Nerdy Little Haven

jon snow in the books is a great character bc he's notionally set up as a Hero of Legend and Prophecy but the minute he gets any institutional power hes like 'right. time to invest in root vegetables and structurally transformative agricultural infrastucture'. doesn't really give a shit about The Prince That Was Promised. the westerosi Numbers Fuckstein albeit also a therian. Just wants to mess with tax quotas and free folk resettlement distributions

ELIA OF DORNE and ANDROMACHE OF TROY

I have long wanted to write this meta of sorts, because if there is one mythological woman Elia Nymeros Martell has always reminded me of, it's Princess Andromache of Troy (or Andromache of Cilician Thebe).

In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Trojan Prince Hector, daughter of King Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled.

Following the Trojan War, after Achilles has killed Hector and Troy is being captured and sacked by the Greeks, her son by Hector, named Astyanax (born Scamandrius) was murdered by being thrown off the city walls. His killer, Neoptolemus, son of the mythical warrior Achilles, then took Andromache as his concubine. By him, she was the mother of Molossus, Pielus, Pergamus and Amphialus.

The world of ancient Greek Mythology mostly does not sees rape of women conquered in war as rape at all, and yet, King Priam of Troy, father in law of Andromache, himself talks of the mass rape that will happen should Troy fall.

In Iliad, Andromache is portrayed as the perfect wife, weaving a cloak for her husband in the innermost chambers of the house and preparing a bath in anticipation of his return from battle. Just as Princess Elia is said to be "a good woman, kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit", enough so that even her melancholic prince, who even by accounts of those who admired him most, did not have it in himself to be happy, grew "very fond of her".

Just like Andromache represents the injustice done to the women of Troy, to women of war torn lands in general, Elia represents the injustice done to women in King's Landing during the sack of the city.

Andromache and Elia are both widows of Crown Princes when their cities are sacked, but that doesn't save them from gruesome fates. If anything, being married to the dead heir to the throne dooms them too. One to a lifetime of misery, the other to an unbelievably horrific death.

We first learn about Elia through Daenerys, as she imagines the fall of the Targaryen dynasty:

"Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The sack of King’s Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper’s dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father’s throat with a golden sword."

Daenerys' description of the sack, and what happened to Elia and the rest of the Targaryen royals during it, is very similar to what befell Andromache. Her son was ripped from her arms, and murdered before her eyes, while her father-in-law was murdered by the invading forces. Elia and Andromache's role as mother, a fundamental element of their position in marriage, is emphasized within the text of their respective tales.

Following the murders of their sons (and daughter also, in Elia's case) both women are subjected to aggravated rape. Andromache is made a sex slave, and Elia is raped to death.

Both women had their family entirely stripped from them by the violence of war, making them fulfill the fate of conquered women in ancient warfare.

Both are wives of admired, beloved crown princes seen as the hope and future of their dynasty. And later, widows.

Both loose everything due to their husbands dying in war at the hands of a great warrior. Robert of House Baratheon, in case of Elia. And Achilles, in case of Andromache.

The so-called (or so-perceived) "good guys" of the stories victimize Elia and Andromache, or outright benefit from their victimization.

In some versions, it is Odysseus who kills Andromache's infant son, and then takes her mother-in-law, Hecuba, as his war prize.

Robert Baratheon had a just cause to rise against the man literally named "the mad king", but he defiles the justness of his own cause by walking to his throne of swords over the brutalized dead bodies of Elia and her children (Princess Rhaenys, not even three years old, stabbed half a hundred times, infant Aegon bashed into a bloody pulp against the wall, Elia raped with her son's blood and brain on her rapist's hands, then cut in half by him), calling them "dragonspawn" with disgust. Not only refusing her family justice, but actually awarding the man who orchestrated the monstrous deeds with a crown for his daughter.

Then there is their treatment by other women:

Hermione, daughter of Menelaus, king of Sparta, and his wife, Helen of Troy, wife of Andromache's captor and rapist Neoptolemus, blamed Andromache for her inability to become pregnant, claiming that she was casting spells on her to keep her barren. To the point that she asked her father to kill Andromache and her son while Neoptolemus was away at Delphi.

