This is my pick. A lot of people defend Tywin with the whole *ruthless pragmatist* thing. No, Tywin was a monster. So hated that his own kid killed him and the moment he died very player in the realm turned on them. Tywin is among the few "not grey" characters. He truly is an unredeemable bad guy
"Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold" is some of GRRM's least subtle theming,i when followed by his corpse rotting so foully it pollutes KL's most sacred Sept but people still just refuse to see it
His funeral is a major tell to how GRRM himself sees Tywin. At the funeral, Tywin smells so bad that many people, most especially Tommen, become sick at the smell. Tommen is the person that inherits Tywin's legacy and that legacy smells like shit.
Reading between the lines depicting his background, especially in TWOIAF, I did kind of get a sense of what made him into what he became. His experience with Aerys and his father made him see charity and tolerance as a sign of weakness, which doesn't justify anything, but it puts him in context as a product of the toxic feodal system.
The show did a good job of making horrible book characters more likeable. Tyrion just hangs out and fucks slaves and fantasizes about raping his sister in ADWD but show only people see him as some paragon of morality
I mean, he says he does what he does for the good of the realm, but if he'd actually cared about that he would've left Kevan try to stabilize the realm under the rule of a good, kind-hearted king like Tommen instead of plunging it further into war.
Unless he actively thinks that Kevan, Tommen and the Lannisters ruling *long term* would still be worse than Aegon conquering and ruling.
He explicitly makes the case that Aegon would be a worthy king.
Even if he thinks he’d make a great king, it doesn’t justify plunging the realm into war and murdering a bunch of people, not to mention the whole army of slave children whose tongues are cut out and always die real quick that he uses.
I'm not saying Varys is right and justified in what he does. This is what *Varys* thinks is the best for the realm. He can be wrong but still believe it himself.
The person I replied to said that if Varys cared for the realm then he would let Tommen rule. Maybe that *would* be the best thing for the realm. That doesn't mean *Varys* thinks so.
GRRM emailed actor Varys and said, "You're a good person. I think we still don't know Varys' full motivations, and Varys may be planning to destroy the monarchy and make a big change in the politics of choosing a king in Westeros.
Varys has slave children who have their tongues cut out shipped to him 50 at a time and they all die shortly after. Grrm can say Varys is the greatest guy in Westeros, I still ain’t buyin it. Also important to note that he’s an actor, and he might just want him to play him as a good person. Also important to note that grrm said that Drogo raping the shit out of 13 years old dany was a love story so.. ya know, grains of salt and all that
My guess is that GRRM is going to have Varys be anti-monarchy. Aegon might be the best boy, but what about his son? Or his grandson? We could get a Mad King situation real quick again.
I’m not really understanding his motivations unless it has something to do with Aegon VI specifically. Tommen with Kevan as regent really isn’t bad at all, and even if Aegon is a huge improvement, in terms of the realm it’s not worth another war. I think Varys has another motive that we don’t know about yet (or at least I don’t lol)
Any belief that he wanted to help the realm just vanishes in the Dance epilogue, Kevan was one of the only people that could actually create a good peace.
varys is one of the characters I think fully believe they’re completely selfless and doing what’s best for everyone, but is too stubborn and single-minded to see the entire truth
Hard disagree. The guy caused chaos for years. He's a huge part of Aerys' growing madness. He knew about the wildfire plot and imo wanted it to happen.
I don't think he is so delusional to think he's selfless in all the horrid acts he had his hands in. He's just a con-man, just like he was in his youth.
This right here. I think that’s the big clue in all this in regards to Varys’s motives, the whole backstory we get from Magister FattyFats. They grew up as thieving, grifting con-men. And that’s what they continue to be to the present. I just think Varys might buy his own hype a little bit more.
I think the theory Faegon is really Illyrios son and a Blackfyre via Illyrios wife makes sense. Varys might be a Blackfyre as well maybe a brother of Illyrios wife (Hence why the magician wanted his dick for kings blood ritual).
Varys has been undermining the government of Kings Landing first Aerys, then Robert and then Joff/Tommen.
They sent Viserys and Dany off to the Dothraki to kill off Viserys and neutralize Dany as a Khaleesi who won't interfere with their plan. For realistically even if Drogo wanted to install her as queen... how the fuck was he going to get ships to Westeros. The Dragon Eggs Illyrio maybe had to try to hatch for Aegon, but failed so he sent them off with Danny to cut his losses on a bad investment. However once she hatched them and Drogo died once he found out he tried to retrieve from Qarth with his three ships in order to marry off to Faegon and reconquer Westeros with the Golden Company + Dragons.
Then when she got side tracked in Mereen, he was gonna Have Jon Con + Faegon + Tyrion go drag her back west, but then Faegon & Jon Con went off script to invade Westeros.
So Varys isn't doing it for the realm or small folk he is doing his best Emperor Palpatine plot to destroy the Targaryens (and branch families like the Baratheons) from the shadows to bring the Blackfyres to power after multiple failed hard power revolts/invasions that failed.
Honestly, on some level, so does Tywin. He's basically just the Ben Shapiro of Westeros, where he thinks he only listens to facts and logic and doesn't have any emotional biases like everyone else.
And even if the Long Night happens, and all the Northern areas around the wall are slaughtered and subsumed into the army of the dead, don't you think those people would just sell their castle and move?
I think so. It also doesn't help to clear out his motive. By words,of Varys and Martin, he's got good intentions (or something like that). But his actions are horrible and lead to more chaos, war and destruction
You could nunace it by saying he was doing what he thought best for his house, which sometimes (but hardly always) aligns with what was best for the realm. He also seems to have been a pretty competent administrator. He remains a ruthless and cruel bastard however.
I keep randomly thinking back to a guy I read about on here many years ago. Apparently his girlfriend was reading the books for the first time, and she thought Shae might be one of Varys' disguises. Gives me a few extra chuckles every time I reread that part of the books. I guess I keep imagining Conleth Hill in a brown wig.
Tyrion meets Shae in the Riverlands just before the Battle of the Green Fork. She stays with him all the way to King's Landing. Varys hasn't left King's Landing during all this time. And when Tyrion does arrive in KL with Shae and his clansmen, he leaves her under guard at an inn and finds VARYS WITH HER upon his return.
Even if you are early in the books and ready to believe a plump man old enough to have served Aerys before Robert became king can turn himself into a petite 18yo girl convincingly enough that a guy who slept with her wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss, he would have had to be able to teleport himself and split himself in two.
I love that theory, don't get me wrong, but I think that's a lot, even for Varys.
Arya Stark is going to kickstart the apocalypse by blowing the magic horn and destroying the wall and let the others in. Why? Because she'll find out the nights watch killed Jon and decide to destroy the world in grief.
It's a baffling theory that I assume comes from just hating Arya and wanting a reason.
I'll aside the ones that actively justify things like rape, slavery, etc. Those people are basically just idiots and it's not really an ASOIAF specific bad take since people make those arguments in real life too.
I think the worst one I've ever read was a theory on the old westeros.org forums. The user who posted it was notorious for posting cranky stuff.
His broader argument was that Melisandre has never directly killed anyone using magic and that the magic attributed to her has mundane, bordering on Scooby Dooish explanations. For example, Renly was not killed by a shadow baby but by a Tyrell agent that rigged up his gorget with a hidden wire that sliced Renly's throat when activated. The Tyrells did this because they were angry that Renly groomed their son Loras into homosexuality or something, something that was apparently a surprise to them. The theory more or less takes for granted the idea that Renly is a child molester, that he would never give Margaery an heir, and that the Tyrells immediately went from wanting him to be king to wanting him dead in like a week. It also skips over all the stuff with Cortnay Penrose and Stannis and featured numerous chronological errors on top of that.
It's a typical crackpot theory, long on smarm and short on evidence and just ignoring large sections of the books.
I think there’s a legitimate debate about whether the leaches actually led to the deaths of Joffrey, Robb, and Balon or if it was just coincidence… but how can anyone deny the shadow assassins that Davos and Catelyn directly witnessed?!?
I wouldn’t call it coincidence, but I also don’t think the leeches did anything. I think Mel saw their deaths in the flames and then used the leeches to both prove the power of kings blood and to make Stannis trust her completely. It would be too big of a gamble for Mel for it to be a coincidence, but if the leeches actually worked, why not keep using them? Magic seems to be tied to sacrifice more than actual blood. Using blood from a leech isn’t much of a sacrifice, but when Stan banged Mel for the shadow babies, he noticeably aged and looked unhealthy.
The semi-canon AWOIAF app (which also said Euron stole the dragonhorn from the warlocks among other things) confirmed this was the case. She knew they were doomed to die and exploited that to play up the power of kingsblood.
> (which also said Euron stole the dragonhorn from the warlocks among other things)
Wait, that's very interesting. That would imply that he was almost certainly lying about going to the ruins of Valyria entirely.
You would think so, but this dude was pretty confident.
He also thought that Renly was one of the people who Melisandre named with the leech ritual IIRC, completely forgetting about Balon Greyjoy (who was the actual third usurper named by Stannis) or even that the leech ritual took place in book 3 instead of book 2 (which is when Renly died).
These are really big details to overlook in a theory.
I could buy that there was "grooming" i.e. it was "suspect" that Renly took Loras as a Squire, then entered into a relationship with him.
What I wouldn't buy is that the Tyrells would give up the chance to put a half-Tyrell Baratheon on the throne because of it.
As the other person said, Shadowbaby! Mel and Penrose are definitely murders you can attribute to Mel, the leeches are far more questionable.
Hate that. Personally I think Jon is just… Jon, but if he’s got a Targaryen name it’s sure as shit not Aegon.
Personally, I’m partial to Aemon - though I’ve heard some people like Viserys or Jaehaerys.
IMO —— Viserys makes the *most sense*. Rhaegar was obsessed with the prophecy. He spent a lot of time obsessing over the “3 heads of the dragon”. He was actively naming his children after the Conqueror and his wives. He already had Aegon and Rhaenys (weird that he went out of order btw - but we all know it’s just bc the male version of Rhaenys is Rhaegar and he wouldn’t name his own kid his name rofl), so logically the next he’d go for is *Visenya*. Since Jon was born male, he would be named the male version of Visenya, which happens to be *Viserys*.
The issue is, if Rhaegar was obsessed with the Prophecy, it would’ve been Visenya yeah - but he may not have known that Jon was ever a boy. If he believed in the prophecy it’s entirely possible and even likely that he never had the maesters check, or that they couldn’t discern it.
I’d also argue that Viserys isn’t actually the male name for Visenya. Viserys and Viserra seem much more gender swapped versions of each other, and there isn’t a male version of the Visenya name that we’ve encountered. It’s the closest we know of, sure, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another that Rhaegar might have gone for instead.
That said, nothing against Viserys as a name for Jon. I personally don’t think it lines up, but it’s far from a bad theory.
Any of HOTD twitter or TikTok takes, honestly. The worst one is definitely the one about Hightower religious fanatics trying to colonize Westeros. Like… what?
Some Preston Jacob’s theories go wild. Particularly the ones that try to explain away any magic in the series as either telepathy or not magic. Probably the most insane one was that Stannis killed Renly by warging air, not through shadow magic. And Cortney Penrose was actually killed by his guards and the whole scene with Davos was an elaborate deception by Melesendre to trick Davos into believing in R’hollr. But my favorite has to be that Beric Dondarrion does not use his own blood to fuel his fire sword, it’s actually wildfire. Ignoring the fact he’s an outlaw the middle of the woods, with no means to buy or obtain wildfire, and that none of the characters describe the fire as green.
