#rani liveblogs asoiaf

[atopvisenyashill]

"I remember a man throwing me in the air when I was very little. He stands as tall as the sky, and he throws me up so high it feels as though I'm flying. We're both laughing, laughing so much that I can hardly catch a breath, and finally I laugh so hard I wet myself, but that only makes him laugh the louder. I was never afraid when he was throwing me. I knew that he would always be there to catch me. Then one day he wasn't. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain's daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won't fall."

I love this passage for a lot of reasons but I love the play on "a stone is a mountain's daughter" here because she's not just explaining why she wasn't afraid when she slipped, or even why she cares little for the opinions of others on whether she's a "proper" lady or not; instead, she's warning Alayne, warning a fellow daughter of the mountain that men are not to be trusted.

She's saying to Alayne, look at what has become of me. Your father is kind now but he will leave when he's bored of playing house or he will die without bothering to set up care for you, and then you will have no one to make sure you are safe. She is saying my Sister Stone, you must keep yourself safe because Petyr Baelish will not, anymore than Sweetrobin or Harry the Heir will. You have to have a skill that will keep you safe, and courage, or you will never make it as a bastard girl in the real world.

#valyrianscrolls #mya stone #alayne stone #sansa stark #rani liveblogs asoiaf #legitimacy in asoiaf #gender politics in asoiaf #smallfolk rise up

[thewingedwolf]

the arryn line has died out so many times they always have a backup line ready to be the next arryn, these bitches are just sooooo bad at living. everyone’s always picking on the starks for getting nearly wiped out but damn ned & cat really hunkered down and repopulated the hell out of the family tree, like the starklings aren’t doing that bad, meanwhile you just like, sneeze too hard in the direction of the eyrie and the whole arryn line is on the brink of extinction, but it’s okay, they follow strict osha guidelines in the vale and they have a protocol for this very common scenario

#it was like 3 separate times in the history PLUS harry harding where the narrator is like ‘yeah they had to just this random cousin out #their ass because the whole line died. all the sons And the daughters And the dad had no siblings’ LIKE WHY ARE THEY INCAPABLE OF KEEPING IT #GOING OMG #rani liveblogs asoiaf #house arryn #i am waiting for my fire & blood hold to come in 💀💀 i made little notes when i was listening to the targs section about things that #interested me or that i thought could be involved in plot/prophecy stuff so i listen harder for certain stuff during fire & blood #then it’s dunk & egg. i’ve been listening to a clash of kings between all this it’s just that the series are audiobooks i own & the #other things are ones i checked out so i have to listen to those Now. esp fire & blood that hold list was so long 😭😭 but audiobooks are #expensive i can only get so many!!!! #a song of ice and fire

[atopvisenyashill]

catelyn and edmure constantly at odds…catelyn being unable to let go of the fact that SHE was the heir presumptive for half her childhood, edmure unable to understand why cat resents his status over her bc she’s a woman of course she didn’t inherit…catelyn is outwardly disrespectful and even hostile to him at several points and knows it but can’t help herself, can’t help her anger & helplessness at the war and her losses lashing out at her baby brother, and edmure lets it happen bc he’s head of the family and even tho he’s the baby he can take the anger and the pain from his sister that’s his job….catelyn reaches for his hand at their father’s funeral, desperate for someone who loved hoster in the same way but edmure is far away, drowning his grief alone because that’s how a man must act, he can be emotionally in front of his wife but never a sister…and when he asks her if hoster mentioned him as he died, cat can’t bare to tell him that hoster and edmure were much the same, spending their days drowning in grief and guilt after a lifetime of being the Lord and staying emotionally distant from the people who need them most, so she lies to spare her baby brother’s feelings and says yes, he thought of his son, when all along hoster’s thoughts were on the daughter he failed….always this distance of a boy meaning more between catelyn and edmure

#i am SCRRAMING I AM DECEASED #valyrianscrolls #catelyn stark #edmure tully #rani liveblogs asoiaf #brothers and sisters #gender politics in asoiaf

[thewingedwolf]

sansa sees olenna sitting there looking all frail and grandmotherly and is like “oh what a sweet old lady” and then olenna is like “fuck the king fuck my son fuck my son’s wife fuck renly fuck the targaryens i love my gay grandson but fuck him too” and sansa is standing there like

