Catelyn Stark, Lady Of Winterfell!

Walk with me here, but I think a big part of this fandom's problem is idpol. It's why you have braindead takes like "Yes Mirri was right to kill the child of another enslaved child." "justice for the brown woman" but they never mention that Mirri's argument for the forced abortion of Rhaego is racially essentialist in nature. "The brown baby boy will grow up to be a huge brown rapist" was Mirri's argument and this fandom eats it up uncritically because they hate the "white slave owner".

Their arguments for mad kween Dany are also essentialist in nature. You can never escape the cycle of generational trauma and violence. She will eventually become like her rapist father because his evil is literally written into her genes. No matter how far you come or how high you go, you will never escape your genetics.

I wouldn't mind criticism of Dany's actions if they dug deeper than just "white girl bad, brown woman good" but the arguments are never that, they want to analyse Dany's actions under the world's largest microscope but never ask the hard questions about Mirri's actions.

They don't care about canonically brown/black characters that have been harmed by white characters in the text. They want to talk about how Tywin has Alayaya whipped and thrown out of the Red Keep or how Cersei has her abducted and beaten to punish Tyrion and how all Tyrion can think is "thank god it wasn't Shae."

How Oberyn purchases sex from the 16-year-old Alayaya. How George has written the Summer Islanders and how that in itself is racist. How Oberyn beat Obara's mother and took Obara from her. Illyrio Mopatis and his horde of enslaved people despite the fact that slavery is outlawed in Pentos.

The fandom would be better if more people bring their metas down to earth. Because we should not be having these conversations all these years later. The first book is older than me, you'd think the fandom would have gotten all this out of their system.

N.B. Until we as a fandom are ready and willing to have a serious conversation about how often a large majority of the fandom slips into fascist talking points to justify their hatred for the teenage girl, we will never have meaningful discourse about these characters or this universe.

empty idpol idiots 🤝🏾 fascists for some reason.

Ultimately I agree with your points about people not analyzing the text for what it presents and how it's written for the sake of taking superifical details and running with them for advocating for whatever identity they are advocating for. I don't think Mirri was necessarily using essentialist arguments for hurting Dany, though and I am confused as to the some of the writing here, and I don't feel I can make any deeper comments otherwise.

This is what Mirri-Dany's exchange (A Game of Thrones -- Daenerys IX):

Dany gestured at Ser Jorah and the others. "Leave us. I would speak with this maegi alone." Mormont and the Dothraki withdrew. "You knew," Dany said when they were gone. She ached, inside and out, but her fury gave her strength. "You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it." "It was wrong of them to burn my temple," the heavy, flat-nosed woman said placidly. "That angered the Great Shepherd." "This was no god's work," Dany said coldly. If I look back I am lost. "You cheated me. You murdered my child within me." "The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust." "I spoke for you," she said, anguished. "I saved you." "Saved me?" The Lhazareen woman spat. "Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god's house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved." "Your life." Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. "Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone." Dany called out for the men of her khas and bid them take Mirri Maz Duur and bind her hand and foot, but the maegi smiled at her as they carried her off, as if they shared a secret. A word, and Dany could have her head off … yet then what would she have? A head? If life was worthless, what was death?

A)

I could be reading this ask incorrectly. Did you mean "they don't want" when you said: "They don't care about canonically brown/black characters that have been harmed by white characters in the text. They want to talk about how Tywin has Alayaya whipped and thrown out of the Red Keep or how Cersei has her abducted and beaten to punish Tyrion and how all Tyrion can think is "thank god it wasn't Shae."? Because with you saying "They don't care about canonically...in the text", it seems like it, but Idk.

B)

You: "but they never mention that Mirri's argument for the forced abortion of Rhaego is racially essentialist in nature. "The brown baby boy will grow up to be a huge brown rapist" was Mirri's argument and this fandom eats it up uncritically because they hate the "white slave owner"."

Mirri is Lhazareene/Essosi herself, so she is technically a brown person. Her seeming "Dothraki vs Lhazareene"-ism is not white-on-brown crime or violence. Dothraki do perform extreme violence--sexual or otherwise--on other groups and obliterate their ways of life to absorb them as free labor into their own communities for power. So--we're just thinking from her perspective here, not fans--when she is saying that Dany's son will grow up into someone like Drogo and lead more destructive/raping campaigns for "culture" and power, In her perspective, I think it wasn't really about genetics so much as what social environment the boy would grow up in and him being more influenced by the men/bad actors around him than a single girl/woman who saved her. Bc Mirri didn't expect Dany to be able or want to migrate out of a typical Dothraki community.

