What is Springfield Missouri like?

I partially grew up there and, recognizing that mileages may vary and not everyone’s experience will echo mine, let me tell you: Springfield MO is one of my least favorite towns that I have ever lived in.

The problems are many.

• While there are some nice residential areas, particularly around the university(MSU), the rest of it is either McMansions, bungalow style housing or older houses.
  
  Which could, in theory be nice, except Springfield has willfully turned it’s back on the entire northern third of town. That is where I grew up.
  
  It was the poorer side of town even then, but nowadays it is really bad and clearly has seen better days. Some of the houses on the North Side are kept up but the others are decrepit sad hulks with weedy gardens, ancient buckling sidewalks…there is no doubt that the richer south, who probably supplies most of the politicians have absolutely abandoned the northern third.
  
  Though, to their credit, they have made an effort to rehabilitate the old center with it’s square. When I was growing up it was practically a collection of shells with windows. Nowadys, there is a pretty vibrant night life, but I have to stress it is mostly for college kids, when it comes to bars. The center is not that interesting but it’s better than it was when I was a kid.

Being a college kid there would probably be fun, actually. There are a good amount of bars and the area around the college is nice.

• When it comes to the business zones, each corner on one of the more trafficked thoroughfares is practically indistinguishable from the next. It is a town of endlessstrip malls and blocky office buildings. They go for MILES AND MILES AND MILES. Dollar stores and fast food joints sprout from every corner like neon-lit fungi.
  
  Worse are the loan agencies. I’ve never seen a town with so many offices offering cheap loans. That ought to give you an idea of the how fucked up and ultimately mean spirited and ugly the soul of Springfield is.
• It is chock full of churches. There are churches everywhere there. Until recently every church had it’s sign out front, usually with a highly negative “fire and brimstone” message on it: Like: If you don’t believe you will burn! That kind of thing. Thankfully, that kind of message has faded a bit in the last decade or so but it was a big thing that really struck me on a visit there in 2000.
  
  But the people are very much a church-going folk. The Assembly of God has it’s headquarters there — it’s literally the goddamn Vatican of the Assembly of God church. They are the ones that speak in tongues and roll around on the floor babbling insanely during their service. My little brother got beaten up by a cop for calling them hypocrites one Sunday noon, and the cop told my brother: “"Who is the judge going to believe, me or you?”" when my brother protested.
• Springfield is one of the few towns I’ve ever been afraid to walk around in at night. Oh, there is no gang warfare or even significant minority population (the blacks all fled the place after a flurry of lynchings in the 1930s); forgive the allusion to sterotype: My point is it is pretty common in a racist society like the USA to blame high rates of violent crime on minorities, especially blacks/African Americans. Springfield proves the sterotype to be bullshit, actually) The actual murder rate is twice the national average there! Correction: (Originally, I thought it was probably at about the average, but I was told I was 'giving Springfield too much credit.' And I looked at the statistics and was surprised to learn that it was much higher than average.)
  
   No, the violence comes from either farm boys from outlying villages that come to the ‘'Big City’'’ to “beat up fags”, or from weird white trash meth types who are secret homosexuals and want to beat you up for it. Nowadays the North Side might be more danger
• As I mentioned, there is no real racial diversity there, which one can miss coming from a bigger city. Springfield misses so much for that.
  
   There are a few black people descended from the few brave enough to stay in the face of the ferocious racism of the early twentieth century, all pretty much concentrated in one smallish section in the north-center of the city; and there are a fair amount of Vietnamese who came or are descended from refugees that came to Fort Whatever in Arkansas during the War.
  
  They have all pretty much opened Asian/Thai/Chinese restaurants — so if you like Asian takeaway, it is truly a paradise.
• In fact, there are a lot of good restaurants in general in Springfield. Far more good restaurants per capita than most Midwestern towns. This is a bit curious. A friend of mine once told me that his theory was that there just was nothing else to do there but go out to eat. Of course, all of the restaurants cater to the mild palette of the average Midwesterner: nothing too spicy or exotic. Still, you can find some good stuff. And what else are you going to do?
• WalMart absolutely rules the town. They ought to rename it Walmart, Missouri. Not only are Super Walmarts ubiquitous, there is one that literally was an entire damn mall when I was growing up. Now it’s like a HUGE GARGANTUAN Wal-Mart.
  
