Why I Won't Sign the Petition

A particular link has been floating around my social media the last few days.  If you're liberal and pissed off like me, you've probably seen it -- the Petition to ask the Electoral College to elect Hillary Clinton on Dec. 19th.  Hell, it's certainly possible that you've signed it.  As I write this, nearly 4 million people have. 

I won't be joining those numbers. 

And I'm getting some skepticism as a result.  My husband is thinking about signing it, and my mom texted me this morning to say that she already did.  The consistent question is, "will you?" 

The answer is no. 

It's a hard decision.  My social media is littered with people giving Trump supporters the finger, and every major news outlet is filled with "Day # in Trump's America" stories, most of which tend to be violent and hate-filled.  Our country is swept with protests and anger -- not unlike what Trump supports themselves threatened just days ago when we were as equally sure of a Clinton victory as we are of her defeat now.  Like so many others, I want to do something to help.

Amy Poehler's Smart Girls twitter account is filled with women doing great things to help our country, to help our fellow women, to help those who have been marginalized and made to feel low, worthless, threatened, and more during the presidential campaign.  I've been following and watching and left thinking that I am not doing enough.  That I could be doing more. 

But I remain unconvinced that encouraging the Electoral College to put Hillary Clinton in power is it. 

Before I explain my reasoning, let me say this:  I am an ardent Clinton supporter.  I followed her campaign, continually educated myself on her career and setbacks, tweeted my support, encouraged others on the fence to vote for her, defended her to those who hated her.  I watched in horror as our country turned away from her victory, and I bawled watching her concession speech. 

I've worn purple every day since in solidarity for the message of unity and strength she's trying to send. 

My opposition to this petition has nothing to do with her.  If it went through, and the Electoral College did put her in power, I would be not-so-secretly thrilled. 

But I still won't sign it, and here's why. 

First: The Electoral College is representative of democracy in our country.  There are 538 votes in the College, direct correspondents to the 435 members of the House of Representatives, the 100 members of the Senate, and 3 to represent the District of Columbia, which for some reason doesn't get represented in Congress (that's another essay. Whew.).  The vote of the people in each state, then, basically pledges its electorate to vote accordingly, so when the majority of one state votes for Clinton, the electorate of the state follows suit. 

As we know, she did not earn enough electoral votes to win. 

With this set up, the Electoral College is in direct correspondence to the way our country governs.  They are representative of democracy just as clearly as Congress itself, and so to question that, to throw this one system under the bus, is to throw most of our government under the bus as well. 

If you think back, this is the same issue that the media shouted about when Trump, just a few short weeks ago, claimed the system was rigged against him.  Everyone immediately jumped on the bandwagon of "Trump wants to overthrow democracy" -- and now the opposite side has jumped on too.  The pendulum has merely swung the other way. 

So there is this problem.  But I would argue that the second reason I'm not signing the petition, and the problems said reason entails, is much more significant. 

Just a few weeks ago, when Trump was calling the election rigged and leaving the American people with the promise of "keeping them in suspense" regarding whether or not he would concede the race if he lost, his supporters threatened violence.  One New York Times article recounted a series of interviews with individuals who genuinely believed that violence, bloodshed, and even revolution waited on the horizon if Trump didn't win the White House on November 8.  

Since he won, those threats have vanished (of course) and been replaced by the smug call for liberals to "get over it" and start supporting our President-elect.  I suspect these same people have forgotten that they would never have just gotten over it if Clinton won, but that's my whole point! 

Right now, Clinton supports across the country are pissed.  They are rioting.  LA and Oregon and NYC and more have been dealing with massive protests for days, complete with all the violence, effigy-burning, and calls of "Not My President" that Trump supporters threatened.  It's all too easy to mistake Clinton's supporters now as Trump ones, and that's terrifying.  But before long, it'll be over. 

This is not to say that the anger will stop, or the will to fight be defeated.  I desperately hope not.  But the riots and protests will stop, in time, and instead, Clinton supporters will turn their anger into something positive, something hopeful.  They will get out there and work for change -- they'll donate money, volunteer time, join smaller-scale protests for more dedicate causes.  They'll write their Congress-people, celebrate advances in supports for sexual assault victims and those who practice different religions and the LGBTQ+ community.  They will work for change, and if they are just as motivated in the years to come as they are now, they'll be successful. 

Their work will keep our country moving forward, embracing progress. 

Putting Clinton in the White House certainly won't stop any of that, of course. 

