Everyone: *crying About D&D Ruining Dany’s Character*

I don't think anyone has said this but let me say this...the real foils in the ASOIAF is Dany and Bran. She don't look back on the past and he is going through the archives of it!?

I am definitely rereading the books whilst I am on vacation and making notes, this is going to be my hyperfixation for the last three weeks in December!

GOT SPOILERS!!!

Ok that was a really good episode.. That was literally an hour and 20 minutes of me crying and yelling and biting my nails. The first 10 minutes gave me goosebumps right away and I knew it was gonna be epic.

OK MAIN THOUGHTS:

I expected more out of the scene in the crypts. I really thought the Starks would have to face their dead relatives and it would be a really tough scene.. Guess it was unnecessary to do anyway but still tho

Sansa and Theon…. I just……. When the piano started playing and all they could do was look into each other’s eyes and find comfort and security in one another i broke down….. Like SOBBED. Those two deserve happiness…..

I LOVE THE HOUND SO MUCH IM SO SOFT FOR THAT BOI. I LOVE A BIG TOUGH GUY AND LITTLE GIRL RELATIONSHIP TROPE

Both of my favorite characters died but they were all good deaths. They both protected and defended TO DEATH the people they had done wrong in the past and came full circle with their regrets. That’s the kind of story arcs we need. I couldn’t be more proud of Theon and Jorah. Especially Theon! Nobody can top his character development in my opinion. Thank you, you two!

That Arya scene was hella sick?? But I can’t help but feel like it was all too easy…? I really wanted a different twist. I thought Bran and the Night King would do some warg or time travelling sht and finally explain why all this had to happen?? I really thought there was a bigger issue here. But we had none of that explained today. If the Night King really just wanted a war then I think that’s pretty weak story wise. As much as I thought Arya killing him was dope, I can’t help but feel a bit unsatisfied with the plot in general. There must be some sort of twist that would blow my mind!!

Overall that was one hell of a ride for an episode. And to think we’re only halfway there. That scares me the most. At this point the directors might let us all think that Cersei is gonna be easy to end now after all that, but we never know what that woman is up to these days. I think we shouldn’t be sleeping on her, she could be the biggest threat to the kingdom (or Dany lol). Whatever it’s going to be i am all up for it!!!!

Man i love this tv show

Linda Friesen Haute Couture Gowns

This is a great essay! I love this show because it allows Daenerys to be a fully formed and complex character, the likes of which most female characters in fantasy and even on television almost NEVER get to be. She feels like a real person because, like a real person, she isn’t all good or all bad. 

Emilia Clarke has really hit it out of the park with her performance, getting us to love Dany and then fear her. 

This is a great character--one of the best female characters I’ve ever seen on television and I’m so glad the show had the guts to let Dany break bad, as she was always destined to do. 

sooo how do you feel about the whole mad queen thing?

Well, like much in the last half of this series, the set up has been rushed and clumsy and occasionally ridiculous.

But given all the crap they have to deal with— time constraints plus two dozen other characters; quickly trying to connect dots that GRRM has been struggling to join for the better part of two decades; the fact that we live in an age where a staggering percentage of people have developed the inability to watch 30+ minutes of television without looking at their stupid phones and can barely follow the plot of of your average sitcom— I pity those poor bastards enough to cut them some slack on that front.

That aside, I’m happier with it than I thought I’d be. Because I don’t think she’s mad at all, at least not yet. She’s just broken and finally fed up with trying to control her ruthless side.

For a long time, I figured the show was going to wimp out and go about “dark D-ny” in the “safest” way possible: she’d spin out of control for an episode and a half at most then snap out of it in time to heroically sacrifice herself.

Keep reading

This is gorgeous!

the surviving children troublemakers of Catherine de Medici

Ben Whishaw and “Mrs Tish” on the set of “A Very English Scandal”…

Via Laura Ingall on IG

- Said Elizabeth Tudor

quick “STOP THE COUNT” meme dump so I don’t lose these gems

when talking about sansa supposedly not being a sympatheic character in AGOT, I don't think antis really understand they're not making the point they think are (like those who think sansa is only kind because of courtesy rather than it being like Ned's "lord face" and seperate from her kindness as a person) a sympatheic character isn't necessarily someone who is good or to root for - one example is Tyrion. His backstory makes him a sympatheic but that doesn't make him a hero.

Yes, exactly. Sympathetic isn’t defined by whether or not you are a nice person, but by whether you are attracting the liking of others (in this case: The readers).

Tyrion is a villain, but he is clearly written for people to find him sympathetic in spite of this. My favourite example of is Glokta from Joe Abercrombie’s First Law who is a horrible, horrible person, but readers still sympathise with him because of his backstory, his painful disabilities and his dry sense of humor (... that sounded like a description of Tyrion too, actually).

If Sansa isn’t sympathetic in AGoT, it’s because GRRM didn’t write her to be someone the readers sympathize with - And he did that very deliberately by POV trapping her and pitting her against other characters that he clearly wrote to be immediately liked, and by giving her flaws that people don’t usually associate with fantasy protagonists (or really it’s just one of her flaws; the touch of snobbery).

The thing is, though, that GRRM seems to have taken great pains to write her in a way that doesn’t make most readers immediately fall for her, while at the same time never making her not nice. He didn’t have to use a POV trap in Arya I; he could have just made Sansa behave badly towards her. He could have included Sansa when Arya thinks of Jeyne calling her “horseface”. He didn’t have to make such an effort to show the Arya-Sansa conflict as so clearly rooted in society’s expectations and the teachings of Septa Mordane. He could have written Sansa taking Joffrey’s side at Darry Castle instead of having her pretend she forgot to avoid taking sides. He didn’t have to spend literally all of Sansa’s chapters dropping hint after hint about how nobody ever answers her critical questions, or how Ned’s interactions with Arya was teaching Sansa the lesson that disobedience wasn’t as big an offence as she thought.

He might have overdone it a bit, because even after 3 more books of Sansa clearly being written to be sympathetic, people are still refusing to believe that they were initially fooled, and are looking for signs that she was a horrible person all along, blowing every flaw that she has out of proportion to be right.

But the point is that GRRM might not have tried to write AGoT Sansa as sympathetic, but he never wrote her as not a nice person, or with any irredeemable flaws; clearly intending to develop her further in the following books.

The fact that a lot of us still found her sympathetic in AGoT in spite of this, I suppose says something about how much you related to her, or how much effort was put into analyzing the text and understanding Sansa’s motivations on the first read. I know that a lot more people who initially didn’t care for her found her sympathetic when they went back to read AGoT again, looking at Sansa with different eyes and trying to see past GRRM’s smoke screen.

So, no. They really aren’t making the point they think they are making. I also don’t really know why they are trying to make it in the first place tbh. Their point seems to be the usual stuff; that Sansa isn’t nice, isn’t a main character, is supposed to become a villain. But as I recall that quote, GRRM even goes on to say that Sansa becomes more sympathetic as the story progresses.

So I suppose I don’t really see how the point they are trying to make would get them what they want either.

I think Bran would be a terrible king. He would rule a surveillance state with little to no emotional connection to his people. If I lived in Westeros, I’d be moving north right now.