  I like going there just so my jaw drops at the ridiculous bigness of it all. There were even Wal-Mart grocery stores, slowly squeezing the life out of other grocery stores. they are all chains themselves anyway, but a variety of chains is still better than a monopoly.
  
  Still there are a a lot of Mom and Pop establishments there, as well. I reckon a small business owner can do all right there.
• The library sort of illustrates everything I hate about Springfield. It was recently moved from the old centre(southsiders are afraid to visit the North side of town, absolutely irrationally terrifed. They built a new very, very nice building on the Southernmost part of town with no bus access so no undesirables can visit. (Correction: while this was true when it was first opened(I read a news story about it in the Springfield News-Leader) apparently this has been corrected and the library is accessible by bus.)
  
  They must have put millions of dollars into this beautiful building. The funny thing is, you go in this place and there are no more books than the old main library had when I was a kid. Why not, you know, buy some books with those millions? They try so hard to be a CITY by making this big modern library but they don't give enough of a shit REALLY to buy any goddamn books. I'm sure the librarians would have it different: make no mistake it's the politicians who make these decisions. 
• The bus system. Oh my god. I mean, it is mostly used by the homeless and the disabled, so I guess I am glad there is something but it is next to worthless. It can take hours to get to your destination and you WILL have to change buses. Heck, you might as well walk most of the time. Bottom line is, don’t live there without a car. You will not survive a season.
• The summers are pretty hot and humid. Mosquitoes abound. Bugs in general thrive in the hot almost-jungle-like climate.
• I will say, while most of the people there are frighteningly conservative(some have even told me they wish to see slavery reinstituted) the people who are a little more intelligent and different do exhibit a wry sense of ironic humor that is probably lost on your average Ozarker. But most of them end up getting out.
• They also have some big fishing supply shop for outdoorsmen. If you like shopping for fishing poles and camping gear(and I actually do enjoy camping) Bass-Pro is heaven on earth. Sprinfieldians are very proud of it.
• People are so bored there that high school sports are totally revered. Seriously, the newspaper is FULL of reports of high school football games, not only in Springfield but in every village within a one hundred mile radius. I think that is something you don’t see in larger towns.
• AS far as culture; yes, there is a symphony; there is a theatre. But let’s not kid ourselves. It IS provincial. But it would be false to say that there wasn’t there. I suppose there are a fair number of decent bar bands there, as well—music is something that America in general is good at. But if you want real country music, you really have to go to Branson which is an hour or so away.
• Outside of town there are quite picturesque highlands of the Ozarks. And Arkansas is not too far away and the highlands there —I refuse to say mountains— are really beautiful.
• There is nothing that Springfield doesn’t have (except for an Apple Store—the nearest ones are Oklahoma City, Kansas City or St.Louis) and if you have a good salary and a good job, love Jesus and are your typical conservative American, I daresay that it’s highly livable—not much different from living in suburbia anywhere, I reckon.
• If you are poor or ‘'’geo-sensitive”, naturally different, or liberal, it is a crushing, brutally sad town. My life instantly improved when I left at 18. Instantly! Everytime I return I enjoy seeing my family but I don’t think I could ever live there. I am getting depressed just thinking about it.

Addendum: Of course I've glossed over some of the good things in Springfield: the parks for example are pretty great. And apparently there are bike trails that one can follow that have been built in the last decade or so. 

 And Fall is a lovely time of year, as is Spring. I was also accused of writing 'flat-out lies' in this blog entry. That is not at all true, though there were two inaccuracies--which I've since corrected.

Written August 30; corrected August 31st

ASOIAF/GOT: Who is Jaqen H'ghar?

Jaqen H’ghar is the temporary alias of a Faceless Man of Braavos. Little is known of the original Jaqen H’ghar other than the fact that he is Lorathi and speaks in the Lorath fashion (apparently the Lorath language lacks personal pronouns so rather than saying ‘'’you” or “she” he refers to Arya as ‘a girl’ and himself as ‘a man’ and has fabulous hair that the women admire.

