#asoiaf reread 2

[maidensfantasy]

something about eddard xiii is changing my brain chemistry upon reread. ned coming to see robert paralleling him finding lyanna; the three kingsguard outside, ascending a tower, finding them in a pool of blood, begging for ned to protect their children. lyanna’s voice echoing in ned’s head as robert speaks. ned reassures him him was never as bad as aerys, but even robert knows he is not a good king. ned not being able to tell robert the truth of his children and of cersei, he doesn't want his friend to die in more pain than he already is. robert saying ned he was always a bad liar, when that is so far from the truth.

the way ned had no time to grieve for robert before. he wishes to go to the godswood and pray for him and to the gods. he knows people will whisper that ned had betrayed his best friend who had more than a brother to him, but there's no time and its enough that the gods will know he didn't, at least not this time. he cries as he writes to stannis, and refuses to take action when renly offers his men; let robert die thinking joffrey tommen and myrcella are his children, and the comfort of ned's promise to protect them. the way ned died not long after robert did, the way mercy for robert killed him as well. man.

#i need to fully analyze this chapter. #asoiaf #ned stark #robert baratheon #.txt #nedbert #i suppose! they are real 2 me #asoiaf reread

[gojuo]

When his grief had passed, King Aegon II summoned his loyalists and made plans for his return to King’s Landing, to reclaim the Iron Throne and be reunited once again with his lady mother, the Queen Dowager, who had at last emerged triumphant over her great rival, if only by outliving her. “Rhaenyra was never a queen,” the king declared, insisting that henceforth, in all chronicles and court records, his half sister be referred to only as “princess,” the title of queen being reserved only for his mother Alicent and his late wife and sister Helaena, the true queens. And so it was decreed.

— The Princess and the Queen

#CRYING SHAKING THROWING UPPPPPPP #the way tgc has singlehandedly made me care for egg 2 whereas i didnt like him at all in f&b. thats love babey #rereading f&b with all of these new hcs and interpretations of these characters like .... i have to thank hotd for that at the very least #i liked the dance in f&b as in the perfect example of Targs being the most idiotic family in all of westeros bc they did all of this to #themselves. but now i care for the characters on a deeper level bc theyre humans now instead of personalities in a history book. aughhhgggg #tgc I LOOOOOVVEEEE YOUUUU !!!! #asoiaf #hotd spoilers #hotd #aegon ii #alicent #helaena

[knorrig]

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire (2009) // dir. Francis Lawrence, Mockingjay (2013) // Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay (2010) // Mitski, A Pearl (2018)

#ive connected the dots!!!! ive connected them!!!! #thg #the hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #initially i was going to include more from the book + Pearl Diver as well but i got lazy lol #i was rereading the books and i got reminded of the sngs lol.... mitski ur lyricism.... its brilliant #maybe ill continue my asoiaf reread when im done w/ these.... #(probably not though ive been having a blast playing sims 2 the last few days)

[readingoals]

thinking about how its nearly september and i have so many books i want to get to before the end of the year and feeling Very overwhelmed

#booklr #brigid speaks #im currently 2 books behind on the read christie challenge #i am halfway through rereading asoiaf and id like to at least get through asos this year #plus id love to reread if we were villains again #and then i have the annotated copy of frankenstein from lauren to read too #so i was lowkey thinking about spending october reading a few different frankenstein inspired books #and then i have the austen im annotating for lauren for xmas to do too #and its gotta be done soonish cause i gotta send it overseas #and ahhhhhh

[dontbotherwiththepronunciation]

☕️ OTP: Nameless ladies

(Yes, I am targeting you with this) ≖‿≖

Your emoji looks like Nanami smiling before realising she is adopted.

2.

Th€yne? Thram$ay? Gre¥$now? Nah man, let's Stan the true unproblematic hot Ironborn x thirsty Mainlander OTP:

Captain of the Myraham's daughter x Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter.

I want them to hook up. Let the captain of the Myraham's daughter live her erotic saltwife fantasy with the one (1) woman in Asha's crew that we know of, the one ironborn hot murderous pirate who would actually understand the struggle that is to act as a narrative prop for some authorial entity to showcase one of the Greyjoy's siblings lack of ideological integrity.

I have been marinating in my own theories with little to no contact with the fandom since 2016. I have a lot of weird non-sensical thoughts that might be overreaching in their significance but you know that already and the worst possible thing that could develop from posting this is that people will laugh at it.