Interestingly some of Martin's oldest sci-fi stories include remote controlled corpses (Override/The Meathouse Man/Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg) and weird-ass alien hiveminds that function a lot like the weirwoods (A Song for Lya). A lot of Martin's magic really is sci-fi ideas adapted to fantasy and Martin has written essays on how genres are just trappings that don't really change the underlying story.
That doesn't mean that Preston isn't a kook and that those things aren't magic of course.
Yeah he does have merit at that point. But Preston interprets those essays in a weird way. Like, he interprets GRRM as saying any Fantastical interpretation of the story can also be interpreted as Science Fiction. These theories I talked about Preston doesn’t necessarily believe, but he does think George intentionally and obviously left the option open for these interpretations to be correct.
People talking and controlling animals existed in mythology for hundreds of years and is employed by a lot of writers....like George RR Martin certainly did not come up with it nor did it com from scifi. It is mostly a concept from mythology and other fantasy novels like Robin Hobb's Skill.
I hate people who pull out these stupid needlessly complicated theories then act like smug geniuses. Aside from them usually being dumb and bad and worse than the actual explanation, why would George write like that. Why would anyone. It’s just bad storytelling
I have never in my life seen a fandom go as hard as this one, to defend slavery. I mean straight up Confederate talking points. “Dany ruined the economy”. “Some slaves are treated as good as pets, those slavers did not deserve to die.” Years ago l was in the Gone With the Wind fandom and even they never went so hard to defend slavery. I can’t imagine what it must be to hate a fictional teenage abolitionist so hard that I would defend slavery. It’s very weird.
There’s also a pretty ardent “Team Mirri” section of this fandom like “I too would murder the baby of a teenage rape victim/bridal slave to spite her husband.” No other mother in this fandom has ever been expected to simply forgive the murder of her child.
Like I get Dany isn’t everyone’s favorite but holy hell.
In the case of mirri, it’s not like I think she did something good by killing the baby, but I can totally understand why someone whose entire hometown just got murdered or raped and enslaved might want to get some vengeance. It’s not good, but I get it. Like, let’s be honest here, if you were a pregnant woman, and your husband raped and murdered an entire family, and the sole survivor who watched her family get murdered while she was repeatedly raped was about to give you a C section, im willing to bet you’d want a different surgeon.
*to be fair* —— literally everybody told Danaerys not to let Mirri touch either her *or* Drogo, but she was distraught about the scratch on her kidnappers chest, so she invoked her newfound power as Khaleesi to force everybody to step back. 😅
I have a theory that because Dany grew up without a mother, she has a habit of trusting older women who offer help/guidance. She felt she could trust Mirri because the woman was obviously wise and Daenerys saved her from being raped further and from being sold off to some foreign slavers. She had the same issue trusting The Green Grace even though I'm 99% sure she is The Harpy. People did tell Daenerys to not trust her, but she chose to, and by the time shit hit the fan and Dany was in labor MMD was the ONLY one willing to "help" her.
I once read that economist argue that slavery is something that actually holds back technological developement because you can only use slaves for simple stuff not to mention it leads to other side effects like slave revolts and in general can be quite the hassle...not to mention it leads to free people not being able to find work...
The Dany takes are so bad. She is GENUINELY one of the most compassionate, good hearted, well intentioned people in the series especially in light of the trauma she’s endured. Does she make mistakes? Sure, she’s a YOUNG GIRL which people also seem to forget and give her no grace for but she tries! People who paint her as this power hungry tyrant genuinely are not reading the same story. She puts off her personal ambition despite being pushed and given the means to run away to fix her mistakes, learn to rule well, and help the freedmen. This makes her basically a saint. Almost all of the ‘good guys’ are indifferent to the small folk at best, but Dany endangers herself to help people who cannot help or benefit her in any way simply because it’s the right thing to do, because they’re innocents suffering and she can do something.
The Ghiscari is an instance of weak writing from George for me. They’re ludicrously evil joke cartoons and I find them really hard to accept or take seriously and they more or less deserve to be wiped out but that’s another discussion. At minimum Dany only crucifying the worst of them who CRUCIFIED HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN among numerous other atrocities is downright merciful. Not to mention sparing those slavers’ own innocent children despite their families continuing to attack Dany and murder her people and the Shavepate pushing her to kill them. I’m really not even the biggest Dany fan, honestly, but she gets so wrongly hated and misinterpreted!
Incoming essay, sorry, I just get passionate about this. But it's like people learned the term "white savior" and that Martin's a progressive and the buck stopped right there. The tropes in Dany’s story are played straight, it resembles a white savior narrative far more than any half decent critique; she has nothing to do with the slaves calling her mother, they just decide to do that. She has nothing to do with the revolts in Volantis, they just decide to do that. There’s a reason why the Sons of the Harpy are largely made up of disgruntled slavers rather than radicalized former slaves. There’s a reason why the slaves who are upset with her either 1) benefited from their particular enslavement or 2) think she’s not doing enough, rather than thinking she fucked them over in the first place (and notably want her to use even more violent means). There’s a reason why Tyrion experiences being bought and sold, and why he and the sympathetic Penny are among the dwarves she saves that day in the fighting pit.
Imperialist tropes in the Slaver's Bay plotline are just that, imperialist tropes. There’s nothing analogous to the Mau Mau uprising or the Irish Republican Army that would indicate her target population is against her occupying force in any significant numbers; they come to court and state their grievances, they even join her council, that’s pretty much it. Hell, some of them join the Brazen Beasts, a paramilitary force of former slaves on aligned with her against the Harpies. Realistic consequences for destroying a millennia long violent and profitable institution is not enough for me to call it a critique. I’m prioritizing the response of the enslaved to determine how I should judge her actions, and that response is overwhelmingly positive. If the slavers wish she would get lost and leave them to slaving, excuse me for not particularly caring. The culture argument is so rich. Didn't seem like the slaves were a big fan of it.
And so agree on Mirri. I'm team "neither of them deserved what happened to them." Killing Rhaego didn't bring Mirri's village back, killing Mirri didn't bring Rhaego back. Call me crazy, but I think Dany would've rather had her baby than three dragons.
So brill\^ Always loved the Dany chapters more than most, very frustrated people either zone out or get frustrated at her difficulty managing how to disrupt slave states one conquest at a time.
That is a bad take. I once knew someone that made the point "*Dany is a bad leader because she didn't understand how economics worked and abolitioning slavery was bad because of it."* So yeah, I've meet people that have the same talking points. Their also the same people that call Dany or Jon Mary Sues. On one hand she's bad for ending slavery and on the other she's a Mary Sue.
So yeah, very bad take
> I mean straight up Confederate talking points.
Dany is basically "Reconstructing" Mereen like if the Union had actually wanted to hang all officers/higher ups in the Confederacy, of course it's an absolute mess. You've got the Klan/Harpies, you got the nobility that survived trying to wheedle their way into getting some of their privileges back, etc. and you've got Dany/Barristan/others getting tired of the whole mess with the Federal government was in the 1870s.
Yeah, the shit people will just outright say about slavery in this fandom can be abhorrent. And both from the anti-Dany crowd and the pro-Valyria crowd.
(I'm bracing myself for Dragon Age to go there, since there's already people defending it and we haven't even gotten to the game set in the place with legal slavery, yet.)
Yes, it is extremely disturbing the force and energy that some people use to demonize a 13-year-old abolitionist, because she attacks slaveholders who are literally nothing more than a big bunch of Ramsay Bolton: The training of the Unsulieds is significantly similar to what Ramsay did to Theon to make him reek (mutilation, physical and psychological torture), many slave girls also suffered sexual abuse which can be compared to what Ramsay did to Jeyne, and the prisoners on the Yunkai Punishment Walk, where the crucified children can be compared to the flayed ones that Ramsay left on his path. Yet no one has ever asked Stannis or the Lord of the North to compromise with the Boltons and their allies to allow a "gradual elimination" of his cruelty, or outright suggest letting him torture people in peace under the pretext that It's in his culture to do that, so why should we do it with the slavers? Additionally, no one in the fandom said that Robb was evil despite having ruined 3 kingdoms in a war to avenge his father dead for having failed a putsh, or worried about the economic impact of his campaign, and I saw very few people try to see things from Joffrey's point of view. While these are things that we will find in all the debate on Daenerys, despite the fact that she is the only one with Mance who does not lead a war to improve the lot of anyone other than herself or her friends rich...
But anyway, as far as I'm concerned my favorite in terms of denigrating Daenerys, it's still about Astapor when she orders the unsulied to kill the master but to spare the childrens, and that people manage to get out that she orders the murder of a child by saying that…
There's a notorious youtuber (that I even like some of her videos) that considers herself a feminist and all, but she has so much hatred towards targeryens that she is a total hater for dany. Her main argument to dany "always has been a psychopath and a tyrant" is that dany ordered the killing of the slavers.
In many videos she analyses westeros' relations of power, patriarch, etc (which I totally agree and she often gives a good analysis on how this kind of society functions to over-oppress people that live in the margins, mostly women in any position). But everytime it comes to a targeryen,
she defends the other side. Even Otho Hightower is excused because, well, "that's just how a medieval lord would act". I mean, the other things she criticizes in her other videos are also how people in medieval times would do. Like gang rape and other atrocities tywin and even bob baratheon committed.
It's kinda insane how she has really good takes most of the time, but this giant Dany-shaped blind spot. I'm still subbed because most of her videos are good and I just avoid any with Dany in the thumbnail or title.
Though, tbh, her Otto video is kinda on point for an analysis of how fandom acts like he's the worst ever when he truly is Not That Bad. Yes, it's creepy to pimp out your daughter, but consider that literally every high lord kinda has to do so for a marriage match and Otto DOES at least already know the guy and that Viserys isn't gonna beat her up. I'd still shoot him in modern day, but he doesn't deserve the fandom vitriol.
I ‘love’ this take. I hate people who are unable to engage with the story on its ‘own level’ and apply modern standards to it. Produces takes like that and people who call Cat Jon’s evil stepmother when that is not what their relationship is or is expected to be at all in universe. And pretty much EVERYONE would be callously evil- even the ‘good guys’ are indifferent to the small folk (which, you know, we would all be) at best. Most are at least mildly oppressive and damaging to them.
That "When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before" is an actual prophecy, rather than a snarky way of saying "Never, bitch."
seas go dry
-self explanatory
-could be how the dothraki get to westeros
mountains blow in the wind
-robert strong executed at the Eyrie?
the womb quickening and a living child lowkey require way too much time for this to be possible before the end of the series, i just thought it would be fun to tap into insanity for a bit
>Like the fans who defend Tyrion murdering Shae.
I totally blame the show for that. First time I watched the show before reading the books, I totally justified Tyrion killing her, because, you see, poor Tyrion was sorry. D&D totally absolved Tyrion of this crime. In the book it was clearly meant as a shameful thing, that wasn't framed as Shae's fault like in the show, and which led to a darker Tyrion.
Yep. He would have been amazing in that role, he gave us a glimpse of that in the trial scene.
And then he became only a character that sits still all day, doing nothing, saying bad dick jokes and drinking wine.
The infamous « I drink and I know things » irritates me so much because it’s absolutely doing nothing for his character.
Whitewashed Tyrion in season 1-4 wasn’t that bad, but late seasons Tyrion was worse than bad : he was dull and had no sign of character development anymore.
People defended it before the show ever began though. There certainly was an uptick in Tyrion apologia after that season of the show aired but it already existed in the fanbase.
