#the game EXPLICITLY lays out certain connections to certain colors for us

[queen-beefcake-sqx]

Color Associations in Disco Elysium (part 1)

I already can tell I’m going to be posting…. a lot about this.

so I was exploring the usage of the color blue in Disco Elysium using the Fayde dialogue viewer and I stumbled down a whole rabbit hole because there’s so much this game does with color association.

See, there’s a lot of REALLY oblivious references to the color blue in DE. The game outright says blue is for mystery. It’s also explicitly the color of moralism. The game hands us those associations.

But it’s also so much more complicated than that. Blue is also a color of sadness and horror (Harry refering to himself as a sea monster who sees the world all in blue when he puts on a pair of shades, the blue lining being the defining feature to identify Billie Mejean’s husband, Insulinde’s reputation as “The Blue Immensity”). It’s also a color Kim is DOUSED in, between the pen and the notebook and the handkerchief, giving us a solid positive connection to latch onto and possibly helping emphasize his connection to the RCM. (More on Kim’s blue in a second.)

But then. BUT THEN. There’s the color combos, and there’s where things get really interesting. Blue’s combined with white to indicate the RCM (possibly pointing at its history coming from the ICM and the communards’ white star), with red to tie back to Evrart’s corruption (only the shipping crates and The Pig’s lights use this combo), and with green to reference Dora (the ocean is also referred to often in blue-green, which I think fits — both are symbols of both serenity and oblivion and horror for Harry).

But as I was looking through Fayde, there was one combo that suddenly stood out as unusual:

While inspecting the royalist soldiers, I was struck suddenly by this description. The game doubles down on the association between the royalists and blue-orange (and gold) — René’s medal, the one for combat veterans who worked to stomp out the revolution, is described as a blue star against an orange sun.

We have a single character who is glaringly associated with orange — Kim. He’s the only one regularly referred to with the color, including these references post-tribunal:

Kim isn’t a royalist or a fascist, though, but the combo still makes sense. All of his blue things are things he doesn’t wear overtly, things he keeps hidden until needed. They’re things he can give away when he needs to. They’re disposable, to an extent (although I’m sure he’d be in misery if his notebook got ruined). Blue is also just…. not present in his portrait at all, and I have a strong theory that the colors used for the portraits aren’t 100% just aesthetics. His blue things add an air of mystery, but they’re never paired with a reference to his orange.

But you know what Kim is paired with? Black. And white, his white halo, but orange and black are his signature combo — when you get his black jacket, those two colors are swapped on his portrait even though the white halo remains. They’re connected.

There is a grand total of TWO places in game that I can find where orange and black are mentioned together outside of Kim’s ensemble. The first is from the Superstar Cop thought:

The moment of accepting your “superstardom” puts you as black-on-orange — another thing that’s easy to connect back to Kim. He’s cool. He’s admirable. He’s a superstar himself to the point Precinct 41 is tripping over themselves when he suggests he might come work for them.

With the connection to Kim becoming loudly apparent, the second instance gut punched me:

If you alight the message in the plaza, it lights up orange-black. You know, the message about returning to somebody’s side, as you rapidly approach the end of your time in Martinaise and your time with Kim. You can yell at me for shipping goggles but unless you’re just a COMPLETE asshole to Kim we cannot deny any of the respect and fondness Harry has for Kim from minute fucking ONE. “He’d take a bullet for you.” Come on.

One other interesting thing about orange… If you’re drunk while trying to come up with a name, apparently you get this interesting conceptualization check:

Orange and gold, like the royalists? I tried hunting down other references and found…. well…. this:

If you imprison Klaasje, the Moralintern come for her and this haunting Shivers line happens. The most notable references to the water are almost always blue or blue-green, although I haven’t combed thoroughly. Still, this PARTICULAR moment being gold-orange …. like the Royalist soldiers, like Harry at his worst (Tequila Sunset) …. gold-orange isn’t a very positive combo in universe. Not at all, and I wonder if the Shivers line is referring back to Harry and what a horrible decision it is to imprison her….

——

EDIT: WAIT I FORGOT there’s one other place where blue-orange shows up. Not simultaneously, but intechangibly, yet again in a place attached to Kim:

This one probably doesn’t mean anything but….interesting choice, DE….

#say more sadie #disco elysium #yeah yeah sometimes the curtains are just blue but #the game EXPLICITLY lays out certain connections to certain colors for us #This isn’t over analyzing this is saying hey this game is being very thoughtful about their word choice and descriptions

[redteabaron]

Sansa and the (yellow brick) road home

The movie The Wizard of Oz follows along the general theme most heroes/heroines do; the journey to the inner self, at times in relation with the outer world. (The book by Baum, and by relation the movie, has racist/xenophobic/nationalist undertones and implications that continue and multiply through the text that I’m just not going to include here since this meta is already too long and I’m also not going to include the political or Baum’s personal symbolism in these things.) 

I’m going to go off on a limb and assume mostly everyone knows the general summary of TWOO and not summarize it, if not, the wiki on the movie itself is pretty comprehensive. Below, instead of a short novel describing all the possible references and parallels found, I’ll just be using summarized points about how Sansa fills in for Dorothy Gale on her road home.

Red shoes - Red in the film, as that’s what I’m focusing on rather than the silver ones in the book since that was all about the free silver movement. Red for women and girls in a lot of fairy tales often represents the path onto adulthood, particularly connected to menstruation, which isn’t an enormous part of Sansa’s arc but it does get quite a few notable mentions (usually from gross people concerned with her ability to produce heirs). Sansa, like Dorothy, only gains her “red shoes” once she leaves home (that is, setting her on a path to metamorphosis and growing up). The “red shoes” symbolize things Sansa possesses that people, envy, admire or desire for their own. Sansa’s red shoes represent womanhood, agency over self, beauty, intelligence, her kindness and compassion. 

