opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

Clearly yes, as we see from the smallfolk who cursed the Knight of Saltpans for failing to defend them against the Bloody Mummers. 

I feel like for the smallfolk, their conception of lordly honor is going to be largely tied up in how well that lord upholds their end of the feudal social contract.

Like… I don’t think the smallfolk care that much if their lord fathers some bastards out of wedlock or has behaved less than respectfully to their own liege lord or a number of other things that, to the lordly class, represent middling-to-large besmirchments of their honor and that they take quite seriously. Look at how uncomfortable Eddard Stark is about having publicly dishonored Catelyn with his ostensible affair that produced Jon Snow, something that I can almost guarantee none of his smallfolk give two shits about.

The smallfolk care if their lord defends their rights, if he provides justice, peace, and plenty, if he makes sure their lands aren’t raided and rides forth to defend them in war and feeds them in the winter and remits their taxes if the harvest fails. That’s going to inform their conception of an honorable lord.

Agreed. Indeed, as far as we can tell, the smallfolk like a “merry” ruler as long as everything else is ok – Robert may have been a poor ruler in terms of administration, but he was quite a popular monarch with the smallfolk because the harvests were good, taxes didn’t increase, relatively few wars and victorious to boot, lots of tourneys and other amusements, etc.

Some rough envelope math suggests that Dany would need fifty-odd large ships to move the roughly 16,000 men she has right now. So depending on how many Dothraki she gets to follow her in TWOW, she might need several hundred large ships.

As for the Golden Company…GRRM doesn’t give us a round figure for how many ships they used to make their landing in the Stormlands, but we know at least ten ships were used, and my envelope math suggests they may have had as many as 33 ships total. 

Here’s what we know about Steffon Baratheon: we know about his childhood at the court of King’s Landing, his close friendship with Tywin and Aerys, that he fought in the War of Ninepenny Kings and saw his father killed by Maelys Blackfyre, that Aerys named him to the Small Council after the Defiance of Duskendale, and that Steffon’s mission to Volantis may have been a prelude to Aerys replacing Tywin with Steffon as Hand of the King. 

What do we know about Cassana Estermont, by comparison?

As for the Lady Mellario, A. she’s not dead, and B. we know quite a bit more about her than other members of the Dead Ladies Club. We know about how she met Doran, we know a lot about her marriage with Doran and their conflicts over Dornish customs and child-raising practices, even to the point of threatening suicide if Arianne was fostered, and we know how she felt embittered by the terms of their separation. But it is true that we should know more about her relationship with Arianne, given that Arianne was raised by her for some time.  

Clearly yes, as we see from the smallfolk who cursed the Knight of Saltpans for failing to defend them against the Bloody Mummers. 

That would have been viewed as an act of war, so I don’t think it would work. 

The text doesn’t say outright, but several weeks if not several months apart, given how much time it would have taken Addam Velaryon to assemble his army and march it to Tumbleton from the Riverlands. 

I would think anyone would be. 

Some of them, certainly. I agree that, what with Bran Stark’s time-travel visions, we’re likely to learn a lot more about Lyanna Stark, but I think there are opportunities for others (Stark ladies especially from his visions). Jaime’s already had one dream about his mother, so there’s no reason he couldn’t have others. We could learn more about the Princess of Dorne from some Dornish chapters, etc. 

Or…this may be where Fire & Blood (or the equivalents for the other Houses) and/or Dunk & Egg can really help, allowing for enriched world-building without slowing down the main narrative. 

I’ll answer you. 

I don’t think there’s anything bizarre about saying that Joanna Lannister, Elia Martell, Rhaella Targaryen, Lyanna Stark, et al. could have been given more character description and a sense of “interiority.” That seems to me to be a rather straightforward writing issue. 

Moreover, there’s nothing presentist about noting how in some ways GRRM has somewhat misunderstood the historiography that he’s read, or in other cases chosen to exaggerate medieval European society. I’m not a medievalist by training, although I’ve read a good amount of medieval historiography, and it seems to me that the arguments that noblewomen were more active in their lives than the “Dead Ladies Club” has been allowed to be is on reasonably solid ground. 

joannalannister:

“Ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.”

The Dead Ladies Club is a term I invented** circa 2012 to describe the pantheon of undeveloped female characters in ASOIAF from the generation or so before the story began. 

It is a term that carries with it inherent criticisms of ASOIAF, which this post will address, in an essay in nine parts. The first, second, and third parts of this essay define the term in detail. Subsequent sections examine how these women were written and why this aspect of ASOIAF merits criticism, exploring the pervasiveness of the dead mothers trope in fiction, the excessive use of sexual violence in writing these women, and the differences in GRRM’s portrayals of male sacrifice versus female sacrifice in the narrative. 

To conclude, I assert that the manner in which these women were written undermines GRRM’s thesis, and ASOIAF – a series I consider to be one of the greatest works of modern fantasy – is poorer because of it. 

Keep reading

A highly useful primer on a significant narrative failing of ASOIAF. One that hopefully will be repaired in future books, hint hint GRRM.