The Faceless Man who wears the face of Jaqen H’ghar is a strong fighter and a master of poisons, like most Faceless Men. For reasons unknown he was being transported to the Wall as a criminal and was deemed dangerous enough to be caged on the journey. Later he left Harrenhal, donning a different face/alias(and losing his distinctive Lorathi speech patterns) after granting Arya’s three death wishes and traveled south to the citadel where he murdered a boy who procured a key to a mysterious vault, perhaps after a secret book about dragons.

In the TV show, the Kindly Man from the book has the face of Jaqen H’ghar, as well, and is presumably the same Faceless Man as the one Arya knows as Jaqen Hghar. He is portrayed by a guy name Tom Wlaschia and is German. This is not the case in the books.

However, the Faceless Man in the show also has fabulous hair. Inspired casting, I think.

Written Aug 19 

ASOIAF/GOT: Who has had the worst death in the series?

IN my opinion, it is Vargo Hoat in the books.

First of all, Vargo Hoat is the leader of the sellswords who cut Jaime’s hand off. Dismemberment is something they delight in, it seems as many of their captives have their hands or feet struck off.

Vargo Hoat, who is briefly left Lord of Harrenhal after he betrays the Lannister’s and goes over to the Boltons, tried to rape Brienne, who bit his ear off. He developed a fever from the infection that followed, and when Gregor Clegane re-took the castle, he had VArgo Hoat starved and had various bits of him cut off. IN his extreme hunger he was forced to eat the parts of his own body. Eventually, Gregor Clegane was recalled to King’s Landing and and just killed him.

That would suck.

Of course there are the many victims of Ramsay Bolton, too: Lady Hornwood, forcefully married, raped and then locked in a room. She chewed her fingers off before dying.

And the women, who he lets loose and then hunts, flaying them and then raping them. If they lead him a good hunt he slices their throat before the flayiing, if not, after.

In the show, to me the death of Xaro Xhoan Daxos, locked in his vault of nothing with Doreah is pretty horrible. You can just imagine how it went for them, locked in the dark, getting hungrier and hungrier…all the more powerful for the audience not really knowing, I think.

Special mention must be given to Catelyn Stark. Who died believing that all of her children (but Sansa, who was disinherited by Robb for marrying Tyrion) were dead after seeing her oldest son slain before him. She tore her face to shreds and laughed maniacally as they cut her throat.

Written August 29

The dirtiest toilet I've ever seen -- a reflection

It was in Italy.

First of all, many of the toilets in Italy are what I believe are termed ‘'Turkish-style”, meaning that they are little more than holes in the floor where one sqats to, ahem, do one’s business.

Some of the Turkish style toilets that I saw were quite clean, but not all of them. 

Anyway, I have to admit that I am not a fan of the Turkish style toilet at all. Perhaps if I had grown up using them, they would be perfectly fine; but it’s hard not to worry about the hygenic factor when faced with an unfamiliar toilet.

ON my way North,, from our holiday in Italy, not too far from the Austrian/Italian border,where we stayed in a village near Lago di Garda and had a wonderful time, I stopped at a filling station to fill the tank of our car and to, uh...empty...the other tank.

There was a line leading out of the foul-smelling building in which the toilets were housed. I patiently waited. I saw people leaving the toilets with looks of disgust on their face. I put it down to the smell, which was unusually rank,  but mentally prepared myself for the possiblity that the toilet would be a little dirty. (It wouldn’t have been the first dirty toilet I had seen in Italy.)

But nothing prepared me for what was there. Not a lifetime of hardship and toil. Not an impoverished childhoold or a roach-infested childhood home; not a decade of school lunches.

YOu see, the Turkish style toilet’s drain was, apparently, clogged. And there was a MOUNTAIN. A MOUNTAIN of…shit. Piled high. Nearly a meter high. Maybe higher, I don't now. It's not like a measured it.

Like a child’s painstakingly-crafted clay model of a volcano. A lovely shade of reddish brown, gleaming under the warm yellow lights.

Rivulets of watery shit were running across the floor. You had no choice but to walk  on this disgusting surface. Through the soles of my shoes, as  I gingerly tread upon the surface, I could feel the grainy texture of it all.

