Win or Die
Name: Gehayi (I don't like my real first name and rarely share it online.)
How did you find out about the community? If it's through an LJ user, please tell us who it is (individual user if possible, not just a community name!): Tumblr. I think I heard about it through a user called thestarkathighgarden.
Age: 50
Location: Connecticut
Occupation: Freelance Editor
All About You
1. Describe your ideal house/home. Please go into as much detail as possible, and be sure to include your ideal geographical location in the description!
I want my house to be located in the tropics, where it's always, always warm, and I want the electric wires leading to and from the house to be underground. (Where I currently live, it can snow, sleet or hail anywhere from October to May, and I am very, very tired of having to worry about snow and ice eight months out of twelve and windstorms blowing down above-ground wires the other four.) And if the house ever does require heat, I'd like it to be heated with geothermal energy, so that I won't ever have to worry about running out.
Other than that, the house would be one story tall (so that I needn't bother about stairs), light, airy and cool of temperature without being downright cold. At the west end of the house, there would be an enormous library, so big that you could get lost in it, equipped with an extremely knowledgeable librarian-I've always envisioned Lucien from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series-and several small robots who will be able to fly/levitate to the upper shelves and get me books that I want to read but can't reach.
There will be a pool inside the house, so that I can swim in complete privacy and not ever have to worry about people laughing at me because my body is stocky or because my legs are twisted.
I don't much care about the rest, so long as the furniture is sturdy and built for someone with wide hips and swollen legs. It doesn't matter if the house is fancy or beautiful-I just want it to be comfortable and not be a problem.
2. Imagine you’re given the classic opportunity: a genie granting you three wishes. What would you wish for? Please be as elaborate as you can. Wishing for more wishes is not permitted!
Oh, this one is EASY.
a) Perfect health for the rest of my life. I'd ask for this as I have two conditions that are considered totally disabling, a familial tendency toward depression, and very bad eyesight. I would like to be healthy and NOT disabled.
b) Permanently self-perpetuating riches. The constant struggle to pay bills and debts and taxes out of Social Security disability is exhausting; I feel like Sisyphus perpetually pushing a rock uphill. I am very, very tired of being poor and being depressed about it. I want to be obscenely rich. Yes, I have heard that money doesn't buy happiness-but since most of my unhappiness stems from not having enough money, I'll take the chance.
c) Politicians all over the world to stop denying people rights just because they're i) women, ii) some ethnic/racial minority, iii) a minority religion/unpopular religion, iv) somewhere on the QUILTBAG spectrum, v) suffering from some form of physical, mental or emotional disability, or vi) any combination thereof. (I would say that I’d wish for politicians to stop being douches, but when it comes to wishes, I think it’s better to be as literal and as specific as possible.)
3. In your life so far, what accomplishment are you the most proud of? Why? You can list more than one if you have trouble deciding. ;)
Surviving an infection that was supposed to kill me, learning to walk again, writing a novel-length work (granted, a fanfic novel, but a novel) and parlaying beta-reading fanfic into a career as a freelance editor.
4. Which of the following is most important to you: Love, Money, Knowledge, Family, Friendship, Adventure, or Pleasure? Which is the least important to you? Please explain why for each choice.
I'll give these to you in order:
a) Friendship. I wouldn't have survived most of the hell of the past decade without my friends.
b) Knowledge. This is a given. I'm a geek-I'm always reading or researching. I research even when I don't have to because I'm curious.
c) Money. I did explain why money is important, yes?
d) Pleasure. Well, of course I want things in my life that'll give me pleasure. It's slightly below money because it's impossible to obtain most things that give me pleasure-like heat or books-without money.
e) Adventure. Adventures are uncomfortable and often expensive things, and I've had quite enough challenges in my life so far. At this point, I just want my life to go smoothly. I would rather read about adventures than have them.
f) Family. Family is of very little importance to me. My blood relatives have not bothered to acknowledge me for fourteen years, and only did so before that because they thought my aunt would leave them more money if they did.
g) Love. I assume this means "romantic love" and/or "sex", as those are the ways that love is generally defined in fandom. Neither is my thing.
5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
I've been trying to think of a quote or passage that describes me in some way for about two months, and I honestly don't think that there is one. There are a lot of quotes that I like, but they don't have anything to do with me.