So imagine with me December 19th.  The Electoral College meets.  They swallow their promises to vote with their states, they pay their fines, and they put Hillary Clinton in office instead of Donald Trump. 

More importantly, imagine the fallout. 

Imagine what his supporters will do.  At their core, most of the people who supported Trump did so because they wanted someone anti-establishment, someone who was not a career politician and who 'told it like it is,' even if that includes hate speech.  They convinced themselves to look beyond the man who is willing to commit and thereafter glorify sexual assault just because he's famous and instead focus on his promises to deport immigrants and build a wall. 

Putting a career politician into office will only incise them.

If we ignore the racism and the bigotry and the misogyny and everything else that Trump spewed throughout his campaign and just focus on his stance on the issues, what is left is a man who is primarily concerned with looking out for himself.  His attitude extends into his policies, into the American people:  Get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency, so the USA doesn't have the take care of the environment.  End relationships with NATO and other trade organizations, in an attempt to keep jobs in the USA.  Require other countries to pay for our military support, so we don't have to take care of the rest of the world.  And so on. 

Each shows a world where America comes first, and the rest of the world second, and that is dangerous.  His supporters are obviously on board, which is also dangerous. 

Because though Hillary supporters will eventually tire of protesting and get to work making the world a better place, Trump supporters will not. 

They have bought into this idea that you should only care for yourself, and fuck everyone else.

So what will they do if the Electoral College puts Hillary Clinton in office? 

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  They will sit back, and bitch about career politicians and rigged systems and minorities 'stealing' votes without ever once considering how to make things better.  And then, when we come to another election in 2020, they'll elect a crazy person all over again. 

That's how they responded to the world the first time around.  I'm mystified as to why anyone thinks it will change going forward. 

President-elect Trump is an absolutely terrifying prospect, there is no doubt about that.  Hillary Clinton in office would have been a giant leap forward for our country, and I remain saddened that it's not going to happen.  I'm saddened too by the fact that we now have no idea who our first female president might be.  There are no up and coming female Democrats to undertake the mantle, and after how Clinton was treated, and how our fellow countrymen have voted, I don't blame them. 

In a way though, we need Trump.  We need people to be willing work for change, to speak up against injustice and fight the systems that marginalized everyone except straight white males.  Trump, if anything, motives these voters more furiously than ever.  

It's a long, hard road before us, but when have things ever been easy?  And as history has shown us time and time again, never underestimate the power of people who are willing to work for change.  

I woke up this morning to a new president...

I woke up this morning to a new president, and it wasn't who I thought it was going to be. 

This is not, by any means, a unique sentiment.  It is in fact an extremely common one, expressed and decried by many as the numbers continue to trickle in and the gap between our old world and our future continues to widen. 

Like so many others, I'm not sure what to do with this new information yet.  A great part of me wants to scream and cry and rage against the system.  Another part wants to take a hot shower and cry it out.  Another wants to fight back -- start volunteering immediately, start spending my time and energy with activities to help those I couldn't with my vote. 

Yet another, and perhaps the largest, wants to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. 

This worried me at first.  I sat on the couch and watched The Crown for much of last night, though I used "watched" loosely as most of the time I was anxiously hitting 'refresh' on my phone's browser.  All that time, I couldn't think of anything except, "Oh my god, what do we do if Clinton loses? If Trump wins?" 

 And today I'm finding that what I want to do is sit on the couch and wait until the horrible, sinking reality of our future sinks in. 

After pondering this feeling for a while, I realized what it is, and the reality shook me almost as much as the election itself. 

It's grief. 

Last year I lost a student, and the feeling that's settled over me now is so like what I went through in the days that followed the news.  It's not the same burning, tearing, heart-wrenching grief of the first days, when it first happened and I spent all my time trying to take care of everyone left behind.  No, this isn't as sharp, as deep. 

It is instead the numbing kind of grief that lingers in the back of my mind, in my heart.  The kind that makes the world seem unreal, like this can't really be happening. 

That's why I want to just sit and do nothing.  Then things can pass over me without my having to exert any effort toward anything, and instead I can try to understand this enormous, world-changing news. 

And just like grief, it's not going anywhere. 

I still remember when I learned that the world was not as lovely as I thought.  Like so many others, I went through my formative high school years with blinders on, immune to the deeper darkness of the world.  But college… there I learned about what happened beyond my world. 

