#or as I like to call it Sansa Stark throughout asoiaf | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-king-andthe-lionheart · 3 years

Text

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes - Arya Stark and her Cinderella Motifs

In A Song of Ice and Fire, GRRM often uses fairy tale motifs to help tell a character’s story. Sometimes this motif spans all throughout the characters arc while other times it will only be used for one or two scenes, or anywhere in between. And often one character can have several fairy tale motifs at different times in their arcs or even running concurrently. For Arya, she has quite a few fairy tale motifs in her arc, but for now I’m going to focus on her Cinderella motifs that are mainly prevalent in A Clash of Kings but do show up at other times all throughout her arc as well. I’m going to focus primarily on Arya’s A Clash of Kings arc, but we will be stopping by A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows a few times too. And I am going to use several versions of the retellings of Cinderella, including the Disney version, but only the 1950 original and none of its sequels. I also want to note that not all the parallels are obvious due to things being more metaphorical or symbolic, while other times being whatever subversion that tickled GRRM’s fancy at the time.

There are many common aspects across the board when it comes to Cinderella retellings. Often it entails the heroine losing one or both of her parents, being oppressed by her abusive stepmother and stepsisters and being forced into menial, backbreaking labor that leaves the heroine dirty and often covered in ashes. It usually entails a magical guardian who helps the heroine, magical transformations, ballgowns and a ball where she falls in love with either a Prince or a King. An identifying item is also involved, usually a slipper made of gold or glass, where one of the pair is lost when the heroine is running from her beloved. And the Prince/King almost always searches the realm for the woman that identifying item belongs to, and when he finds the heroine they usually marry.

Written out like that it’s hard to believe that this is a motif used for Arya. After all she’s not in the position to be going to balls and she’s just a child so it seems unlikely at the time she’s at Harrenhal she’s going to fall in love. However, this motif appears all throughout her arc in various and creative and subversive and repetitive ways, and motifs don’t have to be all or none and they don’t have to be in the order the original stories were laid out. A lot of people also don’t like the idea that Arya has an actual Disney Princess motif in her story because she’s a “tomboy”, but the fact is that Arya is a Princess at the time she’s at Harrenhal, it’s even explicitly stated in Arya X ACOK, whether people acknowledge it or not, where a lot of these motifs take place. I know some people will be dismissive of this and think I’m reaching, but I hope upon reading this I’ll have convinced you of this motif being present. :)

Step-Mother and Step-Sisters

Some of the two most common features in any variant of Cinderella is the “Persecuted Heroine” and the “Female Persecutor”. Often this manifests as the wicked stepmother and the evil step-sisters, but in some versions a stepmother does not appear, and it’s the heroine’s older sisters who confine her to the kitchens instead. In the opera, La Cenerentola, Gioachino Rossini inverted the gender roles where the heroine Cenerentola is oppressed by her stepfather. And in some retellings at least one of the step siblings is somewhat kind to the heroine even. We symbolically see these archetypes many times in Arya’s narrative with various types of inversions.

When we enter ACOK, we find a dirty and disguised Arya traveling with Yoren and the Night’s Watch recruits, having just lost her father (a subversion of the prevalent theme of Cinderella losing her mother very young). She is also being bullied by two older boys, Lommy and Hot Pie:

At Winterfell they [Sansa and Jeyne] had called her “Arya Horseface” and she’d thought nothing could be worse, but that was before the orphan boy Lommy Greenhands had named her “Lumpyhead.” - Arya I ACOK

That wasn’t the hardest part at all; Lommy Greenhands and Hot Pie were the hardest part. - Arya I ACOK

“Look at that sword Lumpyhead’s got there,” Lommy said one morning […] “Where’s a gutter rat like Lumpyhead get him a sword?”

[. . .]

“Maybe he’s a little squire,” Hot Pie put in. […] “Some lordy lord’s little squire boy, that’s it.”

“He ain’t no squire, look at him. I bet that’s not even a real sword. I bet it’s just some play sword made of tin.”

Arya hated them making fun of Needle. “It’s castle-forged steel, you stupid,” she snapped, turning in the saddle to glare at them, “and you better shut your mouth.”

The orphan boys hooted. “Where’d you get a blade like that, Lumpyface?” Hot Pie wanted to know.

“Lumpyhead,” corrected Lommy. He prob’ly stole it.”

“I did not!” she shouted. Jon Snow had given her Needle. Maybe she had to let them call her Lumpyhead, but she wasn’t going to let them call Jon a thief.

“If he stole it, we could take it off him,” said Hot Pie. “It’s not his anyhow. I could use me a sword like that.”

Lommy egged him on. “Go on, take it off him, I dare you.”

Hot Pie kicked his donkey, riding closer. “Hey, Lumpyface, you gimme that sword.” […] “You don’t know how to use it.”

[. . .]

“Look at him,” brayed Lommy Greenhands. “I bet he’s going to cry now. You want to cry, Lumpyhead?” – Arya I ACOK

In the first two quotes we have Arya likening the behavior of Hot Pie and Lommy to that of Jeyne Poole and Sansa. In AGOT, Sansa and Jeyne took on the “evil step-sister” archetype (and before anybody attacks me, I don’t think these two are actually “evil”, just children who think it’s okay to bully someone who is different from them), but now we are shown that this archetype has temporarily shifted onto Lommy and Hot Pie, with some subversions. These two are now male and they aren’t related to Arya in any way. Some variants of the Cinderella story do portray male siblings mistreating the younger “Cinderella” sibling though. One of the stories in One Thousand and One Nights depict a story called “Judar and his Brethren”, in which the main character is poisoned by his biological brothers in the end, depicting a rare tragic ending for this retelling. However, these subversions are completely fine because either way, they took on the role of the “bully” to Arya’s Cinderella archetype currently in the narrative.

Furthermore, while Septa Mordane was the obvious “wicked stepmother” archetype to Arya’s Cinderella archetype in AGOT, I think arguably this has fallen to Cersei now (and the Lannister’s as a whole). Cersei may not be present, but she is the reason why Arya is in the situation she is in right now. After all, Cersei takes on the role of “Evil Queen” for Sansa and Jon (they both share Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs motifs) so I do think she is the metaphorical “wicked stepmother” in this equation regardless of the fact that Cersei isn’t anything remotely close to a stepmother to Arya in the narrative, but she fits the general archetype of “female persecutor” the most in the current situation. For the case about Septa Mordane being a “wicked stepmother” archetype, I want to point to Cenerentola by Basile, in which the “wicked stepmother” started out as being the heroine’s governess, and Septa’s are the closest substitute to a governess in the universe of ASOIAF.

This isn’t the end to these archetypes being in play. As the early chapters of ACOK go on we see the animosity between Lommy, Hot Pie, and Arya disappear to the point where they become allies and then friends. With this shift in dynamic we see the archetypes disappearing with some of these same characters taking on entirely new Cinderella archetypes, while the “wicked stepmother” and “evil step-sibling” archetypes move onto other characters as well.

At Harrenhal we are introduced to two wicked women who next take on the “evil step-sibling” archetype, Goodwife Harra and Goodwife Amabel. These two even comment on Arya’s feet:

When Arya's turn came round, Goodwife Amabel clucked in dismay at the sight of her feet, while Goodwife Harra felt the callus on her fingers that long hours of practice with Needle had earned her. "Got those churning butter, I'll wager," she said. "Some farmer's whelp, are you? Well, never you mind, girl, you have a chance to win a higher place in this world if you work hard. If you won't work hard, you'll be beaten. And what do they call you?"

Arya dared not say her true name, but Arry was no good either, it was a boy’s name and they could see she was no boy. “Weasel,” she said, naming the first girl she could think of. “Lommy called me Weasel.”

“I can see why,” sniffed Goodwife Amabel. “That hair is a fright and a nest for lice as well. We’ll have it off, and then you’re for the kitchens.”

“I’d sooner tend the horses.” Arya liked horses, and maybe if she was in the stables she’d be able to steal one and escape.

Goodwife Harra slapped her so hard that her swollen lip broke open all over again. “And keep that tongue to yourself or you’ll get worse. No one asked your views.”

The blood in her mouth had a salty metal tang to it. Arya dropped her gaze and said nothing. If I still had Needle, she wouldn’t dare hit me, she thought sullenly.

“Lord Tywin and his knights have grooms and squires to tend their horses, they don’t need the likes of you,” Goodwife Amabel said. “The kitchens are snug and clean, and there’s always a warm fire to sleep by and plenty to eat. You might have done well there, but I can see you’re not a clever girl. Harra, I believe we should give this one to Weese.”

“If you think so, Amabel.” They gave her a shift of grey roughspun wool and a pair of ill-fitting shoes and sent her off. – Arya VI ACOK

Later Goodwife Amabel even threatens to rape Arya:

Three Frey men-at-arms were using them that morning as Arya went to the well. She tried not to look, but she could hear the men laughing. The pail was very heavy once full. She was turning to bring it back to Kingspyre when Goodwife Amabel seized her arm. The water went sloshing over the side onto Amabel's legs. "You did that on purpose," the woman screeched.

"What do you want?" Arya squirmed in her grasp. Amabel had been half-crazed since they'd cut Harra's head off.

"See there?" Amabel pointed across the yard at Pia. "When this northman falls you'll be where she is."

"Let me go." She tried to wrench free, but Amabel only tightened her fingers.

