Ask the Night Queen

?

Don’t know when you sent this anon but sorry for the late answer as I know I haven’t been on in a while and whenever I am, my inbox never shows new asks even when there are new ones. 

Anyway, while my gut says this is an ask from someone who is genuinely Dany neutral, it sounds like one of those backhanded compliment things. And a lot of this just, I’m sorry, doesn’t ring true for me?

1) When is Dany impulsive? I mean, in order to give a character a label like that, you realize this has to be something that is a regular occurrence, right? The only thing coming to my head right now is Dany claiming the Lhazareen women in AGOT cuz that was entirely unplanned. But... seeing as how she saved people and seeing as how this is the only example coming to mind right now, I wouldn’t call Dany “impulsive” just for this one act. Everything else she does, she usually has a plan. She might not reveal that plan to her advisors or even the audience before she acts, but George usually writes things in a way so that we know Dany at least knew ahead of time what she was going to do. Like with the Unsullied in Astapor, when she burned MMD to hatch the dragons, etc. We didn’t see her thinking and making plans ahead of time, but we know that she had been planning them when said plans are acted out. 

2) A character showing their fears is usually never looked down on and actually, antis like to argue that Dany is arrogant and not self-reflective, which would imply not showing her fears. So idk why you even consider this a “negative” about her. I’ve literally never seen an anti make this argument or anyone say they dislike Dany because she shows her fears. Again, most of those scenes where we do see Dany express her fears are largely ignored by that side of the fandom. And, after all, “Can a [wo]man still be brave if [s]he’s afraid?” “That is the only time a [wo]man can be brave.”

Same thing with Dany’s “vulnerabilities”. Antis never typically use them as a negative against her because they like to pretend Dany thinks she’s perfect and therefore utterly unrelatable. 

3) Using “humor” as a negative against a woman in any context is usually sexist, no matter which way you swing it. Just, no. And Dany does say funny things. She has way more personality in the books than in the show. Though show Dany will live in my heart forever.

4) Everyone is intense and dramatic. Tyrion killed his father on the crapper for saying the word “whore” repeatedly. 

The “negatives” people often use as reason to hate Dany are just... stupid made up shit. It’s fine to dislike a character, just fucking be honest about it. And antis never are. So they have to make up dumb things about Dany that aren’t true in order to justify not liking her. And often, their criteria are things they also do not apply to other characters. Like, impulsivity. Sure, if you hate impulsive characters and you miss Dany’s nuisances and think she’s impulsive, that would make sense. But then you should dislike Tyrion for being very impulsive because he actually frequently is. And yet, those people usually don’t mind Tyrion, or any other character. The hatred for her is almost always for other reasons that are entirely unrelated to who Dany is and what actions she takes. It’s almost always because of another character people believe Dany takes the spotlight from. And I’m tired of people pretending otherwise. 

Huh. Missed that. But must have been a sad sight. 

But she really should have known better.

I mean, if you’re not shipping Jonsa and you’re not hating Dany, how can you even call yourself a real Sansa stan?? The shame!

Okay great. So we acknowledge that Sansa and Jon reuniting wasn’t canon (I’m guessing you’re a salty Jonsa?), Sansa becoming QITN wasn’t canon (or maybe just a regular rabid Sansa Stan?), Arya returning home wasn’t canon (or one of those weird Dany-fan-hating Arya Stans?), Tyrion actually caring about his family and turning into a pacifist isn’t canon, Bran being King isn’t canon, Jaime going back to Cersei isn’t canon, and of course Dany talking about laying waste to armies and burning cities to the ground isn’t canon!

Glad we cleared all that up. Thanks anon! 

I’ll do you one better anon. I can’t remember where it was said, a written interview or a commentary or something, but one of the Ds stated that when they saw how well Maisie could do the knife flip thing in the fight against Brienne in Season 7, they knew that that was how she had to kill the Night King. 

So, did they already have it written that she would be the one to kill him, but decided on the method/style of the kill while filming S7?