I learned about educational systems and how to read statistics and the art of argumentation.  I learned about the history of democracy, the systemic racism that undermines our country's basic tenets, and the myriad of ways the world fights to keep people down, and angry.  I learned about system change, how hard it is to accomplish and why it is so necessary to try. 

Many in the country would call this the institutional liberalization of young people.  I do not.

There is space in the world for more than one worldview to be right.  I have difficulty agreeing with any politicking, argumentation, or otherwise that suggests differently. 

In learning about all the ways that we as a nation have tried to keep those less fortunate condemned to their part, I also learned about many of the issues that Trump supporters claim as their standing:  the hatred of political correctness, the anti-establishment sentiment, the inherent distrust of career politicians.   I understand why people across the country felt the need to take a stand, and I understand the desire for change. 

But there is a dark side to this desire for change, because it led us here, to the announcement of President-elect Trump. 

So I must ask this now:  Why Trump? 

I've read dozens of articles in the last several months analyzing the election.  The Wall Street implications of either candidates' election, the pros and cons of gun control, interviews with supports and detractors on both sides, empathetic pieces about Hillary's fight as a woman in politics and about Trump's lonely position at the top of the GOP: I have read them all.  What stands out now, with the stunning outcome of the election, is the defense that his supports continue to mount.

Twitter, liberal-leaning news outlets, and other forms of social media are filled with outrage over the outcome of this election.  Not just outrage -- pure hatred, in some cases -- and it is all aimed at those who elected Trump.  Who put America in this position.  Who looked at the choice between hate and progress, and bubbled in their ballots accordingly. 

I understand where they are coming from, because I too am coming from there.  I grieve for the nation we could have had under Madame President Clinton.  Hell, I grieve for what we could have had under Bernie Sanders, despite how I doubt his electability. 

But I understand the other side too.  A few months ago, the New York Times ran a fabulous article about Trump's support base, those disenfranchised people searching for someone, anyone, in Washington who cared about them.  They found him, and they clung tight, and now we see the outcome. 

Bashing them, and their decision, does little to progress change in our nation.  It instead divides us just as clearly as Trump himself, and as Lincoln once implored us, a House divided against itself cannot stand. 

Again, I must ask: Why Trump?

The desire for a Washington outsider, for someone who speaks their mind and isn't afraid to call the politicians on their bullshit, for a champion of the anti-establishment cause, is one we can all relate to.  There's no denying that that person wasn't Hillary Clinton; the case for her just isn't there. 

But neither can I let these supporters off the hook. 

Trump ran on a campaign that promoted hate from the start.  His opening campaign speech touted Mexican immigrants as rapists, and things got worse from there.  He has been openly racist, calling for poll monitoring in "urban" areas to ensure a fair election.  He has been openly misogynistic, including claiming ownership to women's bodies and suggesting that, like so many men before him, he has that right simply by being male.  He has incited violence against his opponent, invited foreign espionage and sabotage against our country, and those are just moments within his recent political career.  I have not even touched on his business dealings, nor will I for the sake of my sanity. 

When I ask why Trump, I mean it -- why, out of all the people available in the primaries, was this man the choice for a nominee, for a President?  Many of those who voted for him are upset about being named as racist, bigoted, misogynistic, and more, and I have seen them question and call out this behavior as inappropriate.  What I continually fail to understand, then, is why these same people have chosen to ally themselves with Trump in the first place. 

Basic voting advice is this: Choose the candidate who most closely aligns with your personal views. 

Why is it so wrong to worry that half of our citizens are racist, or misogynistic, or homophobic, or anything else, when they have chosen as their candidate a man who spews this rhetoric on a constant basis?

We as a country should be the shining example of peace and progress in the world.  America has been the greatest nation on the planet for many years, and I am saddened now to realize that we are living through its downfall.  At one point, Britain was the world's greatest power; it was never one event that brought them low but instead a series of smaller moments that shifted until we were in the spotlight. 

Now we watch as the spotlight starts to fade, and wonder what happened.  We shout at each other instead of standing strong.  We could be a great country again, but minimizing our own citizens is not the way to do it.  We become great by lifting everyone up, not by choosing only the parts of the speech we want to hear and denying the rest matters. 

Change is coming. 

It is likely not the change we truly want. 

Perhaps there will be more hope, more inclusion, in the future than Trump's campaign suggests. The part of me that deeply, desperately understands the desire for a change of the establishment remains hopeful that this is possible, despite all the evidence to the contrary. 

