The War of the Five Kings has a far better case for a no side is truly in the right interpretation than the Dance ever could.

But... that would mean acknowledging the injustice of the patriarchal violence Cersei was subjected to and had to defend herself from, and the fact that the problem wasn't that Joffrey was a "bastard" but actually the Lannister power grab that would have happened "lawfully" when Robert died regardless of Joffrey's parentage.

I wonder why people choose to view, why HBO chose to market, the conflict that requires acknowledging the wrongs of patriarchy in order for there to be a "right" side as the "nUaNcEd" one with no right side, and the one that requires that acknowledgement in order to do justice to the nuance as the one with a "right" side? Hmm...

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOOK!DANY AND SHOW!DANY — The freedmen's perception of Dany

On HBO: Dany decides to execute Mossador for killing a hostage suspected of being a Harpy’s Son, which leads the former slaves to turn against her. After she departs Meereen with Drogon, it's revealed that they started to see Dany as a master herself.

In the books: Dany never executes Mossador (his book equivalent is murdered by the Sons of the Harpy). After Dany flies away on Drogon’s back, the freedmen still call her their mother, want her to return and refuse to acknowledge Hizdahr as their king. The slaves in the Yunkish camps want Dany to defeat the Yunkai'i and to free them. Barristan Selmy rides Dany’s silver because he expects the sight of it will give heart to the former slaves fighting for her. The widow of the waterfront tells Tyrion that she and the slaves of Volantis want Dany to come soon.

Making the freedmen become hostile to Dany in season five was a show departure that (along with others) helped to spread the misconception that Dany made things “worse” for the slaves (which ignores her efforts to rebuild Meereen’s economy) and shouldn’t have tried to abolish slavery (even though, as shown above, freedmen and slaves all over the world continue to support her throughout all of ADWD).

George R. R. Martin to the New York Times: By Season 5 and 6, and certainly 7 and 8, I was pretty much out of the loop. [...] So I think what you’re going to find is, when “Winds of Winter” and then, hopefully, “Dream of Spring” come out, that my ending will be very different.

Jaime and Cersei’s romanticized idea of being one soul in two bodies is so fascinatingly destructive. So much of their relationship is based on this notion of fundamentally refusing to accept the other as a whole. Both of them want to shove the other inside of a box of their creation that is kind of antithetical to them as people. Cersei does use Jaime and her children as extensions of herself to achieve things that society keeps from her grasp due to her gender. She locks Jaime inside this box where he functions as her sword, essentially. Then the whole point of Jaime’s arc in ASoS is to establish that he is more than a sword. More than rituals of violence. To me, Jaime’s obsession with Cersei continuing past their childhood mainly stems from a tight clinging to the past. Following Jaime’s trauma, disillusionment, and increasing isolation due to his experience with Aerys and knighthood, he views the relationship as the only concrete thing in his life and relies on it for affirmation and meaning. He also uses Cersei as a means of dissociation— filling his head with thoughts of her during the executions, “losing himself in her flesh”— a way “to go away inside” during horrors. He also unconsciously never wants to move on from being that blissfully ignorant romantic boy that he was, so he desperately keeps the one thing that is constant (his twin sister - a constant from birth), and romanticizes a relationship that is not what he believes it is. He projects her onto a pedestal and obsesses over an ideal that does not exist, also putting her into the role of a perfect woman (“I thought she was The Maiden”, a fictive ideal), to create some kind of purity he can guard, in a way reflecting the expectations of the rest of society that she does not actually fit, nor does she want to. He puts himself in the position of a knightly protector figure to cope with his own identity crisis and the destruction of his self concept. He needs her in order to feel needed. They need each other for self-love. But both of them also dehumanize the other in different ways, and to different extents. “You are my other half” is a twisted notion that prevents the autonomy and individualization of both parties. It treats the other as a half and not a whole. Not to mention the possible consent & communication issues it brings. “I am not whole without you.” You are, and should be. Truly dynamic of all time.

Listening to the TWoW sample chapters and Arianne literally declares Rhaegar and Daenerys as family and sees them as blood connections when Lysono Maar tries to push Aegon as Rhaegar and Elia's son.

The way this fandom tries to push through the wrong fanon that the Martells are anti Targaryen or anti Rhaegar is incredible when there is actual text like this in the books 😭

Dorne is not anti Rhaegar, the North is not anti-Rhaegar. We have Manderly, lord of the richest house in the North, saying that Rhaegar Frey is not worthy of the name:

Ned Stark does not hate Rhaegar in his pov chapters either. It's interesting that among the rebels it was the Martells and Starks most affected by the Mad King's actions, with dead family members, and yet they stand in stark contrast to someone like Robert Baratheon and his vitriolic hate for Rhaegar and the Targaryen babies.

you ever think about how the asoiaf fandom will go on and on about Arya’s “traditionally masculine” journey and then you read her chapters and it’s like

if all of these are inherently masculine then I do wonder what is considered acceptably “feminine” in these people’s eyes. crying in a dress? because she does that too… but y’know this fandom and their desperation to separate Arya from her girlhood lol

Arya:

Insists women are just as important as men, and should have the right to bear their crest even when they marry into another house.

