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Rethinking Romance: Love Stories of ASOIAF


Lala

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:bowdown: A HUGE thanks to booknerd2 for this amazing essay (and for buying some of us more time on our own pairings)! I was just about to log off and run errands right before you posted. I do have to go now, but will be back to discuss. Thanks again! It was a very entertaining read.

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Finally, Gendry/Arya rethinking romance! :bowdown: I don't expect a commoner and a noble will end up together in Martin's planetos but you never know when it comes to Arya (this gurl is somethin'). Thanks booknerd2 for your great essay!

So presently they are separated. Both are quite busy. I don’t see this lasting forever, to put it bluntly. And they are not the only pair separated at any rate,

For some reason, this
popped into my head when I read this lines thinking "what if they meet again..." Warning: It's cheesy.
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Booknerd2 you rock!! Thanks for a most enjoyable read. And the first part of your post about family members who met in kindergarten and got married and how you zoned out on your first read of the series to the point of causing some serious strife with your husband could have been written by me. My sister married a boy she met in Kindergarten with whom she had been friends throughout childhood. When he proposed to her he took her to their kindergarten classroom and had their class picture blown up to a poster size in the room. :D (They're actually not married to each other anymore but still very amicable and we have my beautiful niece because of it all so overall no complaints). And as for when I first read the series, I think a tornado could have come and lifted up my house and transported me to Oz and I wouldn't have known (and my house probably did look like a tornado hit it after a few days of neglect) much to my husband's dismay as I seemingly disappeared from my household for a few days.

ETA In fact, during this period of submersion into the story and extreme neglect of everything in the outside world I had my one and only ASOIAF dream. Yes I actually had a dream related to the books. And guess which characters this dream was about? That's right, Arya and Gendry. Pathetic I know.)

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If we got divorced I worried that he would name the author in the court proceedings. I kid. Anyway…

Every time I am on the iPad and my husband asks what I'm doing and I say the "forum", he groans. :)

Great essay and observations!

Also I wonder if GRRM is a Daphne Du Maurier fan. Sansa and Sandor's relationships has serious overtones of Jamaica Inn and Jaime and Brienne have a resemblance to Rebecca: Cersei obviously being the Rebecca role.

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I love the author’s style regarding pairings. As complicated as real life relationships with people are. Subtly done, work is involved, you have to make the connections, read between the lines, think, deduce, and work with the bones he throws us. In a way, the challenge and mental engagement that the author offers is why most of us probably enjoy the series so much. Nothing is getting spelled out for us entirely.

Yes, yes, yes. He puts it all out there, and I like the way he keeps putting it out there, in case you missed it the first time. He doesn't hide anything, if you don't pay attention, you'll trip over it all.

I thought of my relatives. A couple that has been together since kindergarten. The separations in between, life, destiny or however one views it, bringing them back together in the most coincidental manner several times, and the early name-calling, hair-pulling, teasing, and what not.

That's a great way of putting it. Sort of a Gatsby thing, so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, but some of that is good, when we find what we missed again.

Er, he (the Hound) just took her. What will Gendry think?

I never thought of this before!

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Thanks so much guys for the posts! And thanks again to DogLover, LeCygne, and Lala for this awesome thread idea. You can tell from all the pre-game posts that you guys really tapped into a thread idea that so many have an interest in.

It was a lot of fun and a pleasure to do. I laughed myself silly with some of the humorous parts. God, I can't wait for Book 6, but there is so much to still take a look at with the other 5.

Queen Visenya - I don't know either. They could very well not meet up but I would seriously be awfully surprised. This has to go sort of somewhere. Right? In a way, I know I will sort of be disappointed in the next two books if they don't at least have a run-in.

Elba and Rapsie - Forget the husbands. I was always a voracious reader and my parents would sometimes yell out from downstairs. "Why don't you go outside and stop reading for a bit." And I replied" "What are you talking about? Most people would kill to have their kids read." LOL! And I did go out and play with friends and neighborhood kids. but when I got into a book I love. Forget it! MIA for days.

I actually read Rebecca a long time ago. But it is a classic and of course I remember the gist of it, but I am still rusty. I am no help with that book right now. :dunno:

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I never thought of this before!

by LeCygne

Since they are all a part of the web. This is another issue if the hammer-wielding blacksmith runs into him.

