#/Arya is masculine/ and she's literally just a child who has interests outside of her patriarchy-assigned role

[fromtheseventhhell]

Imagine being 9 years old and asking your dad about the things you're interested in doing when you grow up and he's like "No ❤️! But you can get married, have babies, and then maybe your sons can do those things ☺️🫶 "

#arya stark #one of those /wtf Ned/ moments #then people act like she invented misogyny cause she was like /uuuhhhhh no thanks that's not me/ #/Arya is masculine/ and she's literally just a child who has interests outside of her patriarchy-assigned role #the way people read this and then demonize Arya for not silently conforming like people expect her to... #that's the ingrained misogyny from being socialized in a patriarchal society speaking babes 😭 #cannot stress enough how Arya is just an average little girl and what makes her behavior stand out is their society's strict gender norms #her life + learning almost entirely revolves around the fact that she is being raised to be a wife and people resent her for wanting more : #she is NINE in AGoT and her parents are discussing her refinement because /In a few years she will be of an age to marry/ #the way misogyny is explored in Arya's story is actually so brilliant and well-written (+ underappreciated) though #we feel the full weight of how restrictive their society is through her POV and get the experiences of lower-class women too #which is why it's so significant that George wrote her based on feminists who realized they wanted more than becoming wives/housewives #she's one of his key characters who will /change the world/ but people think he's sticking her on a boat bc she isn't feminine enough 😭 #thank god he's writing the books and not any of these reductive hacks who thinks misogyny is subversive 🙏🏾 #sidenote: would've loved to see this from her POV to get her feelings when he said this cause I'm sure it doesn't match Ned's perception #considering he views her main issues as being stubborn/difficult while we know about the self-esteem issues she has

[meow-meow-motherfckr]

The Ghost of Harrenhal

We open with Catelyn having a nice lunch with Renly. She tells him Robb doesn’t want the Iron Throne, and Renly says he can be King in the North--but only in name. She wants him to negotiate a peace with Stannis, which he says is a no can-do, and then he gets killed by Stannis and Mel’s smoke-demon-baby. Talk about timing. Just as she lowers his dead body to the floor, different Kingsguard come in, and ignore Catelyn and Brienne’s insistence that she didn’t kill Renly. This isn’t exactly unreasonable of them. Brienne fights her way out, and even kills a man, which I suppose is more dramatic than Catelyn coming up with an escape plan. Apparently nobody heard the mini battle in the King’s tent, so Brienne has time to cry over Renly before Cat gives her a little pep talk, and they leave because revenge.

Littlefinger’s spidey senses go off, and he goes to find Loras and Margaery. Loras is understandable upset over the death of his lover. Margaery wants to go home with their army. Loras wants revenge. Littlefinger pops up and has an idea to play the long con, and between Littlefinger and Margaery he calms down enough to storm out of the tent. Margaery and Petyr have a little moment, and we find out what Margaery wants is to be the Queen. It’s not a bad direction for them to go with her character, and Natalie does a really good job playing that angle, but the show does tend to neatly divide women into either sexual manipulator or strong badass warrior. At least the cool women.

Tyrion and Cersei discuss Renly’s death, and Stannis’ impending arrival. Cersei can’t be bothered, and Tyrion is mildly concerned. He and Cersei fight about Myrcella, and then Cersei informs him that Joffrey is heading up the war effort, and apparently he’s not telling. Good thing Lancel is there to tell Tyrion that it’s Wildfire. Tyrion threatens him until he gives more detailed plans. Lancel takes a face-plant outside Tyrion’s litter, and then relays his execution orders to Bronn. I feel for this guy.  Honestly, Lancel has more interesting character development than half of the people on the show. Cut to the Stormlands, where Davos is kind of concerned because of the whole demon baby thing, but Stannis is more concerned with bannerman than the fact that he just killed his brother. Davos brings up the moral implications, but gives up and talks about the Blackwater attack. He at least gets to give Stannis the truth, which is that people don’t like Melissandre and think Stannis is her puppet. So they leave for King’s Landing without Mel, because Stannis compares about PR now. But he’s still into killing dissenters. Baaby steps.

