u/PrestigiousAspect368

I saw this post https://www.reddit.com/r/darkwingsdankmemes/comments/1wm3c77/asoiaf_characters_and_their_favorite_clit/

and it got me thinking, what classic novels would be the character's favourites? I am sure Daemon would love Lolita, I think Bloodraven would love Arthur Machen's great god pan.
what do you guys think

So, this is a theme I often notice, characters who dress with ostentation are framed as foolish, wasteful, or generally negative and it is usually the antagonist characters who do so. But characters like Ned, Blackfish, Stannis, Davos, etc are always dressed simply. Where as characters like Cersei, Robert, Theon, Rhaenyra are all noted for their love of style, and splendour.

Like Catelyn vs Cersei; little attention is payed to the way Catelyn dresses where as Cersei's outfit is always noted in almost every scene and sh nearly always wears emeralds, and is always dressed in red or gold. In fact the only time Ned thinks of her as beautiful is when she is dressed simply.

She came to him at sunset, as the clouds reddened above the walls and towers. She came alone, as he had bid her. For once she was dressed simply, in leather boots and hunting greens. ...She sat beside him on the grass. Her every move was graceful. Her curling blond hair moved in the wind, and her eyes were green as the leaves of summer. It had been a long time since Ned Stark had seen her beauty, but he saw it now. "I know the truth Jon Arryn died for," he told her.

And, a transformation of ostentation to a more humble dress style sometimes accompanies a character arc. Like Jaime who goes from robbing in gold and gilt

The line parted before him. On a golden breastplate, the lion of Lannister roared its defiance.

To preferring the clean white of the king's guard. Which Cersei notes with distaste

"Gold? Or silver?" Cersei plucked a hair from beneath his chin and held it up. It was grey. "All the color is draining out of you, brother. You've become a ghost of what you were, a pale crippled thing. And so bloodless, always in white." She flicked the hair away. "I prefer you garbed in crimson and gold."

He even associates, ostentation and colour with darker deed and white and simplicity with white.

When he descended for the feast that night, Jaime Lannister wore a doublet of red velvet slashed with cloth-of-gold, and a golden chain studded with black diamonds. He had strapped on his golden hand as well, polished to a fine bright sheen. This was no fit place to wear his whites. His duty awaited him at Riverrun; a darker need had brought him here.

Cersei has a similar transformation forced upon her, after her walk she dressed as Kevan describes
"The queen was dressed as modestly as any matron, in a dark brown gown that buttoned up to her throat and a hooded green mantle that covered her shaved head."

Just a theme I find interesting

Books about the power of books during times of terror, tyranny and opression

"The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly"

Only the professor can make a passage about something ugly,sound so beautiful and flow so well

so, we are told this "f she went willingly I would be most surprised, but she had neither the knowledge nor the force of will to turn him."

The strength of will, part is fairly straight forwardd we now that dragons are wilful beast, even Dany struggles with Drogon a great deal and it stands to reason that Balerion being 200 years old, and steeped in blood and history would be a force of will in his own right.

but it is use of the word "knowledge" that interest me, it implies there was something intrinsic about dragon riding Aerea did not know. We know Joffrey makes a similar mistake mounting Syrax without "benefit of whip or saddle."

Did Aerea hop onto his back without a whip? but not all targaryens seem to use a whip, the first time its mentioned in the context of the book was Rhaenys and Meleys.

Or is it something deeper? like she didn't know how to activate the dragon rider mind meld?

I have already read most of the books by Foryth, and I am looking for books or authors of a similar style or subject matter

So, I was thinking and I realised the trope of a man with two sister wives, with the younger wife being more loved is quite common.

For example Jacob, Leah and Rachel. Obviously there are differences and Jacob, Leah and Rachel are not dragon riding conquerers, but there are similarities with them being the ancestors/patriachs of nation/family.

Jacob like Aegon married the older sister (Visenya, Leah) for tradition and the younger for love (rachel and Rhaenys). In both cases, the younger predeceases the older sister and the husband by a number of years, Rhaenys dies at hellholt, Rachel in childbed.

And again both Rhaenya and Rachel are not reunited with the older sister and husband in death. Leah and Jacob are buried together as Aegon and Viseny's entered together on dragonstone. (interestingly Maegor's ashes are also interred with his parent, the targaryens treat the remains of other targaryens even enemies with respect.) While Rachel was buried else where and Rhaneys' body was probaby crushed beyond recognition when meraxes rolled and writhed about in her dying.

Aegon prefered the sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin due to his love and grief for their mother, As Aegon prefered the son of Rhaenys Aenys. the difference being that Visenya's line dies out, But Leah's lives on.

Another parellel is Adam, Eve and Lilth.