#aksjdjdj pls #rani liveblogs asoiaf #sansa stark #olenna tyrell

[atopvisenyashill]

Harwin being sent by his liege lord on what was always meant to be a quick if difficult task, just stop the Mountain from reaving on the King's justice, that turns into this nightmare of a life where he spends years away from home, away from civilization, away from safety and stability and sanity, to watch everyone die around him, to watch magic he barely understands bring the man he's sworn to serve back to life again and again, because there's nothing else to do but keep fighting and hope you're making a difference and not fucking everything up and making it worse-

and then Arya shows up and she's just as precocious and wild and underfoot as she's always been, and she's alive and mostly safe and traumatized sure but she's in one piece, she's fared not that badly compared to some of the little girls he's seen, and I imagine it felt like a small miracle to have her there, just for a moment, proof that he can do what he was tasked with and keep people safe BUT

then Arya escapes and barely any time later, he's coming across Catelyn's naked, water logged body on the Trident and there's a direwolf guarding the body so it's not nibbled on that leaves the moment it hears them coming, and he's begging Thoros to bring her back, bring his liege's lady back, bring Arya's poor mother back, but all he can do is cry and watch as Beric kneels besides her, kisses her awake like something out of a fairy tale, then falls to the side, dead at last, as something much worse that wears Catelyn's face rises in his place. What can Harwin do?

He continues to serve.

#I HATE #valyrianscrolls #harwin of the hollow hill #rani liveblogs asoiaf #the brotherhood without banners

[atopvisenyashill]

They took my clothes from me. I wore a gown of ivory lace, with freshwater pearls on the bodice, but the septas laid their hands on me and stripped me to the skin. My cousins too. Megga sent one septa crashing into the candles and set her robe afire. I fear for Alla, though. She went as white as milk, too frightened even to cry.

My cousins? Alla and Megga are hardly more than children. Your Grace, this . . . this is obscene. Will you take us out of here?

i dont have anything to say about this besides it’s horrifying, it’s horrible and despicable that a sixteen year old teenager has been left in the position of “adult” and is more worried about her cousins because alla is only thirteen. it’s sooooo much and then there’s MORE because while cersei is gloating over what she sees as a win, she has no idea that these dudes also see her as nothing but a slut and an idiot just like every other woman, and all this torture she’s laughing over is about to be turned into her and she can’t stop it because she got rid of the ability to stop it so margaery would have bo way out. and now neither does cersei. like yeah she’s got her evil advisor and bestie qyburn who is going to get her out of this but god, cersei margaery alla elinor megga just get completely humiliated by all the men around them and it’s not only legal, they all think these women deserve it for *vague mumbling*

Margaery stared at her, then pulled her hand away. "Is that a jape? Boros is a craven, Meryn is old and slow, your brother is maimed, the other two are off in Dorne, and Osmund is a bloody Kettleblack. Loras has two brothers, not six. If there's to be a trial by battle, I want Garlan as my champion.”

This is really interesting to me because of course Margaery understands the situation she’s in, for all that everyone throws (deserved) criticism at Mace for pimping his fourteen year old daughter to every baratheon he could get his hands on, it’s clear margaery’s political education was not stifled by her father the way cersei’s was by both tywin and robert. she plays up a sansa-esque sweet innocent maiden taken in and eating up every line thrown at her because she knows it’s the only personality cersei won’t actively try to beat down but once it sinks in that it’s really hopeless, she simply stops trying. this little moment, margaery taken aback at how cersei really does think margaery is a fucjing idiot is the moment i think her mask finally slips and what’s left is a perceptive and bitchy-as-only-a-teenager-can-be girl who is no longer interested in wasting time trying to get cersei to like her. i’m really interested in how their relationship develops in twow before whatever the hell it is that happens happens.