She's looking at the prospect of a child growing up into the sort of man who would rape and pillage and more than that, she's looking for personal vengeance against Drogo through that child and Dany. Because she cannot get to Drogo through a more direct means, she uses and targets Dany.

This does not mean that Mirri was morally correct and justified, she still targets & harms a child bride/rape victim for her own aims. I'm saying the opposite.

You: "Their arguments for mad kween Dany are also essentialist in nature. You can never escape the cycle of generational trauma and violence. She will eventually become like her rapist father because his evil is literally written into her genes. No matter how far you come or how high you go, you will never escape your genetics."

Yeah, I agree with this--the arguments against Dany are essentialist.

However, whether or not Dany is or is not going to lose her mind (she isn't), the very argument for her becoming that from those essentialist arguments is not equal/same as the idea of Rhaego becoming the worst kind of leader bc there isn't even an "understandable" base reason for them to believe a girl who didn't even grown up as a "typical" Targ--she was born while her brother and mother were fleeing, never to return to Westeros-- would become the worst of them or become exactly like the image of a Targ that is in their heads. Whereas Rhaego would have grown up in a khalasar, it makes sense for someone to assume Rhaego would become that versus Dany becoming a version of an evil queen.

Still, once again, Mirri targeted a child bride/rape victim for personal revenge and refused to accept the fact that Dany's influence might be enough to raise a better child. After the girl actually risked herself and went out of her way to save Mirri.

The Queen and her Scarlet Shadow

The writers deliberately setting up Rhaenyra as a religious, cult-like figure willing to sacrifice all the dragonseeds was disgusting, not just for the way they are paralleling her to S8 Daenerys, but also because they are deliberately justifying the violence and betrayal Rhaenyra faces before she dies.

In Fire & Blood, the dragonseeds are completely willing participants. The dragons had their own caves, and every dragonseed would have to find the dragon on their own, decide if they wanted to actually try anything, and could easily have left if they lost their courage. Every moment was willing.

So when the book introduces the families of the dragonseeds when Aegon takes Dragonstone - those who had lost someone to the dragons - it’s introduced with the expectation for the reader to understand that the families were unjustly taking out their anger and misogyny on Rhaenyra. She was not at fault for anyone’s actions, yet they turned against her all the same the moment Aegon showed up. They kept him hidden, they helped him take the castle, they took Rhaenyra straight to her death, all because they were bitter. Slights “real or imagined.”

“Even in Dragonstone, long Queen Rhaenyra’s seat and stronghold, they found many who misliked the queen for both reasons good and ill. Some grieved for brothers, sons, and fathers slain during the Sowing or during the Battle of the Gullet, some hoped for plunder or advancement, whilst others believed a son must come before a daughter, giving Aegon a better claim.” - F&B 542

Rhaenyra did nothing. She was betrayed anyway.

Now in House of the Dragon, when that scene will be set up, the anger and misogyny WILL be justified. The whole section is supposed to be about unjustified violence towards women (and their supporters), and it will all now be erased. Rhaenyra will not even die simply because she made a mistake of going to Dragonstone. No, she will bring her own death upon herself for her actions. She will deserve her fate.

Here, Rhaenyra did something. The betrayal is justified. The story is ruined, and HotD will get away with the idea that they gave an amazing feminist retelling, when in truth they erased every bit of it.

Have you ever felt like Martin doesn't like Cersei? The way he writes about her made me question? I mean she is both evil and stupid and it seems like we are supposed to laugh at her.

Cersei is pretty evil, and while I don't believe she's stupid, it's hard not to laugh (incredulously or otherwise) at her many, many bad ideas over the course of the series. Especially in AFFC.

But it's also clear to me that GRRM has compassion for this villain he's created - and that he has right from the start.

Let's put this under a cut for domestic violence and sheer length.

Ned touched her cheek gently. "Has he done this before?" "Once or twice." She shied away from his hand. "Never on the face before. Jaime would have killed him, even if it meant his own life." Cersei looked at him defiantly. "My brother is worth a hundred of your friend." Eddard XII, AGoT

GRRM chooses to frame the pivotal confrontation between Ned and Cersei with the reality of the domestic violence Cersei has experienced. Whatever else happens in that scene, whatever else she's done that might or might not be justified, the author makes sure the reader knows, Ned knows, that Cersei has good reason to hate Robert.

When she hesitated, then sat, Tyrion knew she was lost, despite her loud declaration of, "I will not marry again!" "You will marry and you will breed. Every child you birth makes Stannis more a liar." Their father's eyes seemed to pin her to her chair. Tyrion III, ASoS

This is re-emphasised as Tyrion witnesses Tywin's abuse of Cersei. Even Tyrion, who also has good reason to hate Cersei, cannot help but see how their father completely ignores Cersei's desires, reduces her autonomy to rubble, and above all makes her feel small. This is quite deliberately in Tyrion's PoV to make that dissonance stronger. Cersei is awful, but Tyrion can take no satisfaction in Tywin mistreating her.

