Templating ASOIAF

[Kappa]

So this conversation was happening on tumblr, but tumblr is kind of crap at these things. I'll assemble all the quotes from the main reply chain:

I wonder what a Bell would do with Westeros.

I was thinking about Effulgence characters in Westeros earlier and the only thing I’m sure of is Tony would be a smith who could reforge Valyrian Steel (and also possibly rediscover how to create new Valyrian steel).

Dragons are probably the best Westeros magic for empire building and even with them no has managed to take over more than a continent. So a Westeros Bell would probably need to meet her alts before taking over the world. I could see a boy Bell studying at the Citadel and becoming a Maester.

Yeah, I was thinking about this more today! I could definitely see Bella doing the Daenarys thing, except smarter. Sailing around, conquering cities, mothering dragons, and dismantling oppressive social institutions are all very Bellish things to do (and she wouldn’t trust shady rich people or assume everyone in Westeros would automatically accept her, either). I suppose this wouldn’t quite mesh with the Bell template background, though.

If there’s a Joker, he’d probably end up on the Wall somehow, and immediately fuck off to join the wildlings. Bella would probably come into contact with him because of course she would be the only one to think, “Hey, maybe we should put the royal power struggles on hold and focus on the army of ice zombies coming to attack us.”

The Starks would be…Starks, probably, but that’s all I’ve got there. I like your blacksmith idea, though!

Maybe a Fem!Joker with a Craster-like figure for a father?

I really need to read more before have any idea beyond “everyone would suffer”

Ooh, that’s a pretty great idea! But yeah, maximum suffering.

Yup, but now I am remembering that Martin doesnt allow fanfiction, so it could never happen :/

Oh. That’s unfortunate.

I guess the best idea would be if Cam was to become a maester and discovered some kind of magic secret in the citadel, which he could use himself? Maybe he goes to the starks for help?

Me: Martin doesn’t *allow* fanfiction? how is that a thing?
Alicorn: I don’t know how it would be enforced, but apparently someone thinks we care.
Me: Oh. That’s cute.

There’s kinds and kinds of not allowing fanfiction. I mean, is he the kind who writes grumpy essays about it, or the kind who scours it from the internet with fire and brimstone and lawyers?

From what I’ve seen of GoT via dashboard osmosis, a) you could not pay me enough to read those books or watch that show, and b) I could see a Joker as Daenerys. I could also see a James in Daenerys’s plot role, but not so much in her family situation; Jokers are more flexible on the family aspect. The Starks=Starks thing is pretty obvious, but might be more complicated in practice because there’s an attractor for it to be the Maria who carries any kind of bloodline-related specialness like nobility or genetically heritable magic. I have no idea what a maester is.

No but I totally want a Joker being sold to a barbarian ruler who turns out to love her like nothing else and then snuggling a bunch of dragons and going out to wreck some shit.

Grumpy essays, I think. I mean I’ve never heard of him suing anyone and there’s a bunch of ASOIAf fanfiction on ao3 and some on tumblr and a few on fanfiction.net so if he is scouring the web he is doing a very poor job.

You could make Maria daughter to the Lord of Winterfell and have all the male heirs die and then she’d inherit. That would take care of the magic/warging - warging is the ability to enter the mind of animals and control them and is a power the Starks have - but nobility really only marries other nobility in Westeros so I can’t think of anyway to make the Tony and Sherlock’s dad not be a noble. You could make him a minor noble but I don’t know if that makes a difference to the attractor.

The thing is that Howard still provides the Stark name. I could do it if I made the Maria belong to another family that was either more noble, more magic, or both.

