I’m going to be off tumblr for a week - asks will be back next Thursday.
Anonymous asked:
What do you think the sharp lesson would’ve been? Also, how could’ve Tywin have shit Joffrey our when Joffrey came of age and would have the reach at his powerhouse
For the first, that’s a dive into Tywin’s imagination I don’t care to take.
For the second, for a while Tywin could keep going as he’d already been going, having meetings about state business whether Joffrey was there or not. By acting like nothing changes with Joffrey’s majority, Tywin can make a fair bit of that a reality. If Joffrey starts insisting that he be allowed to attend, frontload those meetings with the most boring agenda items imaginable and wait until he runs out of patience. Eventually you’d end up with a monarch who didn’t know how to run the realm or even where to start, sure, but it’d keep Joffrey out of Tywin’s hair. Combine that with a few distractions and Tywin could keep ruling by himself quite effectively.
Ideally, Tywin would not want to do this. He’d rather Joffrey shut up, listened to him, and then carried on with Tywin’s lessons after Tywin was gone. But he could definitely get creative about working around an incapable ruler.
Anonymous asked:
Which POVs do you think are not smart? Victarion is the main one I can think of. Maybe Chett if we're counting prologues and epilogues?
Nah, Chett’s smart. Horrible, yes, but smart. That mutiny plan was real solid.
I don’t rate Barristan as one of the great minds of Westeros, nor Arys Oakheart.
Anonymous asked:
what do you think is gonna be Arya's role during the battle of the dawn
Intel, primarily. Arya’s AFFC training is very heavy on information-gathering and how to evaluate information. She’s got magic to give her flexibility in accessing information as well, as we can see when she skinchanges into a cat. Bran might have more magical muscle, but he doesn’t have that training and I think it’s likely that because he’s got more magical muscle, he’ll be otherwise occupied.
Anonymous asked:
I was referring to her becoming more grasping and ambitious, not driving Aegon to become more so, sorry for writing it fast. Arianne seems to be contemplating a marriage with Aegon to make herself Queen, she idolizes Nymeria, etc. While I wouldn't call it grasping just yet, I could see her going down that path, trying to increase her own power at the expense of others in Aegons' coalition, or forestalling any suggested settlement with Daenerys because she doesn't want to share influence.
And interpersonal charm isn't really smart decisions, is it? When has Arianne ever made a smart decision in the series? I would say that her modus operandi of using seduction to win allies is a point against her, since it suggests that she doesn't know how to move men by other means. All she has to rely on is her body. At one point she actually thinks "Can I match such a man with words alone?" ...referring to Balon Swann. Plus, she continues to lose at Cyvasse, which is a pretty clear sign that she's a bad player of the game.
She seems likely to set Dorne up for Fire and Blood; do you really think she's smart?
Yes. I really think Arianne is smart. There are very few PoVs in this series who aren’t. There are also very few PoVs who don’t/won’t make catastrophic mistakes.
There are so many ways to be smart in this world. I’m autistic; I have to think out social situations from the ground up every time; the fact that Arianne can so quickly work out what makes someone tick and play on that is wild to me. There’s a lot of brainpower that goes into that. With Arys, where sex was indeed a major part of her manipulations, we saw her very effectively play on chivalric and patriarchal attitudes within that relationship. Remember that Arianne was keeping tabs on how Doran was and was not offering her hand in marriage and worked out something was wrong. She knows that Myrcella as ruling queen helps her own claims to Dorne. She’s plenty capable. I think it is horribly reductive (and inaccurate) to say that the only thing Arianne has going for her is her body. Whether she realises that is another thing - and I don’t hold her insecurity against her. Nor her lack of skill at fantasy chess.
One of the things Arianne demonstrably is, though, is rash. We can see that she doesn’t think things through all the way. It’s a serious weakness, but emotionally driven as much as anything.
Because there’s a lot of fear in her too.
What Arianne has realised, consciously or not, is that her position is fragile and that power is a zero-sum game. If Doran gives Quentyn power, Arianne cannot have that same power. Quentyn’s gain is her loss. I suspect the same conclusion is likely with Dany, when she shows up decidedly Quentyn-less.