Sepia colors to technicolor in the film/Kansas to Oz - This transition from little to no color to places where it becomes a feast for the eyes (from the north to the south) represents Dorothy’s and Sansa’s feelings toward their respective homes and the places of their desires. Sansa yearns for something else, something different and southron because that is the place all the songs and tales are about. The north, as reiterated by numerous characters both northern and southron, is a hard, harsh place that has little beauty. Sansa, like Dorothy, feels unfulfilled and out of place in her home. She doesn’t explicitly state how out of place she feels in the north like Jon and Arya, but there is the implication that at least within her family she is out of place (perhaps with the exception of Bran who wants knighthood, loves songs and stories like his sister and doesn’t stick his nose up in the air at the fact that Sansa prefers the ones with ladies or love). King’s Landing is her land of Oz, a place of magic and possibility like all the songs, it’s a world of technicolor and danger.

Yellow Brick Road - The yellow brick road is just that; a road on which Dorothy needs to follow to meet with the wizard of Oz, and most importantly the journey she must undertake to go home, and Dorothy does want to go home, she misses it even in this enchanting land that seems to be everything she first wanted. Like Dorothy, Sansa wants to go home after briefly being in the place where dreams are supposed to be a reality (all the stories can’t be lies) and this beautiful place has more danger than she’d realized; Sansa’s yellow brick road is a sight more twisted and unclear with far fewer friends and guarantees of safety. Dorothy is told to stay on the Yellow Brick Road to find her way to her ticket home (the Great Oz), otherwise she’ll run into danger. 

Sansa’s metaphorical ‘Yellow Brick Road’ is her role as a ‘pawn’ in the game of thrones; she has to play within the rules others make for her and outliving them, or she will have no other recourse for survival. 

Toto - Toto is Lady; the animal in a fairy tale setting that is something unknown in a child, yet to be understood or tamed. Toto was Dorothy’s playmate, constant companion, and likely her confidante, and undoubtedly although Toto didn’t have a large part to play directly in TWOO, he set off the events to occur the way they did for Dorothy throughout her time in Oz and in Kansas, but at least she had the comfort that he was there with her throughout it all. Toto is symbolic of a natural gut instinct (his hatred of Miss Gulch, where Lady hates the Hound) and the one who uncovers things normally concealed (again, Lady’s dislike of the Hound despite being the gentlest of her siblings). 

Lady, like Toto, sets off a chain of events for Sansa personally, but Sansa doesn’t have the comfort of Lady being there with her. Here, Lady is the unknown part of Sansa (that functions as her gut feeling, portrays her true self yet to be realized) but ultimately she, a part of Sansa, is killed by Ned at the behest of Cersei (also featuring Robert once again turning aside something unjust and gruesome for an easier solution). 

It brings Toto escaping from the Wicked Witch of the West in a harsher light. Dorothy’s tearful happiness that Toto escapes alive even while she’s captured and her life is in danger … yet Sansa is in danger and Lady is dead, only alive briefly in her dreams. Toto represents a part of Dorothy that manages to escape the worst of the punishment, yet a part of Sansa is already dead, spiritually, at this point. With Robb’s death and his last words being Grey Wind, we can assume there is no ‘getting a new direwolf’ or just simply recovering from the death of their direwolf. 

The Twister - Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon uproot Winterfell and the Seven Kingdoms unintentionally. By accepting the position of Hand, Ned paved the way for her journey there. Later the deaths of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon, Sansa is trapped in King’s Landing/the Vale (“Oz”). Robert is the Twister and once in King’s Landing, Ned is the locked cellar, essentially leaving her out in the open in danger as he doesn’t share his worries with Sansa. He deliberately leaves her as the odd man out while he manages to speak with Arya about the situation and at least makes her aware that there is danger. 

Poppy field - The allure of giving up and wasting away; in TWOO these lovely, deadly flowers cause those who breathe in their sweet scent to lay down and fall asleep until their death. The poppy field represents apathy and surrender during difficult times, and similarly this makes its appearance for Sansa who abides by all the rules of her captors (people who have harmed her, her family, her home, etc) - but she only succumbs to this from a certain perspective. Sansa hasn’t fallen asleep and succumbed to her metaphorical poppy field, she is, in effect, lucid dreaming. Dreaming while aware, even if she must stay in the dream so she can survive. She’s giving everyone around her the illusion that she is trapped in her “dream”, that she is “Sleeping Beauty” while she continues to learn, adapt, and observe.

Dorothy has three companions that remain with her on her journey that all want the great wizard to give them something they feel they lack. While in the book/film, it’s clear they’re still good people and not without their positive traits, everyone focuses on what they lack across the board. In the sections below, I’ll be using commonalities found in the (unwanted) “suitors” of Sansa on her journey where they too focus on their negative traits, or are the inverted intentions of Dorothy’s companions.

Tin Man/Tyrion Lannister/Sandor Clegane - Men of sympathetic circumstance and who want to be wanted as they are, or desire to be loved/objects of desire and are understood among others as not having a heart or not able to.

Both Sandor and Tyrion project their feelings of rejection from society and in particular women, noblewomen, and lust onto Sansa (a child, a prisoner of war and an easy, isolated target). They are the most selfish form of desire for the Tin Man’s want for a heart; where the Tin Man desired a heart for the purpose of loving others and everything (although he finds later he never needed a physical heart because he was good and loving all along) Tyrion and Sandor desire a heart from someone else for themselves.