"He will fall too, Harrenhal pulls them all down in the end. Lord Tywin's won now, he'll be marching back with all his power, and then it will be his turn to punish the disloyal. And don't think he won't know what you did!" The old woman laughed. "I may have a turn at you myself. Harra had an old broom, I'll save it for you. The handle's cracked and splintery—" - Arya X ACOK

Menial, Backbreaking Labor

When Arya is enslaved and forced into the oppressive walls of Harrenhal, she is forced to scrub floors and do other menial, backbreaking work from sunrise to sunset, just like Cinderella:

Weese used Arya to run messages, draw water, and fetch food, and sometimes to serve at table in the Barracks Hall above the armory, where the men-at-arms took their meals. But most of her work was cleaning. The ground floor of the Wailing Tower was given over to storerooms and granaries, and two floors above housed part of the garrison, but the upper stories had not been occupied for eighty years. Now Lord Tywin had commanded that they be made fit for habitation again. There were floors to be scrubbed, grime to be washed off windows, broken chairs and rotted beds to be carried off. The topmost story was infested with nests of the huge black bats that House Whent had used for its sigil, and there were rats in the cellars as well . . . and ghosts, some said, the spirits of Harren the Black and his sons. – Arya VII ACOK

She spent the rest of that day scrubbing steps inside the Wailing Tower. By evenfall her hands were raw and bleeding and her arms so sore they trembled when she lugged the pail back to the cellar. Too tired even for food, Arya begged Weese's pardons and crawled into her straw to sleep. – Arya VII ACOK

Magical Transformations and Mice

In Disney’s Cinderella, the fairy godmother transforms mice into different creatures. On the road to Harrenhal, Arya not only likens herself to a sheep, but a mouse and continues her time at Harrenhal referring to herself as a “mouse”. This is also a subversion, while Cinderella in the Disney incarnation befriends mice, in our story Arya becomes the meek mouse:

On the road Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse. She was grey as a mouse in her scratchy wool shift, and like a mouse she kept to the crannies and crevices and dark holes of the castle, scurrying out of the way of the mighty. – Arya VII ACOK

He does not know me, she thought. Arry was a fierce little boy with a sword, and I’m just a grey mouse girl with a pail. – Arya VII ACOK

She was very small and Harrenhal was very large, full of places where a mouse could hide. – Arya VII ACOK

Even Jaqen calls Arya a mouse:

She crept up quiet as a shadow, but he opened his eyes all the same. “She steals in on little mice feet, but a man hears,” he said. How could he hear me? She wondered, and it seemed as if he heard that as well. “The scuff of leather on stone sings loud as warhorns to a man with open ears. Clever girls go barefoot.” – Arya VIII ACOK

However, through Jaqen, Arya begins to feel more in control of her situation, stronger and is transformed, if only for a short time.

“…Some are saying it was Harren’s ghost flung him down.” He snorted to show what he thought of such notions.

It wasn’t Harren, Arya wanted to say, it was me. She has killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I’m the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate. – Arya VII ACOK

I was a sheep, and then I was a mouse, I couldn’t do anything but hide. Arya chewed her lip and tried to think when her courage had come back. Jaqen made me brave again. He made me a ghost instead of a mouse. – Arya IX ACOK

Lucifer the Cat

In Disney’s Cinderella, Lucifer is Lady Tremaine’s cat who is described as being a sly, wicked, and manipulative mouse consumer. He spends the whole film trying to torment and catch the mice. I feel that Weese takes on aspects of this feline character, and I think this because of certain descriptors that are given to Weese to make him appear almost catlike:

“Weasel,” Weese purred, “next time I see that mouth droop open, I’ll pull out your tongue and feed it to my bitch.” – Arya VII ACOK

In his own small strutting way, Weese was nearly as scary as Ser Gregor. The Mountain swatted men like flies, but most of the time he did not even seem to know the fly was there. Weese always knew you were there, and what you were doing, and sometimes what you were thinking. He would hit at the slightest provocation, and he had a dog who was near as bad as he was, an ugly spotted bitch that smelled worse than any dog Arya had ever known. Once she saw him set the dog on a latrine boy who’d annoyed him. She tore a big chunk out of the boy’s calf while Weese laughed. – Arya VII ACOK

So here we have Weese purring, strutting, being compared to the Mountain who swats at peoples, and being watchful and observant, very much like a cat. And like in the movie, a dog attacks him. Now Weese didn’t fall from a tower window, but Chiswyck fell/was pushed. Considering these two are the two people Arya had Jaqen kill, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are meant to make up two halves of a whole in this regard. After all, they are both wicked creatures who prey upon the weak, just like Lucifer and they both got their just desserts for it.

Jaq the Mouse

In Disney’s Cinderella, Cinderella rescues mice from traps, as well as from Lucifer, and dresses and feeds them. They perform favors in return. At the beginning of the film, a mouse named Gus is trapped in a cage, and the leader of the mice finds him and retrieves Cinderella to free him. The leader of the mice is a mouse named Jaq, and he was also a mouse that was saved by Cinderella from a cage. This sounds awfully familiar…

Rushing through the barn doors was like running into a furnace. The air was swirling with smoke, the back wall a sheet of fire ground to roof. Their horses and donkeys were kicking and rearing and screaming. The poor animals, Arya thought. Then she saw the wagon, and the three men manacled to its bed. Biter was flinging himself against the chains, blood running down his arms from where the iron clasped his wrists. Rorge screamed curses, kicking at the wood. “Boy!” called Jaqen H’ghar. “Sweet boy!”

[. . .]

“Good boys, kind boys,” called Jaqen H’ghar, coughing.

“Get these fucking chains off!” Rorge screamed.

[. . .]

Going back into that barn was the hardest thing she ever did. Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men. She chewed her lip, and darted through the doors, crouched low where the smoke wasn’t quite so thick.

A donkey was caught in a ring of fire, shrieking in terror and pain. She could smell the stench of burning hair. The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. Arya put a hand over her mouth and nose. She couldn’t see the wagon for the smoke, but she could still hear Biter screaming. She crawled toward the sound.

And then a wheel was looming over her. The wagon jumped and moved a half foot when Biter threw himself against his chains again. Jaqen saw her, but it was too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face. Arya was running, coughing. She heard the steel crash through the old wood, and again, again. An instant later came a crack as loud as thunder, and the bottom of the wagon came ripping loose in an explosion of splinters. – Arya IV ACOK

So here we have Jaq who is leader of the mice, who also helps Cinderella by doing her favors. Then we have Jaqen H’ghar who is the leader of Rorge and Biter (this name seems even more fitting now) and who is performing favors for Arya, which leads me to Jaqen’s dual Cinderella archetype: Fairy Godmother.

Magical Helpers

Some versions of Magical Helpers come from fairy godmothers or talking animals or genies. In other versions this help comes to the heroine through her dead mother, often manifesting through animal aid. In One Thousand and One Nights, in the story of “Judar and his Brethren” Judar is our Cinderella figure, whose own brothers betray and poison him, but before that he was gifted a genie named Al-Ra’ad al-Kasif who granted Judar’s wishes. In the passage below Jaqen grants Arya three “wishes” which is typical for genies to grant in our popular consciousness:

She remembered that she hated him. “You scared me. You’re one of them now, I should have let you burn. What are you doing here? Go away or I’ll yell for Weese.”

“A man pays his debts. A man owes three.”

“Three?”

“The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life. This girl took three that were his. This girl must give three in their places. Speak the names, and a man will do the rest.”

He wants to help me, Arya realized with a rush of hope that made her dizzy. “Take me to Riverrun, it’s not far, if we stole some horses we could—”

He laid a finger on her lips. “Three lives you shall have of me. No more, no less. Three and we are done. So a girl must ponder.” He kissed her hair softly. “But not too long.” – Arya VII ACOK

Later, we also see that “wishes” have consequences, which is also prevalent when genies are concerned. GRRM himself is a big fan of consequences and unintended side effects.

Jaqen is not Arya’s only form of Magical Help at Harrenhal however. Jaqen may take on the role of Fairy Godmother/Genie, but we also see Arya experiencing the help of not only an animal aid, but from a dead parent. For instance, the heroine in Aschenputtel, by the Brother’s Grimm, is given a hazel twig by her father that she plants over her mother’s grave. She waters it with tears and over the years it grows into a glowing hazel tree. The girl prays under it three times a day, chanting, and a bird emerges from it that grants her wishes. There are two instances of something similar happening in the books:

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. “Tell me what to do, you gods,” she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya’s skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father’s voice. “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,” he said.

“But there is no pack,” she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. “I’m not even me now, I’m Nan.”

“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.”

“The wolf blood.” Arya remembered now. “I’ll be as strong as Robb. I said I would.” She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. – Arya X ACOK

Here we see an inversion. Arya’s mother isn’t dead at this time, but her father, Ned is. He is who we hear through the heart tree giving Arya this empowering “Mufasa” moment that gives way to Arya’s true transformation in this arc, she reclaims her identity. And as soon as Arya asks the old gods for aid, a wolf howls in the distance as if in answer. It’s not confirmed but I do truly believe that this howl came from Nymeria, by way of the Old Gods/Greenseers, who somehow helped strengthen their bond. It is after this moment that Arya starts having full on wolf dreams in earnest and it’s through her first wolf dream that we see that Nymeria may have become Arya’s animal aid:

Her dreams were red and savage. The Mummers were in them, four at least, a pale Lyseni and a dark brutal axeman from Ib, the scarred Dothraki horse lord called Iggo and a Dornishman whose name she never knew. On and on they came, riding through the rain in rusting mail and wet leather, swords and axe clanking against their saddles. They thought they were hunting her, she knew with all the strange sharp certainty of dreams, but they were wrong. She was hunting them.

She was no little girl in the dream; she was a wolf, huge and powerful, and when she emerged from beneath the trees in front of them and bared her teeth in a low rumbling growl, she could small the rank stench of fear from horse and man alike. The Lyseni’s mount reared and screamed in terror, and the others shouted at one another in mantalk, but before they could act the other wolves came hurtling from the darkness and the rain, a great pack of them, gaunt and wet and silent.

The fight was short but bloody. The hairy man went down as he unslung his axe, the dark one died stringing an arrow, and the pale man from Lys tried to bolt. Her brothers and sisters ran him down, turning him again and again, coming at him from all sides, snapping at the legs of his horse and tearing the throat from the rider when he came crashing to the earth. – Arya I ASOS

We see here that Nymeria and her pack protected Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie against their pursuers after their escape from Harrenhal.