Squatting over the clogged drain was not really a possibility. At least for me. Perhaps an exceedingly tall man could have managed it, if he spread his legs really wide.

So, you kind of had to, you know, stand in front and squat and, you know, drop your… boulders... on the side of this…mountain.

And pray that your actions didn’t start an avalanche.

Now, normally I would have walked out and just gone at the next opportunity. But I really, really had to go. You know how it is when you are on the road.

When I came out, my girlfriend, seeing the shock and horror on my face, asked me what was wrong. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it.

It was two years before the trauma had sufficiently faded to the point where I could talk about this.

Otherwise, it was a lovely holiday. WE went back two years later to Lago di Garda, but the magic had gone.

Written August 25

ASOIAF: Why is Daenerys so arrogant?

Feel free to disagree, but Daenerys I think has become so stuck up and entitled and greedy and obsessed with herself. In season 1 she was meek but in season 2 after losing Drogo her arrogance and greediness shot through the roof. She is downright a popinjay. Period. In season 3 she was even worse.

I really feel her arrogance is overstated. And why should she have remained the ‘'meek fuck puppet” of the first book, anyway? On one level she is a woman — if you can call a fifteen year old a woman — who was dealt a deck and made the best of it.

I will never understand why people are so eager to stuff these major characters in the villain box in a series that prides itself on not taking sides. Is it so that, when Daenerys inevitably destroys a bunch of shit they can say “I told you so?” Is it that a half-century’s worth of ‘hero’ stories stuffed down our throats by Hollywood means that people can no longer differentiate tragedy from mere heroic drama? Or maybe it’s just overcompensation for the show and it’s watchers’ near - deification of Dany. Or perhaps it has something to do with Emilia Clarke’s performance.

Daenerys is flawed is what she is. As far as her ‘arrogance’ and ‘entitlement’ goes she is certainly no worse than the other kings and queens in this book. And she has been through worse than quite a lot of them.

Her feeling that she has a right to Westeros is no different, really, than Tyrion feeling he has the legal right to Casterly Rock; or that Ned feeling he had the legal right to Winterfell after Brandon died. It’s no different that Robert Baratheon feeling like he had the right to usurp the throne when, in his minds, the unwritten contract between King and subject was violated by Rhaegar and Aerys; and then taking the crown. No different from Stannis feeling that he has the right despite the fact that a bastard is sitting on the throne.

Dany at no time has ever felt that she had the right to sweep in and that the throne would be just given to her. That’s utter nonsense. It’s not at all supported by the text. That would be arrogant.

On the contrary, since as early as the first book, she’s known that she had to TAKE it by force. In fact, she spends the better part of TWO books trying to gather an army that would allow her to do just that.

And Dany, although, no, she doesn’t always display the best judgement and she is certainlyNOT a great political thinker (Was Robert? Is Stannis? Really? Joffrey? Renly? Cersei? really? They are all totally flawed), does have some qualities that do recommend her:

• she’s got otherworldly charisma
• she’s got exceptional courage
• she acts outside the box.

Now, she is backed up with dragons and that does separate her from the others: she is much, much more dangerous than Stannis, say, and she is NOT afraid to use her incredible powers of destruction(reliant on the dragons, mind) to, well, destroy.

Without the dragons she is little more than a young girl in over her head.This point is made continually.

And I’m like, “No shit.”

And also ‘'So what?”

As to when she metamorphosed from meek sex slave to “arrogant” Dragon Queen(would people really rather she’d just accepted her place as Drogo’s fuck-puppet?) it was a process that has actually gone back and forth.

1. The first step was on the way to the Dothraki sea, after having a dream about becoming a dragon. After that she took charge of Khal Drogo and became more than just his sex slave. She became his equal, almost.
   