They’re who are typically the ones we want to root for as the underdogs who get their just rewards as they have been abused in their positions or misfortunes in life, but they ultimately fall short because they are simply awful and have built up these defenses and use them against Sansa despite being positions where they could have proven to be the ‘knights’ she yearns for (barring the enormous age gaps which inherently leaves these matches undesirable anyway). 

While Sandor’s backstory regarding his abuse at the hands of his brother are awful, he himself enacts abuse on others - the murder of Mycah, him relaying regret for not raping Sansa when he had the chance (whether or not he meant it, she was a child and it’s an awful thing to regret not doing), and his participation in the unkiss as well as verbally abusing her and gaslighting Sansa. Yet he wants kindness and some sort of love or affection from her regardless of his treatment of her. She sings the Mother’s Hymn for him during the Battle of Blackwater Bay, in a way, giving him some form of (her) heart although that wasn’t what she’d intended to do (she misremembers the trauma so we can assume she was terrified), it can be inferred that Sandor got something from her that he wanted (subconsciously or not). 

Similarly, we have sympathy for Tyrion because although he is highborn, he still faces constant mockery, obstacles, verbal and physical abuse due to his disability and looks. However, he still wants to be lord of Winterfell and he wants Sansa (who he finds himself attracted to) - girl or woman-child or whatever she is. Tywin could have married her off to a Lannister cousin, so Tyrion does have the choice to pass her up, but he chooses to go forward with the marriage and even prepares to take her against her consent (where he molests her and says he could be the Knight of Flowers in the dark; essentially telling her to lie to herself about how she felt about him and the situation) but stops after he feels guilty. Tyrion could have been sympathetic because he isn’t without his soft spots (see his conversation with Jon Snow, his consideration for Bran, etc) but he again falls short. He wants love and affection - but he has rather exacting standards, the same thing that infuriated him about Sansa not finding him attractive.

Like the Tin Man it isn’t that they have no heart. Unlike the Tin Man, however, for Sandor and Tyrion, it’s simply that most of that heart shown consists of selfishness and self-centeredness. Sandor might immediately cop to it and never attempts to hide it, but he tries to bring every man down to his level by saying how awful everyone is, everywhere. Tyrion meanwhile may be capable of kindness, but he shows that he is easy to offend when it is rebuffed or denied, as though he expects payment for such a thing.

Cowardly Lion/Ser Dontos/Joffrey - Characters who have the titles of courtly images; Joffrey is a prince, then a golden king. Ser Dontos is a named knight. Both have the roles in songs and stories where the expected virtues would include courage, grace, humility, honor, etc but ultimately do not have these things even if they have the appropriate titles. 

In TWOO, the Cowardly Lion presents a falsehood or an oxymoron (after all, how can the king of all beasts be a coward?). Joffrey and Dontos do the same. (How can a king be cruel, how can a knight not have dignity, etc). Sansa’s attachment and adherence to songs/stories isn’t really all that different from any of the ideas the Stark kids have about their favorite stories, but in her journey specifically, we see her unraveling popular propaganda in Westerosi high society; she even makes comparisons in her inner monologues. 

Where the virtues of kings and knights are meant to be shown, we see her expectations fall very short of what the title is meant to indicate about the character of the people who hold them.

In both Joffrey and Dontos, they lack these qualities even if we, Sansa, may briefly hold out hope for the better (where Joffrey immediately kills that by suddenly having Ned executed, where Dontos sells her off to Littlefinger despite trying to play her Florian). In particular, Ser Dontos ultimately fails as the CW because he says he wants Sansa to be safe, to be her Florian, but isn’t truthful with her about it, yet he wants to reap the reward for it. Joffrey believes himself to have these qualities but is often called out on it by other characters, playing the CW in the beginning who immediately attacks the Tin Man, seemingly unaware of his lack of character. 

In TWOO Dorothy says she’ll miss everyone, but she’ll miss the Scarecrow most of all; below the characters I associate with the Scarecrow are the ones who Sansa might be able to more easily pick out traits (or trick herself into seeing more good than exists) she is most comfortable with (one of the characters below is most obviously not “safe” or the one she has the most affection for, but rather the one she tries very hard, due to her current dependency on him, to project or emphasize what he’s “done for” her). 

Scarecrow/Petyr Baelish/Harry the Heir/Ser Loras - Characters shown or believed to be less intelligent, without depth, or even overrated. They are stuffed with straw, padded with nothing of substance in a person.

Briefly starting with Ser Loras, I included him specifically because even though Sansa has a little crush on him, she quickly realizes that he never had interest in her, and didn’t remember giving her the rose even though it was the highlight of her day when he did. This is an indication to Sansa she doesn’t know him even though she daydreamed about him. She doesn’t truly know him, is what she realizes and he doesn’t know her despite the implicit belief that love or affection can be found and trusted at first sight. He was handsome, seemingly knightly, dreamy, and he turned out to be no one who would have any consequence for her.

Harry the Heir, we don’t know much about as a person beyond the basics. He has one illegitimate child and is currently courting Saffron, who is pregnant with his second illegitimate child. He is a knight. He’s Robert Arryn’s heir. There’s the idea that he’s quite good at knightly actions (jousting, swordplay, horsemanship, etc) and likely indications that he is a little egotistical. From the released chapters of Alayne we’ve seen, he does apologize for his rudeness, but I don’t believe he’ll be around long enough for us to explore his person. Our understanding of him, and I believe Alayne’s/Sansa’s understanding of him will be one of pity, knowing his fate, but ultimately we won’t know him enough for it to be particularly impactful save for how his death will affect Sansa’s actions. 

