#the problem with joffrey is his personality ya know. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ladyofasoiaf · 2 years

Note

I have to say it's so refreshing to see someone unafraid to criticise Ar/ya. It feels like I get more tired of her character on each re-read I do, and her stans' insane, overly aggressive behavior makes it difficult to like her. Although personally like you I don't care for her trope-y type of character either. I think she was a whiny little crybaby in her early chapters and awful to her sister until they were about to sail to WF. How do fans ignore all that but see occasional mean words of Sansa as satanic?? Anyway, that was rant-y, but thank you.

Hello Anon,

Thank you very much.

The thing is I am in this fandom since 2011 and I am too tired and old to try to censor my thoughts at this point. I used to be more understanding to her character and I actually didn't have many problems with her. If anything I even liked her first (I think it was because Arya actor was so cute in the show) and I was looking forward for Sansa-Arya reunion.

At first I wasn't into fandom that much so I wasn't aware of the fact that her fans HATE Sansa for fanon reasons. After witnessing that in the worst way I tried to understand why do they hate Sansa so much. And I realized that it was because they were totally misreading the characters and the dynamics. I also realized that Arya was much darker than I thought when I first read her.

Just like you said, her character really suffers from re-readings. You start to realize that she was bratty, rude, ill-behaved and violent. Her underdog/overlooked persona is just a fabricated false narrative (or maybe I should say written unconvincingly). When you first read her POVs without paying too much attention, you think she suffers as the unsatisfactory sister because of Sansa but in truth she is just jealous and it is HER who makes her sister life difficult. You realize that Sansa is actually the overlooked child who is trying too hard to have the attention of her father but Ned simply ignores her as a real human being with her own feelings and desires while focusing on Arya. When you see this dynamic, AGOT makes more sense. You understand how even a father who loves all his children can totally ruin his children's lives.

People love to say that Sansa was so rude to Arya and she was only truly rude her when she LOST everything (and Arya had a part in those) and Arya had everything she ever desired while being the troublemaker in the first place. Also watch how that scene goes:

Their father sighed. “I did not call you here to talk of dresses. I’m sending you both back to Winterfell.”

For the second time Sansa found herself too stunned for words. She felt her eyes grow moist again.

“You can’t,” Arya said.

“Please, Father,” Sansa managed at last. “Please don’t.”

Eddard Stark favored his daughters with a tired smile. “At last we’ve found something you agree on.”

Look at Arya saying SHE DOESN'T WANT TO LEAVE KL.

She is objecting to her father..

WOW what a little betrayer. How can she betray Ned like that? SMH...

Father’s mouth twitched strangely. “Sansa, I’m not sending you away for fighting, though the gods know I’m sick of you two squabbling. I want you back in Winterfell for your own safety. Three of my men were cut down like dogs not a league from where we sit, and what does Robert do? He goes hunting.”

Arya was chewing at her lip in that disgusting way she had. “Can we take Syrio back with us?”

“Who cares about your stupid dancing master?” Sansa flared. “Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile bravely for him.”

Look at Arya willfully asking sth she DESIRES. (Btw if she couldn't have Syrio she would totally talk to him about this- them returning WF- because that girl is WILLFULL like Lyanna right? You can't call her Lyanna2.0 without accepting this, I am sorry)

PURE EVIL!! (also Sansa is always rude in her thoughts... until the very end she just keeps it to herself about how Arya is not pretty, dirty, naughty etc... she doesn't share her opinion with Arya... But I am sure no one has ever thought harmless but bad things about someone they actually love... no one!! Only too kind to share her thoughts Sansa has done this)

Arya made a face. “Not if Joffrey’s his father,” she said. “He’s a liar and a craven and anyhow he’s a stag, not a lion.”

Sansa felt tears in her eyes. “He is not! He’s not the least bit like that old drunken king,” she screamed at her sister, forgetting herself in her grief.

Sansa is literally crying and losing herself in grief of broken dreams and Arya thinks this is the best time to talk shit about the boy she likes... (Jon says he looks like a girl 2.0)

“I am looking for a fast trading galley to take you home. These days, the sea is safer than the kingsroad. You will sail as soon as I can find a proper ship, with Septa Mordane and a complement of guards…and yes, with Syrio Forel, if he agrees to enter my service. But say nothing of this. It’s better if no one knows of our plans. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Sansa cried as Septa Mordane marched them down the steps. They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

Arya as usual gets what she wants while being the trouble child and people pleaser Sansa is once again being punished. Sansa is crying, depressed and she already told us that SHE LOST HERSELF IN HER GRIEF.

“It won’t be so bad, Sansa,” Arya said. “We’re going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we’ll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest.” She touched her on the arm.

“Hodor!” Sansa yelled. “You ought to marry Hodor, you’re just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!” She wrenched away from her sister’s hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her.

I am sorry but it easy to be kind (?) when you win everything and the other person is losing ALL. (and don't forget that this Arya had a heartfelt conversation with her father about her hatred and trauma... unlike Sansa)

And even in her consolation you can see that she is still blind to her sister's desires. Sansa doesn't want to sail and have adventures (LOL THE SHIP GIRL IS LOADING) Arya... that's not Sansa... that's YOU.

Also why the fck Hodor?? Why would seeing Hodor be same as becoming a queen in a place you find magical?? And if my sister tried to console me like this I would freaking lose it too. (let me also say that it wasn't little Arya's job to cheer/console her sister in the first place, it was Ned's but he is... idiot)

So Sansa calls her stupid, hairy and ugly at the end of her patience (after Arya insulting her future husband, after Arya being rude to her future family, after Arya doing sth she wasn't supposed to like playing with butcher boys, after Arya being rude to the prince, after Arya attacking the prince, after losing Lady because of Arya's wolf, after Arya being hateful to her, after Ned being distant to her while being there for Arya, after Arya once again insulting her future husband, after losing the chance for your dreams to come true while Arya having all that she desired).

Give her a break for real. I would be worse ngl. And I am sorry but calling your sister's any hobby/interest stupid and attacking her physically MORE THAN ONCE is just as bad (if not worse... it's worse imo..)

BTW why doesn't Sansa just call her HORSEFACE and done with it? I thought she was constantly bullying her with that name? Can't believe she doesn't use that name when she was the lowest and the angriest.

Because Sansa-I AM TOO KIND AND COURTESY IS EVERYTHING- Stark totally would use that word!! I am sure she uses that name.. Let me find it!! She had to think about it at least... she had to acknowledge that name at some point:

404 NOT FOUND.

Sansa's proper as* has never used that word. She has never even acknowledged that word but Arya can't be wrong ofc because only Sansa is the unreliable narrator... (Arya didn't misremember the name of Joff's sword or Jon didn't misremember that it was actually him who called Tyrion a friend not the other way around but Sansa is the only UN people...)

And it is funny because Sansa acknowledges she has a horsey face:

"Myrcella is a little baby." Arya grabbed Nymeria around her neck, but the moment she pulled out the brush again the direwolf wriggled free and bounded off. Frustrated, Arya threw down the brush. "Bad wolf!" she shouted.

Sansa couldn't help but smile a little. The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after its master. She gave Lady a quick little hug. Lady licked her cheek. Sansa giggled. Arya heard and whirled around, glaring. "I don't care what you say, I'm going out riding." Her long horsey face got the stubborn look that meant she was going to do something willful.

"Gods be true, Arya, sometimes you act like such a child," Sansa said. "I'll go by myself then. It will be ever so much nicer that way. Lady and I will eat all the lemon cakes and just have the best time without you." [AGOT- Sansa I]

So why has she NEVER used that name? What was stopping her EVEN in her THOUGHTS? Anyway... in any case Arya was worse as a sister so I understand why her stans are holding so tightly on "bully Sansa" narrative. Sad.

After re-readings you realize Sansa is actually the outsider of the family. 90% of her family simply don't deserve her for real but whatever.

But I want to say this again: My problem is not Arya as a character. It is the fanon characterization of Sansa by her fans and the author's really weak and forced writing when it comes to Arya. Even when I criticize her you can see that I am mostly angry at characters like Ned, the author himself and her fans. If they were more objective toward Sansa then I wouldn't be bothered by her character this much.

Thanks for the ask.

#mine #anon #ask #answered #reply #anti arya stark #anti arya stans #sansa stark #sansa stark defense squad #asoiaf #ned stark critical #grrm critical

184 notes · View notes

hellsbellschime · 4 years

Note

In s8 when Sansa ask questions about food problems with Dany it's call back to Jon asking same questions with stannis. So Jon call Sansa oversmart asking same questions he asked to previous monarch. Not only that he give Dany reason for Sansa not liking her is bcoz she also hated him. How Sansa not liking him in childhood is same as not liking a tyrant? Jon has problem with Sansa undermining him but clearly not him taking Sansa for granted. D&d messed up his character.

LOL they didn’t mess up his character, they sacrificed him on Dany’s altar because they didn’t want to fully commit to the fact that she was a war criminal about to commit atrocities in Westeros on a scale that no one in human history has ever seen before. Because I don’t know if you noticed, but literally all of Jon’s shitty behavior towards Sansa makes complete sense through the lens of someone who actually does understand that Dany is very dangerous and easily triggered/offended.

