga was not really a sea monster, but instead a weirwood tree or a longship made of weirwood, does this mean that the battle described in the Grey King legend was one such event? More importantly, if Nagga’s bones is a weirwood longship, who or what did the Grey King slay? You can cut down a tree, but would it be described as slaying? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at what else the books tell us about this Ironborn legend to see if we can discover the answer.

From the Aeron passage posted above, we discover that “Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves.” We also find out in TWOIAF that the Grey King was said to reign for a thousand years and seven. In the books, when you hear of figures living for such a long time, one immediately wonders whether they were born greenseers or gain access to the weirwoods in some manner.

In the case of the Grey King, I think the answer is the latter. He was able to gain access to the trees. If this was the case, how did it happen? You may have missed it above when I posted the excerpt because I didn’t bold the text but another piece of his legend may give us a clue.

The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous. It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

What is described in the passage is basically the Grey King symbolically stealing the fire of the gods and using it to set a weirwood ablaze. In mythology, stealing the fire of the gods is about gaining knowledge…often that of immortality. And in ASOIAF, immortality comes via the weirwoods.

When you recognize that aspect of the myth, you can see that the Grey King legend is that of a man stealing the knowledge of the weirwoods, and the ones he stole if from were the old gods—the greenseers.

So, how did the Grey King steal the fire of the gods? Well, his mermaid wife; his battle with the Storm God, and another ancient myth may provide the answer.

The legends surrounding the founder of House Durrandon, Durran Godsgrief, all come to us through the singers. The songs tell us that Durran won the heart of Elenei, daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind. By yielding to a mortal's love, Elenei doomed herself to a mortal's death, and for this the gods who had given her birth hated the man she had taken for her lord husband. In their wroth, they sent howling winds and lashing rains to knock down every castle Durran dared to build, until a young boy helped him erect one so strong and cunningly made that it could defy their gales. The boy grew to be Brandon the Builder; Durran became the first Storm King. With Elenei at his side, he lived and reigned at Storm's End for a thousand years, or so the stories claim. (Such a life span seems most unlikely, even for a hero married to the daughter of two gods. Archmaester Glaive, himself a stormlander by birth, once suggested that this King of a Thousand Years was in truth a succession of monarchs all bearing the same name, which seems plausible but must forever remain unproved.) The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: House Durrandon

Durran and Elenei, Complete Guide to Westeros - Game of Thrones - Season 1 Blu-ray Edition

The legend of Durran Godsgrief and his wife Elenei has a lot of similarity to that of the Grey King and his mermaid wife. Too many for it just to be mere happenstance. It seems obvious that George wants us to consider the two, side by side, and so, what might he be trying to tell us?

They both married daughters of the sea. In the Durran myth, we learn that his wife Elenei was the daughter of the sea god while the Grey King is said to have married a mermaid. Both Duran and the Grey King also battled against gods…the latter against the storm god, while the former was said to have war against the sea god.

Taking the similarities of the two legends into account, it seems obvious that Elenei like the wife of the Grey King, was herself a mermaid, and that’ why she’s often depicted in this way in fan art. She is even depicted as a mermaid in the Complete Guide to Westeros featurette on the blue-ray edition of Game of Thrones Season One, which we have to assume was approved by George.

In GRRM’s mythological world of ASOIAF, mermaids are merlings and their leader is the Merling King. And he is considered a god. He is the sea god to who sailors pray.

Thirty different gods stood along the walls, surrounded by their little lights. The Weeping Woman was the favorite of old women, Arya saw; rich men preferred the Lion of Night, poor men the Hooded Wayfarer. Soldiers lit candles to Bakkalon, the Pale Child, sailors to the Moon-Pale Maiden and the Merling King. The Stranger had his shrine as well, though hardly anyone ever came to him. Most of the time only a single candle stood flickering at his feet. The kindly man said it did not matter. "He has many faces, and many ears to hear." — A Feast for Crows - Arya II

The interesting thing is that in real world mythology, and I suspect George is doing the same in ASOIAF, mermaids are sea nymphs. In some real-world cultures, they are called mermaids, and in others, sirens. And like in George’s tale, they are usually described as daughters of river or sea gods.

In many real world cultures such of those on the Asian and African continents, sea dragons such as Nāgas or the Watatsumi/Ryūjin of Japanese culture can take human or half human form…you know like the mermaids of our story. These sea dragons are also considered deities. They are sea gods.

As I’ve stated, George writes in symbolism, and there are multiple layers to his story. When he tells us historical legends, there is the surface story that you can read and interpret exactly as written and then there is the deeper symbolism that provides answers to the book’s mysteries. Usually, this hidden layer is about the weirwoods and events of the past.

The myths about Durran Godsgrief and the Grey King are two such legends that are filled with much deeper meaning and reveal much about ancient events. On the surface, they are traditional societal creation myths.

However, when you consider that the green sea and bodies of water are George’s way of symbolizing the weirwood net, as written about by rravenousreader, and confirmed on the show by Bloodraven, one can see that on a deeper level, these two legends are about accessing the weirwoods.

So, if Elenei was a mermaid who could assume both human and half human shape as is implied by her being a daughter of the sea god and the legend of her relationship with Duran, it means she was also a sea dragon. And if Elenei was a sea dragon, it also means that the Grey King’s mermaid wife was one as well. This revelation tells us a lot because, if Nagga’s ribs are not those of a sea dragon, but the petrified remains of the Grey King’s longship, which was made from the weirwood he set ablaze; as you can’t slay a tree, it can only mean that the sea dragon he slew to access the knowledge of the gods, was his mermaid wife.

Grey King and his mermaid wife by Justin Sweet for the 2024 ASOIAF Calendar

I love this latest painting by Justin Sweet of the Grey King and his mermaid wife. I especially love the suggestion that she was a redhead, but back to the story at hand.

Nagga was his both his mermaid/greenseer wife and her weirwood tree. This is how he gained access to the weirwoods and immortality and was said to live for 1000 years and seven. This is why there are so many clues that the remains of Nagga on Old Wyk are those of a ship. It’s to tell us that the Grey King’s killing of his mermaid wife gave him the access and the knowledge to sail the green sea.

I’ve listened to and read many theories that discuss the likelihood that Nagga’s bones are either those of a weirwood tree and or a longship. What I’ve never seen is the theory I propose here that the Grey King killed his wife. This is not to say that the theory does not exist. After all, there are tons of theories about the story that I have not read, but back to Nagga.

As George is always consistent in his symbolism, this is why in Asha’s Wayward Bride chapter, the trees are always written as attacking her and the other ironborn. The trees memories are eternal, and they remember the actions of the Grey King.

Men and mounts alike were trotting by the time they reached the trees on the far side of the sodden field, where dead shoots of winter wheat rotted beneath the moon. Asha held her horsemen back as a rear guard, to keep the stragglers moving and see that no one was left behind. Tall soldier pines and gnarled old oaks closed in around them. Deepwood was aptly named. The trees were huge and dark, somehow threatening. Their limbs wove through one another and creaked with every breath of wind, and their higher branches scratched at the face of the moon. The sooner we are shut of here, the better I will like it, Asha thought. The trees hate us all, deep in their wooden hearts. — A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

Now there are no weirwoods mentioned in this passage, but there are weirwoods in Deepwood Motte. And throughout this Asha chapter, there are repeated passages that make it seem as if the trees are alive and out to get the ironborn. Northmen even cover themselves in branches and attack Asha’s party. It’s as if the trees see the ironborn as the enemy.

As an aside, I love The Wayward Bride chapter and it’s one I heavily recommend re-reading. Asha ran away from the man Euron promised her to as a bride…hence the title. However, if you re-read, instead of thinking of Asha as “the wayward bride,” think instead of her as “the weirwood bride,” and you will see the echoes of a story about a runaway magical bride in the ancient past. The chapter title is one of George’s best uses of wordplay in the series.

No, I’m not saying that Asha is a greenseer, only that the chapter is there to tell us about events past and present events surrounding a “weirwood bride” who may have run off to escape her husband or fiancé, or else been “stolen” away by her lover. Re-reading the chapter with this idea in mind is a smorgasbord of symbolism and clues about events, but back to the tale at hand.

Further to the idea that the trees remember and have it in for the ironborn, it’s quite likely that the Grey King did not escape punishment when he killed his sea dragon wife.   It is very interesting that Nagga’s jaws became the Grey King’s throne. When you look at how his skin is described as turning as grey as his beard, and him sitting inside Nagga’s mouth, it’s as if he’s trapped within the jaws of death.

Grey King on his throne by Arthur Bozonnet for TWOIAF

This symbolism makes sense as weirwoods are traps for the unwary. That’s why George named it after a real-world weir, which is a trap for fish. So, while the Grey King killed the first greenseer, he did not get off scot-free. He was instead trapped by Nagga’s maw. He was trapped by the weirwoods.

This idea is echoed in images of the primordial Aztec Goddess Tlaltecuhtli.

One of Tlaltecuhtli’s most distinctive features is her gaping maw, showing flint knives for teeth and a protruding tongue. Her hands and feet are often clawed, bringing to mind both predatory birds and carrion-eaters. Above she is pictured with skull masks at her elbows and feet as well as in her hands. Her birth-giving posture connects her to frog imagery. The open mouth of the Tlaltecuhtli can be seen as a tomb — or as a womb. On the first page from the Tonalámatl de los Pochtecas the Earth Goddess appears, jaws wide, teeth exposed. Out of her mouth grows the tree of life. The tree of life growing from these jaws of death completes this picture of the earth as womb and tomb, and of the mouth and eating as analogous to birth and death. —Sacred Tours of Mexico

The ironborn believe that their Drowned God and Grey King are separate entities. I would argue that they are the same and this separation of the two on their part is simply confusion about the myth that developed over the millennium. The Grey King who slew his mermaid wife and the Drowned God who turned her bones to stone are one and the same because the two acts are separate descriptions of the same event. He’s both because he failed in his quest to take over and rule the weirwood net. He was trapped and drowned in his attempt to sail the green sea.

She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. —A Feast for Crows – The Drowned Man

The Grey King built a mighty longhall about her bones, using her ribs as beams and rafters. From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. Only then did he cast aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful place at his right hand. —The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

Sea dragons may or may not exist in the mythical world of ASOIAF, but we likely will never see one on the page. This is because the true purpose of their legend in the story is to tell us about female greenseers. They act as symbolic stand-ins for female greenseers, the original dragons of the green sea and provide clues on what happened to them.

Those of you who have read my previous essays likely remember my theory that because of the hive mind aspect of the weirwoods, we can deduce that the weirwood net was originally built around a queen, because as I noted, hives do not have kings. The sea dragon in the Grey King legend is said to be the first of its kind. Thus, the greenseer mermaid wife slew by the Grey King was also the first greenseer.

You also likely know my theory that Nissa Nissa was the first greenseer. If my theory about his mermaid wife being the sea dragon slew by the Grey King is correct, one can also see how this legend echoes that of Azor Ahai killing his wife Nissa Nissa; the Bloodstone Emperor usurping and killing his sister wife, Amethyst Empress; and the Winged Knight usurping Ellyn Eversweet. The latter being a tale of usurpation is not one I’ve seen discussed anywhere else in the fandom, and so you can read about it here.

How can all these ancient legends be of the same wife killing event, and why so many different names for the characters. Originally, I thought that the similarities and variations in the legends were a case of a world changing monomyth such as the great flood of our real-world myths appearing in so many different cultures. It could also be George simply creating different myths to drop clues for the reader to piece together. Both still maybe the case.

However, in the last few years, after reading more about GRRM’s other books, and reading a couple, I’ve come to embrace the idea that he’s playing with the theme of time travel that runs through many of his previous works. I think that we might be dealing with the same world changing event echoing through multiple timelines of the great cosmic ocean…hence the different names and the use of spiral motifs in both the books and show.

Messier 61 in Constellation Virgo taken by camera on Hubble Telescope

The weirwoods, as we saw on the show and is hinted at in the books, are a time travel mechanism. A greenseer doesn’t physically travel through time, but they can send their consciousness into the past, and quite likely the future. As we see with Bran and Hodor, strong ones can have an impact on individuals who exist outside the river of time, and this means they can affect the timeline.

Bran is only the latest of many greenseers, one who has not yet joined with the hive mind. As such, I think it’s shortsighted to assume that he is the only such greenseer throughout history who has had an impact on or tried to change the timelines…especially since men—in the masculine gained access to the trees.

George is a chess player, and he has set up his story as a great chess match. Who the two great players are still must be determine, but one only must look at the Others, as well as Euron’s arc to see a couple of the possibilities.

In fact, as we see in this passage, which I’ve read a million times and totally missed until watching Crowfood’s Daughter recent video on the “The Third Head of the Dragon,” one of these entities may already be in contact with Euron.

I had a love once too. Victarion's hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. "You have sons," he told his brother. "Baseborn mongrels, born of whores and weepers." "They are of your body." "So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware." "What dragon?" said Victarion, frowning. "The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me." —A Feast for Crows - The Reaver

As Amanda asks in the video, who exactly is him that Euron speaks of? He’s speaking in third person, and so although we know he plans to rule over the charnel pits as a new god, he’s not talking about himself. Might it be the other chess player. It’s certainly possible. With the reference to Dany’s amethyst eyes, Euron’s possible association with Asshai and glass candles, I would say it’s the Bloodstone Emperor entity.