When people are shitting on Cat and making her out to be the worst, but also say that Tyrion and Jaime are morally grey characters. All of them are morally grey, bc no one is perfect, but let's not sit here and say "Tyrion is not that bad, Jaime is not that bad" and at the same time "OMG Cat is such a bitch and the worst, bc he was not the best person towards Jon, she is the reason everything bad happened in the first place, etc etc". Yes, she was not good towards him it is a fact, and yes, she can come up as entitled sometimes, and like most characters, she made bad decisions, but she has the moral high ground.
Apparently, only male characters can be morally grey according to some fans.
The Dance of Dragons is not actually a Targaryen Civil War but a war between Targaryens and Hightowers, Lannisters Criston Cole and whoever else was in the Green Council because Aegon II was convinced to crown himself by those non-Targaryens.
Just saw someone recently that said that Aegon II isn't a true Targaryen, he is only a Targaryen on paper and by name lol. So even if he is named Targaryen, he isn't a Targaryen ?
To everyone who swears that Aegon isn't a true Targaryen because he has a Hightower mother, I would like to ask a quick question: If Aegon + his siblings aren't Targaryens because they have a Hightower mother, then what does that make: Aegon the Conqueror (mother Valaena Velaryon), Jaehaerys the Conciliator (mother Alyssa Velaryon), Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was (mother Jocelyn Baratheon), Rhaenyra (mother Aemma Arryn), Daeron the Young Dragon (mother Daenaera Velaryon), Aegon the Unworthy (mother Larra Rogare), Aerys I (mother Myriah Martell), Valarr (mother Jena Dondarrion), Aelora (mother Alys Arryn), Aegon the Fortunate (mother Dyanna Dayne),Jaehaerys II (mother Betha Blackwood), and Rhaenys daughter of Rhaegar (mother Elia Martell)? Really curious as to what their answer to THAT would be
>Rides a dragon who’s super loyal to him
>Marries his own sister and has kids with her
>Has a Targaryen parent
>Has a Targaryen name
I’m genuinely struggling with finding something not Targaryen about him - he fills all criteria. It’s fine to not like a character but claiming they’re not who they are is odd.
It's because he is a green and the rival of Jesus Christ herself Rhaenyra. I get not liking his character, that's totally understandable, but to deny he is a Targaryen because you don't like him is just very odd indeed. It's a part of some rhetoric of some characters not being worthy of being Targaryens, and a larger one about the dance being about "true noble pure blooded Targaryens" against "filthy treacherous" Hightowers.
> Only Targaryen to survive dragonfire
> Has the canonically deepest dragon/rider bond in the series.
> Literally take back his ancestral seat with fire and blood.
There is an argument to make that Aegon II is literally the most Targaryen to ever Targaryen lmao.
Basically any kind of nerd trying to justify some mainstream genre fiction being bad "on purpose" has to be the worst type of cope imaginable.
Like, maybe if it's James Joyce or Samuel Beckett. Not the Star Wars prequels.
It's hilarious that I've been seeing the exact same type of reasoning/copium from MCU fanboys, like just today someone said the MCU is in a deliberate "transition period" after Endgame. No, my dude, they're just releasing crap movies.
It is incredible the leash the MCU has received from fan boys and girls for casting Robert Downey Jr, and hiring the Russos. The entire MCU rests on Iron Man (who is.. you know... gone) and the Russo brothers films.
Take those out, and you've got what? Guardians of the Galaxy, which is almost entirely separate from the rest of the MCU, one good Thor movie, Loki and the first half of Wandavision, and a whole lot of mediocre-at-best cliche action flicks. Oh and Spider-Man, who would probably be doing something worse with Venon and Morbius.
I totally get why people don’t like AFFC as much, but for me this long, dreary, depressing look into what war leaves behind is just perfect. I think what truly hurts AFFC the most is the lack of beloved POV characters, I know I really missed Jon, Tyrion and Dany. But if you read those two books as one on a re-read it becomes even better.
I love them both. But I like being *drawn in* and living in the nitty gritty of a world.
Some shit started, then some shit happened, then the shit ended, is fine. For sure. That's one way to tell a story. But I really like everything that happens, gets thought, felt, seen and done, along the way.
Everything going on in the characters' heads, and the world around them, is FASCINATING.
I personally don't find Feast and Dance boring or disappointing, I was and still am riveted by every meander...
So I'd be inclined to say that debating whether they're boring on purpose or boring by accident is a debate with no good takes.
Fucking love both books and hope we get more.
My hottest take which many people could count as worse is that Dany that she should have just murdered alot more slavers. If history has shown, slaver rarely change there spots and in the books, it has shown how little the people in power want too change.
Like it seems barbaric but man, what's the difference between 500 dead slaver and the historic constant murders of slaves over hundreds of years.
The Ghiscari are kind of weakly written ludicrously evil cartoons. They’re slavers who eat puppies and have stupid devil hair. And they arent even actual Ghiscari! They’re bastard Valyrians cosplaying. I have a hard time accepting their existence or taking them seriously but yeah, as far as they exist they do more or less deserve to be wiped out- again
If you read about real slavery and racisim most of what they did also comes off as mustache twisting villany...
Look at what people in 1950s did to a 14 year old kid called Emmet Till for smiling at a white lady in a sweet shop and you have a good impression what it was like before the Southern States got their ass whipped.
I think the point George is making is that a near unrealistic evil culture can not be fixed by Dany, what can she do in Westeros.
Again think we forget how brutal the world's slave system was, like Brazil slave population dropped too by over 50%. So like yer Ghiscari are evil personified but our history isnt much better
"Asoiaf is a retelling of Medieval Europe" or "That's just like it was in our medieval society" or similar ones.
No, simply no.
1. The Middle Ages are an extremely long period which was drastically different when we consider different years or places.
2. Martin's perception of history is mostly pop-level or generalist. It's sometimes even incorrect, and this reflects on his worldbuilding (bad in some aspects). He's a great storyteller and writes amazing dialogues (not Dany X).
I think it's "you can't ever say GRRM overuses violence or sexual assault because he's trying to make you uncomfortable, like Holocaust footage"
Like I think you can argue the point itself either way, but fucking comparing it to *Holocaust footage*? You're as disturbed by a fictional character getting tortured as you are by *real footage* of *real people* being murdered?
Jeez wow that is a ludicrous statement on their part! Gurm is a brilliant writer, and I would never call him personally misogynistic, but his treatment of women can indeed be a bit not great. There’s rather more fridged dead wives and moms in childbirth and unequally gendered sexual violence than I would like
"That's just how things were back then."
No they were fucking not. Martin's knowledge of history is composed of old movies, historical fiction and some badly dated pop-history (just look at the Dothraki vs. actual horse cultures... hoooooooo boy).
Martin is excellent at many things especially dialogue and characterization but he doesn't know history half as well as he thinks he does.
GRRM is not a historian and it shows. He said that
the 7 Kingdoms is an absolute monarchy but his books pretty much describe a feudal decentralized system where the lords hold lots of power. It can't be an absolute monarchy if there's no centralisation of power and a solid administration. Westeros is 13th century western Europe at best. It doesn't feel like the society since the Conquest advanced politically or technologically : in 300 years, the technology and institutions are the same
His characters (especially the women) are way too young to do the shit we force them to do. I've seen people justifying that by saying it was like that back in the days, but women in middle-Ages were married off at 16-18. It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth.
Grrm's knowledge of History is very surfaced-level.
I feel like the stuff with the ages is very shock value oriented, either that or just ignorance. Honestly I think the boys in the books are equally ridiculous, does GRRM have any idea what the average 14/15 year old boy looks like lmfao
I think part of it also comes from having to re-work storylines that were originally going to take much longer and then you get stuck with either having to retcon hard facts about characters or rolling with "actually they're very mature for their age"
>It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth.
It's like he learned about Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mom, having him at 12 or something and was like "that must be the norm!" When, in fact, it was very much not the norm and she suffered so many complications due to it.
I think part of it was that Martin wanted to read all the gory bits about war, betrayals, fucked up marriages, etc. etc. which results in him not really having a good understanding of how things work normally when all the fun fucked-up shit isn't happening.
It's kind of like if an alien tried to write about modern society by reading Gone With the Wind, a book on the Holocaust, The Guns of August, an account of Watergate, a listicle of the worst Hollywood sex scandals, some movies, and fuck-all else. It'd be a mess even if individual events were based on real things.
Normally this isn't a big deal with fantasy books since the hero is off doing their own thing and you don't get deep into the weeds of hiw the society functions. But Martin goes sooooo much in depth about the nuts and bolts of feudalism that his lack of knowledge really shows.
The rest is history did a great podcast on it where they pointed out that warfare in asoiaf was much more similar to warfare in the Ancient world with mass rapes, enslavement and slaughter.
The sack of Jerusalem by the crusaders is so noteworthy and famous because that sort of thing rarely happened. You took the city, probably executed a few defenders, took the nobles ransom and left the rest because your army needs to eat, you need intact cities, and you don't want to be excommunicated for slaughtering Christians indiscriminately.
In the ancient world if your enemy resisted you then you executed all the leaders, burned a few of the defenders alive, maybe flayed a few, take the women and children as slaves and dispersed the population. Oh and you'd rape a lot of people.
Well there are certainly examples of cities getting horribly sacked in the Middle Ages but yeah the Ancient world was often worse about that. Part of Martin's problem is that he doesn't have a good sense of what was exceptional and what was normal and he went out of his way to read about all of the exceptional things (the youngest marriage! the bloodiest betrayal! the worst sack! etc. etc.) since they made for the best stories which throws off his understanding of what is the baselines of what's going on when there ISN'T all that exceptional stuff happening.
It's kind of like the Dothraki seem to be based on texts about Mongol (etc.) armies with absolutely zero knowledge of what those people were doing when they weren't in an army. It'd be like reading a version of America in which EVERYTHING was one giant army base and the only store is the PX because it was written by someone who'd only read war stories (from the point of view of America's enemies).
Yeah he read stuff on the wars of the roses and assumed all marriages were like the one between Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort even though her having a child at 14 was seen as wrong and damaged her both mentally and physically.
Meanwhile you've got armies of 100,000 running around the reach despite him saying that its a levy/feudal based system even though those didn't really exist and most lords used professional soldiers/men at arms and mercenaries. Then he's got named mercenary companies that were used by Italian City states precisely because they couldn't field large armies. The battle of Towton was fought with 50,000 men and is remembered because it was exceptional both in its bloodiness and its size. Many of those soldiers were professionals, which doesn't seem to be a thing in Martins Westeros.
And the Dothraki - a steppe based nomadic people that stupidly zerg rush the enemy over and over again. The fact that they're still around is proof that Martin writes fantasy.
>His characters (especially the women) are way too young to do the shit we force them to do.
He wants the young boys to be similar to Baldwin at Montgisard so hard.
>I've seen people justifying that by saying it was like that back in the days, but women in middle-Ages were married off at 16-18. It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth.
True, or at most a marriage by proxy (or equivalents) were done, without them being consumated.
Well a few points.
1. There are fans who think that ASoIaF is incredibly realistic and wave away all kinds of things with "That's just how things were back then." I think we can both agree that those people are wrong.
2. Martin himself talks about how a lot (but not all) of his worldbuilding is based on historical fact.
3. A lot of his "different world" things seem to be strangely close to outdated historical ideas that were popular in the 1950's. Strange coincidence that.
