Westeros Sorting

Name: Hannah

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!): I think I read about sorting communities on tumblr (can’t remember where though, I’m pretty sure it was in the ASOIAF tag) and then when I joined lj I searched for ASOIAF communities and this looked fun!

Age: 18

Location: UK

Occupation: Student, right now studying my A-Levels but hopefully going to study English and French at uni in October.




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!.

Oh, okay, well, it has to be by the sea – that’s pretty much a dealbreaker for me and it couldn’t be by a river because what about rats? Also, it has to be *relatively* isolated, but still in walking distance of a town (what defines an acceptable size of town? A cinema and a secondary/high school), I like having my own space, but I also like being able to see people when I want to. Oh, the climate has to be warm, warmer than the UK at least but maybe not exactly tropical either, I think that would be too much for me. The house itself would be modern – I’ve lived in an old stone house before and it was gorgeous but I don’t think they’re right for me. I’d rather a beautiful, sleek house with an open plan kitchen and dining room, high ceilings and a butcher’s block running down the middle of the kitchen. Saying that, I don’t think I’d want my house to be too big. I don’t really like big houses, I think I’d rather it be sleek and modern rather than big and grand (also because I suck at housework – I don’t want a load of crap to clean up!). It would have a flawless broadband connection everywhere in the house and a study for my books, DVDs, CDs etc with (and this would be the only traditionally grand thing in the house) a beautiful dark wooden writer’s table with my computer on it and notepads filling the draws (I’m a stationary nut!). My bedroom would be large, with an en suite bathroom (This might be TOO MUCH detail, but when I was little, after a nightmare, I’d always turn on a light in the house as a form of ‘protection’, and I’m not going to lie, whenever I am frightened at night, or even feeling just sad and lonely, I’ll still do that now. I don’t know! I just think an en suite would be good for that!).


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, wow. I’ve never seriously considered this before! Umm...I guess at the moment, I’d focus on the here and now so I’d probably wish firstly for...

1) Great grades on my A-Levels I know, what a boring wish! But I need to get the grades in order to get into uni and I don’t think I could bear the disappointment I would feel (not to mention my family’s, oh God, I can’t even imagine...) if I didn’t get in after working so hard! I’d work for them as well as wishing for them because that’s just who I am, but I would love having that security to help me!

2) Happiness for my friends and family Oh, wow, what a cheesy one! But to explain, I guess the main reason is weirdly selfish – I just can’t deal with people who are upset! I’m generally terrible at comforting people as I’m pretty awkward in most areas of my life that don’t involve books or television so the happier they are, the happier I am! Also because my friends and family are amazing and deserve all the happiness they can get!

3) The ability to fly Well, I can’t drive sooo...Also, can you IMAGINE how amazing it would be to see the world from above? I just love pictures taken from a birds-eye view and being able to fly would be incredible! I love airplanes and travelling so it would cut costs on that front, and maybe also speed things up a bit if I wanted to get somewhere. Although, I’d have to make sure I wasn’t going to get shot out of the sky by some government. Maybe a flying license would be in order? So that everyone was aware that I was allowed to fly? Actually, thinking on it now, someone flying would cause one HELL of a lot of trouble for countries – what about disease control? And immigration? I’d pretty much cause a riot. But in an ideal world, where none of that was a problem, I’d totally want to fly.

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. ;)

I lived in France and went to a French school for four years, so I learned to speak fluent French, but I always feel really weird counting that as an accomplishment, because I sometimes feel that it wasn’t even my doing. Like, it just happened and it was hard, but I didn’t have a choice about it, it wasn’t something that I had to put my mind to, it either had to happen, or I wouldn’t have been able to cope at school. So I guess my greatest achievement was really (and this sounds pathetic compared to learning a language) a speechwriting project we did in English lit class. We were studying Hamlet and had to write ‘campaign’ speeches for a character from Hamlet to be ‘elected’ king/queen of Denmark, and I got Gertrude. And, let it be known now, I have A LOT of feelings about Gertrude so this was kind of my ideal activity until I found out that we would have to read them out to the class at which point I freaked. I hate public speaking, and I hate reading what I write aloud (mainly because it makes me realise how crap it is) so that was pretty much my nightmare coming true. But I wrote it, and it actually turned out really great. It was funny and kind of perceptive about Gertrude’s character and I think I was prouder of that piece of writing (and then standing up and saying it) than I was of anything before or since.

