Mary Queen Of Scots Documents.

Part of what makes Sansa successful in the end is because she tries to learn from other people, regardless of whether she likes them or not. There is a lot to be said for the Ceresi’s and Littlefinger’s of the world. Sure she has setbacks, but she learns.

Compare that to say Jon who is destined to make mistakes, or Daenerys who also makes the same mistake in Westeros that she did in Qarth, in Mereen, and other places. 

I was thinking about that conversation in which Jon asked if Sansa admired Cersei. I guess It’s not exactly admiration, but Sansa understands Cersei. She gets that Cersei was abused and suffered a lot and she knows how it’s like to be blamed for your own abuse. Just like Cersei, I guess Sansa has a lot of anger within her. It doesn’t mean she admires Cersei. Still, it’s funny when antis say Sansa became Cersei 2.0 just because of this scene 😂

how could sansa admire cersei? cersei abused sansa, she held her hostage. jon’s comment was deeply insulting and offensive to sansa.

We need another more mature adaptation, even if it’s clearly only for older kids/teens/adults with all of the details the TV series and family-friendly books choose to overlook or quietly sweep under the rug because it wasn’t family-friendly.

How Little House on the Prairie Butchered Almanzo Wilder

From Micheal Landon to Dean Butler, this list will explore everything wrong- and right- with the portrayal of Almanzo Wilder.

(In all fairness, I don’t think Butler has as much to do with this ghastly portrayal of his on-screen character as those who worked behind the scenes. He also admitted he tried his hardest to insure “the audience knew Laura would be safe with him” which came across well on screen.)

We never see his heroic act of saving De Smet

While Dean Butler saves the blind school by working two jobs, we never see Almanzo’s legendary journey to save the town. The real Almanzo Wilder and his brother Royal hoarded grain during the hard winter of 1880-1881 until Charles Ingalls, Laura’s father, confronted them about it. It was then that Almanzo and a close friend, Cap Garland, went in search of wheat to feed their starving town. They made the treacherous journey and managed to save the town, including Laura’s family.

It was a pivotal point in one of Laura’s novels, The Long Winter, and is ultimately the reason why Almanzo is deemed worthy of Laura. The audience sees him save the blind school and become seriously unwell because of that, but they never see his true defining moment.

We don’t see his second heroic act of taking Laura out of a volatile situation

In order to help support her family, Laura became a teacher. It meant she had to travel outside of her home town and board near the school. This meant she had to stay in the only homestead with enough space. The owners, the Bouchies, did not welcome her with open arms. Instead, Laura recalls Mrs Bouchie being sullen and being both aggressive towards her and Mr Bouchie. She also recalls Mrs Bouchie threatening her husband with a knife, proclaiming she wanted to go “back east”. In Laura’s books, she changes their surname to “Brewster”, but the story remains more or less the same.

To take her home each weekend, Almanzo would drive her home regardless of weather. For Laura, she was glad to leave the dangerous household, even if it meant braving Dakota blizzards.

This act of kindness continued for the entire time Laura taught at that school. She made it clear that she was only going with him to see her family, and that she did not reciprocate whatever he felt for her. He continued, and eventually she did fall for him.

He’s whinny, immature and acts like a petulant child

The real-life Almanzo Wilder was calm, persistent and reasonable. He never demanded anything of Laura, and even admired how independent she was. He never demanded anything from her, and remained patient when attempting to court her.

While we see this with Dean Butler’s portrayal in later seasons, he acts controlling and stubborn. This is particularly clear when Laura is forced to make a choice between her Pa and Almanzo, and he forces her to choose.

We never see any of his gifts to Laura

The beautiful pantry he made for her in their little house remained absent throughout the television series. Not only this, but the little slay he made for their dog to pull for Laura was also missing. He made it so she could still ride about in the snow while pregnant, which she used every day. Laura, at eighteen, would tumble of the sled into the snow, laughing and acting like the young woman she was. In fact, the one day she didn’t he became concerned at her sudden need for rest. It turned out that Laura was in labour with her first child, and he soon called the doctor.

In the adaptation we don’t get to see any of this, but why?

