puck management

cersei lannister had about 3-5 business days of peace at the end of a game of thrones where it’s like. plan she singlehandedly concocted to murder her abusive terrible husband THE KING goes off without a hitch literally flawless execution most successful kingslaying in westerosi history. rhaegar outfit at his funeral. anyone who suspects foul play is in the dungeon or on her side. coup d’état equally successful. her bastard son installed as ruling king. ned stark in prison about to swear fealty to the lannisters and get ransomed cutting hostilities off at the pass. one stark kid in custody and littlefinger promised to take care of the second one. annoying brothers-in-law scattered to opposite ends of the kingdom away from her away from each other not a problem. lysa arryn doing fuck all. tyrion in enemy custody and not the walls. father and brother going to war for her. also jon arryn who she never liked is dead as a freebie. and then she never came down from this high but can you blame her

say what you will about cersei but. if i managed to pretty singlehandedly plan and pull off a successful regicide and coup d’état outplaying the stark-tully-arryn-baratheon alliance plus stannis plus renly and the tyrells and make THEM look like traitors to the rightful succession all without officially telling my father who thinks he’s smarter than me what my plan was i would think i was the baddest bitch ALIVE and refuse to hear otherwise

So like. The Riverlands, or at least Harrenhal, have like a gravitational pull. Which is why Catelyn, Jaime, Brienne, and Arya can’t ever escape there. Even in death, Catelyn can’t leave. Her memory and her body are bound together and to her homeland once more. And Jaime and Brienne spend all their time in ASOS in the Riverlands, and you think they’ll escape back to civilization and King’s Landing, and they do, but a) they are changed irrevocably from the people who started out so like did they really leave? and b) King’s Landing turns out to be a brief respite only. They must return once more, and they may even die there. And then Arya spends like two whole books there, wandering and traveling and never getting to where she needs to go. And even when she leaves, even with the whole Narrow Sea between her and those forests and streams, her consciousness and her soul still reside there, and she returns there every night, renewing her connection. Okay? They are stuck. They’re trapped. It’s just endless forest and rivers and the occasional band of outlaws or travelers or abandoned castles. Which, none of them can leave, either. Gendry and the Brotherhood are still there, even when their original purpose is lost and their leader dies. Jeyne, the orphans at the inn, Ravella Smallwood, the Freys, the Brackens and Blackwoods, the Bloody Mummers, the bear from the Harrenhal Bear Pit— they are all trapped. Okay?