Here is the interesting thing about these repetitive ancient versions of the monomyth; there seems to be two versions of the tale of the female greenseer and her husband. One version is dark as with the ones I mentioned above including that of the Grey King killing his mermaid wife; and Azor Ahai killing Nissa Nissa where the kiss from husband to wife is of the steel variety.

The other version has softer romantic overtones as with Durran and Elenei; Florian and Jonquil; and yes, even the Night’s King and his corpse queen. There has been no indication thus far in the text that the male figures in these tales killed their female partner. In fact, their legends are just the opposite.

In the softer versions of the myth such as the one with Elenei and Duran Godsgrief, the female greenseer seems to have protected their mate...that is protected them from dying in the green sea. That is why Duran survived so many storms sent against him by the storm god. He drowned but like the myth of the Little Mermaid and her prince, he was given the kiss of life and brought back by his wife.

This is where I differ from Amanda and her wonderful video essay series about the Grey King. I don't think that his mermaid wife gave him the kiss of life. He killed her and she trapped him in the green sea...hence the Drowned God myth of the ironborn. And as he often does, George also gives us the opposite side of the myth in the same legend as we see in the ironborn doctrine of "what is dead will never die," and their practice of the "kiss of life."

Another tale that mirrors the ancient monomyth of the Azor Ahai/Nissa Nissa figures is the tale of Brienne’s ancient ancestor, Galladon of the Morne. However, it’s not quite clear where this legend falls. One wants to say it’s a more positive aspect of the myth because George names the male after the heroic Sir Gallahad of Arthurian fame, and we are told of the myth from Brienne, one of the most heroic personages in the entire series.

"Why would I lie?" she asked him. "Every place has its local heroes. Where I come from, the singers sing of Ser Galladon of Morne, the Perfect Knight." "Ser Gallawho of What?" He snorted. "Never heard o' him. Why was he so bloody perfect?" "Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair." — A Feast for Crows - Brienne IV

Nonetheless, the Galladon/Maiden legend does have aspect of the darker side of the myth such as her gifting the “perfect knight” with an enchanted sword and “losing her heart” to him. Also note the comment that no regular sword could withstand her kiss. Lots of Nissa Nissa echoes in that passage, and George does like to upend traditional myths.

We’ve spent much time discussing sea dragons and mermaids and why they represent the seemingly missing female greenseers from the story, and now it’s time to move on to dragonflies, but before I do that, I want to briefly mention a bit of history about the Starks.

Even this did not give Winterfell dominion over all the North. Many other petty kings remained, ruling over realms great and small, and it would require thousands of years and many more wars before the last of them was conquered. Yet one by one, the Starks subdued them all, and during these struggles, many proud houses and ancient lines were extinguished forever.

Amongst the houses reduced from royals to vassals we can count the Flints of Breakstone Hill, the Slates of Blackpool, the Umbers of Last Hearth, the Lockes of Oldcastle, the Glovers of Deepwood Motte, the Fishers of the Stony Shore, the Ryders of the Rills...and mayhaps even the Blackwoods of Raventree, whose own family traditions insist they once ruled most of the wolfswood before being driven from their lands by the Kings of Winter (certain runic records support this claim, if Maester Barneby's translations can be trusted). Chronicles found in the archives of the Night's Watch at the Nightfort (before it was abandoned) speak of the war for Sea Dragon Point, wherein the Starks brought down the Warg King and his inhuman allies, the children of the forest. When the Warg King's last redoubt fell, his sons were put to the sword, along with his beasts and greenseers, whilst his daughters were taken as prizes by their conquerors. The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Kings of Winter

If you analyze all the House names mentioned above, you will notice something in common about them, they all seem to be located at or close to water, or in deep forests where weirwoods would grow. Of course, there is no proving it unless George confirms the theory, but I would argue that these ancient houses that were conquered by the Starks were likely strong in either skin changing or greenseer abilities. And they held on to and married the daughters of the houses they conquered. This is why warg and greenseer abilities are so strong within the family. They have added the ability to their gene pool on many occasions over the generations.

Their war against the Warg King and the COTF at the suggestively named Sea Dragon Point is also very telling for all the reasons we previously discussed about sea dragons. And as we would expect, we see from this Wayward Bride passage that Sea Dragon Point is associated with weirwoods.

Asha tried to picture herself abed with Erik Ironmaker, crushed beneath his bulk, suffering his embraces. Better him than the Red Oarsman or Left-Hand Lucas Codd. The Anvil-Breaker had once been a roaring giant, fearsomely strong, fiercely loyal, utterly without fear. It might not be so bad. He's like to die the first time he tries to do his duty as a husband. That would make her Erik's widow instead of Erik's wife, which could be better or a good deal worse, depending on his grandsons. And my nuncle. In the end, all the winds blow me back toward Euron. "I have hostages, on Harlaw," she reminded him. "And there is still Sea Dragon Point … if I cannot have my father's kingdom, why not make one of my own?" Sea Dragon Point had not always been as thinly peopled as it was now. Old ruins could still be found amongst its hills and bogs, the remains of ancient strongholds of the First Men. In the high places, there were weirwood circles left by the children of the forest. "You are clinging to Sea Dragon Point the way a drowning man clings to a bit of wreckage. What does Sea Dragon have that anyone could ever want? There are no mines, no gold, no silver, not even tin or iron. The land is too wet for wheat or corn." I do not plan on planting wheat or corn. "What's there? I'll tell you. Two long coastlines, a hundred hidden coves, otters in the lakes, salmon in the rivers, clams along the shore, colonies of seals offshore, tall pines for building ships." A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

Note that the name of the peninsula is Sea Dragon Point as in a singular dragon, not plural. Also, notice how George casually throws in that wood for building ships can be found there. That George, always consistent.

I’ve talked a lot about sea dragons, mermaids, and ancient ironborn myths when this is supposed to be a chapter on Jenny and her Prince of Dragonflies; and how the two relate to Florian and Jonquil, and Jon and Sansa. Why so much ironborn?

Well, I went in-depth into the Grey King myth because I had to show you that seas dragons represent female greenseers. I had to show you instead of just telling you so you see my reasoning. More importantly, I had to do it this way so you will see the connection when I tell you that in the story, dragonflies should also be seen as sea dragons.

Dragonfly - earth.com

In fact, dragonflies are literal sea dragons, because in addition to having the word dragon in their name, they are also born in the sea. Female dragonflies lay their eggs in water, primarily swampy areas like bogs and swamps. Dragonflies spend practically all their life around such water.

The female lays eggs by tapping the surface of the water repeatedly with her abdomen, by shaking the eggs out of her abdomen as she flies along, or by placing the eggs on vegetation. In a few species, the eggs are laid on emergent plants above the water, and development is delayed until these have withered and become immersed. They take about a week to hatch into aquatic nymphs or naiads which moult between six and 15 times (depending on species) as they grow. Most of a dragonfly's life is spent as a nymph, beneath the water's surface. —Wikipedia 

By the way, nymph comes from Ancient Greek and means bride.

Another interesting thing about the dragonfly is it is one of the few insects that can fly in all direction…forwards, backwards, up, down, and sideways. Thus, you can see that as sea dragons, they are the perfect symbolic representation of greenseers—individuals who can send their consciousness forward and backwards in time as it were.

This ability to fly in all directions is also present in a certain “little bird.” In fact, it’s the only bird that has this ability. The bird in question would be the hummingbird. Knowing George, do we think this is just happenstance…especially as the little bird is a popular sight in the American West and Southwest, with Arizona and New Mexico major stops in their migration progress.

The hummingbird reference is just an additional anecdote that supports my theory about Sansa being a greenseer, which I discussed here. Let me tell you another one about dragonflies that also has to do with New Mexico and the American Southwest, where we know that our author has lived for over 40 years.

Many fans have pointed out that the tale of Hades and Persephone play an important symbolic role in ASOIAF. I’ve gone further and pointed out how this legend is baked into the myth of the Nights King and his corpse queen. I’ve discussed how Arya’s childhood memory of the kids playing in the crypts wherein Jon covered himself in flour and stepped out of the crypt like a ghost does not just foreshadow his death, but also positions him as Hades, the King of the underworld, and Sansa who runs away in fear as Persephone. You can read all about this theory here.

I’ve discussed how Persephone was kidnapped from the Vale of Nysa, and what that potentially means when you consider the story of Nissa Nissa. I also covered how in Biblical times, the Vale of Nysa was mountainous and swampy, which echoes the area surrounding the river Styx that leads to the realm of Hades. This area was very like the Neck of ASOIAF, which is the entry point to the Northern underworld.

I’ve talked about how the real-world honey making Nysa deciduous also grows in bogs and swamps. If, as I’ve proposed, the corpse queen is a symbolic sea dragon because she’s a female greenseer and is also the Persephone character of the story, then it makes sense that she’s heavily associated with water, just as Sansa is via her Tully heritage.

As we see in the text, every time the word dragonfly is mentioned, it is associated with water. This includes reference to Oldstones in the Jenny and Duncan legend as that ruined stronghold sits on a hill above the blue fork of the Trident. Note that it sits above the “blue” fork giving it icy symbolism. As I keep saying, George is never not consistent with his symbolism.

The galley skimmed the water like a dragonfly, her oars rising and falling in perfect time. Ser Rodrik held the rail and looked out over the passing shore. "I have not been the most valiant of protectors."— A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IV

The galley was skimming downriver, a great wooden dragonfly. The water around her was churned white by the furious action of her oars. — A Storm of Swords - Jaime I

The sun was overhead, the world still and hot. Midges swarmed in the air, and a dragonfly floated over the stream, darting here and there. And the grass was moving when it had no cause to move. —A Dance with Dragons

To say again, dragonflies are symbolic sea dragons. And in the story, the myth of the sea dragon is one about the usurpation of the first greenseer who was female. So, when on the show we saw Petry give advice to Sansa that could have come straight out of the greenseer training handbook, it was hinting at something. This dialogue was the type that one would expect to come from Bloodraven to Bran, who we know is a greenseer.

You can watch the clip here, but I’ve transcribed the dialog below.

Don’t fight in the North or in the South. Fight every battle everywhere, always in your mind. Everyone is your enemy. Everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way, and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before. —A Game of Thrones, Season 7, Ep 3

That is the advice you give to a greenseer in training. It’s also how great chess players think. What happens right after this scene with Petyr and Sansa, Bran the greenseer arrives. Now some will say that the comment from Petyr was to introduce Bran in the next scene but as I’ve always said, there were a million and one ways for them to have set up Bran and Sansa’s reunion without that piece of dialogue. This advice that perfectly describes a greenseer was not needed from Petyr to Sansa of all people.

This scene was one of the ways D&D hinted at Sansa’s greenseer abilities on the show without coming out and saying so. This is because to do so, would have upended their decision to have a Jon and Dany romantic relationship on the show, something I steadfastly believe won’t happen in the books.

Some other clues were the ringing of the bells all day at her birth, Arya’s, “she’s smarter than anyone I know, which came out of nowhere” and most importantly, the continued use of the dragonfly motif in her costumes. They were basically shouting in silence; Sansa is a sea dragon/greenseer.

The show incorporated dragonflies into Sansa’s costumes in so many different instances and ways, that it’s clear it wasn’t just happenstance but deliberate on their part. It was embroidered into dresses; worn as a necklaces and pins; and of course, her Season 8 dress of scales shimmered like dragonfly wings. Many fans have commented on the use of sea dragon motif in her costumes before me, including @castaliareed who wrote about the dragonfly influence on her leather armor here. I really loved that fine.

Now, I want you to remember all the clues I and others in the fandom have discussed that point to Sansa being the Persephone of the story. Would you then be surprised if I told you that there is a dragonfly named after the Greek Goddess.

Aeshna persephone, Persephone's darner, is a species of dragonfly in the family Aeshnidae. It is found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Its natural habitats are rivers and intermittent rivers.—Wikipedia

You can read all about its discovery in Arizona in 1954 here, but I copied a brief section below, because when I read the passage, I immediately saw echoes in a passage from the world book.

Aeshna persephone is most closely related to A. palmata, and appears to be confined to Arizona, whereas palmata has not been taken in that state. The name is suggested by the habitat of this large and colorful dragonfly. In contrast to the sunny streams and ponds favored by most of its North American congeners, it inhabits mountain streams which are lighted by the sun’s rays for only a few hours each day, though it ascends periodically through the forest gloom to the sun-lit mountain slopes.—Biodiversity Heritage Library

Aeshna Persephone Darner

The passage above suggests that the Persephone dragonfly got its name from the dark mountainous area where it was discovered. Except for no mentions of swamps, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the rivers are such as that’s the natural habitat of dragonflies, the description reads a lot like the dark mountainous region of the river Styx that leads to Hades, which supports the theory I’ve proposed above.

