Friendly reminder that in Mattimeo, Log-a-Log tells Matthias as he lays dying from a wound in the throat, ‘I don’t want to die down here’.
But he did. He died in that cold, dark place because they stopped to free Matthias’ son and his friends.
And you know he’d have done it again in a heartbeat.
I actually think he’s telling the truth, but that there’s a relatively innocent explanation for said moon tea. Notice how Cersei cuts him off:
He cringed. “Moon tea,” he whispered. “Moon tea, for…”
“I know what moon tea is for.”
– Cersei IX, AFFC
She’s not interested in any other explanation than “Margaery is cheating on Tommen.” While Cersei thinks “Women only drank moon tea for one
reason; maidens had no need for it at all,” there’s reasons other than ‘hiding affairs’ for a woman to want or need to control their fertility (Pycelle clearly keeps moon tea in stock for a reason – he’s an unethical doctor, not an incompetent one), and more women than Margaery who might need an abortifacient. It’s entirely possible that Margaery is getting the moon tea for one of her teenaged cousins.Obtaining moon tea through Pycelle has its risks, but if Margaery is totally innocent of extramarital affairs (and all Cersei’s snooping turned up nothing), it might be less risky to go to Pycelle and trust in the power of an honest non-treasonous explanation than to find a moon tea provider on the sly. If Margaery’s discovered obtaining moon tea from someone other than the Grand Maester, she immediately looks a lot more guilty.
My guess is the moon tea is actually for Leonette. Perhaps she and Garlan have decided to postpone children until the realm is at peace again?
I talked before about the calculus for crowning a queen of love and beauty, and a little more here. Suffice to say, I think that the crowning of a queen of love and beauty in any scenario is very circumstance-specific, depending on the rank and marital status of the champion, the ranks of the women present, his own relationship to any of them, and his particular desires.
Now, in terms of a tourney specifically thrown for a maiden daughter of the household, as at Ashford and Harrenhal … well again, I think it would depend on the knight in question. It’s certainly socially acceptable to leave the maid of honor as queen of love and beauty, but whether it would align with the interests of the champion is another matter. I think it’s unquestionable that at Ashford, and to some extent at Harrenhal, the Ashford/Whent daughters were being shown off specifically as marriage prizes: the large and illustrious group of guests would provide a nice pool of eligible suitors, and the wealth needed to throw such a splendid tourney might in turn imply to those guests that their host could afford a pleasant dowry for his daughter, and that a match with the House would bring the suitor’s family honor and prestige. If a champion at such a tourney were interested in courting the daughter for whom this tourney was being thrown, then it would be an obvious choice to give (or, rather, leave) her the crown as a token of his romantic attraction (and indeed, I think an unmarried, eligible knight doing so would automatically be taken as a sign of romantic/marital interest). If he were not, though, then it would not be outside social conventions to find a new queen.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of another ASOIAF Primer on tourneys since almost all the info is just sitting there in my notes anyways. Here’s what I have on Queen’s of Love and Beauty:
– If you’re married or betrothed, it’s expected you’ll give it to your wife or fiancee. Under almost no circumstances is it acceptable to crown another man’s wife or fiancee.
– You may crown relatives – a sister, a cousin, an aunt, a daughter, even maybe your mother. This is generally understood to be platonic rather than romantic love. HOWEVER there may be whispering if you give it to a cousin or aunt (since that’s not considered incest in Westeros).
– If you want to show courtly, deferential manners, you can crown the highest ranking women present (or at least a woman from that family), a woman from your liege family, or a woman from the host’s family. This seems to be a safe bet, a way to be polite, rather than any immediate claim of romantic attachment (although, in the context of tourneys to show off marriage prizes, Alysanne is likely correct that it would).
– If the tourney is to celebrate a woman (birthday, flowering, engagement, whatever) it’s okay to give the crown to her.
– If the tourney opens with a Queen of Love and Beauty, it is considered chivalrous to let her keep the crown, even if the winner was not her champion.
– If you’re single, you can crown any single woman you want. It’ll likely be taken as a sign of romantic attachment, and if it’s an impossible love, even more courtly.