Jon was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, so he absolutely understands the math when it comes to feeding people in the North. He had to manage the most desolate and difficult to live in place in probably the entire North, and he knows how valuable food storage and basic accounting skills are. He also knows from his time on Dragonstone when he witnesses Dany’s fit over Cersei “taking all the food from the Reach” that Dany has NOT planned for her food situation in this invasion, despite the fact that she is commanding a force literally 100x the size of the Night’s Watch. He also knows that her closest adviser is a Northman who lives on an island in the far North, who is old enough to have survived at least two winters and therefore knows how desperate the food situation gets in the North in winter. And again, he knows that Dany has agreed to go North with him but no one else in Dany’s retinue has even brought this issue up. Understandably, if even her closest advisers aren’t pointing these problems out to her for some reason, he’s not going to push her when she has been so insanely reluctant to help him in the first place, despite the fact that her “throne” is entirely dependent on beating the Others anyway.

So in a sense, he actually is correct in saying that Sansa’s being too smart for her own good. Or rather, she’s actually claiming her right as a Stark to have a say in how the Northerners are treated when a conqueror shows up and expects to be treated like a guest, but Jon knows that testing Dany’s patience is a mistake. Frankly, Sansa IS just saying what she says to be an asshole. She knows that Tyrion isn’t this dumb, she knows Jon isn’t this dumb, and she knows that obviously there isn’t any food incoming from Dany’s side of the table. She’s not asking this question in the hopes of actually getting food, she’s asking it rhetorically because she knows everyone else is thinking it and because it’s her responsibility as the Lady of Winterfell to ensure everyone in the North that she has called to retreat there and who has given Winterfell a massive portion of their harvest in exchange for the protection that the Warden of the North is supposed to be offering in exchange for everyone’s fealty. Dany rolls up with a massive sense of entitlement and expects everyone to be grateful for her arrival, and Sansa is both allowing what everyone else is thinking to be heard and explaining to Dany exactly why there wasn’t a ticker tape parade waiting for her in the North.

HOWEVER, once again Jon is correct in saying that Sansa is thinking she’s smarter than everyone by speaking out, not because she said something that hadn’t occurred to anyone else, but that she should follow everyone else’s lead and ignore it. Because while Jon doesn’t know things like the fact that Dany burned Dickon Tarly (burning both the Tarlys is important, but I think it’s really worth keeping in mind that Dany literally burned someone alive because they basically said “well I’ll die too then” and she was like “ya okay,” like can you really fathom the nuttiness of a ruler executing one person and having another person be like “I volunteer” and just agreeing to it without asking any follow up questions whatsoever), he does know that she would let the entire North die if they wouldn’t bow to her. Basically, he knows that Sansa is underestimating how little Dany values life and how little respect she has for feudal law. Like, Sansa is speaking out because even Cersei, FFS even JOFFREY wouldn’t likely execute a high lord or lady for speaking out of turn, but Jon at the absolute VERY least knows that Dany is temperamental, easily offended, and has ZERO regard for what the king or queen of Westeros is actually obligated to do or not do. He knows that she literally calls herself protector of the Seven Kingdoms but will not actually protect them unless they hand over everything to her and smile while they do it despite the fact that she’s a complete stranger.

Jon is actually being smart by framing it in the way of “she didn’t like me either when we were children”. It’s extremely demeaning to Sansa and undercuts her intelligence and authority completely, which seems to be the point. It reframes the situation and makes it a Sansa problem instead of a Dany problem, and it implies that Sansa is that naturally prickly to everyone, not just Dany. And of course, by saying “when we were children” it literally makes it seem like Sansa is being childish and petty. Obviously none of these things are true, but after being that publicly disrespected Jon knows that Dany is going to need a lot of ego soothing, and ironically undermining Sansa is the easiest way to do that.

I feel like the show didn’t quite know where the fuck it was going with this storyline up until the very end, however it’s very hard to ignore the fact that literally all of these behaviors and choices make sense within the context of Jon knowing that Dany is dangerous and unpredictable, and the only thing that DOESN’T back that up is that even after Dany is dead Jon never once acknowledges that she was really dangerous. I’m almost certain D&D had a specific idea in mind and just pulled the chute at the last minute, because literally EVERY character who meets Dany in Westeros has oodles of subtext acknowledging that she’s not a benevolent savior and that she’s actually scary as hell and completely unpredictable, and then at the very end all of these people who were behaving in ways that recognized that before were suddenly shocked and confused by her behavior, and conflicted about whether or not she needed to die for what she did. So yes, D&D did mess up his character, because they built up one character at the expense of everyone else (and managed to ruin her too really) and then chickened out when it came time to pull the trigger at the last fucking gasp of the series.

#Anonymous #jon snow #anti jonerys #anti got

158 notes · View notes

danwhobrowses · 4 years

Text

10 Things that would’ve Improved the Game of Thrones Final Season (For Me)

So it came to my attention that recently it was the First Anniversary of the Final Episode of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’. I was taken back to my memory of the BinGOT thing we had at work where we all made predictions of who lived, died and ‘won’ from the last ep (I was in 2nd or 3rd place). And since my mother has started binging it during quarantine I thought in the spirit of that environment I’d discuss a little what I would’ve changed in the final season.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8 Below, if you haven’t watched it then you’re better off not reading this frankly, if you haven’t been spoiled already at least.

So for starters, the final episode is not the worst tv I’ve ever seen, it just was a sloppy final season in general that really didn’t satisfy the 2 years of hype waiting for it, it’s like with the How I Met Your Mother finale, but that annoyance being more than one episode. But without further ado here are 10 things I would’ve changed about the final season Note: Most will involve the finale. The first 2 episodes were great.

10 - Ten Episodes The Long Night was 1 episode, the LONG NIGHT. A Culmination of the army of living and dead confined into one episode. One of the main problems with the final season was that the pacing was a bit rushed, it made character progression seem unnatural and dropped long-built plot points like water through a sieve. With 10 episodes, which was not a big ask given that this was the usual number and the gravitas of it being the final season would easily allow it to be green lit. D&D immediately backed themselves into a corner by giving a limit they weren’t used to and too much content to put in.

9 - Bite of the Spider Varys’ death was an upsetting start of the penultimate episode, while I would’ve loved him to have survived start to end and potentially ended on top (because he’s never shown to be as cunning or dangerous as he is in the books) there was some sense in him dying. However, Varys was shown sending a letter before his arrest and that never came back up, the finale could’ve used this by revealing to the public Jon’s true heritage, which would’ve immediately undermined Dany’s claim and set up a better conflict. Also we never knew what the voice in the flames said to him...

8 - A More Fitting Long Night While everyone probably popped hard for Arya killing the Night King, myself included, the nature of it was rather abrupt. I don’t think anyone can buy that she sneaked past that entire army. I do feel like the Night King was just a MacGuffin for the Long Night, given that he did so little in the actual fight. This is where a multi-part Long Night would’ve been key as well, going from the Night King being immune to Dragonfire to dying a bit later was not a good pace, and we lacked any conflict with Jon like we teased twice, Arya probably wasn’t the most poetic person to kill him either but GoT seldom did poetic deaths (Joffrey, Cersei, Euron). While the Long Night had exemplary deaths like Theon, Lyanna, Jorah and Beric, the Night King fell among the ranks of Melisandre and Edd in terms of meh deaths. The Long Night should’ve been a bigger bloodbath than it was, half the Dothraki somehow survived remember, we didn’t get to see Ghost fight at all either, no giant spiders, a lot of the tension was lost with the way some fight scenes were filmed; it was too easy to read between the lines and not enough characters had any true ‘oh god this person could die’ scenes.

7 - Resolution for the Characters we didn’t See and Plots unresolved With so much funding and finality in the show, there felt like there could’ve been more stuff that could’ve been resolved; what was the Quaith’s prophecy about? What really happened with the Doom of Valyria? Why does Dragonglass and Valyrian steel kill White Walkers? What is Daario doing after Dany died? Were the Faceless Men really that okay with letting Arya wander around knowing their skillset? Nobody hired them to help in the war either. What happened to the remnants of that warlock dude who stole the baby dragons, they sent one scorpion and that’s it, what happens with the Little Birds now that they’re leaderless? Who was Azor Ahai? What were the spirals about? There are a lot of questions the show kinda just, ignored.

6 - The Mad Queen So, Dany going from ‘I’ll stop if they surrender’ to ‘Burn them fucking all’ was abrupt for many, the majority of fans were not ready or willing to accept turning on their Kaleesi in just one episode. While I could see the conclusion coming from being jumped, losing another ‘child’ and her closest friend as well as her new boyfriend being her nephew and a legitimate threat to her legitimacy despite already pledging fealty, Dany’s descent could’ve used more time, and less naivety. While the death of the dragon was a huge shock, the idiocy fell on Dany in thinking that Cersei would play fair and wouldn’t try to occupy Dragonstone while she abandoned it. There also fell inconsistency when the same fleet and rows of Scorpion crossbows suddenly got Stormtrooper aim during ‘The Bells’. Euron is a renowned sailor, he ruined a Dornish fleet in a previous season, he may be an annoying bastard but you have to treat his naval tactics with a bit more respect - and make Dany less stupid with Cersei doing Cersei things. A lot of people definitely needed more time in buying the idea that Dany had lost her cool and that she blamed all of Westeros to justify burning everyone unashamedly.

5 - Proper Redemption We all know who we’re talking about. Jaime, Jaime, Jaime. In the end he just proved Olenna’s point didn’t he? And his turn away from redemption was only to serve as an example point for Tyrion to use to convince Jon to kill Dany. Jaime didn’t have to live, but he didn’t have to die rushing to Cersei’s rescue, or even due to Euron stabbing him. If anything Jaime should’ve died with some Honour, to be the inverse of Ned as he was presented in Season 1.