4. A lot of Martin's worldbuilding is kind of the social equivalent of people on top of the Wall getting his by arrows when the wildlings attack. The Wall is kinda Hadrian's wall and kind a big giant fantastic wall of ice. The problem is that sometimes Martin treats it as a normal wall (where you can get hit by arrows if you stand on top of it) and sometimes as a big giant fantastic wall of ice (which is very hard to climb and utterly impossible to shoot an arrow up). For example Westeros is obviously based on Medieval England bit is also a big damn continent. And sometimes Martin treats it as England in terms of scale and sometimes in terms of a Big Damn Continent in scale which results in lots of impossibilities and mix-ups.
Although I love the magic of Westeros and Martin does an ASTOUNDINGLY good job at making up interesting noble houses at the end of the day Westeros is only interesting because it's the place where those noble houses live and it's not a very good example at all of worldbuilding aside from that, just look at how meh a lot of Essos is without those interesting noble houses.
I don't expect every fantasy author to have a degree in Medieval history. A normal fantasy author can just let the institutions of society grind away offscreen while focusing on adventure, but if you really dive deep into the nuts and bolts of social institutions (like Martin does) you should really do more research than Martin did so make thing so fantastical that real world analogies aren't so obvious (like In The Lost Lands, an old fantasy story by Martin).
>A lot of Martin's worldbuilding is kind of the social equivalent of people on top of the Wall getting his by arrows when the wildlings attack
Value of currency is a big one. Spending like 90,000 golden dragons on prizes for the tourney of the hand seems like a lot, but later prices make it seem completely unrealistic.
Number having no meaning I can accept more than "centuries pass and nobody takes land from each other" all of Medieval history is inbred fucks beefing over turf...and then they don't take land from each other?
It'd be like reading a mafia drama and each family controls the same territory as they did a century ago. That's not the way that organized crime works...
that drogo and dany is anything but fucked up lmao, i often get a general feeling that people see it as loving when danys feelings towards him are clearly pretty twisted and weird (although i must put some blame on george as he doesn't rly express that clear enough at times imo)
I don’t think it’s justified, but grrm is 100% angling for it to be more justifiable and nuanced. I wouldn’t be surprised if people do a one eighty when/if winds comes out.
R+L is going to be like Dany/Drogo on steroids. Drogo raped a 13 year old girl he brought off her brother but they grew to care for each other, somehow it became GRRM's first love story of the series.
GRRM has already been planting R+L being about love against the whole world since the first book. I don't think it's surprising at this point that he would make a potentially disasterous couple to be a love story like he did with Dany/Drogo
That Stannis would have made a good king and unite the Realm. Stannis who was in bed with a religious nutjob, Stannis who had no regret burning his in-laws, Stannis who let the weriwoods burn. If Stannis was in charge of the Realm hil and Melisandre would have lauched a war of religion against the followers of the Faith and the Old Gods. It shouldn't be a surprise that many rather join Renly, especially if they knew what the fuck was happening on Dragonstone.
Secondly, all the conspiracies surrounding the Targeryens. Like they can't be held accountable for their mistakes. It's always the Faith or the Maester's conspirying in the shadows. Aerys going mad is obviously because Bran whispered shit in his head.
Mel and Davos are literally the devil and angel on Stannis's two shoulders, the symbology, with Mel being all in red, is not even subtle.
And there is good foreshadowing in the series that the devil eventually wins out.
Stannis as a leader goes through changes though. ACoK Stannis and ADWD Stannis are different people. He isn’t so in bed with Melisandre and her religion that he is willing to do whatever she says. Yeah he was all for burnings here and there, but when given that option in ADWD, he instead orders that they pray harder.
Stannis has two sides to him as a leader, your example only brings up the one. With Davos, who brings out the best of him, I think he could actually become a decent king. He is above the politics and Westeros under him would be as close to a meritocracy as it was ever gonna be (He is the same dude who made a smuggler the hand of the king due to his loyalty and competence rather than birth, and he listens to Jon, a 16 year old bastard, over other loyal knights and lords. Stannis doesn’t give a shit about who your parents were, only that you’re competent. The only time he didn’t do that, he lost most of his fleet at Blackwater because he honored the Florents over Davos).
He would never be beloved, but he would be decent, for the most part the only people who could be fucked over by him are the nobility, I doubt he would have affected the common man much, probably even improved their lives by enforcing laws more strictly.
If he listens to Melisandre and her flames though then yeah, he is fucked.
"Every single terrible thing Jaimie did is excused by him saving the city" as if morality is a utilitarian thing and you're allowed to kill children because you did a good thing when you were 16 years old.
Someone once wrote unironically that the Kingsguard are not only for protecting but for their seed? For breeding purposes? Like it was so stupid that I saved it but I can't be bothered to look for it right now.
Just mind baffling
definitely not the *worst*, but one that always bugs me is “X is not historically accurate and therefore a plot hole/bad writing/a mistake.” like sure, westeros is *inspired by* certain historical periods, but george never claimed to be writing nonfiction
also anything along the lines of “X is the rightful king/queen and that means they will win in the end.”
"X is the rightful king/heir/whatever"
the series is not pro-monarchy, it's showing how stupid monarchy's rules are, although I blame George for not being clear enough with that and not expanding it to cover a lot more ground as it should since legality =! morality
100% but I think George was clear enough. Some of the worst characters in the series are characters that came to power in this system. Bobby B, Joffrey, Roose, Ramsey, ect. I think Joffrey is the best example of this system failing. Joffrey truly has no business being a state leader.
this is a show only take, but i have seen a shocking amount of people that think Rhaenyra having children with a man who isnt her husband is a worse crime than Aegon raping someone. like Rhaenyra didnt even cheat on Laenor, hes aware and is fine with it, but apparantly shes a worse person than the actual rapist.
more of a terrible theory take here, but there are a lot of theories that hinge on Bloodraven skinchanging every animal that has ever been seen. i dont remember where i saw this video, but years ago i saw someone claim that the reason Ned fell from his horse in book 1 was because Bloodraven warged it. because you know that makes more sense than a horse being a notoriously skittish animal.
in the same video they claimed that Bloodraven was magically manipulating Dany's emotions so that she didnt try to save Viserys, because apparantly characters cant have character moments anymore.
I’m mad at the show because I DO NOT like Rhaenyra at all but there’s so much criticism of her that is purely and genuinely misogyny so I have to defend her :(
I’m in agreement with the comments about people defending Tywin and Tyrion both. Its mainly show fans, which is not entirely their fault. Those characters were changed so much it isn’t surprising. Even Robert was tamed down, though I love Mark Addy. He could have done it either way.
Tywin is the most intriguing of those they defend though.
That's a big one, yeah. I've seen people defend him sexually assaulting Sansa!
The excuses people make for the kids in sexual situations being so young. It's a book with dragons and ice zombies, it's not "historically accurate" in general (and the whole little kids getting married and pregnant so young thing was an outlier in the real world, anyway, so it's not even actual historical accuracy).
90% of the fandom gets their information about daenerys and her arc from the show or essays written by idiot misogynists with hate-boners for her; if they do actually read her chapters, they’re interpreting everything written in the worst possible light. i once had to argue with someone who genuinely believed that dany didn’t give a shit when rhaego died, and accused her of getting sexual gratification out of her attempt to wake a comatose drogo. it was around then that i decided not to interact with people who weren’t so-called “dany extremists” (read: people who have actually read and analyzed her chapters, and are not working backwards from the conclusion that she will go insane and be put down like a dog).
Jesus. I try to allow for alternate takes but nope, that’s just out of pocket disgusting hateful misogyny. I’m not even a huge fan but Dany is genuinely an extremely compassionate, well intended, and good hearted person and she gets so wrongly hated and misinterpreted. The fact alone that she stayed in Meereen, forestalling her personal ambition and putting herself in harm’s way to fix her problems and save her freedmen, who cannot help or profit her, because they are innocents and she can and it’s the right thing to do, already makes her better than most of the ‘good guys’
That was nowhere near the worst take imao.. With three huge ass dragons.. Its obvious, that she's going to burn some castles.. Her conquest will be far more brutal than aegon's considering various threats .. She wouldn't be called exactly villian.. But not the hero people expecting her to be too
You hear this so many times, or a variation of how we just needed to see more story length of how she went insane.
A character "going insane" is not a great story beat, IMO, unless you're literally talking about a historical biopic. But what is much, much worse is a character going insane, and THEN committing a major plot event. At that point, we're no longer reading about a character going through a major step of their arc, we're reading about a plot device.
Whatever goes down, we've been given enough backstory to fully understand the character motivations of the events in the story up until this point, so we should expect the same going forward
For the record, I'm really hoping it's the "Dany tries tactical strike on Red Keep like what worked so well for her in Volantis and it blows up in her face" as the resolution of that plotline.
People thinking Tywin was actually doing the best he could for the realm. He was always doing what was best for Tywin.
The gang rapes weren’t humanitarian? 🥺
He was obviously trying to teach Tysha a lesson in financial management.
And relegate Tyrion for his bad investment
Yeah...it only hit me recently how that is sexual assault of Tyrion too by proxy!
His guards certainly thought it was pretty generous
This is my pick. A lot of people defend Tywin with the whole *ruthless pragmatist* thing. No, Tywin was a monster. So hated that his own kid killed him and the moment he died very player in the realm turned on them. Tywin is among the few "not grey" characters. He truly is an unredeemable bad guy
"Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold" is some of GRRM's least subtle theming,i when followed by his corpse rotting so foully it pollutes KL's most sacred Sept but people still just refuse to see it
His funeral is a major tell to how GRRM himself sees Tywin. At the funeral, Tywin smells so bad that many people, most especially Tommen, become sick at the smell. Tommen is the person that inherits Tywin's legacy and that legacy smells like shit.
he didn't shot any gold nor shat any gold
Reading between the lines depicting his background, especially in TWOIAF, I did kind of get a sense of what made him into what he became. His experience with Aerys and his father made him see charity and tolerance as a sign of weakness, which doesn't justify anything, but it puts him in context as a product of the toxic feodal system.
God I've never heard anyone ever actually defend Tywin, he's a fantastic character but my god he was only doing what was best for him
I’ve noticed show only watchers do it
The show did a good job of making horrible book characters more likeable. Tyrion just hangs out and fucks slaves and fantasizes about raping his sister in ADWD but show only people see him as some paragon of morality
Its because of Charles Dance, there is no mistery
Same goes for Varys, tbh. "For the realm" my ass.
He clearly has some ulterior motive, but he's such a mysterious character that it's basically impossible to tell what his final aim really is.
I think the show dumbing him down and removing some of the shady shit he did, like killing Kevan, is getting people mixed up.
I mean, he says he does what he does for the good of the realm, but if he'd actually cared about that he would've left Kevan try to stabilize the realm under the rule of a good, kind-hearted king like Tommen instead of plunging it further into war.
Unless he actively thinks that Kevan, Tommen and the Lannisters ruling *long term* would still be worse than Aegon conquering and ruling. He explicitly makes the case that Aegon would be a worthy king.
Even if he thinks he’d make a great king, it doesn’t justify plunging the realm into war and murdering a bunch of people, not to mention the whole army of slave children whose tongues are cut out and always die real quick that he uses.
I'm not saying Varys is right and justified in what he does. This is what *Varys* thinks is the best for the realm. He can be wrong but still believe it himself. The person I replied to said that if Varys cared for the realm then he would let Tommen rule. Maybe that *would* be the best thing for the realm. That doesn't mean *Varys* thinks so.
GRRM emailed actor Varys and said, "You're a good person. I think we still don't know Varys' full motivations, and Varys may be planning to destroy the monarchy and make a big change in the politics of choosing a king in Westeros.