Here is another instance of Arya praying under the heart tree:

Arya went to her knees. She wasn’t sure how she should begin. She clasped her hands together. Help me, you old gods, she prayed silently. Help me get those men out of the dungeon so we can kill Ser Amory, and bring me home to Winterfell. Make me a water dancer and a wolf and not afraid again, ever.

Was that enough? Maybe she should pray aloud if she wanted the old gods to hear. Maybe she should pray longer. Sometimes her father had prayed a long time, she remembered. But the old gods had never helped him. Remembering that made her angry. “You should have saved him,” she scolded the tree. “He prayed to you all the time. I don’t care if you help me or not. I don’t think you could even if you wanted to.”

“Gods are not mocked, girl.”

The voice startled her. She leapt to her feet and drew her wooden sword. Jaqen H’ghar stood so still in the darkness that he seemed one of the trees. “A man comes to hear a name. One and two and then comes three. A man would have done.”

Arya lowered the splintery point toward the ground. “How did you know I was here?”

“A man sees. A mean hears. A man knows.”

She regarded him suspiciously. Had the gods sent him? “How’d you make the dog kill Weese? Did you call Rorge and Biter up from hell? Is Jaqen H’ghar your true name?

“Some men have many names. Weasel. Arry. Arya.”

She backed away from him, until she was pressed against the heart tree. “Did Gendry tell?”

“A man knows,” he said again. “My lady of Stark.”

Maybe the gods had sent him in answer to her prayers. – Arya IX ACOK

In Cenerentola, the heroine’s (Zezolla) father is given a date seedling by a fairy and he gives it to his daughter. Zezolla cultivates the tree in which a fairy lives. This fairy gives Zezolla magical aid. When Arya prayed beneath the heart tree in the above quote it almost seems like Jaqen appeared from the trees, leaving Arya to question if the old gods sent him.

And like in Aschenputtel and Disney’s Cinderella, Arya spends time at Harrenhal singing/chanting to herself as well:

Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal. – Arya IX ACOK

This is very strange for a couple of reasons. When we first meet Arya she claims not to like songs and doesn’t sing. She continues this up until she goes to Braavos. There she discovers that she likes the bawdy songs when she is using the name, Cat of the Canals. The only exception to this is when Arya is at Harrenhal. Another reason this is odd is because of where Arya is at physically and mentally. So either Arya was always lying about not liking songs, or Arya singing here is supposed to tell us something.

And while this might not mean anything, I found it interesting that Arya spends a lot of her time in ACOK barefoot. Now Cinderella isn’t really said to be barefoot in the stories, but she did usually lose a shoe when running away from the Prince/King, hence making her barefoot. When Arya decides to escape Harrenhal, she does don a pair of shoes again and from then on out she mostly wears them. This also leads to a fun bit of subversion. In the originals tales it’s always the Prince/King saving Cinderella from further oppression. But in Arya X ACOK, not only did she (a princess) plan the escape, but she saves Gendry, a lost (albeit bastard) prince, along with Hot Pie, from further oppression (and torture and death) by their slavers in their prison camp. (Hot Pie definitely reminds me of Gus Gus as well by the way :D)

From Rags to Riches

In many versions of Cinderella, we also see the heroine become physically transformed. The heroine is usually dirty, covered in ashes, and wearing “rags” before they are made over. In the most popular version, Disney’s Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother magically turns her from dirty household servant to highborn lady, adorning her in a silver ballgown and glass slippers. In Ye Xian, magical fish bones, help the heroine dress appropriately for a local Festival, including a light, golden shoe. And in Aschenputtel, the doves that emerge from her hazel tree, that grant the heroine wishes, drop a gold and silver gown and silk shoes down to her to wear to the ball. Also, noticeably, this is the time the Prince/King notices Cinderella and finally “sees” her.

While we didn’t get anything like that in ACOK, we don’t have to look much farther than ASOS, when Arya goes to Acorn Hall and meets Lady Smallwood, who puts her in two different dresses:

And afterward, they insisted she dress herself in girl’s things, brown woolen stockings and a light linen shift, and over that a light green gown with acorns embroidered all over the bodice in brown thread, and more acorns bordering the hem. – Arya IV ASOS

It was even worse than before; Lady Smallwood insisted that Arya take another bath, and cut and comb her hair besides; the dress she put her in this time was sort of lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls. The only good thing about it was that it was so delicate that no one could expect her to ride in it. – Arya IV ASOS

And while there is no ball, Arya and Gendry spend their time in the forge together. This is the very first time Gendry has seen Arya look like a proper lady. Cinderella and Arya are no longer dirty and in rags and they are now in gowns looking their place in society, despite Arya’s dress not being nearly as grand. However, it’s enough of a change for Gendry to finally realize just who Arya truly is when it comes to her place in the world. And judging by his behavior after this event, he also begins to acknowledge that if he continues to stay by her side he could potentially love her romantically in the future as well:

Gendry reached out with the tongs as if to pinch her face, but Arya swatted them away.

[. . .]

Gendry put the hammer down and looked at her. “You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.” – Arya IV ASOS

Runaway Princess

Now we may not have had a ball, but while taking shelter in a stone stable with the Brotherhood Without Banners, Arya does run outside, trying to get away from everyone:

His words beat at her ears like the pounding of a drum, and suddenly it was more than Arya could stand. She wanted Riverrun, not Acorn Hall; she wanted her mother and her brother Robb, not Lady Smallwood or some uncle she never knew. Whirling, she broke for the door, and when Harwin tried to grab her arm she spun away from him quick as a snake.

Outside the stables the rain was still falling, and distant lightning flashed in the west. Arya ran as fast as she could. She did not know where she was going, only that she wanted to be alone, away from all the voices, away from their hollow words and broken promises. All I wanted was to go to Riverrun. It was her own fault, for taking Gendry and Hot Pie with her when she left Harrenhal. She would have been better alone. If she had been alone, the outlaws would never have caught her, and she’d be with Robb and her mother by now. They were never my pack. If they had been, they wouldn’t leave me. She splashed through a puddle of muddy water. Someone was shouting her name, Harwin probably, or Gendry, but the thunder drowned them out as it rolled across the hills half a heartbeat behind the lightning. The lightning lord, she thought angrily. Maybe he couldn’t die, but he could lie. – Arya VIII ASOS

Now it’s not explicitly clear that it was Gendry who ran after Arya, calling her name, but due to the possible symbolism in the scene, and also his behavior in AFFC, it makes me think it was him. But whether he was or not I believe just Arya believing it might be him makes this applicable enough as a loose parallel for the Prince chasing after Cinderella, only for Cinderella to disappear like in many of the Cinderella retellings.

Searching the Realm

At the end of ASOS in the epilogue we learn that Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood Without Banners, who Gendry is a part of is actively searching for Arya:

The outlaw gave him (Merrett Frey) an encouraging smile. “Well, as it happens, we’re looking for a dog that ran away.”

“A dog?” Merrett was lost. “What kind of dog?”

“He answers to the name Sandor Clegane […] Did you see him at the wedding, perchance?”

[. . .]

“He would have had a child with him,” said the singer. “A skinny girl, about ten. Or perhaps a boy the same age.”

“I don’t think so,” said Merrett. “Not that I knew.” – Epilogue ASOS

In many retellings of the Cinderella story, the Prince/King searches the realm looking for the heroine with an identifying item, and typically that item is a shoe of some sort. Once the shoe is placed on the heroine’s foot it symbolically means the heroine is reclaiming her identity. Arya, however, didn’t lose a shoe, and I’d argue that when Ned/the Old Gods/the Greenseers spoke to Arya through the heart tree, empowering Arya, that’s when Arya reclaimed her identity, at least for that time as Arya must reclaim her identity multiple times in her arc. I’d argue that Arya’s connection to the North and her family is her overall identifying item. But I fully believe Gendry himself might be another “identifying item,” along with him still taking on the archetypal role of “prince”.

Why do I say this? Because in AFFC Gendry is stationed at one of the last known places Arya was sighted at with the Hound, the Crossroads Inn, where he is blacksmithing while also helping to look after orphans. He was likely stationed there by Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood Without Banners because he knew Arya the best out of everyone (remember LSH would probably have a hard time recognizing Arya after two plus years and a resurrection). So if she returned, he would not only have a better chance at recognizing her, but also possibly a better chance at keeping her there compared to anyone else. If people are doubting that this is Gendry’s role, just remember that the BWB is actively looking for Arya, and also note Gendry’s personality shift post-ASOS. Gendry has always been rude and moody, but in AFFC it has been taken to the extreme. He is absolutely furious and instead of being just plain rude, he’s actually become mean and more violent. He also seems to have something against the Hound now, someone who he previously had nothing against during the Hound’s trial by combat earlier in ASOS:

…The boy came and stood beside her, his hammer in his hand.

Lightning cracked to the south as the riders swung down off their horses. For half a heartbeat darkness turned to day. An axe gleamed silvery blue, light shimmered off mail and plate, and beneath the dark hood of the lead rider Brienne glimpsed an iron snout and rows of steel teeth, snarling.

Gendry saw it too. “Him.”

“Not him. His helm.” Brienne tried to keep the fear from her voice, but her mouth was dry as dust. – Brienne VII AFFC

That “him” was very pointed and because of the symbolism in the scene surrounding that “him” and the overall change in Gendry’s behavior I definitely take it to mean Gendry does have a problem with the Hound now. So what changed? The Hound kidnapped Arya. I think it’s safe to say that Gendry is just as invested as the rest of the BWB, if not more so, to finding Arya again, hence making him the “prince” searching the realm for his lost Cinderella.

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

In Disney’s Cinderella, songs like “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, “So This Is Love”, “Cinderella”, “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, “Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale”, and “The Work Song” are included into the film. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this in the previous retellings however. Like I mentioned earlier the Brother’s Grimm, Aschenputtel, features this as well to some extant. In Aschenputtel, the heroine would “sing a chant” to call upon the white doves that came from her glowing hazel tree. These birds would help her grant wishes and help her complete tasks, and it was most likely the inspiration for why birds were included in the Disney version, although birds have featured in more than just Aschenputtel. I mention this because GRRM wrote Arya a song in the novels:

“My featherbed is deep and soft,

and there I'll lay you down,

I'll dress you all in yellow silk,

and on your head a crown.