   She callused up outside and inside.
2. When she gained the dragons she gained a purpose. Again after a weird, prophetic dragon dream. She emerged from a fire unscathed with dragons under a brand new red comet. I mean, come on. Who isn’t going to interpret that as some weird destiny? Seriously. You think you go through something like that and are just like: OK, now it’s time for me to be meek and go to Vaes Dothrak and live with the rest of the Dosh Khaleen. Poor, poor Drogo.
3. When her stint as the Beggar Queen in Qarth failed and she promised herself that she was no longer going to beg for help and was just going to take it(which she did at Jorah Mormont’s strong urgings.)
4. Then she backpedaled and seemed to try to sweep her power under the rug in Meereen, and become a ‘'good ruler” with less than stellar results, after realizing that she had made a huge mess in Astapor. (Which she did: so what was she supposed to do after th emess is already made? Give up and head for Vaes Dothrak to do needlepoint for the rest of her days? Like a ‘'’meek woman” should?
5. The end of A Dance with Dragons shows her committing once again to Fire and Blood philosophy that, really, has been the only thing that worked for her.

In short, she is no more entitled or arrogant than any other leader, with the exception of Jon Snow(who was elected and earned his position) and maybe Davos —and, from the end of A Storm of Swords on, I would say Stannis is increasingly trying to earn his crown, too.

But that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. The idea that a king deserves a crown in the ridiculously disfunctional political system of Westeros is, to some extent, ludicrous.

Again, she’s no more entitled than anyone else: she is just more dangerous.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Daenerys is NOT going to fuck shit up when she gets to Westeros. Fucking shit up is what Dany does.

Written August 23rd

ASOIAF: Why has Jon Snow garnered so much more support in comparison with the more controversial Daenerys?

They have very, very different character arcs. It’s interesting to compare them and I’ll do so earlier but the tldr is here at the top for those who dont want to read the whole thing.

GRRM has deliberately written Jon so that the reader understands and relates to him and supports him. He has also deliberately written Daenerys so that the reader at the very least has some questions about her.

Jon is written as a typical hero.

But Daenerys is written almost as a GODDESS, with lots of Messianic and religious imagery and symbolism about her. But not a goddess of light and love. A goddess of blood and fire.

Jon is a relateable hero. The worst things we can say about him is that he’s got a bad temper and he arguably makes a few unwise decisions in the interests of the greater good. But for the most part, he’s pretty much as good as good gets in A Song of Ice an Fire. So naturally the reader supports him..

Daenerys, by constrast, with the messianic imagery and symbolism that her story is steeped in, is much less relateable. She’s not so much a hero, not so much a villain: she is more like goddess of destruction, whose story echoes religious myths rather than run-of-the-mill hero arcs.

I want to summarize the story and the development of these two characters:

GAME OF Thrones:

Jon: THIS KID’S GOING PLACES

In the Game of Thrones, we are introduced to Jon as a moody teenager. We have sympathy for him because he is a bastard, is treated less well by the people at Winterfell(especially Catelyn). His moodiness seems natural.

He is a bit of a punk bully at the beginning of his stay at Castle Black, but he quickly pulls it back and ends up becoming a natural leader among his peers. In the process, on the positive side he:

• stands up to the bully Alliser Thorne
• protects the bookworm Sam from Thorne and other bullies(he who shields the bookworm is beloved by readers)
• befriends the beloved bookworm Tyrion
• shows emotional growth
• kills a damn ice zombie!

On the negative side:

• goes berserk and attacks Thorne at dinner. But the audience forgives him because Thorne is a jerk.
• deserts the Night’s Watch under high emotional turmoil, which the reader can hand-wave away as being a bit of teenage pique, which it kind of is.

The reader ends up with an overall positive view of Jon as he seems to be a hero in training.

Danerys: Birth of a goddess:

Daenerys, is an orphan who has been raised by her abusive brother. This also garners sympathy for her. She seems set on a path of a victim, but she turns around. Let’s review her storyline:

• She is sold into sexual slavery.
• She finds a core of hardness in her, her “inner dragon.”
• She uses her sexual powers to become almost coequal with the savage Khal Drogo.
• She integrates to some extent into Dothraki society(she is resilient.)
• She survives a assassination attempt by the wine-seller.
• She frees slaves and criminalizes rape among the khalasar(which the reader approves of.)
• She goes through a weird mystic, hallucinogenic ordeal at the end which sees her unborn baby, her husband die
• Her story culminates in the birth of the dragons and her emergence unscathed from a huge pyre.