I don't know what to do about this question. I can't answer it honestly; I don't know anything quotable that fits.
6. How do you manage your money? On that note, how important is money/financial security to you? Go into as much detail as you can.
I try to save some while paying off bills. This is not easy, as Social Security is peculiarly not designed to allow anyone to live on it, and I can only earn limited amounts of money per month in additional to Social Security…which I cannot afford to give up or lose, because freelancing =/= steady salary. This is probably why money and financial security are so overwhelmingly important to me-I have neither.
7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
Reading is a big one. I love genre fiction-fantasy, science fiction, mystery and some young adult-as well as biographies, non-fiction history, literary criticism, and science and inventions now and again. I also love poetry, but I would rather read it on the Web these days; I tend to find more poetry there that's by modern poets, many of whom are women and/or people of color and/or people from countries other than mine. I also love logic puzzles-again, this is mostly an online thing these days-and playing Fallen London (formerly Echo Bazaar), which…you have to play it to understand how weird it is, but check out the TV Tropes page. I also spend a lot of time watching Blip.tv (mostly reviewers), Hulu (mostly Rifftrax) and Netflix Streaming (for anything that the reviewers recommend). Oh, and I watch two shows a week on the television: Once Upon a Time and A Game of Thrones.
8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
Darkness. I have very poor eyesight and virtually no night vision. Darkness scares me because I'm afraid that someday I'll open my eyes and not see anything at all.
Mice/rats. I'm terrified of both to the point where I can't even look at pictures of them.
Insects/arachnids/cephalopods. I think that the main issue with the bugs and octopodes is that they have too many legs/limbs. Looking at them literally makes my skin creep. Having the ceiling of my kitchen invaded by a massive colony of wasps a couple of years back did NOT help matters.
9. Name (and elaborate on) your top three BEST and top three WORST qualities (personality-related, not physical). Please answer as fully as you can, as this is an important question.
Best:
a) Determination. In my normal state of mind, I just don’t quit. This helps me fight the tendency toward procrastination that’s one of my worst traits.
b) Loyalty. If you and I are friends, I’ll be loyal to you no matter what. This doesn’t mean that I’ll agree with you about everything-far from it-but it does mean that I’ll stick by you and try to help you, whatever you’re going through.
c) Kindness. Though I strive to be both honest and kind, it isn’t always possible to be both, so when I have to choose, I generally go for kindness. Honesty can be honestly ruthless.
Worst:
i) I don’t forgive people who betray me or mine, no matter what happens. I don’t cut deliberate malice any slack. (Note that cruelty isn’t enough; you have to be intentionally cruel.)
ii) I procrastinate. I shouldn’t, but I do, and sometimes it gets me into trouble.
iii) I’m prone to depression. I don’t mean unhappiness; I mean the black, crushing, utter despair that’s clinical depression. It reduces me to a grimdark state that makes Martin’s world look blissful by comparison.
A Song of Ice and Fire Related
1. How many books from the series have you completed?
The five main books and "The Hedge Knight", "The Sworn Sword" and "The Mystery Knight".
2. Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
This is very tough. Tyrion and Dany WERE my favorites until ADWD. Now…no. After that book, it became a case of "Who do I still like?"
a) Sansa Stark. Sansa gets huge points from me for adapting to a number of horrific situations and even managing to grow. She also has a great character arc. She's kind. She's patient. She's becoming very good at spotting patterns in people's behavior. And after all the awful things that have happened to her, I just want to hug her and bring her somewhere safe. I'm torn between hoping that she learns from Petyr Baelish, outsmarts him at his own game and builds a good life for herself somewhere (whether at Winterfell or not) and being terrified for her because this is Martin and you KNOW that nothing goes well for any character in Martin's works.
b) Samwell Tarly. I love Sam. I love him for being a hero who doesn't realize it-a guy who admits to being frightened of almost everything (which takes courage of a special sort in his society, not that he realizes it), but who'll take a stand even when it isn't popular, who'll save a girl and her baby because it's right, and who'll understand how different people think and why. He's a genuinely good person who won't make false promises and who will do his utmost for those he cares about. AND he's fat. There are so few heroes who are fat.
c) Asha Greyjoy. Asha strikes me as one of the better choices for leader, as she's figured out that her people can't hold the North and that peace and prosperity are more valuable than warfare, especially in a very brief autumn already marked by snowstorms. She's also able to see the value in reading (which most of her people don't) and the importance of having intelligent, powerful and wealthy allies. She's also bright and snarky as hell. It just makes me tired that the Iron Islanders passed her over for Euron. (I knew it would happen, as he was so obviously awful, but it still makes me tired that the main thing disqualifying her was, "But you're a GIRL!)
3. Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
a) Walder Frey. I'm Scottish. I was brought up on the importance of guestright. Hell, Scotland has both history and songs about what happens if a host betrays and kills his guests. (See also: Massacre of Glencoe.) So he upsets me on a visceral level; it was drilled into me from a very young age that something like the Red Wedding is treachery so fundamental that it does not compute. It hurts-like when it thunders or when a huge truck goes by, and you feel the vibration in your bones. It's that basic. So Frey sickens me.
And yes, I know that people have done far worse in this series, but those don't involve ideas I heard from the time that I was a toddler.
b) Ramsay Bolton. I hate him. It's that simple. He doesn't intrigue me. He doesn't interest me. He is a vicious torturer and mutilator who hurts people for his own entertainment and for his own sense of power, and I want him dead. If I were allowed to choose, I'd have him eaten alive by one of the Others.
c) Theon Greyjoy. Let me get this out of the way right now-no, he did not deserve what happened to him. What happened to him is the stuff of nightmares and guarantees that I will never willingly re-read A Dance With Dragons.
That said, I never liked him. Even when he was living in Winterfell, I did not like him. He came across as snotty and entitled at Winterfell; back home, he was snotty, entitled and confused as to why everyone in the Iron Islands wasn't bowing to him; he was self-righteous and odious as the conqueror of Winterfell and the killer of two small boys; and as Reek, he was positively repellent. (Yes, I remember him trying to redeem himself; I wondered for a long time if that was a dream or a hallucination.)
4. #1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
I'm torn between Bran waking up, Jaime saving Brienne in the bear-pit and Sam fixing the election for Commander of the Night's Watch. I can relate to waking up from a coma and having to rebuild your entire life from there. The scene in the bear-pit shows Jaime's and Brienne's courage and quality to great effect. And Sam had to figure out what everyone wanted from a leader and how to get them to agree-something that few people ever bother to do in this series…including the candidates for commander. It was nice to see someone using their intelligence for everyone's good.
5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
Tyrion ends up learning, over time, that his philosophy of blaming slaves for being slaves is completely wrong.
Tysha turns out to be the Waif that Arya met in the House of Black and White (her backstory was a lie and her age an exaggeration). After this is revealed to Cersei and Jaime, there's a big scene in which Myrcella and Tommen are in mortal danger and Tysha just has to stand back and do nothing-and she saves them. "Tywin Lannister taught this woman how cruel and petty it was to make war on children." Jaime is convinced that she wants revenge, and she admits that she does, but since she was gang-raped because of Tywin's orders and Tywin is dead, let it end with him. Jaime protests that he wronged her as well. Tysha smiles. "When this one came to the House of the Many-Faced God, she made an offering and asked that the false knight whose lies cost this one so much learn the cost of lies and what it is like to be unable to defend himself. She asked that her husband learn what it is to be poor and helpless, with every man's hand turned against him. The god has accepted. This one has had her vengeance." She glances at Myrcella and Tommen. "They will need their parents in the winter. You will need them in the spring. Take care of them." And she vanishes.
Sam Tarly becomes a healer at the Citadel and marries Gilly; Sam and Gilly go back to the Wall and become absolutely crucial in the War against the Others. Bran becomes a wizard without turning into a tree (Coldhands and the Reeds save him from that).
Brienne saves both Stark girls and becomes a member of Dany's Queensguard. Jeyne Poole is spirited out of the North and joins Brienne and the Stark girls, Arya putting her skills to use as a dragonrider-in-training and Sansa gaining political savvy for her eventual role as Queen of the North. Asha Greyjoy becomes Dany's Master of Ships and has masses of adventures before being crowned Queen of the Iron Islands after the Winter of the Others.
