ASOIAF-meme days 3-18

[lilith_morgana]

So, once I tried to do this. I got to day 2. Win!

Day 03 ~ Where would you want to live in the GoT world?

Absolutely nowhere. It's a horrible, unjust world full of horrible people and I'd end up being raped to death wherever I lived, most likely.

Comments

[countouttheday]

I feel like Robert's big redeeming characteristic is that Ned likes him, so the initial image you get of him is as a valiant man gone to seed which is fairly endearing. One of my favorite things about the books is how you get this revelation that the history that you're shown is not necessarily the history that happened (especially with regard to Rhaegar being introduced as being a terrible villain and then later it revealed that he probably wasn't even close to that).

I realize that's not a redeeming characteristic at all, but I think the fact that the initial impression is positive makes a big difference in people's opinions of him, especially because people assume Ned is a good judge of character (though I don't think he is, because he's so black and white in such a nuanced world).

I don't dislike Ned and in fact don't dislike any of the Starks (I mean, Rickon seems like a brat, but I think that might be an issue with me and three year olds in general), but I do dislike the fact that it seems like there's a lot of people who think that this is a story about them and they are the heroes and their enemies the villains. I think GRRM has made it pretty clear that's not the case, but it seems like a lot of people keep the black and white worldview that was Ned's downfall in the first place.

[lilith_morgana]

One of my favorite things about the books is how you get this revelation that the history that you're shown is not necessarily the history that happened

Oh yes, so much. And I agree that it's also a bit odd that people still cling to the first presented history as the right one, when it's being told over and over and over again from different POVs.

I suppose I even initially failed to trust Ned's judgement and that fact alone has coloured my experience of the books and the characters. I don't dislike the Starks either but Ned seemed to me, from the beginning, as someone who would only tell one very specific version of a story and what with people telling me "oh, you'll like these books, they're very grey" I figured his version of the truth was just that, a version.