Also, and this is very important, let’s not forget that our author has lived in New Mexico, smacked dab in the middle of the region that’s the native habitat for the Aeshna Persephone for over 40 years.

Dragonflies, like hummingbirds are prevalent in the American Southwest and are sighted all over the area. There are tours to their breeding grounds and hiking trails named after them all over the area. There is even a popular tourist attraction called Dragonfly Sanctuary Pond, the first of its kind in the country at the Albuquerque Bio Park in New Mexico.

Do we really think that George is not aware of the Persephone darner when he is so well read and knowledgeable, but more importantly has placed the myth of Hades and Persephone at the core of his ASOIAF legend of the Nights King and corpse queen. And it’s not just the inclusion of H&P myth, he also added dragonflies as an important symbol of his magical greenseers.

Yes. I think that it’s safe to say that George is aware of the Aeshna Persephone dragonfly.

The passage from the article discussing the discovery of the Aeshna Persephone also reminds me of this passage from the world book. I’m not sure it means anything, but the article was written in 1961 and so I’ve wondered if George came across it in his research. There is a fandom theory that Asshai was once the capital of TGEOTD, and thus would have been where the Bloodstone Emperor and the Amethyst Empress resided. Like I said, I’m not sure it means anything. In this instance, likely just happenstance, but I thought I would mention it.

On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. — The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow

So, let’s finally talk about Jenny and Duncan, her Prince of Dragonflies beginning with this passage from The Hedge Knight.

A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword. I must earn my place in that company. If I fight well, some lord may take me into his household. I will ride in noble company then, and eat fresh meat every night in a castle hail, and raise my own pavilion at tourneys. But first I must do well. Reluctantly, he turned his back on the tourney grounds and led his horses into the trees. On the outskirts of the great meadow a good half mile from town and castle he found a place where a bend in a brook had formed a deep pool. Reeds grew thick along its edge, and a tall leafy elm presided over all. The spring grass there was as green as any knight's banner and soft to the touch. It was a pretty spot, and no one had yet laid claim to it. This will be my pavilion, Dunk told himself, a pavilion roofed with leaves, greener even than the banners of the Tyrells and the Estermonts. His horses came first. After they had been tended, he stripped and waded into the pool to wash away the dust of travel. "A true knight is cleanly as well as godly," the old man always said, insisting that they wash themselves head to heels every time the moon turned, whether they smelled sour or not. Now that he was a knight, Dunk vowed he would do the same. He sat naked under the elm while he dried, enjoying the warmth of the spring air on his skin as he watched a dragonfly move lazily among the reeds. Why would they name it a dragonfly? he wondered. It looks nothing like a dragon. Not that Dunk had ever seen a dragon. The old man had, though. Dunk had heard the story half a hundred times, how Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King's Landing, and how they'd seen the last dragon there the year before it died. She'd been a green female, small and stunted, her wings withered. None of her eggs had ever hatched. "Some say King Aegon poisoned her," the old man would tell. "The third Aegon that would be, not King Daeron's father, but the one they named Dragonbane, or Aegon the Unlucky. He was afraid of dragons, for he'd seen his uncle's beast devour his own mother. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler."— The Hedge Knight

I included this long passage from The Hedge Knight not just to show a reference to a dragonfly in the text but to also show how George answers Dunk’s question while seemingly talking about the last fire dragon.

This is one of those passages I mentioned to be on the lookout for when you see a water reference in the text. In this instance because a dragonfly is present in the scene, you should pay particular attention. It’s basically a scene symbolizing the green sea/weirwood net.

Let’s start with how Dunk leads his horses into the “trees,” symbolically the weirwood net. And what does he find there, nothing but greenery because it’s the green sea. Spring grass as green as any knight’s banner; a tall elm tree with sprouting leaves even greener than the banners of House Tyrell and Estermont of Greenstone.

Interesting choice of house banners to reference…one that has “a rose” in a field of green, and the other that utilizes George’s favorite animal, a turtle, also in a field of green. Sigils that can be said to be floating in a sea of green.

I could also go into detail and post excerpts about real-world myths from many different regions of the world wherein ships are considered the horses of the sea, but you will have to just take my word for it. Thus, when Dunk takes his horses into the trees/green sea, you can symbolically see them as ships or sea horses sailing the green sea.

Where is all this greenery located? Well, it symbolizes the green sea and so, as one would expect, it’s next to a body of water. In this case, a stream that forms into a pool from which Dunk takes a bath.

Reeds are also growing deep along the edges, which tells you that this stream is also swamp/wetland like because that’s where reeds grow. And what is flying around in this green sea, a dragonfly…a sea dragon. Then Dunk wonders what’s difference between dragons and dragonflies. Why does the latter have that name when it looks nothing like a dragon?

As he’s wont to do, George gives the answer while seemingly talking about the last fire dragon. He incorporates the answer into all the green symbolism of the scene. Dragonflies maybe small, but they are green dragons of the green sea, and whatever happened to the original sea dragon, the first of her kind is why the weather has been out of whacked for thousands of years.

There is one other passage from The Hedge Knight that I want to mention because I think it’s one of the most important clues about the entire series. It’s the one where Prince Maekar offers Dunk a place in his household.

"That can be changed," said Maekar. "Aegon is to return to my castle at Summerhall. There is a place there for you, if you wish. A knight of my household. You'll swear your sword to me, and Aegon can squire for you. While you train him, my master-at-arms will finish your own training." The prince gave him a shrewd look. "Your Ser Arlan did all he could for you, I have no doubt, but you still have much to learn." "I know, m'lord." Dunk looked about him. At the green grass and the reeds, the tall elm, the ripples dancing across the surface of the sunlit pool. Another dragonfly was moving across the water, or perhaps it was the same one. What shall it be, Dunk? he asked himself. Dragonflies or dragons? A few days ago he would have answered at once. It was all he had ever dreamed, but now that the prospect was at hand it frightened him. "Just before Prince Baelor died, I swore to be his man."

Dragonflies or dragons? The conflict at the heart of the series. The sea dragons/dragonflies had access to the weirwoods and the fire dragons in the form of Azor Ahai, the Bloodstone Emperor and many other symbolic representations wanted access, which led to the killing of the first sea dragon/greenseer.

In a way, Dunk’s choice was a symbolic “hedging” of his bet or rather, putting off the decision. He chose the dragonfly, but he took the dragon prince with him. And later, he does fully make the dragons his choice, which leads to his death.

On the other hand, Jenny’s Duncan was a dragon who chose to be a dragonfly, but he never quite gave up his connection to his fire heritage, which also led to his death. However, I don’t think that Duncan’s Prince of Dragonflies’ moniker is just about him choosing Jenny over the dragon crown. And this is where my second theory of this chapter comes in.

I think it’s quite possible that George gave Duncan that moniker to indicate that he was a greenseer, or at least had the untapped potential. It could be why he sought out the Ghost of High Heart, which I think is what happened and how he met Jenny.

The GOHH is a woods witch and with her diminutive stature and association with High Heart, a location that was sacred to the COTF, and is centered around a major weirwood grove, she is likely either a Child of the Forest, or a human/COTF hybrid. George has not yet answered that question, but with her green dream visions, he clearly wants her associated with the COTF.

Thus, it makes sense for a dragon prince with sea dragon/greenseer abilities to be associated with the COTF for training as was the case with Bloodraven. Now, before anyone says that there is no way that Duncan could have been a greenseer, I would say to remember Bloodraven and their family heritage.

Duncan’s mother was Black Betha Blackwood while Bloodraven’s was Melissa Blackwood. The greenseer gene is strong within the Blackwoods. It’s why they war with the Starks in ancient times and were chased out of the North. It is from his Blackwood mother that Bloodraven inherited the greenseer gene, and so Duncan having the gene as well is a very real possibility.

Was Jenny also a greenseer? This can’t be ruled out considering the hints that she might have been related to the GOHH…possibly even a daughter or granddaughter. We don’t get much of a description of Jenny except that she wore flowers in her hair, which seems to be George wanting the reader to associate her with being a forest nymph.

She’s described as being strange and as a witch. Her connection to the GOHH would seem to suggest that she might have been a woods witch as well. She’s also closely associated with Oldstones, which is a full anagram for lodestone. A lodestone is a magnetic stone and in fantasy literature, it often has magical properties. So, Jenny could have been magical as well.

However, in this instance, I think that Duncan might have been the one with the ability and his Prince of Dragonflies moniker might indicate that he was in training, just as Bran, “Prince of the Green” is being trained by Bloodraven. Jenny might have been the lodestone that brought him to his mentor, the GOHH. But as I said, I would not be shocked if she also had magical abilities because it would fit thematically.

And those flowers she wore in her head, I think that there were probably wild white roses that she found on the grave of her ancestors.

Yet in the center of what once would have been the castle's yard, a great carved sepulcher still rested, half hidden in waist-high brown grass amongst a stand of ash. The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done their work. The king had worn a beard, they could see, but otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king's feet almost to his chest. — A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

As we find out in this Sansa chapter from AFFC, the tale of Jenny and her Prince might be very similar to that of Florian and Jonquil in its sadness.

If the Eyrie had been made like other castles, only rats and gaolers would have heard the dead man singing. Dungeon walls were thick enough to swallow songs and screams alike. But the sky cells had a wall of empty air, so every chord the dead man played flew free to echo off the stony shoulders of the Giant's Lance. And the songs he chose . . . He sang of the Dance of the Dragons, of fair Jonquil and her fool, of Jenny of Oldstones and the Prince of Dragonflies. He sang of betrayals, and murders most foul, of hanged men and bloody vengeance. He sang of grief and sadness. — A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

This passage which references both Florian and Jonquil, and Jenny and her Prince of Dragonflies also mentions the Dance of the Dragons. We know that while Jenny’s story involved dragons, it did not involve a Dance of Dragons, at least not of the fiery type. And it did involve betrayal.

We also discover in The Hedge Knight, that all the adjectives Sansa uses to describe the songs sung by Marilion could also be used to describe the legend of Florian and Jonquil. This includes betrayals; murder most foul; and a Dance of Dragons between two brothers with a woman at the center of the conflict.

I think that the latest Dance with Dragons will play out between Jon and Dany and Sansa will have a major role in this arc, because as I’ve been preaching throughout this essay series, she and Jon are the Florian and Jonquil of this iteration of the story.

However, as I noted when discussing the passage from The Hedge Knight above, not recognized by many is that there is also a dance between the sea dragon of the dragonfly variety and the fire dragon at play in the story. It’s been there since the fire dragon killed the sea dragon millennium ago to gain access to the weirwoods, and it’s a dance that continues through all the timelines iterations. And with that, let’s wind down this chapter.

In Part 2 of The Bear and the Maiden Fair, and in this brief snippet, I discussed why Sansa’s Tully heritage and other textural symbolism positions her as a sea dragon waiting to be awaken. Left alone, weirwoods don’t rot. They petrified and are turned to stone. The same can be said of weirwood goddesses. They may sleep and hibernate, but goddesses sometimes awaken. Weirwood goddesses or sea dragons sometimes awaken from stone, or better yet, awaken from under the name of Stone.

Don’t you ever wonder why George gave her a false moniker and a hidden princess storyline where she needs to awaken to reclaim her identity. It’s interesting when there is a major prophecy in the text about waking dragons from stone, and such prophecies usually have multiple and layered meanings…especially if as I’ve proposed, Sansa is the Sea Dragon Behind the Glass, as in a sleeping greenseer.

In his dream, Bran falls from the Winterfell eyrie and Bloodraven tells him to fly or die, meaning awaken to his full potential or die in the attempt as the was the case of many other dreamers who attempted to cross the weirwood bridge to the green sea. It’s not specifically stated in the dream that Bran is falling from the eyrie, but it’s implied with his habit of climbing to the top to feed the crows as he does to the one in his dream, as well as in his memory of Jaime pushing him. Then later in A Storm of Swords, George puts Sansa at the top of the Eyrie in the Vale and we get this scene.

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant's Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa's Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well. A Feast for Crows, Alayne I

You do have wings Sansa, and you will fly…possibly both symbolically and literally.

To the original questioner, I hope this very long essay answers your question of why dragonflies are important in the story and what it implies about Sansa’s arc. The length was necessary because I really had to go into the ironborn Grey King myth to show the symbolic importance of sea dragons in the story and why dragonflies should be considered the same.

With that, we come to the end of Chapter 8. The next chapter is going to be a fun one, and I’ve been looking forward to writing it for almost 6 years. In fact, I first started writing it about 6 years ago…even before the Florian and Jonquil series. It was only after I started the latter series that I realized the two were connected.

For this reason, I tabled the essay, until I got to the right part of the Florian and Jonquil series to introduce the theory. I didn’t expect to be doing it now, but the query about dragonflies which led to a discussion of the Grey King and other topic provides a perfect segue. I can’t tell you the name of the chapter as that would be a big spoiler. I will say that many will find it surprising, but it’s been one of George's shinny apples sitting out there in plain sight all along.

And so I leave you with this quote from Aeron Greyjoy.