4 - My Lady does not have to mean M’Lady This is probably the most selfish ones of my 10 but as a shipper at my very heart and soul I wanted one, at least one, ship to survive this entire turmoil and Gendry and Arya were that couple. We almost had it as well, but then for some mad reason D&D decided that Gendry, despite literally saying that “none of it will be worthwhile if you’re not with me”, stayed in Storm’s End. Arya’s character endgame was right in her venturing off not being bound by the fact that she’s a noble, but Gendry spent a lot of time not caring that he was of Kingsblood to basically being his Father’s son. He’ll rule Storm’s End, marry some woman to have kids, but he’ll still have fallen into the same pit as King Robert did. It would’ve been much more satisfying and hopeful if Gendry abandoned the titles and land he never wanted or needed to accompany someone he loves and who loves him back on an adventure into the unknown. She’s not a ‘lady’ if she’s only marrying a blacksmith and love is the death of duty.

3 - Sansa is NOT Smart (and gets what she actually deserves) Right. So I really, really didn’t like Sansa. Like, I get it, she got held hostage by the Lannisters, watched her father get beheaded, got accused of murder, learned that her brother and mother died, watched the guy who fancied her mother and kissed her kill her aunt and then got effectively sold to an abuser in an arranged marriage. But Sansa is not the smartest player in the game, it was annoying that they tried to portray her as one, she had one idea that anyone could’ve told you ‘don’t be stupid against Ramsay Bolton’. She spent all of Season 8 mainly giving side eye like a petty bitch, completely trying to undermine Dany despite the two being very very similar (remember Dany was raped, sold off in an arranged marriage and watched family members get killed too) to the point where she was conspiring for Jon to usurp her. And in reality she took her ball and left, she was so pissy that the leaders didn’t pick her to be Queen of Westeros that she literally pointed out her own brother’s infertility, claimed that the North wouldn’t bow to a monarch, then declared herself Queen. Hide the ‘Yas Queen’ goggles for a sec, this wasn’t empowering she was throwing her own brother under the bus because she wanted to be queen, and she learned far too much from Littlefinger and Cersei’s playbook to actually be a just one. The North is allowed to be an independent nation, but Sansa’s ‘victory’ was more earned by virtue of a lot of shit happened to her than her actually demonstrating qualities to be queen.

2 - Bran Stark can’t come to the Phone right now... While we’re on the subject of Stark children not being fit rulers, Bran. What a cockamamie decision that was. I was 100% behind the destruction of the Iron Throne, but the chorus of laughter with a democratic rule was a bit of a slap in the face. Of all the choices though, Bran had to be near the bottom, it felt completely unearned that he spent literal seasons disconnecting from the world even to the point where he told Meera and Sam that Bran Stark is no longer here anymore only for Bran Stark to magically resurface when a crown is in waiting. I think it defeats the whole Three Eyed Raven thing too, the guy isn’t really one for the people, which is the problem every other ruler before him failed at. If you can’t pick a just person to lead, then why not a council instead? Just using Bran was a poor and messy decision.

1 - THE MOTHERFUCKING VALONQUAR One of the few expectations across all of Game of Thrones was the wondering over whether Cersei was gonna get what’s coming to her, the Maggy the Frog prophecy was going along quite well up until the Valonquar bit, where the younger sibling that was going to choke the life out of her was: bricks. BRICKS! Of all the long-winded prophecy foreshadowings to drop this one was the worst, Cersei (and Jaime) died in underwhelming, thoughtless fashion, the lack of fanfare on killing off one of the best and most ‘love to hate’ villains in the show only cemented the fact that the finale was not able to live up to the hype. True, most of these are small changes, but it’s worth remembering that there was some good coming out of the final season and it was the lack of those little things and attention to detail that led to the season ending on an underwhelming note.

We did however get a good ton of memes out of it, and at work a long-winded discussion on who should get the ‘winner’ 5-points (compared to the 1 correct points) since we had technically agreed that the 5 points goes to “whoever correctly guesses who sits on the Iron Throne” XD I still can’t believe I was right in Drogon melting the throne though that was one in a million

13 notes · View notes

militant-holy-knight · 5 years

Text

Benioff and Weiss Were Always Hacks: You Only Noticed Now

Or why you should be worried for the future Star Wars movies made by them

(Disclaimer: this blogpost contains spoilers for Game of Thrones)

With only two episodes left for the series to reach it’s conclusion and the announcement for future Star Wars movies in the horizon made by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (henceforth referred to as D&D for simplicity sake), not many fans seem to be excited about it as they should due to the creative choices taken in regards to the final season of Game of Thrones. Speaking as a GoT fan, I used to enjoy the show a lot and I believe it reached it’s peak on Season 4 and started to go went downhill on Season 5. If D&D were in charge from the beginning what happened?

D&D’s job was always to adapt the book series by George R. R. Martin, which means any merit to the show’s writing can be attributed largely to Martin while D&D were only fit for it to make it work into a tv show - which is still laudable in it’s own right because there are things in the books that still wouldn’t translate too well into the show. In any case, they did their job well from Season 1 to Season 4 which adapted the first trilogy in the series. Even though there are still five books in total released at the time, Season 5 is where they started to run out of material to adapt because some storylines didn’t find their proper conclusion and they needed to come up with their own unique deviations.

Season 5 is considered by many fans to be the low point in the series because of it’s extremely low pacing and controversial liberties taken: the biggest ones have to be the Dorne subplot because that meant axing popular book character Arianne Martell, Stannis Baratheon turning irredeemable evil and paying with his life and Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay Snow leading to her rape, which is still a very hot button among the fandom to this day (and understandably so). Season 5 did have some moments like Hardhome which showed the strength of the true villain of the series, the Night King, the leader of the White Walker invasion who brings winter with him. He is the Thanos-like menace who is teased since the very start of the show with the very first scene opening with a White Walker killing some Night Watch’s rangers and warning us about the danger he represents.

Season 6 fixed some of these problems by giving a more dynamic pacing and build it up with the Battle of the Bastards as the climatic encounter instead of something completely anti-climatic like Season 5′s finale where Stannis Baratheon’s forces were liquidated by the Boltons offscreen. But still, it was an entire season wasted to fix another one’s problems and it still had some individual problems.

And then Season 7 came along and it all went to waste. I wouldn’t say it was as bad as Season 5 because at least shit happened and it wasn’t boring, but it was still full of groan-worthy moments like trying to force some romance between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen which doesn’t work because they have no chemistry and they are related by blood, curing Jorah Mormont who has been infected with a dangerous disease that will turn him into a snow zombie by simply cutting out the infected area, and of course lest we forget the Wight Hunt in Episode 6 “Beyond the Wall” which broke all suspension of disbelief. Lemme sum it up for you what happens in that episode so you can get the idea and let me put up a map so you can get it from reference.

The heroes come up with the idea to capture an Wight and bring it South to convince Cersei to from a truce.

The travel by boat to the Wall from their base on Dragonstone.

After reaching the Wall, they walk into the land beyond it to find a wight.

They find one and send one of their members back to ask reinforcements having to sprint a indeterminate distance.

The team gets surrounded by the Night King’s army in a frozen lake for a indeterminate amount of time.

The allies at the Wall send a raven back to Dragonstone requesting help.

Daenerys summons her dragons to fly to the land beyond the Wall to rescue the heroes.

They are fighting to the last against the advancing horde of the Night King just before Daenerys arrives in a triumphant moment to save them.

And all of this happens like... Within a hour apparently. Several days should have taken place between this exchange but time moves at the speed of the plot, but D&D seem to be relying on emotional torque to get viewers to ignore all internal logic and be mindblown by the crowning moments of awesome. And this is the core issue with their writing.

D&D write their scenes the same way they film sex scenes apparently, hoping that the emotional moments will make the audience be carried over. Thing is... I realized this after thinking up about many moments in the past. Hardhome was one such example in Season 5 to make up for its abhorrent dullness and even Season 6 wasn’t safe from this. For example, remember how Rickon Stark died just so he could provoke Jon Snow to act irrationally and spur him into conflict? Why didn’t Rickon run in zig-zag when Ramsay began firing arrows at him? Why did he run into a straight line? Did these writers not watch Prometheus to learn their lessons from it’s mistakes? This problem was carried over in Season 8 and amplified a lot in the Long Night. Many people pointed out the several military blunders made by the protagonists when fighting against the Night King’s army.

youtube

I could talk about the moronic choice to film everything in absolute darkness and make it impossible to see shit.

I could talk about how idiotic it was to waste your cavalry against the enemy bulwark.

I could talk about how they didn’t create trenches with tar or use fire for more effective manner against the undead.

But I’d rather talk about that moment.

Arya killing the Night King.

You know at first I was okay with that because:

I wasn’t being a fan of Jon Snow in a long time.

Arya wasn’t a Mary Sue, had skills that justified her, so I could buy it better.

But the more I thought about it, more I came to the realization that it was a wrong choice all along.

Arya never had any investment in killing the Night King. She was a character defined by a list of people she wanted to kill including the Freys, Cersei, Joffrey and others.

Arya was trained as an assassin yes... But her training in Season 5 and 6 was very lackluster. She spent some time doing menial works, impersonating some people and trying to spill some poison on someone’s drink. She never learned invisibility, teleportation or any other cool shit.

