Am I The Only One Around Here Who V.2

[RhaenysBee]

I'm not. I'm annoyed that people can't decide how ae is supposed to be pronounced in Targ names. 

 

Am am I the only one around here who believes that Lyanna and Rhaegar were star struck lovers who eloped and Rhaegar wasn't a psychopath rapist? 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

No, you're not. There's a good following for that theory. They just usually get drowned out by the anti-Rhaegar and/or anti-Lyanna crowd (I guess they type louder?). 

 

AITOOAHW doesn't make a lot of judgments on the dead characters, since we don't actually know what all happened?

[Annara Snow]

30 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

No, you're not. There's a good following for that theory. They just usually get drowned out by the anti-Rhaegar and/or anti-Lyanna crowd (I guess they type louder?). 

 

AITOOAHW doesn't make a lot of judgments on the dead characters, since we don't actually know what all happened?

I thought that almost no one except Robert Baratheon thinks Rhaegar was a rapist? But there is a divide between the "he loved Lyanna" and the "he just used her for prophecy" crowd. Well, OK, there's also the "it's still rape because of US statutory rape laws" crowd and the "she eloped but then he forced her to stay at the Tower of Joy because she totally hated him after she heard about her father and brother's deaths and wouldn't have stayed there except by force" crowd (because apparently it makes total sense she otherwise would have gone trekking across war-torn Westeros while pregnant, in order to join the rebels in total trust they wouldn't kill her half Targ baby).

You're not the only one, I reserve judgment on a lot of dead characters until we know the full truth.

How do people pronounce the ae in Targ names? I thought it made most sense to pronounce it as the letter ash (AE as one letter, now usually transcribed as AE because most keyboards don't have ash as one letter) from Old English and the International Phonetic Alphabet (sound between a and e). Though I somehow can't bring myself to pronounce it that way in Aegon and Rhaegar, because they sound better with a different e sound. But I do prounounce it as ash in Daenerys, Naerys or Jaehaerys.

AITOOAH who does something like that, or does anyone else have some ASOIAF names they think should logically be pronounced one way, but still can't help prounouncing them differently because it just sounds better?

[Yukle]

That's me all of the time! I pronounce Catelyn as "KAYT-lin," precisely like the real version of the name. Other people, including the show, say "CAT-luhn" which just sounds wrong. I also say "AY-gon," not "EGG-on," because I also like that better.

Am I the only one around here who pictures the characters wearing the same clothing pretty much all of the time? Unless it's explicitly stated I can't help but picture them wearing the colours of their house. So Starks are always in grey and white, Cersei always wears red and yellow and so on.

Except when the characters are nude. Which is frequently, I suppose.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I don't think you're the only one who does that, Yukle, but I'd say those of you who do are in the minority.

As to pronunciation, I gave up for the most part when I found out that GRRM himself pronounces things wrong according to me. Catelyn should be Kate-lyn, but he pronounces it Cat-uh-lyn. And while the Ty in Tywin is a Tie sound, he pronounces Tysha as Tish-uh. I usually use a hard "a" for the "ae" in Targ names, with the same ash exception that Annara uses.

AITOOAHW thinks everyone in Westeros would be a bit more chilled out if they had access to chocolate? Too bad the time setting precludes it. 

[Count Balerion]

I'm not sure chocolate's precluded; you'd just have to call it something mediaeval-sounding, like bowl o' brow... oh, bother. Would coffee help, or make them more wired up? Sorry if this isn't a real answer!

David Peterson (who's only show-canon, admittedly) has the A and E as two separate sounds, and D is something like [DAH-eh-neh-rees] (or [-rüs]. That said, I just call her d'NEH-riss. Aegon becomes AY-gon in my pronunciation.

I don't think R was a rhapist; I don't know if they were lovers or if it was just a prophecy thing, but prefer the former.

Am I ... finds Robert almost a tragic figure, in that he wasn't much use as a king, but he knew it? Then he tried to fix things,but made them worse (although that was mostly Ned's fault).

[Yukle]

I absolutely agree with that. There's no doubt that Robert knew that.

 

AITOOAHW would love a prequel story, written in prose, not as a history, of either the Dance of the Dragons or the Blackfyre Rebellion? And I definitely want a POV from Rhaenyra for the Dance and Brynden in the Blackfyres.