To that end, Harry has every possibility of being a better suitor than the others that have sold themselves as her beaus, but it won’t last. Where we read that Ser Loras didn’t remember Sansa or seem to care or was invested in her, we’ll see that ultimately Harry is another, if newer scarecrow; ultimately a character of seemingly goodwill, or at least one who won’t wish her harm, but will fall flat by not having substance or not be allowed the time to develop much. 

Admittedly, Petyr as the Wicked Witch of the West is also fitting, but considering we are constantly told in text how dangerous he is forces him to the forefront of our minds as this terrifying endgame boogeyman. Since asoiaf likes to have little twists and turns and defy immediate expectations, he isn’t likely so important to the final fate of Westeros, and by extension, Sansa’s fate. His biggest impact will be having spirited her away to the Vale and keeping her under lock. To that end, he is (one of) the Scarecrow(s) in Sansa’s journey. 

The whole “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow” here applies to Petyr. Not that he represents a positive point in Sansa’s journey home, but he does represent safety, even though it comes at a price. (Where he tells her to call him Father, where he molests her, gaslights her, verbally and psychologically abuses her and she forces herself to dissociate, ultimately piling on the trauma). 

Petyr isn’t stupid, or without a brain, but he is overconfident in his mind, to the end that he will make huge missteps he won’t have accounted for (Jeyne at Winterfell, not thinking Sansa will be capable of fleeing or thinking for herself, believing he knew everything that happened after the Red Wedding, doubting Dany is a dangerous element, underestimating Aegon, etc) despite giving Sansa similar warnings (all while believing she would be too stupid or naive to heed them). He, like the Scarecrow, is a planner but ultimately he will meet an anticlimactic death. He, and numerous other characters, sell the idea (very loudly) that there is more to him than there appears, that he has great depths, that he is one of the most dangerous men in Westeros.

That isn’t to say he isn’t dangerous - he obviously is. He kicked off a violent war, arranged for the deaths of numerous people, has quite a lot of money and power (although he doesn’t have a name with weight). It’s just that with every person who announces how dangerous he is, we’ll see in Sansa’s journey when we see him as his truest self, stripped of his gold and power we will see nothing. He has no great depths to plumb beyond his own ambitions.

He is the Scarecrow who already found his “brain” (where Petyr already has the lesson that his strength is his mind), yet in the end, is still a scarecrow. Just the form of a man filled with straw.

Wicked Witch of the West/Cersei - The ever present danger that never loses focus on Sansa, seemingly magically out of reach from danger to Sansa’s eyes. Cersei, in a way, is this insurmountable force to Sansa; she is the purest form of danger that exists and it’s why Sansa has no choice but to hide and trust that Littlefinger will keep her concealed.  

Cersei blames Tyrion and Sansa for Joffrey’s death, and especially has a grudge against Sansa for her “red shoes” (her name, her agency, her womanhood, children, beauty, etc, we see her reference snidely about Sansa’s qualities whenever she talks/thinks about her) (see above for what Sansa’s red shoes are) and the action she believes she is responsible for. She has multiple hangers on as Queen Regent (flying monkeys who do her bidding). 

She, from Sansa’s point of view, has all this power and represents someone who can’t be stopped (we see the same thing with Dorothy and the WWW), but yet the Witch dies easily. In TWOO, she’s melted by a bucket of water Dorothy accidentally spills on her. I think this may be an indication that Sansa may have another indirect hand in her death (indirect as with the Purple Wedding), perhaps letting some information she gives be used against Cersei, or something. But ultimately, Cersei, like the Wicked Witch of the West won’t have a particularly “onscreen” death (she’ll likely die in King’s Landing, either by Jaime’s hand, or indirectly through Tyrion when Dany burns it).  

Oz/Man behind the curtain - The songs and tales of Westeros that conceal the darker truths that exist behind what power means; a means of propaganda that Sansa is forced to unveil on her own. While all the Starks learn a lot more about people, the world, truth and lies, politics, etc Sansa’s position in court leads her to pay a lot more attention to what people don’t say. She also develops a deeper understanding of how what she believed came to actually be. She has to learn how to weed out the domino effect stories and songs have, even though at their core they can be appreciated (for instance, that honor and nobility are good things, even if the song/tale about the person isn’t someone who realistically practiced it). 

This saturates court culture across the world, although her focus is on Westeros, but we know that this isn’t just a southron issue; this exists in the north, across the Narrow Sea, within Houses, legacies, and even singular people. 

#sansa stark #anti tyrion lannister #anti sandor clegane #anti petyr baelish #asoiaf meta #asoiaf and the wizard of oz #long post #literary comparison and analysis #very obviously not fully comprehensive

[occupyvenus]

How sweet is sweetness really?

“A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness “ Prove for Jon and Dany’s epic romance. Because Grrm himself also had Lyanna say “Love is a sweet thing Dear Ned”. I mean, not really. The actual quote is "Love is sweet, dearest Ned.” and the complete quote actually is "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature." but I’m sure that omission wasn’t done on purpose. But it got me thinking and I decided to also look up some quotes by Grrm, not from a completely unrelated POV but by looking at Dany’s chapters herself. At all the times that sweet smells or tastes show up in her chapter (since a flower filling the air with sweetness is mostly connected to that specific sensory meaning of “sweetness” instead of the more metaphorical ones), in what context they occur and with what they are associated with. 

To get some “data” out of this, I’ll give points everytime a sweet smell or taste shows up: -2 if it is has explicit negative associations, -1 if it is rather negative and/or not directly related to a specific occurence, 0 if it’s neutral, ambiguous or negligible, +1 if it is rather positive and +2 if is definitely positive. Since these things are often open to interpretation I’ll keep two scores: the forgiving one and the merciless one when I think it isn’t clear. Don’t take it too seriously though, this is mostly meant to portray a certain pattern when it comes to this. 