Also, having thought about it some more, I would absolutely need to include a James in this. I mean, in this thing I’m still totally not going to do because I could not bring myself to consume the source material. But it’s fun to think about. XD Like, if the whole premise of the series is “people scheming and counter-scheming to get themselves or their favoured candidate in power; lots of people die in the process, also nobody cares enough about the army of ice zombies”, a Libby is required. A Bell might not be able to get it done alone, and a Bell and a dragon-snuggling Joker might only-barely be able to get it done together, but a Bell, a dragon-snuggling Joker, a Stark set, and a Libby… now we’re talking. And doesn’t Daenerys have some kind of extra-special claim or something? Okay, so the Libby’s setup would be: Dragon-Snuggling Joker as the ruler-in-name with final say, advised by the Libby herself as a background player and by the Bell installed in some appropriate minimally public-facing position with considerable direct power over domestic policy decisions and allocation of resources; Sherlock retained as bodyguard and occasional assassin; Tony sent with some dragons and maybe an army or something to go handle the ice zombies.

The only families who are more noble than the Starks are the Baratheons and the Targaryens, the current and past royal family respectively. Marrying a Stark to a Targaryen wouldn’t really fit with ASOIAF backstory. There’s no appropriate Baratheon in canon (all of the Baratheons we hear about are male) but if one of the Baratheons were gender-flipped or a new woman character who was a Baratheon was created a Stark Baratheon marriage would make sense considering they are allies.

Daenerys claim is that she is that after her brothers death she is the only known surviving heir of the previous dynasty who were outed during a war after the King went insane and started killing powerful nobles including two Starks (the Lord and his heir).

If Sherlock’s going to be a bodyguard/occasional assassin he could be a member of the Kingsguard which is a group of 7 knights sworn to protect the King and has historically included some of the best fighters in Westeros .

I could see a Bell or Libby as Hand of The King/Queen. The Hand of the King/Queen is the king’s/queen’s chief advisor and most powerful person in westeros bar the king/queen. The hand can do pretty much anything unless it conflicts with what the King/Queen says and they often take care of the day to day running of the Kingdom. It is kind of a public-facing role though so I’m not sure how well it would fit a Bell and it isn’t really in the background either so it mightn’t suit a Libby.

For minimally public facing positions for a Bell, master of coin could work. The Master of Coin is basically the Westeros equivalent to Minister of Finance or The Secretary of the Treasury. The master of coin has considerable power and is one of the most powerful positions the King can appoint someone to other than hand of the King.

It occurs to me that maybe this should be a thread on Alicorn’s forum, for ease of formatting… XD Interested in making one?

A Libby will take a non-background position if she’s the best one around to fill it. Hand of the <Monarch> (Dragon-Snuggling Joker is likely to be female, so probably Queen) sounds like something that it’s pretty important to get right, so she’d take it if there weren’t any other stellar candidates and it was important to fill the position. Master of Coin sounds like a good place to put a Bell as far as a Libby is concerned. The deal is that GoT sounds like the kind of world where it is really extremely important to have all your public-facing people be good at public-facing (where “public-facing” means “visibility to anyone not firmly your ally or loyal subordinate”), so she would want to maximize an available Bell’s actual power while minimizing the extent to which they have to interact with anyone who might need manipulating.

I feel like girling the Tony and Sherlock, for no particular reason except that I really like the mental image of a medieval blacksmithing dragon-riding Iron Maiden. :D And girl Sherlocks are deadlier than boy ones in worlds where sexism is a factor.

Sure, what sub-forum would a thread for this go in? Storytime maybe (the effulgence fandom ideas thread is there and this is along similar lines)?

It’s important to be good at public-facing but maybe not as important as you think I mean Ned was hand of the king and he wasn’t really skilled at public-facing. Being Hand of the King didn’t end well for him but that was more about being naive and utterly lacking in cunning than being bad at public facing stuff.

"medieval blacksmithing dragon-riding Iron Maiden" that would be so awesome.

(I'm shitifindon in case that isn't clear.)

I think what I meant by "public-facing" might not be exactly what came across... there seems to be a lot of people work in this universe, where "people work" means anything from "figuring out who is and isn't betraying you" to "propaganda and reputation-handling" to "diplomacy". Bells tend to gravitate to or seem best suited for the "I have a lot of power and you literally can't hurt me, so hop to it" administrative/diplomatic style on the political stage, which would be impossible to pull off in this world since "Anyone Can Die" seems like a pretty basic law of the universe there. A Libby would want to put a Bell in a position where they could do the things they are good at (analyzing and implementing policy/administrative decisions) without having to handle the things they aren't good at (dealing with people who aren't solidly in their corner and might be dangerous if mishandled, which is apparently most of everybody).