#cersei lannister #margaery tyrell #gender politics in asoiaf #rani liveblogs asoiaf #what’s that sansa post that’s like ‘he understands girlhood perfectly and then u remember he’s a 70 year old man’ #losing my mind over the nuances in gender performance going on here & forgetting george is a man from jersey akskdjdj #aksksks

[atopvisenyashill]

Cersei and Kevan are interesting because their personalities mesh kinda well, and Kevan talks to Cersei with the sort of blunt deference that Cersei would respond best to (she thinks she needs someone fawning over her but what she needs is someone who respects her mind but will argue with her, and Kevan has a certain amount of deference for her because of her station and the fact that she’s Tywin’s oldest). He has the years of training that she needs, without the stubborn mindset that Tywin has regarding the succession of Casterly Rock (he calls her Lady of the Rock, and asks to be made castellan and not Lord because he understands she comes before him in the succession and Jaime is a lost cause!!). BUT. Like Tywin, he takes her every failure and erratic move as confirmation that she’s not fit to rule instead of a confirmation that she has the drive but not the training!! So he just writes her off completely, let’s the Faith utterly humiliate her, and gets shanked the moment he gets into power. rip kevan you could have been barth or otto levels of powerful if only you could get past your misogyny and cersei’s debilitating mental illnesses.

#lannister men always shooting themselves in the foot by writing cersei off. it’s okay she’s deranged enough to destroy your house on her own #i mean that with love aksjjd #valyrianscrolls #kevan lannister #cersei lannister #rani liveblogs asoiaf

[atopvisenyashill]

The thing that is so amazing for me about Doran is that he is essentially the FIRST father we get in this series (we are like FOUR THOUSAND PAGES IN AT THIS POINT BTW) who realizes he has allowed his own faults to harm the trust his daughter has placed in him and then takes responsibility for how he has hurt her. Doran is livid with Arianne until she finally makes the comment about believing he is set to disinherit her and give Dorne to Quentyn and then his anger completely deflates, and he says very clearly to her, “Dorne will be yours. You have my word on that, if my word still has any meaning for you.”

“IF MY WORD STILL HAS ANY MEANING FOR YOU.”

He doesn’t try to put the blame back on her after this, and in fact he puts the breaks on the conversation, making it clear that the problem here was his lack of communication and not Arianne's mistrust. And more than that, just this tiny little acknowledgment that he’s done her wrong is enough for Arianne to completely forgive him! All she needed in the end was a simple acknowledgement that he was being unfair. The moment she gets it she is determined to be her father’s dutiful daughter all over again, even after years of resentment and mistrust. It is, ultimately, i think all most of the daughters who clash with their fathers need in the end and that really only Arianne is lucky enough to receive; a simple acknowledgement that he is the one who messed up, and that she was right to be wary of him. And that little acknowledgement is all either of them needs to face whatever comes next -

“Go swiftly, go safely, be my eyes and ears and voice… but most of all, take care.” “I will, Father.” She did not shed a tear. Arianne Martell was a princess of Dorne, and Dornishmen did not waste water lightly. It was a near thing, though. It was not her father’s kisses nor his hoarse words that made her eyes glisten, but the effort that brought him to his feet, his legs trembling under him, his joints swollen and inflamed with gout. Standing was an act of love. Standing was an act of faith. He believes in me. I will not fail him.

Doran makes the effort to try. He is not perfect but at least he tries for Arianne and it gives Arianne the confidence to pick herself up and try again as well.

#arianne nymeros martell #doran nymeros martell #fathers and daughters #rani liveblogs asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #i hope they both don't die but even if they do like....this is a good place to leave their relationship

[atopvisenyashill]

IN THIS LIGHT SHE COULD ALMOST BE A BEAUTY IN THIS LIGHT SHE COULD ALMOST BE A KNIGHT.

“in this light” that they’re both in, to be clear - twin flames fighting in the darkness. fighting against the darkness. brienne looking at the ghosts that haunt jaime, from the very real physical threats of the war he helped start to the metaphorical wounds of knighthood, chivalry, and oath-keeping , from the betrayal of realizing your father is not the man you wanted him to be, from his own stupidity, and saying “this is nothing. i can fight them all.” to help him remember the ideals of his youth, to BE the ideal of his youth; an oathbreaker to save the lives of innocent children but it won’t break her soul the way it broke his!! she’s got a beauty that goes deeper than his, and the soul of a knight much more unshakable as well. he dreams of her fighting with him, beside him, saving him, facing down the wrathful dead, and watching as he fails, but knowing she is there and she will do what he cannot!

HE DREAMT IT. HE DREAMT OF HER.

