The Night is Dark and full of Terrors

What you need, My King? Stannis, what do you want?

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I could keep you safe. They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.

i've read this chapter quite a while ago but it has stuck with me. hold up his writing is this fire dot jpeg (closeup under cut)

commissions open!

Egg has been on a walkabout, training the horse since early, and Dunk, unaware, offers him some bland cheap breakfast (or nothing) and threatens to punch him if he responds negatively.

Dunk immediately sees the pain on Egg’s face and immediately apologizes - then completely undoes the patriarchal disciplinarian approach and cooks a lovely breakfast and teaches Egg to sew. It’s an extremely cute scene.

What happens at the end of the episode? Egg’s brother hurts an innocent woman, and Dunk recognizes THIS is the time to PUNCH. He then sees a prone, defensive Aerion and he has no mercy. Even held back by multiple guards, he extends himself for a strong kick to the face.

This shows the two different sides of protecting the innocent! Egg is an innocent child, and Dunk sees what his threats do to the young boy and he softens and nurtures.

He then sees what Aerion will do to a poor, innocent woman and he thrashes him without remorse at an instant.

A true knight shows strength in mercy just as much as he does in combat.

maekar as this desperate father is so compelling. fourth son trying to outshine his brother through his flop children even if it kills him, trying to live through them but finding them all too alien and making it up through sheer force of will.

this over identification with his children is v interesting to me, because they are maekar's only way to be someone in a family with "too many heirs" but. BUT daeron is a drunk, too different to disciplined maekar. aegon is an unruly child, aemon is useless in the citadel, but aerion is able and fit capable of competing in tourneys probably with a much better ability and success than baelor's son valarr. it's aerion who is maekar's life raft in trying to raise himself above his brothers, esp baelor who seems to be perfect. imagine your best chance being AERION.

then imagine being maekar thinking he might have a good chance to prove himself against a hedge knight (easy. plus he's fighting with his sons! and the kingsguard! for show!) who did so much harm to his family, and then fucking baelor sides with his rival. don't kick him, he's already down!!!

maekar is so pressed! his chance to fight for his family's honor has just being stomped by baelor's huge horse. i know he resents baelor really had to die because no one could measure up to him

baelor is not a competition anymore but he'll still hear the whispers just like he says valarr will. and! interesting how maekar finally sends aerion away when he doesn't need him to one up baelor anymore. baelor's dead and valarr is no rival to him, even if he doesn't envy him like he did his father. maekar killed him but will not face the consequences directly in his reigns, /now/ he's glad he's the fourth son.

hmmm imagine if aerion were the one to kill baelor accidentally instead of maekar vvv troubling for someone who projects himself so much on his son.

dunk stop kicking him!! He's already grieving!!

maekar: surely the conses won't quence when my unspoken intense rivalry with my perfect older brother manifests in the worst way possible during a trial set by the gods

dunk:

maekar: and maybe if I kill my brother it doesn't mean anything at all

brienne's "no chance no choice" is a moment of exceptional bravery and compassion, but the only witnesses to it are brienne's party of misfits and a band of children orphaned by feudal conflict. brienne's chivalry towards the hanged women in the riverlands, nimble-dick crabb, and the children at the crossroads is possible because she operates outside the system of knighthood that would force her to prioritize the interests of her liege lord over those of the smallfolk.

I don’t think it helps people look at other fantasy writers and see worlds shaped for light, where goodness prevails because the universe was built to let it. Martin’s world is shaped for choice instead. Hope survives not because the world is kind, but because some people are. Because they try, despite knowing they may fail and that poison often prevails. Hope in GRRM’s world is not grand or eternal. It lives in the small and the stubborn. It is the flicker of a candle in a storm, the hand that reaches back when it does not have to. The kind of hope that still believes in love, even when the story does not and will not promise a happy ending.

That is not nihilism. It is faith made fragile and rawly human.

There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton’s face, rage and joy looked much the same. All he and Ramsay had in common were their eyes. His eyes are ice. Reek wondered if Roose Bolton ever cried. If so, do the tears feel cold upon his cheeks? 

- Reek II, aDwD