Ahsoka Tano (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
resnipstance) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
driftfleet2016-05-15 03:18 pm
resnipstance) wrote in driftfleet2016-05-15 03:18 pm
video
Who: Ahsoka + You
Broadcast: Yep!
Action: Not really (though if you want to find her, she'll be in her room on the Starstruck)
When: idk today
Hey! Soooooo since we're all stuck here, and going outside on this planet kinda sucks bigtime right now, I've been making it a project of mine to try and learn as much as I can about the different cultures of the other worlds people here are from! Particularly Earth, because there's so many of you! Someone told me the collective noun is "Earthlings"? Anyway.
I've been trawling through the media library, but to be honest, I'm not very good at sitting and reading for long periods of time. So I figured, why not just ask you guys instead?
Tell me one (or more!) thing about your home world that you think is culturally significant. It can be traditional, religious, social, or pop culture is fair game too! After all, it's no fun when people are making pop culture references that fly over my head.
The only rule is that you can't say the same thing as someone else. You ready? Go!
Broadcast: Yep!
Action: Not really (though if you want to find her, she'll be in her room on the Starstruck)
When: idk today
Hey! Soooooo since we're all stuck here, and going outside on this planet kinda sucks bigtime right now, I've been making it a project of mine to try and learn as much as I can about the different cultures of the other worlds people here are from! Particularly Earth, because there's so many of you! Someone told me the collective noun is "Earthlings"? Anyway.
I've been trawling through the media library, but to be honest, I'm not very good at sitting and reading for long periods of time. So I figured, why not just ask you guys instead?
Tell me one (or more!) thing about your home world that you think is culturally significant. It can be traditional, religious, social, or pop culture is fair game too! After all, it's no fun when people are making pop culture references that fly over my head.
The only rule is that you can't say the same thing as someone else. You ready? Go!
[voice]
[A breath, then:] I've spoken to you about the Night's Watch before. What I haven't told you is that it used to be much bigger than it is now, big enough to man seventeen castles along the Wall. One of the castles we had to abandon was the Nightfort, and there were plenty of tales about it by the time it was abandoned. The Rat Cook's one of them.
He was a man of the Night's Watch, first, and a cook at the Nightfort long before Aegon Targaryen set foot in Westeros. [Which is another tale entirely.] He'd been wronged by a king--I wasn't told who he was or what he did, just that he was a king--and he vowed to take his revenge on him, one way or another.
Now, the king had a son, who he brought with him one day to visit the Night's Watch and sleep underneath the Nightfort's roof as guests. The cook saw his chance there, and one night before dinner the boy disappeared. That same night, the king praised the meat pie the cook had prepared for him and asked for another, never knowing that baked into the pie was what was left of his son.
[It should probably be noted that Jon tells the story with a hint of nostalgia, for the old woman who first told him and his siblings the story, completely opposite to, you know, the theme of revenge and accidental cannibalism.]
The old gods were angered--not by the murder, because a man had a right to revenge--but by the fact that the man had broken guest right, by slaughtering his guest beneath his roof. They in turn cursed him, and turned him into a massive white rat with a hunger for his own young. [A pause, then:] They say he and his offspring still live in the Nightfort to this day. I wouldn't know, I've never been there.
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... What? That's it? That's horrible! That was a bedtime story?
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It was a song as well, but I'm not very good at singing. Speaking of songs, I know Sansa knows a few. You might want to ask her about them.
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[A moment's pause, then:] It doesn't seem to mean much anymore, anyway. [And his tone is heavy, weary all of a sudden.]
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Currently, Republic and Separatist agents are completely forbidden from crossing over into one another's territory. And digital communications are monitored. It makes negotiating impossible.
[As for Jon's last comment, to her it sounds only like a passing remark, so she doesn't think to remark on it.]
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You'll have to tell me what both of those are--Republic and Separatist, I mean. [He can pick up they're at war, obviously, but--Separatists? What, like wildlings?] But it seems like someone wants to keep the war going--has anyone even tried to offer terms yet?
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It's a good system, for the most part. Under the Galactic Republic, we've had peace for almost a thousand years.
But the Separatists want to change all that. Thirteen years ago, after the Invasion of Naboo, several planets and guilds seceded from the Republic, dissatisfied with the way the Republic was running things. If things had just stayed that way, it probably would've been fine, but... it didn't. Tensions kept growing. The leader of the Separatists, Count Dooku, was revealed to be building an army to march against us. That was three years ago. After that... well, everything just exploded into all-out war.
As for offering terms... that's another story all on it's own.
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For the most part? [Democracy sounds weird. Also, incredibly exhausting.]
I'll tell you another story if you tell me about that. [A pause, then, belatedly:] I promise no one gets baked into a pie and eaten.
[That's. The issue she's taking with the Rat Cook, right?]
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For the most part, yes. It's not perfect, but nobody's come up with a better system of governance for an alliance of thousands of systems, anyway. One person can't possibly look after the interests of that many planets.
The downside is that, because of the sheer size of the Senate, getting action from them on any one matter is a slow process. Emergencies discounted. Also, because senators only keep their position by the grace of their people's favour, many politicians are more concerned with doing what the public wants, rather than what's right. Usually they happen to be the same thing, but... not always.
[She shrugs. That's the price you pay for democracy.]
As for peace talks... back home, I'm good friends with the Senator for Naboo. Padmé Amidala. She's the true image of what a senator should be-- someone who truly believes in representing the will of her people, but also believes in doing what's right, and who won't back down to anyone. She prefers to do things with her own hands rather than delegate them to others, so... she asked me to smuggle her over enemy lines. She wanted to meet with one of the leaders of the Separatist Alliance and start to lay the foundation for peace talks. We made good headway, too.
