Anonymous asked: Why is Elia agreeing to polygamy so irksome for you?
Because it runs completely counter to her own interests, self respect, and exists solely to make the adulterous, disastrous love affair of Rhaegar and Lyanna more palatable.
Elia Martell marries the crown prince in all acceptable honor and suffers greatly to give him a daughter in the first year of the marriage. Rhaegar rewards her with national humiliation at Harrenhal by publicly declaring his interest making his cousin’s underage betrothed his mistress. Much how Aegon the Unworthy tried to do poor Naerys but was stopped by Aemon.
Speaking of parallels to Aegon the Unworthy, why the in the seven hells would a Dornish princess be happy her husband was trying to recreate Daemon Blackfyre? A Dornish queen and her half Dornish son facing off against a favored high born bastard; a centuries old conflict that ended in Elia’s own lifetime. Elia might has well be sharpening the blade Rhaegar uses to cut the throats of their children as to approve of him fucking a rival into Lyanna Stark.
Rhaegar could have taken a discrete mistress or carry on a quiet affair nearly any other woman on the planet. Instead he chooses the daughter of one Lord Paramount and betrothed of another. He runs off with Lyanna and kicks off a war. Leaving Elia alone on Dragonstone. Leaving Elia and their children in reach of /Aerys/.
If you insist on making Elia complicit in Rhaegar’s crimes, why isn’t Elia and their children in Dorne? Why aren’t they hidden away in Essos? Why was Aerys able to get his hands on them and hold them hostage?
Elia is Dornish; therefore she is polyamorous. That is a ruinous, racist piece of tripe. Oberyn Martell has an open relationship with a long term paramour so his brother in law can abduct and have an affair with another woman? Rhaegar isn’t Dornish; he doesn’t get to use his wife’s culture against her. Doran Martell never took another lover after Mellario left. Quentyn Martell was a virgin.
Plug Cersei Lannister or Catlyn Stark into Elia Martell’s situation and Rhaegar’s actions are suddenly beyond the pale? How interesting only white women are worthy of respect and honor.
It is ‘irksome’ because it degrades and dehumanizes and drags Elia down to a footstool for Lyanna Stark. And that is all people like you care about.
Thousands of people died for this little love affair. Elia and her children died. Thousands of her countrymen died. It is irksome that these are acceptable casualties as long as your self insert gets her hot little hands on that crown.
And polygamy has been illegal since before the reforms of Jaehaerys. It is illegal under the Faith of the Seven. It is illegal under the Old Gods. The last Targaryen king who tried enforced polygamy had dragons and he failed. Rhaegar has none.
Interesting how Rhaegar keeps pulling up parrellels to the worst historical dragon kings.
spilling a drink is one of the deepest pains imaginable. the loss of delicious liquids. the knowledge your adult ass needs a little no-spill baby sippy cup. now you have to clean instead of enjoy your delicious beverage and pray that the ants dont discover youre a god damn fool
FYI if your employer does this, if they have done it for a long time especially, you and your coworkers could be owed huge amounts of unpaid wages and it would be an easy suit if there is a paper trail like this and your employer is placing strict requirements on your behavior while not at work. Employment lawyers generally work on contingency. Just food for thought.
Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears.
Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters … but then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing.
“….but your life is worth more than a song.To me at least, who gave it to you.“
I want my daughters back,and the queen holds them still.
I have lost my Ned, the rock my life was built on, I could not bear to lose the girls as well …
“What if Lord Nestor values honor more than profit?” Petyr put his arm around her. “What if it is truth he wants, and justice for his murdered lady?” He smiled. “I know Lord Nestor, sweetling. Do you imagine I’d ever let him harm my daughter?” I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell.
Someone’s probably pointed this out already but like, the joke about Chidi thinking he’s in the bad place because of his love of almond milk is actually true in a way. It’s like, haha look at this character thinking that he’s in basically hell for such a stupid little thing, and then we find out NO, actually, EVERYONE is going to literal hell for stupid little things that’s the whole PROBLEM.
So next episode, I really need a establishing shot of the aftermath of the Field of Fire 2.0. I need the shot to end on the dead, burned face of one guy from the ed-sheeran-squad. Preferably the guy who will now never see his newborn child, who died without even knowing if it is a son or a daughter he leaves behind.
