On Gendry's age

Today I read this in the tags of a post I reblogged:

@sunflowersansa I generally agree with the rest but I felt a bit called out on this point as a Gendrya shipper. Short answer: No, Gendry is not older than Jon and Robb.

Many fans have a somewhat out of phase perception of this, in my opinion it's because they have in mind the image of Joe Dempsie who is 10 years older than Maisie Williams (and this is very evident in the first seasons).

This is the generally accepted timeline of events that Gendry is one year younger than Jon and Robb, Dany's age, and four years older than Arya:

The wiki does this calculation taking into account the observations of Ned, Arya and Brienne, but these are only hypotheses of the characters, Gendry does not confirm it (provided that he knows how old he is). Also right after the thought of Ned, Thobo interrupts to tell him that the lad is strong for is age, so I think we can assume thet he look older than he is.

At the end we don't know how old Gendry is. According to the most generally accepted calculation of dates he should have been 13 in the first book. Gendry can easily be at least a year younger than that since Robert could not enter the capital until the end of 283. Perhaps Gendry was a child of the celebrations for the victory of the Rebellion. In my head I usually place him around Joff's age.

Having said that I love this ship but I don't expect or don't want anything explicit to happen between them while they are so young. That doesn't mean I don't hope for a hug after their reunion, or maybe holding hands. If their story ends with Arya's first consensual kiss, my lil' shipper heart will be more than happy.

In the end I think that within Arya's story Gendry's role is mainly to contribute to her reflection on the concept of injustice and classism as well as giving her a companion to interact with. Gendry's journey parallels Arya's in many ways.

Forgive me, the original post had little to do with this thing, but I wanted to write my thoughts about this.

Just want to add, there’s a reason that most stories age up both Gendry and Arya. No one wants them to get together as is, but see that for their future. 

One more thing: even GRRM admits he made the kid characters way too young. Their behavior in some areas ought to be way older. 

According to Michele Clapton they made Gendry get a buzzcut and wear ugly/frumpy clothes because Joe was good looking and they didn’t want Gendry to stand out too much… and he still looked like that in season 8. Good for him. 

The way Joe said: ‘Arya has to think I’m hot’ and ENDED Michele Clapton phew 😌

To be fair to Michele Clapton, I believe she talking about the outfit he wore when Davos found Gendry in King’s Landing. Gendry was trying to remain inconspicuous, so wearing shitty clothes and keeping his Baratheon black hair shaved makes sense.  And by the point of the show from this pic, he has no reason to hide - he’s Lord Baratheon now.  That said, nothing that they made Joe Dempsie wear was able to hide how good looking he is. He really is ridiculously handsome. 

Oh yeah, I know. But the ugly/frumpy look carried on in season 8. Not just the haircut, but that brown thing the put him in during the first 4 episodes. Excluding the Lordly outfit in episode 6, it looked like he was wearing a brown bag most of the time. I think they also toned down Gendry’s looks in season 7 for his scenes with Jon. In order to keep Jon as the heartthrob (though Kit’s never been my type). 

Ah, see I thought Kit was very hot in the last few seasons. And Gendry was ridiculously underused, so I don’t think he had enough scenes to make him steal the show.  You would think, though, that Jon would have made sure Gendry had nicer duds. Or at the least, Davos.  Then again, Jon was wearing that awful surcoat a bunch, so who knows. 

confirmed: Bran passes on his crown to Gendry…

The only ending that makes sense. 

sansa: *asks a legitimate question upon learning that the north is being expected to provide food for dany’s armies instead of dany doing it herself*

daenerys: *threatens to kill her with some vague ass bullshit*

dany stans: sansa’s such a rude bitch omg go off khaleesi

It’s a legitimate question, but the attitude is the issue.  The fact is, they need Dany’s army and her dragons, whether they can feed them or not. The North absolutely would have perished in the Long (cough *short* cough) Night if it weren’t for Drogon and the Unsullied (not touching on the Dothraki).  Sansa’s could have come about this totally differently without being so completely hostile. She was acting completely ungrateful and very much looking a gift horse in the mouth.  There’s a way to get across that this would be an issue without being rude and disrespectful to someone that is putting her life and the lives of her people on the line. 

Gendry’s Warhammer from Entertainment Weekly

As ridiculously huge as that thing was, this definitely sounds like Joe. 

why didnt the game of thrones suicide squad mention arya. i dont understand. i will never get over this. you have jon snow, her fucking BROTHER, but hes excused bc he didnt know anyone else knew her. then you have gendry, whos BEST FRIEND was arya for like 2 full goddamn years. and he just… doesnt mention her. then theres the hound, and one of his main character arcs is arya fucking stark. then the brotherhood without banners???? like??? thEY KNOW GENDRY ONLY WITH ARYA im literally gonna yell what the fuck wtf the fuk 

Never will I ever understand or forgive this.