Adopts and protects an even younger little girl, opposing a group of boys to do so.

Befriends sex workers.

Avenges SA victims.

Is only ever opposed to wearing a dress on one occasion, because A) the dress in question was ugly (not liking a dress because it’s ugly has got to be one of the most “girly” things ever), and B) she was treated differently by the brotherhood on the basis of her gender when she wore a dress because they were reminded she was a girl.

Her celebrity heroes are actually all heroines.

Notice how Arya doesn’t idealize Aemon the Dragonknight or Ser Arthur Dayne. She has heroines, not heroes. She bosses around almost every guy she meets and tells them what’s what, but she doesn’t boss around other girls. She has way more beef with men than women.

But yeah, she totally fits into the “not like other girls” trope. Yeah totally. 🙄

Some people just can’t understand nuance or the idea that feminine and masculine are ideas with broad meaning, not literal things with laws and rules. Wearing dresses and cooking doesn’t inherently = feminine. And adventuring and wearing pants does not explicitly = masculine.

Arya Stark of Winterfell, Daughter of the north, Queen of Winter, The night wolf, The ghost of Harrenhal, Witch queen, Bloodwitch, Wolf witch, water dancer, The She-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell.

The Dragon Queen 🐉🍋

She is my favorite character from the books, I love her so much so I hope to have done a good job on this one

Cersei Lannister

She was as beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her eyes.

In today's episode of fact-checking I suddenly can't read and I want someone to tell me the exact page and line in the asoiaf book series where it is mentioned that Rhaegar wanted a Visenya! Waiting patiently.

@queermystic well yes to your second comment. The "the dragon must have three heads" line is in Dany's vision. Rhaegar was talking to her, he was even looking at her. That was her moment. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that this actually happened, except if we argue that Rhaegar was looking and talking to an imaginary Dany after his son's birth. Dany also had another vision in AGOT where she saw Rhaegar with his armor and his helmet, on a horse (I think) and when she opened his helmet to see his face she saw her own face. Of course no one can possibly suggest this actually happened. It was Dany's vision, meaningful to her story. This "theory" as you say is exactly that. A theory, in other words, fanon. It is extremely annoying and confusing to present fanon as canon.

@shiftyllama apart from what I already mentioned above, Aemon was talking in his sleep in front of Sam saying "the dragon must have three heads", and again, about Dany.

AFFC Samwell IV

Why does Aemon say that the dragon must have three heads but he is sorry that he can't be one of them? Who are they other two? If this theory is true, then any Targaryen could be one of the three heads. So Rhaegar could be one and his two kids could be the other two, a total of three. But somehow, not one person among the enlighted fans who came up with this brilliant theory examined the possibility that Rhaegar and his two kids could actually be the three heads. No, because that doesn't serve the ultimate goal to paint Rhaegar as a psycho who impregnates women by force to save the world.

All Rhaegar thought when his son was born was that his son was the Prince that was Promised, because of the comet and the bleeding star symbolism. That's all.

There is also zero proof that this idea of the dragon having three heads is directly related to the prophecy by the way, just thought I'd mention that.

Daenerys Meta Masterpost Part 4c - ASOIAF

This is a continuation of my Daenerys Meta Masterpost Part 4 and Part 4b.

I’ve compiled more than 2000 metas about Daenerys, both about the books and the show, and I intend to constantly update this post with more metas. The metas listed here will be linked to their reblogs in my blog, (since many people tend to change their usernames, and I don’t want the links to stop working in this case). Of the metas linked here, the ones that I wrote are in bold text. It’s also important to note that the metas here reflect my own opinions about the characters, I don’t claim to be listing every meta that was ever written about Daenerys.

Tumblr has a limit of 250 links that can be put in a single post. Once you reach that limit, your links will no longer appear. Which is why I am making this continuation of my previous Masterpost, because Part 4b is very close to reaching this limit of links, since I constantly update it with new metas as I reblog them in this blog.

The topics of this part will be the same as part 4 and part 4b:

Please check both part 4, part 4b and part 4c if you’re looking for meta about any of these topics.

This is a list about the books, but there might be a few metas that mix books and show if I think they bring up interesting points about the books.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN’S OUTFITS IN A GAME OF THRONES

(AGOT, ACOK, ASOS, ADWD)

Last September, I commissioned the amazingly talented @ilrex to draw fanart of every single Dany outfit that’s described in the books. I can’t thank them enough for accepting my request, for making me so happy and excited whenever I received updates of their progress, for finishing such a huge project, for giving me such diverse options to use as my tumblr icon (lol), for greatly enriching my (re)reading experience of Dany’s chapters and for surpassing all my expectations with their gorgeous style and attention to detail. Ilrex deserves all the praise for their depiction of these outfits, which will be posted per book on different days.

So here are Dany’s outfits in A Game of Thrones, along with the book descriptions (a few of them were skipped for being too repetitive and/or vague) that ilrex had in mind in order to draw her costumes:

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