D&D wrote in a scene just to humanize the lannister soldiers, now they should have the balls and deliver on it.Go on, show us what “war” really means. Do it right before Danielle starts justifiying her invasion. Grow a pair, D&D, I dare you. Do it.
I want him to refuse to bend the knee to Daenerys because she burnt the food, and we have to watch him be burned too.
That would be a stab in the heart.
Just to be clear, we’re ignoring the part that all that food (and gold) was looted from the Reach? That they literally forced farmers to give up their harvests? That all the people they left behind were either not compensated, killed or left to starve? Cool.
Someone please make a Glitter Blingie for Random Lannister Soldier #5, Forever In our Hearts.
Sweet Prince, we hardly knew ye.
Can’t be arsed with all these “POOR SOLDIERS!!!” posts.
Oh no, I would like this show to at least resemble the semi-realistic, gritty, morally ambiguous series it once was. Excuse me for thinking that depicting the brutal death of soldiers we have some kind of connection to would be a good way to shock the audience and bring all the people with dragon-boners back down to earth. How stupid of me. How dare I suggest something that would let the flawless Mother of Dragons look bad. You are all hypocrites.
Seriously, stop acting like you don’t understand what this is about. You know this is not about being “buhu” poor Lannister-soldiers. This is not about shitting all over Dany’s character, neither. Can’t you just use your brains and think about the bigger picture? Do people have to spell out everything for you to understand?
Did you watch the whole show? Like do you remember season 2 when another character was at war with the Lannisters? Do you remember this scene?
Did that make Robb look like a crazy warlord? Did that mean that all Lannister soldiers were super nice dudes who never did anything wrong? No, it simply reminded us that even our hero’s enemies are human beings, worthy of sympathy. In the beginning Talisa’s entire character was there to throw it into our faces that “innocent” people (<= the “” are there for a reason) are suffering because for Robb’s cause. That the small folk was dragged into the high lords wars without having any choice. We got a poor lad from a fishing village near Lannisport losing his foot to give us an actual emotional connection to this and Talisa giving Robb a ton of shit for this. (as anachronistic as her character was, she did serve a purpose)
Do any of you bright minds have an idea why a scene like that was put in there? Because we all went YASSS KING IN THE NORTH! GO ROBB! KICK SOME LANNISTER ASS! and than we were shown the reality of what exactly we were cheering for. Wasn’t that the thing that made the series so good in the first place? That is showed the “reality” behind “~medieval~” war and didn’t go the “good guys only ever kill super duper bad guys a la orcs”-route so often found in fantasy? That it didn’t shy away from portraying the not-so-cool truth behind “glorious wars”?
Can we maybe have the same thing for Dany’s invasion?
Can Dany’s war be just as ugly as everyone else’s? Can we just see the price other people pay for her ambitions and “birthright”?
This isn’t about her being worse than everyone else when it comes to war, this is about her being always depicted as better than everyone else and I’m tired of it. Just once her actions should be given the same amount of moral and ethical ambiguity as everyone else’s.Just once I want her to look just as bad as everyone else. Just once I want to see the consequences she caused having a “human face” that we can sympathize with.
We even got a scene that the Northmen, Robb’s men, were committing war crimes just like the other side. But the Dothraki whose entire culture revolves around killing and pillaging and raping and enslaving people will not do a single bad thing to the westerosi common folk? That’s just not going to be a problem, AT ALL? Because Khaleesi said so? Well the Dothraki are known for being the most disciplined army out there after all. If there’s any army in the entire world of ASOIAF who won’t commit any war crimes, it’s definitely them. Right? Get out of here. You are a fucking idiot if you believe that.
But everything Khaleesi touches turns into gold, even war. Everything she gets involved in is immediately an issue of black and white. And if you dare to say otherwise you are either an idiot, sexist or supportive of slavery and crazy tyrants like Cersei. If you don’t think that’s a huge flaw in the narrative you have absolutely no standards. So keep your useless smart-ass comments to yourself.
Can we please admit the showrunners only care about displaying the human cost of war while they were speed running through the last season in order to try (and fail) to make Dark!Dany a thing?