But it is hard to watch the disappointment on my students' faces.  They are coming to grips with the world as we turn a potentially dark corner.  They do not see hope; they see devastation.  They see a world where their Muslim friends are scared of being ousted, where their LGBTQ+ classmates don't know where they stand, where their white peers brag about the defeat of a woman who has devoted her life to public service.  They see darkness where there should be light. 

I cannot bear to watch them give up.  The force for change, for good, still exists in the world.  We can make great change, and in doing so, we can make America great again.  I don't know that I'll ever understand why so many seem to think Trump is the answer to that equation, but I know that the grief will pass.  In time, we will fight again, and we will be smarter, stronger, for it. 

It is up to us to rebuild the house Lincoln spoke of, to put our country back together the way we want the future to look. 

So cry it out.  Scream, and shout, and grieve in front of Netflix, and when you are done, when I am done, when the reality of our future has sunk in, stand up.  Keep going.  Question the system that perpetuates racism, misogyny, and every other ugly bigotry.  Push those who wanted to vote Trump and then sit back, their job somehow finished as if they are absolved of responsibility for who they put in office, to explain their thinking, to face the reality they've created. 

When the darkness hits them too, they will be all the more devastated by it because they thought they were fighting back.  The people who right now appear our enemies in fact need our empathy more than anything.  We need everyone to change the world, not just those who agree. 

It's a long, hard fight ahead of our nation, and we don't yet know if we have a President who will actually lead us to change.  The one thing that never changes about politicians is the giving of promises that go unfulfilled.  I have trouble believing that that, of all things, will change now. 

I must abide by what Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech.  We do indeed owe President-elect Trump the chance to lead. 

But we cannot wait and see what happens -- we have to be the force for good in the world, no matter if he is our nation's greatest president, or our worst. 

We can do this.  Be the light, be the change, and don't give up.  Even if it takes years, it will be forever worth it to try.  

The Evolution of Jurassic World, Part 1

I often forget that the 1993 original Jurassic Park is a horror movie.

Every other Jurassic Park movie, including the latest installment Jurassic World, has lost that title.  Instead, they are action movies – not that there’s anything wrong with this, of course.  But it makes them different, and in doing so, the original stand out. 

When I hear the quiet thud of the T-Rex moving through its paddock, I still get that heart-thump of adrenaline, even after countless viewings.  That first roar as she steps between the cars still makes me cringe, and I still watch Ellie’s trip through the jungle as they out-run the raptors through clenched fingers.  And that scene in the kitchen, where the raptors hunt the two kids, still gives me chills – even now, at 27, I watch it curled with my feet on the couch and a blanket over my head like I did when I was seven years old and experiencing it for the first time. 

I love Jurassic Park.  And now, since Netflix recently put all three of the original movies up, I’ve been re-watching all of them, with the addition of Jurassic World of course.  In doing do, I’m struck even more by the original – as terrifying as it is, Jurassic Park is also a deep, complicated movie about the ethics of genetic engineering and humanity’s control over nature. 

Part of what’s so terrifying about Jurassic Park is the illusion of control over nature.  This is a fairly straightforward concept to start: Humans can’t control nature. The end.  We can’t control the weather – as evidenced by the ongoing wildfires in California.  We can’t control animals – as evidenced by so many species that are slowly going extinct around us. And we can’t control so much more about our planet, about ourselves.

Something about that lack of control fundamentally bothers us, and so Jurassic Park, with its careful genetic manipulation and park control and monitoring systems, tries to address that.  Things inevitably go wrong, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie.  But the way things spiral out of control offers commentary on that lack of control and the acceptance it requires in order to live peacefully. 

Control offers humanity a variety of benefits.  Safety, stability, no surprises, and more – think about the basics of the American dream.  Those boil down to being able to control your life.  There is nothing wrong with that. 

But control has a dark side.  

Consider this:  A 2015 article in Women’s Health magazine discusses new advancements in genetic manipulation and in vitro fertilization.   Part of this includes screening for genetic disorders; if a parent is a carrier, doctors can now ensure that embryos do not carry those genetic markers, thus ensuring that a potential child will not have that disorder. 

Thus, a national conversation about genetic engineering is booting up as the possibilities of science catch up with the fiction of movies and imagination.  Questions of control lie at the heart of this issue: Can we control the genetics of humans in an effective, non-dangerous way?  And where does control intersect with ethics?  After all, using genetic engineering to eradicate a disease is a different goal than using it to control eye color or sex.  So where’s the line?