Arianne wants to protect her position, her place in her father’s affections, her ability to run her own life. Perfectly understandable motivations. The decisions she makes out of those fears, however, aren’t always the best. (Always remembering that plenty of other characters make suboptimal emotionally-driven decisions.) This is why I think responsibility is going to be the thing in her character development - her decisions affect more than just her and her family, but her friends and her allies and plenty of smallfolk. That’s why it’s important that she thinks things through all the way, instead of running off half-cocked.
But that’s an emotional matter as much as anything.
Anonymous asked:
Do you think there's any chance Dany meets Margaery in the books? If so, what do you think that would be like?
I think it’s extremely unlikely, as I think the Lannister regime Margaery’s attached to will be out of power by the time Dany shows up in Westeros. Honestly, I think the only way Margaery survives that ousting is if she leaves town pronto.
Don’t know what a social meeting between the two would be like, even hypothetically. Surface pleasant, no doubt; both can get along with other people and neither are going to end up with Cersei-like attacks of internal misogyny preventing them from at least having a good chat. However, I can’t see either forgetting that the other potentially poses a political threat.
Anonymous asked:
If the Tyrells hadn't done the purple wedding, would Tywin eventually have removed Joffrey from power anyway? Perhaps when Tommen was a bit older?
I think it’s very unlikely that Tywin would remove Joffrey from a nominal position of power. In a practical sense:
“Thank you for that wisdom, Your Grace,” Lord Tywin said, with a courtesy so cold it was like to freeze their ears off. “Ser Kevan, I can see the king is tired. Please see him safely back to his bedchamber. Pycelle, perhaps some gentle potion to help His Grace sleep restfully?”
“Dreamwine, my lord?”
“I don’t want any dreamwine,” Joffrey insisted.
Lord Tywin would have paid more heed to a mouse squeaking in the corner. “Dreamwine will serve. Cersei, Tyrion, remain.”
Tyrion VI, ASoS
Yeah, he’d shunt Joffrey out of a position of influence, absolutely. Because he can’t constantly be drugging the king and sending him to his room like a child, this chapter also sees Tywin contemplating a “sharp lesson” for Joffrey. To really make the trauma and fear of Tywin stick, you know?
Anonymous asked:
Do you think the laws of succession would be differebt if Aegon I firstborn had been a girl?
Maybe, maybe not. What I think is more likely to have made a difference is if all Rhaenys’ children by Aegon were AFAB, where Visenya still had an AMAB child.
Anonymous asked:
What would happen if it came to a very public light that the Lannisters sold people to slavery (the servant that Robert knocked up)?
First up let’s distinguish between ‘the Lannisters’ and 'Cersei’. This bit of info is basically a rumour. I think it’s pretty plausible, or at least presented within the narrative as something we should think is plausible. But we just don’t have details, including the extent to which other Lannisters may or may not have facilitated Cersei’s actions.
So that said.
People would be disgusted. People would hate Cersei for it.
AFFC shows us that hatred on the level that the Lannisters have are serious consequences, but they’re also slow burn consequences. Short term, everything depends on what the person at the top of the heap is willing to do about Cersei selling someone into slavery. If that’s Robert…
Anonymous asked:
How much did court know about Cersei and Roberts marriage? The abuse was private, as was the incest, but how much did people know their marriage was awful? Or they didn’t like one another?
I think the lack of closeness and mutual dislike was quite apparent by the time we hit AGoT.
The queen had begun to protest. They had been riding since dawn, everyone was tired and cold, surely they should refresh themselves first. The dead would wait. She had said no more than that; Robert had looked at her, and her twin brother Jaime had taken her quietly by the arm, and she had said no more.
Eddard I, AGoT
The queen raised her voice. “A hundred golden dragons to the man who brings me its skin!”
“A costly pelt,” Robert grumbled. “I want no part of this, woman. You can damn well buy your furs with Lannister gold.”
The queen regarded him coolly. “I had not thought you so niggardly. The king I’d thought to wed would have laid a wolfskin across my bed before the sun went down.”
Robert’s face darkened with anger.
Eddard III, AGoT
Sansa was shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was drunk as a man could be. “You do not tell me what to do, woman,” he screamed at Queen Cersei. “I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!”
Sansa II, AGoT
None of this is in private. None of it seems to be a new development. And none of it is going to lead the court to think that these people are at all happy being married to each other.