I think that Kyra and Urri serve as similar narrative props for Theon & Aeron, I think Jeyne & Falia also serve as similar narrative props for Theon & Aeron and I also think that the Captain of the Myraham's Daughter & Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter serve as similar props for Theon & Asha.

In Theon's case the concept of the captain of the myraham's daughter has already been discussed countless times and in all honesty I don't have much to add to it. Yes, he does treat her rather disrespectfully, he does take advantage of her in a way, he doesn't really care for her physical pleasure, he is dismissive of her uneasiness and has a few unkind thoughts about her which made him so loathsome, but all in all I wouldn't call him abusive or violent. Just disappointing.

There is something unbelievably funny about how bad that sexual encounter goes though. The captain of the myraham's daughter is endearingly enthusiastic about the concept of thraldom and salt wives and even begs Theon to take her with him, something he denies her.

Why though? He has been romanticising the Old Way (Or what he thinks he understands about this idolised and romanticised view of the Old Way) the entire journey and if he truly considers himself to be one of the exemplary Ironborns who would take what they wanted with no qualms, why does he leave her there? She could have even served as an example of virility or status, a mark to say "I am Ironborn. I haven't forgotten our history and culture."

But no, he just leaves her there to the mercy of an angry father.

I know she has been read as a narrative vessel hundreds of times and she is one, but the message behind her presence varies depending on interpretation and, to me, this could be (among other things) a way of displaying Theon's subconscious lack of ideological compromise, which we see often through the text (his reaction to the raids on the stony shore, his disappointment at how commonly the other Ironborn treat him, Smiler, etc.)

To me Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter is also evidence for an ideological divide concerning Ironborn culture and tradition, but she is there to signify Asha's, not Theon's.

Ironborn culture is so interesting to me and I tend to think of it more fondly than I'm probably supposed to because of hundreds of reasons I've already told you about and one of those is that it allows women more liberties than most of Westeros but still chains them to a place of submission compared to men. A woman might be the captain of her own ship, which would make her a queen if going by Theon.

"If every captain was a king aboard his own ship, as was often said, it was small wonder they named the islands the land of ten thousand kings." (Theon | ACOK)

I think on the video games they could even become priestesses for the Drowned God, so if going by that as canon world-building (we shouldn't but it would be cool) they could also find a place in religious organisations. They can be stewards. The only two female stewards we have met in asoiaf are Iron Islanders (Manifesting for Noseless Jeyne to become Pyke or Harlaw's steward at the end of ADOS).

And yet...the most gender-non-conforming Ironborn woman we've met, asides from Asha...doesn't even get a name.

It seems curious to me how Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter is only known as that: "Hagen's daughter" and this coming from ASHA out of all characters who is actively struggling with her culture's sexism in order to get the seastone chair for herself.

Most Iroborn characters are referred to by mentioning some physical feature or disability accompanying their name, but in her case, instead of her name, we get her father's name used with a possessive apostrophe.

The main difference between Asha's character archetype and Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter's, is that one of them is lowborn and the other not, which could be a way of highlighting how class differences still exist among Ironborn, who consider themselves to be equals in their superiority of other races but still have a feudal hierarchy, but in all honesty the class issue is (in my opinion) overshadowed by how both characters identities are so depending on their fathers.

The text often remarks on Asha as someone who was "groomed" (the very use of that word in fanon text already has some unconscious troublesome connotation I don't agree with) into her personality by her father.

This girl forgets herself. Balon let her believe she was a man." "Balon’s sons are dead. All I see is Balon’s little daughter!" (Aeron | AFFC)

Never do they ever speak of her as "Asha" when it is about her wanting the crown; it's about Balon's daughter. (In a way it reminds me of the Northerner's going to save Arya and also not referring to her as such. They speak of "Ned's girl")

But anyway, I never really expected them to refer to Asha as Asha, but I would have hoped Asha would have been conscious enough of her struggles to recognise her fellow warrior woman as more than just her father's shadow.

Whenever people speculate on how Asha's interactions with other gender-non-conforming women (ex. Brienne, Arya) might look like, I just think of Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter. and wonder whether this comes from a place of class privilege or unconsciousness against the thing she is consciously fighting against.