When we returned home, we were certain that Padmé's efforts would result in a gradual wrapping up of the war. The Republic Senate even met to discuss it. But then, during the Senate meeting, there was a terrorist attack on the building. The remains of the bombs were tied back to the Separatists, and... well. That was the end of that.
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[Which really just cinches it: other worlds' political systems are so weird.]
It was brave of her to try anyway. [She could've gotten her hands cut off. Or her tongue cut out. Or held hostage. Or--look, historically, when peace talks go badly, they go very badly, so Ahsoka and this Padmé are already impressive enough for even trying it and coming out unscathed.] Though from what you've said about the Senate, I'm not as certain as you were of the result that might've been.
[A breath, then:] But enough of that, I promised a story. Has anyone told you of Harrenhal?
[No one gets baked into a pie! Just. Roasted alive by dragonfire.]
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[With a name like that, there is no way this story will end terribly.]
He called himself the King of the Isles and the Rivers, back when the ironmen of the Iron Islands--Greyjoy's one of them, though I've met another and he's much less of an ass--ruled both their islands and the Riverlands. He wanted to built the greatest of castles in all of Westeros, and one that was impregnable as well, and he had one in forty years, after many of his captives died in the construction.
[What a nice guy, this Harren the Black.]
Of course, on the day he moved there, Aegon Targaryen came with his dragons. The rivermen, who had been beggared by Harrenhal and had been subjects of the ironmen for some time now, allied themselves with the dragons and against Harren the Black's rule. In turn he closed the gates to Harrenhal and refused to yield, thinking to hide behind the high stone walls of Harrenhal, thinking to offer gold and the river lords' daughters to anyone who could bring down the largest dragon Aegon Targaryen had.
That night, that very dragon flew above the walls of Harrenhal and set fire to everything that could catch fire. Even the stone burned, they say, and Harren and his line perished behind the very walls they thought could protect them.
[A breath, then he drops his voice as if to tell a secret:] Some say you can still hear them screaming as they burned, to this day.
short answer: no
Why do all the stories from your world always involve people dying horrible deaths? Doesn't anything happy ever happen there?
ahsoka you sweet summer child
--okay, probably not, at some point there was a fire involved. What about The Dornishman's--wait, no, that also ends in somebody dying.]
In some of them, aye, but the ones with horrible deaths, as you say, are the ones I remember best. [A breath.] Sansa always did like the ones about knights and their noble ladies better, so mayhaps you might have better luck getting something without someone dying out of her.
[He's trying to be genuinely helpful here. It's--not helping.]
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I'll add it to my ever-growing list of things to ask her.
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[A beat, then:]
Besides songs and stories, anyway.
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... Huh. Really? Okay... hmmm.
What's your family's exact position in all of this-- going on-- back home? I keep hearing about it, but every time I hear a little bit more about it and think I understand, I put my foot in it.
[voice; private]
You'll have to understand, by the time much of this happened, I was at the Wall, so I can't say I'm the best person to ask. [A moment's pause, then:] My father--Lord Eddard Stark, who was lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North--was the Hand of the King, the second most powerful man in Westeros next to the King himself. He was asked by King Robert Baratheon to assume the office, after the previous Hand--Jon Arryn--died. But something happened, I don't know what, and the King died--gored by a pig, as best as I could tell from the rumors. He left behind two sons and a daughter by the Queen Cersei Lannister [we're not even going to get into the incest rumors flying about, Jon's already scarred Ahsoka enough for one conversation], and his eldest Joffrey was--
[A moment's pause. How to convey his utter loathing for the guy?]
--very good at being a very bad king. Sansa was at King's Landing, she might know best about that, but what I do know was that one of the first things he did as king was charge my father with treason and execute him in front of a crowd. Sansa, who had been betrothed to him by then, became the Lannisters' hostage. [That's about all he's willing to say on anything regarding Sansa's time under the Lannisters, so he continues on:]
My brother Robb didn't take it very well. The next thing I heard, he'd raised his banners and started a war, then he was declared King in the North. Besides him and Joffrey [and he says that name with enough loathing that it's probably really obvious where his loyalties lie], there were two other kings--Renly and Stannis Baratheon, brothers to the late Robert Baratheon, who questioned the parentage of the Lannister children. [A moment's pause, then:] I've met Stannis. He's--not the sort of man who bends easily, and he's brutally honest as well.
[But Jon sounds like he kind of respects the guy.]
As for my family--I hadn't heard from them in Westeros in some time. The war--it didn't go very well. For anyone.
[voice; private]
When he's finally done, she lets out a long exhale.]
... I heard. [About Robb. About Sansa marrying Tyrion. Ahsoka doesn't specify which. Does it need to be specified?]
... Thank you. I know that can't have been easy for you. But-- I feel like I have a much better understanding of the situation now. ... I'm grateful.
[voice; private]
[The way he recites it, though, says a lot about how much it breaks his heart to have had to stand aside. What is duty, after all, when compared to a brother's smile, a sister's laugh?]
You're welcome, Ahsoka.
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Sansa calls him brother. Robb is here, alive. Bran is here, and alive as well. He's not alone.]
I haven't seen my family in years. [A confession, a mark of trust--of Jon letting his guard down, at last.] Most I'll never see again, if I go back. [Can you go back, if you're dead? What would greet him if he did--nothing but a cold, frozen embrace?] Yes. It's--better.
[Yet he still feels as if he's betraying some vital part of himself, just by admitting that.]
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