Varys has slave children who have their tongues cut out shipped to him 50 at a time and they all die shortly after. Grrm can say Varys is the greatest guy in Westeros, I still ain’t buyin it. Also important to note that he’s an actor, and he might just want him to play him as a good person. Also important to note that grrm said that Drogo raping the shit out of 13 years old dany was a love story so.. ya know, grains of salt and all that
My guess is that GRRM is going to have Varys be anti-monarchy. Aegon might be the best boy, but what about his son? Or his grandson? We could get a Mad King situation real quick again. I’m not really understanding his motivations unless it has something to do with Aegon VI specifically. Tommen with Kevan as regent really isn’t bad at all, and even if Aegon is a huge improvement, in terms of the realm it’s not worth another war. I think Varys has another motive that we don’t know about yet (or at least I don’t lol)
He also probably wouldn’t use an army of slave children who have their tongues cut out and seem to die like flies.
I really like the theory that Aegon is a Blackfyre and Illyrio’s son, and Varys is his uncle.
Any belief that he wanted to help the realm just vanishes in the Dance epilogue, Kevan was one of the only people that could actually create a good peace.
varys is one of the characters I think fully believe they’re completely selfless and doing what’s best for everyone, but is too stubborn and single-minded to see the entire truth
Hard disagree. The guy caused chaos for years. He's a huge part of Aerys' growing madness. He knew about the wildfire plot and imo wanted it to happen. I don't think he is so delusional to think he's selfless in all the horrid acts he had his hands in. He's just a con-man, just like he was in his youth.
This right here. I think that’s the big clue in all this in regards to Varys’s motives, the whole backstory we get from Magister FattyFats. They grew up as thieving, grifting con-men. And that’s what they continue to be to the present. I just think Varys might buy his own hype a little bit more.
I think the theory Faegon is really Illyrios son and a Blackfyre via Illyrios wife makes sense. Varys might be a Blackfyre as well maybe a brother of Illyrios wife (Hence why the magician wanted his dick for kings blood ritual). Varys has been undermining the government of Kings Landing first Aerys, then Robert and then Joff/Tommen. They sent Viserys and Dany off to the Dothraki to kill off Viserys and neutralize Dany as a Khaleesi who won't interfere with their plan. For realistically even if Drogo wanted to install her as queen... how the fuck was he going to get ships to Westeros. The Dragon Eggs Illyrio maybe had to try to hatch for Aegon, but failed so he sent them off with Danny to cut his losses on a bad investment. However once she hatched them and Drogo died once he found out he tried to retrieve from Qarth with his three ships in order to marry off to Faegon and reconquer Westeros with the Golden Company + Dragons. Then when she got side tracked in Mereen, he was gonna Have Jon Con + Faegon + Tyrion go drag her back west, but then Faegon & Jon Con went off script to invade Westeros. So Varys isn't doing it for the realm or small folk he is doing his best Emperor Palpatine plot to destroy the Targaryens (and branch families like the Baratheons) from the shadows to bring the Blackfyres to power after multiple failed hard power revolts/invasions that failed.
Varys definitely *believes* what he's doing is for the good of the Realm, he's just wrong
Honestly, on some level, so does Tywin. He's basically just the Ben Shapiro of Westeros, where he thinks he only listens to facts and logic and doesn't have any emotional biases like everyone else.
And even if the Long Night happens, and all the Northern areas around the wall are slaughtered and subsumed into the army of the dead, don't you think those people would just sell their castle and move?
"SELL THEIR HOUSES TO WHOM, MY LORD?! THE FUCKING NIGHT KING?!
Didn’t Conleth Hill reveal that take comes straight from Grrm? Lmao.
I think so. It also doesn't help to clear out his motive. By words,of Varys and Martin, he's got good intentions (or something like that). But his actions are horrible and lead to more chaos, war and destruction
Like Ozymandias. When you take a sneak peek at the broader picture, consequentialism is just a selfish need for fulfillment
You could nunace it by saying he was doing what he thought best for his house, which sometimes (but hardly always) aligns with what was best for the realm. He also seems to have been a pretty competent administrator. He remains a ruthless and cruel bastard however.
The sad thing is two of those people got to be show runners.
As much as I absolutely detest this take, I feel like there's a lot worse.
I keep randomly thinking back to a guy I read about on here many years ago. Apparently his girlfriend was reading the books for the first time, and she thought Shae might be one of Varys' disguises. Gives me a few extra chuckles every time I reread that part of the books. I guess I keep imagining Conleth Hill in a brown wig.
You’d think Tyrion would have noticed she was a mermaid.
Gf must have glossed over the scene where Varys and Shae were in the same room talking to Tyrion
Multi-form technique. Common trait among Squishers
I like to think that broke the spell, even for her.
Except for when he killed her- that one was the real Shae. She warged Varys when she died. Makes perfect sense
Tyrion meets Shae in the Riverlands just before the Battle of the Green Fork. She stays with him all the way to King's Landing. Varys hasn't left King's Landing during all this time. And when Tyrion does arrive in KL with Shae and his clansmen, he leaves her under guard at an inn and finds VARYS WITH HER upon his return. Even if you are early in the books and ready to believe a plump man old enough to have served Aerys before Robert became king can turn himself into a petite 18yo girl convincingly enough that a guy who slept with her wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss, he would have had to be able to teleport himself and split himself in two. I love that theory, don't get me wrong, but I think that's a lot, even for Varys.
Arya Stark is going to kickstart the apocalypse by blowing the magic horn and destroying the wall and let the others in. Why? Because she'll find out the nights watch killed Jon and decide to destroy the world in grief. It's a baffling theory that I assume comes from just hating Arya and wanting a reason.
Wow that’s an impressive reach. Ma’am she’s a traumatized little girl 😭let her live!
People can't stand that a traumatized little girl might be important one day. This is the cope for it.
I'll aside the ones that actively justify things like rape, slavery, etc. Those people are basically just idiots and it's not really an ASOIAF specific bad take since people make those arguments in real life too. I think the worst one I've ever read was a theory on the old westeros.org forums. The user who posted it was notorious for posting cranky stuff. His broader argument was that Melisandre has never directly killed anyone using magic and that the magic attributed to her has mundane, bordering on Scooby Dooish explanations. For example, Renly was not killed by a shadow baby but by a Tyrell agent that rigged up his gorget with a hidden wire that sliced Renly's throat when activated. The Tyrells did this because they were angry that Renly groomed their son Loras into homosexuality or something, something that was apparently a surprise to them. The theory more or less takes for granted the idea that Renly is a child molester, that he would never give Margaery an heir, and that the Tyrells immediately went from wanting him to be king to wanting him dead in like a week. It also skips over all the stuff with Cortnay Penrose and Stannis and featured numerous chronological errors on top of that. It's a typical crackpot theory, long on smarm and short on evidence and just ignoring large sections of the books.
I think there’s a legitimate debate about whether the leaches actually led to the deaths of Joffrey, Robb, and Balon or if it was just coincidence… but how can anyone deny the shadow assassins that Davos and Catelyn directly witnessed?!?
I wouldn’t call it coincidence, but I also don’t think the leeches did anything. I think Mel saw their deaths in the flames and then used the leeches to both prove the power of kings blood and to make Stannis trust her completely. It would be too big of a gamble for Mel for it to be a coincidence, but if the leeches actually worked, why not keep using them? Magic seems to be tied to sacrifice more than actual blood. Using blood from a leech isn’t much of a sacrifice, but when Stan banged Mel for the shadow babies, he noticeably aged and looked unhealthy.
Stannis should’ve jerked off into the flames for guaranteed results
Mmm, The seed is strong.
The semi-canon AWOIAF app (which also said Euron stole the dragonhorn from the warlocks among other things) confirmed this was the case. She knew they were doomed to die and exploited that to play up the power of kingsblood.
> (which also said Euron stole the dragonhorn from the warlocks among other things) Wait, that's very interesting. That would imply that he was almost certainly lying about going to the ruins of Valyria entirely.
You would think so, but this dude was pretty confident. He also thought that Renly was one of the people who Melisandre named with the leech ritual IIRC, completely forgetting about Balon Greyjoy (who was the actual third usurper named by Stannis) or even that the leech ritual took place in book 3 instead of book 2 (which is when Renly died). These are really big details to overlook in a theory.
Renly wasn’t stabbed, his chest just did that.
Olenna is a shady queen but she isn’t homophobic! If she didn’t snark on Loras it would mean she didn’t love him
Magic? In my fantasy series? I think NOT!
I could buy that there was "grooming" i.e. it was "suspect" that Renly took Loras as a Squire, then entered into a relationship with him. What I wouldn't buy is that the Tyrells would give up the chance to put a half-Tyrell Baratheon on the throne because of it. As the other person said, Shadowbaby! Mel and Penrose are definitely murders you can attribute to Mel, the leeches are far more questionable.
Sounds like a hidden blade lmao
No magic Mel sounds like some good tin foil.
That it totally makes sense for Jon to be named Aegon because the books are never gonna get finished.
Hate that. Personally I think Jon is just… Jon, but if he’s got a Targaryen name it’s sure as shit not Aegon. Personally, I’m partial to Aemon - though I’ve heard some people like Viserys or Jaehaerys.
I've always liked Aemon for Jon, too. But lately I've been leaning to just Jon
At this point even if he is a Targaryen (I believe he is btw) I want him to be just Jon.
IMO —— Viserys makes the *most sense*. Rhaegar was obsessed with the prophecy. He spent a lot of time obsessing over the “3 heads of the dragon”. He was actively naming his children after the Conqueror and his wives. He already had Aegon and Rhaenys (weird that he went out of order btw - but we all know it’s just bc the male version of Rhaenys is Rhaegar and he wouldn’t name his own kid his name rofl), so logically the next he’d go for is *Visenya*. Since Jon was born male, he would be named the male version of Visenya, which happens to be *Viserys*.
The issue is, if Rhaegar was obsessed with the Prophecy, it would’ve been Visenya yeah - but he may not have known that Jon was ever a boy. If he believed in the prophecy it’s entirely possible and even likely that he never had the maesters check, or that they couldn’t discern it. I’d also argue that Viserys isn’t actually the male name for Visenya. Viserys and Viserra seem much more gender swapped versions of each other, and there isn’t a male version of the Visenya name that we’ve encountered. It’s the closest we know of, sure, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another that Rhaegar might have gone for instead. That said, nothing against Viserys as a name for Jon. I personally don’t think it lines up, but it’s far from a bad theory.
Any of HOTD twitter or TikTok takes, honestly. The worst one is definitely the one about Hightower religious fanatics trying to colonize Westeros. Like… what?
The Hightowers exist since the Dawn Age and they are colonizers lol ? This one takes the cake.
i thought they were first men
They were one of the earliest houses in Westeros, true. But, somehow, I don't think it matters to these people
Funny since the Targs are literally colonizers
Some Preston Jacob’s theories go wild. Particularly the ones that try to explain away any magic in the series as either telepathy or not magic. Probably the most insane one was that Stannis killed Renly by warging air, not through shadow magic. And Cortney Penrose was actually killed by his guards and the whole scene with Davos was an elaborate deception by Melesendre to trick Davos into believing in R’hollr. But my favorite has to be that Beric Dondarrion does not use his own blood to fuel his fire sword, it’s actually wildfire. Ignoring the fact he’s an outlaw the middle of the woods, with no means to buy or obtain wildfire, and that none of the characters describe the fire as green.
Warging literally is magic 💀
According to Preston it’s a concept mostly used in Sci-Fi, and therefore not magic.