I have no idea what Asha's endgame might look like and usually, I like seeing her as Theon's puppeteer, but if we have to witness her settling to be the unofficial ruler or perhaps not even a ruler at all, it would be sad to see her haunted by her father's shadow. It also makes me wonder whether she really ever had a chance at the Kingsmoot.

Whatever, another possibility I like to fantasise about is simply that Asha and Hagen's beautiful red haired daughter hooked up, dated, had a messy breakup and now Asha is trying to distance herself from her.

That's a funnier alternative. Would also add angst and maybe some comedic potential to the nameless ladies OTP.

Ship, ship, ship, I ship.

#for my birthday I wanted to commission someone to draw or write them as a 70s ertica or something #I can't even read eotica without being triggered but I think the sapphics deserve it. #I'm gonna make them on sims medieval #asoiaf #asha greyjoy #*shrek 2 voice*: they (the women this is about) don't even have tags #I love it when grrm pulls an All the Names on us #He learnt from Saramago and for that I respect him #theostrichsdaughter #has to read All the Names! #I have to reread All the Names again #I have to revisit the all the names/Theon Greyjoy/der verlorene analysis when I finish the term #no one would understand nor be interested in that but I'm used to that #Theon and der verlorene are 180° degree turns on the same angle #Asha is der verlorene while Theon is Arnold but also Theon is the actual Verlorene while Asha is the true Arnold their parents dreamed of #Alannys/Mutter Balon/Vater Theon-Asha/Der Verlorene-Arnold but inverted. #I have to finish translating der verlorene #I have to finish the term #I have to go to Europe #I have to morrow tomorrow #*cries* #god this fucking escalated #otp: they don't even have names #speaking

[coollikeacaterpillar]

actually rereading asoiaf was really bad for me because I have regressed into my sixteen year old self and cannot think of anything else other than these godforsaken books again

#asoiaf #asoiaf reread #please mr germ on begging i need twow released soon or im gonna go insane #i tried to start reading something else and got 2 pages in before stopping because it wasnt asoiaf #its my own fault for thinking i could escape the lure of this fandom but fucking still #im at work coming up with fan theories i cannot cope

[allovesthings]

I do really like the relationship between Cat and the Blackfish. She trust him and he seems to think she is the most qualified of her siblings to be leading. 

Also theirs mutual incomprehension of Lysa’s terrible choice is very funny.

#asoiaf #asoiaf reread #Catelyn Stark #The Blackfish #Brynden Tully #catelyn chapter tyrion trial part 2 #a song of ice and fire

[gendrie]

jon vii

i kinda like the idea of never knowing what happened to benjen. you dont always get closure. life is full of loose ends. sometimes stories should be too. but bran will prob find out

most animals are terrified of the wights but ghost wants to CHOMP

oh un!jon gonna have red eyes for sure. hes gonna look demonic 😈

love that sam got to prove himself

everything is blowing up and jeors just like new recruits??? please???

aw jon thinking that his sisters are all alone 

hobb gave him extra bread and the boys are all trying to cheer him up. its so sweet.

oop a bit of attempted murder bc thorne is a prick

zombie shit is kicking off and a bird saved the day

bran vi

rickon was so attached to robb. poor baby. 

i miss the greatjons insane energy

"arya and sansa had been murdered by the hound" lies

robb was so pissed that sansa didnt mention arya "damn her!" and bran’s "she lost her wolf" 

shouldve listened to osha

bran overhearing the other lordlings say they’d rather be dead and that hes broken is so hurtful

bran is lord of winterfell and robb will never return home or see his siblings ever again #depressed

i wish i didnt know what hodor meant honestly

daenerys vi

dany being "delighted" to find sausage and peppers. shes so cute. 

and shes buying presents for her handmaidens

wineseller ruins a perfectly nice day. now danys afraid again

i mean she has no choice but to play offense? the lords of westeros actively tried to kill her and her unborn child. 

and honestly why should she settle? for Vaes Dothrak? or even the free cities? nobody ever says that shit about any other westeros based character

first try at hatching the dragon eggs was a bust but dany intuitively senses the power in them

#asoiaf reread #i really miss when the books had a small number of povs #8 is so nice and enjoyable #the 2 dozen going into twow grinds my freaking gears

[aeriondripflame]

“He told himself he was fortunate in that too.” “His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.”

