"Unity Is, Of Course, A Worthwhile Goal, But A Unity That Silences The Call Of Marginized People For

“The mind requires some relaxation, and cannot always support its bent to care and industry.”

— David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Daenerys and a butterfly. commissioned made by @/I_Fbry on twitter.

“Allow yourself to be known, but not comprehended. No one will discern the limits of your talent, and thus no one will be disappointed.”

— Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Ballerina (2023) Dir. Lee Chung-hyen

I was going to just use one, but he's too beautiful to pick.

I’m a certified Rhaegar hater but blaming him for Elia and their children’s death feels… off. Like in the big picture sure, Rhaegar’s actions kicked off the rebellion that resulted in their deaths.

The murder is treated as an act of UNNECESSARY cruelty and spite, even in universe. People say that Tywin ordered it in revenge for Cersei not being chosen as Rhaegar’s wife. Robert’s endorsement of it is a black mark on his reign. I genuinely think that Rhaegar believed if he lost, not unreasonably, at the very least Elia and Rhaenys would’ve been safe. And I realized as I thought about it, and the reason I made this post, is that politically? It’s really fucking stupid.

Elia is a complete non-threat. She’s not Targaryen. She presents no threat to Robert’s reign. All her death does is sate Tywin’s wounded pride, and anger Dorne.

Keeping Rhaenys alive is, if anything, a boon? If she’s kept alive, she can be eventually married to Robert’s heir, further strengthening his claim.

Now Aegon, as a boy, is a sticky situation. But not “murdering an infant is the only solution” sticky. He could’ve been kept as a ward until he was of age to join the Faith, the maesters, or the Watch. Keep a close eye on him, and you’re fine. If you’ve been listening to Tywin too much, maybe you could geld him for extra insurance.

Murdering Elia and her children is bad optics at a time when the realm’s stability is in question and you’re overthrowing a guy for cruel and unjust killings. If Robert had any moral fiber and a functioning brain cell, Gregor and Lorch would’ve been executed or forced to take the black, he would’ve distanced himself from the Lannisters, and tried to marry a Martell cousin or ally.

TDLR; Robert’s really fucking lucky Doran’s revenge plan took like, almost two decades to materialize

I've noticed that zionists, especially Israelis see themselves as perpetual victims and are thus blind to whatever privileges they have in reality and the harm they cause or are capable of causing. They've created this narrative where the persecution of jewish people throughout history can be linked to criticism of the modern state of Israel, causing them to invoke the plight of their ancestors in 1800s Russia or feudal Europe or whatever.

To illustrate, I've seen a comment from a jewish zionist which compared the destruction of Gaza to the ten plagues of Egypt in the Exodus. The OP mentioned the concept of "Midah k’neged Midah" or "an eye for an eye", implying that like the Egyptians from the Exodus, Gazans brought their suffering on themselves for attacking the jewish people like how the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. They also said that such chaos and that the Torah states the Israelites celebrated Seder while the Egyptian firstborn were dying.

It brought me to mind an article I read sometime ago about how Purim can be used to teach people to reflect on their privilege, how rather than automatically seeing themselves as the good guys of the story Esther and Mordechai they should question what they have in common with the bad guys as people in positions of power and privilege. So maybe, jewish Israelis should reflect on what they have in common with the "bad guys" of the Torah.

Zionism has created this nationalist narrative where the ancient Israelites from biblical stories and history are the same as jewish people today, with Israeli jews being their modern direct descendants, so the idea that Israelis can be the oppressors and gentile Palestinians the oppressed becomes an unthinkable notion. But if you let go of identity politics you'll see that in reality, the modern state of Israel is built on jewish supremacy and dehumanizing Palestinians as "the other".

During slavery, enslaved black people saw their struggles and yearning for freedom in the Israelites in the Exodus, and Pharao as their slave masters. Palestinians have suffered nearly 8 decades of occupation, being forcibly displaced, massacred, having their homes stolen and being terrorized with impunity. They would not the Egyptians in the Exodus metaphor.

@stoptheantisemitism

@autistic-ben-tennyson

“Do you think that every good thing has always had a good conscience? — Science, which is certainly something good, entered the world without one, and quite destitute of pathos, but did so rather in secret, by crooked and indirect paths, hooded or masked like a criminal and at least always with the feeling of dealing in contraband. The good conscience has as a preliminary stage the bad conscience — the latter is not its opposite: for everything good was once new, consequently unfamiliar, contrary to custom, immoral, and gnawed at the heart of its fortunate inventor like a worm.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, 90

Thinking of Kyle Maclachlan