I didn’t get it either.  In my head canon, though, they did talk about her. Gendry gets pissed that the BWB and the Hound didn’t protect her better and yells at them. 

Arya Stark and Compulsory Femininity: How D&D Exploited Her Character

Dan and David are sending an incredibly dangerous message with how they wrote Arya Stark in both season seven and season eight, and especially in how they wrote Arya in relation to Sansa. 

We know from the books that: 

Let’s look at what the show has done to Arya in comparison:

This serves an important purpose of the message D&D are sending. They are essentially stating that a woman like Arya, who interacts with people regardless of occupation or status in a feudal era, and who is intelligent and actively questions and defies compulsory femininity and the gendered norms of her time, is not fit for family, or for home, or for love, or for leadership. She is good enough to be an emotionless robot that kills her enemies in empowering moments, but she is not good enough for retaking or ruling Winterfell, or to stay by her family’s side, or to find happiness with the man she loves. Yes, she will never be a “lady” in the conventional sense of the word. But if D&D had shown Arya ruling the Stormlands with Gendry by her side, they could’ve actually subverted expectations in a positive manner. They could’ve shown that a woman who is not conventionally feminine can still be both a strong leader and someone with a husband and a family. Just as they didn’t really change the feudal system, though, they of course wouldn’t show such a takedown of Westerosi patriarchy. The woman who gets to Rule the North is not only the older sister of the King, making her status gained through oligarchic nepotism; it is also the woman who is conventionally beautiful, who has always wanted to be a Queen/a Lady, who embraces femininity instead of questioning it, and who has not been shown to befriend or engage with smallfolk and low-born people. 

This message is extremely deliberate. They demonized Arya in season 7 to make Sansa seem smarter and yet to prompt fans to view Sansa as someone who still can do no wrong and who’s just treated so meany even by her own sister, and gosh we have to defend her and protect her because she’s so precious and pure and soft and sensitive and fragile BUT she’s also strong and empowered and cleverer than Arya and Arya could NEVER survive what Sansa went through. It’s no wonder that so many fans of Sansa despised Arya in s7. Yet those same fans only began loving Arya again when Arya executed Sansa’s enemy, Petyr, and later when she became Arya’s mouthpiece in s8. I even saw some people, when the Winterfell Crypts promo for s8 came out, that Arya and Jon are like guards that are defending their queen Sansa. This exploitation of Arya’s character to treat her as a prop for Sansa’s sake, and then claiming that this is a celebration of empowering sisterly love, is directly the result of the theme D&D have embodied, which is that a “good” woman, a “feminist” woman, a woman who is meant to be a leader, is feminine, and that women who are not feminine are anti-woman, who are not capable of experiencing or surviving trauma (and in this case trauma is a code for sexualized violence against women), and that they are not deserving of love or male desire because they just wouldn’t know what to do with it. 

On the question of sexual violence or abuse: D&D have Sansa state that Arya wouldn’t survive what she went through because it is a norm in our society that only feminine women experience sexual violence or abuse, and that more gender non-conforming women are somehow incapable of experiencing or surviving sexual violence. It goes back to the notion that rape and assault only happen to pretty, conventionally attractive white women, which is a myth that white supremacist patriarchy has created and maintained. Arya has gone through a lot, just as much as Sansa and the other Starklings have, and to have two women argue about who could survive trauma is disgusting, especially by ending it saying that the gnc woman couldn’t possibly understand what the feminine woman went through.

We already know that it is still expected of women, in this day and age, to be feminine. We already know that gender non-conforming women are looked down upon, and that the misogyny they experience is treated as non-existent or not as important, and that they are seen as having “privilege” over feminine women, even though they actually suffer unique marginalization as a result of being gender non-conforming. Yet D&D have the interest of upholding patriarchal dictates, which is why they went for the ending they did with Arya. They are teaching people a lesson here: if you’re a girl who defies femininity and makes friends with all sorts of diverse people regardless of class or birth status, you’re not a good or pure ideal woman and you’re never going to find the love that you want, and instead you will be isolated and only be good enough for doing the dirty work for other people. Arya is not allowed to rule, or to be with her siblings, or to marry Gendry, because she is positioned as an “anti-femininity” subject; and women who dare to defy or question femininity are punished, both by fictional narratives and by dominant patriarchal culture. It isn’t even just that D&D love Sansa; it’s that they actively want to uphold the message that women like Arya are “strange and weird creatures” who need to be shipped away from us, lest they bring ruin upon our patriarchal society. 