[Paradox]

Ah, I was thinking more like making speeches and keeping the various Lords happy and winning over allies in relation to public-facing and not so much working out if someone is going to betray you. Most positions of power in Westeros usually have to have a degree of watching out for betrayals and so on. If there was a Joker Queen with a relatively secure position though Bell could probably avoid a lot of it if people knew that manipulating/betraying her would anger the Queen and Bell wasn't in a position which had a lot of direct dealing with the various lords of Westeros involved. Maybe having Bell meet the Joker while she is still building her army, freeing slaves and so on and then returning with her and assuming a position of power when she goes to claim the throne in Westeros could work.

I've been thinking about Tony more, I mentioned that Tony could rediscover how to make Valyrian Steel and that could dovetail nicely with Tony being sent with dragons and/or and army to face the others (i.e. the ice zombie army) because it has been speculated by characters in series that the Others have a weakness against Valyrian steel. So Tony discovering how to make it when the Others are approaching would be extremely helpful.

[Kappa]

What the heck is Valyrian steel anyway? XD Whatever it is, it sounds like something a Tony could make.

Making speeches is actually something a Joker Queen would be good at - Jokers have a particular talent for addressing crowds, although it doesn't see a whole lot of use in extant Effulgence. Libbies are good at assessing and handling individual people, especially wrt motivations and goals, especially analytically; Jokers are good at picking up on moods and finding people's buttons, on both individual and collective levels, especially intuitively.

[Marri]

It's stronger and lighter than other swords and it doesn't require sharpening. Wiki page here if you care. I generally think of it as the Westeros version of Toledan steel.

[Kappa]

Nifty. Okay, so maybe Howard is really into the Valyrian steel revival project but can't get anywhere with it, and then Tony figures it out once supplied with sufficient dragons. This falls together surprisingly well! XD

[Paradox]

Yeah, Valyrian Steel is basically magic steel which is stronger and lighter than any other weapons that can be made which can probably harm the Others. There isn't really a lot known about it other than that except that since people do not know how to make it valyrian steel weapons are now treated as heirlooms/status symbols.

There is a fair bit of variance in what each hand does and making speeches isn't a huge part of it, it's just one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of public-facing stuff in general, so a joker Queen could make all the speeches that need to be made while Libby handles people individually.

[Kappa]

Heh. Yeah, I'm seeing a Joker Queen being especially good at two things wrt People Stuff - handling the population via speeches/public actions, and intimidating the shit out of anyone who needs it. Probably she goes around accompanied by at least one dragon at all remotely feasible times, for cuddling and intimidation purposes. :D

[Marri]

Other Libby options: Varys or Littlefinger. Both have extensive spy networks, which are extremely Libbylike (though Littlefinger is also Master of Coin, so not sure how that would work with a Master of Coin Bell.)

[Kappa]

A Libby who happened to be occupying the position of Master of Coin at the time that she became aware of an available Joker Queen and an available Bell would certainly not hesitate to implement the plan as written.

[Paradox]

I think out of those two Libby would make more sense as Varys especially since Varys has been revealed to be working to return the throne to the Targaryens and Libby's endgame has the joker as Queen. I mean they want it for different reasons but they are working in a similar direction.

Since Sherlock is in a bodyguard/assassin role I could see Sherlock ending up training with the Faceless Men. The Faceless men are a group of assassins who have magic powers that make them capable of completely changing their appearance. There is also a weird religious aspect to how the group treats killing kind of like The Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls if you're familiar with it.

Also what counts as more noble? Does it have to be actual noble rank or do things like being richer effect it as well? Because if riches count for nobility, House Hightower could qualify as both more noble and more magic than the Starks so they could be an appropriate family for Maria to come from.