Read The Entire Thread Here

Read the entire thread here

Kermit Tully fathers name was Elmo

I love grrm

God this is amazing

Before any thing English is my third language please if there is any mistake do correct me it will help me improve

In my head I was always like no lyanna isn't choosing rhaegar per say but she is choosing the crown or rather the crowns power the power to get away from a man she despise (happy about toddlers and babys death, sent killers after a berly teen, sleeping with whores will trying to save the "love of his life", the physical violence with cercei, him being a horrible king)

She probably saw him like he really is not that idealistic version that Ned had as a brother and a friend, which isn't an act when he is ned's "brother" he is respectful and nice, his character doesn't change with him until ned is hand of the king AKA his servitor

So I think that lyana loved rhaegar in the same way cercei did,

"Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods

—thoughts of Cersei Lannister"

They saw the nice soft spoken prince and concluded on the need to tie there future with him, because he is the prince, and both there family's wanted power and what a better position than future queen

Lyana stark didn't want to be "selfish" when she spoke to her family and understood that she was nothing more than a bargaining tool in this situation she just wished to strike a better deal for both her family and more importantly herself

Maybe she loved him or maybe she didn't, she just hopped to gain in the change, what is true is that the mans in westeros played the game with womens life's for centuries starting wars and rebellions for less, had Rickard consulted his daughter instead of his sons maybe he would have gained more.

Lyanna sow a chance for some liberating power that would have offered more to her family than her old betrothal, but like every body who doesn't win at the game of thrones she died.

This is a reply in regards to this post, which highlights the high likelihood that, whether people are fine with the author's choices or not, RxL is written by him with romantic nuance as far as the text goes. @sahtinekryze

And I think this fandom really needs to have a honest analysis of the idea of "selfishness" in narrative choices such as this, which is that when it comes to how the whole "duty vs love" scenarios Martin writes, he does not actually writes it with some wide spectrum ranging from selfish to sacrificial. There are usually no other choices than the two.

Could one define the alleged choice of breaking a noble marriage contract that would have negative political influence at the least, had it been the best case scenario (which one would logically assume the two might have hoped for instead of very lots of people dying including themselves) as 'selfish', which in its very definition is doing something for one's self, though it may not be advantageous for others? Yes.

But as I said, Martin doesn't write a middle ground. There's that, or Lyanna marries an unwanted man and is hence forced to have a non-consensual relationship with him, and forced to carry children out of a noncon relationship, so that her male relatives can reap benefits of political power, as well as her groom through her womb. And as shows inspired by these books love to show us very graphic such cases (like Daenerys in GOT, or the storyline given to show!Sansa, or the changes for show!Alicent in HOTD), I am sure fans should have learnt better about the accusations usually thrown at Lyanna in fandom spaces in regards to being another woman marrying against her will in a society where a woman cannot say no, marital rape isn't recognised, and a husband is "just taking his rights": that "this is just being whiny". (There are many other examples in the books; the author is also not holding back on what unwanted or unsuitable marriages mean to women.)

Against the fanon idea that she is some wild, demanding, conceited girl, she doesn't rage, she doesn't bite. She has a tentative, soft spoken conversation with her brother about it and her reluctance in the matter, and is (nicely) dismissed.

Had she not (allegedly, while all is unconfirmed) fallen for the Crown Prince and he for her, there is no one else powerful enough to extract her from her situation (her male relatives having made up their own minds in the matter), nor anyone else to go from where she cannot be recovered by a powerful and connected family and fiance. No one else she could marry/sleep with that wouldn't be shut down and covered (as seen with Tyrion or Lysa) to preserve the higher price for which her womb can be bartered. Just no other viable choice that wasn't the other end of the scale: a woman being sacrificed by men, for men's uses.

As I said at the start, this is simply how Martin writes these conflicts of "mind and heart". He corners the characters. There is no light at the end of the tunnel that isn't also sort of "selfish" and "dumb" looking on the surface.

This can be applied to more such situations in the text-

Catelyn undoes the already precarious state of her son's campaign by releasing their most valuable captive. She has not even a guarantee that her 'selfish' act for love will work. But there are no options she's given. No one else cares to make it a priority to get her daughters back. The only other choice is to let it be and let 2 girls be sacrificed in marriages of ill intent to use their wombs and discard them, unsure if she will find anything left of them but Lannister named babies when this is over. It is "selfish". It is "dumb". Yet she's cornered.

Jon makes the decision to go fight Ramsay Bolton because he's run out of options and he's cornered. Arya is allegedly in the hands of the family that have viciously killed a number of Starks and taken Winterfell. She is 11 and allegedly married. He is made sick at the thought of what is being done to her. He's tried the "lesser" tactics of getting her rescued without being seen as trespassing the status quo of the NW publicly, by sending others for her. But it was always going to come to this. Ramsay guesses (or finds out) that his escaped bride would make it to the Wall. Keeping "peace" and "doing his duty" instead of "being selfish and dumb" is handing over "Arya" himself if she even makes it to appease the Lord of Winterfell, sacrificing a girl to an unwanted marriage meant to use her for her womb and discard her.

There are no actual choices when there is no actual scale in between "selfish and dumb" and the sacrifice of a girl (or, you know, 2,3, as many as Westeros would swallow as it did for millennia for this or that Lord or King to amass and keep power), whether they are Lannisters trying to get Winterfell, or Starks extinguishing the line of the Warg King.

The use of white phosphorous in Palestine is so calculated and insidious because not only does it cause horrific, usually fatal burns but its residue in the envionrment can cause illness, birth defects, and cancers for generations afterward. Look at the Twitter account Fallujah Birth Defects (graphic) which documents defects and abnormalities so rare most medical journals don't have them. White phosphorous was dropped in Fallujah in 2004 and it's still killing Iraqi babies. What do you think it's going to do to the survivors of the Palestinian genocide.