Let’s dive into this, shall we? 

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor.

[....]

Inside the manse, the air was heavy with the scent of spices, pinchfire and sweet lemon and cinnamon. They were escorted across the entry hall, where a mosaic of colored glass depicted the Doom of Valyria.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

The smell of the sickness that killed the only man who ever really cared for her and that forced her out of the home with the red door. -2 points

And sweet smells during the feast when she is sold to Drogo. Let’s give this 0 / -1 point. Being sold like a broodmare isn’t a positive thing, but the smell of sweet lemon isn’t directly associated with it and rather small detail. 

She had never seen so many people in one place, nor people so strange and frightening. The horselords might put on rich fabrics and sweet perfumes when they visited the Free Cities, but out under the open sky they kept the old ways. Men and women alike wore painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings cinched by bronze medallion belts, and the warriors greased their long braids with fat from the rendering pits.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

I would be inclined to give this -1 point since it’s the first instance of sweet smells being used to cover up the truth (something that will come up several more times) but I will give 0 points to the forgiving score. 

As Irri and Jhiqui helped her from her litter, she sniffed, and recognized the sharp odors of garlic and pepper, scents that reminded Dany of days long gone in the alleys of Tyrosh and Myr and brought a fond smile to her face. Under that she smelled the heady sweet perfumes of Lys. She saw slaves carrying bolts of intricate Myrish lace and fine wools in a dozen rich colors.

[...]

Turning a corner, they came upon a wine merchant offering thimble-sized cups of his wares to the passersby. "Sweet reds," he cried in fluent Dothraki, "I have sweet reds, from Lys and Volantis and the Arbor. Whites from Lys, Tyroshi pear brandy, firewine, pepperwine, the pale green nectars of Myr. Smokeberry browns and Andalish sours, I have them, I have them." He was a small man, slender and handsome, his flaxen hair curled and perfumed after the fashion of Lys. When Dany paused before his stall, he bowed low. "A taste for the khaleesi? I have a sweet red from Dorne, my lady, it sings of plums and cherries and rich dark oak. A cask, a cup, a swallow? One taste, and you will name your child after me."

[...]

Ser Jorah lifted a cup and sniffed at the wine, frowning.

"Sweet, isn't it?" the wineseller said, smiling. "Can you smell the fruit, ser? The perfume of the Arbor. Taste it, my lord, and tell me it isn't the finest, richest wine that's ever touched your tongue."

Ser Jorah offered him the cup. "You taste it first."

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

Well, well, sweet poisoned wine. Let’s give 0 / -1 points for sweet smells in the market, -1 for the wineseller promoting all his sweet wines and luring Dany into his trap and another -2 for the “Sweet, isn’t it?”. I think that’s fair. 

The plaster had caked hard as the mud walls of the Lamb Men, and like those walls it cracked easily. Ser Jorah broke the dry mud with his knife, pried the chunks from the flesh, peeled off the leaves one by one. A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo's breast black and glistening with corruption.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

-2 points. 

"Drink," she said, lifting Dany's head to the cup once more, but this time it was only wine. Sweet, sweet wine. Dany drank, and lay back, listening to the soft sound of her own breathing. She could feel the heaviness in her limbs, as sleep crept in to fill her up once more. "

Bring me …" she murmured, her voice slurred and drowsy. "Bring … I want to hold …"

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

Hhhmmm... the context of this definitely isn’t nice. MMD has just finished her blood ritual, the Khalasar left, Drogo was zombified and Dany has just lost her unborn child. The wine itself however isn’t perceived as negative by Dany. I would say 0 / -1 is a good compromise. 

She climbed the pyre herself to place the eggs around her sun-and-stars. The black beside his heart, under his arm. The green beside his head, his braid coiled around it. The cream-and-gold down between his legs. When she kissed him for the last time, Dany could taste the sweetness of the oil on his lips.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

Dany kissing Drogo on his funeral pyre. Funerals and her dead first love.  -1 I would say.

"I've brought you a peach," Ser Jorah said, kneeling. It was so small she could almost hide it in her palm, and overripe too, but when she took the first bite, the flesh was so sweet she almost cried. She ate it slowly, savoring every mouthful, while Ser Jorah told her of the tree it had been plucked from, in a garden near the western wall.

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

Let’s give this positive 2 points. It would take too long for me to explain why I think it might not deserve positive points at all so let’s just take this on at face value. For both scores (it won’t matter much anyway).

"Why should she need your Palace of Dust, when I can give her sunlight and sweet water and silks to sleep in?" Xaro said to the warlock. "The Thirteen shall set a crown of black jade and fire opals upon her lovely head."

[...]

"—pretends to power," the knight said brusquely. On his dark green surcoat, the bear of House Mormont stood on its hind legs, black and fierce. Jorah looked no less ferocious as he scowled at the crowd that filled the bazaar. "I would not linger here long, my queen. I mislike the very smell of this place."Dany smiled. 

"Perhaps it's the camels you're smelling. The Qartheen themselves seem sweet enough to my nose."

"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones."

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys II

Dany gets a lesson in how sweet smells are sometimes used to cover fouler ones.... - 2 points. As for Xaro’s promise of “sweet water”, I will go with 0 / -1. It isn’t explicitly negative but Xaro is just using his sweet promises to exploit Dany. 

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Since this is the debated topic here it won’t influence the score. (But may I mention that this follows shortly after Jorah drops some truthbombs about sweet smells and how they are sometimes used to cover fouler ones?) 

Dany had no need to count his scars; there were many, she could see at a glance. "And why are you here, Strong Belwas?"

"From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him."

The fat man with sweet stink in his hair . . . "Illyrio?" she said. "You were sent by Magister Illyrio?"