Every time I remember what they did to her, I just get angry all over again.

Me, too. 

This whole post explains a lot of what I feel about Arya’s ending better than I ever could. 

OnLy DaNy StAnS HaTe tHIs SEasOn.

BrAn MaKeS SenSE aS kInG

Trying to move on past this show and then something like this comes out and I get annoyed all over again. 

How unsurprising that Dany’s death was something that came from the minds of D&D. It’s nice though to have the confirmation that this was their idea, not GRRM’s. 

Seriously Benioff and Weiss?

Spreading her brand of revolution around the world is a “very ethical” idea to Dany, because she is not seeing the cost of it like Jon and Tyrion are? The cost which the two of you hyper-inflated beyond all reason by having to make her kill everyone after she had already won?

So they “came up” with the final scene between Jon and Dany, according to them, in the middle of the third season? Although one would think that this if anything would have come from GRRM’s pen. Maybe Dany freeing slaves gave too much butthurt to guys who wanted to shoot a modern day Confederacy. And you set it up so well, as in the way that you didn’t set it up at all. And finally, you couldn’t have come up with that scene back then because the Azor Ahai fanart you were plagiarizing had not been drawn back then you liars!

Also “WE decided” that the throne would not survive. One would assume GRRM had his own plans because otherwise why would D&D need to decide this on their own?

“We didn’t realize how much residual drama would be left (after Drogon leaves with Dany’s body), once we realized that both Jon and Tyrion were inevitably going to be prisoners… we knew their fate was far from settled, so we went through a number of different versions of how to best take advantage of that tension…”

You “didn’t realize” this? You mean GRRM had no plan for this? And you though that Jon and Tyrion were “inevitably” going to be prisoners? You talentless hacks. It is clear that Jon should have been executed for anyone who has any damn idea of world building. The Dothraki were all claimed as Bloodriders by Dany. One of the main thing a Bloodrider does? Avenge the Khal if the Khal is killed. Are you telling me that Unsullied would fight to protect Jon from the Dothraki? Because they would have to to stop the Bloodriders from their sacred duty. And Greyworm wouldn’t spare him either. Maybe Tyrion can be a prisoner. But it was illogical for Jon.

And GRRM apparently has no plans on what the “fate” for two of his main characters, Jon and Tyrion, is because you had to come up with it? Well no surprise since you seem to have come up with the fate of the third main character (Dany) all on your own as well.

Okay you knew that where you wanted Tyrion to end up was back in the Hand’s chair. So what did GRRM want? You say that he didn’t have everything figured out when you visited him, but that he had core points like that Bran would be King. Are you seriously telling us that he didn’t have the fates of Dany, Jon, and Tyrion figured out? because those are what you seem to be taking credit for.

But seriously though, I suggest that everyone watch it. The creator of the video has done a good job of demolishing D&D with their own statements and put nice questions and clarifications of timeline all along.

“…learning how to flip the knife from one hand to the other. Once we saw how well she could do it in that moment with Brienne, we thought, this is the way it’s gonna end against the Night King.”

Which, as this video beautifully points out, the “three years ago” when they decided it would be Arya to kill the Night King (Benioff says they decided this “three years ago”), was DURING the filming of Season 7. Possibly right before filming Season 7. But it was no earlier than that. It can’t have been, given the timeline D&D themselves have set up.

Which means….they likely decided on the Night King death scene WHILE they filmed the Arya/Brienne fight scene from Season 7.

Which means Bran giving Arya the dagger…was not foreshadowing at all that Arya would kill the Night King because D&D hadn’t decided that yet at the time they were writing Season 7.

FUCK. 

I’ve never been so angry but felt so validated at the same time.

BTW @instantbouquetface-me​ “you couldn’t have come up with that scene back then because the Azor Ahai fanart you were plagiarizing had not been drawn back then you liars!”

I DIED. Love you so much.

For anyone curious, here is the fanart side-by-side with the death scene from 8x06:

Art Credit*

And this fanart was made in 2017, right after S7 aired. 

Something I’ve noticed about D&D’s “style” of storytelling, is that it seems largely dependent on “shots”. It’s all about things they wanted to see and it’s something they even touched on in that dismal Q&A from that Texas film festival. (The shot they were so focused on with the White Walkers and the baby, wanting to show the baby’s penis so the audience KNEW it was a boy as if all the talk of Craster sacrificing his BOYS wasn’t hint enough at the child’s gender).

They fixate on the minutiae, not the big picture. So if D&D saw this fanart when it was posted, I think it’s entirely possible they changed key plot-points in order to accommodate it. 

