Repeat after me: Book Brienne doesn’t have short hair.
Anonymous asked:
And what about the question of duty x love? I feel like Rhaegar in the play didn't have to make any big, important decisions... Everything was kind of "given" to him...
Things just sort of happened to him, it removed the need for him to make any difficult choice between them. The events just keep carrying him forward while he sits in the passenger seat. He doesn’t actively choose love over duty (because the prophecy is what drives him to connect with Lyanna in the first place, the two are so tangled together that you can’t separate them. If she hadn’t talked to him about dreams and whatnot and seeing stuff too, would they even fall in love with one another? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Anyways), or prophecy over love (Lyanna is the one to cling to that, not Rhaegar, he just wants to live with his head on the clouds), or even the realm over his own happiness (Elia is the political mastermind and Rhaegar needs to be forced to actively do something to stop the realm from tearing itself apart). He’s mostly passive while things happen to him. The story is so reluctant to let him possess enough agency to be truly responsible for anything, and I don’t think this was a very good choice. He could still be compelling, a doomed tragic “romantic hero” even if you allowed him so gray areas (granted, it is hard to overcome certain things about his character, especially where Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon are concerned, but my point is that some people will look beyond it and some won’t and I think the public should be allowed to decide. It felt like they didn’t trust the audience to do that imo).
I disliked this whole beat here, I disliked it a lot. The way this dialogue feels like one of the many choices made by the play in an attempt to absolve Rhaegar. Very convenient.
It’s the same reason Lyanna is made the one obsessed with prophecy and choosing to stay at the Tower. Every potentially selfish or cruel choice Rhaegar made, even if not intentionally so, is either reassigned to one of the women around him or stripped of any major emotional fallout . Elia releases him from emotional responsibility because she didn’t even love him so he wasn’t breaking her heart, Lyanna drives the prophecy when he was content in just being happy with her, and Rhaegar is left as this passive, melancholic man being carried along. At some point, you have to let the grown prince possess an agenda of his own.
He could have an affectionate relationship with Elia even if devoid of romantic love. She was allowed to feel hurt even if she didn’t love him. He could be a love struck prince and still act on behalf of the prophecy. He could actually use the prophecy as justification for his love. Lyanna could have gone willingly with him and still feel some type of way about being hidden in a tower while her brother and father died.
All around, I really dislike some of the choices made for these three, especially for Elia and Lyanna. Like I said before, it feels immensely as if it was made for his benefit and not theirs.
Jaime and Brienne family tree in-game (they were married here already; that’s why she’s Lady of the Westerlands. The Big Sapphire was a nickname Jaime gave her, I forgot the reason why, but it was affectionate. I also took this screenshot before Jaime got his title of “lionslayer”. Yes, he killed a lion during a hunt lol).
Look, she has a Lannett ancestor! Maybe that’s why at some point the High Septon accused their marriage of being incestuos and demanded Jaime annulled it LMAO (even though they had three children already by that point). Jaime obviously refused and the claims were proven to be false.
Omgggggggg look who I found. Poor Melara, died so young. I wonder who killed her.
Two ravens he sent from Highgarden. She answered neither. He’d written a third and fed it to the candle. A king of the Rock does not write I keep reaching for you in my sleep where a maester might read it.
Her silence chafes at him.
Has she not missed me at all?
Final chapter of Heir of The Rock.