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys V

This is a hard one. I would say 0 because while it is Illyrio offering Dany help, we do know that he never cared about her wellbeing and only wanted (and still wants) to use her for his own plans. But let’s just stick with 0.  

Ser Jorah stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. The smell of his sweat was an earthy answer to the sweet perfumes that drenched the Astapori.

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

The sweet perfumes of the astapori masters? I would say -2. Not the kind of people Dany is too fond of. 

The besiegers gave him a raucous welcome as soon as he reached the camp. Her Dothraki hooted and screamed, and the Unsullied sent up a great clangor by banging their spears against their shields. "Well done," Ser Jorah told him, and Brown Ben tossed the eunuch a ripe plum and said, "A sweet fruit for a sweet fight." Even her Dothraki handmaids had words of praise. "We would braid your hair and hang a bell in it, Strong Belwas," said Jhiqui, "but you have no hair to braid."

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys V

Another difficult one. On the one hand they are celebrating a victory, on the other hand we know how all of Dany’s victories in Slaver’s Bay turned out ... it also doesn’t directly concern Dany: But, let’s give it 1 / 0. 

Daenerys held out her cup for Irri to refill. The wine was sweet and strong, redolent with the smell of eastern spices, much superior to the thin Ghiscari wines that had filled her cup of late. Xaro perused the fruits on the platter Jhiqui offered him and chose a persimmon. Its orange skin matched the color of the coral in his nose. He took a bite and pursed his lips. "Tart."

"Would my lord prefer something sweeter?"

"Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor." Xaro took another bite, chewed, swallowed. "

[...]

I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened. Do you know how Unsullied are made and trained?"

"Cruelly, I have no doubt. When a smith makes a sword, he thrusts the blade into the fire, beats on it with a hammer, then plunges it into iced water to temper the steel. If you would savor the sweet taste of the fruit, you must water the tree."

"This tree has been watered with blood."

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys III

Another lesson about how sweetness isn’t always the bestest thing ever? Yes! Let’s give -2 points. Sweet wine making another appearance when Dany is interacting with somebody who doesn’t have her best interest in mind ... let’s say 0 / -1. Xaro’s sugarcoating the Unsullieds treatment is another instance of “sweetness” covering up a truth, but I would still give it 0 points. We shouldn’t take this too far. 

He is going to make a sortie, Dany realized, and if he takes Ben Plumm's head, he'll walk into the wedding feast and throw it at my feet. Seven save me. Why couldn't he be better born? 

 When he was gone, Missandei brought the queen a simple meal of goat cheese and olives, with raisins for a sweet. "Your Grace needs more than wine to break her fast. You are such a tiny thing, and you will surely need your strength today."

That made Daenerys laugh, coming from a girl so small. She relied so much on the little scribe that she oft forgot that Missandei had only turned eleven. They shared the food together on her terrace. As Dany nibbled on an olive, the Naathi girl gazed at her with eyes like molten gold and said, "It is not too late to tell them that you have decided not to wed."

[...]

The hall rang to Yunkish laughter, Yunkish songs, Yunkish prayers. Dancers danced; musicians played queer tunes with bells and squeaks and bladders; singers sang ancient love songs in the incomprehensible tongue of Old Ghis. Wine flowed—not the thin pale stuff of Slaver's Bay but rich sweet vintages from the Arbor and dreamwine from Qarth, flavored with strange spices. The Yunkai'i had come at King Hizdahr's invitation, to sign the peace and witness the rebirth of Meereen's far-famed fighting pits. Her noble husband had opened the Great Pyramid to fete them.I hate this, thought Daenerys Targaryen. 

How did this happen, that I am drinking and smiling with men I'd sooner flay?

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

A sweet breakfast on the day of Dany’s wedding to Hizdahr, sweet wine during it. Let’s give 0 for Missandei getting breakfast and -1 point for that sweet wine always showing when Dany has to talk to people she would rather kill.  

"Locusts!" as he seized the bowl and began to crunch them by the handful.

"Those are very tasty," advised Hizdahr. "You ought to try a few yourself, my love. They are rolled in spice before the honey, so they are sweet and hot at once."

"That explains the way Belwas is sweating," Dany said. "I believe I will content myself with figs and dates."

[...]

No, she knew, they love their mortal art. When the cheers began to ebb, she allowed to herself to sit. Their box was in the shade, but her head was pounding. "Jhiqui," she called, "sweet water, if you would. My throat is very dry."

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IX

The poisoned locusts! Also sweet! -2 points. Dany asking for sweet water when the mortal art she hates so much begins! 0 / -1. Another instance of Dany trying to swallow the sour with some sweet. 

How sweet is sweetness then? 

Total score (forgiving): -15 Total score (merciless): -22 Total score (middleground): -18,5

Sweet smells/tastes in a  positive context (+1/+2)*: 1,5 Sweet smells/tastes in an ambiguous, neutral or negligible context (0): 6,5 Sweet smells/tastes in a negative context (-1/-2): 14

*Things that fall under different categories in the two scores will be counted as 0,5 for the respective categories. Should they only fall under one they count as 1.

Oh my, looks like “sweetness” isn’t all that sweet for Dany after all. Even looks rather bitter to me. Even the forgiving score doesn’t look particularly positive to me.Is that a negative sign in front of it? I wonder why Grrm never bothered to associate sweet smells with anything positive in her chapters. Considering that the most quoted, indisputable foreshadowing for her number one romance is so strongly associated with sweetness. 

A little additional point is that Dany is the character with the most references to sweet smells and flavours. I would assume that Grrm is implementing so much of it in her chapters to give us a clue as to what it means to Dany’s character. I think that alone warrants that we take a closer look at the associations in her POV chapter. (btw, I didn’t even include all the times when she mistrusts, is deceived or fucked over by perfumed people. I think that could also be included but since it isn’t explicitly “sweet” I decided to leave it out.)

