Author: stevenattewell

How come the Vale never tried to take any of the major islands in Blackwater Bay, like Dragonstone? Stormlanders are not noted for being a seafaring people, and the Ironborne and Redwynes are on the other side of the continent. So who stopped the Arryns from taking them?

I’m sure it tried at some point, but wasn’t able to project power from a distance for very long, especially against opponents who would have shorter supply lines and more strategic depth. 

Dunno where you got the idea that there weren’t seafaring powers in that area: 

“The stormlands have also produced their share of great seamen and sailors. Storm’s End itself, looming over the great cliffs of Durran’s Point and the treacherous rocks of Shipbreaker Bay, offers no safe anchorage for either warship or merchant craft, but in the time of the Storm Kings, war fleets were oft maintained on Massey’s Hook, Estermont, and in the towns and fishing villages along the Sea of Dorne. Later, other monarchs preferred to dock their fleets on the western shore of Tarth.”

That’s the Masseys, the Bar Emmons, the Estermonts, and the Tarths, and the reference to the sea of Dorne coast suggests the Mertyns, Swanns, and Wyldes as well. 

So, how was “My Hero Academia?” Comments and critiques?

racefortheironthrone:

So, I watched the first season. 

Here are my thoughts: 

  • the hero design is absolutely top notch; often quite visibly or conceptually quite innovative. I was sold from the first crowd shot of the protagonist’s classroom and continue to find something noteworthy in any group of heroes or villains. 
  • the protagonist is kind of the Stock Shonen Hero to the Nth degree, seemingly perpetually on the verge of either tears, crazed defiance, or some mixture of the above. 
  • his mentor is one of the best takes on Superman that I’ve ever seen, although the hair is out there even by anime standards. 
  • the worldbuilding is intriguing in many ways, although somewhat limited by the school focus. If 80% of the population have superpowers, they can’t all be superheroing or -villaining. So how have their powers changed the result of modern life? 

Had another thought: MHA reminds me a lot of the webcomic PS238, a more western-style exploration of a school for superheroes. An interesting divergence between them is that the closest thing to Izuku Midoriya in that comic is a kid called Tyler Marlocke who’s the powerless child of two incredibly famous superheroes. (Although backstorywise, he’s a bit closer to Shouto Todoroki, I guess.) Rather than being gifted superpowers, however…

(SPOILERS)

Tyler becomes the protégé of PS238′s stand-in for Batman, who teaches him how to be a superhero without relying on superpowers. 

I’m not sure what the significance of the fact that MHA comes down on the side of you can’t be a superhero without powers and PS238 comes down on the side of anyone can be a superpowers is, exactly, but there’s something there on a sociocultural level. 

So, how was “My Hero Academia?” Comments and critiques?

So, I watched the first season. 

Here are my thoughts: 

  • the hero design is absolutely top notch; often quite visibly or conceptually quite innovative. I was sold from the first crowd shot of the protagonist’s classroom and continue to find something noteworthy in any group of heroes or villains. 
  • the protagonist is kind of the Stock Shonen Hero to the Nth degree, seemingly perpetually on the verge of either tears, crazed defiance, or some mixture of the above. 
  • his mentor is one of the best takes on Superman that I’ve ever seen, although the hair is out there even by anime standards. 
  • the worldbuilding is intriguing in many ways, although somewhat limited by the school focus. If 80% of the population have superpowers, they can’t all be superheroing or -villaining. So how have their powers changed the result of modern life? 

How exactly did the Manderlys receive their fief in the North? Did some Stark King hear of their fate and take pity? Or were the Manderlys actively looking for new land? A House migrating from one Kingdom to another never happened before or since then, right?

As I’ve discussed here, here, and here, the Manderlys went into exile with a good bit of portable income and were looking for not just land to settle on but royal protection (they were for all intents and purposes exiled fugitives), and the Starks were looking for a House with ready income to take over the Wolf’s Den and solve the tricky problem of the security of their eastern border:

“A thousand years before the Conquest, a promise was made, and oaths were sworn in the Wolf’s Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies. The city is built upon the land they gave us. In return we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!“

As for a House migrating, we’ve definitely seen some examples of this: the Blackwoods moved from the North to the Riverlands, and lots of Andal Houses would have moved from the Vale to the Riverlands to the Westerlands and the Reach. 

I want to write some fanfic about urban lower class people in King’s Landing, mostly because I find that ASOIAF’s focus on the nobility (or nobility adjacent) as all the POVs to be deeply problematic. Can you recommend some resources to look at?

I’d be happy to: