Making up for hair talk
Mar. 18th, 2013 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotUsed my conditioner this morning. Either there's too much oil in it or I need to rinse it out harder - it looks like product in my hair, which isn't gross but I'm not a fan of hair product. I want just enough stuff in it to keep it from being dry, but not so much that I feel like my hair's been coated in something, seeing as the whole point is to keep my hair from having too much stuff in it.
I'm about 51% through ADWD, so time for halfway through book thoughts:
- I think it's awfully funny that before I even started I felt that Tyrion, to keep being a sympathetic character, needed to make friends with an unbeautiful woman, and that he has done so. In a way it reassures me that I'm in a similar headspace to GRRM and that my general opinions and predictions probably are not too far off.
- That said, the whole "where do whores go" thing is irritating me so much. There is not some whore mecca across the sea where all prostitutes are drawn, Tyrion, why are you acting like there is? I think I once saw someone point out that the answer could very well be "to the river to drown themselves", at least in Tysha's case as she wasn't a prostitute at all and had just been horrifically violated. Which would seem a bit anti-climactic, if Tyrion finds that out, so I feel like he has to run into her again ... just not at whore mecca.
- At the same time, Tyrion thinking Sansa was false to him is giving me feelings that remind me of my earlier prediction - that is, he thinks of most women in terms of whether he'd like to have sex with them (or at least that's how it comes off to me in memory - he wants to fuck Cersei, he'd have kind of liked to have sex with Sansa, lots of beautiful prostitutes) so he needed to have a meaningful relationship with a woman/girl he didn't want to sleep with. Whenever he thinks of Sansa, part of it is that she was false, she framed him for murder, etc. so something really massive needs to go down with them. Narratively speaking, he has to be confronted with her innocence just as he was with Tysha, and wow this is even more of a parallel than I suspected.
- BRAN I am so bored with Bran. I already was from the last time I saw him. I'm sorry, I just hate wilderness survival stories, always have. But in general I feel like his arc would just work better to have him mysteriously disappear and then show up later with whatever awesome powers he will have developed, although maybe by showing all of it GRRM is deconstructing that sort of trope.
- Stannis's determined persistence in referring to Val as a princess sort of makes me think GRRM is Making A Point. I can't say exactly what but I think it ties into the War of Five Kings' (and the Roses') general point that the right to rule is a social construct so STFU fandom about who objectively has it and therefore must win. That is one of the things I'm always so amazed to see people arguing, because the situation is so muddled that I do not at all understand people who have an opinion other than "whoever can get the most number of people to back them has the most right to rule". Cersei's children cannot (in Westeros) be proven to not be Robert's, so they are still legally his legitimate children and have it. Stannis is Robert's next younger brother and he believes the kids are not Robert's, so he has it. Daenerys's family used to rule so she has it (although people who argue that Dany has the most right confuse me, because really? Why are the first few generations usurpers, if they later become legitimate? IDGI). If Jon really is Rhaegar's only living son, he has it. "They can't end up as king/queen because X really has the right" is just a terrible argument for predictions.
- That's actually one of the reasons I see Sansa as queen - she has less technical "right" than anyone and I don't think GRRM really believes in a divine right to rule and like I said has been trying to show it through the entire plot of the books.
- The more Dany chapters I read the more pissed off I am at the people who say they show that she doesn't know how to rule. GOD. NO. In some ways they make me even more sure that she'll become Queen of Westeros, because her compassion and attention to the common people rather than the nobles makes her a sort of mythical figure (like Sansa SANSA FOR QITN AND DANY FOR QITS AND BFFS). But they are enormously frustrating to read, because the Meereenese nobility are all such fucks that I want them to die (except the kids).
- Theon, Theon ... I kind of feel like GRRM just went too far with Ramsay, he's so evil and sadistic that he becomes a cartoon villain, really. I've always found Theon sympathetic, I don't understand people who just flat-out disliked him until he was tortured. In general I feel like all the characters (with a few exceptions) are meant to be sympathetic without necessarily being likeable. The way Ramsay's built chains into his mind is probably what stands out to me the most about his chapters, it's fascinating. I'm not a sociopath.