The same way, in text, Cersei Lannister blames Elia for her unhappiness as wife of Robert. Basically declaring that if Rhaegar had only married her, not Elia, everything and everyone would be well and happy. That it must have been madness that drove King Aerys to marry his son to the Dornish Princess.

Outside of text, we have the fandom's treatment of, and attitude towards, Elia. People who prefer Rhaegar Targaryen with Lyanna Stark, treat Elia as if she was the interloper in the marriage, and not his lawfully wedded legal wife, in eyes of both the Old Gods and the new. I have seen people outright say "fuck Elia and her children". It is honestly... Bizarre.

Andromache was famous for her fidelity and virtue. And it is safe to say Elia was both of those things too. Since even her biggest detractors, Jon Connington and Cersei Lannister, two people who wanted her husband for themselves, could not find any fault in Elia in that regard. Jon could only complain that Elia was sickly and unworthy of Rhaegar, despite the fact that she gave him two children in two years, and Cersei could only complain about Elia's breast size.

And yet, for all their amazing qualities, both women still suffered unquestionably and immensely, all for someone else's "love story".

Paris made off with Helen, and Andromache payed the price with all that she held dear.

Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna and thousands died for it. Including his innocent wife and children.

Andromache.

Elia.

Daughter

Princess

Sister

Wife

Mother

I like when Catelyn starts killing people in her brain

hey so catelyn canonically used to brush and braid sansa’s hair herself. just btw. she’d send sansa’s attendants away and do it herself. and i am. not normal about that

Something almost i never see mentioned about catelyn is how surely she is the voice more anti-war in the early books is due to she being from the lands that due their geography position have a long history of being the first and most damaged by literally any war, rebellion that occurs in the whole freaking continent. Like, she surely knows about the history of her lands.

at first glance u might think that robb is most like ned but ud be WRONG. hes mini cat

bitches hate me because of my.... bad personality.... paranoid nature... addictive tendencies......the torture basement.

Something in asoiaf that my brain just refuses to remember is that Stannis is younger than Robert. My brain just will hear that and go "sure Jan" and precedes to forget it. To me Stannis is a depressed 40 something who's starting an early midlife crisis (affectionately)

it’s not even fully a “george really overhauled the scope of jaime’s character between a game of thrones and a clash of kings and that’s why he goes from loudly evil someone ned suspects as a serious strategic political schemer and threat to who he actually is (cringe)” thing. because this is still the same book where Jamie gets captured at his first battle because his strategy was just to run at Robb Stark and kill him one on one epic duel style before anything else could happen and that was his whole plan. he would not know what to do with being warden of the east ned did notttt need to worry too hard about that one

Sorry to talk about the show canon but imagine in season 6, when Sansa reunites with Jon at the wall, she arrives before they brought him back to life, instead of getting there afterward and never even knowing he was dead. You travel to the edge of the kingdom to find your last family member and he was already murdered, you just missed him

Just thinking out loud after coming across the nth iteration of Sansa brushing Arya's hair fanart. For those who love the Stark sisters and draw art of them I always wonder why there is not more art from Arya's perspective.

There is something so admirable about Arya, a little girl in one of the worst situations possible, with the worst of humanity, getting a death genie and the first thing she does is make a wish for someone else, another girl.

Someone who will never know but deserved justice in some way and would never have gotten it because the people who hurt her are in power.

Arya Stark, barely 10 at this point did this.

I love her so much.

The Wolf in sheep’s clothing

prints + get an unique tee of mine and donate to medical aid for palestinians + commission info pinned to profile :)

— Sansa IV, AGOT.

obsessed with the idea of Cersei choosing to evoke Rhaegar's armour with her mourning dress, not only to spite Robert, but as a representation of her victory over him. here she did what Rhaegar failed to do: smash Robert and come out victorious from her own Battle of the Trident.

pretty iconic of her if you ask me.