And most importantly... Melisandre predicting that Arya would shut down “blue eyes” way back when they met in Season 3. If she sensed she was always destined to kill the Night King why did she ever support Stannis? Why did she even support Jon Snow? She even referred to him as the Prince that was Promised. Some fans can try to spin this as much as they want, but it breaks the plot retroactively very hard.

The actress herself didn’t think she deserved it

Of course all of these things were ignored by a large part of the fanbase, more specifically the “woke” crowd because YAS QUEEN SLAY. Little did they know that the very next episode would force them to eat a real shit sandwich when “The Last of the Starks” seemed to turn the narrative against Daenerys Targaryen by turning her into the Mad Queen, killing her handmaiden Missandei and setting up Jon to be the next King of Westeros. Not helping matters is that a series of leaks not yet confirmed as of the time of writing were released prior to the episode (but I personally feel they were legitimate due to some specific things but that is not the point) which sent many Daenerys fans into panic mode.

Speaking as someone who really doesn’t like Daenerys Targaryen, I can actually sympathize with them at some level because this shift appears to be very sudden specially now that the authors favored her more until this very moment. Some viewers can argue that there were always signs like her burning the Tarlys for refusing to bend the knee, which I personally took issue with before but it never really came across as the sign of an insane ruler since she offered very valid rebuttals. It all seemed like the plot was tailored to take her side no matter what and I considered Dany a Mary Sue. But just because they seem to be turning her into a villain now, it doesn’t make me hate the story any less.

Now... I spent an inordinate amount of time bitching about Game of Thrones and if you are an Star Wars fan that doesn’t know anything about it, you might be lost to anything I am writing. Well I needed to give an proper context to both GoT and SW fans since those seem to overlap now and give you a warning because Star Wars seems to be more lost now than ever. D&D were never particularly good writers, they were incoherent about continuity, care more about spectacle over substance and seem to share a thing about subverting the audience’s expectations like a certain Ruin Johnson who succeeded in completely ruining a franchise like there was no tomorrow. The key difference between D&D and Ruin is that the duo doesn’t share the same flippant attitude or picking up fights with fans on Twitter - on the contrary, D&D understand the power of fanservice even if it means daggling the metaphorical shining keys in front of the audience.

As we come close to Game of Thrones conclusion, I have a feeling that nobody will truly come out satisfied with it should the story take the direction that we are really dreading. I’ve seen interviews about how Emilia Clarke sounds really sad and deflated, seemed like she was really disappointed with how the show ended. Whatever happens, the blame can be laid on the feet of Benioff and Weiss for their frankly baffling creative decisions. This season has been disappointing through and through with two or three episodes being needlessly long and filler to booth and to make matters worse, it was supposed to end earlier than 10 episodes. Why did they need to rush it and yet fill the series with so much dead air?

Now can you imagine a Star Wars movie made by them? With all these things I listed? The next trilogy is already dated, we don't know if it's D&D or Ruin Johnson yet. We are talking about a couple of writers that have no sense of realistic scale, continuity or logic, but rely on cheap emotional tricks to have the audience invested until they begin thinking about it. I would laugh until I was sick if this season turns everyone against those two fuckwads that Disney changes their mind about putting them in charge. If the world was a just place, this is what would happen at least.

#star wars #game of thrones #rants

3 notes · View notes

mmazzeroo · 5 years

Text

Chapter 16: JON IV - Kintsugi is a Silent Proof of Survival

@helloimnotawesome - Chapter 16 is up! Thank you SO much for the lovely moodboard! I’m adding it to this chapter. Couldn’t wait to use it lol. Hope you’ll enjoy this chapter! More coming soon. Love ya, sis!

JON IV - Kintsugi is a Silent Proof of Survival:

"That's a big campfire, guys. Did you chop down half a forest somewhere? It's supposed to be a campfire, not a bonfire."

"Actually this is a bonfire. The campfire is over there." He waved an arm in the general direction somewhere to his right and chuckled as he noticed his brother's frown. "And no, we didn't chop down half a forest. A third maybe but definitely not half." He winked at Robb as he walked over to the campfire where Bran was sitting reading aloud to Aegon curled up in his lap.

"Ok...so what's the bonfire for?"

"You." He turned around to see a clearly confused Robb stare back at him. Laughingly he said "you and your betrothed. There are places in the world where lighting a bonfire for the soon-to-be married couple or newly married couple is considered good luck for the pair. The fire is said to ward off evil spirits and negative energy."

"I thought you didn't believe in the Gods."

"I don't really, but you do and what's the harm in trying to be on their good side for the sake of my brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law?" He gave Robb a pad on the back but he was pulled in for a tight hug.

"Thank you so much, Jon. That means more than you know." Robb choked out the words.

"Anytime brother." With that Robb slowly loosened his grip and silently nodded.

As they walked around the fire pit, Arya and Dany came storming into the camp area arms waving over their heads triumphant grins on their faces.

"WHOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!"

"The reigning Dragonstone champions remains undefeated in what is an unprecedented record of a decade long place at the number one spot." Dany did a, surprisingly, well imitation of a sports commentator as Arya kept dancing around. Her famous 'winning' dance. He tried to keep his laughing to a minimum but the priceless look on Robb's face made it very difficult.

Viserys arrived with a bat and ball in hand looking defeated and annoyed. The look Vis and Robb shared as they were surrounded by the two dancing women was just too much. He couldn't hold in his laugher any longer. When Bran and Aegon joined in the laugher as well Robb tried to shut it down.

"Alright alright, you've had your fun. Now settle down. No need to make a scene." Robb's tone made it clear he was less than amused.

Gods, their egos are so bruised it just makes it even more hilarious! He high-five'd Arya as she came dancing by once again, and grabbed ahold of Dany and pulled her in for a heated kiss.

"Beating both our brothers, huh? Atta girl!" She gave him a big proud grin. "I'm impressed but not surprised." She kissed him again. "I love you," he whispered in her ear before giving her another quick peck on the lips and letting her return to her victory dance with Arya.

"What's the matter brother?" Arya was laughing teasingly at Robb. "Is our WINNING TOO LOUD FOR YOU??" She laughed out loud as she finally sat down next to where Vis had settled down in the grass.

"No, it's just...you're a bad winner..." He was shuffling his feet while scowling at their youngest sister. "You won. Fair and square. No one is questioning it, but there's no need to be a dick about it."

"I'll stop being a dick when you stop being an asshole."

"Hey! Why am I the asshole, huh?"

"Just for the record, and I'm speaking from personal experience here, dicks and assholes tend to go very well together." Viserys chimed in clearly trying to break the tension.

"Guys, please watch you language we do have minors here." Dany cut in this time, extending her arm to where Bran and Aegon were sitting. "And for the record," she locked eyes with Vis, "eww!! That was a liiiittle too much information there, bro."

"Hey, all I'm saying is that I've never heard Lancel complain." He gave her a wink and this time even Robb couldn't help laughing. Thank the gods for Vis and his wisecracking mouth.

"Ok guys, parent alert, so maybe we could all try to behave age appropriately for a bit?" No chance of that but here's to hoping. At least they've been warned. They all looked at him as he was pointing to where their parents were walking up to them.

Just then Marg, Sansa and Rhaenys were joining them as well. Aegon leapt out of Bran's lap as he saw who was walking right behind the girls.

"Daddy!"

"Hey!" Rhae swooped Aegon up in his arms. "How's my little man? Having fun?"

"YES! Jon showed me how to build a fire and Bran's been reading dragon stories." The boy looked over his dad's shoulder. "Where's mommy?"

"I'm sorry kiddo, but there was an emergency so mommy had to stay at the hospital."

"Oh." There was a small pause and then he asked, "but she'll help them like she helped Jon and the butterflies?"

"That's right."

"Then I'm not sad she's not here. They need her more than I do." He's adorable with that thoughtful frown on his little serious looking face. Same frown his father has on his face from time to time.

"That's very sweet of you, Aegon, but you know it's always ok to miss you mom, right?"

The boy nodded and smiled up at his dad who rewarded him with a kiss on his forehead.

Margaery tapped Aegon on his shoulder. "May I ask yhy do you call the babies butterflies?"

"Because they're part Naathi, and mommy told me that Naath is known for having lots and lots of beautiful butterflies. So if Starks are wolves, we're dragons and you're a rose then they must be butterflies, right?" Or maybe winged horses? Pegasus?

"Can't argue with that logic!" Marg flashed a big smile at Aegon who, still sitting on his father's arm, looked very proud.

"What's going on here?" Ned was pointing at the bonfire.

"Jon has made a bonfire for Marg and I to ward of evil spirits and negative energies as a way to wish us a happy marriage."

"Oh Jon, that's so sweet." Margaery rushed over, crouched beside him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem." He quickly lowered his eyes to the ground. Oh gods, if I'd know it's get this much attention for it not sure I would've done it. He tried to occupy himself by stirring in the pot.

Dany was there instantly gently taking his free hand in hers. She spoke to him in almost a whisper. "Just breathe, my love. This is what family love feels like. It's alright. You're safe. Just take it in bit by bit one breath at a time."

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. He blew out a breath and nodded. A little wobbly smile on his lips.

"That's it." She smiled back at him and those beautiful purple eyes looked at him with such affection. "I love you." Quick kiss on the lips and she got back up.

It was then he realised that Marg had been sitting quietly by his other side, waiting, and only when Dany got up so did she - with another quick peck on his cheek.

Clearing his throat he said, "dinner is ready, so please grab a bowl and help yourself to a serving."