Sweet smells and flavours make an appearance 23 times in Dany’s POV. More often than in any other main characters’: Arya(10), Bran(6), Jon (9), Sansa (14), Tyrion (24), Catelyn(7), Jaime (4), Eddard (9), Theon(5).* But to derive a bit more meaning from this we should probably look at it in relation to number of POV chapters: 

Dany: 0,74 per chapter  Arya: 0,29 per chapter | Bran: 0,29 per chapter Jon: 0,21 per chapter | Sansa: 0,58 per chapter Tyrion: 0,51 per chapter | Catelyn: 0,28 per chapter Jaime: 0,24 per chapter | Eddard: 0,6 per chapter Theon: 0,38 per chapter

*The word “sweet” shows up very, very often in the context of women. “sweet mouth”, “sweetness”, “sweet flesh”, “sweet kisses” etc. (Especially in Tyrion’s POV) I did not include those instances if they weren’t directly related to “taste”. The same goes for expressions that aren’t directly related to the smell or taste of something, eg “ lies dripping from his lips, sweet as honey“. I did however include instances where “tastes” or “smells” sweet is used in a metaphorical sense. eg “taste the sweet air of victory”. I tried to be consistent with what I included and with what I considered to be “one” reference. eg “fat man with sweet stink in his hair” was only counted once despite appearing in the text two times because it was simply a repetition. 

If you take a look at the quotes above sweetness is associated with two things: deception/distrust and illness/death. Rather negative things, wouldn’t you say? 

This is in no way unique to Dany either. Several characters include similar associations: “but many a poison was sweet as well”, “A sweet offer . . . yet sweets can be poisoned.”, “Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell.”. And: “the sweet cloying stench of death.”, “There was a smell of death about that room; a heavy smell, sweet and foul, clinging.”, but I do not see how that would turn “filled the air with sweetness” into a necessarily positive foreshadowing? Sweet smells being associated with deception (either of oneself or others) is especially prevalent in the other POV’s who are often associated with them (Sansa, Tyrion, Eddard). In the former two cases it’s often ... in the context of romantical self-deception to be more precise. But I wanted to stick to Dany’s POV here so I won’t go into that here.

So, yes, perhaps Jon will “fill the air with sweetness” once he comes into Dany’s life but looking at the prevalent, negative role that sweetness plays in her arc I wouldn’t be too surprised if it turns bitter in the end. (Especially since ... you know Jon doesn’t taste the sweetness: 

The light of the half-moon turned Val's honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. "The air tastes sweet."

"My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold."

A Dance with Dragons - Jon VIII

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#political!Jon #marge!Jon #anti-jonerys #anti-daenerys #filled the air with sweetness bullshit #light wank #if any of you people who don't know how to search the tags want to argue with this #trolls and wankers are not welcomed #please just learn how to use tags #just stay in your lane #and let others live their lives #anyone actually capable of civil discussions #is welcome to bring up arguments

[theadventurezone]

On The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel, Blue Taako, and Representation

 Yesterday, we revealed some pages for our graphic novel adaptation of the first Adventure Zone arc, and received some criticism of the direction we went with for Taako’s coloring. This artwork reveal came some months after the first reveal of some of our characters, for which we also received criticism of our three leads, all of whom were white in these initial designs. Us and the graphic novel team realized that, yes, that is extremely bad, went back to the drawing board, and had several long discussions about how to best rectify this situation, resulting in the artwork revealed yesterday.

More or less all of the criticism we’ve received centers on Taako, whose skin is a pale blue color in these designs. What we’ve heard most is disappointment that Taako is not realized in these pages as a person of color — or, to be more specific, a Latinx or explicitly Mexican character. There was concern we had failed to follow through on an opportunity to get better representation for Latinx listeners, instead opting to take a safe route, and make Taako a fantasy color without any kind of real-world connection. Much of the criticism also focuses on how that color (or, to be more specific, green skin) has anti-semitic connotations.

This conversation was happening in certain corners of our fandom long before the graphic novel art reveal took place yesterday. We’ve heard criticism from some folks over our policy of not having canonical visual representations of any of our characters — a policy that has resulted in a genuinely humbling ocean of fan art, but also some instances of in-fighting between members of the community who take umbrage with one another’s disparate interpretations of these characters. Another criticism of that policy is that it inherently does not foster good representation, and in fact represents a noncommittal way of handling racial representation on this show.

Here’s the truth of the matter: I think all of this comes from this underlying friction between where The Adventure Zone and us, its creators, were when we started doing the podcast, and where we, the show, and you, the community, are at now. 

Justin once described the show as a “car that learned how to fly,” which I think is an accurate way of describing this friction.

When we started, we did not consider the fact that folks would relate to these characters, or would care about what they looked like, or if they looked like them, or anything along those lines. We did not prioritize representation because we did not even think of it as being something we would need to prioritize. Part of that I can lay at the feet of the fact that The Adventure Zone started as a one-off filler episode of MBMBaM that we published while Justin was on paternity leave — we didn’t have that conversation because we didn’t think this show would be a show. But the larger reason is that the four of us are all white dudes, and have never had to think about our representation in media our entire lives.

I don’t take that shortcoming lightly, and I don’t expect anyone else to, either. There are so many things I would change if I could start over — some narrative loopholes, some shitty and thoughtless tropes — but this would be the largest one. If we had known what this show would become, we would have been more thoughtful about representation when we first made these characters. Instead, we didn’t consider what they would look like beyond what it said on these pre-rolled character sheets. We didn’t consider race beyond deciding whether Halflings, Elves, Tieflings or Dwarves possessed the best passive abilities.

