Audrey's Blog

YOU GUYS. YOU GUYSSSSSS. I AM STILL AWAKE BECAUSE THAT EPISODE WAS SO AKSJFHASPIF.

I WILL TRY TO RECAP THE EPICNESS.

I’ve been re-watching season 1 this week and I hadn’t realized until then how much I’ve missed Viserys Targaryen’s crazy ass.

Harry Lloyd really did an excellent job. That’s not sarcasm. Some actors have become their characters so much that I picture them when I read the books. Harry is Viserys to me but I don’t feel that way about Emilia.

Look what came in two weeks ago after Amazon.com told me I wouldn’t get it until July.

So what was that “LOL we’ll give you your book in two months” email all about?

Trolls, I say.

This is why I need to be in school. When I have too much time on my hands, I sit around making shit like this. I’ve given the major houses of Westeros new words.

I’ve calmed down about the Robb/Talisa storyline. Mostly. The scene itself was hot but the timing screws everything up. Having Robb go from “Family is important” to “Mom how dare you release Jaime to free my sisters, you’ve weakened our position” to “I don’t want to marry a Frey girl like I promised” in one episode makes him look like a hypocrite at best and an idiot at worst.

Anyway. I’m calm. Richard Madden’s face can make me forgive a lot of things.

HBO has completely fucked up Robb’s story line. The Crag was completely glossed over. Talisa is not Jeyne. They had sex before Robb learned about Bran and Rickon. And we didn’t even get a good nude shot!

“It’s a very important bridge.” “I don’t want to marry the Frey girl.” Oh my GOD. Book!Robb was never that stupid. He knew dissing the Freys would cause problems.

They’ve made a lot of changes this season but most of them have seemed to be about simplifying the source material or stretching out thin story lines (Jon & Dany). This just makes no sense. 

HBO? I left a party early to come back to this shit?

I don’t even want to get into what they did to Cat. 

I’m going to a party tonight at 7 so I’ll probably miss GOT tonight. I know I’m going to spend half the party wondering if Robb Stark’s naked ass has broken tumblr yet.

THERE BETTER BE GIFS AND DOWNLOADS BY THE TIME I GET BACK.

Also. HBO. I was promised young wolf nudity. If you made me sit through all those Ros scenes and then deny me this we are fucking done professionally.

I promise I write things that aren’t fandom related. Here’s proof. I usually write fiction, not poetry but the following sonnet is one of two that is included in a chapbook my classmates and I are releasing.

Sonnet After a Hurricane

When I was little, there was a beach here.

Where the beach once was is now a place where

Sea meets shore. The shore was not strong enough

To withstand storms. They laid waste to shorelines

And battered piers. What survived is now dead.

People bruised as the sand on which they walk.

I never saw the storms only heard talk

After the sea had pulled back to its bed

Walls were rebuilt as the salty wind whined.

By the time I returned clouds were a puff

In the sky when they had been thick as air

Mixed with black smoke. Storms leave behind their fear.

It’s hard for me to know what the waves took

And what lies concealed begging a second look

Copyright Audrey Weinbrecht, 2012

God help me. The semester’s over, I have nothing to pull me away from my asoiaf obsession.

I want to address the prevailing opinion amongst some people in the fandom that the Red Wedding was all Robb’s fault. Mostly because the thought behind that seems to be “Freys? What Freys? ROBB’S PENIS OF DEATH KILLED EVERYTHING.”

I’m not going to deny that breaking the marriage contract was a huge tactical error but was Robb somehow supposed to know that the Freys would respond by violating the sacred rights of hospitality and killing everyone in sight? Even Catelyn, who was horrified when she heard of the Westerling marriage, never saw the betrayal coming.

There were many other factors that contributed to Robb’s downfall many of which were beyond his control. The sack of Winterfell, Stannis’ defeat at Blackwater, the Lannister alliance with the Tyrells and Catelyn freeing Jaime were also contributing factors. (No, I’m not blaming Cat, calm down.)

Ultimately the Red Wedding wasn’t about a broken promise, it was about political opportunism. Hence Tywin Lannister’s involvement. The Boltons, Freys and Westerlings all profited from their role in the betrayal. Robb tried to earn loyalty, the Lannisters bought it and in a Kingdom like Westeros you can’t win a game by playing fair if everyone else is cheating.

Short version: Let’s blame murder on the killers and not the victims. Okay?

Now on to part 2 of my rant.

I wish GRRM had given Robb a POV at least in ACOK. (Abbreviations are fun!) I understand that he wanted to have the kings described by the people closest to them and for the most part that choice works. Robb’s story is told from Cat’s POV but she’s separated from him during most of ACOK. The choices Robb makes during that time echo down through the rest of the series. It would have nice to have a first hand account of why he made them. Robb was incredibly naïve and impulsive but there was a thought process behind his actions and I don’t think he shared all of it with his mother.

That’s why I was excited that HBO was expanding Robb’s storyline this season. Breaking out of the POV structure allows us to learn more about underrepresented characters.

However…I have no idea what the hell HBO is going for with Robb. The writing is really shallow. As much as I enjoy seeing Richard Madden make sex eyes at everything, I was hoping for a deeper look at his character. (Read: get his clothes off already!)