"The Storm God in his wrath plucked Balon from his castle and cast him down, and now he feasts beneath the waves in the Drowned God's watery halls." He raised his hands. "Balon is dead! The king is dead! Yet a king will come again! For what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger! A king will rise!" —A Feast for Crows, The Prophet

Yes. What is dead does rise harder and stronger, and a king shall indeed rise. Actually, two shall rise but only one will do so by the "kiss of life," and it's not Euron. Oh, and yes, I will be discussing the infamous unkiss.

#sansa stark #jon snow #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #my meta #house stark #sansa stark meta #florian and jonquil #jenny of oldstones #prince of dragonflies #duncan targaryen

[callipraxia]

The Interview: A Running 'Live' Commentary

Well, you asked, kinda, @the-orion-scribe...

Disclaimer: One of my…things is that where there is a transcript, I'm gonna read the transcript first and then may or may not tackle the audio version later. As such, I'm inevitably going to get some of the subtler bits indicated by gesture and tone of voice wrong. I hope it won't be anything that significantly changes the meaning, but we shall see. I'm doing this live, (redact) it! And partially on my work breaks at that, so apologies if anything gets repetitive or disjointed as a result of different bits being read several hours apart. Full transcript is available here from, I believe, @fordtato, who seems like awesome cool folks.

That all said, let's begin.

[On the SAG-AFTRA strikes]

Alex's grandmother was an actress? Interesting. Also, generally approve of the sentiments stated there, very good, no actual notes.

[On the pilot and the 'Next On' reel]

When I was a much, much younger Callipraxia, I also had an interest in TV work - we had this class at my middle school call Careers, and we had to do a research project on, well, a career every year, and one year I did mine on being a soap opera writer (early nineties soap operas were my first literary influences, and I suspect it still shows). I therefore find this glimpse into the industry fascinating, even though I don't have much to say about it beyond giggling at the image of executives having such reptilian, limited-intelligence brains that they could be tricked into thinking something already exists and therefore just approving it so they don't have to think about why they're being asked to approve something that already exists because it would make their heads hurt.

"I was working...on a cartoon called 'Flapjack.'"

I'm 99% sure I've never seen a single frame of this show, but also 99% sure I've heard of it somehow. Not sure why. No idea what 'Fish Hooks' is, though.

"Then, when we did the Cipher Hunt, I was running out of rewards and treasures to give the audience because I'd already bled Gravity Falls dry of every drop of content that was inside it..."

See, this is what I find fascinating about Proper Creators, and this one in particular. Their creations can seem so much fuller to us than they do to them. This baffles me, because even when I don't do things on purpose, I generally do realize that I did them sometime, you know? (Edit: ha, Hirsch actually talks a bit about this at the end)

"I remember asking him, 'Hey, Mike, you read the bible, right? What do you think about this Jesús character? Do you think it's working? Do you think people will get it?'"

Even though I clearly read the words 'series bible' right above this, my first thought was that Alex was asking Mike if he'd read The Bible - y'know, the religious one. And I was so confused. And then I stopped being confused and I facepalmed in real life.

"Instead of embracing that this is part of lore that fans love...in his mind, he, as a serious videogame programmer, made a mistake, and is ashamed of the mistake, and doesn't want to acknowledge it, doesn't want to encourage other people to corrupt their own game, and so he said 'there's no such thing as MissingNo.'"

This is another "I just don't get Proper Creators" moment. I'd have embraced it so thoroughly I'd have written a sequel just about it and only revealed that it was actually serendipitous (not 'a mistake' - word choice, people!) years later!

Sometimes no answer is better than a boring answer.

This is why I love that thing Robert Jordan used to say - "read and find out!" and the fandom shortened it to "RAFO," and now that's a one-word response to questions you don't want to answer, at least if everyone in the room is familiar with The Wheel of Time books and fandom history...so many times I've wanted to just reply "RAFO!" in a review, but then realized the odds were excellent that the other person would have no clue what I was talking about.

"I know that we did cut like 12 pages from the journal, just due to length."

I've been told that I can make people feel cussed out without ever uttering a single swearword, when I'm annoyed enough with them. I would like to try to do that to whoever it was who decided on this length restriction. Give me lore! All the lore! More! More lore!

[On the walls of genre cards and character beat cards and how this led to rejected episode ideas]

I'm gonna try this writing method out, it sounds interesting. Thanks, Alex! And also thanks to everyone involved who's mentioned any of these rejected ideas over the years, as this allows us to play with them instead! (one day, y'all will know the tale of Wendy as a weather witch. I've got a whole arc planned for her with that one).

"When [Rob Renzetti] and I are together, we're very much like Grunkle Stan and Ford, and he is Ford and I am Stan."

I wish so much that someone had asked if there were ever any RL fistfights during the production of the book. It's barely even funny and would have wasted time, but I wish they had anyway.

"I still recall when Ford had a long beard and was a hippie."

...No.

"We were thinking it'd be kind of more like a zen kind of guy"

I mean, technically I suppose he still is. Apparently quite big on meditation back in the day, and the Journal strongly implies he's a firm believer in divination now. He could have been a sort of hippie lite, had he gone for drugs other than brain demons and/or Truck Stop Coffee I Initially Assumed Was A Euphemism For Significantly Stronger Stimulants.

"I remember talking about, maybe, J.K. Simmons and then thinking, 'Gosh, you know, he's got a very familiar voice, is he gonna feel too overexposed.'"

Ford was actually the first character I ever heard Simmons voice, because I have acquired what passes for my pop culture literacy mostly completely backward. My mother was watching reruns of whatever that cop drama he was on was (was it The Closer?) one day, though, and I did a double take at the TV because why is Ford here on one of Mama’s shows? Did he get arrested again or something? Why are they acting like he's one of the...ohhhh.

Which yes, means I found my way to Portal 2 via Gravity Falls instead of the other way around. That isn't so surprising, though, because video games are another of my...things. I absolutely love a lot of the stories and will happily read about them and watch cutscenes and video essays about them and player-keeps-quiet playthroughs all day, but I've never actually played video games because I have poor hand-eye coordination and rather low frustration tolerance when it comes to entertainment. The puzzles would drive me mad. I adore complex things, but I hate having to figure them out before I can move on with the story if I don't want to stop. Let me figure stuff out at my own pace, dangit -

Er, that got off-topic, sorry. The point was, I've watched a ton of clips of Portal 2 now, and it's kind of fascinating to me that it possibly wasn't a conscious influence, because Cave Johnson is...not really that dissimilar to a thing that Ford could have become, in a lot of ways. Or what he and/or Fiddleford might have actually become in the "Better World," for all we know. He's probably closer to what Fiddleford did become in canon, though, at least for a while/in my possibly somewhat weird interpretation of Fiddleford.

"So we're putting this character together, we're putting blocks together, we're moving blocks and putting them up, and it's only at the last second that a Ford is revealed that we're like 'I guess we did it?'"

This is how I construct plots basically, more than characters, but - oh, gosh, I wanna do a lore dump so bad but this isn't the time or place. Never mind, I'll ramble about character development another time.

Also, I am amused by the visual of, like, Stan or someone performing a dramatic flourish and being like "Behold: A Ford!"

"What to you comes across as 'oh, Rob understands Ford's ridiculous recklessness' to me comes across as 'Rob IS Ford and Ford does rationalize.' That's what he does. One of Ford's greatest powers is rationalizing. So you're seeing Rob as Ford rationalizing Ford's bad decisions. In that moment, I think what's being revealed is less Ford's recklessness, and more Ford's ability to justify anything."

Why not both? But yeah, fair, I've observed this about the character myself. He censors himself when he doubts. It's a defensive mechanism I think - it keeps him alive and functional to a degree, because, well...we've seen what happens when Ford admits he was wrong, twice. In the Journal, he nearly lost his mind, and in the finale, he basically went from thinking of himself as He Who Shall Save The World to He Who Is About To, However Reluctantly, Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds in an alarmingly short period of time. Extreme black and white thinking with him a lot of the time. Not a psychologist, just a nerd, but the longer I think about the character, the more probable a personality disorder seems. Which is one reason I worry about him and Stan both after the series ends. They're both going to be confused as all get-out when it dawns on them that "...wait, we're not suddenly better after all? We're both still really, really screwed up?"

"When you do a clone story, the point of a clone story, in my mind, is a character seeing themselves in a different light, right?"

Depends on which side you're looking at it from, really ;)

"They're all wonderful, wonderful dumbasses, all of them."

Accurate.

"They know that I am a detail-oriented bastard."

...Less accurate, in a way. I've spun whole worlds out of details that the writers have admitted were unintentional or screwups, not to mention the later discourse on Alex as the "emotional" story one while Rob was the "make it a story" guy, or the specific detail that was actually under discussion here. As for that one....

"When you're editing, when you're writing, and then you reread your writing and you edit it, and then you reread your writing and you edit it, there's a very subconscious process of streamlining, literally making paragraphs look nice - it's entirely possible that me or Rob made that change out of one in a million changes specifically because we knew that psychologically Ford is not traveling this path alone, he's traveling it with his muse who he has a very complex and fucked-up relationship with, and even in Ford's private thoughts, he would not say 'I'm alone,' he would say, 'Oh, I have a very important relationship in my life with Bill, but I don't have a friend, that is a difference!'"

...except he canonically referred to Bill as his friend, too, so, uh...yeah, there's that.*

Interesting to hear someone else's perspective on rewriting and editing; I'm pretty sure that there's very little sub-conscious going on with me when I'm editing. If anything, I'm double and triple checking to excise anything that even hints of subconsciousness out of the manuscript, and I am very, very conscious of times when I go out of my way to make paragraphs physically neat and pretty, because I always feel really stupid about doing it. So I suppose I'm glad to hear other people do that, too.

I also found it interesting to see the description of the relationship with Bill as "very complex and fucked-up." Ford, at least, wrote and spoke as though he was under the impression that his relationship with Bill was very straightforward pre-betrayal, but here's the Guy, on the record saying it was in fact "very complex." This doesn't confirm that Ford was on some level aware of this, but it does make me feel more confident about my theory that Ford invited Fiddleford up not so much because he really needed the technical expertise as because his subconscious was throwing up enough red flags to cover every square inch of land in the U.S.S.R. and he just couldn't admit it to himself consciously because admitting that he is not in control of a situation tends to render him non-functional.

*Full disclosure since nobody's read this far anyway, but hi if you have, have a full disclosure: I would not say I ship it, because in context - Fiddleford married, Ford on the brink of sanity, Ford as Fiddleford's employer, Fiddleford mind-wiping both himself and Ford behind Ford's back after a certain point, and that's all before we consider that on occasion, it's entirely possible Fiddleford was interacting with someone who mostly looked like Ford but, uh, wasn't - it would be incredibly dark and messed up and suitable for nothing but a full-blown adult psychological horror story, but I do consider "Ford was in love with Fiddleford, regardless of whether it was reciprocated or not" as a perfectly valid reading of the Journal. I also consider it perfectly valid to read it as Ford just being prone to really intense attachments, regardless of what kind they are - he either adores you or he hates you, whether you're his brother, his muse, his friend, his romantic or sexual interest, or what-have-you, which is kind of what I was saying earlier about the potential for personality disorders there. Ford writes in a style more like he's from the mid-nineteenth century than from the mid-twentieth, or at least like he's trying to imitate that style, so that could make things sound gay that aren't gay, but by the same token, much of Ford's rhetorical style seems to exist to allow him to not-quite-lie to himself while using his superpower of Justify Anything, so ultimately that means nothing, too. I went through the Journal line by line once and determined that you could make roughly equally strong cases for Ford being some form of straight, some form of gay, some form of bi, and some form of ace, and that it also wouldn't be unreasonable to come away with the view that he's not into humans so much but might very well be into one or more types of alien. I don't know and so will potentially read any variant of these things, as long as it's a decent story.

"You know the thing about working with a big company, it's like working with a friend who swaps their head with a different head every couple of years."

Huh, Alex has met Olm, has he?

[Hana] "By the way, I know there's a lot of fake blood on this page, that's for one of my YouTube videos, ignore that."

Why is this the moment I laughed out loud?

"That's the trouble of a puzzle box, is it's like, there's two flavors of it, there's a question with a satisfying answer, and then there's a question that is sort of an open-ended invitation to a kind of, uh, you know, group improvisational session. We've created a prompt for fans to 'yes and' their own story out of it, and the sense that there might be something in there creates a sense of excitement along with it."

Pretty sure this is sums up my general thoughts on the Interview/is the part of it I regard as Important so far. Also, I wish I could write something like that. If I leave a loose end hanging, it's very blatantly a loose end. I can improvise a 10,000-word essay about Ford's anger issues on the fly, doing that out of someone else's work is incredibly easy and natural for me, but I can't do the same in my own work. It's a frustrating thing.

"The Mystery Shack is a bucket full of misshapen, lost, odd oddities, and these character are a bucket of full of misshapen lost odd oddities, and like the idea of them all having a place where they fit in, and - and loving each other as a family, was very important to me."

...Ok, this is another Important bit, but for completely different reasons. Basically sums up why I'm here, really.

"That means that Dipper and Mabel's parents may have had children at a concerningly young age, and is this show's intent to say that it's okay for those relationships to exist?"