Tyrion has an exposition moment and explains that they’re basically screwed as he walks down the streets of King’s Landing, which apparently he does routinely now. He accidentally walks into a rabble, and apparently the people aren’t down with incest. Tyrion is ready to flame Joffrey, until the speaker drops “demon monkey” and Tyrion is, understandably, perturbed. He realizes people blame him for the shit-show that is King’s Landing, when he sees himself as the savior. I mean, he’s still propping up and illegitimate and sadistic tyrant, but he practices harm reduction, so we’re all good.

Theon watches another ship sail away, and it upset by how small his own ship is. Rare pairs, am I right? Nobody follows his commands, and his second mate is ready to mutiny before they even get on board. Yara shows up to mock him, and brag about all her ships, while Theon’s crew sails off without him. SOme random guy comes to help Theon, and he is not quite suspicious enough about why this man wants to help him. He questions Theon’s masculinity, and primes Theon to disobey his father’s orders and go for Torrhen’s Square. Theon realizes the Starks would immediately take it back, leaving Winterfell vulnerable, and the music tells us this is going to be a big deal.

Tywin has a chat about how the Northern lords are discontent, because it’s war, but Tywin thinks they’ve underestimated Robb. He chucks his cousin out of the council/Harrenhall because he wanted a nap, and then he asks Arya where she’s from, and gets her to admit she’s a Northerner. Remember that part where Arya said that Sansa knew all the sigils and she didn’t? And how Sansa actually has practical skills that could assist her in surviving? Oh wait, Sansa’s not allowed to be good at anything. Back to the show, she talks about how great Robb is, and Tywin is super chill with it. Arya says that anyone can be killed, and we’re up to our eyeballs in foreshadowing. Arya wanders around, until Jaqen rolls up and they talk about gender for a hot second. She’s pissy because he works for the Lannisters, but to be fair, she does as well. He offers to take out three people for her, and she tells him to kill the tickler first. She doesn’t name Tywin for some reason despite the fact that he is right fucking there. Maybe she’s grown sympathetic to his harsh, yet grandfatherly manner. Who the fuck knows.

We go up to our Winter Wonderland the Fist of the First Men. The only thing Sam can talk about is Gilly, because his personality is chasing girls I guess. He does geek out for a while to exposit who the First Men are, and then Jon says something gloomy because he’s Jon. I guess they gave up on making Dolorous Ed actually dolorous and made Jon fill that role. Quorin Halfhalnd is introduced as basically the Bear Grylls of Westeros, and then we cut to Tyrion.

Tyrion promptly makes a dick joke, but the Pyromancers take him seriously. They have a shit ton of highly volatile substance, and Bronn points out that if somebody drops some wildfire during a battle it’s game over for King’s landing because that shit burns fucking everything. They also make a nice joke about Aerys and Wildfire, and I think it might even be original, so credit where credit is due. Tyrion takes the whole Wildfire operation from Cersei basically just by saying so, and the pyromancers are down with that because sexism I guess.

Across the Narrow Sea, Dany is teaching her dragons how to barbecue. Drogon is clearly the favorite child. Also I high-key ship Dany and Doreah, and I’m super mad that the writers decided to end Doreah’s storyline the way they did. Irri is bitter because she’s also low-key in love with Dany (who wouldn’t be tbh) but they get along by talking about Dany’s new clothes because that’s what women do. Dany casually brings up the fact that she wasn’t consensually married to her husband, and that he actually bought her, something the fandom collectively tends to forget. There’s this awkward moment where 1) Irri acts like Drogo is the best thing since sliced bread 2) Dany asks Doreah to prostitute herself to get information 3) Irri snaps at Doreah because Dany is getting to westernized, and then 4) Irri tries to cover it up by being nice to Dany, then storms out. It like, there’s actually a complex scene with multiple characters with different motivations and dynamics. The good old days, when the show could write dialogue.