Then again, Brienne, Uncat, BWB, and a few others are going to ask questions, hopefully first, before going for his throat. He really has to watch himself if he leaves the QI. Which makes me think it is better and more likely if someone of the web bunch gets to him at the QI first, a neutral space, so he can 'splain himself and what happened better.

Hope the two future brother-in-laws get along. (wink) ;)

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Also I wonder if GRRM is a Daphne Du Maurier fan. Sansa and Sandor's relationships has serious overtones of Jamaica Inn and Jaime and Brienne have a resemblance to Rebecca: Cersei obviously being the Rebecca role.

I love this! I think I've read everything she has written. In Jamaica Inn, Mary went the way Joss was going.

Hope the two future brother-in-laws get along. (wink) ;)

I bet they would!

Just a note, the presentations are however the contributor chooses, whatever suits their style, serious or funny, casual or formal. This is sort of the love wiki, we were complaining about all of those times you read the wiki pages and there is no lord's kiss, or little bird, or forest lass, or my sun-and-stars, or when the sun has set, or her name on his lips to be found.

Or oh, how could I forget, I dreamed of you. How could that not be there?

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Just a note, the presentations are however the contributor chooses, whatever suits their style, serious or funny, casual or formal. This is sort of the love wiki, we were complaining about all of those times you read the wiki pages and there is no lord's kiss, or little bird, or forest lass, or my sun-and-stars, or when the sun has set, or her name on his lips to be found.

Sounds brilliant. Also how cool is the idea of a Love Wiki? Very me thinks.

I love this! I think I've read everything she wrote. In Jamaica Inn, Mary went the way Joss was going.

Yes, and it was her choice, and unlike Jane Eyre, there is no reform of character in the man. She chooses him, knowing he's not good for her, but he's what she wants.

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Yes, and it was her choice, and unlike Jane Eyre, there is no reform of character in the man. She chooses him, knowing he's not good for her, but he's what she wants.

That's true. He never changed. Well, maybe he'd stay out of trouble with her around. But I think his wildness excited her. The quiet life up north wouldn't have done it for her anymore.

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Interesting idea about Rebecca. The narrator fears seeming gauche all the time. That same word comes up over and over in her internal monologue. It's a pretty good description of Brienne.

That essay about Arya/Gendry brought up a childhood memory. I was friends in with a neighbor across the street during my "tween" years. I didn't notice that I had a little crush on him until he moved to the neighboring city and we lost touch. I always kind of wondered if he would've been my high school sweetheart if he hadn't moved away. I never had one, so it would have been nice. :crying:

OK, I need some wine now! Too bad there isn't a wine drinking emoticon.

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That essay about Arya/Gendry brought up a childhood memory. I was friends in with a neighbor across the street during my "tween" years. I didn't notice that I had a little crush on him until he moved to the neighboring city and we lost touch. I always kind of wondered if he would've been my high school sweetheart if he hadn't moved away. I never had one, so it would have been nice. :crying:

Awww. Lots of childhood memories and romance I'm reading here. So sweet but like your experience, it doesn't always end HEA. With your story, I remember a young love not so sweet love experience of a certain romance author: There was a boy on her neighborhood who had a big crush on her and whenever he sees her he declares his undying love. They never dated though coz the girl was serious on finishing her studies before committing herself in a relationship. She attended a university far from their hometown and haven't seen the guy for a very long time. One summer she went back home and one day she saw the guy passing by but surprisingly he avoided her. She wondered why till she learned from one of her gal pal that the guy who was madly in loved with her got a gurl pregnant and soon-to-be a young daddy. Hmm..undying love, heh? :P

Anyway, I hope that won't happen to Gendry coz he'll be the next maiden's fantasy (not sure if Arya will notice) just like his daddy. I'm not a shipper btw but I can't help becoming one with this kind of thread. Jejejeh...