Here's a thing that I think is just...me not quite getting how a lot of people work, I guess? To me, there's a world of difference between "that could be what happened" and "and that means I approve of it." The Pineses are a really screwed up family. They should have called that pawn shop Dysfunction Junction, that’s how messed up they are. Apparently it was Filbrick who knocked someone up at a drive-in movie once (one of my 4.5 Shermies is actually a much older half-brother who only gets to know Stan at all after they meet at Filbrick's funeral, though I never decided if his mom was the shotgun wedding or if that was with Caryn. Either way, though, he was vaguely aware that "yeah, Dad and his second wife had those twins" but he'd had very limited contact with them and bought that he'd mixed up which one was supposed to be weird and have six fingers without too much trouble), and Mabel's level of proto-sexual aggressiveness is...occasionally disconcerting, to me at least. One or more generations of teenage parenthood seems perfectly in character for them to me, without it meaning anyone approves or disapproves of that. It's fairly realistic, however depressing, that a much younger son in a family as dysfunctional as theirs might well have started acting out, resulting in Indiscretions - my second fic was based on the premise that the "you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart..." was Stan talking about Shermie's lot in life rather than his own, as I hadn't yet heard the remark about it being a Filbrick quote (the whole events of that story were constructed with the idea of keeping Stan's line about how he lied to everyone, including "my family" and "your parents", literally true, so every event was created to explain how Stan got away with it for a little longer without anyone noticing, basically). Mabel also seems impractical enough, even post-character development, to get waaaaaay too into a high school relationship with unfortunate results. That's not approval of such relationships, that's just...reality? Goodness, people don't think I morally approve of everything (or even very much at all) in my stories, do they? That's an unsettling thought.

"I think we say 'damn.' I think we say 'hell' maybe, um, yeah."

Ford specifically says "I'll be damned" in the Journal (though, in context, it seems less like swearing than like he possibly means it some form of literally; there's several hints in the Journal that suggest Ford believes in...Something, though he's almost certainly not a member of any organized religion and almost definitely not a member of any organized religion we'd recognize). Stan, for his part, says "hell" in "Lost Legends," referring to a part of the carnival that he thinks would be a good hiding place.

Since Disney allowed people to refer to going to literal, capital-H Hell in at least two properties long preceding Gravity Falls, though (specifically, David Xanatos infamously says "pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell" in the pilot of the animated show Gargoyles, and Claude Frollo sings a whole song where he repeatedly yells the words "Hell" and "Hellfire" without a care in the world in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), I am still more shocked that they let Ford say the word "suicide" on the show proper, on Disney channel. And...okay, Frollo is significantly less child-friendly than Bill, even given the torture scene. Frollo does things that are just as violent as that scene, plus Frollo is quite blatantly driven by a perverse sexual obsession with a woman, so that he attempts to coerce her into sex with everything but the word 'sex' on screen before setting her on fire. There's distinctly perverse undertones in Bill's every interaction with Ford in the Weirdmageddon Trilogy, but Bill's been an energy being without physical form since before the birth of the Milky Way, which takes the edge off...a bit, anyway. Bill in the Journal flings down and dances upon the line between "this is a metaphor" and "...okay, so, the way this is being written about is so on the nose that I'm not sure this counts as a metaphor for any practical purposes anymore," but Bill having "extract information" as a motive in the most blatantly unsettling scenes of the show proper means he's still less overt about it on screen than Frollo.

...What was I talking about, again? Oh, right. Disney Channel: A lot less squeaky-clean in general than it wants you to think, Parents! They've been letting animated people say "Hell" occasionally since I was four!

"We talked about 'is there a way for this government agent who knows about Trembley to be connected to the government agents who picked up this disturbance?' We weren't really able to find a way to make them connect in a satisfying way, so, I wish we had done more with it."

Welp, there's another one for the "Projects to Eventually Do" List. Y'know, I'd never even thought of associating Powers and Co with the guy in "National Treasure"? It's one of those episodes I kinda mostly forget about tbh, the S1 filler episodes - I remember facts from it because they're useful when constructing my "Nathaniel Northwest was a warlock who made deals with Bill and here's how that could play out" theories, but I never think about the plot. Kind of like how I forget that Dipper's infatuation with Wendy is why the Paper Twins exist, even though they're now major characters in a lot of what I've written and are even bigger players in the vast majority of what I plan to write in future....I can tell you way, way too much about "Double Dipper," but I'm always slightly surprised that "oh, the Wendy obsession is why all this other stuff even happened!"

[On a very long section of text about McGucket and the memory gun]

OMG OMG OMG I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE ALCOHOLISM METAPHOR, IT'S CANON, I FEEL SO SMART RIGHT NOW, WHEEE!

Ahem...sorry about that. Got a bit carried away there. So, Alex also compared McGucket's relationship with the memory gun to alcoholism. And to taking anxiety pills, but...well, there is a reason you don't mix those, I suppose. I want to dig into this so much more, and I'm probably gonna end up printing this section and tacking it to the wall next to my writing table, but right now I have gotta do my mother's taxes, she refused to admit they hadn't been done yet until a few hours ago, arrgh, I don't have time - yeah, that bit's probably gonna get its own analysis post eventually.

"It's like he has to always have a mission in front of him, because if he doesn't have a mission in front of him, he's thinking 'how have I treated the people in my life?'"

Hey, I think I said that...like...three times in this insanely long post, and I know I've said it before. My character interpretations are being validated. It makes me faintly grumpy that I'm as pleased by this as I am. I have a...complicated relationship with validation, let's leave it at that.

"The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it's like, you know the damage someone's family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?"

I'd argue that it was the whole family dynamic, really - Stan clearly had a ton of daddy issues on the boil even before he got disowned, and while Caryn seems to have been more openly affectionate toward him, I can't imagine it did his psychology any good to grow up with a mother he calls a "pathological liar" without missing a beat. There'd always be that uncertainty (much like there later is with Stan himself) about what was real and what was a lie, what was a performance, because Caryn, like Stan, was an entertainer - it's the thing they were good at. Meanwhile, Filbrick is a fifties and sixties father of the most rigid sort, someone who is clearly uncomfortable expressing any positive emotion of any kind, or really anything except anger. He's either indifferent or he's shouting, and he apparently calls his sons by the same name to the point that they can say "he means you" when he's bellowing for "Stan Pines," because Stan's unimportance in life has been so thoroughly underlined for him by his parents, long before Ford personally was in any position to inflict much childhood trauma, that he struggles to have any form of identity separate from "Ford's twin" by a very young age, and never really grows past this until maybe the final moments of the show - I really wish we'd had a moment of Stan claiming his own name properly, but at least it made the news. Until that point, he'd literally failed at everything he ever did as Stanley, as himself, because he had no direction without Ford - even the Mystery Shack, as built around his specific talents as it is, was created because the mission in front of him had Ford as a focus point. That's a crucial thing, too, about his bond with Dipper and Mabel, and Soos, and even kinda Wendy - he's built a life for himself outside of just being Ford's brother. It's implied none of them even knew he was a twin, that the Other had ever existed. He still defines himself in relation to other people to a large extent, but that's still less restrictive than defining himself (and being defined by others) solely in terms of one other person. Fairer to Ford, too. But I digress.

"And it's like 'oh! I think he's also aloof and distant from himself.' I think he is, uh, deeply, deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships."

Accurate, at least at times.

"The shows I was watching growing up were, like, Doug and Rugrats, and there were no holy wars about whether Chucky Finster, uh, should be interpreted this way or that way. We had no idea the world that was coming into consciousness as we were making this thing."

I found this kinda interesting, because I remember those shows, too - but by the time I was old enough to be aware of very much, Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had already created the core of modern fandom culture as we know it, so I at the same time have the concepts of "there is no Rugrats fandom" and "that did not make fandom a surprise to me, because it was falling into place right about the point where my memory starts/I became dimly aware of the world outside of [Microscopically small town I'm from]." I don't know if this is something where he maybe remembers early childhood more than I do, since I have very, very few distinct memories from before I was 10-11 - a few, but they're like isolated snapshots with limited context, except what I know happened because people have told me it happened. I know Hirsch is older than me, but also not *that* much older than me, so I wonder if it's down to those few years (like he said about how gay marriage had just been legalized as the show was wrapping, and it's disconcerting now to think how different so many things were back then) or if it's a difference in personalities or what.

Well! That was more enjoyable than I expected! Thanks for prodding me to finally read this thing, @the-orion-scribe. It's eaten much of my day and seems set to eat a fair bit of it tomorrow, too, since I had to cut myself short at a couple of interesting points, but it was fun.

#gravity falls #gravity falls characters #gravity falls fandom #commentary #my commentary

[chussyracing]

what is happening in the world of motorsports?

Williams confirmed they will send Alex's (technically Logan's) chassis damaged in Japan back to their UK factory before China to repair it (so they will both have repaired ones) and their destructor championship cost is already around 2m for this year (that means up to one or two upgrade packages in F1 numbers)

Ralph Schumacher is trying to stir the pot as per usual because he said that Logan Sargeant doesn't have a contract for the full year and he gets contract for each GP individually meaning he could be replaced for any GP from now on (I call BS)

Rumouredly, Mercedes is looking into a possibility of hiring Pierre Waché from RBR

Also, a rumour slash insider info from my comm (maybe others knew but I am kinda shocked): a lot of teams are surprised by the tyres this year from one race to another because apparently Pirelli mixes them a bit more than just for every reason, but the features are different for every race basically (so although Bahrain and Japan had the same allegation of tyres, it's not just the weather conditions and track surface why they act differently)

Marko Helmut spoke to OE24 (Austrian journal) and mentioned that they are ready to give Checo Perez a new contract after they saw his results because he is their best option for the second seat and Checo himself said he expects a lot of contracts being announced in upcoming weeks, including his own future which should be settled within a month

NXT GEN Cup won't be supporting Formula E at all this season due to "unexpected constraints" although it was supposed to support all European races, and they already tested at Misano World Circuit (FE spokesperson also says they want to raise young talents through FIA Girls on Track and other positive initiatives)

Misano will also feature a 30 mins FE rookie test on Friday with some familiar faces like Zane Maloney, Robert Shwartzman, Ciao Collet, Taylor Barnard, Tim Tramnitz, Jack Aitken or Jordan King

Lewis reportedly walked out of an interview after a reporter asked if he was jealous of Ferrari's results, saying "don't you have any better questions?" (go off tbh)

Speaking of Lewis, am I the last person to learn he has his own TV and movie production company, Dawn Apollo Films?

Peter Kenyon, who previously worked in Manchester United and Chelsea, is joining Williams as a commercial advisor

Regarding Carlos still being jobless, Eddie Jordan believes he is going to Aston Martin starting 2025 (but has "no real hardcore evidence") and racingnews365 reported that Audi (and Seidl who already worked with Carlos) are interested in him but want to lock drivers for their 2026 in 2025 already so they gave him a deadline to give his final answer by the end of April on their deal and Helmut Marko said they have no interest in the market right now and you won't hear from them till mid-season at least concerning new drivers or personnel

Lewis is looking into the possibility of testing the monocoque of Ferrari at the end of this year but "doesn't know if Mercedes will allow him"

Katherine Legge will race Indy 500 for e.l.f. cosmetics brand with number 51

Heikki Kovalainen, who underwent a heart surgery, says that he might fully recover thanks to a fast intervention from the doctors

Fernando was asked if he will try to get the Mercedes seat and joked that he is not interested in a team that is behind them in pace, so Toto won't hear from him any time soon

after some F1 tests and current results, Kimi Antonelli now has enough points to drive in F1 with superlicence but since he is still 17, he has to wait to be of age

RB and Sauber are testing in Suzuka these days for the 2025 Pirelli tyres testing (so both dry and wet condition tyres)

speaking of the future of F1, some rumours leaked about the 2026 regulations and it doesn't look good, because to simplify it, the active aero on the rear wing in combo with the engine on full power makes drivers spin out on straights or in the mildest of turns in simulations with a test car - and to avoid it they have to drive slowly to the point of going slower than the current regulation of F2 cars; there are also some concerns about the 50/50 split engine (the problem is it is too late to change the 2026 regs so what they will try now is to make the active aero on both front and rear wing and see how it goes)

like they teased previously and like rumours suggested, Prema is joining Indycar with two entries starting with 2025 season

René Lammers (15 years old Dutch f4 driver) won Ferrari's scouting camp and 2023 CIK-FIA European championship and his father Jan Lammers now told GPFans that his son was offered a 10 year deal from Ferrari but they decided to refuse although it looked promising at first so he will stay non-related to any F1 team and continue with MP Motorsport in Spanish F4

Max spoke about F1 Academy and especially the competitiveness, the ladder to F1 and the impact of F1 teams and I have a lot of mixed thoughts I won't share here but I'm willing to discuss if anyone is interested

apparently during Lewis' talks with Ferrari, he completely omitted his current manager, so he saved money and got the deal for himself (but also this comes from a Czech source that is not super reliable)

also in GQ Lewis said that Niki Lauda wasn't happy with his ventures into the fashion world at first because he thought it would be distracting him from racing

Theo Pourchaire will be on "standby" for McLaren's Indycar car number 6 for the next race (because David Malukas got injured and they are not sure if he will be good to race and because Callum Ilott who is on standy has WEC duties that weekend)

British American Tobacco (BAT) renewed sponsorship of McLaren - they began sponsoring them in 2019 but European Union banned the advertisement of tobacco, now they will advertise electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouch products on both F1 and FE cars

#teehee it's two days and there is so much???? everything is happening too much anyway. here it is. #my archiving purposes are getting out of hand i fear #f1 #e #gossip night

[ladyhindsight]

It has become increasingly difficult to make progress with this book. It’s the sort of slump I get into with each installment, which is ridiculous considering how much time I actually spend thinking about the series and forming my thoughts. But hey, back again with another chapter.