"It smells delicious!" Sansa's kind voice sounded quietly behind him. "What's on the menu?"

"In the Watch we called it 'soldier stew' - it's basically ground meat, bacon, smoked sausages, beans, some chopped tomatoes and onions, and a mix of spices. On the side is some freshly made bread."

"Wow! My big brother the master chef!" Sansa teasingly gave him a little shove with her shoulder.

Robb chuckled, "you're saying you can only cook 'soldier food'?"

"Unfortunately yes." He sighed pretending to be disappointed in his own abilities. "Sadly it was just too much of a hassle to bring a cook and maids with us out on missions. Too many unnecessary people to protect." He smirked and winked at Robb.

"Oh, thanks for the info Mr. Sassy-Pants!" His brother flashed one of his signature bright smiles and winked back.

There was a low rumble of sporadic laughter around the fire from the rest of the company. He looked around making sure everyone had a bowl, before scooping up some stew for himself.

"Cat, is there a chance of me holding my children again today or—"

"—not a chance, buddy! They're mine until tomorrow! You can get to kiss them goodnight before we go back indoors, but that's it."

Chuckling he sat down his bowl and held his hands up in the air as a sign of surrendering. "Duly noted, Lady Stark," he said and lowered his head in respect.

The exchange was sprinkled with laugher from everyone around them.

"You hear that, sweetlings." She was looking at Adei in her lap and Amador in Rhaella's, "you'll be sleeping in same room as Grandma Cat and Grandpa Ned tonight."

Everyone erupted in loud laughter at the surprised look on Ned's face.

"Don't worry dad. For months now they've been sleeping through the night. You shouldn't have any trouble."

Playfully placing a hand on his heart and eyes to the sky, his breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank the Old Gods and the New!" Then Ned caught his eyes and winked. Love you too, dad!

"Compliments to the chef; it tastes as delicious as it smells." Once again Sansa's gentle voice called to him.

"Thanks sis. Glad you like it." Leaning in he kissed her temple.

He looked around again and everyone seemed to be occupied in conversations left and right, so he looked to Dany sitting by his other side. She gave him an almost unnoticeable nod. He quietly stood up and went over to fetch his backpack. As he sat back down he turned slightly towards Sansa.

"I know it was your name day a couple of weeks ago and I owe you a gift."

"No no, Jon, it's ok, really!" She looked at him with big worried eyes. Oh sweet sister, still so nervous to ask for something for herself. If I ever get my hands on Joffrey, I'll...Jon! Not now. Happy moment, remember?

"Nonsense! Of course you deserve a gift for your name day, Sansa. Please, let me give you something?"

She took a deep breath before slowly nodding.

He could feel how everyone had gone quiet and instead watching the exchange between him and Sansa.

"It isn't much and I didn't wrap it." He pulled a porcelain bowl out of his bag.

Sansa's breathe hitched, "oh Jon, it's beautiful!"

"Careful!" Laughing he caught her in his arms she gave him a tight hug.

When she let go tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Thank you thank you thank you! I don't know what to say!"

"What did you get?" Bran was stretching his neck trying to see.

"This!" Sansa proudly lifted the bowl in her hand.

"A broken bowl?" Arya asking disapprovingly.

"How dare you question Jon's gift for me! Just because you don't understand it's meaning!"

"Sansa, it's alright." He tried laying a calming hand on her arm, but she kept going.

"No, it's not ok, Jon." She glanced at him before turning to glare at Arya. "The gift was for me so the main concern should be whether I like it, not if others do!"

"Alright geez! Sorry I said anything."

Arya, the queen of sarcasm. He managed to hold in his laugh. Didn't want to hurt Sansa. She was finally finding the courage to bite back at their wild sister. It had taken months before she seemed to fully trust him. At first he didn't understand why she was so cautious, but when she finally started talking to him it all made sense. When she finally decided she could trust him and began telling her story it wasn't like diving into a pond here and there like with Arya - with Sansa it was as if the dam had broken and there was nothing holding back the flood.

She told him how school had been a living nightmare for her. Despite Robb and Dany doing what they could to protect her, they weren't in her year and thus didn't have same classes as her. Joffrey was always there. Teasing, bullying her, laughing at her and making fun of her. Everything about her - her clothes, her hair, her face, her walk, her voice, her handwriting, her notes, the way she held her pen, the way she ate, the way she held her cup, her walking, her standing. Everything! He'd follow her around the school hallways just to laugh at her. He'd send her notes in class, leave notes in her books and bag, send messages on her phone and all her online profiles. She could never avoid it. He was always there. She'd deleted all her profiles, stopped using her phone. Becoming completely isolated. He was still there. In her head. Like a ghost. She started cutting herself. Leaving scars on her arms. She started thinking of ways to take her own life. All just to get away from him. She only stopped after Ned had caught her one day as she was cutting herself. She said she'd never seen him so terrified and heartbroken. For a couple of years after that she was homeschooled, an Essosi therapist, Varys, had helped her through the worst. Joffrey and Ramsey were sent off to boarding school in Astapor, and she had dared getting back in school for her final year of high school.

Jon had just sat there quietly listening, steaming internally, and as Sansa was crying in his arms and fell asleep from exhaustion he was thinking of numerous ways he could kill Joffrey having it look like accidents. It had been part of his training after all. Killing wasn't just aim and shoot. That night he let his mind run down that very dark path he knew all too well. By the time Sansa woke up though, he had calmed back down. If he ever met Joffrey Lannister though.....if he caught him jaywalking the kid would never see the light of day again!

"Yes Arya, the bowl was broken but Jon has had it mended. With gold." She held up the bowl again. So carefully like she was holding an infant. The campfire reflected in her eyes. Mirroring her internal fire finally burning through? "It's an art form called 'Kintsugi'. It's an Eastern practice of repairing fractures in porcelain with varnish or resin powdered with gold. They believe that the breakages and repairs form part of the history of an object and should be shown, not hidden."

He felt Dany squeeze his arm as she'd wrapped both hers around it. He glanced to the side to see Dany watching Sansa intently. As he looked around he noticed everyone smiling and their parents all seemed to have teary eyes. He was just so proud of watching her standing up for herself. Literally. Be a wolf!

Sansa turned and looked him directly in the eye as she continued, "our brother helped me see that my scars are not something shameful. Marking a painful incident with gold dust is to accept it as a jewel. Kintsugi is a silent proof of survival."

#jonerys fanfic #jonerys modern au

12 notes · View notes

jonsameta · 7 years

Text

here, have an endgame wank

Alright, for starters this blog is not really run by me (Lizzie/ @theonbaejoys) so much anymore. I think there’s 5 mods and I’ve taken a step back from reading any meta the past month or so. I’ve become more interested in other ships and have been writing fanfic for them, which if you follow me you will have noticed! (And potentially unfollowed me for haha). But though I have been tagging my Jon posts as #fuckboy in the north, Jon has always been my favourite ASOIAF character and probably always will be. And though I am not as interested in jonsa as I once was, I still believe it’s happening.

I have a lot of faith that Jon and Sansa are ~*~endgame~*~. But I don’t need any undercover lover theories, and neither do you. In fact, ultimately I think they’re a waste of time that have just lead to more and more drama, within and outside the jonxsansa fandom. I don’t have a problem with people theorizing about ~*~undercover Jon~*~*~ and I do not think it’s rape by deception ( goodqueenalys did a better job summing that up than I ever will, I also would never try). Honestly, there’s no way to predict the show because GoT is no longer logical and gaping plot holes exist in every single plot.

In my opinion, Jon and Sansa ending up together and ruling the north and rebuilding Winterfell -- whether for love or for politics, or potentially both -- is simply the most logical narrative choice for Jon and Sansa’s character arcs. If you believe the Iron Throne will be melted down and the North will become independent, as I do, then someone must rule the North. If you believe the Starks endure (they always do!), then somebody must have Stark babies.

George originally intended Jon to end up with A*ya. But A*ya is no longer original outline A*ya -- her arc has been given to Meera, Sansa and Jeyne Poole. OG A*ya was a bit like Lyanna Stark, but the A*ya we know has become an entirely different person. George is a “gardener”:

you discover an awful lot along the way. Characters rise up and seem more important, and you get to what you’d thought was going to be a big turning point and… the thing you’d thought about two years ago doesn’t really work as well, so you have a better idea!

By ASOS, George had changed a lot of his original plan, though the broad strokes of endgame (how the others were defeated, Jon dying and being released from his vows, stuff like that) have remained fairly constant. He also wanted a 5-year gap after ASOS but ultimately decided against it. The final two chapters of ASOS are Jon and Sansa chapters (excluding the epilogue, which is about the rise of Lady Stoneheart). It’s important that these two chapters were chosen to end the story before the five year gap because of the both the symbolism and foreshadowing in each, but also because these two chapters are in conversation with one another.

1. The Aemon foreshadowing that has been discussed 500x

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes.

"I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne."That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell."

In the end Halder and Horse had to pull him away from Iron Emmett, one man on either arm. The ranger sat on the ground dazed, his shield half in splinters, the visor of his helm knocked askew, and his sword six yards away. "Jon, enough," Halder was shouting, "he's down, you disarmed him. Enough!"

No. Not enough. Never enough. Jon let his sword drop. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Emmett, are you hurt?"

This trio of Aemon, Ryam Redwyne and Florian the Fool is the same trio in Sansa’s chapters:

There are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies. [...]

She shouted for Ser Dontos, for her brothers, for her dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant Ser Loras who had given her a red rose once, but none of them came. She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard.