Doing this show has educated all of us about representation, and clearly, we’re still not great at it. But starting out, it wasn’t even an afterthought — it just wasn’t a thought, because we didn’t know it was a thing to think about. Now we know, and the difficulties involved with reconciling where we started with what we now know are, simply put, monumental. 

Justin named his character Taako, the joke being that this name sounds like “taco,” and that he would be pursuing a quest to invent tacos in this fantasy world. Justin thought of this name as a big and goofy joke several minutes before we started recording. The weight of that naming decision — that the decision could even have weight — did not enter his mind. This was a goofy one-off episode. He named his wizard Taako for the same reason that I named my Dwarven Cleric in the one-off D&D videos I’ve done at Polygon “Crag T’Nelson.”

Knowing the strife it’s caused, Justin wouldn’t have named this character Taako. In his own words:

“It was, in actuality, a dumb thing to do, compounded by the spur of the moment joke that Taako’s quest was to invent the taco. That was stupid, because the taco was invented by Mexican silver miners and not a wizard who, in the first episode, I claim hailed from “New Elfington.

“It was a spur of the moment goof, but one that I’ve felt consistently guilty about, on some level, for years. I never intended to be dismissive of a group, or a heritage, but that’s exactly what I did.”

This is the position we are in now, and have been in since the show started, and it is irreconcilable because of the decisions we made when we started doing this show: There are listeners and fans who want us to, in pursuit of better representation, make Taako a canonically Latinx or Mexican character. The result of that decision would be that Justin had made a Mexican character that he named after tacos, whose quest was to make a taco, and who spent the first half of the campaign stealing everything that wasn’t nailed to the ground.

That’s an oversimplified way of describing this inherently complicated problem. We have listeners who have no problem with Taako being a Mexican character named after tacos, as created by a white man. We have listeners who do have issues with that interpretation, and I can only imagine how a decision like that would read to someone who just picked this graphic novel up off a shelf at their local shop. We feel immensely uncomfortable with the idea of retroactively declaring Taako a member of any particular real-world group without factoring in that identity at all points while playing the game, viewing each action taken through a lens that has to be the first and last thing we would consider.

This was the stuff we and the graphic novel team considered while weighing the character designs, and deliberations were fucking tough. Where we landed was that, since Merle was canonically a Beach Dwarf, it made all kinds of sense for him to have darker skin. After wrestling with the above considerations, we landed on a look that felt right for Taako, which was based on a look that had started to become more popular among the fan art community for the show, in which he was drawn with green skin.

This was a while ago, and before the pushback against green Taako really kicked off. The historical basis for these claims are kind of speculative, but we took them seriously, and, in an effort to avoid running foul of them, went with more of a pale blue hue.

Yesterday, we learned there’s a High Elf variant in the PHB — which, clearly, we didn’t read that carefully when we started — called the Moon Elf that has those features. There’s also a Sun Elf variant that has “bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blond,” which we also didn’t know about. (Though we’ve gotten lots of criticism saying that Taako’s original pre-made character sheet said he was a Sun Elf, and that we willfully ignored that canon aspect of his character, none of which is remotely true.)

Yesterday, after all this went down, we were all on the phone for hours, trying to figure out what to do. Our original line of thinking hadn’t changed: Making Taako Latinx means that Justin would have made a Mexican wizard that he named after tacos — which, from our perspective, isn’t great — who he then played without any consideration for the cultural ramifications of that identity. We got in the weeds a bit: Could we just make him a Sun Elf, and make him look closer to what the folks who are leveraging these criticisms want him to look, without addressing the specific real-world cultural identity that they want him to fill? Or is that a chicken shit half measure, and would do more harm than good?

That’s where we’re at today. There’s not an easy solution. There just isn’t. We have fans who want us to do better, to have more diversity in the three main characters of this book. But those characters were created and played by white people who didn’t consider the ramifications of their every action when viewed through a specific cultural lens while playing. Yesterday, we heard from folks who said it was problematic that we made Merle brown, considering that he has a backstory where he was, more or less, a deadbeat dad. That’s a harsh boiling down of the character, but the criticism absolutely has merit. We didn’t think of that when we decided on Merle’s new design. But it’s kind of exactly what I’m talking about here: If the Taako in this graphic novel had dark skin, how many similar criticisms could be laid at his feet? If we gave Magnus dark skin, and then he spent the campaign being the more physical, more aggressive, less intellectual member of his team, there are issues there, too. Is any of that good representation? 

I’m not pitching these possibilities to be snide — I genuinely am not. But these are the things we’ve been struggling with since we decided to do this graphic novel. Our policy hasn’t changed — we still don’t consider any visual representations of these characters to be canon, and never will — but we also understand that this an insufficient way of responding to these criticisms.

The solution the whole team landed on for this graphic novel is imperfect. It has disappointed some people, and it is going to continue to disappoint some people. But there is no non-disappointing solution. And that’s not First Second’s fault, and it certainly isn’t Carey’s fault. It is completely because of the rock and a hard place that we’re positioned between, and all because of our failure to establish a solid foundation for these characters and their identities when we started this show. And for that, we’re so, earnestly, deeply sorry.

We’ve all felt fucking miserable since all of this happened yesterday, and not because of the criticism coming in, but because the folks offering that criticism feel unheard, ignored and hurt. I promise you, we did not ignore that criticism — we tried to do our best in a scenario without a perfect solution. That does not change the fact that this show is what it is because of the feedback our listeners have given us, full stop. It has made this project better, and us better, and all I can promise is that we’ll keep trying our hardest to do, and be, better.