For you shall be my lady love,

and I shall be your lord.

I'll always keep you warm and safe,

and guard you with my sword.

“And how she smiled and how she laughed,

the maiden of the tree.

She spun away and said to him,

no featherbed for me.

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,

and bind my hair with grass,

But you can be my forest love,

and me your forest lass.”

This is very clearly a love song also and we know it’s most likely about Arya and her foreshadowing a possible future relationship with Gendry. And it’s very clearly about them as Gendry is a bastard Baratheon “prince”, hence the mentions of “yellow silk” and a “crown”, and also because Arya quite literally is dressed as an oak tree at this time and almost a maiden and will be a maiden when they reunite later in the series. We also know the song is meant to foreshadow them because of the context. Tom O’Seven’s specifically winked at Arya as he sang this song, and after the song was sung Lady Smallwood, when taking Arya to get changed into a different dress, said to Arya, “I have no gowns of leaves,” which further tells the readers that this song is Arya’s song, her future love song.

A Mother’s Legacy

In the Magical Helpers section above I mentioned that a dead parent may be the one to help the heroine instead of the typical fairy godmother, by either sending an animal to aid the heroine and/or granting wishes, or by the heroine’s mother transforming into an animal. In some Greek versions, in “the Balkan-Slavonic tradition of the tale”, and in some Central Asian variants, the heroine’s mother comes back as a cow who is then killed by the heroine’s sisters. The heroine eventually gathers the bones and from her mother’s grave the heroine is gifted wonderful dresses. In other variants, the heroine’s dead mother comes back as a fish or a female dog. These animals represent the heroine’s mother’s legacy.

Jon chuckled. “Perhaps you should do the same thing, little sister. Wed Tully to Stark in your arms.”

“A wolf with a fish in its mouth?” It made her laugh. “That would look silly…” – Arya I AGOT

That night she went to sleep thinking of her mother, and wondering if she should kill the Hound in his sleep and rescue Lady Catelyn herself. When she closed her eyes she saw her mother’s face against the back of her eyelids. She’s so close I could almost smell her…

…and then she could smell her. The scent was faint beneath the other smells, beneath moss and mud and water, and the stench of rotting reeds and rotting men. She padded slowly through the soft ground to the river’s edge, lapped up a drink, then lifted her head to sniff. The sky was grey and thick with cloud, the river green and full of floating things. Dead men clogged the shallows, some still moving as the water pushed them, others washed up on the banks. Her brothers and sisters swarmed around them, tearing at the rich ripe flesh.

[. . .]

The scent was stronger now [. . .] Only the scent mattered. She sniffed the air again. There it was, and now she saw it too, something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against a snag. The reeds bowed down before it.

She splashed noisily through the shallows and threw herself into the deeper water, her legs churning. The current was strong but she was stronger. She swam, following her nose. The river smells were rich and wet, but those were not the smells that pulled her. She paddled after the sharp red whisper of cold blood, the sweet cloying stench of death. She chased them as she had often chased a red deer through the trees, and in the end she ran them down, and her jaw closed around a pale white arm. She shook it to make it move, but there was only death and blood in her mouth. By now she was tiring, and it was all she could do to pull the body back to shore. As she dragged it up the muddy bank, one of her little brothers came prowling, his tongue lolling from his mouth. She had to snarl to drive him off, or else he would have fed. Only then did she stop to shake the water from her fur. The white thing lay facedown in the mud, her dead flesh wrinkled and pale, cold blood trickling from her throat. Rise, she thought. Rise and eat and run with us. – Arya XII ASOS

“So you sewed his head on Robb Stark’s neck after both o’ them were dead,” said yellow cloak.

“My [Merrett Frey] father did that [. . .] I only drank some wine…you have no witness.”

“As it happens, you’re wrong there.” The singer turned to the hooded woman. “Milady?”

The outlaws parted as she came forward, saying no word. When she lowered her hood, something tightened inside Merrett’s chest, and for a moment he could not breathe. No. No, I saw her die. She was dead for a day and night before they stripped her naked and threw her body in the river. Raymund opened her throat from ear to ear. She was dead.

Her cloak and collar hid the gash his brother’s blade had made, but her face was even worse than he remembered. The flesh had gone pudding soft in the water and turned the color of curdled milk. Half her hair was gone and the rest had turned as white and brittle as a crone’s. Beneath her ravaged scalp, her face was shredded skin and black blood where she had raked herself with her nails. But her eyes were the most terrible thing. Her eyes saw him, and they hated.

“She don’t speak,” said the big man in the yellow cloak. “You bloody bastards cut her throat too deep for that. But she remembers.” He turned to the dead woman and said, “What do you say, m’lady? Was he part of it?”

Lady Catelyn’s eyes never left him. She nodded. – Epilogue ASOS

In the Chinese retelling of Cinderella, Ye Xian, the heroine befriends a fish, which is the reincarnation of her deceased mother. In The Story of Tam and Cam, a Vietnamese version, the heroine Tam also had a fish which was killed by the stepmother and the half-sister, and its bones also give her clothes. And a typical scene in Kapmalaien tales is the mother becoming a fish, being eaten in fish form, the daughter burying her bones and a tree sprouting from her grave.

So not only is Lady Catelyn a symbolic fish, a daughter of House Tully, but she’s also been resurrected (reincarnated), and is looking specifically for our heroine, Arya, who I believe will be gifted several various things (both good and bad) by this incarnation of her mother, but we shall see if the parallel continues when TWOW and ADOS come out.

Conclusion

I really hope that after you read this monster you were as convinced as I am that Arya indeed has Cinderella motifs, and an extensive amount of them as well. Whatever it may mean I don’t rightly know, but what I do know is that at the end of the day, the many stories of Cinderella are an analogy. An analogy about someone “who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect”. Of someone whose attributes were unrecognized in their society, only for them to be recognized. And I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty hand in hand with one of her other biggest fairy tale motifs as well that runs concurrently with the Cinderella motif, and that is the story of “The Ugly Duckling”, who after years of neglect, finds acceptance within society, as well as self-acceptance within themselves. :)

#arya stark #gendrya #asoiaf

168 notes · View notes

starksinthenorth · 3 years

Text

Musings on ASOIAF Ladies and Ambition

I’ve noticed people use “ambition” to describe Sansa and Daenerys as if it’s a bad word or an insult (often called “power hungry”). Yet in the text of the series, neither of them are shown to be ambitious people as a core characteristic. I blame the series for a lot of this, because it failed to explore the internal dialogue of Sansa, Arya, and even Cersei, who ends up more humanized than either of them by the end (because of the maybe baby).

Cersei Lannister is the classic ambitious ASOIAF lady, whose point-of-view is introduced in perhaps the most iconic sentence of any introductory chapter:

She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all.

I can’t think of a sentence in ASOIAF that better introduces the internal thoughts and view of its leading character.

In comparison, Sansa’s first sentence is receiving news about her father’s whereabouts, Daenerys is shown her new dress to meet Drogo, and Arya has crooked stitches again. Arya’s works to frame her relationship with Sansa and her internal struggle to fit the feminine Westerosi mold, while Sansa and Daenerys are setting up plot points. None of these interactions signal ambition, bad or good. Daenerys did not arrange her wedding, Sansa is just told the information by her Septa, and while Arya is aspiring to have straight stitches, that’s hardly an ambitious goal for a girl of nine.

Fans rarely, if ever, deny Cersei’s cruel, cold, often stupid ambition. In fact, it’s one of the reason people seem to love her. She’s internally open about what she wants - power - and when she wants it - now:

All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom.

- AFFC, Cersei III

The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered . . . She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.

- AFFC, Cersei V

Cersei is the definition of a power hungry lady, scheming and cheating at every point. Yes, Sansa learned from her, but most of Sansa’s internalized lessons of Cersei’s were to do the exact opposite.

"The night's first traitors," the queen [Cersei] said, "but not the last, I fear. . . . Another lesson you should learn, if you hope to sit beside my son. . . . The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy."

"I will remember, Your Grace," said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me.

- ACOK, Sansa VI

Cersei isn’t the only POV character who views herself outside of conventional Westerosi standards and aspires to something beyond being a wife and mother. Arya Stark has ambition writ clear on the page, though it is not so cold or denying other people their rights or chances. Compared to Cersei, Arya doesn’t want everything, crown and throne and kingdom and all. She just wants something, and even that is denied to highborn women in Westeros. Even when she asks her father about her future, a man who wants to do right by his children and loves them, Eddard Stark is blinded by Westerosi patriarchy:

Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"

"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."

- AGOT, Eddard V

With Arya in this, I see some parallels to Elaena Targaryen, who was so good at math and management she served as the secret Master of Coin while her husband carried the title. Elaena was “more willful than Rhaena, but not as beautiful as either of her sisters,” yet is also said to have been “more beautiful at age seventy than at age seventeen,” growing into herself like Arya is expected to. They both even cut their hair, Arya to hide her gender and Elaena to hide her beauty, both instances to gain freedom from captivity in the Red Keep.

Despite both these examples of ambition - Cersei’s all-encompassing, without care for how it affects the realm, and Arya’s attempt to find a place in the world outside the Westerosi model - it still becomes an insult when people speak of Daenerys and Sansa.

Critics claim Sansa is ambitious, and negatively so, because she “wants to be queen.” But this criticism misses a vital point of Sansa’s character. Unlike Cersei, she does not want to be queen because of the power and political influence, but because she will be living a song. In the start, Sansa’s got her head in the clouds, not to the dirty world of politics. Her very first chapter lays out this motivation incredibly clearly:

All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs.

When she thinks of Joffrey and being in love with him, it’s because he’s “handsome and gallant as any prince in the songs” (AGOT, Sansa II),

Alternatively, it has been said that Sansa is ambitious because of her claim to Winterfell. But compare how Sansa thinks of her claim to how Big Walder Frey does. Despite being far down the inheritance line, he is certain he will someday possess the Twins. He’s likely willing to kill his family to become Lord of the Crossing, and already has killed Little Walder.

