Bloodyraven1001 - A Raven Under A Weirwood

The third Jon Snow chapter in A Game of Thrones is so funny when you consider the perspective of the other members of the Night’s Watch.

Since Jon arrived at Castle Black, he’s been withdrawn, sullen, and barely interacted with the others. He was a bastard, but he was also the son of one of the most important men in the entire kingdom, the warden of the north, and hand of the king, and the nephew of Benjen Stark, one of the most highly regarded men at the wall. He grew up alongside his true born halfsiblings at Winterfell and enjoyed an education very similar to theirs. He is one of the youngest people at the wall, yet easily beats the other new recruits in training, barely speaks a word to them afterwards, and instead spends most of his time with his creepy, silent dire wolf. In the words of Donal Noye, he was seen as an arrogant, sullen, reclusive bully, who thought he was better than anyone else.

Then, on some completely random day, he suddenly runs through castle black, the biggest grin ever on his face, which was probably the first time anyone there has seen him smile, whoops the whole time excitedly, that his brother is going to live, and joyfully spins Tyrion Lannister around in a cycle in front of everyone. Afterwards, he smiles at Grenn, who tried to beat him up not even an hour prior to that moment, offers to help him with his sword training and then quips back at Ser Alliser of all people, making the entire common hall laugh in the process.

Like, the switch-up was actually crazy as hell.

Dark Phoenix sketch

Kuoleman puutarha /The garden of Death by Hugo Simberg, 1896

Does your hand in any way own your stomach?

My friends who just got their first glasses: i need this highly expensive special cloth to wipe them, I also have this eyeglass cleaner from the same company, did you know you shouldn't use your t shirt unless it's specifically soft

Me who's worn glasses since middle school: *slaps soap onto the glasses and washes them in the sink then wipes them with toilet paper* what

just imagining Colin sitting next to Heinrich in front of a computer teaching him to use Unity or Godot or something

reposting my own Tweet (from 3 days ago) here 💖 enjoy

I feel like typically the "dead wife" montage does nothing for me, even when executed very well, because it's often just like "here's this woman you'll never get to meet, she only matters because a man loves her so much and now he's sad."

But the montage wasn't just Mark's recollections. It was her perspective too. He's her dead husband. He's her Eurydice as much as he's his own Orpheus.

This isn't humanizing Gemma for Mark's sake. This is humanizing Gemma for Gemma's sake and it's there not for us to root for Mark, it's there for us to realize we're rooting for Gemma. Every moment Mark reaches out for her, she's reaching back.

The dead wife montage normally deprives a woman her agency, making her a tool for a man's arc, but this episode fully restored Gemma's agency. She's fighting back, she's yearning too. She hurts, she aches, she angers. She fights, she bleeds, she gets frustrated too. And has been before she was ever Ms Casey,

I've never seen a show restore a character's humanity as fully as this single episode did for Gemma. She went from an abstract concept--a wife, a severed employee, a ghost--to a tangible person.

And this was realized so literally as well. We literally see her bleed, we literally watch her eat, her hands cramp up, her teeth ache. It's like watching a hologram become flesh muscle by muscle, bone by bone.

I'm in awe of what they were able to do for her in just 50 minutes. In many ways, I feel I know Gemma better than I know half the cast.

Episode 39 of The Magnus Protocol is now available wherever you get your podcasts.