[Count Balerion]

I hadn't thought of it; but the Blackfyre Rebellion could be pretty cool, although we sort of got that with Dunk and Egg.

Am I ... who finds the name Braavos a tad stupid? Actually, I guess nomenclature isn't GRRM's forte.

[Yukle]

Oh? I like that name. And I like most of the names he comes up with, actually.  

 

AITOOAHW is pedantic about stupid real-world things? For instance, oranges aren't a natural plant. They're a crossbreed. So they shouldn't be in a medieval style world of Westeros.

[Annara Snow]

On 12/6/2016 at 3:45 AM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

I don't think you're the only one who does that, Yukle, but I'd say those of you who do are in the minority.

As to pronunciation, I gave up for the most part when I found out that GRRM himself pronounces things wrong according to me. Catelyn should be Kate-lyn, but he pronounces it Cat-uh-lyn. And while the Ty in Tywin is a Tie sound, he pronounces Tysha as Tish-uh. I usually use a hard "a" for the "ae" in Targ names, with the same ash exception that Annara uses. 

I'm glad he pronounces them this way, because these are the correct pronunciations according to me. Catelyn would have been pronounced Cat-uh-lyn - pretty much phonetically - in medieval times, before the great vowel shift that's responsible for most of the weird Modern English spellings. It wouldn't have occurred to someone in Middle Ages to spell Cate and pronounce it as it's pronounced today. Granted, it's not the actual English language and it's not the actual European Middle Ages, but GRRM likes to use medieval names or pronouniciations (Dickon was an actual nickname from Richard, and Eddard is apparently the medieval pronunciation of Edward).

Tysha is the one I'm particularly passionate about, it annoyed the hell out of me to hear Peter Dinklage pronounce it as "Tie-sha". He hasn't read the books so he doesn't know it, but if you pronounce it that way, Tysha's lines from the flashback/memory from Tyrion's last ACOK chapter (which I love - both the chapter and the flashback) doesn't make sense. She says "I love your name. Not Lannister - Tyrion. It goes with mine. Tysha and Tyrion, Tyrion and Tysha." When you pronounce it like Dinklage did, that doesn't work, and it instead goes with "Tywin" (ugh).

Now only if I were to hear him pronounced Margaery with g as in Margaret rather than Marjory, my life would be complete.  I don't have deep reasons for that one, I just dislike the name as they pronounce it on the show. Makes me think of Marge Simpson rather than a medieval princess.

I don't see anything wrong with the name "Braavos"? It sounds pretty good, in fact.

@Yukle: You're probably not the only one, I've seen/heard people go into details about things like fruit or other plants and whether they should or should not exist in Westeros, and things like that. I guess I did just demonstrate I can sort of be really passionate about details, I'm not particularly bothered by this in particular. It's a fantasy series after all, not actual historical fiction, and Westeros is not actually Europe or the British Isles, so any sort of fruit could exist in Westeros. GRRM decided that there is corn in Westeros ("Corn! Corn!"), which is indigenous to Mexico. Unless it's some other plant they call corn, but there's no reason to think that. So, there's no reason why Westerosi wouldn't also be eating/drinking chocolate or baking potatoes or smoking tobacco, if GRRM had decided that way. It's a world with dragons and magic and a lot of other stuff that doesn't exist at all on Earth.

AITOOAH who gets annoyed when people take the "let's look at the ASOAIF historical parallels" approach too far and start assuming that the series is a 1 on 1 retelling or Wars of the Roses and try to predict the ending of the series based on that?

 

[Queen of Procrastination]

No you are not. I get extremely annoyed whenever people people do that. I think it's okay to find historical parallels and GRRM got inspired by historical events. However, I think it actually does  a disservice to the author to assume that he will end the books in a certain way, because of historical parallels. GRRM is not writing a history novel, but a Fantasystory with his own characters and he will find the ending that's best for the story. 

Regarding fruits, animals and plants that shouldn't exist in Westeros: This would annoy me in a historical novel, but I don't have that much of a problem with it when it's fantasy. Unless it is really outlandish. I guess I would be annoyed if we had camels in the lands beyond the wall or polar bears in the Red Waste  

Am I the only one around here who doesn't really participate in the shipping of characters and doesn't have any favourite ships? 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

No, you're not. I'd like it if a few pairings worked out, (Jaime/Brienne, Jon/Val), but if they don't, well it's GRRM ...*shrug*

@Yukle I totally want a BF Rebellion book too, with a Bloodraven POV  Actually, a book with Bloodraven's POV from the beginning to the end of his life in that tree would be the best.