-- ACOK

Aemon specifically, who Jon is associated with the most (Maester Aemon, literally calling himself Aemon, etc) is also the one who comes up time and time again in Sansa’s chapters. Here’s a few notable examples:

"Sweet one," her father said gently, "listen to me. When you're old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who's worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me."

-- AGOT

"True knights." The queen seemed to find that wonderfully amusing. "No doubt you're right. So why don't you just eat your broth like a good girl and wait for Symeon Star-Eyes and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight to come rescue you, sweetling. I'm sure it won't be very long now."

-- ACOK

"I shouldn't think so." Margaery smiled confidently. "It's brave of you to warn me, but you need not fear. Joff's spoiled and vain and I don't doubt that he's as cruel as you say, but Father forced him to name Loras to his Kingsguard before he would agree to the match. I shall have the finest knight in the Seven Kingdoms protecting me night and day, as Prince Aemon protected Naerys.”

-- ASOS

2. The biggest question vexing Jon is whether or not he should become Lord of Winterfell, marry Val and restore the castle.

The entire chapter is Jon’s emotional journey of knowing he wants Winterfell -- that he has always wanted it -- and denying himself the opportunity to have (almost) everything he wants.

Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but he was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be Lord of winterfell. My father’s heir.

Winterfell, he thought, Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.

It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. [...] "I thought you'd died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I've had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams."

Of note here first is that as he wants Winterfell, and he makes this decision, Ghost suddenly appears when he was once lost. Ghost helps Jon make the decision. Jon associates Ghost with Robb and the other Stark children and seeing Ghost again is what makes Jon’s decision for him. Nostalgia and loss is a theme in Sansa’s chapter as well, she hungers for the old days, she remembers snowflakes melting in Robb’s hair.

Most importantly -- Jon wants to rebuild Winterfell. But decides not to do it with Val, not in a way that would damage the weirwood or the old gods. In the very next chapter, Sansa rebuilds Winterfell out of snow. If that ain’t foreshadowing I don’t know what is. And...

My lord husband, Sansa thought, as she contemplated the ruins of Winterfell. The snow had stopped, and it was colder than before.

It’s subtle, but it’s there.

3. Winterfell belongs to the Old Gods, Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.

When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves and solemn face. The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said... but to save the castle Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman’s hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods.

Jon does not have the moral authority to sacrifice the weirwood, because Winterfell belongs to the old gods. The weirwood -- the heart tree, the symbolic old gods -- looks an awful lot like Sansa. Pale, with red leaves and a solemn face. It’s interesting, because when Jon denies his right to Winterfell, he thinks first that it belongs to the Old Gods, but he says later to Stannis that it belongs to Sansa.

In ADWD:

"By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa."

Jon said, "Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa."

This theme of no weirwood tree is explored in Sansa’s chapter too:

It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had ben meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

And then there’s all other endgame foreshadowing in Sansa’s chapter, the final ASOS chapter, which I have already discussed in more detail here.

There is more I could discuss, and if you read over the Jon and Sansa chapters in question I’m sure you’ll see it too. I don’t feel like having debates. The show is almost impossible to predict because we can’t tell if stuff that’s OOC or weird is something we’re supposed to notice or just bad writing/acting. Could go either way, the LF murder plot was super stupid. Either way, we won’t know for aaaagggeeesss. Hints in the books are infinitely more interesting to me. This choice to end ASOS with Jon and Sansa, and to have the chapters be so similar and interact with one another, is very telling.

Anyway the point of this post was just: I think it’s endgame, I have no worries, and I don’t think you should either. Analyzing microexpressions could lead somewhere, but different people seem to see different things when they watch film, whereas literary analysis is slightly less subjective.

#jon x sansa #book #book evidence #foreshadowing #asos

189 notes · View notes

weirddreamergirl · 7 years

Text

Core of a Character

I’m not very good with writing metas but I’m hoping I make sense in this but anyway here ya go:

Note: May have stolen this from my own twitter with a bit of editing because what is grammar XD

After constant arguments on Jaime's character on Facebook, I think I understand the problem of why people don't understand his and other hated characters as well. They don’t understand the core value of a character.

I think that each character has a core value. A core value is a trait of a character where no matter how much they change throughout the story, it's there.

Say in Jaime's and Brienne's case as well. Their core character is romanticism. They're knights, yes, but that stems from their romanticism. The ideal knight comes from romantic notions. And until now, they're both trying to be that ideal knight in songs & stories. Consistently, a lot of their motivations is because of love. Jaime thought he and Cersei were the Warrior and Maiden. Brienne constantly thinks of Jaime, wanting to find Sansa for him. Show!Jaime is highly motivated by love, staying by Cersei’s side longer but post season 4, his growing love for Brienne made him take Riverrun without bloodshed and it was a huge factor (while not the main factor) on him leaving Cersei.

Another example is Cersei and her narcissism. All of the things she'd done is motivated for her love of self and furthering herself. She had kids with her twin because she sees them as an extension of herself and as a means of power. Her motherhood isn't her core value at all. That's why when Tommen died, she was calloused. I don’t think it’s only because of Maggy’s prophecy but I think the main reason is she couldn't control him. Tommen became his own person, making his own decisions that Cersei doesn’t approve at all and Cersei didn't like it when she couldn't control someone. It was different with Joffrey because while she thinks some of the things he did was stupid, I think she lets him do it because I think Cersei would do those herself.

Another thing I commonly see in the fandom is Sansa-hate and Arya-love. I love the Starks girls even though they have different core values. Arya, as pointed out to me in a review of a fic I wrote once, wants freedom. Ever since the beginning of the story, all she wants is to transcend beyond the role she was given. She doesn’t want to be a lady and marry someone she doesn’t love. Arya wants control of her own life, wear what she wants, without having to think about what anyone else thinks. It's evident in season 7 that it’s still the same. Doing things her own way is who Arya is. Which is why I can never see Arya ruling because it's not her. She cannot be bound by the rules of conformity the highborn lords and ladies have. In contrast to Sansa whose core is being a lady. Sure she starts off naive and it’s beyond frustrating but being a lady has been who she is since. Even when she no longer believes in romantic notions, she becomes a politician. She's still a lady but much smarter than before. She knows how to act, how to mediate conflict, how to compromise. Which is why I see Sansa as one of the survivors because she has capabilities of ruling.

These are the characters I’m more familiar with so I can’t determine yet the core of other characters. But generally, I think it’s important to determine the constant trait of the character to have better discussion about characters.

#Jaime Lannister #brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne #anti-cersei #sansa stark #arya stark #I DUNNO HOW TO META DUDE HAHAHHAH

22 notes · View notes

choupetit · 7 years

Text

GOT Recap: Beyond the Wall

Airdate: 8/20/17; Season 7, Episode 6

Um, Houston…we have a problem. Ya know how when you see somebody about to do something that seems like a really bad idea, and then it turns out even worse than you imagined? Cool, cool, cool. Well, that pretty much sums up this week’s Game of Thrones - the penultimate episode of the season. This was a super-sized episode and we got lots of action, a handful of surprises, a few history lessons and some pretty creepy behavior from one of the Stark siblings. Grab a paper bag to breathe into…and maybe a couple of tissues, too, because we are about to take a terrifying recap journey “Beyond The Wall”!

Bachelors in Parad-ice

The episode starts off North of the Wall as we see Team Awesome - aka Jon Snow, Jorah Mormont, Gendry, The Hound, Tormund Giantsbane, Beric Dondarrion, Thorros of Myr, and a few additional unnamed men (I’d say it’s fair to call them “expendables”) - on their way to catch a snow zombie beyond the wall so they can bring it to Queen Cersei. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around why this seemed like the best way to convince her of the existence of Whitewalkers. Wouldn’t it be easier to kidnap Cersei and take her on a quick dragon flight up North for a sneak peek? But I digress. It’s a long walk, with plenty of time for conversation.

Jon brings Tormund up to speed on his stay at Dragonstone and tells him of Daenerys’ request to bend the knee to her before she’ll lend any of her forces for the impending war against the Army of Dead. Tormund pretty much tells Jon to suck it up – he says that even though Mance Rayder was the much-respected leader of the Wildlings, his pride caused a lot of them to die, unnecessarily.

Behind them, Thorros of Myr is talking to Gendry asking if he is still butthurt that the Brotherhood sold him to Melisandre to do her witchy voodoo magic with his blood. Turns out, Gendry is indeed still mad – he wanted to be a part of the Brotherhood and they totally screwed him over. Plus, he almost died. The Hound tells him to quit his whining, and points to Dondarrion , “That dude died six times already and you don’t hear him complaining.”

Meanwhile Ser Jorah and Jon are rehashing a little history involving their fathers. Jorah recounts how Ned Stark was going to execute him for trying to sell some poachers into slavery back in the day, which led to his exile and his family disowning him. In turn, Jon offers his condolences for how Jorah’s father, Lord Commander Mormont met his demise and he assures Jorah all the mutineers who had a hand in the late Lord Commander’s death have been brought to justice.

Jon then attempts to give Jorah the family sword – Longclaw - which Lord Commander Mormont bestowed upon Jon back at Castle Black. This is the sword that’s made of Valyrian steel and it’s the same one that Jon used to kill a Whitewalker at Hardhome. I want to scream at the screen “Why in blazing hell are you offering your amazing Whitewalker-killing sword to Jorah RIGHT NOW when you’re in Whitewalker territory??? Hold onto the damn sword, you idiot!” But no need, Ser Jorah insists that Jon keep the sword. With his complicated family history, he doesn’t feel right taking it, and he tells Jon he hopes it will serve him well and his children after him. Kids, you say? Well, well, well, aren’t we quite the optimist, as we walk the freezing tundra of the Night King’s turf!