Hope the two future brother-in-laws get along. (wink) ;)

Just don't tell Gendry that the Hound knocked his she-wolf out with the flat of an axe - all will be well. :P
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Just don't tell Gendry that the Hound knocked his she-wolf out with the flat of an axe - all will be well. :P

And the good thing is that he knows what the Hound looks like from being with Arya and the whole BWB situation. I always think of how hard Brienne's job is looking for people and trying to spot them without ever having seen them. And he totally sassed the Hound for a short dialogue in a Sword of Storms too. Never liked him before he took Arya, sure as hell doesn't like him after either.

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I've been doing some thinking on Arya/Gendry and realised that in some ways it's a ship for a different book. The princess falls in love with a commoner who turns out to be the king's bastard son.It's a ship of hope, of innocence, of future stability. And it is fraught with so much peril: Arya's growing aloofness, Gendry's bitterness against highlords in general and the oncoming winter to name a few.

Fun facts: Gendry is a corruption of "gentry", which means nobleborn/gentlefolk, effectively a perfect fit for a king's son corrupted-so to speak-with common blood.

Arya is the feminine of Aryan, an Indian name that translates as noble.

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Every time I am on the iPad and my husband asks what I'm doing and I say the "forum", he groans. :)

Great essay and observations!

Also I wonder if GRRM is a Daphne Du Maurier fan. Sansa and Sandor's relationships has serious overtones of Jamaica Inn and Jaime and Brienne have a resemblance to Rebecca: Cersei obviously being the Rebecca role.

Oh dear, please send my regards to your husband and say to him that I would find him if he separates you from us :)

My favorite love story, and completely comparable to Sansa/Sandor (I have even done an essay about those parallels), are Levin/Kitty romance from Anna Karenina...There is something truly wonderful in the way these two relationships are built, with Levin's unworthiness to be with Kitty, and her despair over tragic love for Vronsky, the scene in which he sees her come back to Russia, and the moment i which she sees him through his diary... Anna/Vronsky and that obsessive love may be relatable to Cersei/Jaime, but Levin and Kitty love truly depicts the majesty of emotions and true power of love to change and evolve us...

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I've been doing some thinking on Arya/Gendry and realised that in some ways it's a ship for a different book. The princess falls in love with a commoner who turns out to be the king's bastard son.It's a ship of hope, of innocence, of future stability. And it is fraught with so much peril: Arya's growing aloofness, Gendry's bitterness against highlords in general and the oncoming winter to name a few.

To make a case for Gendry possibly re-entering the scene as a player again in the next two books, I have looked at it that way too. I thought of him in the tradition of Greek demigod characters. Perseus, Theseus, and many others. One parent is a god, or a king, well, somebody important. And the other parent is just a regular mortal, not royal/nobility, or whatever. And partly in the Luke Skywalker tradition. Destiny, doesn't know his true background/parentage, etc. Basically, that there is just more ahead for this individual than they could ever know.

I think the Tobho Mott/Gendry/Ned scene is important. Okay, it moves along the Robert has bastards, Ned is finding out about Cersei's deception, and Jon Arryn knew arcs, of course. But the reader is pounded over the head that this kid is a good boy, smart, skilled, strong, good-looking, has credibility, is honest, is himself at all times, isn't a phony, has integrity, money is no object, and many other things too.

Then this person becomes bff's with Arya, such a major character, and then he still makes an appearance later in the series, because, you know, as if he isn't a great person enough, he is protecting orphans, and then saves another wonderful person, the character of Brienne.

It has to go somewhere or be for some reason.

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Yes, and it was her choice, and unlike Jane Eyre, there is no reform of character in the man. She chooses him, knowing he's not good for her, but he's what she wants.

I thought of another, with the two directions, like Mary and Jem in Jamaica Inn, his life and her life, and what they choose. North and South, Margaret and Mr. Thornton. He goes to Helstone because he wanted to see "the place where Margaret grew to what she is," and he brings back the roses.

It's common in a lot of these stories, the different stations, highborn and lowborn, like Arya and Gendry, and even different worlds, like Jon and Ygritte.

Then this person becomes bff's with Arya, such a major character, and then he still makes an appearance later in the series, because, you know, as if he isn't a great person enough, he is protecting orphans, and then saves another wonderful person, the character of Brienne.

Gendry saving Brienne, both protecting the orphans, bringing those two characters together was perfection. And she kept thinking he was Renly.

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