#HES GOING TO DIE FIGHTING THE OTHERS IS WHAT IM SAYING. HE CAN BE THE VALONQAR AND ALSO PASS THE TORCH TO BRIENNE. IF DAEMON CAN DIE #BOTH LIGHT AND DARK AFTER COMMITTING LIKE 12 WAR CRIMES AND AT LEAST 104 FELONIES. MURDER SUICIDING HIS OWN NEPHEW. #JAIME CAN DIE WITH BRIENNE FIGHTING THE OTHERS AFTER DOING SOMETHING HEINOUS TO CERSEI. THIS IS GEORGE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT #valyrianscrolls #braime #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #bittersweet beauty and the beast #jaime the dragon slayer #i’m waiting until i get brienne’s pov to give her a specific tag #rani liveblogs asoiaf #anyways guess what chapter i listened to

[atopvisenyashill]

that arianne chapter reconvinced me of that theory that the rest of dorne Does Not Fuck With House Dayne Anymore, like, to the rest of Westeros Arthur is a shining example of chivalry and knightly ideals, but Dorne is like “Lewyn had to be blackmailed into fighting for Rhaegar, where the fuck were you when Elia and the babies were slaughtered you useless binch?!” i just think even the other characters do not take gerold dayne even a little serious, they all are aware he’s skilled but it feels like they’re laughing at him behind his back and he knows it.

#dorne is famous for banding together when they face an enemy bent towards subjugation of their ways & not just territory disputes. even mor #than other areas! look at how often a handful of houses will side against their ruling house. in every war! dorne stays united thru #ALL OF THE DORNISH CONQUESTS!! not ONE HOUSE switches to the it. i think no one cared that the yronwoods sided with daemon bc that was #ultimately territory & title nonsense that doesn’t matter. so i think the rest of dorne considered aerys ‘threat to us as a people’ and wer #PISSED the FUCK OFF that arthur didn’t see it that way and stayed at the tower of joy. and take it out on his house. #rani liveblogs asoiaf #house dayne #dorne #the ghost of elia martell

[atopvisenyashill]

the thing about stannis is that he wants to live in a normal westerosi household where everyone does what he says and otherwise leaves him alone but the problem is he only attracts WEIRDOS so he is just living through his personal nightmare of everyone staring him dead in the eyes while they argue with him

#can u imagine having to regularly interact with DAVOS and MELISANDRE and JON SNOW. i would kill myself. #like as friends? can’t be beat!!! but as colleagues??? as professionals?????????? stannis deserves to burn people as a reward for that. #rani liveblogs asoiaf

[atopvisenyashill]

it’s actually insane that in the show, when Arya & Sandor kill Polliver and Raff, it’s this big moment of Heroic Violence, where Arya says Lommy’s last words as she runs needle through Polliver’s neck, and you get that ~bad ass~ scene of her holding the coin with blood on her hands and saying “valar morghulis” in that “calm, cool, collected killer” voice

and meanwhile, in the books, it’s this awful moment where her anger, grief, trauma, and fear all collide and she’s just screaming and stabbing a dead man over and over until the Hound pulls her off. And then it’s hours of her taking care of the Hound, of realizing she’s feeling something akin to sympathy and fondness for Sandor, the guilt of not being able to recall Micah’s face, the pain that Sansa may be dead and Arya is now the last Stark, as she whispers valar morghulis and stomps out any and all sympathy she may feel for Sandor and decides to leave him to die.

Like they really. Just completely missed the point of that scene huh.

#i forgot how rough it was jeez #rani liveblogs asoiaf #anti d&d #anti game of thrones #arya stark

[atopvisenyashill]

I love the Night’s Watch chapters for a lot of reasons but a lot of it is the dynamic between all the boys Jon befriends - Sam, Pyp, Grenn, and poor Small Paul. Sam starts off very convinced that they’re going to leave him because he’s Jon’s brother, not theirs, except Grenn just point blank refuses to leave Sam behind, and Small Paul is insistent that he can carry Sam as well.

Grenn and Small Paul even refuse when given the okay to leave Sam by another brother!

When Jon wakes up at Castle Black, the first thing he does is reach out for his brothers, and Pyp holds his hand!!!

Jon is upset with Grenn for leaving Sam behind at Craster’s but Grenn doesn’t brush it off - he is crushed by what he did, and feels guilty as all hell, and Pyp has to try to cheer him up!

Jon smiles at their antics while they’re in the middle of a long siege/battle that is overwhelming them.