To me, an essential element of the line you shouldn’t cross lies in proceeding without ethics to guide you. 

It’s a slippery slope, this ability of genetic engineering, and I’m not trying to channel Ian Malcolm when I say that.  Fixing a genetic disorder makes sense; fixing it only for those who can pay through the nose is questionable.  Allowing parents to ensure their baby will be born healthy makes sense; allowing them to engineer the ‘perfect child’ is questionable. 

But people will disagree with me.  What I see as questionable others may find perfectly acceptable, and that’s part of the problem.  There is no black and white answer to the subject of ethics – it’s easy to say, “Yes, I’m an ethical person” and much harder to live your life that way, just as it’s easy to say you won’t judge and much, much harder to actually follow through. 

These questions of ethics instead revolve around, not personal ethics, but the ethics of science, the ethics of what lies in possibility tempered with what’s actually a good decision.  Instead of what I personally agree with, it’s more about thinking about the possibilities, acknowledging the potential downfalls and ways things could backfire, and thinking deeply about the implications and consequences, all long before the action is ever taken. 

That gives the world a much better chance of an ethical decision, even though there are no guarantees.  Nuclear power and nuclear war come from the same fundamental ideas, after all, and they are very different things.

In Jurassic Park, it’s made clear that some of those elements have been considered, but as so many are quick to point out, it’s hard to consider the negatives when considering them might advise you to turn back.  Ian Malcolm even says it: 

The conversation about “can” versus “should” is becoming more prevalent in our society every day, and I’m not always sure I like what I see. 

Think about the genetic engineering of crops.  It is certainly possible that engineering crops like corn, soybeans, and many others could solve the hunger issues of our planet.  If we can make plants resistant to droughts, or to certain pests, or anything else, we can change the face of agriculture around the world. 

Notice the “can” here. 

But when it comes to the question of “Should we do this,” no one has a good answer.  Sometimes crops don’t work well and cause physical problems like diarrhea in humans.  Sometimes the people who engineered them don’t handle things well, like Monsanto’s questionable history of lawsuits involving small-time farmers and their products.  Sometimes we just aren’t sure what might happen, 50 or 100 years from now, and since we can’t predict the long-term consequences, maybe we should hang back until we can. 

We live in a world with the ideal vision of control – but as Ellie Satler reminds us, “You never had control, that’s the illusion.”  The creators of Jurassic Park think they have control – they control chromosomes, DNA, and as Wu brags in one moment, “It’s really not that difficult.”  But since its very existence is predicated on genetic engineering, the question of should is everywhere. 

That's what makes Jurassic Park such a continually relevant movie -- why it continues to hang on, continues to be popular despite the fact that it's over 20 years old.  In Jurassic Park, the questions we struggle to deal with in the real world are deceptively simple: Don’t cross the line.  Or get eaten if you do. 

All those characters who object to the genetic engineering of the dinosaurs, survive.  Those characters who endorse it, even capitalize on it (like the lawyer, Gennaro), are killed.  Even Hammond – I realize he doesn’t die in the first movie, but he definitely dies in the book!

We watch this horror movie, and we can sit back and think, "Wow.  If only we could solve things so easily here."  Perhaps not with the same strategies, of course, but having a T-Rex eat those on the side of what's ethically wrong would certainly simplify some of our own ethical dilemmas.  

It's not that simple here, and we know it.  Despite how politicians might shout about who is right or wrong, American society struggles to articulate what's ethical and what's not.  We struggle to understand how and why and what we should do with the minimal control we have over our world.  And all along, we talk about the line: Don’t cross the line, don’t flirt with the line, don’t even think about the line -- but when we aren't sure what the line is, movies like Jurassic Park serve as a balm that lets us, just for a minute, fantasize that it could be that easy to solve.  

Crazy Fan Theories, Part 1: Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 4: "Book of the Stranger"

So remember when I wrote this post, about how I was really not into Game of Thrones Season 1?  I was waltzing along, bored out of my skull at the endless talking and limp wangs of the show, while you seasoned veterans were likely going, "Oh, Equinox, you sad, sad fool."

Well, to everyone's relief, that's changed since then.

I did indeed make it past episode 6 of GoT Season 1, and in fact I made it through most of Seasons 1, 2, 3, & 4 within only a month or so of each other.  I love this show.  I in fact worship this show like Robert Baratheon worshipped the ground Lyanna Stark walked on.

Too soon?

