Rhaegar married Elia Martell for her distant Targaryen ancestry to fulfil the Prince That Was Promised prophecy. This only happened because Steffon Baratheon was unable to procure a bride from Volantis from a noble line descending from Old Valyria - all with the silver hair and purple eyes. But then Rhaegar got obsessed with another prophecy and thought he had to have three children because "the dragon must have three heads".
When it was medically unviable for her to bear more children after two, he got obsessed with the "song of ice and fire" part of the prophecy and pursued Lyanna, a teenage Stark girl, to fulfil it with another child probably because of misinterpreting the failed Pact of Ice and Fire during the Dance of Dragons. I'm gonna bet he even convinced himself that the Starks had Targaryen blood because of it with all those rumours about dragon eggs being left under Winterfell. Lyanna died in childbirth because she was too young and physically unfit to bear a child just yet.
For all the romanticisation that certain parts of the fandom engage in, if his sister Dany was born sooner rather than after his death, Rhaegar would've ditched both women for her to make more prophecy children happen, which is why Jaehaerys II married his sister Shaera and had their children Aerys II and Rhaella marry each other. All in the name of prophecy.
Ultimately, Rhaegar stealing Lyanna and Aerys II's murders of her father and brother and key members of other Houses became the undoing of House Targaryen by triggering Robert's Rebellion. It turned out that Dany herself was that prophecy child and that prophecy might not even mean anything good because she is the Fire Threat personified with her dragons. And Rhaegar's little failed attempt at prophecy children will oppose Dany at the end for a variety of reasons. Thereby creating another kind of Dance of Dragons to wipe out dragons again and throw out the Targaryen dynasty again but also end it for good.
Targaryens didn't have to be like Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy or Aerys The Mad King to be "mad". Targaryen "Madness" includes its obsession with greatness and willing to gamble a number of lives to make it happen.
It's the same reason Aegon V's actions to hatch dragons resulted in the Tragedy of Summerhall almost wiping out his family. The same reason Dany walked into that funeral pyre truly believing she would hatch her dragons when it has backfired a number of times within her family and she just lucked out. Aerion Brightflame believed he could survive drinking wildfire because "fire cannot kill a dragon" and Dany has the same mindset, even if she is a very different person.
Also, like, “Arya’s only nine”, she’s been in sewing classes since she was a toddler. She should be able to embroider and make a few simple things(at age seven, kids in the 19th century were expected to make a shirt, for example). If she doesn’t know how to do simple embroidery, at this point she basically doesn’t want to learn. Sorry, not sorry, these are basic skills.
I absolutely will die on this hill, access to fiction that makes your skin crawl and open discussion about it is the best way to keep that skin crawling fiction from happening in reality.
It doesn't matter if it is ~positively~ or negatively portrayed. If you censor it, we don't talk about it, then we can't protect against it.
21 People Who Forgot A Word And Just Made Some Shit Up
the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.
sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.
you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.
it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.
but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.
they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.
they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.
barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.
and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.
but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.
they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!
this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.
teenage taylor dressed up in vintage ball gowns and was shamed by men in her personal life for not being mature and then she stopped the ‘fairytale’ stories in her head to try and prove herself. now she’s made her way back into the fairytale for a song about coming out of a relationship you didn’t feel appreciated in and learning to appreciate yourself, childlike tendencies and all
i don’t usually bully my boyfriend on the internet but
one of the most life changing articles i’ve ever read.. Years later and i think about it constantly when i take care of kids n am so much more mindful about interactions that seem minor to me but they are the child’s whole world for now
If Arya didn’t know how to read and write, it would be a cause for concern. If the only barrier to her learning to write was not wanting to accept feedback and running out of the room every time someone gave her feedback on her alphabet, even the most ardent fan girl would concede that she was simply spoilt.
Guess what? It’s a preindustrial society, and sewing is as important as reading, and, no, marrying a wealthy guy will not save any woman from that.
Arya is literally refusing to learn a basic life skill and the only argument that her stans can come up with is that she’s basically too precious and special to have to learn.
That’s pathetic.