an austrian in paris

pantslesskyle:

(via George R. R. Martin gets lazy naming the next Game of Thrones book - Comics)

(via inthehouseofstark)

Controversial characters: you don’t have to label them as “good” or “bad” to have an opinion. No seriously.

ivanolix:

You know, when I first read ASOIAF, 99% of the characters disgusted me with their internalized -isms, especially sexism. I wasn’t a fan of anyone because they were all…uncomfortably flawed. There were characters who I couldn’t understand fandom ever even caring about, and sure enough when I came into fandom there were HUGE controversies about them (that kept repeating and repeating and repeating ad nauseum)

Tyrion:

“And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister.”

Sandor:

“And the little bird, your pretty sister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf.”

Cersei:

Cersei stared at her, aghast. “Your lackwit sister gets herself raped by half of King’s Landing, and Tanda thinks to honor the bastard with my lord father’s name? I think not.”

Cersei did not intend to squander Tommen’s strength playing wet nurse to sparrows, or guarding the wrinkled cunts of a thousand sour septas. Half of them are probably praying for a good raping.

Also Theon’s coercion of Kyra and Sandor’s intimidation of Sansa in the scene where he demands a song…definitely twinged my “ugggggh rape” button. (There’s other things that these characters do that are upsetting, but rape is one of those things that hits close to home and so it’s especially upsetting.)

I hated all these characters like I hated the Mountain, Randyll Tarly, Tywin Lannister, Victarion Greyjoy, Roose and Ramsay Bolton.

But you know what? Now I don’t hate them.

These scenes are still uncomfortable and wrong and definitely aren’t admirable moments from these characters. They aren’t excusable, either, regardless of any discussions of context. (This is non-negotiable btw.)

Yet in a series where everyone is horribly (sometimes disgustingly) flawed inside, I find that I can have sympathy for the parts of characters that deserve sympathy, and admire the parts of them that are admirable, while still calling them out on the shit that they do. I can legitimately like Tyrion, Cersei, Theon, etc., even after they screw up and hurt innocent people. In fact, I can legitimately like 50+ characters in this series even though none of them is perfect, and all of them have done “unforgivable” things (in one person’s view or another).

Stannis sort of has it right here, you know. “A good act does not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good.” Good acts are good. Bad acts are bad. And as much as fandom likes to take on Melisandre’s perspective (“If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion”) I think that’s a bit harsh, and I prefer to take everything as a mixed bag.

And so I’m very, very, very tired of people in fandom making assertions that if you admire certain aspects of a character, you must therefore admire all of them. That doesn’t even make a modicum of sense. In the same line of thought, I’m very, very, very tired of people demanding “But how can you like ____ after they did ____?” because it doesn’t work like that for me. I don’t think it works like that for GRRM either. He’s been very good in his series about leaving black/white judgments to the side, about not labeling people as either “good” or “bad” but some mix of such things. I appreciate that. 

Of course, there will always be controversial characters because fans are people and people have emotional, visceral, sometimes even “irrational” reactions to characters. People will hate and people will love and people will be “meh” and that’s fine and normal and dandy. But not everyone who loves is blind to the faults in their love, and vice versa. Most fans do, in fact, have complicated opinions. That should be the base assumption, not the “exception to the rule”. Unless you see someone saying that their fave character has “literally done nothing wrong”. Then, you know, they’re free game.

Until that happens, though, I’m going to be over here Stannising away and liking controversial characters even though they do unforgivable things. And I’m not going to feel the need to constantly defend myself for it. Hopefully fandom will stop demanding defenses, because yeah, I still don’t see how that makes any sense.

plenilune:

gothiccharmschool:

It’s not even that I have a particular fondness for pole axes. But wow, am I impressed by these! And kinda-sorta coveting them.

protagonistadeltuoamor:

hoop-skirts-and-corsets:

Pole axe hairsticks revisited by ~bionic-dingo

I WANT THESE!!!!!

Sarah, I think these need to belong to you.

I’m chasing lions, and goblins, and angels at night.
With a barrel and a bottle by a grandfather’s knife,
There’s blood on my collar, I wish it were mine;
With less friends before me, and more left behind. 

(Source: eastwatch, via silentstartumblingnebula)