Or did they decide everything while filming S7 and lie about the whole “3 years” thing altogether?

You be the judge. 

But yes, none of the timelines for anything they say about when certain ideas were created match up to anything else. 

Because here’s the thing. The cast got the scrips for S8 in October of 2017 and started filming shortly thereafter. 

So the scripts for S8 were written sometime in 2017. Three years prior to 2017, was 2014. When Season 4 was AIRING. Season 3 aired in April of 2013 and began filming in July of 2012. 

Even if the “3 years” thing applies to when they filmed Season 7, or hell, when they were writing Season 7, which would have been early 2016, three years prior to early 2016 was 2013. Still a year after when they would have written/filmed the Arya/Melisandre scene. 

It was for sure a retcon. It’s a known retcon. Documented retcon. Whatever timeline you look at, no matter how generous you are, they could not have come up with Arya killing the Night King while writing/filming Season 3. There’s no way.

And if they retconned that line from a season written when they didn’t know the series endgame, they could have (and probably did) retcon a lot more. 

They obviously only made the gifset/meta in order to combat the very understandable assertions by Season 8 critics that Sansa and Arya are hating on Dany in that scene (and throughout the entire season really), for no reason at all. Because it’s a valid point. 

Why the fuck were Sansa and Arya still cautious of Dany when she had just saved all their asses? Why the fuck did they care so much that Dany wanted to wage a war half a country away against a woman they both had on their hit lists? They shouldn’t have cared. What? Northmen will die in the war against Cersei? Good. They should. She’s their enemy too and if not for the war with Dany, Cersei would go after the Starks next, once the dead were defeated (well, that couldn’t happen without Dany anyway, but you get my point).

The Starks expected Dany to come in and defeat all their enemies for them and then fuck off and leave them to it. That’s not the way diplomacy works assholes. 

But... I digress.

The Stans.

Any and all analysis of Season 8 is pointless. There is no point dissecting anything about that season because it is a jumbled mess that contradicts everything that came before it. 

To even assert that Sansa and Arya “have trust issues”... or don’t have trust issues, is pointless. Because they both trust and then not trust people in Season 8 based on... idk, what they had for breakfast that morning? What side of the bed they woke up on? There’s no rhyme or reason to anything. 

I have tried answering this ask a few times in the last hour. Typing out points about the season, Arya and Sansa’s actions, etc. 

But again, there is no rhyme or reason to any of it. So it’s pointless to analyze. 

As the show was presented to the audience in Season 8, Arya and Sansa mistrusted Dany for no reason. Neither of them are psychic and didn’t know she would blow up King’s Landing. Bran never told anyone Dany would do this, if he knew about it ahead of time. Dany was their savior. She saved them. And they repaid her with deceit and general bitchiness. 

That’s just all there is to it. 

The Stansas can try to defend it all they want. But it was stupidly written. And most everyone knows that. 

The Starks are the villains of Season 8. Especially Sansa, but to a lesser extent Arya and Bran. Dany was the tool they used to get what they wanted. 

And that’s that on that.  

This is probably very old but WHAT? 

Actually, wait. I’m certain I’ve heard this theory before. I don’t know the details, but yes, have heard it before. Is it probable? LOL. No.

Wow, what the fuck, my little envelope icon for asks has not showed any message notifications and I am just now seeing this!!! 

Holy shit guys. I usually just open the page, look at the notifications, then exit out because I didn’t think I had asks! I am soooo sorry!

Anyway, I have thought about it. I kinda screwed myself into a corner with the next episode. The series started with “broad strokes” and was an outline for episodes but then as I got more into it, I started to get more detailed until it was nearly fanfiction which is not really my specialty. Action and dialogue and all that. It was way outside my comfort zone and it hung me up for a long time.

But maybe I’ll just finish out the episodes with more the outline style? It won’t be as detailed an entertaining as the last couple episodes, but would finish the series out. 

What do you guys think?

I miss my salt and you guys too! I know I’ve been MIA. Still adjusting to real life after graduation last year. But I’m still around! I check in on you guys every few days. I’ll try to have the salt make a comeback ;)

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/03/game-of-thrones-show-creators-know-end-of-books

Benioff said:

“Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with him [Martin] and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character.”

The article was written in 2014 so “last year” would be 2013...which would put this conversation with Martin as right when Season 3 was airing. 

One of the Ds in the 8x06 commentary said something like, they talked to him while they were filming Season 3...but this is likely either a lie and them trying to retcon when this meeting was because they’ve already said other things that expose them for the GOT ending being entirely on them, or them misremembering many years later (my guess is the former), because Season 3 was filmed in summer 2012.

But yes, wayyyyy before S5. 

Well, this is a good goal. I think the answer is yes. I could do that. Dec 31st is my deadline for episode 9. You have it in writing! 

There’s a difference between someone telling another person to “shut up” in colorful language and then down and out poking fun at someone struggling with a drinking problem. Sorry. And Sophie should know that. 

OMG I’m just now seeing this! Thank you! :D

Yikes. Okay. So,...okay. Let’s start with me prefacing this by saying: I don’t think it’s okay to bully people online or in any other medium. If you’ve got nothing nice to say, just don’t say it. I have always maintained that I think people who tag celebrities online are disgusting...unless it’s like, idk a gorgeous fanart or heartwarming story of how that person has affected your life in a positive way or something. But any other occasion is just...no. Not necessary. Not appropriate. 

I also want to say I’m sympathetic to Sophie because depression is a very serious issue and needs to be taken seriously. People online who’ve exacerbated that problem by bullying her and tagging her constantly are the dregs of humanity. You just don’t fucking do that. 

The incident in question....seems to have a lot of faucets to it though. 

Sophie has, apparently, in the past, replied to GOT fan’s Tweets in such ways that resulted in those people being bullied by Sophie’s Stans. 

The Tweet Sophie replied to was had no hashtags, did not @ her, and it was not a viral Tweet. At the time of Sophie’s reply, it had very little activity in fact. A handful of likes and comments at most. 

Which means, as many people pointed out during the Twitter debate and as the original Tweeter pointed out in a reply to Sophie’s reply...Sophie was likely searching herself. Which she has admitted to doing in the past.

Now, the original tweet in question was a little odd - not necessarily negative but not a Sophie/Sansa positive tweet either. And Sophie’s reply likewise was neutral-ish. She didn’t seem like she was trying to defend herself per se, but more like she was trying to explain - the Tweets were about the meaning/significance of her “Pack Survives” tattoo.

One can obviously argue that because Sophie’s retweet was neutral and not an “attack” on the original tweeter, that that wasn’t her intention and it wasn’t her intention to draw attention to the original tweeter. 

However, if Sophie regularly makes a habit of searching herself on Twitter - which it seems, she does - then she would likewise know about the toxicity and rabidness of her own fans and how they interact with people who dislike Sophie/Sansa. It would be impossible for her not to see all that while she’s searching herself. 

With that in mind, Sophie replied to the person anyway. And given that the tweet wasn’t really Sophie/Sansa positive, it of course garnered attention from her Stans. I saw a few early tweets talking about how Sophie “took down” the “hater” and “put her in her place.” 

Which many people theorize was Sophie’s intention all along. That she didn’t have to say anything mean or negative to the person in question, just had to draw attention to them in order to get her fans to do her dirty work for her.  It doesn’t help that the fan was apparently a person of color (Sophie’s been accused of saying controversial things about race in the past) and that this person had “Targaryen” in their Twitter handle - signaling that they were probably not a fan of hers/Sansa.

That’s all just speculation though. 

I think Sophie, in a moment of weakness, replied to a fan without thinking, about a topic that she likely thought didn’t really matter, but it blew way out of proportion and caused a shit ton of drama.

The Toxic Dany Stans on Twitter™ (yeah, I’m just gonna lump those idiots all together), of course, then stuck their noses where they didn’t belong and began harassing Sophie.