(This is about the time I point out

since I am 100% up to date on GoT... ) 

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Bran’s storyline finally get interesting.  I mean seriously – episodes on end of him being “OMG I can warg into Hodor!” and he’s not even doing it to get laid? Boring. 

At the end of season 4, when he finally reached the cave with the 3-eyed raven, some serious shit went down: the battle with the wights, Jojen’s death, and the super-creepy girl who is one of the Children, the original inhabitants of Westeros.  All of a sudden, Bran’s story was fascinating. 

Then he vanished for the entirety of Season 5.  Wtf, guys??

But now that he’s back, his storyline is kind of my favorite.  I mean, watching Tyrion manipulate basically everyone into doing whatever he wants is always entertaining, and the scene where he makes awkward small talk with Grey Worm and Missandei is one of the most painfully brilliant conversations out there.  And of course there’s Jon Snow’s resurrection, which Kit Harington himself ruined for me –

But I can forgive him since it means Jon Snow LIVES.

So other than them, watching Bran scramble around in the past is my favorite.  I’ve always liked flashbacks for their power to show what’s only ever been hinted at, and boy, did that play out in Season 6, Episode 4: Book of the Stranger.     

Bran heads back years, to the moment when Ned Stark defeats Sir Arthur Dayne to rescue his sister, Lyanna, from the tower where Prince Rhaegar has been keeping her prisoner.  The scene ends before Ned, who looks like he’s about 20-25, enters the tower, thus preventing Bran from seeing what he found inside.  The 3-eyed raven says that “that’s enough” for now, but it’s clear that Bran has some suspicions about what Ned found. 

And I do too. 

Rhaegar Targaryen is the son of the Mad King.  In kidnapping Lyanna Stark, we can only assume that he likely raped and tortured her before her death.  We have no idea how she died – though perhaps Bran will find out eventually – only that she’s dead, and her kidnapping inspired Robert Baratheon’s War of the Usurper, the event that ultimately set off everything else currently happening in Westeros.

Here’s the thing: We know Lyanna Stark died in her brother Ned’s arms. What if this tower is where that happened? And what if, assuming Rhaegar did indeed rape her, she was pregnant?  Let’s go further and assume that her baby survived, even if she did not – she could have died in childbirth, or Ned could have found her near death and saved her baby, we don’t know. 

Right now, Daenerys Targaryen is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne as the only surviving child of Aerys II, the Mad King.  But according to most inheritance laws, that right passes through firstborn blood rights; if Prince Rhaegar was the heir, his eldest child would be the next heir, and so on through his bloodline.  His younger siblings are only in line for the throne if his children die.  Now, all Rhaegar’s children by his wife Elia Martell were slaughtered by Sir Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, during the Sack of King’s Landing by the Lannister army at the end of Robert’s Rebellion.   Thus, Rhaeger’s line ended, and his younger siblings by rights inherit the throne, even if Baratheon did usurp it somewhat successfully. 

BUT: if Lyanna Stark had a baby, it would likely be the child of Rhaegar Targaryen, meaning that child would replace Daenerys as the Targaryen heir. 

Jon Snow, former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and assumed bastard of Ned Stark, is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne.

I realize this is not exactly a new theory.  However, a lot of what I’ve read is circumstantial: Jon Snow walking into the room as Aemon Targaryen says something about his family being alone in the world, the mirroring of public executions and rises to power between Snow and Dany, Melisandre only trying to seduce men who have a claim to the throne.  Those are all lovely little breadcrumbs dropped throughout the show, but they are also easily explained away as coincidence. 

One clue is not, and that’s where I want to start: the comment Stannis Baratheon makes about Ned Stark not being the kind of guy to cheat on his wife.

Ned Stark, for all intents and purposes, has never been anything but loyal to his wife Catelyn, other than one tiny indiscretion that produced his bastard son Jon Snow.  He brought this baby home from the war and asked his wife to raise him without any comment about his mother.  Catelyn has always been conflicted about Jon Snow – she trusts her husband, but Jon is also only slightly younger that Robb Stark, meaning Ned would have had to cheat on her basically at the same time as they conceived his firstborn son.  The timelines are a little too close to make sense that he conceived a child with someone else while away at war. 

Then, of course, there’s the conversation by the river.  First, Robert Baratheon asks Ned who Snow’s mother actually is, and Ned, in no position to refuse, tells him her name was Wylla.  If you’ve read the books, you probably know that Wylla is of rather undetermined status: she was a maid and a wet nurse for House Dayne, but we don’t know if she’s still alive nor is there any evidence that she and Ned actually knew each other. 

