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ilynpilled · 1 year

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I feel like as the resident dishonor/honor guy enjoyer I have to speak on honor as a construct and how it seems to operate in asoiaf in my eyes. I will be stating the obvious here imo but: violence IS inherent to it. Be it directly or through the enablement of it. “Honor”, as a feudalistic moral construct, revolves around the reinforcement of a status quo. It is a moral construct that is embedded into a feudalistic structure, one that is inherently violent. It can be deeply flawed and destructive as a result of deeply rooted systemic issues. Being “honorable” is very complicated because, again, it does not exist based on a very sensible moral framework. It ends up contradicting itself because the way society is structured in Westeros.

Almost nothing embodies this more clearly than the KG. They are supposed to be the paragons of honor: an unsoiled white cloak.

Vows are social contracts this society is built on. This is why Jaime is very restricted in a lot of ways in his world by his label. Breaking one of the most important contracts (one that happens to be key in reinforcing a feudalistic structure: it places the king’s will above every single other moral or ethical code) makes it so he is not believed or trusted and he is unable to operate properly within their society in a lot of circumstances, as we witness in his chapters. It is honorable to protect the weak and the innocent, but it is honorable to protect your king in all circumstances and reinforce a status quo. To obey your family and play your societal role. To obey laws, even if they are unjust. To keep your word, to be honest. Loyalty to a tyrant has to be inherently more honorable (especially in certain positions) to maintain this status quo, even though it contradicts other oaths and we know it is inherently immoral. Balancing values is the most interesting aspect of characters dealing with ‘honor’ and morality. Feudalism is what makes the honor system collapse. Honor itself can be a more vague concept, “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”, but the way it is defined and how it operates within this society is so fucked. The KG appear in the weirwood dream (mirroring the imagery of The Others, conflating the honorable white cloak with snow and cold and death.) “You swore to keep your king safe” “and the children as well.” Yeah, the innocent children of kingslanding as well, that would have burned to ash. It is honorable to save your king, to protect the weak, to save the children, to save the innocents of KG, to obey your father. He tells this to them in the dream, he explains his reasoning for killing Aerys, but they do not budge. That is what Jaime fears the most, the complete collapse of everything that holds meaning to him, heroism becoming undefinable with these conflicting moral codes, which is likely another huge part of him keeping it a secret. It is something he feels powerless against. The way things are prioritized is wrong. Morality becomes skewed. In Jaime’s mind the enemy and primary source of doom is this nonsensical moral construct that contradicts itself represented by institutions that make no sense. It is what makes his symbolic fire go out. His moral code conflicts with this society’s code of ethics, which eventually leads him to cynically accept amorality. It is disillusionment that tears the idea of heroism and being “honorable” apart and leads to moral nihilism.

Another aspect of the honor code and its violence is the fact that it places more value to individuals based on class. It is dependent on class and a flawed social structure. This is despite the fact that vows of knighthood call for the protection of those that are too weak to protect themselves: the underprivileged. Jaime keeps having this epiphany of an inherent equality in death that seems to contradict the way society is structured. Aerys’ life is worth inherently more according to the honor code than Rhaella’s, than the lives of thousands of innocents, than Jaime’s. Yet, a lowborn hand, no one, seems to die harder than Aerys does (and nobody cares). A crown is worth nothing when crows feast on victors and vanquished alike, and the rightful heir himself. We are all equal in death, so the text is indicating that something is not right here.

When it comes to characters and their relationship with honor the important through-line is examining whether they are being “honorable” in the abstract sense, if they base their actions around empathy and a sense of actual justice, or if they are abiding by made up flawed constructs. Being viewed as honorable by this society does not make you a good person. In fact, in order for you to abide by the honor code you would likely have to turn into an amoral individual. For example, if you try to keep the cloak pure white you will metaphorically soil it. Like every one of Aerys’s kingsguard did. To keep their oath to the king, they broke vows to protect innocents and protect women. They should lose their honor by a lot of definitions, but that would mean the status quo collapses. Jaime’s knighting for this reason is very much like a boy being sacrificed at an altar. It is not just about drawing a parallel between young girls and boys being sentenced to bloody doom by violent constructs created for their gender.

“Blood is the seal of our devotion.” He bleeds on his plain white tunic. It was never “pure white”, it was always all tainted in blood. It is inherently violent. You can argue that is when “the boy died.”