Its a moment that gives you goose-pimples. Already she is on a different level than every other point of view character we’ve had thus far. This is on the level of MYTH, more than typical fantasy story.

A Clash of Kings:

Jon: Treading the line of honor

• journeys into a Haunted Forest, continually showing his leadership qualities.
• He is chosen to go on a top secret mission, where he is revealed to have magical powers(he wargs Ghost.)
• In a tense couple of chapters he is pursued: Qhorin tells him something:

Our honour means no more than our lives, as long as the realm is safe.

This line, which almost pits the concepts of ‘'honor” and “what’s right”against each other will become the dominant theme of his arc. So that even when Jon ‘'loses honor”— by sleeping with Ygritte, say — he does so with the welfare of the Realm and, eventually, all of humanity in mind.

• He is forced to kill his mentor and join the wildlings…under orders from his superior officer. So the reader sympathizes with his horrible choice and understands it.

Daenerys: The Prophet

The religious imagery continues in Daenerys’ story in a Clash of Kings.

• She follows a comet that might or might not be related to her and the dragons.
• She travels through a desert wilderness, like Moses in Exodus.
• She is tempted to stay in the oasis of the City of Ghosts.
• She meets three emissaries from Qarth, who also offer her temptation. Well at least two of them do. The other one offers her cryptic prophecies as advice.
• She fails to gain the support of the rich and powerful.
• She enters a weird magical castle and has a lot of prophetic visions.
• She is attacked by what basically seem to be blue death-sucking demons.
• She vanquishes them with dragon fire.

Her story kind of putters out in A Clash of Kings but the reader still has a positive view of her. But some readers have complained that it feels like GRRM is sort of killing time as the story doesn’t wholly satisfy.

A Storm of Swords:

Jon Snow: Walking the peaks of honor

Jon Snow, having infiltrated the Wildling army, eventually deserts to save the Night’s Watch.

• He falls in love with Ygritte.
• He practices cunnilingus. (He who practices cunnilingus in literature is beloved of the reader as it shows that he cares for his partner’s sexual needs.)

• He refuses to kill an old, innocent man.
• He saves the Night’s Watch.
• His lover is tragically killed.(He whose lover is tragically killed gets brownie points.)
• He is wrongly imprisoned and threatened with execution by Thorne and the vile much-hated Janos Slynt (whom the reader hates.)
• He is defended by the blind old man, Aemon (who the reader loves.)
• He turns down the offer of Winterfell. Thus confirming how really seriously he meant his vows.
• Almost as if in reward he is elected Lord Commander.

Daenerys: The Goddess of Destruction

This is where Dany’s story gets interesting again, as her god-like powers are utilized. She also makes some moves that readers start to question.

• She vanquishes three cities in a row, gaining a big army and a tens of thousands of followers who look at her as “Mhysa”, again, more a goddess or a messiah figure than a hero or a queen. And her adversaries are so vile, they kill babies, eat puppies and crucify children that the reader only begins to wonder when
• She randomly selects 163(or whatever the number is) Masters of Meereen and has them flayed and crucified.
• She begins using her servant Irri as her personal cunnilingus mistress. Questionable in the modern age. (Though, since Irri doesn’t seem to mind, the reader can shrug it off.)

Here her story gets a little darker. Again, she isn’t a villain: her intentions are basically good. And her adversaries are so evil that we cheer for her. But her decisions are actually kind of scary.

A Dance with Dragons:

Jon: The Hero’s tragic flaw

Here is where Jon’s story gets complicated. IN this story he continually treads, often deliberately close to the line of breaking his oath. He is forced to make a bevy of decisions that some readers criticize:

• he sends his allies away
• he seems determined to save Hardhome despite the fact that all is most likely lost lost.
• He meddles in the politics of the North several times, to support Stannis,who is allied with the Night’s Watch against the threat of the Others, but also to stick it to the Boltons and to rescue his “sister” Arya.
• He lets an army of Wildlings though the Wall.
• He announces his intention to lead an army of Wildlings against Winterfell.