[Another possibility is Ashara Dayne, who killed herself over the death of her brother at Ned’s hands.  I don’t put much stock in this theory, even though Catelyn Stark was commanded never to mention her name by Ned himself at one point. Personally, I think this is all Ned just trying to keep Jon’s existence on the downlow, because if the Great Houses of Westeros figured out his true parentage, he is in grave danger.] 

Don’t forget when Ned Stark pulls Jon Snow aside to talk about his mother. That conversation never happens – Ned starts it, but they are interrupted, and then separated, and then Ned is beheaded by Joffrey Baratheon for treason before they are ever reunited.  The secret of Jon Snow’s mother dies with him, presumably. 

This is already super suspicious, and we aren’t even out of Season 1 (and book 1). 

#varysuspicious

Then I’m going to skip ahead – my knowledge of Season 2-4 is a little shaky since I haven’t seen them in over a year, and I read the books in 2011.  But considering that all the really important stuff to support my theory shows up in Seasons 5 & 6, I’m okay with it.  Maybe I’ll re-watch them and expand this until it’s long and obnoxious and completely irrefutable. 

So at the end of Season 5, Jon Snow is murdered. 

This caused basically everyone who’ve been rooting for him to throw up their hands in disgust and claim that they are never watching Game of Thrones again. 

They are all lying. 

Season 6 starts with Snow’s body, cold and bloody, being dragged inside Castle Black by his supporters.  Davos and Melisandre conspire to attempt to bring him back to life, though Melisandre needs some serious convincing.  Her entire life, her entire religion, have been based on what she sees in the flames, and with Stannis’ and Jon Snow’s deaths, everything she thought was true has been lost. 

After all, she saw Jon Snow alive and fighting at the coming Battle of Winterfell, and how can that be possible if he’s dead? 

But with some convincing, she performs a rite to bring Jon Snow back (including cutting his hair so it’s the right length for Kit Harington, who cut his hair immediately after Snow was stabbed to further the illusion that he was, in fact, dead.  Since everyone knows Harington’s hair is under contract (check out this video if you don't believe me) with HBO, everyone lost their shit – if his hair was gone, then so was Jon Snow.  Clever.) 

Anyway, it works – Episode 2 ends with Jon Snow’s dramatic revival, and Episode 3 opens with him waking up to finger his own stab wounds and wonder what the fuck happened, exactly.  Melisandre asks him what he saw, reacting poorly when Jon tells her that “it was only darkness” before Davos ushers her out. 

The fact that Jon Snow lives is not, in and of itself, proof that he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen.  

But it is promising. 

Who knows? Maybe he is just as surprised as we are. 

Think further: The books constantly reference just how much Jon Snow looks like Ned, which would seem to be evidence in favor of Ned’s adultery as opposed to a child of a Targaryen.  Their House is known for their long silvery hair, achieved by intermarrying their siblings and something Jon obviously lacks.  But think carefully: That doesn’t mean Ned’s his father.  We already watched Ned follow dark hair as a dominant gene in Season 1 in order to determine Joffrey’s true parentage, so we can extrapolate that if Rhaegar Targaryen fathered a child on someone with dark hair, her genes would win out.

And Lyanna is a Stark, after all.  All the Starks have dark hair except Sansa, who clearly resembles her mother Catelyn.  Otherwise, it’s nothing but dark hair as far as the eye can see. She and Ned are both children of Rickard Stark; perhaps Jon looks like his grandfather and no one quite realizes it. 

Except Ned, of course. 

Ned’s constant visits to his sister’s grave (as evidenced by Sansa’s memories throughout the show) also support that Jon Snow is his nephew, as he would want to honor Lyanna’s memory by raising her son well.  And as tension in Westeros rose, he would also want a reminder of who he was protecting, and why, in keeping Jon’s parentage a secret.  He does mention to Jon that they may not share a name, but they share blood.  He’s not lying; he’s just not telling the whole truth either. 

That’s a massive pile of Stark-related evidence that Jon Snow is in fact the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen, and by extension the heir to the throne. 

What about everything else?

The clues here lie in the words of House Targaryen: “Fire and Blood.” 

Daenerys Targaryen has built her reputation on being The Unburnt, including her dramatic emergence from the Temple of the Dosh Kahleen at the end of Episode 4.  This suggests, at least on some level, that she’s immune to fire.  If you can’t buy into that, then hopefully we can at least concede that she has a unique relationship with fire.