We don’t see their relationships for what it was

For the most part the audience doesn’t see their 19th century relationship. Almanzo peruses Laura even though she makes it clear she only goes with him on sleigh rides to get to the Bouchie school and back. He continued the strenuous journey for her benefit, proving what kind of man he really is.

We never see the exchange they have, the night he drove her home from the Bouchie’s during a deathly blizzard. He makes the trip and brings her home, keeping her awake during the trip so she doesn’t fall asleep- as Laura puts it, if you fall asleep in those temperatures, you don’t wake back up. He even later admits to being in “two minds” about it, and how Cap Garland encourages him with the line “God hates a coward.” Laura asks him if he really went to get her on a dare, yet he tells her “”No, it wasn’t a dare,” Almanzo said. “I just figured he was right.””

The audience also never sees how their first house together burned to the ground, and how Laura was terrified of his reaction - “what will Manly say to me?” The relief that he isn’t furious with her, but instead finds her on the ground and comforts her is also absent, taking the heart of the story with it.

Dean Butler’s portrayal, in the early years, would have probably left Laura at the Bouchie school and later screamed at her for burning down their house (or maybe just stormed out of town.)

We don’t see his famous pancakes

A large part of the later Little House books is Almanzo and his brother and their perfect pancakes. Sure, it’s a minor detail, but we all wanted to try them. (Where’s the recipe, Laura?)

Or his elder brother, for that matter

Royal isn’t actually a part of the television series as he only shows up twice- two different actors with three different children. He’s simply an add-on to the Ingalls-Wilder storyline.

The real Royal Wilder was a bachelor for the entirety of the book series. He was supportive of Almanzo and Laura and went as far as to care for them when they came down with Diphtheria.

Laura’s bout of diphtheria is also absent

While the television series does show Almanzo’s sickness Laura doesn’t show any symptoms. Laura, in fact, was the one who first developed symptoms and their daughter was already born. While Laura was unwell, Rose was sent to her grandparents and Almanzo cared for her until, he too, became sick. It was then that Royal came to take care of them as he was a bachelor and had no family himself.

Laura, was in fact, the sickest. She describes it as “severe” whereas Almanzo only suffered mild symptoms. She wrote, “Laura’s attack had been dangerous, while Manly’s was light.”

Almanzo’s “stroke” was also not portrayed correctly. Instead, after his illness, he went to get up one morning and found his legs could not carry him. It was mentioned that after rubbing them, circulation returned and he was able to go into town to see the doctor. He was told it was “a stroke of paralyse” and was most likely a complication of diphtheria.

Almanzo’s encouragement

Laura was often encouraged by Almanzo, even if it was unintentional. He asked her to drive Barnum, instead of telling her to “go back to the kitchen”. When Almanzo went to his parent’s farm for Christmas, he lent her Lady and the buggy so she could go for rides still. He even let her buy her own colt, and is part of the reason why she wrote the series.

We don’t see him encourage Laura to be who she is. He strikes the word “obey” from their vows, and tells her about how no decent man would keep that word in there. Laura isn’t a suffragette, but it’s a feminist moment in its own right.

Michael Landon, why turn a perfectly reasonable pioneer into a controlling husband? Sure, he’s “protective” but why make him even more backwards than an actual pioneer?

He often acted impulsively, but not selfishly

The real AJ Wilder is boyish, ambitious and adventurous. He isn’t always wise- he’s a true hero when it comes to saving the town, but at the same time he is risking his own life. He drives Laura through a deadly blizzard even against better judgement, just because he can’t see anything worse than being labelled a coward. He encourages a young woman to drive a “runaway” horse through town. He lets his heavily pregnant wife play in the snow, with a dog and sled. He drives their baby and Laura to her parents’ house during the winter because she missed them, and her family are furious that they took the risk.

Instead, we see a farmer who carries out impulsive acts differently. Almanzo’s real acts were selfless, whereas the character’s actions are nothing short selfish.

Dean Butler just didn’t look like Almanzo

Finally, the real Manly had brown hair and couldn’t have been further from Dean Butler appearance. It’s a small thing, but it is a little bothersome for die-hard fans.