And then of course, when they’re all reunited, they are so adorable

The scene when Jon is chosen as Lord Commanded has so much Pyp, and my man Dolorous Edd being the funniest person in the room as usual

i just love them all so much!! they’re brothers!!!!!!

#valyrianscrolls #the night's watch #these are my favorite chapters 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #jon snow #pyp #grenn #samwell tarly #small paul #dolorous edd #rani liveblogs asoiaf

[atopvisenyashill]

jaime going on a road trip and taking two people who fucjing hate his guts and make fun of him all the time but these are literally the only two dudes in the world who don’t want to actively murder him so they’re also his best friends.

#i HATE AJSJSJSJSJ stupid. #rani liveblogs asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #addam marbrand #ilyn payne #ilyn just openly laughing at him is so fucking funny asoiaf is a comedy!!

[atopvisenyashill]

the chapter i’m on - asos sansa ii - is interesting bc it’s cited as an instance of sansa being cruel, classist, a bully, whatever, in her thoughts of arya but that is such a surface level reading it’s maddening to think people look at it that way.

sansa isn’t thinking “i’d much rather have margaery as a sister” she’s thinking around how much she grieves for arya, and her own guilty feelings over not seeing through joffrey quick enough. it’s really clear:

“how can i let my sister marry joffrey” she thinks as she’s crying, just seconds after thinking about arya and attempting to distance herself from hurtful memories. she’s not just scared for margaery, she is thinking of arya in margaery’s place. she is thinking of how joffrey hurt arya and how sansa had stood there and yelled at arya, not joffrey (which i don’t think is a failing of hers; a drunk 11 year old reacting badly to a wildly stressful situation is not a moral failing). she’s thinking about how she can’t stand there and do nothing again when she can save margaery the way she couldn’t save arya and all she has to do is speak up.

she’s just not saying it directly because she deals with stress by repressing her memories. she thinks around a stressful subject instead of naming it in her mind. thinking of arya and the possibility that she’s dead and the last time they spoke they were fighting, all of that is too painful, so instead she focuses on wanting to protect margaery.

then, with arya on her mind, she finally lets herself acknowledge some of her pain while she’s alone:

“sometimes there was even a girl who looked like arya” is the point of this chapter! she has sons to please willas but the little girl she imagines with him belongs to sansa and sansa alone. and in her dreams, that girl looks like the sister she’s lost. in her dreams, her entire family is reunited. in her dreams, she realized joffrey was a monster earlier and she saves arya and lady and nymeria from him and she gets to be the brave, noble lady of her songs.

the crazy thing is that this has happened before and people understood it then: ned does this constantly.

the most obvious one comes early and you can see clearly he does the exact same thing of thinking around who his thoughts have really strayed to:

“you can’t get your hands on this one, can you?” he is clearly thinking about jon. he is testing to see if robert has changed any over the years, if maybe jon isn’t in that much danger and ned had just discredited robert’s heart too much over the years. only for robert to rage about dany, justify the butchering of elia & her babies, and confirm all of ned’s worst fears are still true. jon will never be safe in westeros if his identity were to be known and ned made the right decision to lie all these years. it’s such an important scene in establishing ned’s character and the show does an equally good job of implying what ned is really thinking.

Beyond being an excellent masterclass in acting during this scene, it comes immediately after Ned has said goodbye to Jon and promised they’d speak of his mother when they reunite. There’s a clear link that we’re meant to make between the scene before and this one despite Ned steadfastedly refusing to think Lyanna or Jon’s names. It’s the same with Arya; we’re meant to link Sansa’s sudden terror for Margaery with her feelings for Arya.

With both Ned and Sansa, a lot of their true thoughts are in what they don��t think and not what they tell you they’re thinking. They lie to themselves and they lie to you and the “trap” is to recognize this and piece together how they really feel.

#valyrianscrolls #rani liveblogs asoiaf #sansa stark #ned stark #fathers and daughters #sisters #sansa x arya #getting on my soap box #the sun and moon in endless chase

[atopvisenyashill]

victarian being a wildly misogynistic product of his culture but still thinking that he’s glad asha left when euron was crowned, and that he hopes she marries a northerner and stays far out of reach of euron is really getting to me.

#being so stupid about your own culpability but thinking ‘thank god my niece is free’ that’s so. i love greyjoys #rani liveblogs asoiaf