Similarly,

His sister sat in a puddle of wine, cradling her son's body. Her gown was torn and stained, her face white as chalk. A thin black dog crept up beside her, sniffing at Joffrey's corpse. "The boy is gone, Cersei," Lord Tywin said. He put his gloved hand on his daughter's shoulder as one of his guardsmen shooed away the dog. "Unhand him now. Let him go." She did not hear. It took two Kingsguard to pry loose her fingers, so the body of King Joffrey Baratheon could slide limp and lifeless to the floor. Tyrion VIII, ASoS

Cersei's grief over watching her son murdered in front of her is a key character moment for her. Is Joffrey a good person? No. Is Cersei's immediate response of demanding Tyrion's arrest a good and just idea? No. Is that grief still real? Absolutely.

It was more than Cersei could stand. I cannot let them see me cry, she thought, when she felt the tears welling in her eyes. She walked past Ser Meryn Trant and out into the back passage. Alone beneath a tallow candle, she allowed herself a shuddering sob, then another. A woman may weep, but not a queen. Cersei III, AFFC

That lasts. It's not healthy but it is genuine. The author isn't putting this in here so we laugh at her. The author is putting this here to help us remember throughout the parade of evil and stupid crap Cersei's about to do that Cersei is a human with human emotions.

And when all that crap has backfired on Cersei, the author makes sure we know that the punishment inflicted on her is not for her sins but instead for her biological sex. He shows her break from that treatment.

Words are wind, she thought, words cannot hurt me. I am beautiful, the most beautiful woman in all Westeros, Jaime says so, Jaime would never lie to me. Even Robert, Robert never loved me, but he saw that I was beautiful, he wanted me. She did not feel beautiful, though. She felt old, used, filthy, ugly. Cersei II, ADWD

The walk of shame is just misogyny, pure and simple, nothing to do with what Cersei's actually done wrong. It is deliberately not karma out to get Cersei. It is deliberately not comeuppance. It is a reminder that Cersei has a point all those times when she points out she's been treated differently because of her sex - even if it's not the whole of the reason people don't respect her.

Even if a reader doesn't think Cersei deserves mercy, even if a reader finds her political bumbling funny, there's a lot around her that shows us that the author wants us to think carefully about what made Cersei both a horrible person and a horrible politician. She is most definitely not there just to be the butt of the author's joke. That's Victarion.

RACHEL ZEGLER at the ‘Snow White’ press event in Tokyo, Japan, dressed in a custom Paolo Sebastian gown inspired by the daggered heart box motif from the original 1937 Disney film (5th March 2025)

The worst thing about rhaenicent is its infinite potential

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you should really be able to annotate your blocklist on here it's untenable having it all mixed up like this. how am i supposed to know if i blocked this person for writing a smiley emoticon on a day when i was feeling particularly bitter or if it was for reblogging from transmisogynists like i needdd a zotero notes function for this. ik someone already said this but i can't find the post probably because i blocked op for i don't know what reason. because my blocklist isn't annotated

"courtesy is a lady's armor" is what sansa repeats to herself in king's landing while she's being held hostage and is at the mercy of people who seek to use her as a political pawn for their own gains (the lannisters and the tyrells). it is not meant to be aspirational, it's a coping mechanism which she uses to make herself small and invisible to survive the mental and physical torment being heaped on her by a society which only recognises her value in the form of her reproductive capabilities and expects her to remain a docile object, not an active participant in her own life. and internalising such an ideal begins her loss of identity arc. presently she's sequestered in the vale, forced to leave behind her name and her home, to forget who she is. because that's what it does to you, hollowing yourself out to meet the expectations of feudal patriarchy until your will is broken. catelyn experiences it in a literal sense with stoneheart serving as a metaphor for this process. and obviously what is happening to sansa is not her fault, neither her nor catelyn are being criticised by the text for performing feminity, it's a criticism of the exploitation of young girls by westerosi society, something that is enforced and achieved and passed down through those songs about dutiful ladies awaiting gallant knights in their towers. the key here being that the version of heroism preached in those songs (able bodied, all men, all handsome - a definition which excludes bran, tyrion, sandor, brienne) and the role of women as passive agents is what's being questioned, not the notion of performing goodness in a broken world. sansa is right to be a dreamer, to be kind—that's what makes her a hero. but her arc is also about unlearning those harmful foundational myths of westerosi society.

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