We very well could have had “Night King attacks King’s Landing” - which would require similar special effects and set up as what we actually got, but the context is clearly different. 

The set design team wouldn’t have been required to change anything at all. Which would give D&D room to change this aspect of the story. 

They had a good month and a half. This could easily have been the case. 

Bernie Caulfield says that D&D listen to everyone. Which is probably true. They listen to all these ideas, including the fans. It’s how Jason Momoa was cast as Khal Drogo for fuck’s sake. It’s how we got Cleganebowl. And they were likely cruising DeviantArt for cool things to include in Season 8.

They saw the above fanart, became fixated on it, and decided to change their entire story. 

At least, that’s my theory. Might seem a little extreme. But come on. The evidence is ALL RIGHT THERE. 

This is all so fucked up. It seriously gets worse and worse and worse. Fuck D&D!

Are we going to talk about this or naah?

P A R A L L E L S

Peter Dinklage on Dany’s Madness

I’d like to start by saying I discount pretty much everything the majority of the cast says about the ASOIAF universe for three reasons. One, the majority have not read the books and thus don’t have a valid or accurate opinion on them. Two, they base everything they say off their bias opinion on the show and their relationships with David and Dan. Three, they’re contractually obligated to promote the show and rub it in all of our faces that it was “fantastic” and “couldn’t think of a better way for it to end”.

The only main actors who’ve truly been able to stay out of HBO’s mopjob are Lena and Emilia - they really deserve credit for that.

I think this quote in itself shows that the actors don’t have an objective view of the series and/or are told to say things like this. Not only is the vast majority of the fandom and critics (+networks) on agreement that the last season was terrible. But the cast themselves have put out contridictory statements about the ending of the show and their characters.

I agree that monsters aren’t born, they are created. Created through years of pain, solitude, anger and the need for self preservation. Someone more like Cersei or Tyrion - both of whom have displayed their growing darkness over the coarse of the series - rather than someone who’s entire character personified rebirth, renewal and motherly love. But the point of storytelling is to be able to piece together the story like a puzzle and to be able to look back and point through all the things that built up the plot and characters. The problem with the last seasons of Game of Thrones is that it is all split second events that seem to have no build up or entirely contradict the previous plot and character. It’s not good development (plot or character) if “you don’t see it coming” because it’s based on a decision that wasn’t set up.

Wait, I though we “don’t see it coming”, but suddenly “there were signposts all along the way”? Which is it? Are we supposed to be puzzling together her eventual turn into a mad arsonist or is it supposed to be a complete shock that nobody saw coming?

And what were the signposts Daenerys had that nobody else did?

A life in exile?

Daenerys was born into hiding and assassination attempts. Viserys and her would move from place to place often because Robert’s assassins would catch up to them. And even after she was in the “safety” of the Dothraki, she had attempts on her life. Dany has never known safety, never had a home. All she ever had were dreams of finding home.

Arya grew up on the run from the Lannisters, not from birth but from a very early age. She saw her own father beheaded, was on the rough Kingsroad for years, was in Harrenhal, was at the Twins when the Red Wedding happened. Arya has had her own fair share of running and being afraid. And the things that drove her? Revenge and the want to go home.

Being forcefully married when she was a child?

Sansa was married to Tyrion against her will, the only difference is that Tyrion didn’t treat Sansa as his wife while Dany’s husband very much did.

Watching someone die without stopping it?

Viserys was her abusive brother who sold her and threatened to cut her unborn child from her stomach. He drew his sword in a place the Dothraki do not allow weapons and threatened their Khaleesi. Drogo killed him for threatening his wife and unborn child and dishonouring Dothraki customs. Dany didn’t stop his death and I don’t blame her, brother or not, nobody would save their lifelong abuser after they threatened to kill their baby. Even if she had wanted to, could she have? Drogo ordered his death and a Khal has seniority and he wouldn’t have considered saving the life of a man who threatened his Khaleesi or unborn child. Especially infront of his entire Khalasar.

Threatened people to get her way?

Her people were dying, starving and dehydrated and sunburnt. The only way to save them was to get them inside the city. A city that wouldn’t let them in. Was she supposed to turn around, leave and accept that she and her people and her children would die in the desert? No. She got them inside.

Wanting to return to her ancestral home?

Isn’t all the Starks plot now to return and retake Winterfell? Isn’t Jorah’s goal to return North for revenge? Isn’t fAegon and Jon C’s whole plot to retake the Targaryen lands?

Having people executed?

The Masters were slave owners and slave traders. My only note on this front is that she should have killed all of them, not just 163, and that she should have been more aggressive like her advisors said. Look at the American South, there was an entire Civil War to get rid of slavery that cost approximately 620,000 lives and around 5.2 billion dollars. Getting rid of slavery isn’t a cheap, easy or lifeless process. It takes years and many dedicated people in the persuit of freedom. Because freedom is a basic human right and people would rather die trying to attain it than live as nothing but livestock.

Other examples- Robb beheaded his own men for killing two Lannister boys. Even the man who had only kept watch, subjectively only guilty of accessory. Cersei blew up an entire Sept to get rid of a handful of people who were standing in her way. Jon hung all the men who stabbed him.

Killing people with fire?

The most common reason why people call her crazy is her affinity to fire. She’s the mother of dragons. She rides them into battle, they’re her weapons and her children. Just like Arya has Needle, Jon has Longclaw, Littlefinger has poison. People use the weapons they have.

Not to mention, dragon fire is actually a quick way to die. It’s so hot (note: Harrenhal) that the burning lasts a few seconds and then you’re dead. While a sword or poison is dependent on skill. A bad hacking job with a sword and you end up infected, losing limbs, dying slowly and painfully. Not to say any method is pleasant to die by.

Since we’re looking at signs - how about her compassion, her motherly proprayal, her need to help the innocent, her determination, her self built power, her survival, her kindness, her strength?

I won’t deny she’s had moments of darkness, but which character, which person, hasn’t? ASOIAF is built on grey characters but Daenerys isn’t filtered with darkness, she has more light inside her.

So is she angry or is she insane? Because it seems to me that even he can’t decide which one it is since he changed his answer halfway through. Peter starts by saying she’s mad and was driven to it. Then he goes on to say she’s also a victim to everything she’s been through and how she was treated but that she’s a survivor for coming through it all. And finally we finish on this note “came out angry, as a lot of us do”. Is the take away here that anyone who’s gone through horrible life events, survived and is angry at what has happened to them is insane?

I’d hate to pull the same card twice, but every main character in ASOIAF has gone through terrible things and every single character, hell every real life person, is driven by their emotions, their wants. Anger, revenge, hate, justice, honour, pride, love, lust, redemption, the list goes on. And there’s many examples of these emotions pushing them and driving them along their plot, their lives.

Does that make every single character, every single person insane?

_____________

Note to all the clowns who find this post : I’m genuinely not interesting in hearing you honk, honk, honk across my dash so just scroll by.

Reblogging for truth

it brings me great comfort to know that joe dempsie is 110% sold on gendrya and that he must’ve been just as pissed off at the writing for season 8 as we were

Oh, Captain. My Captain. Sail the ship Joe!

Tell me more! Please post Joe giving Gendrya some love!

D&D expect me to believe Arya would break up with Gendry, the man who she has loved since she was 12 years old, the man she who would “follow to the end of the world”, right after she finds out he thinks she is beautiful and that he loves her, because of something as shallow as ~i’M nOt A lAdY tHaT’s NoT mE~?

Arya Stark, who has craved love and acceptance her whole life. Arya Stark, who has always believed she was ugly and awkward. Arya Stark, who has always felt lonely because she never quite fit in. THIS Arya would turn her back on a chance to finally know peace, to have a home and a family with a man who genuinely loves her for who SHE is, who she KNOWS genuinely loves her. A man who would never ask her to change or conform. A man who would encourage her uniqueness.

She would look him in the eyes and love him, knowing her loves her back, and tell him no? For ‘feminism’? For ‘freedom’?

Do they not understand Arya at all? Do they not understand Gendry? Do they not understand women? Do they not understand how relationships work? Do they not know how to write a story? Do they not have a brain?

Exactly, they don´t have a brain. This isn´t even feminism, is FAUX feminism. I´m a feminist AF and this made so, so, so MAD!!!

You know just when I think I’m finally moving on I think about this and I get angry again.

I realized recently why I was so upset with how the show ended Gendrya and that’s because I identified so strongly with Arya. I was the unattractive girl that got made fun for her looks and for her “ungirly” interests (science and math). I wanted to feel love and acceptance, too. For a long time, I didn’t believe I could be loved either.  D&D seem to be saying with how they ended Gendrya that girls like me or Arya, who don’t conform to society’s expectations of femininity, will never be truly accepted for who they are. They will either have to change or be alone, one or the other.  It’s such a damaging message to send to girls out there. As it is, girls give up so many interests that aren’t considered feminine because they fear rejection and loneliness. They get that message from so many different places, it’s so sad that D&D decided to add their voice to it. 

My OTP (at least for ASOIAF/GOT)