Apparently the costume directors decided to ditch the one-boobie-hanging-out look since they presumably wanted the audience to absorb something from the next scene, which is in the courtyard in Qarth. Dany is networking. She then has to go and stop her Dothraki from stealing a gold peacock, which is supposed to be funny I guess, but in a white-woman-stops-clueless-brown-people-from-stealing sort of way. This isn’t GRRM’s strongpoint either, but the show does a pretty shit job at presenting this is different culture with different values surrounding ownership, and just makes all the Dothraki look uncultured and clueless. Pyat Pree rolls up with his trippy kaleidoscope and makes Dany see double, then tells her to come to his magic castle. Emilia Clarke succeeds at looking mildly confused. Jorah gets jealous when Dany talks to Xaro Xoan Daxos, because he gets jelous everytime she breathes the same air as another man, and then Quaithe rolls up and says something fake-deep. I do not think her makeup was successful, but admittedly, GRRM didn’t give them an easy task.

Cut to Catelyn and Brienne and their pretty horse. They talk about how they saw a shadow deamon kill someone, and they’re trying to play it cool. Cat says it just looked like a generic man, but Brienne is convinced it was Stannis (guess who’s right.) Cat decides to go to see Robb and then head home to see Bran and Rickon. That noise you hear is me bawling my eyes out. Brienne asks for permission to go kill Stannis once she takes Cat home, and Cat is literally the only person on this show who isn’t a revenge zombie. They do keep Brienne’s line about a woman’s kind of courage, which is really nice. They’re pretty much my brotp.

Up north Rickon is smashing wax while being forced to do LordThings, which is honestly #relatablecontent. One of the commoners is talking about how he can’t keep watch of his sheep because everyone went to war, and Bran does the correct LordThing, and sends him some orphans, as one does. Then he scolds Rickon for smashing wax, which is probably this kid’s only source of fun. Ser Rodrick comes in with his funny facial hair and says that Torrhen’s square is under attack, and Bran falls for Theon’s trap, sends 200 men. Maester lewin is a bit iffy about it, but he goes along with it, but allows Bran to be noble and shit. Bran asks Osha about the three-eyed raven, and she isn’t a dream dictionary, which irritates him. He describes his prophetic dream of the sea flooding Winterfell, which honestly... people should listen to Bran more often. Osha mentions that they “say all sorts of crazy things north of the wal” and then the camera cuts... North of the Wall!

It looks cold. Like, yikes. Quorin sees a fire. Sam can’t see it because his eyes are good, so hey, there’s some continuity. He brings the news that all the Wildlings have joined Mance Rayder in an army, and says the wildlings are going to adapt to their habits, so they need to adapt to be more like the wildlings. Quorin wants to start by killing some lookouts, and gathers a team. Jon feels left out, and asks to go with. Sam steps i to take up Jon’s duties because he’s the real MVP, and Jon gets to go on the field trip.

Dany and Zaro have a talk about Jorah and the Friend Zone because what else would anybody else care about in Dany’s storyline? They talk about conquering and what they want, and dragons. He shows her his door to his treasure chamber, though if she were really serious about anything she would ask to see it. He asks for marriage, so she can get enough wealth to take over the seven kingdoms, and he gets a dragon. He also tells her Robert is dead, so she goes off to argue with Jorah. He advocates for a grassroots campaign, and she tells him not to talk down to her, finally. He compliments her a bit which apparently makes things better. He tells her to “make her won way” which is pretty iffy coming from the guy who’s constantly trying to control her but he promises a ship. One. Ship.

Back in Harrenhall, Arya checks out Gendry’s hot bod and gives him fighting tips, and then somebody dies. It’s the tickler, so she makes meaningful eye contact with Jaqen. And she is officially the ghost of Harrenhal.

#got rewatch #got #game of thrones #arya stark #daenerys targaryen #bran stark #the ghost of harrenhal #jon snow #catelyn stark #brienne of tarth #Theon greyjoy #tyrion lannister