“His feet got tangled under him as he tried to leave, and he lurched sideways into a serving girl and sent a flagon of spiced wine crashing to the floor. Laughter boomed all around him, and Jon felt hot tears on his cheeks. ”

#i always get the teary eyed reading this like stop making fun of my boy! pay attention 2 him pls 😭😭😭😭 #jon snow #asoiaf reread #guava.txt

[queer-trashmouth]

#asoiaf #got #a song of ice and fire #game of thrones #polls #me #I’m finally watching the show and rereading the series #idk if it’s still relevant but I also love 2 have fun

[mummer]

emotionally FRAGILE about grenn rn.... its been so long.... the perfect little ascended extra.... hit sam i asos on my reread and was so struck at how he would not let sam just lie there. just kept on trying to get him up. theyre not even close and it was nearly hopeless during the hardest moment of their entire lives but he couldnt not try. i cant help thinking that if sam turns out as important as i think he will for future events those events will be completely contingent on grenn not giving up on him then. telling sam to think of his family and songs and stories. throwing an empty torch at an other even though he knows it’s hopeless. but it isnt. pink light! dawn, sam, dawn!

#AND he gets the little theme defining quote next sam chapter about how being afraid is how you get brave. LIKE #hes so important and for literally no reason. #and he also gets the sad little thing where he DOES leave sam after the coup like......... :((((((( #*mutiny lol whats the diff #sam moves on to his other beautiful kind strong minor character #but wow its crazy..... like this is a nobody and HE faces an OTHER. #the way the dawn coming at the end of the chapter is very like. overt about the symbolism but so beautiful.... #like yah the chapter is the series in microcosm the precursor to the actual battle for the dawn and then u get the dream of spring yadda #yadda. but poignant that it’s him for some reason and especially poignant that it’s sam but weve been over that of course. #asoiaf reread #the way its been 2 years since thinking about him this hard. im a wreck

[heavenlyyshecomes]

—october readings <3

#average reading month despite all the agonies #mostly just continued my reread of asoiaf #readings #book log #ok 2 rb if u want !

[daenerysoftarth]

Alright starting my asoiaf reread bc I’m a basic bitch and I wanna see my children (dany and arya mainly) again

#also I can’t believe I have to wait until book 2 for brienne…. and not until affc for brienne and pod 🥲 #asoiaf reread #my posts

[doctormage]

i totally acknowledge and respect ppl’s critiques of hotd but a lot of it i just Don’t Really Get

#yeah the show is leaning pretty heavily toward Rhaenyra & co being ‘in the right’ #but they’ve done so much w alicent and her relationships w her dad & viserys & LARYS fr #(imo. it’s been a while since I read anything but the main books which is why I’m rereading f&b rn) #idk I keep writing essays in these tags but #i don’t mind a lot of the changes they’ve made and I think it gives the story more nuance rather than less #knowing GRRM is closely involved gives me a pretty hefty dose of confidence that they’re not just fucking around wanting to make #a discount girlboss daenerys 2.0 #and like. isn’t the point that none of it is forgivable? #even with the backstories and the betrayals and the intention and the good deeds done elsewhere #it was all still a huge fuckup that kickstarted the fall of the targaryen dynasty? isn’t that the fucking??? point?????? #anyway if this shows up in the tag I’m not arguing w anyone lol #i am simply externalizing on mine own blog. perchance to see what my few remaining asoiaf mutuals have 2 say #edit: maybe shouldn’t say it’s leaning heavily toward Rhaenyra being in the right but it does heavily sympathize w her so. yknow

[oceaniads]

good news: i finished asos part i yeeeey!

bad news: only seven chapters until the red wedding 😭 may the seven help me go through it again after more than ten years since i've read it for the first time 😖

#maya's asoiaf reread #srsly im not ready #i'll likely read another book before starting part 2 only to procrastinate the rw

[lenoxtitia]

re-reading asoiaf thoughts: so...... ned says in eddard i that men found him in the room after lyanna died (namely howland reed), does that mean if r+l=j is true, they know about jon being rhaegar and lyannas kid? like they must've seen the aftermath of the birth, much less baby jon.

does that mean there are guys just casually chilling about knowing ned's lying about jon while all this drama is going on? is this where jon is going to find out? it's just so wild to me that ned bends back over for this and these dudes just... know

#lena thinks thoughts #asoiaf reread #asoiaf thoughts #in my defense i have not read the books in like 5-ish years #and i stopped sometime during book 2 or so #so this might be adressed/solved later on #asoiaf spoilers #sort of #more like #asoiaf speculation