#was gonna add that this trope repeats itself with jaime-brienne which I guess is the more traditional romantic version??

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Underrated reason why Lyanna as the KotLT just works is because it follows a pattern of deconstruction re the concept of knightly chivalry and honor, from Lyanna herself to her son 15yrs+ later. Lyanna as the KotLT is a gender-swapped version of the ‘knight rescues a helpless maiden from raucous bullies’ trope, but grrm of course puts his spin on it because one Lyanna is not even a knight to begin with and two, she’s a girl. Then knight!Lyanna fights the bullies which is again an adaptation of another trope: the ‘mysterious knight-errant enters the joust and wins then dips’, which is interesting because these types of knights sometimes fall into the black knight trope. And the black knight is, more often than not, not the hero. But the main reason why this is so interesting is Jon. Lyanna “cosplays” a black knight, but her son Jon later becomes an actual black knight. Jon then repeats his mother’s actions by defending Sam in AGoT, which is another subversion of the aforementioned ‘knight rescues a helpless maiden trope’ because the helpless maiden in this case is a helpless…lad…Though Jon and Lyanna acting as agents outside the bounds of knighthood (Lyanna being a northern woman and Jon being a member of the NW) puts them more in line with the traditional black knight (who is usually an anti-hero/villain), the actual essence of their actions puts them closer to the more valiant and honorable white knight according to tradition.

#asoiaf #in my arthuriana feels today 😃 #was gonna add that this trope repeats itself with jaime-brienne which I guess is the more traditional romantic version?? #and brienne looking for sansa as a subversion of the trope #does that count? #anyway this knight errant trope continues when rhaegar-the valiant prince/evil dragon-kidnaps/rescues the maiden #so another performance of romance and chivalry #and that example ALSO leads to jon lmao because it becomes the ultimate manifestation #of the valiant knight/prince/hero trope which is also a deconstruction because jon doesn’t look like it outwardly #or whatever idk hope that makes sense #jon snow #lyanna stark #valyrianscrolls #my stuff