How did you find out about the community? If it's through an LJ user, please tell us who it is (individual user if possible, not just a community name!): Tumblr. I think I heard about it through a user called thestarkathighgarden.
Age: 50
Location: Connecticut
Occupation: Freelance Editor
All About You
1. Describe your ideal house/home. Please go into as much detail as possible, and be sure to include your ideal geographical location in the description!
I want my house to be located in the tropics, where it's always, always warm, and I want the electric wires leading to and from the house to be underground. (Where I currently live, it can snow, sleet or hail anywhere from October to May, and I am very, very tired of having to worry about snow and ice eight months out of twelve and windstorms blowing down above-ground wires the other four.) And if the house ever does require heat, I'd like it to be heated with geothermal energy, so that I won't ever have to worry about running out.
Other than that, the house would be one story tall (so that I needn't bother about stairs), light, airy and cool of temperature without being downright cold. At the west end of the house, there would be an enormous library, so big that you could get lost in it, equipped with an extremely knowledgeable librarian-I've always envisioned Lucien from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series-and several small robots who will be able to fly/levitate to the upper shelves and get me books that I want to read but can't reach.
There will be a pool inside the house, so that I can swim in complete privacy and not ever have to worry about people laughing at me because my body is stocky or because my legs are twisted.
I don't much care about the rest, so long as the furniture is sturdy and built for someone with wide hips and swollen legs. It doesn't matter if the house is fancy or beautiful-I just want it to be comfortable and not be a problem.
2. Imagine you’re given the classic opportunity: a genie granting you three wishes. What would you wish for? Please be as elaborate as you can. Wishing for more wishes is not permitted!
Oh, this one is EASY.
a) Perfect health for the rest of my life. I'd ask for this as I have two conditions that are considered totally disabling, a familial tendency toward depression, and very bad eyesight. I would like to be healthy and NOT disabled.
b) Permanently self-perpetuating riches. The constant struggle to pay bills and debts and taxes out of Social Security disability is exhausting; I feel like Sisyphus perpetually pushing a rock uphill. I am very, very tired of being poor and being depressed about it. I want to be obscenely rich. Yes, I have heard that money doesn't buy happiness-but since most of my unhappiness stems from not having enough money, I'll take the chance.
c) Politicians all over the world to stop denying people rights just because they're i) women, ii) some ethnic/racial minority, iii) a minority religion/unpopular religion, iv) somewhere on the QUILTBAG spectrum, v) suffering from some form of physical, mental or emotional disability, or vi) any combination thereof. (I would say that I’d wish for politicians to stop being douches, but when it comes to wishes, I think it’s better to be as literal and as specific as possible.)
3. In your life so far, what accomplishment are you the most proud of? Why? You can list more than one if you have trouble deciding. ;)
Surviving an infection that was supposed to kill me, learning to walk again, writing a novel-length work (granted, a fanfic novel, but a novel) and parlaying beta-reading fanfic into a career as a freelance editor.
4. Which of the following is most important to you: Love, Money, Knowledge, Family, Friendship, Adventure, or Pleasure? Which is the least important to you? Please explain why for each choice.
I'll give these to you in order:
a) Friendship. I wouldn't have survived most of the hell of the past decade without my friends.
b) Knowledge. This is a given. I'm a geek-I'm always reading or researching. I research even when I don't have to because I'm curious.
c) Money. I did explain why money is important, yes?
d) Pleasure. Well, of course I want things in my life that'll give me pleasure. It's slightly below money because it's impossible to obtain most things that give me pleasure-like heat or books-without money.
e) Adventure. Adventures are uncomfortable and often expensive things, and I've had quite enough challenges in my life so far. At this point, I just want my life to go smoothly. I would rather read about adventures than have them.
f) Family. Family is of very little importance to me. My blood relatives have not bothered to acknowledge me for fourteen years, and only did so before that because they thought my aunt would leave them more money if they did.
g) Love. I assume this means "romantic love" and/or "sex", as those are the ways that love is generally defined in fandom. Neither is my thing.
5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
I've been trying to think of a quote or passage that describes me in some way for about two months, and I honestly don't think that there is one. There are a lot of quotes that I like, but they don't have anything to do with me.
I don't know what to do about this question. I can't answer it honestly; I don't know anything quotable that fits.
6. How do you manage your money? On that note, how important is money/financial security to you? Go into as much detail as you can.
I try to save some while paying off bills. This is not easy, as Social Security is peculiarly not designed to allow anyone to live on it, and I can only earn limited amounts of money per month in additional to Social Security…which I cannot afford to give up or lose, because freelancing =/= steady salary. This is probably why money and financial security are so overwhelmingly important to me-I have neither.
7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
Reading is a big one. I love genre fiction-fantasy, science fiction, mystery and some young adult-as well as biographies, non-fiction history, literary criticism, and science and inventions now and again. I also love poetry, but I would rather read it on the Web these days; I tend to find more poetry there that's by modern poets, many of whom are women and/or people of color and/or people from countries other than mine. I also love logic puzzles-again, this is mostly an online thing these days-and playing Fallen London (formerly Echo Bazaar), which…you have to play it to understand how weird it is, but check out the TV Tropes page. I also spend a lot of time watching Blip.tv (mostly reviewers), Hulu (mostly Rifftrax) and Netflix Streaming (for anything that the reviewers recommend). Oh, and I watch two shows a week on the television: Once Upon a Time and A Game of Thrones.
8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
Darkness. I have very poor eyesight and virtually no night vision. Darkness scares me because I'm afraid that someday I'll open my eyes and not see anything at all.
Mice/rats. I'm terrified of both to the point where I can't even look at pictures of them.
Insects/arachnids/cephalopods. I think that the main issue with the bugs and octopodes is that they have too many legs/limbs. Looking at them literally makes my skin creep. Having the ceiling of my kitchen invaded by a massive colony of wasps a couple of years back did NOT help matters.
9. Name (and elaborate on) your top three BEST and top three WORST qualities (personality-related, not physical). Please answer as fully as you can, as this is an important question.
Best:
a) Determination. In my normal state of mind, I just don’t quit. This helps me fight the tendency toward procrastination that’s one of my worst traits.
b) Loyalty. If you and I are friends, I’ll be loyal to you no matter what. This doesn’t mean that I’ll agree with you about everything-far from it-but it does mean that I’ll stick by you and try to help you, whatever you’re going through.
c) Kindness. Though I strive to be both honest and kind, it isn’t always possible to be both, so when I have to choose, I generally go for kindness. Honesty can be honestly ruthless.
Worst:
i) I don’t forgive people who betray me or mine, no matter what happens. I don’t cut deliberate malice any slack. (Note that cruelty isn’t enough; you have to be intentionally cruel.)
ii) I procrastinate. I shouldn’t, but I do, and sometimes it gets me into trouble.
iii) I’m prone to depression. I don’t mean unhappiness; I mean the black, crushing, utter despair that’s clinical depression. It reduces me to a grimdark state that makes Martin’s world look blissful by comparison.
A Song of Ice and Fire Related
1. How many books from the series have you completed?
The five main books and "The Hedge Knight", "The Sworn Sword" and "The Mystery Knight".
2. Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
This is very tough. Tyrion and Dany WERE my favorites until ADWD. Now…no. After that book, it became a case of "Who do I still like?"
a) Sansa Stark. Sansa gets huge points from me for adapting to a number of horrific situations and even managing to grow. She also has a great character arc. She's kind. She's patient. She's becoming very good at spotting patterns in people's behavior. And after all the awful things that have happened to her, I just want to hug her and bring her somewhere safe. I'm torn between hoping that she learns from Petyr Baelish, outsmarts him at his own game and builds a good life for herself somewhere (whether at Winterfell or not) and being terrified for her because this is Martin and you KNOW that nothing goes well for any character in Martin's works.
b) Samwell Tarly. I love Sam. I love him for being a hero who doesn't realize it-a guy who admits to being frightened of almost everything (which takes courage of a special sort in his society, not that he realizes it), but who'll take a stand even when it isn't popular, who'll save a girl and her baby because it's right, and who'll understand how different people think and why. He's a genuinely good person who won't make false promises and who will do his utmost for those he cares about. AND he's fat. There are so few heroes who are fat.
c) Asha Greyjoy. Asha strikes me as one of the better choices for leader, as she's figured out that her people can't hold the North and that peace and prosperity are more valuable than warfare, especially in a very brief autumn already marked by snowstorms. She's also able to see the value in reading (which most of her people don't) and the importance of having intelligent, powerful and wealthy allies. She's also bright and snarky as hell. It just makes me tired that the Iron Islanders passed her over for Euron. (I knew it would happen, as he was so obviously awful, but it still makes me tired that the main thing disqualifying her was, "But you're a GIRL!)
3. Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
a) Walder Frey. I'm Scottish. I was brought up on the importance of guestright. Hell, Scotland has both history and songs about what happens if a host betrays and kills his guests. (See also: Massacre of Glencoe.) So he upsets me on a visceral level; it was drilled into me from a very young age that something like the Red Wedding is treachery so fundamental that it does not compute. It hurts-like when it thunders or when a huge truck goes by, and you feel the vibration in your bones. It's that basic. So Frey sickens me.
And yes, I know that people have done far worse in this series, but those don't involve ideas I heard from the time that I was a toddler.
b) Ramsay Bolton. I hate him. It's that simple. He doesn't intrigue me. He doesn't interest me. He is a vicious torturer and mutilator who hurts people for his own entertainment and for his own sense of power, and I want him dead. If I were allowed to choose, I'd have him eaten alive by one of the Others.
c) Theon Greyjoy. Let me get this out of the way right now-no, he did not deserve what happened to him. What happened to him is the stuff of nightmares and guarantees that I will never willingly re-read A Dance With Dragons.
That said, I never liked him. Even when he was living in Winterfell, I did not like him. He came across as snotty and entitled at Winterfell; back home, he was snotty, entitled and confused as to why everyone in the Iron Islands wasn't bowing to him; he was self-righteous and odious as the conqueror of Winterfell and the killer of two small boys; and as Reek, he was positively repellent. (Yes, I remember him trying to redeem himself; I wondered for a long time if that was a dream or a hallucination.)
4. #1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
I'm torn between Bran waking up, Jaime saving Brienne in the bear-pit and Sam fixing the election for Commander of the Night's Watch. I can relate to waking up from a coma and having to rebuild your entire life from there. The scene in the bear-pit shows Jaime's and Brienne's courage and quality to great effect. And Sam had to figure out what everyone wanted from a leader and how to get them to agree-something that few people ever bother to do in this series…including the candidates for commander. It was nice to see someone using their intelligence for everyone's good.
5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
Tyrion ends up learning, over time, that his philosophy of blaming slaves for being slaves is completely wrong.
Tysha turns out to be the Waif that Arya met in the House of Black and White (her backstory was a lie and her age an exaggeration). After this is revealed to Cersei and Jaime, there's a big scene in which Myrcella and Tommen are in mortal danger and Tysha just has to stand back and do nothing-and she saves them. "Tywin Lannister taught this woman how cruel and petty it was to make war on children." Jaime is convinced that she wants revenge, and she admits that she does, but since she was gang-raped because of Tywin's orders and Tywin is dead, let it end with him. Jaime protests that he wronged her as well. Tysha smiles. "When this one came to the House of the Many-Faced God, she made an offering and asked that the false knight whose lies cost this one so much learn the cost of lies and what it is like to be unable to defend himself. She asked that her husband learn what it is to be poor and helpless, with every man's hand turned against him. The god has accepted. This one has had her vengeance." She glances at Myrcella and Tommen. "They will need their parents in the winter. You will need them in the spring. Take care of them." And she vanishes.
Sam Tarly becomes a healer at the Citadel and marries Gilly; Sam and Gilly go back to the Wall and become absolutely crucial in the War against the Others. Bran becomes a wizard without turning into a tree (Coldhands and the Reeds save him from that).
Brienne saves both Stark girls and becomes a member of Dany's Queensguard. Jeyne Poole is spirited out of the North and joins Brienne and the Stark girls, Arya putting her skills to use as a dragonrider-in-training and Sansa gaining political savvy for her eventual role as Queen of the North. Asha Greyjoy becomes Dany's Master of Ships and has masses of adventures before being crowned Queen of the Iron Islands after the Winter of the Others.