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Arya?

Back at Winterfell, Arya and Sansa stand on the balcony overlooking the courtyard and Arya shares a touching memory she has of their dad, but then she darkly ends things with “And now he’s dead, thanks in part to you.” Sansa’s all “Ex-CUSE me?” And then Arya whips out the scroll she stole from Littlefinger’s room. It’s the letter Cersei forced Sansa to write to her brother Robb urging him to swear fealty to King Joffrey back in Season 1 in order to help her father when he was imprisoned by the Lannisters,. As we all know, Robb assumed it was written under duress. And things didn’t turn out well for Ned Stark in spite of Sansa’s attempts. Arya accuses Sansa of being a hoity, toity wussy little traitor to their family. She tells her she watched their father’s execution, and saw Sansa sitting loyally next to King Joffrey – all gussied up. Sansa calls BS and has some choice words of her own for Arya. “Um yeah, I didn’t see you trying to save dad, either. I did what I had to in order to survive. And btw the very reason we’re in Winterfell today is thanks to me and my political skills – because the Knights of the Vale support me. In conclusion, my life has been one horrendous sh*tshow after the next, so why don’t you have the Winterfell seamstress make you some new clothes ‘cause those judgy-pants you’re wearing are looking awfully smug.”

Arya ends things with a thinly veiled threat that she just might show the scroll to the people who matter most to Sansa: the Northern Lords. Will they be so fond of Sansa once they think of her as a coward who betrayed her family? Sansa tells her not to do anything rash, and maybe grab a Snickers bar, because…you’re not you when you’re hangry.

Back to Team Awesome, Tormund and the Hound share some hilarious banter with the Hound ragging on redheads and Tormund telling him of this gal he has back home – as he describes her, the Hound realizes he’s talking about Brienne of Tarth. It’s a great scene with some much-needed humor.

Beric Dondarrion and Jon Snow are chatting, discussing their shared experience of dying and being brought back to life. Dondarrion is pretty much a veteran at this, seeing how Thorros of Myr has brought him back six times so far. When Jon wonders what it’s all about, Dondarrion tells him there’s only one enemy: Death. And even though death always wins in the end, it’s their calling to fight back as much and as often as they can. Jon’s all, “Cool story, bro. That works for me.”

Suddenly they all halt and the Hound points to a mountain that looks like the one from his vision. He senses the Army of Dead can’t be too far. Meeep! I’m getting anxious.

Targaryen Stratageryen

Aaaaand, cut to Dragonstone, where it’s Smores Sunday, y’all!!! Daenerys and Tyrion are hanging out by the fireplace and Dany gives Tyrion a backhanded compliment…or shall we say a real compliment that lands terribly – and is really just a guise for her to talk about Jon Snow: “Ya know what I like about you? You’re not a hero. You don’t go showing off doing stupid things that will get you killed like hunky Drogo, Dreamboat Daario, Valiant Jorah, or Sexy Jon Snow. Just kidding, Jon’s totally not sexy, he’s way too short for me. Uh…not that there is anything wrong with men of short stature, ‘cause they’re totes cool…and um, I know you’re totally brave and stuff, too. Ok. So…let’s talk Cersei strategy.”

Tyrion’s all “Yeah, thanks. Ok, so Jaime said he’ll keep the Lannister Army in check. Cersei be cray and is an all-around terrible person. She’s probably going to say stuff to get your goat so…maybe don’t take the bait by being impulsive during truce negotiations?” Dany’s all, “WHAT??? I’M EVEN-KEELED ALL THE TIME! Why would you even say that?” Two words: Tarly Barbecue.

Tyrion adds that patience is a virtue for a ruler and the world that Dany wants Westeros to become won’t happen overnight. It’ll take a lot of time. Perhaps even a lifetime. Now might be a good time to do some estate planning and figure out who’s going to be Dany’s successor if anything should happen to her. Dany tells him in no uncertain terms that her dragons are the only children she’ll ever have and they will talk about successors once she’s on the throne. Conversation over.

We’re back up North with Team Awesome and they are walking through a blizzard. Their scout is walking ahead and we see a figure obscured by the raging snow storm. The anticipation is intense. Out of nowhere, a huge bear appears and savagely attacks the group. If you haven’t seen the Revenant yet, you’re in luck…you get to watch a bear maul somebody without all the boring parts! Woot! As the beast attacks the men, we see it has blue eyes. Holy moly, it’s a zombie bear!!! The beast attacks Thorros and somebody in the group manages to stab it with some dragon glass and it shatters. Thorros is pretty torn up, but Beric Dondarrion cauterizes the wound with his awesome flaming sword and the group moves on.

At Winterfell, Sansa invites Littlefinger to her room to talk about Arya and wonders how she got the scroll in the first place. Littlefinger shrugs “Beats me.” Sansa worries that the Northern lords are growing restless during Jon’s absence, and might take any reason they can find to leave Winterfell. This scroll might push them over the edge. Littlefinger suggests Sansa might have Brienne intercede on her behalf if there is any sign that Arya might do her and her reputation harm. After all, Brienne has sworn to protect both Stark sisters. Sansa considers this. But what exactly “interceding” means is a bit unclear to me – especially as this is a suggestion coming from Littlefinger.

Back North again, Jorah speaks with a limping Thorros, who constantly takes sips from his flask. Jorah is recoutning one of the battles that happened during Robert’s Rebellion, when Tormund hears something and everybody stops. In a valley below, they see a handful of snow zombies walking. They wonder where the rest of the group is.

Our heroes lay a trap and ambush the snow zombies and the single Whitewalker who’s with them. Jon strikes down the Whitewalker with Longclaw and the army of dead around them all crumble to pieces. Just one snow zombie is left standing – that’s their zombie that they can bring back for Cersei! Woot woot! Only thing is, they have to subdue the damn thing, and let me tell you, zombies sure know how to put up a fight. As they wrestle the zombie to the ground, it lets out a deafening high-pitched scream. Suddenly snow tornados start to build in the distance. Ruh roh, that’s the same thing that happened at Hardhome before all the Army of Dead appeared. Trouble is coming! Jon tells Gendry – who is the fastest of them all – to run back to Eastwatch to send a raven to Daenerys. The Hound grabs Gendry’s battle hammer and tells him to leave it, as he’ll run faster. Gendry bolts.

The remaining members of the group make a run for it, dragging their zombie hostage along, and steel themselves for a fight. We see a mass of snow zombies run in from all directions. Team Awesome suddenly hear the ground below them crack and they realize they are standing on a lake of thin ice. They rush to the center of the lake where a stone island juts out. The snow zombies run after them at full force, some fall though the broken ice. Are they gonna walk underneath the ice, I wonder in horror. Nope, we’re good. We see an aerial view showing Jon & Co. stranded on the rocky island, completely encircled. It’s like Battle of the Bastards all over again and dread washes over Jon’s face. Then, all of a sudden, the Army of Dead stops. Turns out…they don’t like water! Huh. They all just lurk at the outskirts of the lake. Standing. Waiting silently. It’s beyond freaky.

How’s Gendry doing? He’s running and running, and mercifully, no snow zombies are on his trail. I’m totally hearing the “Run Forrest, Run!” chant in my head…but with Gendry’s name, obvi. He can see the Wall off in the distance.

Night falls on the little rock island and all is still. Team Awesome looks out as the Dead look back.

Gendry is maybe 50 feet out from Eastwatch when he collapses into the snow. Oh man! Seriously, dude? You’re so close! The gate opens and some men rush out to get him. As Davos bends down to ask what happened, Gendry utters “I need to send a raven!” Whew, at least word will get to Dany!

It’s morning on the rocky platform, and our heros start to do sun salutations and discover that Thorros has passed in the night. They use the alcohol in his flask to burn him, but without a resurrectionist on site, Dondarrion and Jon are on their last lives.

Jorah wonders about what happened earlier when Jon killed the Whitewalker and all the zombies fell. Jon assumes it’s because that particular Whitewalker turned them, except for the zombie hostage they took. Makes perfect sense, I mean, this is basic Vampire Mythology 101, people! So maybe they just need to kill all the Whitewalkers on site to get out of this jam. As he looks around and sees the Army of Dead patiently waiting, Jon utters “Nope, then we lose our hostage. Dany is our only hope.” “Not necessarily,” interjects Dondarrion. If they can kill the Night King, who turned all the Whitewalkers, then they can kill all the walking dead. That would be pretty easy peasy, doncha think?

Back at Winterfell, Sansa gets more bad news. She’s been invited to King’s Landing, but no way is she stepping foot back there with evil Queen Cersei on the throne. She decides to send Brienne as her emissary, but Brienne protests “If I leave, then you’re not safe from whatever Littlefinger is planning. Let me at least leave Poddrick.” Sansa’s like “Um, news flash, I own this place and my guards will protect me. Hit the road now, BriBri, if you wanna get there on time!” Hmmm, is she getting rid of Brienne on purpose? On the bright side, Brienne will get to see her number one crush, Jaime Lannister!