Man I really can’t stand people who actively complain about a show not going the way they want it currently. Like, hypothesize the hell out of it, analyze, search for clues, and hopes, but once canon comes out, that’s canon. Deal with it I guess, sorry if the people you ship together had an argument and aren’t getting along. You might think it’s unrealistic but you’re not the creator? Sorry if your fan theory was contradicted, you’re not the creator? Sorry if you were positive about this characters personality but turned out to be wrong, you’re not the creator? Sorry if your favourite character that you thought would be central to the show died, but you’re not the creator. Make aus and have fun with it but don’t…..dismiss canon. If you didn’t have canon you literally wouldn’t have your show at all. You wouldn’t have the characters, or the memories.

Last but not least, stop complaining about lack of screen time for a clear background character. if you fall in love with a character that is clearly a background character, who is destined for limited screen time, own it. Wish for more, hope, enjoy what you get but don’t angrily demand more content that you are not entitled to.

Remember that every story has a writer. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end, dictated by the one who created it. And you have literally no say in that. People are gonna tell the story they tell. That’s that.

(Normally I’d want to be more polite about this but I’ve seen too many posts like this today, TOO MANY)

Sansa knows that of all the Starks that were ripped from Winterfell, she suffered the most to get it back. She’s the driving force for getting it back. Now she’s being told, “It’s not yours, and it’s not the Starks’ anymore. It belongs to Hitler’s daughter, the worst person in the world’s daughter, the daughter of the person who murdered your grandfather and uncle in the worst way possible. And guess what? Your brother, who you convinced to step up when he wanted to fuck off because of his death experience, bent the knee to her and is telling you that she’s your queen.” What part of Sansa’s reaction to any of this is irrational?

Bryan Cogman on the conversation between Sansa and Daenerys. Even when they were smiling, you felt the stakes involved. (via sophietisthebest)

Hercule de Valois

Hercule Valois, aka Francois Duke of Anjou and Alencon, would like to challenge (former) Prince Harry to a literary duel.

If Anjou could write a memoir about his life as the “spare” brother, it would be far more entertaining than Harry’s “Spare.” 

Elizabeth II seems a much nicer grandmother than Catherine de Medici was a mother to her youngest two children. 

{Megan and Harry fans, please disregard this post, this post is for people who know a lot about the Valois family and Catherine de Medici’s children. I don’t know (or care) enough about Megan and Harry to have an opinion on them. I do, however, love to learn about 16th century royal scandals.} 

D*NY stans think battle of bells will be between cersei & joncon. I've seen ppl theorising that KL will be ashes when Dny arrives in Westeros because cersei will blow it up with wildfire ("as KL is her city" 🤭). Dny stans substitute cersei in every theory that is negative for dny (they call cersei as Aerys 2.0 🤭)

*GRRM over the years talking about aunty, her pets and burning cities to the ground*:

A Dance With Dragons spends quite a lot of time in Essos, which is kind of the analog to Asia and the Middle East in the world the story takes place in, as opposed to Westeros, which seems to owe a lot to Western Europe. When I was reading about Dany, who has become a light-skinned, foreign ruler of an exotic land, it reminded me of The Man Who Would Be King, the Sean Connery and Michael Caine movie that is based on a Rudyard Kipling story. Do you think about these parallels — colonialism, the “white man’s burden” — when you’re writing? I’ve said many times I don’t like thinly disguised allegory, but certain scenes do resonate over time. Other people have made the argument, which is more more contemporary, that it might have resonances with our current misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m aware of the parallels, but I’m not trying to slap a coat of paint on the Iraq War and call it fantasy. When civilizations clash in your books, instead of Guns, Germs, and Steel, maybe it’s more like Dragons, Magic, and Steel (and also Germs). There is magic in my universe, but it’s pretty low magic compared to other fantasies. Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.