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.

Most important – Family I’ve moved around a lot, so I’ve tended to value family above friendship as they’ve always been there for me, especially my immediate family (being my parents and my brother). I’ve come to realise that we are far more alike than we’d care to think – my mum and I are practically the same person in different bodies in a lot of ways...she’s kind of my hero. I think I could cope without anything else on that list, but I would never be able to deal with my life without my family.

Least important – Adventure I’m just not that adventurous a person, I guess! I’m not very outdoorsy and I am much happier sitting at home with a good book or film than I am doing anything else, although I do love travelling. I’ve never been much of a party girl and I’m not that spontaneous (one of the few ways I’m more like my dad than my mum) so living a quiet life without adventure wouldn’t be too hard for me.

5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
“And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore” – Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
I’ve never liked the idea of relying on other people to help me. I’m a big believer in independence and inner-strength. The thought of being totally dependent on something or someone terrifies me and I don’t think I’d be very good at it. I like my own space, I like time to myself and my thoughts and I don’t like the idea of needing anything other than that. I want to be able to motivate myself and pick myself back up again, no matter how hard it is and how many times I fail, I’m pretty perseverant.

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.

Obviously financial security is important and I want to be able to live comfortably but I’m not terribly adept at handling money. My parents and my brother all work in finance (where I live, it’s either that or tourism, tbh) but that’s never appealed to me. I have no idea how I’m going to cope next year, I’m more creative than them so I tend to save for ages and then buy a bunch of useless stuff (or, as it’s known to me – awesome books that I’m totally going to get round to reading in the holidays). I generally leave the handling of money to my parents, as I still live with them, but I don’t know...I’m not a spendaholic, and I am totally capable of saving up money, but I’m not sure that I’ll ever be comfortable enough with it to do anything with it that isn’t totally basic and simple.

7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
This is going to sound horrifically basic but...

Watching tv - I love television. I love watching characters develop and change over several seasons and I love great, big, sprawling mythologies (whether it’s genre or not) and I LOVE IT when tv provokes an emotional response in me. There’s something incredibly powerful about seeing the images on screen that you don’t get when reading and I think it can be a greatly unifying experience, after all, you have to read on your own, but you can watch tv with friends and family. I just will always remember watching the first episode of New!Doctor Who with my family in 2005 (March 25th. Yes, I DO remember). We’re British, so Doctor Who is kind of a big deal for us and watching that first episode together (and laughing when Graham Norton’s voice leaked through from another show – something went wrong with the sound) was pretty amazing. It was my dad’s birthday party so my whole family was there, so there were 3 generations of us watching it, 2 of which had grown up with the show. I just thought that was really cool.

Writing - I’ve never been terribly good at it, but I love it. It’s therapeutic and helps me get my thoughts out in a (relatively) ordered manner. I especially love it when I finish something and the feeling of satisfaction and closure that comes with that.

Animated discussion - I love having really, really in-depth conversations with people. I have one friend in particular who is great for this, when it’s just us having a chat, we never run out of things to talk about. I think it’s great when people can talk about loads of things, especially in current affairs and their opinions on ‘life’! I know that sounds super-pretentious, but I just find it really fun to talk to people with well-thought out beliefs and opinions.

8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.

Snakes Does that need an explanation? They just terrify me, I think because of the way they move. The thought of them sliding around my feet makes me feel physically ill. I hate them.

Disappointing everyone I am terrified of disappointing my family and friends. I hate that. I hate knowing that I could have done something to make them happier than what I did and I hate the thought of failing in their eyes. The esteem of the people who I love and whose opinions I respect matters a lot to me.