Oh, here are some nice foot soldiers in the Lannister army? He wants a girl because girls take care of their poppas when they get old.
Okay. Let the viewers follow him through the rape and pillage of the Riverlands, let us see him hear the news that the queen committed every unholy atrocity in the capital over the dead body of her son and claim the throne while proving very vile accusation true, let us seem him march anyway, let the sack of Highgarden be thrown out (murder, rape, massive deaths, dead babies on spears), make him a good guy who doesn’t actually kill the innocent just lets it happen, and then after all that- let him die by dragonfire.
The book canon doesn’t shy away from the massive war crimes that exist on both sides.
The broken men speech in Brienne’s chapters is a pivotal piece.
The. Show. Was. Shit.
The narrative was broken where Dany came from her greatest possible position of strength to the most broken field possible.
Cersei and every Lannister lackey too stupid to throw off their red cloak should have teared limb from limb the minute the news of the returned Targaryen, the Breaker of Chains landed in Westeros.
Dany was the only possible legitimate candidate to the Iron Throne after Stannis died, has a full army, a full navy, and three grown dragons.
And much better PR than the Lannisters ever did.
Between the first Sack, the bread riots, the battles, Joffery killing random civilians with crossbows, and then Cersei committing every sacrilege imaginable (but they still needed to keep Lena Headley in camera).
And the season strangled itself trying to force some damn reason why not to turn Cersei into a dragon snack.
oh definitely, i mean one of the biggest issues i have with the show that i’m looking forward to the books not doing is making the smallfolk just endlessly stupid & cruel. we don’t get scenes where they do good things or kind things that often, they take everything that’s interesting about the brotherhood without banners and flatten it, they turn davos into A Rational Atheist to make him more palatable despite his issues with Melisandre being partially based on faith, they completely cut the water gardens & its importance from the show (but let’s not talk about dorne lol).
i do think both the show and the books tend to show us the humanity of the soldiers through the lannister army tho - we’re most primed to dislike them because they fight for “the bad guys” and then arya finds that harrenhal being under bolton rule is worse & brienne comes across femicide victims of stark soldiers, and the war drags on & culty splinter groups start cropping up in the riverlands & crownlands bc that’s what happens when the leaders fail. i think the awkwardness of this scene was in part bc, in cutting the entire riverlands story line & most of dorne, a lot of Aegon VI & Dany’s conquest as well as the fall of House Lannister stop making sense bc most of the action is in the riverlands, and not KL as the fighting drags on in the field but not as much at the capital (at the capital there’s starvation and desperation, but at least they haven’t been attacked in a hot minute). all of these stories of smallfolk struggling against tully, stark, AND lannister loyalists in arya, lsh, brienne, and jaime’s stories are just completely excised and i think they tried to slap all of that into dany’s one story arc but did it like. very badly lol. bc dany is playing aegon’s role while still playing herself despite those roles being completely at odds, while cersei is also playing aegon which gives her plot armor that she will not have in the books.
so it’s definitely badly and messily done bc they wanted to keep dany as a hero and cersei as a villain for a long time & completely cut out all the characters around them but talisa forces us to empathize with the lannister army early so it’s not the first time they’ve asked the audience to sympathize with lannisters; the four posters have an issue with dany being seen as a villain period tho and are making the argument that wanting a scene where we empathize for the lannister soldiers is misogyny which is just like, a really dumb argument lol.
i don’t think the op is pro the show, just pointing out that it’s stupid to criticize attempts to make us empathize with soldiers bc the books constantly ask us to empathize with soldiers & are likely about to really hammer home that dany’s conquest has dire consequences for the smallfolk of westeros.
To be fair; the books have Aegon and the Golden Company and quite literally the capital being a ticking wildfire bomb.
Dany becoming the bride to fire and her father’s perfect heir by destructively taking her place to the Iron Throne.
Brilliant. Thematically. And Ironically.
The show made Cersei Lannister the final boss over the ice zombies.
Seven hells.
(Also Talisa was a terrible disconnect from canon, because in the books Robb is forced between competing ideals while show!Robb gets hot for the nurse).
(For later spoilers, let me rant about how show!Cersei having one true born still born son is the get-out-of-free card but still confesses to treason. Like fucking use the Tully card).