Gendry’s raven has arrived at Dragonstone, and Queen Daenerys is wearing a fabulous coat from her new Dracarys winter collection. She’s ready to hop on her dragon and bail out Team Awesome. Tyrion attempts to talk her out of it, saying sometimes doing nothing is the best decision. Based on his recent track record, Tyrion’s suggestions have proven to be just plain awful, so Dany ignores his advice and takes off on Drogon with her other two dragons in tow.

God Willin’ And The Creek Don’t Freeze

We’re back at the Rock of Doom, while our heroes are sitting ducks and the Army of Dead continues to loom in the distance. The Hound has taken it upon himself to do a little target practice by throwing rocks at one of the decomposing soldiers’ heads. Its jaw comes off and he picks up another rock for funsies, but it falls short and lands on the ice…which doesn’t break. The Hound channels his inner Urkel -“Did I do that?” - as it dawns on everybody that the Army of Dead can safely walk straight to them.

The zombies start to cross the ice, spaced out enough as not to break the ice. Team Awesome are in for a terrifying battle as more and more snow zombie close in on them. Luckily, the men all have dragon glass weapons with them, but they are outnumbered by about 100 to 1. As they engage in combat, things are rough with zombies coming at them left and right.

The Hound pounds a huge hole in the ice with the hammer Gendry left behind and that helps to stop at least some of the snow zombies. Enjoy your jacuzzi, mofos!

Jon yells for them to fall back – um, to WHERE, dude? The back of the rock island juts a bit higher so the zombies behind them can’t reach them. During their retreat, Tormund gets attacked by a group of the dead all at once and they start to pull him into the hole in the ice. Oh no, does this mean we’ll never get to see the love that could blossom between Tormund and Brienne?! Just when it looks like it’s game over for our fave Wildling, the Hound saves him! Hey, he DOES like gingers!

The group retreats as much as they can with zombies clawing up at them, and Jon looks around , his face screams “Just go to your zen-filled happy place, Jon!” Just when it looks like they are total goners, we see a stream of fire come down from the sky – huzzah, Queen Dany to the rescue!!! Drogon and the other two dragons, Rhaegal and Viserion swoop in, and similar to the battle with the Lannisters, Dany’s dragons torch the place and snow zombies fall left and right. Climate change is real, biatches!

Drogon lands on the rock island and the members of Team Awesome start to scramble up on the dragon, except for Jon, who feels the inexplicable need to show off or something. He fights off snow zombies as the others climb aboard Drogon Airlines.

Meanwhile, the Night King and his Lieutenants look on, with their usual expression - a mix of calm reserve and bitchy sourface. One of the lieutenants grabs a huge ice spear and slowly, deliberately hands it to the Night King. Oh, crap. Just when I was thinking that at least they weren’t going into dragon-slayer territory, the Whitewalkers prove me wrong. The Night King takes aim at one of the dragons, methodically tracking it and then – whoosh – he throws the spear with incredible force and accuracy and it hits Viserion, who tumbles from the sky.

Time seems to stop as Dany sees her dragon-child fall and her face just breaks. Viserion hits the ice and slowly sinks down into the water below and disappears. Jon starts to run to the others, but when he sees one of the Whitewalkers reach for yet another spear, he shouts for Dany and the others to leave. As he runs, a group of snow zombies tackle him and they all fall through the hole in the ice.

Drogon takes off with Dany and the Team Awesome members, along with their snow zombie hostage, and the Night King takes aim at them. He launches the spear, but this time the dragon does an excellent serpentine dodge, and the spear misses its mark. The Night King and his Army of Dead start to saunter off.

On the ice, Longclaw lays forgotten when suddenly Jon emerges from the water and claws his way back onto the ice. As he ambles, shivering, in the general direction of Eastwatch, some of the retreating Snow Zombies take note and turn to attack him. Jon, braces himself to go down fighting, when a rider appears behind the zombies and whacks them in the head with a flaming ball and chain – Uncle Benjen saves the day! Benjen gallops up to Jon and puts him on this horse, then stays behind as Jon rides off. Uncle B gets a few good swings in at the zombies, but their sheer volume is too much for him to take on, and he vanishes in a sea of snow zombies.

At Eastwatch, the Hound is loading the snow zombie into a boat, while Dany and Jorah look out from the watchtower, scouring the woods and snow below for a sign of life. Jorah tells Dany it’s time to leave, but Dany wants to wait just a little longer. She finally turns to leave when a horn blows and the horse appears from the trees below with Jon collapsed over its back.

On Dany’s ship, heading back to Dragonstone, a group of men are pulling off Jon’s frozen clothes and settling his unconscious body into bed as she looks on. If this was any other kind of show, I’d expect somebody to say “He’s suffering from hypothermia and needs some bare skin on him to warm up! Anybody have any suggestions?” As Dany sees his bare chest, she notices the stab wounds in his heart and chest…and hey, Jon Snow is surprisingly ripped! Maybe short guys aren’t that bad after all.

Sibling Rivalry

Back to the Winterfell saga! Sansa is snooping around Arya’s room, presumably looking for the damaging scroll, when she comes across a satchel filled with…faces? Arya surprises her from behind. “Hey sis, looking for something?” Sansa is disturbed by her discovery and asks, “What’s with the Ronald Reagan mask, Arya? Has somebody been watching too much Point Break?” Then Arya creepily asks if Sansa wants to play a game. If she starts to ask what Sansa’s favorite scary movie is, I’m gonna lose it! Arya tells Sansa of her “Game of Faces” she used to play at the assassin academy. Sansa puts on a brave face, but you can tell she is terrified, heck even I’m worried about what Arya will do. The younger sister grabs the Catspaw dagger Bran gave her the other day, and she tells Sansa how she can become anybody she wants to – why, she could even be Lady Stark of Winterfell – all she needs is her face. Arya raises the dagger, and then gives it a quick twirl and hands it to Sansa before walking away. Jeepers Creepers!!

I’ll Stand By You

Jon awakens and Dany is waiting by his bedside. He immediately apologizes for her dragon-baby loss and tells her he wishes they had never gone on their zombie retrieval errand. Although she grieves for her dragon – the only children she’ll ever have, she’s sure to point out – she doesn’t regret them going, as it’s the only way she would believe the Whitewalker threat is real. She offers Jon her support, no strings attached and says they will defeat the Night King together.

Jon tells her he’s ready to call her his Queen and that the Northern Lords will follow suit when they see her for who she is – a true leader. He grabs her hand and when she starts to lets go he holds on just a bit as they share a long meaningful look, then she pulls her hand away and tells him to rest up.

Rise and Shine

Back at the zombie lake retreat, droves of zombies are pulling the fallen dragon out of the icy water with giant chains. I guess Whitewalkers never leave home without their hardware. Plus, they must have managed to get some snow zombies who hate water to do a little scuba dive to attach the chains, but that’s all petty details. The main thing here is that they have a deceased dragon and a Night King who can reanimate the dead, so no good can come of this. As the dragon corpse lays on the ice, the Night King walks up to him and touches his head – Viserion’s eye opens and it gleams a bright blue! Roll credits.

Well…that’s not good! I’ve always had a nagging feeling that we might be seeing an ice dragon at some point, and now we have. I do wonder, though, about the logistics of an ice dragon - does it actually have any fire power, or does it just spray out a refreshing mist? We’ll find out soon enough. This is bad news bears all around, though. They could very well just burn down the wall in one fell blow. My one hope is that Cersei will in fact unite forces with her enemy to defeat the Whitewalkers, and they can put some dragon glass arrowheads on Qyburn’s weaponry.

Can we just take a moment to discuss how every time Jon Snow embarks on a dangerous mission, it always ends in disaster with somebody bailing him out? I’m just saying, maybe we don’t wanna use him for the big battles anymore. Perhaps having a Plan B or C in place would be a wise idea, too, in case things go south. And, just throwing this out there: maybe Bran can start to tag along warg-style on dangerous endeavors, so when things go horribly wrong, he can send in the cavalry instead of everybody waiting for a messenger to send a raven. Also, let’s hear it for the speedy ravens of Westeros, amiright?

As for the Winterfell happenings: What the heck is up with Arya? She is being a major biatch to Sansa. Is this what she is like in her downtime? I mean, when you think about it, we’ve never really seen her socializing in normal settings - maybe she has PTSD where she just assumes everybody is an enemy. Girl needs to take a chill pill and give Sansa a break. I guess when you lead a nomadic lifestyle you don’t have to worry much about fostering relationships with others. Also, where was Bran to just be like “Hey sisters, Littlefinger is just playing you.” Bran better have some amazing ace up his sleeve.

As for Littlefinger…is his endgame here really just to get rid of Brienne? Did he suggest the “interceding thing” because he wants Brienne to engage Arya in combat? Brienne wouldn’t really ever hurt Arya, but I guess Arya is a loose cannon and could very well kill Brienne…which would take her out of the picture, and perhaps that is Littlefingers real goal? Maybe Sansa is onto him and that’s why she sent Brienne to King’s Landing. Or maybe that’s exactly what Littlefinger REALLY wanted. Ack, it’s so complicated!

Next week is the finale episode and it’s gonna be even longer than this recent episode. One thing’s for sure - tension is gonna be at an all time high as Cersei, Dany and Jon all convene in one place. I mean, I assume Jon is going to King’s Landing, but I could be wrong. Until then, let’s all pour out a forty for Viserion and pray that ice dragons can’t breach the wall.

#gotrecaps #got #game of thrones #recap #Beyond the Wall #GameOfThrones #Season 7 #jon snow #beric #thormund #jorah #daenerys #gendry #thorros #eastwatch

0 notes