Very rigid and hypocritical honor codes built for feudalism lack nuance and lead to amorality. I think George aims to address, interrogate, deconstruct, and then reconstruct honor, as with most other key concepts present in fantasy. Honor can be redefined. Examples like “No chance, and no choice”, among many others, are at the root of that reconstruction. Even then, the reconstruction does not conflate it with pacifism necessarily. For example, Chelsted did the ‘honorable’ thing, in the abstract moral sense, of quitting his job and not supporting a tyrant anymore, but that act achieved nothing in preventing the wildfire plot. Same with essentially everyone important at court abandoning the situation that is Aerys, turning away from a gaping wound and not addressing it before it was too late. Jaime had to soil the ‘white cloak’ and disrupt the status quo and lose his “honor” within those terms by murdering his king and his pyromancers as a kingsguard and actually save half a million lives. It was not glorious, nor was it anything like the songs, and the city is still doomed because there is no way to get that festering corruption out of there at this point, metaphorical of the greater problem with KG, but it was heroism, a choice with meaning, and a form of triumph, even if the consequences break Jaime down the line. He gets no answer to the question of what it means to be a knight and a man of honor if society’s version of it is so skewed. Then, Jaime and the readers get an answer in the form of Brienne: “I dreamed of you.”

#anyways what is honor? a horse #valyrianscrolls #theres also the aspect that honor is kind of individualized #its ‘your’ honor etc #like i think there r nuances in whether its treated as something internal or external #and at the end of asos hope is rekindled in jaime #but he desperately blinds himself trying to make the contradictions compromise #thats y he is suddenly reconstructing his thoughts about the kg and escapes int delusion #bc he has too many things that he still wants like cersei like his family and loved ones like the possibility of making ppl view him #as something redeemable someone good #but feast concludes that that is not possible #so all there is left is a pivot and brienne’s light #and a confrontation w so many things that have been repressed in order to keep him from essentially killing himself tbh #and nothing encapsulates that dilemma bw honor vs ‘honor’ than jaimes punitive justice against outlaws and his vow to cat #thats y its so significant that he abandons it to go w brienne alone to save sansa instead of pursuing the blackfish #and how he doesnt torch the village or even break in even if they hold info re the brotherhood #and then the irony is that that key choice will lead him to them #and what happens there is gonna be so interesting

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the-three-whumpeteers · 2 years

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AngelBreaker part 4

FINALLY AFTER SO LONG,,,PART 4

ahem, this is basically two short parts mashed together, mainly because that's the only way it would make sense. Finally introducing someone that isn't under North, slowly trying to show the rest of the underworld. Not particularly happy with this one, primarily because of how long it took to write, this went through give or take 10 versions before I settled on this.

Ah right, I believe someone wanted a tag so before I forget//

@kixngigglesgles

Content-wise//

The first one doesn't have much whump-wise, but I will say that North is a terrible friend, manipulative although it's now fully shown here. The second part is where someone's sedated, specifically via needle. North manhandles someone and is, once again, really shitty to Cypress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weather had been particularly lovely that week, The sky was perfectly clear and the temperature had been pretty pleasant. Thankfully work hadn’t been as rough as it usually was- at least to cypress. Said angel had just sat down on a park bench where he and North had agreed to meet. Cypress allowed himself to finally relax, putting his bag down and enjoying the afternoon breeze.

Cypress had told North about how heavy work had been lately, and with the weather finally being reasonable it only made sense for them both to take a day off and relax, sure this was only a day off for cypress, who, unlike North, hated the job he had been assigned to- North was much better at…disposing of demons than him and they both knew that.

His thoughts were disrupted by the sound of a tired, and totally apologetic North.

“Cy please I am so sorry! I promise I didn’t mean to be late, I just started preening and you know time, kind of flies for me when that happens and-”

“I just got here too you’re okay”

North stopped, raising an eyebrow and staring at his friend for a moment.

“What do you mean? Wait, you’re the one who told me to be here thirty minutes ago, what do you mean you just got here?” North asked, probably knowing why Cypress had done that already.

Cypress stood up and stretched “Because you take forever on your appearance alone, I think you take longer on your wings than I do on my entire outfit, I took my time” he shrugged.

North gasped, purposefully exaggerating how offended he was “Well excuse me if I like looking good, I don’t like when my feathers are dusty” he huffed “ And you could do so much better! Your wings are pretty I don’t understand why you don't-” he would’ve said something else if Cypress hadn’t suddenly shoved something at him. North looked at his hands and realized that Cypress had given him a small cupcake- pumpkin, his favorite. He was delighted when he realized what it was, almost taking an excited bite before pausing.

“...did you get me this just to get me to shut up?” he asked, glancing at his friend.

“Is it working?”

North finally took a bite, staring at Cypress the whole time before nodding.

“Alright now that I’ve calmed you down with baked goods, let’s go before the food gets cold. I put some effort into this little picnic of ours,” Cypress said before snatching his bag and grabbing North by the arm. “Now come on, I’ve been eyeing that park for a while now and today is perfect, we can just sit down, eat, and finally relax.”