One of the reasons why returning to the story sucks is that I remember this book better than City of Fallen Angels, and I don’t know how to internally deal with how bad the storylines of (especially) Alec, Maia, and Jordan are. But as always, let’s give it a go anyway.

The chapter opens with Alec having secretly slipped away from his post in order to meet up with Camille and accost her about the spell that could make Magnus mortal. At this moment, there is no narrative reason to think Alec is playing Camille in order to learn more about Magnus (unlike Clare once states that that was the very reason why Alec went to repeatedly see Camille), and considering that the only thing Alec inquiries about is the spell itself, that whole idea holds little water as of now. Anyway.

→ No comma before “and”

→ Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Being gay does not mean you cannot appreciate female beauty or “appeal” since not everything is about physical attraction anyway. Also, funny but petulant: “I guess you’re beautiful, but I hate you so, no.”

→ This is also inconsistent with an earlier scene with Alec and Camille in the book where it says that "She was as beautiful as Alec remembered her."

Propping up Jace and also tooting your own horn. Additionally, Jace’s “cleverly disguised put-downs” are never cleverly disguised, they are always just plain old and rude put-downs.

Imagine being so jealous that you have to bully a teenager. Also, let’s leave Jace’s amazingness out of this. And no, that wasn’t something. That isn’t anything.

Imagine being so jealous—and inappropriate—that you have to flaunt your previous sex life with the ex to a teenager. Also no comma before ‘and’.

→ Considering if there is such a spell at all, why isn’t everyone just taking other people’s immortalities away left and right? Use your brain, Alec.

→ Shadowhunters can learn to work spells (like Valentine, hello?)

→ I like how Alec does not question at all how this supposed spell even works, like how would Magnus know who it was? This storyline and dialogue are so asinine that Clare wasn’t even trying to make it anything.

Alec and Camille reach an impasse, and we cut to Isabelle and Jocelyn making their way to the Adamant Citadel.

Because Jocelyn is uh-mazing. If there is one thing we have learned about Shadowhunters is that they have to rigorously train when they are teenagers but once they become adults, all the training ceases because they have apparently reached the max capacity in skill that never deteriorates. See: every adult Shadowhunter in the series ever.

The only reason why Isabelle might currently dislike Jocelyn is the fact that Jocelyn refused her the information about Robert’s affair, but otherwise there is nothing narrative-wise (considering that later in the chapter Isabelle brings up this fact again).

Also I don’t understand how any of these clauses are related:

→ Jocelyn was only a step behind her, (she was nimble and fast)

→ and as aggravating as Isabelle found Clary’s mother, (Isabelle is annoyed by Jocelyn. Additionally, I really dislike constantly calling Jocelyn what has basically become her moniker, Clary’s Mother)

→ she was glad in a moment, when Jocelyn raised her hand and a witchlight rune-stone blazed forth… (Isabelle, though being annoyed by Jocelyn, is glad that she illuminates the space?)

Okay, great. But why was Isabelle glad about it? She wasn’t worried about not knowing where they had arrived, she wasn’t afraid of their strange surroundings, she wasn’t anything about anything.

→ Then a portion of the wall slid back

Per Collins Dictionary: “You use as well when mentioning something which happens in the same way as something else already mentioned, or which should be considered at the same time as that thing.”

Per Cambridge Dictionary: also; too

→ What do you mean demon-stone as well? What is demon-stone? Another name for adamas like the demon towers in Alicante?  I can’t remember (nor find) an instance where any material, especially adamas, was referred to as demon-stone. So you now just figured to call adamas demon-stone?

See the point above. What is demon wire?

→ Iron Sisters should have the courtesy of calling people with their preferred and up to date names. But barely anyone in the series actually do so anyway.

→ Being outcast means being ostracized by the society or a group, which Jocelyn sort of is, but also no because she left on her own volition. She wasn’t rejected or cast out. Also she had the freedom to prance around Alicante in City of Glass and no one made a huge fuss nor intended to escort her back to the border.

→ I also don’t particularly like the style of Cleophas’ speech, just complaining on my part

→ Meaning Silent Brothers can read minds whenever

→ Meaning Iron Sisters can read minds elsewhere but in the Citadel. Do they though?

→ Also Jace Lightwood, woooo

→ Fingers of her hands as opposed to fingers of her feet??

→ …fiery gaze. Her fingers were very long—not elegantly…

→ …adamas wall. A second Iron Sister stepped through, as if emerging from a haze of white smoke.

→ though her hair was gray and the ends of her two braids bound by gold wire.

Because what the hell is that original mess of a blurb.

→ It is a very shitty thing to entrap an angel, don’t do that.

→ In case you happen to do so, you could never force it to do your bidding.

→ You cannot force them to give you holy weapons but you can take something (undefined) by force

Okay, makes sense… until later.

The Sisters tell Isabelle and Jocelyn the nature of the demonic bond between Sebastian and Jace, essentially what everyone had already gathered but like, really honing it in.

→ Isabelle throws a Clary-esque tantrum at the Sisters and storms off very Clary-esque way.

Again, Isabelle not much liking Jocelyn though they have never interacted in any meaningful way, never built any sort of relationship where Isabelle would dislike Jocelyn for any reason, so again, there’s no reason for any of this narrative-wise.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: Jocelyn is a prop character, a plot point, an exposition regurgitator. There is no reason why she would even know about any of this. See this post.

We cut to Clary in the magic house, and Jace comes to get her from her room.

These sort of musings make me rip my hair out (figuratively) because these are so wholly empty and meaningless thoughts in order to add drama and flare and angst. Clary know Jace is not himself, he is somehow, someway tied to Sebastian and is not behaving right at all. So yes, he must be happy!! Why is she here to save him at all from all this happiness with Sebastian!!!!! Good lord.

Not much happens then, Jace takes Clary out on a date, and we cut to Maia and Jordan arriving at the Praetor headquarters. The word “alpha” did not age well and I cringe every time it is used.

Yes, it is, in fact, bad. This is not the time to gaslight yourself.

→ which was build a blocks of golden stone (stop filtering)

I love that we are getting brand new werewolf facts like the eyes and the protein intake in the FIFTH INSTALLMENT OF THIS SERIES.

Then cut to the Gang discussing the findings of the chapter:

→ If you happen to summon an angel, prepare to be blasted with divine wrath

→ but remember, you can take weapons by force, unless you get blasted, you know, with the divine wrath

→ Did you know that two things can be true at once? The ritual allows you to summon Raziel (because it does, duh) and be protected from his divine blasting. Also why the fuck did Raziel give means to summon him if his going to be a little bitch about it.

CLARY’S MOTHER. MY DAUGHTER.

→ Just use their names, please.

Oh my god, how does he know anything. Not like he hasn’t been sharing almost esoteric knowledge before in the series, and Alec finds it himself to be surprised by it only now.

Wow, I truly loathe this. Surprise

#Alec Lightwood #Camille Belcourt #Isabelle Lightwood #Jocelyn Fray #Clary Fray #Maia Roberts #Magnus Bane #City of Lost Souls #CoLS Chapter 9

[wot-tidbits]

Fixing Robert Jordan

Disclaimer. This post has no point to change minds. Your mind is already made up and no one will change it. This is written for the sake of my own mind.

I have watched dozens of fantasy adaptations in the last 24 years starting with the Lord of the Rings movies. My expectations with every adaptation for every book that I have read were simple - finally I will see these scenes and these lines which I love to be shown on screen. I worried what and how much they will change. I never prayed how the adaptation will fix anything from the source material. This was so alien thought - if I am a fan, then why I would want something to be fixed? I am fan which means that I understand why the source material works in the first place.

All of the above doesn’t translate as equal to "I hate changes" or to "I want 1 to 1 adaptation". On the contrary, my most favorite scene from all the 8 Harry Potter films is the scene where Harry and Hermione are dancing in the tent. Scene which definitely DOES NOT exist in the books. In Game of Thrones - there is the masterpiece of “Chaos is a ladder”. One more scene which is not in the books. In House of the Dragons - the masterpiece scene of 2021 is the boring 2 minutes of walking by decaying dying old man. 2 minutes of nothingness which is not in the books. But these two minutes are my best adaptation experience of 2021.

Of course adaptations make changes. The question is not if they make them, but why they make changes. I have never seen fantasy adaptation to make changes with the intention to fix the source material - always to enrich it or because production problems or just because the writers did not care.

For some reason this experience was not mine alone. I have talked with friends, I have talked with strangers and I have read strangers through the years. For 24 years for every new adaptation - Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, the Witcher and so on, no need to list them all - I notice one thing and one thing only: I was not alone in my expectations. And not only I was not alone, I did not witness any alternative. For 24 years. For dozens of adaptations. No, I do not live in a cave. I have never heard the phrase “I cannot wait the adaptation to fix it!“

So it was big surprise to find out the first place where people…. No, actually people who are masquerading as fans, to use the phrase is the adaptation of WOT. If you do not like WoT you would want things to be "fixed" so you could like it, of course. I can expect that from haters of the books. What I do not expect is to hear it from "fans". You are a fan, you know the bigger picture, you know why it works. I do not expect fans to wish the story to be changed because they know it already and it is boring.

My personal view of expectation is to see the story which I read to be shown on screen. That is what I have always dreamt - my favorite scenes and my favorite lines to be heard and to be seen, not read. This is said with the obvious remark "as close as possible" as adaptations cannot, and I cannot stress this enough, cannot be 1 to 1 with the books. Did you have the same expectations for "boring" or "oh, I have already read that" when you watched Harry Potter or Game of Thrones? Why I doubt that to be the case… So why you are doing it now?

The confusion is not about the mere existence of the phrase, of course. Different people, different expectations. And I cannot stress it enough, I am not saying you cannot have different opinion than mine. You are free. The confusion is not that, oh Saint Bela, my bigoted mind cannot accept that my opinion is not the only valid.

The confusion is when it changed? The confusion is why people in the fandom mock with glee a behavior that has been completely normal and accepted for the last 24 years and more. Of course, everyone expects the fantasy adaptation to follow the source material as close as possible, everyone expects the adaptation to honor the source material, everyone judges adaptation to be good or bad based on this merit. What process of adaptation the production decided to take is completely another topic. We talk about audience here.

Why for the Wheel of Time we flipped expectations on their head? Now it is bigoted and disgusting to expect any of the above. The people who have done, again the complete normal socially accepted behavior, now are being ridiculed and mocked that somehow after 24 years they lost the ability to understand how adaptations work. Who decided this to be changed? Why people, who presumably are having common sense, decided that such madness is ok to manifest to normal behavior?

Ok. Fine. You want the books to be fixed. I can accept that. You are free to want it. Again, the confusion here is not to oppress your freedom. The confusion is why you oppress others in the process. Why you act with such arrogance and thirst for blood that you are having the only valid opinion and everyone else are bigots? How I am supposed to react to that sudden illogical and nonsensical change out of a clear blue sky? Why the expectations for the WoT adaptation got them differently?

You are completely aware that 24 years ago people knew that changes are essential and practically unavoidable, mandated both by the constraints of time and medium, but how much is always a balance on thin ice.

Nothing changed in the approach of making adaptations since then. Hollywood makes the same adaptations over and over. The same audience goes to watch them over and over. Meanwhile no new argument, no new information has been discovered that people from 24 years ago have not known it till now. What changed?

Let the Light keep you safe. LightOne

#wheel of time #wot on prime #my post #wheel of time tv series

[wheelwheelwheel]

Sorry to bother you, but I need to ask THE question. I know the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about fight club, but thankfully this Wheel of Time so we can talk. Why in the Light is there so much talk about spanky stuff in this book? I am so sorry XD but Im on book 4 and so far its almost mentioned in every chapter, I cant be the only one seeing this? At first I was shocked. CP isnt really a thing in my life nor among anybody I know. I guess its a thing in America? Then it just kept being mentioned, in the Two Rivers, but then in the tower, in the towns. It's making me laugh now as Im thinking the writer has a kink? I am so sorry to ask you but you are the only WOT book fan I follow, I've only watched the TV show up to now and to book 4. I am not kink shaming him , I am kink asking WHYYY. Please tell me you have noticed it too?