Blindness I have pretty poor eyesight, in fact, so poor that at one point, I nearly was blind. But thanks to the miracle that is modern medicine, that’s all fine now, despite the fact that the possibility of blindness still terrifies me. I love reading and I love writing and I love watching tv and films and going blind would make doing that THAT much harder for me. It might also make me feel more dependent on others (which, like I said, I loathe the thought of) so that’s another reason to fear it for me.

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: 1) I work hard. I’ve always put in the effort, even when the effort wasn’t necessarily needed. No matter how big or small the project that I’m working on is, I always put my heart and soul into it. I’ve been raised to never take anything for granted and to not rely on other people to give you things for free, so I make sure I earn everything that I get.

2) I’m reliable. I used to do a lot of theatre, less now because it’s quite a commitment and I just don’t have time, but the guy who used to run our theatre group would always stress the importance of punctuality and reliability and I’ve really taken that to heart. If I say I will do something, it’s because I know that I will get it done. I always get my work done and handed in on time, I’m always prepared and my friends always know that they can count on me to be anywhere at the exact time that I say that I will be there.

3) I’m loyal. I’d rather chop off one of my limbs than betray a friend. I’m terrible at being ruthless; I stop to help every one of my friends, even knowing that they wouldn’t necessarily do the same for me. I don’t turn my back on the people that I love – ever, and I get tremendously hurt when I’m betrayed because I genuinely fail to understand how people don’t have that same attitude as I do.

WORST: 1) I’m a terrible liar. Some would say that’s a good thing, but it’s not even like I’m that honest. I try to get away with things but I just can’t lie to people’s faces, I go beetroot (granted, I do that when telling the truth too). I guess that means that I’m awful at being scrutinised. I hate feeling eyes on me and I most definitely hate being the centre of attention.

2) I’m awful at dealing with emotions and feelings and stuff. I like logic and reason in real life. Whilst I can deal with that in fiction (and I LOVE big, romantic fictional stories), when feelings happen in real life, I clam up. I pretty much end up clasping people on the shoulder and wait for the outburst of emotion to pass. Don’t get me wrong, I can be passionate and upset and joyful and all the rest of it, I just can’t deal with it in other people.

3) I have a tendency to take things personally when they (weirdly) don’t relate to me in any way. Criticise my work? Fine. Criticise my personality? Fine. Criticise my friends, family or something I have opinions about (eg: if you say something bigoted or if a favourite showrunner acts like an asshole in public)? Do it at your fucking peril. I’ve been told that I can be pretty intense when I want to be, especially when I believe that something is unfair or I smell injustice somewhere. Like I said, I’m fiercely loyal so I tend to act like a Mama Bear when someone attacks something or someone that I love. I take it almost as an attack on myself and I’ve frequently been told to back down by the parties I’ve been ‘protecting’, to let them fight their own battles as it were.





A Song of Ice and Fire Related

1.How many books from the series have you completed?

I’ve recently finished ADWD

2.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?

1) Sansa Stark – DEFINITELY my favourite. Oh, god, do you want to hear my Sansa feelings? I want to give you my Sansa feelings. I’ve loved her from the start because I thought she was such a DIFFERENT character for GRRM to be exploring – that of a girly-girl in a fantasy setting. Yes, she was naive, but no more so than Arya (albeit in a different way – I think Arya was naive in the sense that she wasn’t aware of the consequences of wanting to ‘buck the trends’ and act like a tomboy badass and Sansa was naive in thinking that everyone was as good as her). She is intelligent and thoughtful good-hearted and she is such an idealist that it’s almost painful to read about at times. You just want to hug her because she does not deserve, nor did she want, any of what has been forced on her (although you could make a case for that with every character). I just love the way that she remains unambiguously good and true to herself throughout the books and the way she learns from the people around her. She is growing up in a toxic environment, and yet she’s determined to make the best of the world she’s living in. “When I’m queen, I’ll make them love me.” UURRRGGHH!!! She’s so wonderful and strong and is going to be the baddest bitch in the Seven Kingdoms by the end because she uses her courtesy as armour and she plays by the rules of the game as she learns to look for ways around them.