In comparison, Sansa isn’t the one who realizes her claim as heir to Winterfell, even after her two younger brothers are believed dead. It’s Dontos who mentions it, and after she still thinks that Robb will have sons to inherit.

But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?

- ASOS, Sansa II

Sansa’s not ready to kill Bran and Rickon if they show up. Her arc is about taking off the rose-tinted glasses and seeing reality, but also working to make reality like a song. For example, her idea of the Tournament of the Winged Knights for Sweetrobin. It’s a song come to life, all by her making. TBD how the ending goes, of course, but it shows that trajectory.

And finally, Daenerys.

Daenerys is not driven by some lifelong desire to win and dominate. She’s forced into it, a la Brienne’s “no chance and no choice.” If Daenerys were raised in a stable environment, I have a feeling she’d be much more like Sansa: dreamy, hopeful, sweet and studious. Happy.

But instead, her eyes are open.

When she’s introduced as a character, she shows an awareness for the schemes and politics of the world. She knows her brother is called the Beggar King in the Free Cities, and is doubtful of the smallfolk’s secret toasts to Viserys III that Illyrio Mopatis claims happen across Westeros.

Like Sansa and Cersei, there’s evidence of her goals, hopes, and wishes in the very first chapter:

"I don't want to be his queen," she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. "Please, please, Viserys, I don't want to, I want to go home."

. . .

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio's estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him.

Daenerys remembers home as the house with the red door in Braavos. It’s her brother whose only home and stability was the Red Keep, not her.

Throughout her journey of power to take back the Seven Kingdoms, she is doubtful at every turn and most of her wishes are for happiness, for peace, for stability.

Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

- ACOK, Daenerys II

A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros?

- ADWD, Daenerys II

Even later, Daenerys is determined to bring peace to the lands she currently rules. She does plan to return to the Seven Kingdoms, but it’s not driven by pure ambition. And this is, notably, from a conversation when Prince Quentyn Nymeros Martell asks her to come back and claim them now, saying she has allies for that conquest. And still she turns him down, with promises that it will only happen eventually:

"Daenerys said. ". . . .One day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father's throne, and look to Dorne for help. But on this day the Yunkai'i have my city ringed in steel. I may die before I see my Seven Kingdoms. Hizdahr may die. Westeros may be swallowed by the waves."

- ADWD, Daenerys VII

And yet in both Sansa and Daenerys, these visions and hopes for the futures they might have are considered unbridled ambition, although they turn more on happiness and peace for themselves and their people, rather than the type of ambition Cersei has, which is clearly her own power and being heralded above everyone.

Daenerys’ thoughts in her sixth chapter of ADWD have the same energy as Sansa’s “I will make them love me.”:

"A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

. . .

A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself.

Daenerys has figured out how to make her people love her, by wearing her “floppy ears” and appealing to the masses, listening to them, et cetera. She’s also a bit ahead of Sansa in the realm of ruling, to be sure.

But how are these similar thoughts ambition in either of them? It’s an attempt to empathize and connect, not to throw away and disregard and rule by force and domination. Both these ladies are more nuanced, and the fandom does them a disservice by painting them as ambitious or power-hungry when at the end for both of them, it’s a desire to have a happy, stable, loving life.

#asoiaf meta #sansa stark #daenerys targaryen #cersei lannister #arya stark

132 notes · View notes

inky-duchess · 4 years

Text

Fantasy Guide to Hair

Hair is one of the facets of the characters' look as well as worldbuilding. Hair has always been important to many cultures such as the Vikings and Native Americans. So here is the Fantasy Guide to hair @cat-inthe-corner

Hairstyles

I am always asked what styles historical women wore. The truth is we can't exactly know for sure. Besides, if you spend your time describing a character's hairdo you will put your audience to sleep. Really you can paint a vague picture for your audience and that'll do.

Down and unadorned: Girls of every class wore their hair down to show they were unwed. Married women always wore their hair up and covered it. Only prostitutes wore their hair down and uncovered.

Braid/Plait: Braids were an easy tidy away hair. Braids were pinned to the head and set under headdresses. Braids lasted longer that any other hairstyle.

Wigs: Some historical women and men wore wigs. Wigs were seen as cleaner and easier to maintain. The Egyptians shaved their heads and wore wigs. The Renaissance revived wigs. Wigs were rather gross and most wearers carried long pins to scratch their heads.

Bob: The humble bob was a popular haircut throughout the Mediaeval period for men. Bobs came back into fashion in the 20s for women seen as a daring rebellion against the patriarchy.

Historical Hair Care

Women have been obsessed with having perfect hair for centuries. Women have always sought to find anything to help make their hair smoother, curlier, bigger and shinier.

The Egyptians often used castor oil and almond oil on their hair. It smoothed their hair as well as protected it. The Egyptians were rather into wigs and to keep them smelling fresh, they melted soft perfumed wax comes onto the wigs.

Tudor and Elizabethan women would use animal fat or lard in their hair. It would keep the hair in the shape it was teased into (historical hairspray) as well as smooth it. However, it drew lice and flies and must have smelt ghastly after a few days.

Assyrian women and men curled their hair by using hot iron bars and oil. Sound familiar? This was the predecessor of the curling iron (or as I call it-that-very-hot-stick-my-sister-leaves-on-the-table).

The Ancient Indians oiled their hair to prevent baldness which is still used today in parts of India.

As hair was not often washed in the 17th & 18th centuries, people turned to powders and pomades. The powder were made of flour and starch to soak up grease from the hair. Pomades were to make the hair smell nicer.

A popular conditioner of the times was made from bacon fat. Since women didn't want to go about smelling like breakfast, the fat was often cut with rosewater or lavender or another scent.

Women would have combed their hair with brushes and lice combs. Most women pre-19th century would keep their hair styled for days or weeks on end. After the 19th century, women began to brush and comb their hair regularly.

Mediaeval women washed their hair with soap made from animal fat mixed with ashes and vinegar.

Victorian/Edwardian women often washed their hair with eggwhites to get shinier hair. The Empress Sisi famously had a head of gorgeous hair which she was obsessed with. “Every three weeks it was washed with raw eggs and brandy, a procedure which took an entire day, including drying. After washing her hair, the Empress would don a long, waterproof silk dressing gown and walk up and down until her hair dried.”- Ludwig Merkle.

Dye

Hair was dyed throughout history just like it is today. Some colours were easily found, some not.

Blonde hair was the most desirable colour for Mediaeval/Renaissance women. Blonde hair was often obtained by using a concoction of olive oil, white wine, alum. Other ways of obtaining blonde locks involved using saffron, tumeric and skins of onions. It could also be washed with limes and dried in the sun.

Red hair was not a popular hair colour in mediaeval times but it became popular after Elizabeth I. The Romans often scalped Celts to make wigs from their hair. Red hair could be made from using Henna which is orange in colour.

Brown hair can be obtained by mixing indigo and henna. It is not permanent but can be after a few rinses. This is likely what Sansa Stark is currently using in ASOIAF. (Green hair like Wylla Manderly's would be obtained by either fucking up a dye job or mixing the blonde with blue.)

Blue hair if you want to go wild could likely be made from woad leaves and blackcurrants skins.

Accessories & Headresses

Pins: Most hair pins looked rather like pens. Hair would be wrapped about it and then pinned up on the head of the wearer, really not so different to bobby pins today. Pins were a favourite gift to give women of most time often made of wood, ivory, metal and were worn by ladies of all classes.

Ribbon: Ribbons were used by both classes. Thin strips of material would be woven through the hair in order to keep it neat as well as look great. Upper classes had the ribbons made of silk and other fine fabrics.

Feathers: Feathers were worn in all time periods. Elaborate towering do's were often graced with plumes to add extra height.

Headbands: Headbands have been about for years throughout most of civilization. From slim ribbons across brows to jewelled headbands of the 20s, headbands were a simple yet classic look.

5K notes · View notes

nerajaana · 3 years

Text

Jonsa metas be like: Extended Cut

The miniature rant version

Yeah. We’re getting tons of romantic content in that corner. Totes. What else is the purpose of Jon Snow’s resurrection? Or rather, what even is the other purpose for Jon Snow’s existence, if not a prop to make their innocent-compassionate-empathetic af precious birb a Princess/Queen/GodEmpress?

(if they could have their way she’d be ascended to Godhood at this rate)

69? That's your foreshadowing? You wanna convince people your ship's canon based on a mfing position number? What are we, middle schoolers?!

My remaining two braincells cannot handle this poetic parallel😔😩✊🏻

Ok real talk folks.....what’s in that kool aid kid?

Listen, after pulling crap like this, you all have no rights to defend yourselves when we rightfully call you out on this. Absolutely none. No amount of mental gymnastics can justify this.

Presenting to you 🥁🥁🥁 Quotes by Jon comparing his first love to his sister🥁🥁🥁:

“She reminded him a little of his sister Arya, though Arya was younger and probably skinnier. It was hard to tell how plump or thin Ygritte might be, with all the furs and skins she wore.”

“"If you kill a man, and never meant', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever?”

...... soz there ain’t any about Sansa. I checked in the back and all I promise.

And, hate to break it to ya but, remember Catelyn of Houses Tully and Stark? Yeah, she kinda, y’know, carried the zygote that grew into a fetus over a period of nine months and pushed the said fetus out whom they named Arya. Half of her mother, half a Tully. Thus, half a fish. Pretty sure there’s even a fish reference that jon made towards Arya regarding her swimming.

............So?

Let's give this a serious consideration. Firstly, lemme get this lil point out in the open: foreshadowing is wildly different from coincidences. Coincidence is there being a Jon(nel) and a Sansa in the same time period in the family, just like the current generation. Parallel/foreshadowing would look something like this:- Jon, who's the half brother of Rickon, just like Jonnel was to Cregan's heir Rickon, would marry the older daughter of Rickon (my son my boyyyy <3<3<3) in a distant future. Capisce?