North walked alongside his friend, eating the cupcake concerningly fast before speaking up “Well with how stressed you’ve been I guess I can take some time off for this”

Cypress nudged him “Hey, you’re tired too, out of the both of us you work harder, give yourself a break! you’re…Enthusiastic, you’ll tire yourself out you know?” He said, a bit hesitant to talk about North’s attitude during their work- hopefully North didn’t notice that, he didn’t want an argument about this again…Cypress should really tell North to stop being so cruel during work, sure they were demons and he wasn’t supposed to feel bad, but Cypress never expected to see so many beg for their lives.

North didn’t catch on to what Cypress was thinking thankfully, instead, he seemed to be proud of himself when Cypress mentioned his enthusiasm “Hey if I’m gonna make it big I might as well do it with style right?”

“...Sure, I’m sure everyone’s gonna talk about you one day,” Cypress said, finally smiling- North had always been the type to pull off things like that.

They settled into a comfortable silence as they walked, Cypress leading the way since despite living there his whole life, North didn’t know how to navigate the town without getting lost. They were seemingly the only people taking advantage of the nice weather since the streets were relatively quiet, which didn’t surprise Cypress since the Seraphim always encouraged them to work as hard as possible- but Cypress wanted a break damn it.

Cypress stopped in front of the park gates, looking quite proud of himself still for finding such a nice little place. North, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice and bumped into him.

North was about to apologize and walk in before an excited Cypress grabbed his arm and practically sprinted in.

“Come on! I need to find a perfect spot” He said, scouting out the place while dragging his friend along. He’d reject places that were reasonably nice, from empty clearings to a bench by a stream. It took a while for him to find a spot- a quaint area under a tree that overlooked the park, and at that point North’s arm hurt.

Cypress put his bag down, unpacking everything he’d gotten, which was… excessive. He’d definitely packed more food than they needed, it was a full three course meal at that too.

“...Are you sure we can finish all of that? I know you like cooking but uh-”

“-Listen, we deserve a treat after working so hard”

Cypress was the type to cook whenever he was stressed.

North shrugged, sitting down on the picnic blanket Cypress had laid out, said friend, on the other hand, kept adding more pillows, lamps, bread, and fake leaves.

Cypress had a stressful past couple of days.

Finally, Cypress presented his masterpiece of a picnic, which was actually really impressive, and finally sat down himself. Cypress then went to open the basket of food, which was probably just as extravagant as the decorations before North stopped him.

“Cy, buddy, that’s… a bit too much isn’t it,” North said, “I promise we can eat it all later, it'll be fine”

“Right, right sorry I think I made too much…well, everything,” He said sheepishly, “Maybe I'll give it to random people, you know, random acts of kindness or something? I think the Seraphim encourage that right?”

North just shrugged “They’re very incon-” He stopped himself, rethinking his words “They encourage a lot of different things…but! Hey, what if you gave it to some random mortal? Just imagine popping into a random mortal’s house and giving them a pie! They’d probably be terrified”

Cypress grew visibly uncomfortable, he hated when North even mentioned mortals or their realm, he’d usually end up going on a tangent that eventually led to talking about work.

“-They get scared too easily, you’ll tell them not to be scared but they’d still panic over you showing up at all!”

Cypress sighed, trying his best to hide his frustration at the mention of the mortal world. “Listen, North, I wanted a break both from work and from that entire realm okay?” realizing that he’d been a little too mean- at least he felt he’d been too mean, Cypress tried to backtrack a bit “Not that I wouldn’t do that-”

He wouldn’t.

“-But this is my break, remember?”

North’s smile wavered, looking away from his friend. As much as North tried to hide it, Cypress knew how annoyed he was at how little Cypress liked their work.

“Listen, I promise you’ll like it! Mortals are fun to mess with!” North said, once again trying to convince Cypress. “Is this about work again? It’s been so long man, I thought you’d at least tolerate it by now-”

“Okay okay- let’s not bring this up now, it’s a nice day, we can drop it for now and-”

“Nothing is going to change if you don’t address it Cy, it’s not bad and you can enjoy-”

“-enjoy what? Tearing demons appart like you?” Cypress finally snapped, shutting up North. The silence after that was awkward, neither of them looking at each other. Cypress at least was good at hiding how angry and tired he was. North on the other hand, never bothered to hide his emotions, and was clearly annoyed with everything going on.

In the end, Cypress always hated conflict, and even if he didn’t want to he knew he needed to apologize to keep the peace, they’d both go back to being friends as if none of these conversations had happened in the end.

…He really should’ve distanced himself while he still had the chance.