2) Catelyn Stark – I love her. She just embodies her house words all the way through ‘Family, duty, honour’. She does what she’s expected to do and functions within the patriarchal parameters of Westeros, yet at the same time manages to create a new role for herself. She pleads for peace and tries to keep Robb’s focus on his sisters and his duties as a brother rather than as a king. I particularly loved her chapters in ACOK, they were a real highlight for me as they were such a contrast with the others because she was so intently focussed on her family and her grief for the ones she’d lost and yet she was still able to function and do her duties. Her strength of mind was remarkable to me, which is why I found the Red Wedding/Lady Stoneheart to be so tragic as she was completely broken down into what she never was in life – a creature solely driven by revenge and violence and hatred.

3) Davos Seaworth – By far and beyond my favourite male character of the series. He is intelligent and so essentially good that I love him – I just feel like he really provides such an important moral and class grounding for a series that otherwise would feel like a tale of the amoral elites. He reminds both Stannis and the reader of the importance of the ‘little man’. I particularly loved his first chapter after the Red Wedding happened. In the previous chapter (I think it was Tyrion’s? Cba to check), Tywin had just tried to justify it and, in a twisted way, it made sense to think of it that way until Davos’ chapter where he was just like ‘NO. DUDE. THAT’S GROSS AND CROSSING, LIKE, A THOUSAND DIFFERENT LINES. HOW THE FUCK DARE THEY?’ I just feel that he’s such an important character to remind us all of the ‘human’ factor of these stories, which is for me the most interesting part.

3.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?

1) Gregor Clegane – He’s just a monster who shows no remorse for his actions and seemed to just take pleasure in doing horrible things. No. No. No. I have no time for characters like that.

2) Rickon Stark – ONLY BECAUSE WE KNOW, LIKE, NOTHING ABOUT HIM. Seriously though, is he even alive? Where the fuck is he? I just do not have a read on this kid and so I don’t *hate* him (obviously), I’m just not particularly attached to him.

3)Joffrey Baratheon – I do feel some sympathy for him, in the same way that I feel *some* sympathy for all the Lannisters, he’s a product of his house and a product of the mistakes of Robert and Cersei. He’s an attention-starved (from his ‘father’s’ side) and psychotic but I hardly blame him for being the result of incest, that, at the very least, wasn’t his fault. What I hated about him was the way he was the embodiment of all that was wrong with Westerosi society – deeply sadistic and misogynistic, arrogant, unfeeling and violent.

4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?

The Red Wedding – IT HURTS SO GOOD. It was horrible to read but I also thought it was a pretty great twist and extremely well-written and atmospheric. Like Catelyn, your senses were overwhelmed and confused until the full horror of it all descended on you like a ton of bricks. It was pretty great.

Either that or Sansa’s line “my skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel”. I just feel like that was such a concise statement of her character arc and an utterly beautiful way to demonstrate her growing adeptness at the game.

5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?

SANSA RULING ALL. HAHAHAHA NO. I wouldn’t wish the Iron Throne on anyone, to be honest. I just want Sansa to be alive and happy, hopefully up North after being reunited with her brothers and Arya. Oh, and for her to rebuild Winterfell like she did in the snow.
I’d like to think that if anyone ended up on the Iron Throne, it’d be Dany – after a while, of course, she’s certainly not ready yet, or a council of rulers – maybe her, Aegon, Arianne, Sansa and Jon working together? I could see that working out better than an absolute monarchy.
Oh, and I want Jaime to strangle Cersei and then kill himself out of grief, holding onto her foot as he goes. Yes. Because mirrors and I like having my soul crushed (Even though I LOVE the idea of Jaime and Brienne together).