 

There’s no evidence that Dany follows the Lord of Light, but I have no doubt she’d approve of his fire-based message.  She repeatedly uses fire to serve her own purposes: as a way to cleanse herself, as seen in her rebirth as the mother of dragons, or to dispose of her enemies, as seen in her destruction of the misogynistic leaders of the Dothraki, allowing her to (presumably) seize power next episode.

Back in Westeros, Melisandre, a Red Priestess, receives her visions (as well as her power to defy age) from the flames.  She’s also pulled prominent leaders into the Lord of Light’s influence, most obviously Stannis Baratheon and his wife.  Baratheon adopted the flames into his house sigil, his wife so devout she watched gleefully as her brother, a sinner, was immolated for his adherence to the old faith.  Flame is cleansing, used to preserve the faithful and destroy everyone else.  In addition, flame is how the Lord of Light accepts sacrifice in return for his favor, most notably Shireen Baratheon in Season 5. 

The Lord of Light has power in Westeros, the power of fire and the power of blood. 

And who did the fire god choose to bring back to life?

Jon Snow. 

Blood should have killed him, and fire brought him back. 

The only remaining piece is for him to dramatically survive a fire that should have killed him (which I predict to be how his heritage is finally revealed). 

All hail Jon Snow, the First of his Name, Former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and the Prince that was Promised, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, and future King of the Seven Kingdoms. 

April Fool's Day

I'm back!

Just kidding,  but it won't be much longer.

In the meantime, enjoy this April Fool's clip from my favorite video game creator!

Brief Hiatus

Hello, readers!

I will be on a brief hiatus (approximately 6 weeks) while Bishop and I attempt to both buy a house and sell our current one.  Anyone who tells you this isn't that much work is probably a realtor :)

Thanks for your patience, and don't worry -- I'll be back soon with a detailed lesson on "How to Turn Your Super Nerdy House into Something People Might Actually Buy."

- Equinox

Fanfiction Confliction, Part 2

About six months ago, I gave in.

I'd been fighting it for months, trying hard not to be one of those people.  I gave it my best effort, I really did.

But I was powerless to resist.

I started writing fanfiction.

It started small -- I'm a writer by nature (I bet you couldn't tell! #sarcasm), and I spent most of early 2015 world-building in preparation for a bigger project.  When I started writing fiction for the first time soon after, I realized something: I needed practice.

I hadn't written fiction in probably 6 or 7 years, and while I had lots of nonfiction writing experience, the skills just aren't the same.

This was probably in July.

I started small: a short story, only about 2,000 words, that was a character study of my forever favorite DAI Commander.  That turned out well, if a little serious, so I took on some humor via Alistair in DAO.   And before long, I found that I was enjoying myself immensely in creating these new scenes, new moments, within my characters' lives.

I spent the first 10K words or so laboring under the illusion that I was just practicing styles for my bigger fiction writing projects, telling myself that as soon as I finished the next story, I was putting fanfiction away and moving on with my own work.

That didn't happen.  Instead suddenly I found myself so immersed in Bioware's Dragon Age sandbox that I couldn't get back out -- and I didn't want to.  I loved my Inquisitor, and I loved the story I was creating inside DAI:  the relationships I was growing, the conflicts I'd created, and exploring the themes of the game and its story in such depth and detail.

So now, when I'm writing this, I'm finally accepting that I'm a fanfiction writer.  It took a long time, and many thousands of words before I was willing to add that to my list of accomplishments on this particular blog -- about two weeks ago, I officially broke 100K words, and this is the first mention I've made of my fanfic hobby to anyone other than my husband.

But I'm ready.

(That's not totally true; I'm still a little hesitant.  But honestly, that's not because I'm ashamed of my work, but because my mom reads this blog sometimes and frankly, several of my stories are quite Not Safe for Work.  At all.  Like, explicitly NSFW.  Adult content ahead.  You've been warned.

Mom, if you're reading this, please skip all the ones rated "E" :-/

Anyway.)

Below, you'll find a link to my work, all of which is posted through Archive of Our Own.  I know there are other, bigger, fanfic sites out there, but AO3 is my favorite, and I'm proud to be part of their community.

Without further ado, and in the spirit of celebrating International Fanworks Day today, I give you: Once More to the Breach, my Shakespeare-allusion-titled series about Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Please enjoy, and thanks for reading!!