And finally, the icing on the cake. My personal favourite 🙂

Look, it's bad enough that the writer decided to pepper in cursed bits throughout the books that make an incestuous pairing highly likely. (by incest i mean the emotional aspect of it, it's not the cousincest or the aunt-nephew bit that peeves me off. It was a common occurrence in the medieval feudalistic society and is still prevalent in today's day and age). At the end of the day, they grew up as siblings. Fighting over which sister gets the “prize” that's Jon Snow is ridiculous beyond measure. We didn't start off reading these humongous books thinking "oh this would be a splendid time to ship an incest otp uwu" like no. the only reason I didn't break into tears every time Jon had a very non fraternal thought while reading is because i knew by then, for sure that they're cousins and not siblings (y'all either never had siblings or think fictional siblings work on a different wavelength). Take it up with the author, demand why he chose this sister and not the other for his fOrbiDdEn rOmancE trope. Grab him by shoulders and shake an answer out of him. None of us asked for this ffs. We reached to a conclusion based on what's there in print, not what isn't and simply assuming that there are hidden meanings or that the narrator is so fucking unreliable that he's naming one and thinking of the other or something equally delusional. Dude's literal last thought was Stick them with a pointy end. Which, by the way, is strictly between Jon and Arya, just like Needle. Just like the quote "Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle". And "What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?" They're all exclusive to them both and them both only.

To all of these asoiaf experts, I'd like to say one thing: For all of his flaws and fallacies, G.R.R.Martin is a brilliant writer. He's not some stupid Oracle of Delphi, sitting in his little ancient greek cave and spewing nonsense and talking in circles. Writers leave out clues in the open, not hide them under the guise of different fucking names for gods sakes.

I'm all for shipping whoever you wanna ship, gods know i have a never ending list- most of them being rarepairs or crackships. But I don't go around twisting canon into something it isn't and subject to mental gymnastics to the point where nothing makes sense anymore. And, read the bloody books before you firmly place your faith in something. Quora/Reddit/Tumblr metas shouldn't be the basis for it. The language is pretty straightforward- if I, a non native english speaker can get it, then so can you.

Cheers.

#fandom nonsense #fandom dumbassery #use braincells pls #jon snow #arya stark #house stark #rickon stark #sansa stark #anti jonsa stans #anti jonsa #asoiaf #jaan rants #valyrianscrolls

140 notes · View notes

elegantwoes · 4 years

Note

What are the parallels between Sansa and Disney Princesses?

That’s a good question, dear anon. Now we know that GRRM has said he was inspired by the stories of medieval France and Burgundy for Sansa, a story that in return inspired Walt Disney to create the Disney princess archetype. That is the first connection Sansa Stark has to Disney Princesses.

As to who she has parallels with? Well with many but the first one that comes to mind is obviously Princess Ariel from The Little Mermaid and the similarities are uncanny:

red hair and blue eyes

half fish

wants to leave her home

defies her father

Another princess that Sansa has similarities with is Princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast:

bookworm

romantic

beautiful*

wants more in life than staying at home

*Sansa is the character who is called beautiful the most in ASOIAF.

Also, Sansa’s romantic storyline is deeply connected with the tale as old as time. Throughout her arc, Sansa meets many beast-like figures who have some similarities with the Beast: Joffrey, Sandor Clegane, and Tyrion Lannister. However, at the end of the day, these characters are not the beast to Sansa’s beauty. Who Sansa’s true beast is, is yet to be revealed.

There are other princesses that Sansa has strong similarities with. I am talking about the three classical princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora. Sansa has the natural charm and innocence of Snow White, the compassion and resourcefulness of Cinderella, and the elegant and graceful bearing of Aurora.

However there’s another aspect that Sansa shares with these three princesses, especially Cinderella and Snow White, and it’s their ability to hope that things will get better for them and that they will one day experience love. This is something Sansa does from her first chapter in AGOT to her TWOW sample chapter. She never loses the hope that life will get better for her and that she will one day experience love:

This time her eyes met Harry's. She smiled just for him, and said a silent prayer to the Maiden. Please, he doesn't need to love me, just make him like me, just a little, that would be enough for now. (TWOW, Alayne I).

That will be enough for now

THAT WILL BE ENOUGH FOR NOW.

Even though Sansa knows this is a political match and that Harry doesn’t like her in that way a part of her still hopes their political marriage can grow into something more.

Despite everything Sansa has endured, the sexual trauma, death of her family members, never knowing whether she will go home, she still never loses hope that life will get better for her and that she will experience true love. The fact that Sansa hasn’t lost this hope and dream of hers well into the second last book in this series proves to me she will never lose that hope.

Honestly why do people even want her to lose this hope? This is what makes Sansa a hero in her own right. GRRM wants us to admire and root for Sansa because she never stops hoping. Just like he admired Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora, as a child. After all these are the Disney heroines he grew up with. No doubt he has an emotional attachment to these three princesses. The fact he designed Sansa Stark so similar them says a lot. It shows that no matter how much antis want to deny it, Sansa Stark is a heroine in the eyes of GRRM.

The only difference is that, unlike the classical Disney princesses, Sansa’s dreams, hopes, morals and beliefs are genuinely put into question by characters like Joffrey, Cersei, and Sandor. There are times where it seems Sansa loses her hope but in the end she never does. The trauma that Sansa endures is raw, messy, and frankly, very depressing, rather than designed in the careful and clean way that Disney does (and in Disney’s defense, their primary audience is children, so of course they will never delve into the heavy topics GRRM does with ASOIAF).

However challenging her world view is not the only way GRRM is deconstructing the Disney princess archetype with Sansa. He is also showing the one inevitable journey of the Disney princesses we never see: becoming a queen. In her AFFC arc Sansa takes on the role of Lady of the Eyrie. Anyone who understands how medieval society works knows that running a large castle is not that different from running a country. Sansa’s journey to become queen does not stop here. Once she reaches the North Sansa will no doubt take on the role Lady of Winterfell and there she will:

earn the love of Northerners (both noble and small folk alike)

hone her skills in soft power

learn how hard power and governing works

Once the wall falls and the white walkers come marching down Winterfell will most likely bear most of the onslaught and Sansa will put every skill she has learned so far into good use. Her role in the battle for Dawn will be a vital one. As lady of Winterfell she will be linchpin that holds the war for humanity together.

Learning how to rule and reclaiming her identity as a Stark are key aspects of Sansa’s narrative arc. In light of that I fully expect her to become either Lady of Winterfell or Queen in the North.

For all the deconstructing and bringing this down to realism that GRRM is doing I fully expect him to reconstruct Sansa’s storyline. After all GRRM is no nihilist and his last book is called a Dream of Spring. Since Sansa is so similar to a Disney princess, especially the classic trio, then her dream of spring will be an end to her suffering and finding true love.

All in all, Sansa isn’t just a Disney Princess. She is the ultimate Disney Princess.

#Answered #Anonymous #ASOIAF #Sansa Stark #GRRM

265 notes · View notes

janiedean · 3 years

Note

I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #anonymous #ask post #anti-jonsa #anti jonsa #anti-jonerys #anti jonerys #both of them for equality

31 notes · View notes

buttercuparry · 2 years

Text

I posted 4,286 times in 2021

98 posts created (2%)

4188 posts reblogged (98%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 42.7 posts.

I added 324 tags in 2021

#arya stark - 134 posts

#daenerys targaryen - 46 posts

#jon snow - 40 posts

#asoiaf - 25 posts

#bulbbul - 18 posts

#elia martell - 13 posts

#lyanna stark - 13 posts

#bran stark - 12 posts

#cersei lannister - 12 posts

#lmao - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 93 characters

#💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

My Top Posts in 2021

Every essay from a Sansa Stan about the Trident incident starts with: The adults are at fault/Cersei is at fault/Joff is at fault!! No way can anyone blame Sansa...I mean the girls!! No one should blame Sansa....and Arya.

And they end with the conclusion...it is the adults! The adults!! And yeah honestly?

That's fair.

But what they do between the beginning and the end is lose me with their "well if you gotta blame someone...then that should be Arya because she chose not to maintain the class divide...doesn't she know how dangerous it is for a highborn to befriend a commoner???" And I am like:

(Translation: this is shit)

They are like (and I am paraprashing because more or less that's what they say): the rules are there to keep everyone safe

?!?!?!

No...no they are not. Do you not see the real world around you???? The class division is for the rich and the rich only. So that they do not have to deal with us. What even are you...ahsjfkgkkl

You saying at one point that it is not Sansa's fault or Arya's fault and then bending back, contorting and going: well actually if you have to blame the girls...there's Arya...

Like how?! Why?!!!? How did you just do a 360?

Arya not following the "rules" isn't the cause of Mycah's death! Her not being classist is not the reason Mycah died. Joffrey's lack of empathy, his total disregard for everyone and assurance of the power he holds is the cause of Mycah's death. And yeah Cersei just reinforced his "invincibility" by calling for Lady's death.

Like Arya being classist would not solve anything. Rather she would be adding another name to the list of highborns who do not give a shit about what happens to the smallfolks. Another one who cares not if the people go hungry in the middle of the war. Another one who won't bat an eyelash while supping on swan while the people outside eat rat's meat. Another one who would brush off a death and just gush about some Tourney. In fact, horrifyingly so as Arya observes...none from the Stark household, be it a family member, a daughter of a minor house, or an employee cared about Mycah's death. Because how important is a butcher's boy, right? So what if he was cut into pieces?? That's just another topic of gossip soon to be forgotten in favour of a glorious tourney.

Like what the hell people??? Did you all not read those lines?!

Also just tell me one thing. Suppose during the war, a lord decided to give shelter to his people because the Lannisters were burning everything. Should his fort fall...would you all be like: well he should have maintained his class. Now every commoner would die because of him. Is that how you all would react if this happened? Or would you have been like: the lannister soldiers are the murderers. The war is a tragedy that ravages all. That it is a tragedy that the Lannisters or other highborns (Stark/tyrells/baratheons) cannot be held accountable. Somehow I think you people would sing a different tune than the one you are used to taking with Arya.