Anon I have to tell you this is the funniest ask I’ve ever received sfgjlkhfsgj

I can assure you that I’ve noticed it, and I think most book readers have as well. Personally I think it’s a result of Robert Jordan being Like That and the fact that The White Tower may be structured after the military academy he attended (don’t quote me on this I know I read it somewhere but I don’t remember if it’s fan speculation or official)

#I’m going to assume that by CP you mean corporal punishment #which used to be a lot more common in American than it is now #I’m laughing so hard thank you for sending me this #asks #wheel of time

[veliseraptor]

June Reading Recap

Heaven Official's Blessing: vol. 6 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. BOOK FOUR OF TGCF BABY, WE LOVE A DOWNWARD SPIRAL

I'm not saying that book four and all of the continuous trauma and misery that comes with it is my favorite part of TGCF as a whole, but I am saying it's very good for me personally and has some of my favorite moments.

Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City by Ben Wilson. I read Darwin Comes to Town some years ago and was very struck by it (drove people around me crazy by referencing it constantly in conversation), so when I saw this book on a new releases table I immediately put it on my to-read list. I ended up being...not dissatisfied with it, but not really satisfied, either. A solid 3-star read, for some interesting stuff around how cities have and are dealing with the question of nature in an urban environment. Read interestingly paired with Fuzz by Mary Roach, which I also read recently.

I felt like in some places the author veered a little more into apologetics for why cities are good for nature, actually, than I found strictly convincing. But I'd say if you've got some spare time and any interest in urban infrastructure and the natural world, it's worth a read.

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. A second book in recent memory that was a retelling of a Greek myth and didn't make me actively angry! I don't know that I'd say I recommend it either, though. There were things I liked about it, and it was certainly interesting to see an iteration of the story of Clytemnestra that makes use of the version where Agamemnon was her second marriage and she had a previous husband and child. I think what I lost with that version, though, was that it ended up with an Agamemnon who was never anything but nasty and brutish, which, while I don't necessarily mind that as a version, I think makes for a slightly less compelling story. A genuine betrayal is always more fun than vindication of existing hatred, don't you know.

If you're as obsessed with Clytemnestra specifically as I am then I'd say to read this even though it's not the best work of Clytemnestra lit I've read, but otherwise I don't think I'd recommend it more broadly.

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini. I checked this one out from the library and was deeply self conscious as the librarian was looking at the title, because boy could that go a lot of directions. Ultimately, I appreciated a lot of what this book was doing, and learned a great deal, but I don't think I'd say I enjoyed it, even in the sense that one can enjoy a book like this. I felt like it dwelt a lot more on the history of race science than I was expecting it to, and didn't dig as much into the current (as in, past 10 years) resurgence as I would've liked. She got into some of it, but it felt like most of the book was more about the 20th century than the 21st. Still, though, a compelling and thorough overview of the history of race science in Europe and North America.

The Gathering Storm / Towers of Midnight / A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan. I feel like I have no way of objectively assessing Wheel of Time as a series because it is so intensely intertwined with a whole bunch of really strong emotions and I recognize that. That being said, I did cry during A Memory of Light so I was obligated to give it five stars by my own rule, even if overall I don't think it's one of my favorites. I spent too much time during this readthrough thinking about Brandon Sanderson-isms and I would have appreciated if I hadn't been doing that, but I wouldn't have been doing it if it didn't feel so obvious to me.

I think of these three The Gathering Storm is my personal favorite. Reading Rand in it got really rough, though, and I think I'm sort of in the minority in not hating the catharsis on Dragonmount at the end. I can see peoples' points with it, but for me personally I don't think the tension could've gone on any longer and I don't know that I have a tone-consistent way of releasing it that I would've written.

That's all for June, which was a pretty slow reading month...probably going into another one for July. Currently I'm reading Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (a historian I've read before and really liked); I'm not sure what I'm going to read next but leaning toward one of the SFF new releases waiting for me on my shelf. Maybe Witch King by Martha Wells. I do want to try to finish QJJ this month, also - I'm very close to the end, just need to sit down and read the rest in ~an hour or so.

Also: taking horror novel recommendations, I've been feeling a hankering lately.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things

[beachy--head]

Number 45 (You’re just like your father.) pleaaaase?

"You're just like your father."

Harper's icy words slice through the air like knives. The members of the board shuffle in their seats, uneasy, as Jackson lowers his head, the shame burning his cheeks. Okay, he's just been caught dozing off in front of the most eminent members of the Harper Avery Foundation, but for his defense, he's only 17, and the old guy droning on about the latest advancies in macrovascular surgery has to be the most boring person alive.

His mother elbows him, telling him to pay attention, and he tries to ignore her. He doesn't know what hurts more, the cold disdain on his grandfather's face or the fact that he's just been compared to the person he hates the most, the man who always promises but never delivers, the father who one day decided to forget he had a son. His grandfather could have just asked him a question, or told him to be attentive, because of legacy, the future of medicine and all that, but no. The old man had to go there, to remind him that there's no bigger disappointment than Robert Avery, and that Jackson is next in line in his eyes.

But he's not going to let Harper see how deep his words cut him, so he clenches his jaw, stares straight ahead, and listens to every single word for the remainder of the board meeting.

___

"Now you're just like your father!"

He first hears the glee in April's voice as she laughs with her daughter before the words really register. Harriet is showing off her new outfit with a twirl, and his little girl's smile ignites something in him that makes him feel whole every single time.

She runs towards him, and he wonders why she's so adamant to show him what April has bought her during their shopping session of the afternoon. Harriet stops a few feet from him and gestures towards her feet.

"Look daddy, now we have the same sneakers! We're twins!"

He looks down to see she's wearing little red and black Air Jordans. In fact, they're the exact same pair he's bought for himself a few weeks ago, and the sight is enough to melt his heart, the way a grown man's heart should not melt (at least not at the sight of sneakers). He smiles at his daughter and then looks at April, who just shrugs.

"I know, I said it's useless to buy brand names when she's going to outgrow them in a few weeks, but she wanted to match with daddy, and well..."

He tickles his daughter and traps her in his arms, reveling in her joyful shrieks. Looking at April, at the warmth of her smile and her eyes, he can only return her grin before closing his eyes and hugging his daughter even closer.

#japril #drabble #jackson avery #april kepner #ask

[justalittlebluetiefling]

question, have you never heard of a genre or did you just forget it in the heat of the poll making

LISTEN

I actually said this in the comments of that poll but it was a combination of just forgetting in the heat of poll making because my partner was riling me up about different ways people might categorize their books. It also just seemed so logically to be part of "author" to me that I didn't think twice about it until after I'd posted it and gotten some responses. And also because about 95% of my books are fantasy/sci-fi so there isn't much a point for me to sort my own by genre instead of fiction/non-fiction and I know that might count as genre but it's not like, SPECIFIC genres so I don't count it. I just do alphabetical by author's last name and then by series/release date within that. But you know what? The Long Walk by Stephen King is one of three horror novels that I own and it is going to be right after Robert Jordan like the alphabet intends.

However, the more I think about it, the more wild I think it is for people to sort books in their home by genre, too, because like, I worked in a bookstore for years. I know why bookstores are sorted by genre. But I do not have a computer in my home that I can use to scan my books and tell me which category it belongs in (listen shut up I don't WANT to do that on my phone) and there are some books I would consider contemporary romance that are sorted into the "novels" section in a bookstore or via their isbn and there is not enough consistency across the board for it to make sense in my brain.

#i did not realize that i have very strong feelings about sorting books until my partner was laughing at my alphabet piles yesterday #and then i went and looked at the bookshelves in his office and i wanted to faint #anonymous #erin answers things #anon i'm not telling YOU to shut up that was honestly a more reactive comment to my inner thoughts

[krejong]

Get to know me

Danke für die Tag @caromitpunkt🌞

Share your wallpaper: Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse. (↓)

The last song you listened to: Maghreb by Saint Levant & Bayou

Currently Reading: The Eye of The World (the first part of the Wheel of Time series—I've heard...things so IDK if I'll ever finish the series but so far I'm enjoying this book) by Robert Jordan and So weit die Störche ziehen by Theresia Graw (it’s supposed to be a very chicklit-y romance, which isn’t usually my type of story, but I’m just trying to ease myself into committing to actual books in German by not going too highbrow right off the bat.)

Last Movie: non-Tatort-related was ‘Fack ju Göhte 2’ because the girl I like thinks that it’s a staple in German cinematographic culture and that I couldn’t possibly graduate as a Germanic philology student without having seen it.

Craving: Something I can actually taste! My nose has been completely blocked for several days now and I miss flavours 😢

What are you wearing right now: my trusty ski socks, blue Snoopy pajama pants and a green-and-white striped shirt that I’m pretty sure is sized for a teenage boy. Queen of style, as per uzhe

How tall are you: about 1m78

Piercings: just two sets of earring piercings and one in my left nostril

Tattoos: I remain tattoo-less, for now. 

Glasses? Contacts?: Glasses, always! I sat on them a while back though so I should really go get new rims instead of walking around with these crooked ones, but I’ve gone and gotten attached now…

Last drink: Ginger and honey tea.

Last show: Because this is my First Life 

Last thing you ate: Shakshouka my beloved 😋

Favourite colour: GREEN

Current obsession: …does it need saying?

Unrelated Obsession: unnecessarily pretentious period dramas (not Bridgerton though, sorry)

Any pets: Nope!

Do you have a crush on anyone: Unfortunately so. I’m planning on telling her after our exams finish though, so if it all spectacularly blows up in my face and I go around whining on Tumblr now you guys will know why. Sorry in advance 🙃

Favourite fictional character: Is this what being quartered felt like? I guess Isabelle Grandjean, but just for the record this is an evil, evil question.

The last place you traveled: Aachen, Amsterdam or Antwerp, depends on what we’re counting as ‘traveling.’

Tagging @disappointingsalad @karin-in-action @lucy-in-space @anafrndz and @punchandspade

#tagged

[something-pithy]

Notes and an Update: What's in a Name?

Chapter 16 of an echo, a stain features Astarion doing what he does best -- feeling terror, spiraling and at the very least contemplating terrible choices as a result. lol.

SPOILERS FOR ACT 2 OF BG3 BELOW

Those of you who are mostly caught up on an echo, a stain know I love me a flashback (and now the rest of y'all know, too lol). There are two in this new chapter, one of which is set in the Shadow-Cursed lands after Astarion has confessed his initial intentions toward and current feelings/desires for Tav to Tav (post-Orthon confession). As a result of that conversation, they've put a pin in the sexual aspects of their relationship, but are still together romantically. Then, the Araj Moment happens (spoiler alert: nobody bit that heifer), Thaniel is reunited with Oliver, Halsin's... admiration of Tav is becoming more apparent, and Astarion is... yes! Spiraling!

I think that flashback speaks for itself, and I'll let y'all get what you will from when / where in the story it appears.

The OTHER flashback, which is much more brief, is about this Tav's name. Now, I'm not trying to make any secret of the fact that the Tav in this story and I have a lot in common in terms of ethnic backgrounds when you remove the high fantasy fake world element from Tav's lol. FIRST I want to say, I don't give a fuck. There is no shame in my game. Nobody comes for George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan or J.R.R. (the Rs are for REALLY RACIST) Tolkein (don't @ me -- or do, go ahead and send me an ask if you really want to know my feels on that one looool) for writing about characters whose ethnic and cultural backgrounds are Western European / British.

Second of all, maybe I'm being unnecessarily defensive because I'm an old head who came up in a time when writing a self-insert character was like THE VERY WORST POSSIBLE THING YOU COULD DO AS A WRITER, but once again I don't give a fuck.

The lived experiences of ethnic minorities, people of mixed ethnic and cultural heritage (not fucking half-elves who most of the time are just people of the Caucasian persuasion with pointy ears and shorter lifespans than regular elves), first generation children of immigrants, and all manner of permutations of non-white, non-Western "others" are in extremely short supply in all forms of media / popular narratives in the Western world (shit honestly, it ain't just the West but that's another struggle for another day). This is especially true, from what I've experienced as a lifelong nerdalerd, in speculative fiction.

So yeah, I conceived my Tav as a mixed-race (kind of, she's all high elf, but mixed sun, moon, and sea because she's a motherfucking unicorn, come at me bro looool -- no, there are other reasons too but also she's a unicorn lol), mixed-ethnic-and-cultural-heritage person whose life choices are NOT aligned with a lot of the conventions and values of the cultures in which she was raised.

Because that story and perspective is wildly underrepresented in literature, mass media, speculative fiction, and fan fiction.

So here we are. loooool

Having said all that, I got a comment from my fucking delightful beta and queen of my soul, Komo, asking about the naming conventions I reference in this chapter (or their real-world analogues).

So for the notes part of this episode of "Notes and an Update," I'm going to quote part of the comment she left on AO3 about the story and my response, which adheres to my policy of "why say it in five words if you can say it in EIGHT MILLION." Let me know what you think!

NAMING CONVENTIONS IN AEAS

(FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION OF AN ECHO, A STAIN CHAPTER 16:)

Komo wrote:

I have so many questions about naming conventions, both from the corner of the world that Tav’s family hails from and BG proper. Like, in American and Japanese culture, women take their husband’s last names when heterosexual couples get married. In the States, there are exceptions to this rule, of course, with some women hyphenating. In China, women do not change their last names, but kids are almost always named after the father’s side (the old one child policy may have affected this, but the top 100 most common surnames make up 85% of the population anyways). If Tav and Astarion do end up together, would names be a thing they’d have to navigate? Astarion is such a possessive little yandere after all.