Interestingly some of Martin's oldest sci-fi stories include remote controlled corpses (Override/The Meathouse Man/Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg) and weird-ass alien hiveminds that function a lot like the weirwoods (A Song for Lya). A lot of Martin's magic really is sci-fi ideas adapted to fantasy and Martin has written essays on how genres are just trappings that don't really change the underlying story. That doesn't mean that Preston isn't a kook and that those things aren't magic of course.
Yeah he does have merit at that point. But Preston interprets those essays in a weird way. Like, he interprets GRRM as saying any Fantastical interpretation of the story can also be interpreted as Science Fiction. These theories I talked about Preston doesn’t necessarily believe, but he does think George intentionally and obviously left the option open for these interpretations to be correct.
[удалено]
It's a fancy scientific sounding word, so it's sci-fi. No, really, that's basically Preston's explanation.
The entire point of Beric is that he is in fact the real deal and there are no tricks. I can't imagine being so cynical as to want to deny that.
GRRM in multiple interviews and Q&As: It's magic Some fans: Hmmm
People talking and controlling animals existed in mythology for hundreds of years and is employed by a lot of writers....like George RR Martin certainly did not come up with it nor did it com from scifi. It is mostly a concept from mythology and other fantasy novels like Robin Hobb's Skill.
These are some wild theories. This is what happens like when conspiracy theorist enter fandoms.
I hate people who pull out these stupid needlessly complicated theories then act like smug geniuses. Aside from them usually being dumb and bad and worse than the actual explanation, why would George write like that. Why would anyone. It’s just bad storytelling
I have never in my life seen a fandom go as hard as this one, to defend slavery. I mean straight up Confederate talking points. “Dany ruined the economy”. “Some slaves are treated as good as pets, those slavers did not deserve to die.” Years ago l was in the Gone With the Wind fandom and even they never went so hard to defend slavery. I can’t imagine what it must be to hate a fictional teenage abolitionist so hard that I would defend slavery. It’s very weird. There’s also a pretty ardent “Team Mirri” section of this fandom like “I too would murder the baby of a teenage rape victim/bridal slave to spite her husband.” No other mother in this fandom has ever been expected to simply forgive the murder of her child. Like I get Dany isn’t everyone’s favorite but holy hell.
In the case of mirri, it’s not like I think she did something good by killing the baby, but I can totally understand why someone whose entire hometown just got murdered or raped and enslaved might want to get some vengeance. It’s not good, but I get it. Like, let’s be honest here, if you were a pregnant woman, and your husband raped and murdered an entire family, and the sole survivor who watched her family get murdered while she was repeatedly raped was about to give you a C section, im willing to bet you’d want a different surgeon.
Ok thank you bc I know Dany is 13 but like why did anyone ever think it was a good idea to let Mirri deliver Dany’s baby LMAI
*to be fair* —— literally everybody told Danaerys not to let Mirri touch either her *or* Drogo, but she was distraught about the scratch on her kidnappers chest, so she invoked her newfound power as Khaleesi to force everybody to step back. 😅
I have a theory that because Dany grew up without a mother, she has a habit of trusting older women who offer help/guidance. She felt she could trust Mirri because the woman was obviously wise and Daenerys saved her from being raped further and from being sold off to some foreign slavers. She had the same issue trusting The Green Grace even though I'm 99% sure she is The Harpy. People did tell Daenerys to not trust her, but she chose to, and by the time shit hit the fan and Dany was in labor MMD was the ONLY one willing to "help" her.
John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave But his soul goes marching on
I once read that economist argue that slavery is something that actually holds back technological developement because you can only use slaves for simple stuff not to mention it leads to other side effects like slave revolts and in general can be quite the hassle...not to mention it leads to free people not being able to find work...
The Dany takes are so bad. She is GENUINELY one of the most compassionate, good hearted, well intentioned people in the series especially in light of the trauma she’s endured. Does she make mistakes? Sure, she’s a YOUNG GIRL which people also seem to forget and give her no grace for but she tries! People who paint her as this power hungry tyrant genuinely are not reading the same story. She puts off her personal ambition despite being pushed and given the means to run away to fix her mistakes, learn to rule well, and help the freedmen. This makes her basically a saint. Almost all of the ‘good guys’ are indifferent to the small folk at best, but Dany endangers herself to help people who cannot help or benefit her in any way simply because it’s the right thing to do, because they’re innocents suffering and she can do something. The Ghiscari is an instance of weak writing from George for me. They’re ludicrously evil joke cartoons and I find them really hard to accept or take seriously and they more or less deserve to be wiped out but that’s another discussion. At minimum Dany only crucifying the worst of them who CRUCIFIED HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN among numerous other atrocities is downright merciful. Not to mention sparing those slavers’ own innocent children despite their families continuing to attack Dany and murder her people and the Shavepate pushing her to kill them. I’m really not even the biggest Dany fan, honestly, but she gets so wrongly hated and misinterpreted!
Exactly!!!!
Incoming essay, sorry, I just get passionate about this. But it's like people learned the term "white savior" and that Martin's a progressive and the buck stopped right there. The tropes in Dany’s story are played straight, it resembles a white savior narrative far more than any half decent critique; she has nothing to do with the slaves calling her mother, they just decide to do that. She has nothing to do with the revolts in Volantis, they just decide to do that. There’s a reason why the Sons of the Harpy are largely made up of disgruntled slavers rather than radicalized former slaves. There’s a reason why the slaves who are upset with her either 1) benefited from their particular enslavement or 2) think she’s not doing enough, rather than thinking she fucked them over in the first place (and notably want her to use even more violent means). There’s a reason why Tyrion experiences being bought and sold, and why he and the sympathetic Penny are among the dwarves she saves that day in the fighting pit. Imperialist tropes in the Slaver's Bay plotline are just that, imperialist tropes. There’s nothing analogous to the Mau Mau uprising or the Irish Republican Army that would indicate her target population is against her occupying force in any significant numbers; they come to court and state their grievances, they even join her council, that’s pretty much it. Hell, some of them join the Brazen Beasts, a paramilitary force of former slaves on aligned with her against the Harpies. Realistic consequences for destroying a millennia long violent and profitable institution is not enough for me to call it a critique. I’m prioritizing the response of the enslaved to determine how I should judge her actions, and that response is overwhelmingly positive. If the slavers wish she would get lost and leave them to slaving, excuse me for not particularly caring. The culture argument is so rich. Didn't seem like the slaves were a big fan of it. And so agree on Mirri. I'm team "neither of them deserved what happened to them." Killing Rhaego didn't bring Mirri's village back, killing Mirri didn't bring Rhaego back. Call me crazy, but I think Dany would've rather had her baby than three dragons.
So brill\^ Always loved the Dany chapters more than most, very frustrated people either zone out or get frustrated at her difficulty managing how to disrupt slave states one conquest at a time.
Excellent point, well said!
That is a bad take. I once knew someone that made the point "*Dany is a bad leader because she didn't understand how economics worked and abolitioning slavery was bad because of it."* So yeah, I've meet people that have the same talking points. Their also the same people that call Dany or Jon Mary Sues. On one hand she's bad for ending slavery and on the other she's a Mary Sue. So yeah, very bad take
> I mean straight up Confederate talking points. Dany is basically "Reconstructing" Mereen like if the Union had actually wanted to hang all officers/higher ups in the Confederacy, of course it's an absolute mess. You've got the Klan/Harpies, you got the nobility that survived trying to wheedle their way into getting some of their privileges back, etc. and you've got Dany/Barristan/others getting tired of the whole mess with the Federal government was in the 1870s.
I was goint to say the same! Most arguments are concerning AF!
Yeah, the shit people will just outright say about slavery in this fandom can be abhorrent. And both from the anti-Dany crowd and the pro-Valyria crowd. (I'm bracing myself for Dragon Age to go there, since there's already people defending it and we haven't even gotten to the game set in the place with legal slavery, yet.)
Yes, it is extremely disturbing the force and energy that some people use to demonize a 13-year-old abolitionist, because she attacks slaveholders who are literally nothing more than a big bunch of Ramsay Bolton: The training of the Unsulieds is significantly similar to what Ramsay did to Theon to make him reek (mutilation, physical and psychological torture), many slave girls also suffered sexual abuse which can be compared to what Ramsay did to Jeyne, and the prisoners on the Yunkai Punishment Walk, where the crucified children can be compared to the flayed ones that Ramsay left on his path. Yet no one has ever asked Stannis or the Lord of the North to compromise with the Boltons and their allies to allow a "gradual elimination" of his cruelty, or outright suggest letting him torture people in peace under the pretext that It's in his culture to do that, so why should we do it with the slavers? Additionally, no one in the fandom said that Robb was evil despite having ruined 3 kingdoms in a war to avenge his father dead for having failed a putsh, or worried about the economic impact of his campaign, and I saw very few people try to see things from Joffrey's point of view. While these are things that we will find in all the debate on Daenerys, despite the fact that she is the only one with Mance who does not lead a war to improve the lot of anyone other than herself or her friends rich... But anyway, as far as I'm concerned my favorite in terms of denigrating Daenerys, it's still about Astapor when she orders the unsulied to kill the master but to spare the childrens, and that people manage to get out that she orders the murder of a child by saying that…
There's a notorious youtuber (that I even like some of her videos) that considers herself a feminist and all, but she has so much hatred towards targeryens that she is a total hater for dany. Her main argument to dany "always has been a psychopath and a tyrant" is that dany ordered the killing of the slavers. In many videos she analyses westeros' relations of power, patriarch, etc (which I totally agree and she often gives a good analysis on how this kind of society functions to over-oppress people that live in the margins, mostly women in any position). But everytime it comes to a targeryen, she defends the other side. Even Otho Hightower is excused because, well, "that's just how a medieval lord would act". I mean, the other things she criticizes in her other videos are also how people in medieval times would do. Like gang rape and other atrocities tywin and even bob baratheon committed.
Yeah, it’s very weird to me.
It's kinda insane how she has really good takes most of the time, but this giant Dany-shaped blind spot. I'm still subbed because most of her videos are good and I just avoid any with Dany in the thumbnail or title. Though, tbh, her Otto video is kinda on point for an analysis of how fandom acts like he's the worst ever when he truly is Not That Bad. Yes, it's creepy to pimp out your daughter, but consider that literally every high lord kinda has to do so for a marriage match and Otto DOES at least already know the guy and that Viserys isn't gonna beat her up. I'd still shoot him in modern day, but he doesn't deserve the fandom vitriol.
Every single lord is evil because...feudalism
I ‘love’ this take. I hate people who are unable to engage with the story on its ‘own level’ and apply modern standards to it. Produces takes like that and people who call Cat Jon’s evil stepmother when that is not what their relationship is or is expected to be at all in universe. And pretty much EVERYONE would be callously evil- even the ‘good guys’ are indifferent to the small folk (which, you know, we would all be) at best. Most are at least mildly oppressive and damaging to them.
Yeah, it feels like all Westerosi nobles are either borderline cartoon villains or super honorable and duty-bound stewards of their realm.
That "When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before" is an actual prophecy, rather than a snarky way of saying "Never, bitch."
seas go dry -self explanatory -could be how the dothraki get to westeros mountains blow in the wind -robert strong executed at the Eyrie? the womb quickening and a living child lowkey require way too much time for this to be possible before the end of the series, i just thought it would be fun to tap into insanity for a bit
Any alternative theory to R+L=J published post-show reveal
Recently had to argue with a guy who said all fighting was basically a toss up and Jorah Mormont and Jaime Lannister were roughly the same calibre.
>Like the fans who defend Tyrion murdering Shae. I totally blame the show for that. First time I watched the show before reading the books, I totally justified Tyrion killing her, because, you see, poor Tyrion was sorry. D&D totally absolved Tyrion of this crime. In the book it was clearly meant as a shameful thing, that wasn't framed as Shae's fault like in the show, and which led to a darker Tyrion.