Not like he could do much about it now, and no matter how much he thinks about what he could’ve done or changed, that doesn’t matter anymore, so he might as well just accept his situation. Despite constantly telling himself this, Cypress' mind often went back to those days. North was a jerk, but he wasn’t what he is now.

Cypress blinked, realizing how zoned out he’d been, at least he’d gotten some work done. Another fallen had washed dishes earlier, and the task of putting them away fell onto him. A porcelain plate was placed neatly in one of the many cabinets. If he broke it North would only scream at him unlike what would happen to the other fallen if they were to break something, so he was a bit more careless. There was a part of him that hoped to go back to the comfort of the life they used to have, although he knew that was impossible. Cypress still wanted to believe North was a good person. He’d been working hard to at least make North hurt him less, and there’d been progress, at least before recent events.

Basil had broken the peace Cypress had been building up for years now- not that he blamed him of course. Cypress had always been protective of the fallen, but Basil was the youngest one he’s seen yet. Despite how much Cypress pushed back against North, he had barely prevented any injuries, or worse, but he just knew that if North listened to him he’d understand.

With a sigh, Cypress finally put the last of the dishes away, closing the cabinet and looking around the kitchen he was in, the room was spotless of course, North wouldn’t accept anything other than perfection. Opening the door to leave, it didn’t take long to see another fallen outside dusting some of North’s more expensive decorations. The other fallen looked towards Cypress, about to greet him before they were both distracted by the sound of North coming back home.

Usually North was quiet, only ever looking around to see if his house had been taken care of. For some reason this return was quite the opposite from that.

There was a series of crashes coming from the entrance, and Cypress saw a couple of fallen quickly going the opposite direction since North loved hurting them to relieve stress. Cypress would’ve tried to get away too if he didn’t hear North shouting his name. The sound of North yelling alone terrified Cypress, as much as he hated to admit it, but regardless of his fear he was forced to finally see what was going on.

The hallways were empty as he quickly made his way to the main entrance, the commotion only getting louder as Cypress got closer. The sound of a stranger’s voice became clearer, maybe an unruly demon had snuck in? It didn’t happen often but there was a chance that some young inexperienced demon decided North was a weak target.

Cypress rounded the corner to see what was going on, and the person North was trying to hold down was clearly not a demon. A pair of wings more than confirmed that this stranger was a fallen. The stranger was shoved down roughly, North finally winning the struggle. Cypress couldn’t help but notice that this fallen hadn’t just been banished, which is what North preferred since it made everything ‘easier’. This fallen had definitely been in the underworld for a while now, but why did North bring someone that would struggle so much? Then he saw why. The wings on the fallen had a gold shimmer to it, and if it wasn’t for mud and dust, they would probably be quite pretty… Fuck, North liked this stranger’s wings.

North took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure despite the fallen violently trying to get North off. Cypress froze when North finally looked at him, thankfully he seemed calm, at least considering what was going on.

“Cy, can you please bring me the sedative? It’s the red syringe in the shelf to your left” He asked, sounding more annoyed than anything.

Right, red syringe, he could do that.

The fallen immediately reacted when Cypress grabbed the syringe, doubling his efforts to get away and growing agitated “Why are you listening to him?”

Cypress stopped, he wanted to answer but every answer his brain tried to come up with didn’t make sense- because he had to? Because North would hurt him if he didn’t?because they were friends?

“Cy, the syringe” North said, clearly annoyed at the delay. This snapped Cypress back, he just wanted the situation to end so he hurried over to North and handed him the small syringe. The fallen’s eyes locked on Cypress as he moved.

North, thoroughly unbothered by the tension between the two, let out an exaggerated sigh of relief as he sedated the fallen, the struggling grew worse only for a moment before it finally died down. North sighed, glaring at his ‘friend’, “Why did you hesitate?”

Cypress froze, and like a deer in headlights he could only stare at North. Even when North stood up and got closer Cypress could only stumble back.

“I’ve given you enough, I don’t want you latching on to another fallen, got it?” North hissed, making sure that the threat was clear. “Now go, I’m busy and I’ve wasted enough time here, he won’t be here for long anyway”

Cypress didn’t seem to process the last few words and scurried off before North could think of a reason to hurt him later, but he couldn't help the growing feeling of shame as he left.

#Cypress: I can fix him- i think #also cypress being a stress baker- poor guy has probably made an entire feast for a town by now #next part is the return of good ol leaf boy- that and a little more on this newcomer #North is right though don't get too attached #whump #whump writing #angelbreaker #me struggling to tag because reasons or something #tw: needles #sedation #manhandling #north has always been a shitty friend to nobody's surprise #cypress- as clever as he can be- does not notice this #angel whumper #angel whumpee

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