Tweets about how she’s a “bitch” for “attacking” small Twitter accounts, how she is talentless and can’t get a job which is why she spends all day searching herself on Twitter, and oddly, about how her husband is a pedophile (I legit have no idea where that came from but lots of people were talking about it - does anyone know why Joe would be accused of this?).

So yeah, they were totally horrible to her. 

And then she deleted. 

The Dany/Emilia “Stans” who were harassing Sophie are obviously horrible people and need to get banned from the site. That kind of behavior just shouldn’t be allowed. It’s fucking disgusting and some of the things being said were downright creepy. 

That being said, I really hope Sophie takes this break from social media to reflect on her mental health and how her actions affect her mental health. 

She did that Dr. Phil interview talking about her depression and how people’s views of her affected her.... But then she searches herself on social media constantly and interacts with people that really don’t deserve to be interacted with. 

She could reply to any number of GOT fans on Twitter, many of whom love her and would be over the moon about receiving a like or reply from her...but she instead chooses to reply to people who are clearly Targaryen fans who haven’t tweeted the nicest things about her? Why?

And Sophie is...(I’m gonna get shit for saying this but I’m gonna say it) kind of a big hypocrite. She goes on about her own mental health but then she teases Kit Harington about his drinking problem on stage in front of the cameras and a room full of people. While she seems to care about her own mental health, that of her colleagues doesn’t seem to be a high priority to her. 

Whereas you have someone like Emilia praising Kit for taking time to collect himself emotionally and mentally and seek help for his issues. 

It just...makes me feel icky. 

Everything Sophie says and does makes me feel icky. 

I’m sorry. I don’t want to diminish the importance of her mental heath and issues with her self-image. But the girl just...needs to think before she speaks. She has a habit of, seeming like her fans, putting down others in order to make herself/her character look better. 

And that’s just not okay. Yes, the people who bullied her are at fault here. But there are things Sophie needs to take responsibility for in the grand scheme of things too. 

Same. I still ship them. Sometimes it’s fun to ship Dany with others or rag on Jon for what happened in S8. But at heart, I still ship them and always will. 

Well,

1) What on earth is this person arguing exactly? That the Slavers could have [X] if they stopped enslaving people? X being... I literally have no idea...?

Because that was the deal with the Iron Born. The Iron Born wanted their Freedom. Dany gave them what they wanted, in exchange for the guarantee that they would uphold the integrity of the Seven Kingdoms and not rape and pillage the coast.

So in order for Dany to offer the Slavers a similar deal to the Iron Born, they’d have to ask her for something first. 

In the books, the slavers asked Dany for many things, and she conceded on some points. Most prominently: reopening the fighting pits. 

So to me, if the Iron Born deal to antis is just a “This for That” situation, Dany did this in Slaver’s Bay - Fighting Pits Reopened For the End of Slavery.

2) Dany didn’t kill all the slavers. She killed 163 in Meereen for what had been done to the slave children. After taking the city, no more masters were killed in the books, at least on her orders for arbitrary things. 

The show does this, with Dany feeding that one master to Rhaegal and Viserion before she proposes to Hizdar. But a) never happened in the books and b) could be compared to Jon killing Janos Slynt for disobeying an order because both kills were shows of strength and threats to their subordinates to never cross them again. 

So if you wanna hate Dany for that, also hate Jon for killing Slynt (and the former slaver was still a slaver anyway, likely helping fund the Sons of the Harpy or a member himself to overthrow her and bring back slavery and as I’ve argued a few times, Ned Stark wanted to kill Jorah for being a slaver so if Ned can kill slavers and be a hero, why can’t Dany?)

3) Overall this is just a dumb comparison anyway. The Iron Born are conquerors. The slavers don’t want to conqueror other lands, they just want slaves in their own lands. And all the cities were independent of each other also. There are no countries in Essos. Just city-states. 

I mean, I don’t even know why there’s so much discourse about Sophie right now, so if that tells you anything about how much I keep up with her...