Tag: asshole families

In a side note from your analysis of Jaime I in ASOS, you include the Brackens in a list with the Freys and Peakes as “asshole families”. What did the Brackens do? I know they don’t get along with the Blackwoods, or but I’ve always thought of that as feud without a clear antagonist or protagonist. Am I wrong?

So I use that term to suggest what the author’s feelings are, not necessarily my own.

But you just have to look at how GRRM has described the two houses to see which side he comes down on: the Blackwoods worship the Old Gods and have a cool weirwood tree for their sigil, the Brackens converted to the New Gods and have…a horse; Missy Blackwood is loved by all, but Barba Bracken is a callous schemer who gets exiled from court and her poor sister meets an even worse fate; Otho Bracken is a “brute” and won’t help Dunk; Jonos Bracken is a womanizing tool who sides (or is it “sides”?) with the Lannisters while Tytos Blackwood is an honorable Stark loyalist (with a kickass ravenfeather cloak); hell, when GRRM wants to have the Three Stooges enter his series, they show up as Bracken sworn swords!

So while I think the thematic argument that GRRM is trying to make is that both sides are equally to blame for the feud, his aesthetics aren’t matching up. Poets being of the devil’s party and so forth.