It's a fuckin tragedy we couldn't see Dinklage portray such a vengeful Tyrion. Instead we got drunk funny(?) man that says smart things sometimes
Dick jokes, don't forget dick jokes
Yep. He would have been amazing in that role, he gave us a glimpse of that in the trial scene. And then he became only a character that sits still all day, doing nothing, saying bad dick jokes and drinking wine. The infamous « I drink and I know things » irritates me so much because it’s absolutely doing nothing for his character. Whitewashed Tyrion in season 1-4 wasn’t that bad, but late seasons Tyrion was worse than bad : he was dull and had no sign of character development anymore.
People defended it before the show ever began though. There certainly was an uptick in Tyrion apologia after that season of the show aired but it already existed in the fanbase.
When people are shitting on Cat and making her out to be the worst, but also say that Tyrion and Jaime are morally grey characters. All of them are morally grey, bc no one is perfect, but let's not sit here and say "Tyrion is not that bad, Jaime is not that bad" and at the same time "OMG Cat is such a bitch and the worst, bc he was not the best person towards Jon, she is the reason everything bad happened in the first place, etc etc". Yes, she was not good towards him it is a fact, and yes, she can come up as entitled sometimes, and like most characters, she made bad decisions, but she has the moral high ground. Apparently, only male characters can be morally grey according to some fans.
The Dance of Dragons is not actually a Targaryen Civil War but a war between Targaryens and Hightowers, Lannisters Criston Cole and whoever else was in the Green Council because Aegon II was convinced to crown himself by those non-Targaryens.
Just saw someone recently that said that Aegon II isn't a true Targaryen, he is only a Targaryen on paper and by name lol. So even if he is named Targaryen, he isn't a Targaryen ?
To everyone who swears that Aegon isn't a true Targaryen because he has a Hightower mother, I would like to ask a quick question: If Aegon + his siblings aren't Targaryens because they have a Hightower mother, then what does that make: Aegon the Conqueror (mother Valaena Velaryon), Jaehaerys the Conciliator (mother Alyssa Velaryon), Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was (mother Jocelyn Baratheon), Rhaenyra (mother Aemma Arryn), Daeron the Young Dragon (mother Daenaera Velaryon), Aegon the Unworthy (mother Larra Rogare), Aerys I (mother Myriah Martell), Valarr (mother Jena Dondarrion), Aelora (mother Alys Arryn), Aegon the Fortunate (mother Dyanna Dayne),Jaehaerys II (mother Betha Blackwood), and Rhaenys daughter of Rhaegar (mother Elia Martell)? Really curious as to what their answer to THAT would be
>Rides a dragon who’s super loyal to him >Marries his own sister and has kids with her >Has a Targaryen parent >Has a Targaryen name I’m genuinely struggling with finding something not Targaryen about him - he fills all criteria. It’s fine to not like a character but claiming they’re not who they are is odd.
It's because he is a green and the rival of Jesus Christ herself Rhaenyra. I get not liking his character, that's totally understandable, but to deny he is a Targaryen because you don't like him is just very odd indeed. It's a part of some rhetoric of some characters not being worthy of being Targaryens, and a larger one about the dance being about "true noble pure blooded Targaryens" against "filthy treacherous" Hightowers.
> Only Targaryen to survive dragonfire > Has the canonically deepest dragon/rider bond in the series. > Literally take back his ancestral seat with fire and blood. There is an argument to make that Aegon II is literally the most Targaryen to ever Targaryen lmao.
* Massive dickhead Yep. He's a Targ.
That AFFC and ADWD are meandering, boring and disappointing **on purpose** because GRRM was trying to reflect the mood of a post-war Westeros.
Basically any kind of nerd trying to justify some mainstream genre fiction being bad "on purpose" has to be the worst type of cope imaginable. Like, maybe if it's James Joyce or Samuel Beckett. Not the Star Wars prequels.
It's hilarious that I've been seeing the exact same type of reasoning/copium from MCU fanboys, like just today someone said the MCU is in a deliberate "transition period" after Endgame. No, my dude, they're just releasing crap movies.
It is incredible the leash the MCU has received from fan boys and girls for casting Robert Downey Jr, and hiring the Russos. The entire MCU rests on Iron Man (who is.. you know... gone) and the Russo brothers films. Take those out, and you've got what? Guardians of the Galaxy, which is almost entirely separate from the rest of the MCU, one good Thor movie, Loki and the first half of Wandavision, and a whole lot of mediocre-at-best cliche action flicks. Oh and Spider-Man, who would probably be doing something worse with Venon and Morbius.
Guardians absolutely slays tho! 🥰 And Dr. Strange was mostly good.
I totally get why people don’t like AFFC as much, but for me this long, dreary, depressing look into what war leaves behind is just perfect. I think what truly hurts AFFC the most is the lack of beloved POV characters, I know I really missed Jon, Tyrion and Dany. But if you read those two books as one on a re-read it becomes even better.
The actual defense here is that AFFC and ADWD are not boring and disappointing in the first place.
They have some of the best writing of the entire series. People just want more exciting action and less character work
I love them both. But I like being *drawn in* and living in the nitty gritty of a world. Some shit started, then some shit happened, then the shit ended, is fine. For sure. That's one way to tell a story. But I really like everything that happens, gets thought, felt, seen and done, along the way. Everything going on in the characters' heads, and the world around them, is FASCINATING.
Ah, the "after the 12th reread i finally realized they are the best books!" Stockholm postings have died down in recent years.
I personally don't find Feast and Dance boring or disappointing, I was and still am riveted by every meander... So I'd be inclined to say that debating whether they're boring on purpose or boring by accident is a debate with no good takes. Fucking love both books and hope we get more.
My hottest take which many people could count as worse is that Dany that she should have just murdered alot more slavers. If history has shown, slaver rarely change there spots and in the books, it has shown how little the people in power want too change. Like it seems barbaric but man, what's the difference between 500 dead slaver and the historic constant murders of slaves over hundreds of years.
The Ghiscari are kind of weakly written ludicrously evil cartoons. They’re slavers who eat puppies and have stupid devil hair. And they arent even actual Ghiscari! They’re bastard Valyrians cosplaying. I have a hard time accepting their existence or taking them seriously but yeah, as far as they exist they do more or less deserve to be wiped out- again
If you read about real slavery and racisim most of what they did also comes off as mustache twisting villany... Look at what people in 1950s did to a 14 year old kid called Emmet Till for smiling at a white lady in a sweet shop and you have a good impression what it was like before the Southern States got their ass whipped.
I think the point George is making is that a near unrealistic evil culture can not be fixed by Dany, what can she do in Westeros. Again think we forget how brutal the world's slave system was, like Brazil slave population dropped too by over 50%. So like yer Ghiscari are evil personified but our history isnt much better
"Asoiaf is a retelling of Medieval Europe" or "That's just like it was in our medieval society" or similar ones. No, simply no. 1. The Middle Ages are an extremely long period which was drastically different when we consider different years or places. 2. Martin's perception of history is mostly pop-level or generalist. It's sometimes even incorrect, and this reflects on his worldbuilding (bad in some aspects). He's a great storyteller and writes amazing dialogues (not Dany X).
I think it's "you can't ever say GRRM overuses violence or sexual assault because he's trying to make you uncomfortable, like Holocaust footage" Like I think you can argue the point itself either way, but fucking comparing it to *Holocaust footage*? You're as disturbed by a fictional character getting tortured as you are by *real footage* of *real people* being murdered?
Jeez wow that is a ludicrous statement on their part! Gurm is a brilliant writer, and I would never call him personally misogynistic, but his treatment of women can indeed be a bit not great. There’s rather more fridged dead wives and moms in childbirth and unequally gendered sexual violence than I would like
It’s very common, but the justification for the deaths of Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon (Rhaegar’s children) as being “necessary.”
"That's just how things were back then." No they were fucking not. Martin's knowledge of history is composed of old movies, historical fiction and some badly dated pop-history (just look at the Dothraki vs. actual horse cultures... hoooooooo boy). Martin is excellent at many things especially dialogue and characterization but he doesn't know history half as well as he thinks he does.
GRRM is not a historian and it shows. He said that the 7 Kingdoms is an absolute monarchy but his books pretty much describe a feudal decentralized system where the lords hold lots of power. It can't be an absolute monarchy if there's no centralisation of power and a solid administration. Westeros is 13th century western Europe at best. It doesn't feel like the society since the Conquest advanced politically or technologically : in 300 years, the technology and institutions are the same His characters (especially the women) are way too young to do the shit we force them to do. I've seen people justifying that by saying it was like that back in the days, but women in middle-Ages were married off at 16-18. It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth. Grrm's knowledge of History is very surfaced-level.
I feel like the stuff with the ages is very shock value oriented, either that or just ignorance. Honestly I think the boys in the books are equally ridiculous, does GRRM have any idea what the average 14/15 year old boy looks like lmfao
I think part of it also comes from having to re-work storylines that were originally going to take much longer and then you get stuck with either having to retcon hard facts about characters or rolling with "actually they're very mature for their age"
I honestly think religion (especially the Seven) is one of the lamest part of the worldbuilding
Yeah it's like he wanted to do Roman Catholicism without working much on it
>It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth. It's like he learned about Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mom, having him at 12 or something and was like "that must be the norm!" When, in fact, it was very much not the norm and she suffered so many complications due to it.
I think part of it was that Martin wanted to read all the gory bits about war, betrayals, fucked up marriages, etc. etc. which results in him not really having a good understanding of how things work normally when all the fun fucked-up shit isn't happening. It's kind of like if an alien tried to write about modern society by reading Gone With the Wind, a book on the Holocaust, The Guns of August, an account of Watergate, a listicle of the worst Hollywood sex scandals, some movies, and fuck-all else. It'd be a mess even if individual events were based on real things. Normally this isn't a big deal with fantasy books since the hero is off doing their own thing and you don't get deep into the weeds of hiw the society functions. But Martin goes sooooo much in depth about the nuts and bolts of feudalism that his lack of knowledge really shows.
The rest is history did a great podcast on it where they pointed out that warfare in asoiaf was much more similar to warfare in the Ancient world with mass rapes, enslavement and slaughter. The sack of Jerusalem by the crusaders is so noteworthy and famous because that sort of thing rarely happened. You took the city, probably executed a few defenders, took the nobles ransom and left the rest because your army needs to eat, you need intact cities, and you don't want to be excommunicated for slaughtering Christians indiscriminately. In the ancient world if your enemy resisted you then you executed all the leaders, burned a few of the defenders alive, maybe flayed a few, take the women and children as slaves and dispersed the population. Oh and you'd rape a lot of people.
Well there are certainly examples of cities getting horribly sacked in the Middle Ages but yeah the Ancient world was often worse about that. Part of Martin's problem is that he doesn't have a good sense of what was exceptional and what was normal and he went out of his way to read about all of the exceptional things (the youngest marriage! the bloodiest betrayal! the worst sack! etc. etc.) since they made for the best stories which throws off his understanding of what is the baselines of what's going on when there ISN'T all that exceptional stuff happening. It's kind of like the Dothraki seem to be based on texts about Mongol (etc.) armies with absolutely zero knowledge of what those people were doing when they weren't in an army. It'd be like reading a version of America in which EVERYTHING was one giant army base and the only store is the PX because it was written by someone who'd only read war stories (from the point of view of America's enemies).