- There are way too many PoVs in this book.
I'm about 51% through ADWD, so time for halfway through book thoughts:
- I think it's awfully funny that before I even started I felt that Tyrion, to keep being a sympathetic character, needed to make friends with an unbeautiful woman, and that he has done so. In a way it reassures me that I'm in a similar headspace to GRRM and that my general opinions and predictions probably are not too far off.
- That said, the whole "where do whores go" thing is irritating me so much. There is not some whore mecca across the sea where all prostitutes are drawn, Tyrion, why are you acting like there is? I think I once saw someone point out that the answer could very well be "to the river to drown themselves", at least in Tysha's case as she wasn't a prostitute at all and had just been horrifically violated. Which would seem a bit anti-climactic, if Tyrion finds that out, so I feel like he has to run into her again ... just not at whore mecca.
- At the same time, Tyrion thinking Sansa was false to him is giving me feelings that remind me of my earlier prediction - that is, he thinks of most women in terms of whether he'd like to have sex with them (or at least that's how it comes off to me in memory - he wants to fuck Cersei, he'd have kind of liked to have sex with Sansa, lots of beautiful prostitutes) so he needed to have a meaningful relationship with a woman/girl he didn't want to sleep with. Whenever he thinks of Sansa, part of it is that she was false, she framed him for murder, etc. so something really massive needs to go down with them. Narratively speaking, he has to be confronted with her innocence just as he was with Tysha, and wow this is even more of a parallel than I suspected.
- BRAN I am so bored with Bran. I already was from the last time I saw him. I'm sorry, I just hate wilderness survival stories, always have. But in general I feel like his arc would just work better to have him mysteriously disappear and then show up later with whatever awesome powers he will have developed, although maybe by showing all of it GRRM is deconstructing that sort of trope.
- Stannis's determined persistence in referring to Val as a princess sort of makes me think GRRM is Making A Point. I can't say exactly what but I think it ties into the War of Five Kings' (and the Roses') general point that the right to rule is a social construct so STFU fandom about who objectively has it and therefore must win. That is one of the things I'm always so amazed to see people arguing, because the situation is so muddled that I do not at all understand people who have an opinion other than "whoever can get the most number of people to back them has the most right to rule". Cersei's children cannot (in Westeros) be proven to not be Robert's, so they are still legally his legitimate children and have it. Stannis is Robert's next younger brother and he believes the kids are not Robert's, so he has it. Daenerys's family used to rule so she has it (although people who argue that Dany has the most right confuse me, because really? Why are the first few generations usurpers, if they later become legitimate? IDGI). If Jon really is Rhaegar's only living son, he has it. "They can't end up as king/queen because X really has the right" is just a terrible argument for predictions.
- That's actually one of the reasons I see Sansa as queen - she has less technical "right" than anyone and I don't think GRRM really believes in a divine right to rule and like I said has been trying to show it through the entire plot of the books.
- The more Dany chapters I read the more pissed off I am at the people who say they show that she doesn't know how to rule. GOD. NO. In some ways they make me even more sure that she'll become Queen of Westeros, because her compassion and attention to the common people rather than the nobles makes her a sort of mythical figure (like Sansa SANSA FOR QITN AND DANY FOR QITS AND BFFS). But they are enormously frustrating to read, because the Meereenese nobility are all such fucks that I want them to die (except the kids).
- Theon, Theon ... I kind of feel like GRRM just went too far with Ramsay, he's so evil and sadistic that he becomes a cartoon villain, really. I've always found Theon sympathetic, I don't understand people who just flat-out disliked him until he was tortured. In general I feel like all the characters (with a few exceptions) are meant to be sympathetic without necessarily being likeable. The way Ramsay's built chains into his mind is probably what stands out to me the most about his chapters, it's fascinating. I'm not a sociopath.
- There are way too many PoVs in this book.