And god does it show.

So yeah...I would like to end with: you people are right. The girls are not to blame for the Trident incident. And by "girls" I do wholeheartedly include Arya in reference to the term.

80 notes �� Posted 2021-07-04 16:53:11 GMT

Arya throughout asoiaf be like: please someone get me home. I want my parents. I want my family/ I am trying so hard to hold on but I am so afraid sometimes/ Oh, you want to be my friend? I will be your friend. Let's go home together. My home is your home. Please don't leave me/ Someone please take me to Jon. I miss him/ I am not good enough. I wish I was better at stuff/ I have to save that guy. I have to look after this girl. I will not let the memory of what happened to my family and friends fade. I will protect as best as I can. I want justice/ I miss Nymeria. I hope she is okay...I am so happy she now has a place of her own. I want to go home too. Someone please help me get to Jon./ please don't tell me to go...please let me be a part of a pack. Please someone...

Me:

84 notes • Posted 2021-02-04 15:48:27 GMT

The fact that D&d failed to realize that Asoiaf is all about subverting popular tropes even after working with the material for so many years is a hilarious reflection of their own insincerity. I don't know who it was that pointed out the clever subversion of the fairytale elements of the dragon and the wolf but boy does it make me sad (because they did nothing with it!)

From what I know, in European fairytales, the dragon is a popular tyrant. The greedy serpent that gathers gold and jewels and also guards the tower of the imprisoned princess. And yet in asoiaf it is Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion who save Dany from the fate of ending up in the institution of Dosh Khaleen: a life that most certainly would have been forced on her had she not been the mother of dragons.

No matter what some of the asoiaf fans love to claim, this mother does not flaunt her power irresponsibly. Rather she is the "mhysa" who attempts first and foremost to help her people. Whether it be starving with the dothrakis while crossing the Red Waste, nursing those who are suffering from the deadly disease of the Pale Mare, ending slavery or agreeing to marry just so that peace maybe brought to a volatile environment. One has to be blind to not see the obvious subversion of the popular tropes.

The other one is the wolf. The big bad wolf. The cunning and the hungry who lay in wait amidst the forest to trap you and devour you. And yet in Asoiaf it is a wolf who protects a little girl during the Trident incident. Who prowls the Riverlands and is a menance to the monsters of the worst kind.

This is in sync with the idea that Nymeria is the reflection of Arya's soul. She thus takes a stand against Joffrey's cruelty, avenges the innkeeper's daughter, saves the three prisoners from burning alive, gives water to the dying men and is both the leader and the nurturer of her "pack".

So for D&d to take these subversions and chuck them into a trash can only to be left with the bland storyline of the "prince" killing the "dragon" and the wolf being banished into the watery wilderness is nothing short of mortifying. The statements they could have made by making the outcasts come to power turned into a lesson of maintaining conventionality. Even Bran being crowned king doesn't do anything as he is nothing like the Bran we were rooting for. He is not the one who sent sweets to Old Nan or Hodor or who wanted see Lady Hornwood happy. He is just the "Three eyed raven" or some such shit.

It's hilarious that they potrayed a kingdom like Westeros to be having a "new beginning" without the warmth of a particular dragon and the nurture of a wolf- without "monster" girls who have hearts big enough to accommodate all the downtrodden.

178 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 07:07:58 GMT

You know what?

I want Arya to be selfish.

I want Dany to be focused on getting the throne.

Why is it that we have to constantly write essays defending every single one of their actions? No matter how kind, how just, how well meaning and even how inconsequential they are?

Why the hell do they get criticized when there is nothing to criticize there?

If it is going to be so...then better yet let them be selfish. At least they would get what they want and be happy.

184 notes • Posted 2021-06-27 16:21:45 GMT

What I find interesting about this fandom is how it often tut-tuts Arya for surviving. There's always this "oh look what she has turned into" and I have tried to sit back and understand what exactly does it mean by that? She is a girl on the run who has stripped herself of her name to survive and evade any Lannister allies. Now she is part of the common class and is experiencing the life of a common girl. And for a commoner living in a war torn westeros...it is not going to be aesthetically pleasing. The life around her is gritty and people are cruel. She has to adapt accordingly.

Also by that I don't mean that Arya has turned cruel. For some reason people expect "nice" to be kind. She doesn't coax Weasel with flowery words...she slaps the little girl and tries to drag her out of a burning shed. She doesn't beg the BWB to spare the lives of her friends. She stands between them and threatens Lem and others to move on. She is not going to curtsey the soldeirs and try to appeal to them with her delicate sensibilities...she is going to keep her head down and do all the back breaking work to avoid the risk of getting noticed and getting killed. She is not going to plead with Jaqen till he agrees to help her...she is going to trick him in order to save her people.

(Also she had no way of knowing that Roose's men would be just as cruel as the Lannisters'. It was an eye opening moment for her to be sure...there is no "good" side or bad side for the commoners....all of it is the same).

And yes she is willing to survive but that doesn't mean she is going out there and murdering people. Every one of the people she has killed is either out of self defense or because the people were generally horrible (I have some thoughts particularly about Dareon's death but that is another topic)

You can't expect a girl to fight off all these horrible situations without getting her hands sticky...

People are so obsessed with the superficial notion of purity and the aesthetic (TM) that they fail to see the genuine kindness of Arya. I wonder if they really think of Chiswyck's death as impure? If they think looking under rocks and digging up worms for sustenance is disguating? Or is it that Arya does not fit the aesthetic image of a high fantasy upper class heroine? Is it that there is no "romanticism" to be found in the mud, blood, gore and despair of a commoner?

193 notes • Posted 2021-01-27 06:48:49 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

2 notes · View notes

butterflies-dragons · 4 years

Note

Sophie said once Sansa had Daddy issues. What do you think about this?

Hello Anon,

We don’t need Sophie to know that, the text is clear about it.

As I said before in this post:

Sansa always sought Ned’s approval and validation, but she never reached that goal. She and Ned had a distant relationship that got worse after Lady’s death. Ned neglected Sansa in various levels [1] [2] [3], and focused in Arya, who resembled Lyanna so much, and the guilt for not saving his sister impeded him to see that Sansa was the one about to make the same mistakes of Lyanna, that Sansa was the one daughter that needed him the most.

So throughout the Books, we have Sansa constantly trying to find something of what Ned never gave to her in others, either crushing on boys that look like Ned or trusting in men that offered her assurance and/or validation, although with ulterior motives.

Littlefinger, for example:

Petyr Baelish is grooming Sansa, that’s the awful truth. And he has studied Sansa, he knows what she likes/wants and he will use that knowledge in his favor.

He knows she had a distant relationship with Ned, so he becomes Alayne’s father.

He knows that Ned neglected her and that she always craved for her father’s validation, so he gives her that, he praised her wits for example, and called her clever and smart.

If Sansa says something like “I can’t” or “I don’t know”, he is there to encourage and support and tell her “you can do it” & “you know it”.

He knows she loves knights and tourneys, so he allows her to organize a tournament, whose winners will belong to a kind of “Kingsguard” for Sweetrobin, based on the child’s favorite hero of the legends: The Winged Knight, Ser Artys Arryn.

He knows she loves lemon cakes, so he gives her a giant lemon cake.

But, as I mentioned before:

There is still hope that Sansa will find a man that resembles Ned not only physically but share the same values, ethics and background, since he was raised by Ned himself.

The fact that Sansa’s first crush looks just like her bastard half brother cousin Jon Snow, who in turn looks just like her father Ned Stark, strongly suggests that our author GRRM has a morbid fascination with incest. But in Sansa’s case the incest vibes are subtle, not extreme like in Cersei and Jaime’s case, which has strong narcissistic elements to it as well.

Indeed, I got an ask the other day mentioning this say: “women tend to fall for men who remind them of their father.” And as I said in my answer:

It is true that the Asoiaf Books have plenty of incestuous undertones with the Targaryens, Cersei and Jaime, Asha and Theon, Craster and his daughters, etc. But in the case of the Starks, GRRM uses the pseudo-incest trope. After all, Jon and Arya, that are lookalikes, were intended to be in love in the so called “original outline”.

That pseudo Stark incest romance between Jon and Arya was discarded by the author, but I do believe we still got something along those lines with Jon and Sansa:

First love’s Resemblance: Sansa fell wildly in love with Ser Waymar, and Jon fell in love with a wildling girl kissed by fire.

Waymar Royce looked like a Stark. Waymar Royce was Jon’s lookalike. And Jon is Ned lookalike:

Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow’s face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

More about it here.

And Jon’s first love was Ygritte, a redhead, with blue-grey eyes, and to make the Tully look even more evident, Ygritte called herself half a fish:

“Ygritte punched his arm. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. I’m half a fish, I’ll have you know.”

—A Storm of Swords - Jon V

Sansa’s first crush having the Stark Look and Jon’s first lover having the Tully look, reminds me of Catelyn being first betrothed with Brandon Stark but marrying Eddard Stark instead. Brandon, died like Waymar. Ned said Jon’s is a younger version of himself. Ned never imagined marrying Catelyn, he had a young infatuation with Ashara Dayne, but he never acted on his feelings for her, and she died. Ned also killed Ashara’s brother Arthur.

Sansa fell wildly in love with Waymar, but she won’t marry him, he died. She will probably fall in love with Jon in a more mature and calmly way. Jon Snow, after a non-con beginning, ended loving Ygritte, not a lady, that offered him a “comfort level of femininity”, but he won’t marry her, she died. Jon will probably fell in love with Sansa, freely and willingly.