 

AITOOAH who wouldn't mind reading a spin off series set in Braavos or the Far East?

[Queen of Procrastination]

No, you're not. I would love to see this as well. Especially one set in the far east.. Oh and I want the Blackfyre Rebellion spin-off as well and the Bloodraven POV.

Talking about spinoffs: Am I the only one around here who wants a spin-off about Aegon's Conquest? I really want to see Visenya as a POV...

[Count Balerion]

Now that you mention it, a spinoff of Aegon's Conquest would be fun; even reading the summary in WOIAF is one of my favourite parts of that book.

Maybe the raven meant "corn" in the older (still current across the Atlantic) sense of "grain".

Shipping .. that reminds me: am I ... who doesn't necessarily "ship" Sansa and Sandor? But then I don't ship in general. I think Sansa is unusually empthetic (ecept in the case f Arya, where she's quite obtuse), and she understands Sandor pretty well; but that desn't ipso facto make them a couple, does it?

[RhaenysBee]

6 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

Now that you mention it, a spinoff of Aegon's Conquest would be fun; even reading the summary in WOIAF is one of my favourite parts of that book.

Maybe the raven meant "corn" in the older (still current across the Atlantic) sense of "grain".

Shipping .. that reminds me: am I ... who doesn't necessarily "ship" Sansa and Sandor? But then I don't ship in general. I think Sansa is unusually empthetic (ecept in the case f Arya, where she's quite obtuse), and she understands Sandor pretty well; but that desn't ipso facto make them a couple, does it?

Not at all. I think there are a lot of people against SanSan. I didn't like the idea at first either, because Sansa was 11, and Sándor was just creepy and ugly and felt like he was old (later I realized he was only 29 or something). And then I also realized that if I'm a hardcore fan of Daenerys/Drogo, I shouldn't exactly have a problem with the age gap between Sansa and Sandor or Sansa's tender age. So I made peace with SanSan, though with Rory McCann's being himself and having zero chemistry with Sophie, I still don't particularly ship SanSan. 

 

Am I the only one around here who thinks we are all a little hypocritical when it comes to loving and hating characters or ships? We all tend to love this character for this reason but still dislike that character for this reason and love that other character for that reason but hate this other one for that same reason, etc. 

[Raisin' Bran]

I try to be as fair as possible in who I like and do not like. Additionally I think it is ok to like a character trait like intelligence, ruthlessness, or honor, but to not like how far some characters go with that specific trait or how they twist it. Tywin setting up the RW or his punishment of the Reynes at Castamere is overly ruthless, but Tyrion sending Symon Silvertongue into a bowl of brown is "more acceptable".

Defending the honor of your family by fighting a duel is completely acceptable. However, when you choose to abort your daughter's baby for the "honor" of your house, that is way too far.

With that said, yes we as fans and as a fandom show a bit of an hypocritical side in deciding who we like and dislike and why.

@Count Balerion I do not ship, or at least I do not argue why different characters should and should not be a couple.

AITOOAHW feels particularly at peace when reading portions of the books set in Winterfell's Godswood?

[Queen of Procrastination]

No, you are not the Godswood scenes are really soothing. 

@Raisin' Bran: I try to do the same thing, but I agree that the fandom (and I'm including myself here) is a bit hypocritical about it's like or dislike for some characters. 

Am I the only one around here who wants to see a lot more of Alleras/ Sarella in TWOW? 

[RhaenysBee]

I might be a little overconfident when I say: YES. Please don't make me see any more of an obscure sandsnake.

Am I the only one around here who feels like she's seen enough and just wants to get to the point and wrap up the story? 

[Raisin' Bran]

I find myself feeling that way sometimes. But I am sure that will pass once TWOW is finally available.

Am I ... wishes we could have seen more of the Stark sword Ice, or really any VS sword other than Longclaw?

[RhaenysBee]

Yes? I don't exactly have a gaping hole in my heart because we didn't see more swords. 

 

But if we are at it, am I the only one around here who (still) does have a gaping hole in her heart because we never got to see more of Daenerys and Drogo (and rhaego potentially)? I probably am, huh? Well, the Drogo cameo was still the best thing that happened to season 2.