—GRRM - Vulture - 2011

“I mean battles and wars interest me too - and medieval feasts interest me. And you know I’m creating a whole world here and every facet of it. As I get to it I try to approach it as realistically as I can, but ultimately as I said before, it’s it’s the human heart in conflict with itself. It’s what makes Cersei Lannister the way she is, and is she capable of learning and changing? What drives Dany? With Dany I’m particularly looking at the… what effect great power has upon a person. She’s the mother of dragons, and she controls what is in effect the only three nuclear weapons in the entire world that I’ve created. What does it do to you when you control the only three nuclear weapons in the world and you can destroy entire cities or cultures if you choose to? Should you choose to, should you not choose to? These are the issues that fascinate me. I don’t necessarily claim to have answers to these. I think exploring the questions is far more interesting than just me giving an answer and saying to the reader, here’s the answer, here’s the truth. Now think about it for yourself, look at the dilemmas, look at the contradictions, look at the problems, and the unintended consequences. That’s what fascinates me.”

—“Interview exclusive de George R R Martin, l'auteur de Game Of Thrones” de -Le Mouv’- 2014 - [Transcription]

How do you analyze this question of power? I think I was struck by the reading of the Lord of the Rings. I find that Tolkien is a little simplistic on the subject: at the end of the book, Aragorn becomes king, and we learn that he ruled in a wise and just way for a century, for he was a good man. But I read history books, I'm contemporary news, and I'm convinced that being a good man is not enough to make you a great leader. Because governing is a delicate exercise that makes you constantly make difficult decisions, solve problems where there is no good solution, that would solve everything by magic. Those are profound questions for the human race. And then there is the war, another subject that is close to my heart, I was a conscientious objector at the time of the Vietnam War, and this question still concerns me. I look at what is happening in the Middle East, with the Islamic State, and I can not help wondering: who are these monsters, these modern orcs? Who can be sympathetic to them? And yet, fighters say thousands to join them. More seriously, what motivates them? And how should we fight them? If I were Daenerys Targaryen. I could ride on my dragons and eliminate them in the flames. But is death the only solution we have to offer? How react to another who is so radically alien to us? These questions are very difficult - and I do not pretend to have the answers. Because there is no simple answer to these questions.

—Lire Magazine - April 2015

He was asked to comment about the differences between the book and show characters, particularly Daenerys. GRRM ignored all the other characters and talked only about Daenerys - he said that the show one is older because there are laws in USA that prevent minors from having sex scenes so the decision was made to age Daenerys. Otherwise, book Daenerys and show Daenerys “are very similar” and “Emilia Clarke did a fantastic job”. (I guess he can’t really say negative things about the show, can he?)

—GRRM Q&A - St. Petersburg, August 2017

GRRM: “People read fantasy to see the colours again,” he says. “We live our lives and I think there’s something in us that yearns for something more, more intense experiences. There are men and women out there who live their lives seeking those intense experiences, who go to the bottom of the sea and climb the highest mountains or get shot into space. Only a few people are privileged to live those experiences but I think all of us want to, somewhere in our heart of hearts we don’t want to live the lives of quiet desperation Thoreau spoke about, and fantasy allows us to do those things. Fantasy takes us to amazing places and shows us wonders, and that fulfils a need in the human heart.”

The Guardian: And the dragons?

GRRM: “Oh sure, dragons are cool too,” he chuckles. “But maybe not on our doorstep”.

—The Guardian - November 2018

Esquire: How will Fire & Blood deepen our understanding of Daenerys and her dragons?

GRRM: This is a book that Daenerys might actually benefit from reading, but she has no access to Archermaester Gyldayn’s crumbling manuscripts. So she’s operating on her own there. Maybe if she understood a few things more about dragons and her own history in Essos, things would have gone a little differently.

—Esquire - November 2018

Sitting down with news.com.au in New York City, Martin dropped dark hints to the suffering awaiting the war-torn world of Westeros as the battle for the Iron Throne reaches its peak.

“I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.

‘THE POWER TO DESTROY’

“She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in ‘Fire and Blood,’ we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn’t necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy.”

—GRRM - Fox News Channel - November 2018

John Howe: Can I ask you why Dany is a princess and not a prince?