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #jonsa

76 notes · View notes

grrmartin · 4 years

Note

Imagine if Arya was called Key to the North throughout the books, imagine if she became a folk tale calling her "Northern Girl. Winterfell's Daughter". Imagine if Arya referred to herself as "The Blood of Winterfell". Imagine if Arya looked to North, took strength from it since from at the end of AGOT, imagine Arya thinking she is stronger within the walls of Winterfell. Imagine Arya rebuilding Winterfell from snow (right after the chapter where Stannis offers Jon the chance to reclaim and rebuild Winterfell and while we don't see his answer immediately we know what he decided back then: "Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa."). Now let's imagine after all of that dumbfucks in this fandom insisting "No, Arya has nothing to do with the North, she is going to stay in Braavos, her arc is about becoming an assassin and never returning from that, from then on all she'll do is kill people and maybe occasionally she revenges her family too. And if you say she'll go North, rebuild Winterfell that means you are stealing from other characters' arcs, why do you think she is the most important character huh huh?" Sounds stupid right? Yet here we are...

I've seen many stupid shit in many fandoms, every fandom has its wank after all, but Asoiaf fandom has to be the dumbest of them all. The way they insist on being this idiotic till the end is so weird, so sad. Like guys, it's ok if you don't like Sansa, write whatever fics you want with her dead or villain, no one cares. But when talking about the books, the actual canon material, just stop being this obtuse. How does it help them to bury their heads in the sand and ignore canon? It's pointless and surely it will only lead to more disappointment in the future. 🙄🤷‍♀️

The smart antis were the ones who left after the finale, because they had a feeling it wasn’t going to go their way. The dumb antis are the ones who are sticking it out and believing they can defeat GRRM’s Sansa Stark by pestering her fans. I don’t even mind responding to them. They always think they’ve got a ‘gotcha!’ but they truly never do.

Arya has A LOT of foreshadowing about wanting to see Jon again, to feel like the little girl she was when she left WF. That Jon wouldn’t care what she’d done or became. She even wants to see Sansa again! From ACOK she wants to go North, home to WF. It’s only after being beaten down that she goes to Bravos. I don’t want any Arya stan reading this to think I don’t acknowledge that Arya is also important. I love Arya Stark. I am a former jonrya. I named my cat Arya, I have no animal named Sansa. I say this to remind people that I love canon Arya Stark, truly, just not this terrible person her stans turn her into. I used to love her more than Sansa, but Sansa has grown on me. Either way I truly stan the entire Stark fam, except Robb.

#sansa stark #anti arya stans #asks

33 notes · View notes

secretlyatargaryen · 4 years

Text

Tyrion and Zuko: The Good Bad Guy, The Bad Good Guy

I’ve never seen anyone compare Tyrion Lannister and Zuko, but the parallels seem so obvious to me. I know there’s been a lot of comparisons in fandom to Zuko and his arc and a lot of discussion of what makes a good redemption arc and I’m not necessarily talking about this from that perspective, because I don’t really think Tyrion is on a redemption arc (and also reject the idea that I’ve seen bandied about that he is on a “villain” arc or that his arc is in opposition to his brother Jaime’s, with Jaime as the one who is usually seen by fandom as set up for redemption.) But I do think the parallels between the two characters are striking. I don’t think they’re 1:1 and even many of the parallels I make are not intended to be exact, as these two characters have narratives that are structured differently, and of course there are differences based on medium and target audience between the two series.

This is part one of a series of posts on these two characters, and this part will focus on how these characters are positioned structurally by the narrative.

Spoilers for both series to follow!

The biggest, most immediate difference between Tyrion and Zuko is that Zuko is positioned as an antagonist at the beginning of the story (although not necessarily a villain), while Tyrion is not antagonistic to the identifiable heroes at the beginning of AGOT, and is in fact the only Lannister not to be positioned that way by the narrative initially. In fact, part of this meta and part of my purposes for comparing them is to argue that Zuko’s narrative arc is not a straight line from villain to hero, which makes him very similar to Tyrion and his narrative positioning as the “good bad guy, the bad good guy” as Peter Dinklage says of his character on Game of Thrones. Even though Zuko’s mission at the beginning of the series is antagonistic to Team Avatar, he is still presented as a POV character with whom we are meant to sympathize, if at first only through sympathetic characters in his story like Iroh and characters who act as antagonistic in his own story, like Zhao and later Azula.

Tyrion also is presented to us as on the “bad side” of the narrative. He’s a Lannister, and many of the immediately sympathetic characters dislike and distrust him. Yet he is positioned sympathetically almost immediately as seen through characters like Jon Snow and Bran, and in contrast to his brother and sister.

Zuko and Tyrion also are positioned similarly in the narrative in relation to the way they are paired with and against the other characters in the story. Heroic narratives often make use of the Rule of Three, and one way in which this is shown is in presenting the main characters of the story as a triad. This type of narrative will have a protagonist, a deuteragonist, and a tritagonist. Usually the protagonist and the deuteragonist are male, and serve as foils and shadows of each other, and the third protagonist, or tritagonist, is a female character. You could argue about who takes the second and third position but it’s inarguable that in Avatar: The Last Airbender (further referred to as ATLA), these characters are Aang, Zuko, and Katara. In A Song of Ice and Fire (further referred to as ASOIAF) these characters are Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister. This is also why it’s often theorized that Tyrion is the third head of the three-headed dragon that Dany and Jon are both part of, despite not having any Targaryen blood.

The other narrative structure that ASOIAF uses with regard to the characters that mirrors ATLA is what George R R Martin coins “the five key players” in his original manuscript of ASOIAF:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. (source)

I have theorized from what he says here that when Martin originally conceptualized his story, he intended for Tyrion to be younger than he is when we see him in the series, as Martin says that the five central characters will “grow from children to adults,” and Tyrion is already an adult as of his first chapter in A Game of Thrones. However, the fact that Tyrion is quite a bit older than the other four is thematically important. Tyrion is a character who, when we see him at the beginning of the story, has lost his innocence and become embittered by an abusive childhood and a lifetime of cruelty directed towards him because of his dwarfism. Yet Tyrion, thoughout the series, often relates to the child characters specifically because of that lost innocence. He offers help and advice to Jon, Bran, and Sansa throughout the series, and as of ADWD is on his way to join Daenerys.

Similarly, Zuko is positioned against the four main child characters of ATLA that make up Team Avatar, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph, and has moments where he relates to them even before he seeks to join them. And although Zuko is only sixteen and very much a kid (which becomes even more apparent when he joins the gaang), and Tyrion is an adult, he is still a young man and his relationship to Jon is something like that of an older brother.

Zuko and Aang’s relationship could be compared with that of Jon and Tyrion. Jon and Aang offer friendship to someone who they should consider an enemy, and Tyrion and Zuko end up becoming unexpected mentors to the younger boys. In both stories, this serves to highlight the tragedy of how war pits people against each other and what each of these characters has lost.

Aang to Zuko: If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?

-S1E13

Even after ADWD and all the war and strife between Stark and Lannister, Jon still considers Tyrion his friend. Obviously, we do not have the ending of ASOIAF to compare to ATLA, but I find it an interesting parallel, nonetheless.

Another thing that makes the characters similar on a structural level is the use of visual symbolism to show the characters’ internal struggle and duality. This is a clever and immediate way for the audience to understand that this is a character who we are meant to see as morally complex. Visual symbolism is more obvious in a medium like animation, and the specific piece of visual symbolism is something that was downplayed in ASOIAF’s television adaptation, so it might be less apparent, but I’ve talked before about how Tyrion’s heterochromia is a visual symbol of his dual nature as a character and his struggle with his identity.

Similarly, Zuko’s scar functions as a symbol of his duality. And although Tyrion also has a dramatic facial mutilation to compare Zuko’s burn scar to, I am comparing Tyrion’s heterochromia to Zuko’s scar instead because of the symbolism associated with eyes and seeing.

It is often said that “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” and the reason for this is obvious. Often we look into another person’s eyes to get a glimpse of who they are, to understand and empathize, to connect and hope they connect with us. Therefore, in fiction, eyes can often tell you a lot about a character’s identity. Having a scar over one eye is an immediate signal of Zuko’s conflict from the moment he is introduced to the audience. His stated goal from episode one is to capture the Avatar, but as the series goes on we see what this goal really is: an impossible task given to him by his father because it is impossible. Therefore, Zuko’s desire to regain his identity as prince of the Fire Nation is put into question. And what better way to represent a conflict with Zuko’s identity towards the Fire Nation than with an injury caused by fire? I’ll talk much more about Zuko’s scar in part two because this is an extremely important part of his narrative.

Tyrion’s heterochromatic eyes function in a similar way, and mirror the way Martin uses color symbolism in ASOIAF. Tyrion is described in the books as having one green eye and one black one, a fact that was not included in the show save for one scene in the pilot, and was eventually discarded, as were Dany’s purple eyes, because of the difficulty colored contacts posed for the actors, and because, as I suspect, it was decided that it was not enough of a noticeable detail to be worth the trouble. It’s a lot easier to get away with things like this in animation (and Zuko’s scar doesn’t work in a live action series for similar practical reasons), but Tyrion’s “mismatched” eyes are a detail often mentioned in the books. Tyrion’s green eye is the eye color he shares with his brother and sister and father, and is known as a distinctive Lannister trait, representing their physical beauty and perfection. And like Tyrion’s disability, his heterochromia is an imperfection and so not tolerated in a House that prides itself on perfection. His black eye, in contrast, while often called his “evil” eye and is a cause, in addition to his dwarfism, for others to treat him like a pariah, brings him closer to who he is as a person separate from his family, as dark eyes represent earthiness and intelligence.

Zuko’s scar also marks him as other the way Tyrion’s heterochromia marks him. It is often called attention to by characters in the series. In the first season it is often used to make him look frightening. Yet it also marks him in the eyes of the audience and the eyes of other characters as a victim of the Fire Nation and a survivor. In this way, the meaning of Zuko’s scar becomes flipped and it is his unmarred side that links him to what appears on the surface to be the order and perfection and superiority of the Fire Nation, but which, just like Zuko’s face if we are only looking at it from one side, hides a warped horror.

In part two I talk about how these two characters have similar trauma and conflict with relationship to their families and how that shapes their narratives.

#tyrion lannister #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #zuko #avatar the last airbender

20 notes · View notes