Mr. Malcolm’s List Is complete Fluff With Little Weight Or Substance, But Clearly Everyone Involved

Vindication

How can you guys defend Dany?

“Lazy writing, Dany was never like this”

“Dany wants peace, she is soo innocent”

Dany has been like this for the longest time. Reveling in her brother having gold poured over his head, smiling at the Dothraki leaders burning, always wanting to burn cities over politics. She literally tries to avoid politics all the time to push her agenda. From beyond the seas to quarth, mereen and now here.

Dany has always been dark and she always will be dark. She was built towards this-words and actions are very different. She can say she wants to break the wheel as much as she wants but she always went against it.

Do you know who we should be praising?

Arya Stark-> Overcame her struggles and still did what was right for her family and others

Sansa Stark-> actually a smart bitch

Missandei-> standing by, always consoling in her queen and finding love in the hardest places

Dany isn’t a god. Stop crying over “omg my love and emotions, she gave me strength this is sexist”

No fuck You to think it’s sexist for a female to be a villian. That’s the tea for today.

My opinion exactly.

While I was cringing and unhappy about the Arya vs Sansa stuff from last season, I am rather enjoying Dany vs Sansa - because these two have reasons to clash. Both of their positions make sense for their characters and their objectives. This isn’t about pitting women against each other for once. The problem I’ve seen is within the fandom, not the writing. It’s Team Dany vs Team Sansa. It’s fandom being fandom. But really when u look at it, outside of the zombie apocalypse and the for-now-distant threat of Cersei, this internal power struggle is perhaps the most interesting development this season.

Personally I never cared much about the magic stuff in this show. Yeah dragons and direwolves and crows and resurrecting priestesses are cool. But for me the meat of the show has always been the politics. 

Jaime knighting Brienne was such a beautiful scene. Being a knight was something she dreamed about ever since she was a little girl, thinking that she would never get to be that. Yet here she is being knighted by someone she loves and respects. She deserves this so much. 

Manston was on his legs again in an instant. A fiery glance on the one side, a glance of pitiless justice on the other, passed between them. It was again the meeting in the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite: ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.’

Thomas Hardy, Desperate Remedies (via talesofpassingtime)

I’ll say it: Aeneas Manston is an underrated villain from Victorian Literature. 

Going forward the writers don’t need to stray from history, only consolidate characters and events. The truth is already insane! 

Things get so crazy!

They better include Catherine’s best frenemy Jeanne de Albert (Antoine’s wife) next season. Watching the two queens of sass and sarcasm try to take a bite out of each other will be glorious! 

as much as i enjoyed "the serpent queen" i feel like the second part of the season was a bit... meh? i much preferred it when they kept much closer to the actual history, and while i understand the need for changes for plot clarity (charles V and henri II dying at francis' wedding instead of elizabeth of valois and philippe II of spain's wedding) i wish some parts had kept the actual facts? i think it would have been more interesting to have henri dying while wearing diane's colours, and then catherine doing everything so that diane never saw henri until he died. i also would have preferred it if they kept francois II's cause of death instead of giving him consumption (what is it going to be when charles IX actually dies from it? lol) and also the whole nonsense plot of mary stuart being made regent when she has zero (0) claim to that throne (and antoinette de guise saying 'respect the sanctity of rules' yeah that's what's being done by naming anyone but mary regent actually) like the show can't both be like "if catherine doesn't have children she'll be packed home" and at the same time, when mary is also childless, pretends she has a reasonable claim to the throne? mary was pawn for the de guise as long as she was married to françois, but once dead, she didn't serve them anymore (rightly so) and that's why she was sent back to scotland.

anyway i fucking loved the bourbons though

I get the feeling D&D really didn’t want Bran to be king, but did so because it was in George’s outline. Seeing how little Bran has done to be king (or deserve being king), they made Sansa Queen of the North because that at least makes more sense than King Bran. 

Northern independence, and the people who keep defending it as an outcome on the show, continues to bother me. I like the idea of the breakup of the kingdoms in theory, but it should be a full dissolution. There is no point to the north becoming independent alone. If being part of a united realm is such horrible evil tyranny, then why isn't it horrible and evil for the remaining kingdoms? Why is it okay for them to be forced to kneel not only to a king but a Northern, and therefore foreign, monarch? Especially since at least two of them have a history of rejecting foreign rule.

And if things in the Six Kingdoms are actually going to be good and just and all that, then why is it necessary for the North to secede? They could just stay and be ruled over by the legal heir to House Stark and continue to reap the benefits of easy trade with the more winter-resistant kingdoms. The happiest years of Sansa's life were spent in a united realm, so what does she think this is going to give her? I'm pretty sure King Bran is how the books are supposed to end per GRRM, and my suspicion is that the showrunners wanted to upgrade Warden of the North Sansa to Queen Sansa in an attempt to dodge the accusations of misogyny naturally arising from the treatment of other female characters who aspired to rulership. This is empty pandering if I'm right, and I don't care for it.

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (Carl Boese & Paul Wegener, 1920).

hi, sorry to be a bother, but i was wondering if u knew any alternatives to Philippa Gregory?? I really want to get into Tudor history and I love historical fiction but I've heard so much criticism of her work xx

Unfortunately a lot of period books are going to be steeped in a certain level of creative license which sacrifices historical details to the ideal or romanticised effect. Most major Tudor writers – Weir, Plaidy, Gregory - are guilty of this. Personally I can look past this and enjoy the content for its historical setting and loose interpretation, but if that is a deal breaker for you there are a slim number of authors who will likely appeal to you. If you are disinterested in Gregory, I would recommend Alison Weir and Jean Plaidy. Their novels are chock full in historical references and are of a similar style to Gregory.  As I understand it their’s are more credible, the exception being Weir tends to take a biased standpoint, and Plaidy is more of a story-writer than she is a historian.

You’ve probably already heard of Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series. I read its entirety and enjoyed it, but there are errors strewn through it. On the opposite end, Adrienne Dillard’s works tend to be more true to history and from what I’ve gathered the author herself is an all-around good person. I highly enjoyed The Raven’s Widow as opposed to Gregory’s interpretation to Jane Boleyn.  Olivia Longueville is also a recommended author. Sharon Kay Penman, Ken Follett, Katharine Longshore, Diane Haeger, and Margaret George all have interesting and well-researched reads. I loved the Autobiography of Henry VIII by George. It reads fantastically.

I hope this helps! Enjoy your summer reading. 

Context...ha!