hermajestyqueensansa

I WANT YOU!!!

LEAVE HER!!!

COME LIVE WITH ME!!!

Sansa is Queen in the North, Jon is in the North, we have an open ending on our side, a lot of great fanfiction with more being written every day, and you sound bitter and pathetic

@jonsadrabbles - Day 7 - Free choice - Lyanna lives AU

In which Lyanna, scared and rash and thinking she could not face her family, ran away to hide herself and her son from Robert, but finally returns to Westeros with her now 15-year-old son. 500 words on the nose. 

The news of Robert Baratheon’s death is a relief. It’s been so long, but a mother never stops worrying about potential threats against her son’s life, especially when there’s a man out there who would have cause to kill Jon and who wouldn’t hesitate if the moment presented itself. Even if he never knew Jon existed, Lyanna could never quite put that fear away until now.

The news of Ned’s death is something else, something that stirs for the first time in fifteen years, that compels the young girl she once was who stowed away on a ship with a babe in her arms to be brave, to finally face the past she ran away from. The past that stares her in the face every time she looks at her son, so like the brother now gone, another Stark death that may be laid at her feet. Now more than ever, Lyanna wonders if it’s time, not just to return but to make amends. Ned’s daughters remain in King’s Landing, in the hands of the people who killed their father, and so Lyanna has a mission.

She has always been honest with Jon, if for no other reason to avoid him creating silly stories in his head about the father he will never know. He is young, but he understands. More than that Jon is eager to finally find out who he is, learn about the place he has only heard about in her stories: Winterfell.

——

Penetrating the Red Keep is risky, but in the end they don’t have to. All of them leave the castle to see the Baratheon princess off. Lyanna thinks such a pretty thing could never have been sired by Robert, but she shakes the thought away. It’s Jon who points out the slim red-haired girl among them, who is only recognizable to Lyanna as another Stark for the sad look in her eyes. Lyanna recognizes herself even if the girl’s features are not like her own. The crowd is primed—hot and hungry—so the melee almost takes no effort to start. Jon finds the girl in a crowd of men, smites them all in a matter of seconds.

“Are you Sansa Stark?” he asks breathlessly.

——

She nods at the boy in front of her, and before she can say anything else, he throws a dark cloak over her. Sansa can’t see but she hears the boy and another voice, a woman talk as they hold her up. She doesn’t know how long it is before they are away from the crowd, doesn’t care who they are. What more horrid fate could await her than what she already faces at the hands of the Lannisters.

Like the season 7 Winterhell plot, they really wanted to make it seem like Jon could possibly choose Dany over Sansa and the Starks although the anyone who knows his character knows the choice would be obvious. He would always choose Sansa over her - even if just platonically - because he would always choose the Starks. And part of the whole “bending the knee” bullshit was to play into that idea too - while blocking out his POV and sidelining him. 

Of course, by the finale, the context of Jon’s behaviour contradicted his behaviour in the previous episode to make him feel more conflicted about it than he would be after witnessing that mass murder. He followed her out of fear but all of a sudden, he believed in her to break the fourth wall to contain backlash and also to make it seem like he could go the other way. Sadly, like the Winterhell plot, it came at the price of watering down his character to the point where he was a shell of himself. They didn’t just dumb him down. They robbed him of his moral integrity for this highly predictable twist. A choice that should’ve been a lot more poignant got lost in trying appease Dany stans’ backlash and in romanticising Dany’s death more than it needed to be. 

All it did was make people hate him and make him a laughing stock when he was actually treated the worst in the season for supposedly being a main. He didn’t even get an arc in a season and he didn’t even get one well done big moment where he should’ve gotten one of main storylines. All it did was make him hated by all sides because they couldn’t let him be in character and make his choice as obvious as it would be. 

All it did was undo GRRM’s intention with him that Jon could fail in many aspects (and he’s not meant to be as dumb as this) but no matter what he would always choose the Starks when it really came down to it. And now you have the mainstream narrative of not just Jon being dumb but that he was a traitor to the Starks and other male characters related to the Starks are propped up using his ooc behaviour for one and a half seasons as an excuse. They were meant to be his foils and D&D messed up big time all to cater to antagonists in the last two seasons. (Although they always have because of D&D’s bias towards the Lannisters and HBO’s bias towards Dany).  

I get people hating that behaviour but it was ooc and he was sacrificed at the alter of a number of Doylist factors. Do I think Jon would’ve still fucked up some way if he was in character and he will do so even bookwise? Yes, I do because characters are flawed and not supposed to get everything right. But do I think he would be this dumb, be stripped so much of his integrity and would ever betray the Starks while in character? No. 

It’s hurts me that the point of his character was completely lost by the end and I don’t just mean magically or as a claimant to the throne. I mean in terms of thematic significance but D&D think themes are 8th grader stuff. It hurts me knowing this will be the lasting popular impression of Jon - when it’s not even truly him. It hurts me because people don’t even realise how much his sidelining hollowed the story out because he impacts other characters a lot and if you take that way, you take away a lot of the story’s heart. 

Something season 8 really did was erase the question “What does Jon want? And what does he need?” because of the hamfisted repetition of “my queen” and “I don’t want it” with the blocking of his PoV. None of his depth was explored and he was left as a plot device.

Social Distancing with the Starks

The Starks are very into Social Distancing right now, and Ghost would personally like to ask that you stay indoors if you’re sick.

Long time no doodle! I’m glad I still know how to get that fluffball right.

The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him. The Mother seemed almost to shudder as the flames came licking up her face. A longsword had been thrust through her heart, and its leather grip was alive with flame. The Father was on the bottom, the first to fall. Davos watched the hand of the Stranger writhe and curl as the fingers blackened and fell away one by one, reduced to so much glowing charcoal. … The head fell off the Smith with a puff of ash and embers. – ACOK, Davos I

I’ve always loved this passage ever since I first came across it on @starkmaiden’s page. I felt like it was some of the most prophetic text that has appeared in all of ASOIAF, so naturally it’s always been largely ignored by the rest of the fandom.

The passage first appears in Davos’ intro chapter at the beginning of A Clash of Kings, and describes Melisandre and Stannis burning the Faith of the Seven. At this point Ned Stark, the Father, is dead (“the first to fall”), but the remaining Starklings are still scattered across the continent.

And George R. R. Martin gives us a preview of things to come.