GRRM: I made this choice a long time ago, I think I wanted to play a little with the genres and reversed things a little, and of course in my head the expression "mother of dragons" is much better than "father of dragons". There is also this link with the woman who gives life, who transmits lives, carrying a gigantic power of death, of fire, of destruction. There are very powerful metaphors in there.

—Dragons! (2/4) Dragons d'Occident, la figure du mal [2018] - Video - Translation (last quote).

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (“Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020) - Translation.

[…] The role of Daenerys is a difficult role, particularly in the pilot, because Daenerys begins as a frightened little girl. She’s thoroughly dominated by her brother, who humiliates her and sexually assaults her. He’s selling her to this fierce guy and she’s frightened but during the course of that comes into her own power. She suddenly grows from a girl to a woman and starts to realize that she does have power and authority. There’s a transformation that’s incredible the entire course of the show. You have to find an actress who can do both parts, who can be very convincing as the scared little girl in the beginning, but also very convincing as the “I’m gonna kick your ass and burn your city to cinders” woman that she becomes by the end. It’s challenging and it was a hard part to cast.

—GRRM - Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers by James Andrew Miller (NOVEMBER 23, 2021). Full quote here.

The Targaryens are also an ancient house but they're not an ancient Westerosi house. They knew that destruction was coming to Valyria and went far away from the capital city and the settled on the volcanic island of Dragonstone. They were dragon lords in Valyria. Now dragons are really formidable and they can turn the tide of a battle. It flies, it's difficult to hit, it breathes fire, against which most knights and men at arms have little or no protection. So if you have dragons, that's were the nuclear option analogy comes in. You're hard to mess around with. So the dragons and fear of dragons was one of the things that made the Targaryens very secure in their power.

—Before the Dance: An Illustrated History with George R.R. Martin | House of the Dragon (HBO) - August - 2022

*aunty stans*: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Read more here:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Queen of Ashes

This!

feeling bonkers about measure for measure again. obsessed with the way angelo and isabella are such blatant foils of each other. angelo's introduced instigating the crackdown on vienna's sexual immorality while isabella's someone who's just become a nun and wants /more/ restrictions on her activities. (if you want a similar literary character from a different century, think dorothea from middlemarch.) devotion weaponized into self-restriction. they're both dangerously devout in their own way, though tellingly angelo's the only one who tries to push his beliefs onto other people and thus the one revealed to be a hypocrite in the end.

by contrast, the duke's a figure of total amorality. he spends most of the play in a friar's robes without performing the rites or following the strictures dictated by said robes. the duke has no faith the way angelo and isabella do. he's vaguely worried about ~corruption~ but why take a stand when he can get his overzealous second-in-command to do it and take the fall for him? dude could have revealed himself so much earlier but. he doesn't. the duke pretends to be in a comedy, but he's just a psychopathic puppeteer. he lets everyone think claudio's dead and for what. fucking deranged!!

the end of the play has the duke proposing marriage to isabella: her most important religious values mean nothing to him. angelo and isabella have their own beliefs, however self-flagellating. the duke only believes in himself.

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” goes the famous paraphrasing of John Donne’s sermon. “It tolls for thee.” The bitter truth of this aphorism—that the loss of any life is a loss for all—gets a brutal workout in the aptly named “The Bells,” arguably the best representation of George R.R. Martin’s deconstruction of fantasy tropes we’ve seen in several seasons. The bells of King’s Landing, it turns out, don’t toll for the loss of Cersei’s authority. They toll for the loss of everyone in the city, quite literally. This story began as a way to invert the cliched stereotypes of the hero’s journey, to twist the traditional narrative of swords and sorcery in a radical way and rethink how such epics are delivered. This episode brings that philosophy home. There are no good wars; any battle that begins with hearty cheering should end with somber melancholy; it doesn’t matter who the good guys and bad guys are in the face of death; nobody wants to die; the chaos of war makes villains and victims of us all.“

Alex McLevy, AV Club TV Critic’s Review of “The Bells”

Varys, what an underrated character!

the gods flip a coin and the world holds its b r e a t h

on this season of the bachelor, the final rose goes to...