…ok but … what is it called when men view women as children who need to be taken care of?
is that infantilizing sexism? paternalistic sexism? those don’t seem to be the right terms because googling those, even with quotes, doesn’t give good results
so what is that called?
Infantilizing and paternalism by itself is pretty common. So is ‘condescending fuckweasel’ but that might just be me.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Vote! Check the registration deadlines in your state, get registered, and vote! If you have to get an ID, do it. If you have to jump through some hoops to prove eligibility, jump! They aren’t going to make it any easier to vote, so start now!Could someone please help ya girl out and link the site to register to vote
Register to Vote and Confirm or Change Registration
I was just thinking about the Dead Ladies’ Club and the Castaway Women and I just realized that we don’t know the names of any of the queens of the pre-Targaryen kingdoms except Elenei (Storm Queen) and Sharra Arryn, and Elenei is a legend who may not exist. That…kinda upsets me. Seriously, did none of them make any sort of mark at all? Hell, even for queens we don’t know much about IRL we have NAMES. Come on, GRRM.
Well, GRRM explains the difference between the Stark girls and other northern ladies:
Q: How closely does Westeros resemble the real Middle Ages in terms
of social customs and gender roles? For example, would highborn ladies
have been expected to bathe guests and know how to make cheese, etc.?
Sansa’s education and training seemed rather impractical – did the fault
lie with her parents or were all young ladies raised like that?GRRM: Sansa
is more than just a young lady. She’s the daughter, not just of a
noble, but of one of the most powerful nobles in Westeros. The great
houses stand far above the lesser nobles, as the lesser nobles do above
the smallfolk.She would not make cheese, no. But Arya might think it would be fun.
–source (originally from a forum that no longer exists and isn’t even on the wayback machine, alas)
So yes, there’s a reason for Sansa and Arya’s very southern style of education, it’s because they’re the highest of the highborn. Though whether this applied to Lyanna and other previous generations of Stark women, we don’t know, and might have to wait until whenever the Dunk & Egg story with the She-Wolves of Winterfell comes out.
For what skills a medieval noblewoman would be expected to know, particularly a northern one, I recommend @justadram’s Meta Monday: Growing Up Noble(woman), as well as other posts in @asoiafuniversity’s education tag. The tags for women’s roles and gender roles should also have a lot of information, and possibly there’s good stuff in the North tag too. I hope that helps!
Embroidery is probably a bigger deal in the north to show status tbh. Jewellery isn’t practical because it’s too much metal – plus if you can sew well, you can add things like fur lining. Music is probably to keep things enjoyable in the winter. Just because winter is coming and winter is serious doesn’t mean everything has to be doom and gloom.
Plus, Sansa was taught more than music and embroidery. She knows how to ride a horse, and she’s VERY good with heraldry and diplomacy.
I definitely recommend the meta, but from my notes, here is the education for a highborn girl: Sewing, painting, dancing, singing, poetry, dressing, music (high harp and bells), stories, songs, history, chivalry, justice (because they need to dispense it if their hubby is away), reading, writing, mathematics (for housekeeping), riding, languages (High Valyerian), religion, manners, hygiene, heraldry.
For comparison, here is what boys are taught: Letters, history, justice, chivalry/honour, hunting, fighting (riding, swordsmanship, other weapons), manners, hygiene, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, riding, caring for horses and equipment, cleaning stables,justice, law, religion, heraldry
Okay, so because I keep getting mindblown over how freaking young some of the Greyjoy family is, I am finally going through them and writing down how old they were when they were born (and died).
– We don’t have a date for Quellon’s birth, but we know he died in 283 AC.
– Balon was born somewhere between 255 and 261, which would make him between 44 and 38 when he died (Yeah, Theon? Old man my ASS).
– We’re not told how old Alannys is, but I can’t imagine she’s significantly older (or younger for that matter) since their youngest is only a few years older than Robb Stark.