The reader, being privy to his private conversations with Stannis, with and his own thoughts knows that his intentions are ultimately good and heroic; and that Jon is in very bad position where there are no decisions that can be made that don’t carry with them considerable risk. So when he is shanked, the reader feels shocked — it seems we have another Eddard Stark type death. But he ultimately ends up being seen as a hero who truly wants to save mankind at the end of it. If Jon has a tragic flaw that brings him down its his very heroism itself.

Daenerys: The mess

Goddess/Messiah/young girl/queen

Daenerys’ story in A Dance with Dragons also gets more complicated. Far from the fiery warrior-goddess figure of the last book, she locks her dragons away with her inner nature and seems desperate to become just a normal human ruler. IN doing so, she seems to put away her goddess persona and becomes a bit of a mess: a young teenage girl lusting after mercenaries; a powerful queen giggling at ambassadors; a decision-maker surrounded by people she can’t trust in a culture she doesn’t understand. She’s completely out of her depth. And she even knows it, herself.

• by chaining away her dragons she forfeits a good deal of her power and image
• she makes compromises with her anti-slaver ideals in order to get a very, very tenuous peace in Meereen which sees slave markets thriving right outside the gates in mockery of her
• she has some children tortured
• she takes some children hostages, but refuses to torture them — a decision which the leader likes
• she has sex with a mercenary with questionable motives

At the same time her image is being used literally as a Messiah figure by the priests of R’hllor and the entirety of Essos seems on the brink of revolution by disgruntled slaves yearning for freedom.

In the end, she is in the middle of nowhere, sick and delirious. She is clearly on the wrong road and she commits to the Fire and Blood philosophy that served her so well in the past.

The discerning reader knows by now that, however admirable her feelings about slavery and so on are, the only thing she is really proven herself good at is destruction.

So it seems plain that while Jon Snow is very much on a heroic path to save the realm, Daenerys’ is less certain.

I think that Daenerys, along with the Others and Euron Greyjoy and his weird attempt to summon a tsunami,(or whatever it is he is doing), represents an existential threat to the realm. I think that makes an awesome story, particularly if her intentions still remain more or less ‘good.’

But other readers, sensing the shock of it in advance, use that to peg her in a ‘'villain” role, probably so they are not surprised when she does do shitty things in Westeros.

Written August 22nd

ASOIAF: Why does Ygritte feel personally betrayed Jon Snow and consequently become hostile?

New to women, are you? :-D

Over time, Jon's sojourn with the Wildlings was a real revelation to him. He realized that they weren't the monolithic barbarian culture that he'd seen them as all his life.He came to understand that there were good Wildlings and bad ones, honorable Wildlings and scumbags, noble Wildlings and criminals.He understood that they loved and lived, had passions and fears and stories and histories.

He respected that.

He also fell in love with Ygritte, the woman he had spared from beheading.

Ygritte saw Jon slowly become — or almost become — one of them. She understood what was going on with him. And she also took pride in turning him. It was her — crooked-toothed, red-headed Ygritte — her love-making, her humor, her ego that changed a crow, the son of some Great Southron Lord, into one of the Free Folk.

She loved his shyness and his earnestness and she respected his hardihood and his fighter.

Then he refused to kill the man. And fled. Killed another Wildling. And she understood.

Jon lied to her. Jon was lying to her from the beginning. Not only in words, but in action. He became one of them. Not just to survive. But to learn their secrets and report to his superiors.

When he rejected the Wildling culture, he rejected her.

(And it was a conscious, planned rejection, too. He knew he'd have to do it someday and when the time came, he did it.)

Ygritte realized it was never her. It was always them. The crows.

Her "love conquers all" narrative clashed with his "doomed love" narrative, which was was what was playing in his head. The clash of these two different love stories pretty much fueled the whole relationship and kept them going at it in the sleeping bags night and day.

And her love story ended up getting completely shattered: it was a sham all along. So to her, he’d had her. He’d used her.

Jon Snow's narrative was the ultimate winner. He alone had the keys to the information that made her narrative impossible.

He learned from her. And he dumped her. And he had been planning to do it all along.

And then he rides off North to Castle Black, to betray their whole mission and doom it and them, including her, to death at the hands of the Black Crows.

So she shot him.

Written August 11th

Share