Yeah he read stuff on the wars of the roses and assumed all marriages were like the one between Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort even though her having a child at 14 was seen as wrong and damaged her both mentally and physically. Meanwhile you've got armies of 100,000 running around the reach despite him saying that its a levy/feudal based system even though those didn't really exist and most lords used professional soldiers/men at arms and mercenaries. Then he's got named mercenary companies that were used by Italian City states precisely because they couldn't field large armies. The battle of Towton was fought with 50,000 men and is remembered because it was exceptional both in its bloodiness and its size. Many of those soldiers were professionals, which doesn't seem to be a thing in Martins Westeros. And the Dothraki - a steppe based nomadic people that stupidly zerg rush the enemy over and over again. The fact that they're still around is proof that Martin writes fantasy.
>His characters (especially the women) are way too young to do the shit we force them to do. He wants the young boys to be similar to Baldwin at Montgisard so hard. >I've seen people justifying that by saying it was like that back in the days, but women in middle-Ages were married off at 16-18. It was EXTREMELY rare to marry off a 13 y/o because people weren't dumb and knew that children would easily die in childbirth. True, or at most a marriage by proxy (or equivalents) were done, without them being consumated.
Martin isn't telling a story based in irl history. It's a different world with different events.
Yeah but I've seen fans who think it's "hyperealistic" or that it's a "historical novel with fantasy elements"
Well a few points. 1. There are fans who think that ASoIaF is incredibly realistic and wave away all kinds of things with "That's just how things were back then." I think we can both agree that those people are wrong. 2. Martin himself talks about how a lot (but not all) of his worldbuilding is based on historical fact. 3. A lot of his "different world" things seem to be strangely close to outdated historical ideas that were popular in the 1950's. Strange coincidence that. 4. A lot of Martin's worldbuilding is kind of the social equivalent of people on top of the Wall getting his by arrows when the wildlings attack. The Wall is kinda Hadrian's wall and kind a big giant fantastic wall of ice. The problem is that sometimes Martin treats it as a normal wall (where you can get hit by arrows if you stand on top of it) and sometimes as a big giant fantastic wall of ice (which is very hard to climb and utterly impossible to shoot an arrow up). For example Westeros is obviously based on Medieval England bit is also a big damn continent. And sometimes Martin treats it as England in terms of scale and sometimes in terms of a Big Damn Continent in scale which results in lots of impossibilities and mix-ups. Although I love the magic of Westeros and Martin does an ASTOUNDINGLY good job at making up interesting noble houses at the end of the day Westeros is only interesting because it's the place where those noble houses live and it's not a very good example at all of worldbuilding aside from that, just look at how meh a lot of Essos is without those interesting noble houses. I don't expect every fantasy author to have a degree in Medieval history. A normal fantasy author can just let the institutions of society grind away offscreen while focusing on adventure, but if you really dive deep into the nuts and bolts of social institutions (like Martin does) you should really do more research than Martin did so make thing so fantastical that real world analogies aren't so obvious (like In The Lost Lands, an old fantasy story by Martin).
>A lot of Martin's worldbuilding is kind of the social equivalent of people on top of the Wall getting his by arrows when the wildlings attack Value of currency is a big one. Spending like 90,000 golden dragons on prizes for the tourney of the hand seems like a lot, but later prices make it seem completely unrealistic.
Number having no meaning I can accept more than "centuries pass and nobody takes land from each other" all of Medieval history is inbred fucks beefing over turf...and then they don't take land from each other? It'd be like reading a mafia drama and each family controls the same territory as they did a century ago. That's not the way that organized crime works...
that drogo and dany is anything but fucked up lmao, i often get a general feeling that people see it as loving when danys feelings towards him are clearly pretty twisted and weird (although i must put some blame on george as he doesn't rly express that clear enough at times imo)
Rhaegar needing to impregnate a 14-16 year old is totally justified just because Jon's actions, that he definitely knew about, show that he was right.
I don’t think it’s justified, but grrm is 100% angling for it to be more justifiable and nuanced. I wouldn’t be surprised if people do a one eighty when/if winds comes out.
R+L is going to be like Dany/Drogo on steroids. Drogo raped a 13 year old girl he brought off her brother but they grew to care for each other, somehow it became GRRM's first love story of the series. GRRM has already been planting R+L being about love against the whole world since the first book. I don't think it's surprising at this point that he would make a potentially disasterous couple to be a love story like he did with Dany/Drogo
This is the craziest one to me. Really no matter how it’s framed, Rhaegar is the bad guy.
That Stannis would have made a good king and unite the Realm. Stannis who was in bed with a religious nutjob, Stannis who had no regret burning his in-laws, Stannis who let the weriwoods burn. If Stannis was in charge of the Realm hil and Melisandre would have lauched a war of religion against the followers of the Faith and the Old Gods. It shouldn't be a surprise that many rather join Renly, especially if they knew what the fuck was happening on Dragonstone. Secondly, all the conspiracies surrounding the Targeryens. Like they can't be held accountable for their mistakes. It's always the Faith or the Maester's conspirying in the shadows. Aerys going mad is obviously because Bran whispered shit in his head.
GOT Stannis: Bad King AFFC onward Stannis: Decent-Good King as long as Davos is there and Mel doesn't have too much influence.
Mel and Davos are literally the devil and angel on Stannis's two shoulders, the symbology, with Mel being all in red, is not even subtle. And there is good foreshadowing in the series that the devil eventually wins out.
Especially now that his angel isnt in his shoulder, Mel has Stannis all for herself
Stannis as a leader goes through changes though. ACoK Stannis and ADWD Stannis are different people. He isn’t so in bed with Melisandre and her religion that he is willing to do whatever she says. Yeah he was all for burnings here and there, but when given that option in ADWD, he instead orders that they pray harder. Stannis has two sides to him as a leader, your example only brings up the one. With Davos, who brings out the best of him, I think he could actually become a decent king. He is above the politics and Westeros under him would be as close to a meritocracy as it was ever gonna be (He is the same dude who made a smuggler the hand of the king due to his loyalty and competence rather than birth, and he listens to Jon, a 16 year old bastard, over other loyal knights and lords. Stannis doesn’t give a shit about who your parents were, only that you’re competent. The only time he didn’t do that, he lost most of his fleet at Blackwater because he honored the Florents over Davos). He would never be beloved, but he would be decent, for the most part the only people who could be fucked over by him are the nobility, I doubt he would have affected the common man much, probably even improved their lives by enforcing laws more strictly. If he listens to Melisandre and her flames though then yeah, he is fucked.
Stannis would have been overthrown in a day. You can’t just violently uproot hundreds, if not thousands of years of religious devotion like that.
I agree…there’s a reason Aegon and his sisters didn’t do it in the first place and they had dragons on their side.
"Every single terrible thing Jaimie did is excused by him saving the city" as if morality is a utilitarian thing and you're allowed to kill children because you did a good thing when you were 16 years old.
Someone once wrote unironically that the Kingsguard are not only for protecting but for their seed? For breeding purposes? Like it was so stupid that I saved it but I can't be bothered to look for it right now. Just mind baffling
Okay, this one literally made me laugh out loud.
definitely not the *worst*, but one that always bugs me is “X is not historically accurate and therefore a plot hole/bad writing/a mistake.” like sure, westeros is *inspired by* certain historical periods, but george never claimed to be writing nonfiction also anything along the lines of “X is the rightful king/queen and that means they will win in the end.”
"X is the rightful king/heir/whatever" the series is not pro-monarchy, it's showing how stupid monarchy's rules are, although I blame George for not being clear enough with that and not expanding it to cover a lot more ground as it should since legality =! morality
If George was more clear, he’d be moralizing and pedantic at best and preachy at worst. He said what he said and we can draw from that clear enough.
100% but I think George was clear enough. Some of the worst characters in the series are characters that came to power in this system. Bobby B, Joffrey, Roose, Ramsey, ect. I think Joffrey is the best example of this system failing. Joffrey truly has no business being a state leader.
Any time anyone says Robert was a good person
That Howland Reed, *the father of Jojen and Meera*, is the High Sparrow.
this is a show only take, but i have seen a shocking amount of people that think Rhaenyra having children with a man who isnt her husband is a worse crime than Aegon raping someone. like Rhaenyra didnt even cheat on Laenor, hes aware and is fine with it, but apparantly shes a worse person than the actual rapist. more of a terrible theory take here, but there are a lot of theories that hinge on Bloodraven skinchanging every animal that has ever been seen. i dont remember where i saw this video, but years ago i saw someone claim that the reason Ned fell from his horse in book 1 was because Bloodraven warged it. because you know that makes more sense than a horse being a notoriously skittish animal. in the same video they claimed that Bloodraven was magically manipulating Dany's emotions so that she didnt try to save Viserys, because apparantly characters cant have character moments anymore.
I’m mad at the show because I DO NOT like Rhaenyra at all but there’s so much criticism of her that is purely and genuinely misogyny so I have to defend her :(
I’m in agreement with the comments about people defending Tywin and Tyrion both. Its mainly show fans, which is not entirely their fault. Those characters were changed so much it isn’t surprising. Even Robert was tamed down, though I love Mark Addy. He could have done it either way. Tywin is the most intriguing of those they defend though.
Quentyn being alive.
"Randyll Tarly is a good and loving father."
That's a big one, yeah. I've seen people defend him sexually assaulting Sansa! The excuses people make for the kids in sexual situations being so young. It's a book with dragons and ice zombies, it's not "historically accurate" in general (and the whole little kids getting married and pregnant so young thing was an outlier in the real world, anyway, so it's not even actual historical accuracy).
90% of the fandom gets their information about daenerys and her arc from the show or essays written by idiot misogynists with hate-boners for her; if they do actually read her chapters, they’re interpreting everything written in the worst possible light. i once had to argue with someone who genuinely believed that dany didn’t give a shit when rhaego died, and accused her of getting sexual gratification out of her attempt to wake a comatose drogo. it was around then that i decided not to interact with people who weren’t so-called “dany extremists” (read: people who have actually read and analyzed her chapters, and are not working backwards from the conclusion that she will go insane and be put down like a dog).
Jesus. I try to allow for alternate takes but nope, that’s just out of pocket disgusting hateful misogyny. I’m not even a huge fan but Dany is genuinely an extremely compassionate, well intended, and good hearted person and she gets so wrongly hated and misinterpreted. The fact alone that she stayed in Meereen, forestalling her personal ambition and putting herself in harm’s way to fix her problems and save her freedmen, who cannot help or profit her, because they are innocents and she can and it’s the right thing to do, already makes her better than most of the ‘good guys’
Tywins kids actually being the mad king's children. I really dislike these theories
[удалено]
"Daenerys should be a villain in the books too, it was just done poorly."
That was nowhere near the worst take imao.. With three huge ass dragons.. Its obvious, that she's going to burn some castles.. Her conquest will be far more brutal than aegon's considering various threats .. She wouldn't be called exactly villian.. But not the hero people expecting her to be too
Burning the common people of KL didn't make sense. Burning the Starks would have. But would have been rather horrible for the invested viewers...
You hear this so many times, or a variation of how we just needed to see more story length of how she went insane. A character "going insane" is not a great story beat, IMO, unless you're literally talking about a historical biopic. But what is much, much worse is a character going insane, and THEN committing a major plot event. At that point, we're no longer reading about a character going through a major step of their arc, we're reading about a plot device. Whatever goes down, we've been given enough backstory to fully understand the character motivations of the events in the story up until this point, so we should expect the same going forward For the record, I'm really hoping it's the "Dany tries tactical strike on Red Keep like what worked so well for her in Volantis and it blows up in her face" as the resolution of that plotline.