– Rodrik Greyjoy was born between 268 and 274, meaning had he lived he’d be between 26 and 32 years old. He died in 289, so he’d have been between 15 and 21 when he died. My guess is somewhere in the middle, since he appears to be a grown man when he died. Westeros considers you a grown man at 16. Now, if he were 21 when he died, that would mean Balon was around 13 when he was born. Not impossible because Westeros is GROSS, but since GRRM is still saying marriage that young is rare, Balon was probably at least sixteen, which would mean Rodrik was 18 when he died – but Balon was probably at least a little older than that (since his ‘youthful accomplishments’ end at getting a longship at 17 with nary a baby in sight), so Rodrik was probably about 17 (and born when Balon was 17 himself), since his brother Maron died that same year and ALSO seemed like he was a grown man, meaning Maron was at least 16. Tl;dr Rodrik was probably born in 272.
– Maron was born between 269 and 275. We can cross 275 off right away because that’s when Asha was born. He’d have been between 15 and 20 when he died – but due to the above comments about Rodrik, Maron was more likely about 16. A grown man (by Westeros standards) but very young. That would be 273 when he was born.
– The wiki says Asha was born in either 274 or 275, but I remember one of the books saying she was about 25, so that’d be 275. She was 7 during Robert’s Rebellion and 13 during the Greyjoy Rebellion (so WHY DOESN’T SHE EVER REMEMBER HEARING HER DAD AND QUELLON FIGHTING THEIR CULTURE WAR GRRM COME ON, YOU ARE KILLING ME).
– Theon is 19 when the books open in 298 and 20 come 299, meaning he was born in either 278 or 279. He was taken away from Pyke when he was 9 or 10 (ACOK says 9, AFFC says 10). I’m fairly certain that just means he was nearly 10, so probably it was actually 279, since the Greyjoy Rebellion took place early in 279 and he likely turned 10 later. He’d have been about 4 during Robert’s Rebellion.
– Euron was born between 256 and 268, meaning he’s currently between 32 and 44. That would mean he was between 21 and 33 during the Greyjoy Rebellion.
– Victarion was born between 257 and 269, meaning he’s between 31 and 43. During the Greyjoy Rebellion he’d have been between 20 and 32.
– Urrigon was born between 268 and 270 and died between 283 and 284 (probably 283 since that’s when Quellon died and when Balon returned to ascend his seat, Urrigon was already dead). He’d have been between 13 to 15. He wasn’t sixteen because he wasn’t considered a grown man yet, so almost certainly 283 as his death year. He didn’t live to see the Greyjoy Rebellion.
– Aeron was born between 269 and 273. He’d be between 27 and 31 now and he would have been between 20 and 16 during the Rebellion (and possibly the same age as his nephew Maron).
I’ve seen a lot of people speculating why the Greyjoys are so much older in the show and there’s probably a few reasons.
A) Everyone’s been aged up a little in the show. Sometimes to match with Dany (who had to be aged up because HBO thankfully didn’t want to do her scenes with Drogo with a 13 year old).
B) There were likely other considerations, like how well the actor auditioned. I know that was partially the case with Brienne. She’s like 18-19 in the books, but GRRM loved her actress’ audition so much she got the role. They also have to consider who works better on screen, executives, etc.
C) Honestly, I get the impression GRRM didn’t really think about the timeline with the Greyjoys. I mean, show of hands, who read the books and thought Balon was in his 50s or 60s? I certainly did. I thought the older Greyjoy boys were supposed to be in their 20s or possibly 30s in the case of Rodrik too. Clearly that was mistaken.
GRRM can’t do anyone’s ages tbh
Honestly, so many characters are younger than they should be. It’s extra funny for me in this case though because Theon has a whole thing about how old Balon is and how that’s why he won’t let his grudges go, and Tywin calls Alannys ‘elderly’ as if she’s probably not a decade younger.
Ah, headcanon time, is it? The Lannisters in general, despite their sigil, are dog people. Dogs are loyal, obedient, and know their place. (Under the table, begging for scraps.) Tywin treats his dogs well enough. Cats don’t like him, so he doesn’t like them.