I wrote:

OK so this Tav's ethnic and cultural background, as we know, is mixed

(I'm not even getting into her racial background I just can't with fucking elvish loool and her families on both sides are far-enough removed from immersion in elven culture where I'm like LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL SEE YOU LATER TOLKEIN).

On her father's side, she's Zakharan / DnD-analogue MENA (Middle Eastern North African, with apologies to Said for the orientalism of the term Middle Eastern).

On her mother's side, Amnian / New Amnian / DnD-analogue Latina but -- oh lordt OK without getting into the complexities of codified colonial Spanish racism and colorism, that identity is complicated. Through a combination of executive decision-making about elves and race and how they interact with culture on the material plane (aka not in the Feywild) AND really leaning into the idea of cultural analogues in Toril / the Forgotten Realms, her Latina-analogue ethnicity comprises a mix of indigenous and colonizer racial/ethnic heritage.

(I also can't with how fucking convoluted figuring this out was, is, has been, will forever be looool.)

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, for the sake of brevity (looooooooooooooooool), we'll say Tav's full name results from the combination of her parents' names using Amnian/New Amnian (Spanish) naming conventions, BUT that means her full name (which is not even as long as it could be but is LONG) incorporates both Arabic naming conventions AND Spanish naming conventions that result in impressively / annoyingly long names loool.

In modern Spain, at least, when women marry, some don't even take their husband's name. But the kids' names are composites of parents' family names.

A Spanish child takes the surnames of both their father and mother. The structure is usually [father's surname] y [mother's surname] (though in modern Spain and Spanish-speaking countries a lot of people no longer use the "y"), but the main surname would be the father's surname. So for example, someone's full last name might be Juana Garcia y Martinez or Juana Garcia Martinez, but she might just go by Juana Garcia.

ALSO, especially for children of families of some kind of note / nobility when the dad's family was not as well-known as the mother's, this would include the composite names of both parents.

So Juana's name might be Juana [Garcia de Manzanilla (dad's composite surname)] y [Martinez de Hierro (mom's composite surname)].

So Juana Garcia de Manzanilla y Martinez de Hierro. And like, when people get real into it this can go back generations. Like, I don't even remember my mom's whole-ass name. looool.

NOW, Arabic names are composites, too, but incorporate the father's first name, the grandfather's first name, then the family name -- back in the day, they'd link these things with words that indicated the relationships. So for example, if Yemina's dad is Yusuf and HIS dad is Muhammad and their family name is Rashid, Yemina's name would then be Yemina bint/bin (daughter of) Yusuf ibn (son of) Muhammad al-(of the family) Rashid.

So Yemina bin Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Rashid.

OK SO THERE'S ANOTHER COMPLICATION (aren't you glad you asked this question loooooooooooooooooooool): with regard to Spanish naming conventions, apparently this patrilineal thing hasn't always been the case and only came to be the norm around the mid-1700s. Before that, surname transmission was often matrilineal.

(This comes into play here because the year in BG3 is like, idk, 1492-98 or something? I forget whatever who cares it's before the mid-1700s and I'm just making it vaguely and very much not perfectly analogous with the time / calendar of the Western world because I don't have the bandwidth for anything else loooooooooool).

In this Tav's case, her mom ditched her dad and the kids were young enough at the time that she was able to, as a sign of DEEP FUCKING DISRESPECT TO HIM loooool, change their names to MATRILINEAL AMNIAN-STYLE COMPOSITE SURNAMES LOOOOOOOOOOOOL

(So for a while Tav's government name was Zeneida Nqa Tavares de la Torre de López Jimenez y bin Harun ibn Ishaq al-Jazairi loooool)

I mean this was like looooooooooooooool FUCKING PROFOUNDLY SCANDALOUSLY DISRESPECTFUL FOR HER TO DO TO A ZAKHARAN MAN especially one of SOME NOTE WHO WAS SELF-MADE

That shit was mad personal and a level of petty that mere mortals can only aspire to it was so deep

But TAV'S MOM DOES NOT PLAY

(Now, could she have just cut Tav's father's name out entirely? Sure, but 1) THAT MOTHERFUCKER IS NOT GETTING OUT OF CLAIMING THESE KIDS / PAYING CHILD SUPPORT esp if he ever got married again HER KIDS ARE THE FUCKING HEIRS AND HE AIN'T GON FORGET IT and 2) (possibly more importantly) FUCK HIS COUCH, PEOPLE ARE GONNA KNOW HE FUCKED AROUND AND FOUND OUT)

Even though he's deadass like "lol wtfever I don't give a fuck, I know what their real legal names are" and also this resulted in a protracted, multinational legal battle that was never actually resolved until each kid reached the age of majority and decided what their own legal name would be.

Ahem, anyway as a consequence of all this, Tav's full-ass, whole-ass, government name is:

Zeneida (first given name)

Nqa (middle given name)

bin Harun ibn Ishaq al-Jazairi (full Arabic/"Midani" patrilineal surname)

y (conjunction [means 'and'])

Tavares de la Torre de López Jimenez (mother's full surname)

So: Zeneida Nqa bin Harun ibn Ishaq al-Jazairi y Tavares de la Torre de López Jimenez

But as we know, she just goes by Zeneida Tavares, and she wasn't lying when she said on most docs it's just "Zeneida Nqa Jazairi Tavares."

Second...

tl;dr: Tavvy for short. Ms. Tavares if you nasty.

ALSO LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

If Tav and Astarion do end up together, Astarion better adjust them expectations, bc after all the drama that's existed around her name, he gonna have a hard time getting her to change it looool

Not to mention, she has a career based in part on people knowing who she is so... loooool

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO IF THE STARS AND PLANETS EVER ALIGN FOR THEM / THEY EVER GET THEIR HEADS OUT OF ASSES

#bg3 #ascended astarion #astarion fic #meta #characterization #poc in genre #woc in genre #bg3 fic #bard!tav #astarion x tav #bg3 astarion #astarion #banter #slow burn #tolkein was a racist #i said what i said #sorry not sorry

[helloquotemyfoot]

Book Backlog Busting Reading Challenge!

The only thing I love more than reading books is buying books. Unfortunately it is a lot easier to buy a book and promise myself I will read it soon than it actually is to read the book soon. As a consequence, I have a lot of unread books on my shelves, some of which have been there for years. So here's the challenge:

I will not be buying any more books until I have read ALL of my backlog, currently standing at 110 books.

Yeah no it really is that many. No I do not have a problem. (Unless the problem is lack of bookshelves. I might have that problem.)

Rules of the challenge!

Books do not have to be completed! If I don't like a book and don't want to finish it, that's okay. As long as an earnest attempt was made.

There is an exception to the "no buying" rule for sequels to books I already own, because honestly, I would just ignore the rule anyway if I needed to read them badly enough, so we will build it in instead.

Being gifted or lent books does not count as "buying" them (although most people don't by me books anyway, because they can't keep track of the ones I own).

Keep people updated on my progress week to week! I will talk a little bit about the books I am reading and give mini reviews if I feel like it, or sometimes just post pictures of my progress.

I gave this challenge an Official Title™ because I thought it might be fun if other people joined in, so reblog this, tag me in your own reading backlog posts, whatever. My own backlog is mainly history and fantasy because that's what I primarily read, but I'd love to see what other people have been putting off for a long ass time!

Most importantly, wish me luck!

First up on the list, we have

The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer. Like the others in Mortimer's series, this is a fun and accessible read dealing with a lot of day-to-day questions about clothes, travel, and social etiquette that don't make it into most history books. This one is an existing WIP since I've been getting a lot more into writing Pride and Prejudice fic recently, so I'm already about 50% of the way through.

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #6). WoT is one of my partner's favourite series of all time, and after watching and loving season 1 of the amazon adaptation, I finally started reading the series late last year. Favourite characters so far: Nynaeve and Lan. This is partially why a sequel exception was written in.

Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir. My unwritten rule of reading is to have one chonker history book ongoing at a time. I didn't study much medieval period at uni, so this is something I've tried to correct on my own time, but a lot of general histories do not go into much depth about individual women - hence my interest in this book.

#book backlog busting reading challenge #bbb reading challenge #reading challenge #reading #books #history books #fantasy books #reading backlog

[justinssportscorner]

Emily Stewart at Vox:

The first time I found myself wondering what the deal was with Aaron Rodgers was when his brother Jordan appeared on season 12 of The Bachelorette, which aired back in 2016. The quarterback skipped the all-important family visit, raising some questions, but instead of glossing over it, the show insisted on leaving an open seat at the table where he could have been. Reality TV’s gonna reality TV, I guess. Before that, in my world, Rodgers had simply been my team’s star quarterback, the one who took us to a Super Bowl victory in 2011. I do not claim to be the world’s biggest football knower, but when you grow up in Wisconsin, you sort of have no choice but to love the Green Bay Packers. Sundays in the Badger State are for two things: church and the Pack … and also beer and cheese, so, like, four. (As an aside, the Packers are the NFL’s only publicly owned team, another reason to love them.)

Family dynamics can be hard, I thought at the time, and really it was none of my business. But at the very least it seemed a little sad to think Rodgers was estranged from his family, and I did wonder why. Cut to about eight years later, and the quiet suspicion that maybe Aaron Rodgers is a bit strange has morphed into a very public, very loud conversation, now that we know, well, a whole lot more. Rodgers didn’t get the Covid-19 vaccine and misled people about it by saying he was “immunized.” He’s talked openly about getting into psychedelics and doing whatever a “darkness retreat” is. He’s had a string of relatively short-lived public romantic relationships, which is normal and fine, though his last girlfriend was maybe a witch? He regularly spouts conspiracy theories about Covid and vaccines and UFOs, among other items, and is chummy with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaxxer and presidential candidate. Last year, he challenged Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce to a debate about vaccines that was also supposed to include RFK Jr. and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Kelce declined.

Much of this oddball activity and commentary has taken place on The Pat McAfee Show, where Rodgers appears for “Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays.” Disney reportedly paid $85 million for a licensing deal to air the daily sports talk show on ESPN, which it owns. The Pat McAfee Show was the setting of the latest “Aaron Rodgers said what now?” incident, when on January 2 he basically implied that ABC late-night talk show host — and also a high-paid Disney employee — Jimmy Kimmel is a pedophile. It’s been a whole thing, with back-and-forth between Rodgers and Kimmel and ESPN and Disney, for days. Kimmel called Rodgers a “hamster-brained man” and threatened to sue him. An ESPN exec called Rodgers’ comments “dumb.” Rodgers refused to say sorry and responded that the exec’s comments weren’t “helping.” None of it was. [...]

The Jimmy Kimmel dustup is really just the latest in a stream of ??? what is up with this man

So, let’s get back to the Kimmel thing. In early January, Rodgers suggested the comedian had ties to the disgraced financier and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Referring to a since-released set of court filings about Epstein that have been branded the “Epstein list,” Rodgers said, “there’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, that are really hoping that doesn’t come out.” There’s previously never been any speculation that Kimmel had ties to Epstein — but he has been trading barbs with Rodgers for a while, focused on the athlete’s anti-vaccination stance. Kimmel was not thrilled at Rodgers’s little Epstein theory. He clarified on Twitter/X he never had any contact with Epstein, said the remarks had put his family in danger, and threatened to sue. Kimmel also did a monologue about the sports star. Rodgers responded on McAfee. He said he was glad Kimmel wasn’t on the Epstein list and isn’t “stupid enough” to actually accuse someone of pedophilia without evidence. Rodgers didn’t apologize, but he did offer up a strange but fairly accurate self-assessment. “I’m not a super political person, okay? Do whatever you want. Conspiracy theorist? That’s fine, because if you look at the track record of conspiracy theorists in the last few years, they’ve been wrong about a lot of things,” he said. And then he complained about the media and cancel culture and said he does not “give a shit” about what people say about him, which … sure. Finally, on Wednesday, January 10, McAfee said that Aaron Rodgers would no longer be appearing on his show for the rest of the NFL season. He said the show was “very lucky” to get a chance to talk to Rodgers and that he’s obviously a “massive piece of the NFL story” and acknowledged “some of his thoughts and opinions … do piss off a lot of people.” McAfee sounded relieved to be away from the drama. “I’m pumped that that is no longer going to be every single Wednesday of my life, which it has been for the last few weeks of my life,” he said.

NFL star QB Aaron Rodgers has been getting into hot water in recent years, and it's because of his off-field activities such as trafficking in COVID conspiracies and anti-vaxxer nonsense. At least some of these were said on The Pat McAfee Show, where he is a regular guest.

#Aaron Rodgers #Pat McAfee #Robert F. Kennedy Jr. #ESPN #The Pat McAfee Show #Anti Vaxxer Extremism #Conspiracy Theories #Green Bay Packers #New York Jets #NFL #Jimmy Kimmel #Jeffrey Epstein #Epstein List #Sports Media