I feel like Rhaegar’s character would be waaay less hated if it weren’t for his fans. They see him as this perfect Targaryen male who did all he could to save the world and was gravely misunderstood by his time and everyone who thinks differently is wrong. When in reality he kind of sucks and had the biggest known flop in Planetos. Really, his actions directly distabilized the realm and caused the death and rape of Elia Martell, the death of their children, Lyanna’s and a lot of other people’s 😬. But that’s not very heroic is it? That’s why it had to be a great love story between him and Lyanna and Elia had to be in on all of it because if Rhaegar isn’t the perfect misunderstood hero then he’s just some crazy Targaryen blinded by his trauma and self like that caused thousands of deaths like the rest of them. I feel like the actual Rhaegar, you know the one that doesn’t sound like he was directly pulled from a YA authors debut novel, the one who has a complex relationship with his parents, with the crown, with himself….the one who can’t make a mistake, the one who cannot look back or else… is more interesting. Grey characters are in general more interesting and that’s probably why grrm writes a lot of them. He would be less hated if his fans held him accountable for all the awful things he has done and caused but oh well…
So y’all know the classic edge trope of “my blade cannot be sheathed until it has tasted blood”? What if a magic sword that has that requirement, except it’s sort of inverted. A sword that, instead of being inhabited by an evil spirit which once awakened cannot be lulled back to sleep except by blood sacrifice, was inhabited by a benevolent spirit who would not allow the sword to be drawn unless bloodshed were the only possible solution. A sword whose power could never be misused because it would only allow itself to be used in situations where it was justified. What about a Paladin who spends their entire journey fighting with a sheathed sword, incapacitating but never killing or maiming. The party believes that the Paladin has taken an oath of no killing, until they face the big villain. And it is in that moment, and that moment alone, that the sword will allow itself to be drawn.
Idk, this image set my mindwheels a-turning.
But do y’all see the vision?
"oh, I live in a desert and-"
"wow that must be so terrible" "deserts are so ugly" "I would never want to live in a wasteland like that" "it's just empty nothingness"
wishing 10,000 exploding hammers upon you
behold New Mexico
[ID 1: tall, snowcapped rocky mountains rising above a plain filled with desert scrub
ID 2: brightly colored banded cliff walls of several mesas climbing their way into mountains
ID 3: a desert prairie
ID 4: colorful hoodoos against a twilight sky
ID 5: white sand dunes as far as the eye can see
ID 6: a collection of hoodoos against a stormy sky at sunset
ID 7: a juniper tree standing with a cliff wall in the background
ID 8: several juniper trees on a rocky landscape]
When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on"
When the Good Place said “Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.”
When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also ‘Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“
rhaegar x lyanna shippers explaining how elia actually would’ve been totally fine with her husband running off with a 15yr old because she wasn’t healthy enough to give him a third child that he wanted
robert’s rebellion series but in keeping with GRRM’s “no king pov policy” we watch robert’s rise through jon arryn’s eyes a parallel to catelyn’s horror in watching her son’s royal rise and fall but this time robert rises and rises while jon gradually realizes they picked the wrong man for the crown
no rhaegar or lyanna pov either. we’re stuck between whatever they see fit to tell elia, arthur and benjen. all contrasting in what they think they know or how much they believe what they were told. the readers are as confused as the realm.
People talk about minimalism and all I think is white room torture