Jaime, canonically, loves dogs, or at least he did when he was an adolescent, but I doubt he’s changed that much since. He doesn’t mind cats, but they’re not his thing.
Cersei, I imagine, doesn’t want to be touched by any animal that licks itself, though she understands dogs and cats have their purposes, and doesn’t mind that Tommen loves kittens. (Her only objection was that the three Margaery gave him were black, which she feels is bad luck because of Princess Rhaenys and her kitten… and ok, she also didn’t care for the fact that it was Margaery who gave them to him.) She probably had a kitten herself when she was a child, because many young ladies do, but when it grew up and stopped being cute… well it disappeared somewhere in Casterly Rock, she doesn’t really remember and doesn’t care.
I don’t think Tyrion personally cares for pets. In general he’s got too much to manage with his own self to take care of a small dependent thing, and he dislikes weakness. (And dogs as big as he is would just tick him off, especially because dwarf mummers often ride dogs and people would make jokes.) I’m sure he also thinks dogs and cats have their purposes, though. Horses, though, horses he loves. (When he isn’t thinking they’re giant stupid creatures, though that’s part of loving them).
Coffee time, gonna have to go modern AU for this. (And not all the POVs, or only POVs, sorry.)
If you don’t mind my butting in about the Greyjoys (I love the Greyjoys, I love Modern Westeros AUs, I love coming up with character food orders, I had to).
Balon – Probably some in the morning, black because sugar, cream, milk, and other add-ins are for the weak. Why Balon hates nice things and himself I don’t know.
Alannys – She used to have one or two in a day before her breakdown. She probably had sugar in it and maybe a little caramel because while she was generally on Balon’s side of the culture war, she didn’t totally hate her taste buds. Now she’s not allowed any because she gets extra jittery and will be up all night.
Theon – He drinks a lot of complicated starbucks orders but only with the Starks. At home it’s black or nothing because he can FEEL his dad judging him even when he’s not there.
Asha – Not much of a coffee drinker. She’ll drink if the person she’s with is but she’s not likely to seek it out. Probably black like dad, maybe a little sugar or milk in it because she doesn’t hate nice things like Dad does. I see her taste in food in general to be more experimental than anything – she’s more willing to try new food than Theon ever was anyways.
Euron – Eh. He’ll drink it, especially in the morning, but he puts psychedelics in it and it gets weird.
Victarion – He drinks it because Balon does, and he’ll probably get it black too because Balon does. Probably just one in the morning…like Balon does.
Aeron – Aeron USED to be a big coffee drinker and he probably got lots of sugar and cream in it. Not since he was drowned though. He eats a lot less of what he used to since he was drowned in general though so maybe that isn’t surprising.
Quellon was probably a tea person or a fruit juice person. Not much for coffee. Some variety of Earl Grey maybe? And probably orange juice. Maybe lemonade (since this is modern I assume lemons and oranges were more accessible).
Urrigon was like Aeron. Lots of coffee, lots of add ins, lots of sugar and cream because FOOD IS SUPPOSED TO TASTE GOOD BALON (you could HEAR Balon roll his eyes, he was so judgy).
We NEED to get Net Neutrality trending again.
This is enough. Ajit Pai has already succeded MULTIPLE TIMES and you can expect the full removal of net neutrality on APRIL 23RD OF THIS YEAR. We can still contact our senators, we can still fight as hrd as we can, but even though 23 states are suposedly suing for the repeal of this, we need to help it along.
In case people forgot what Net Neutrality is: it is a series of laws that ensure everyone free and fair access to the internet. Without them, you will be charged for the sites you use on top of an already high internet bill. This means creators like us cannot post and be seen. Thia means that smaller schools will havebto switch to out of date text books. This means that starter IT projects that could make our lives better will die because noone can support an online presence that noone can afford to see.
And the list goes on and on and on. I have frienda who have to make their livings through commissions and working online because of multiple health issues. I have friends trying to publish books, post art, post voice acting snippets that will not be seen without these laws.
Please support Net Neutrality and contact your senators!!! This is so important to everyone you know, AND WE JUST NEED ONE SENATOR TO TURN THE TIDE!!!
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