miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2015

ILLA FACIET: ON SHIREEN BARATHEON'S FUTURE

In Sweden, I have divulgated my own Vasatheon or Vasa=Baratheon Theory, in which the Baratheon brothers' struggle for the Iron Throne was likened to that of the Swedish House Vasa.

So, what’s more interesting:
Gustavus Vasa had three sons: Eric, John, and Charles.
The eldest, who became king after him, was unlucky in love, loved a well-set table, big game hunts, and wenches. More wenches! He died after consuming arsenic-laced pea soup.
So he left two bros fighting for the vacant throne. John was Catholic, an aesthete, not as sensuous as Eric but still a little sensuous, into the fine arts (he was Catholic because of the fine arts’ finery), and married to a Polish princess, Poland being Catholic and Sweden’s old enemy. Charles was stern, serious, no-nonsense, and a staunch Protestant… his brothers and courtiers saw him always as a stick in the mud, and his wife was Northern German. So these two didn’t get along, and the end of it was that Charles, then Duke of Värmland but proclaiming himself king, put John III and his Polish wife in prison. There, John III died. His wife managed to escape to Poland, where she had a son and they set up their claim for the Swedish throne. So Charles IX, once he had claimed the throne, had to fight wars against the Poles who saw him as a usurper, though he said the throne was his by right and by the grace of (Protestant) God…
And, needless to say, Charles IX burned and broke all the religious images (which to him were false idols, and to his brother were works of art) in Sweden.
Here’s the snag:
Eric XIV reminds me of Robert Baratheon.
John III and Charles IX would be Renly and Stannis, but reversing the birth order (Charles/Stannis was born the youngest)
House Jagellon of Poland: House Tyrell of Highgarden.
Catholicism: Faith of the Seven.
Protestantism: Faith of the Lord of Light.



Given the facts that:
The self-indulgent eldest brother (Eric/Robert) was first to die.
The aesthetically-minded brother (John/Renly) died the second, betrayed by...
The stern and pious brother (Charles/Stannis), now left as the sole survivor and fighting wars against enemies such as the (Poles/Tyrells)...
While destroying religious images and carrying out violent repression of (Catholic/believing in the Seven) opponents who refuse to accept him as king, branded as traitors and heretics, to legitimize his claim to the throne on religious grounds, in the name of (God [Protestantism] / R'hllor, the Lord of Light).

The parallels between the Baratheon and Vasa cases cannot be clearer.
But how will this neverending story come to an end?

Notably, both Charles IX and Stannis Baratheon were hard as iron, yet the fact that they had hearts was highlighted by the way they treated their young hopefuls. While both Stannis and Charles are being asked to confront their actions, they are giving their children, of whom they have great expectations to do what the fathers never could themselves, the best education and lots of loving care. Shireen is as loved by her father and as encouraged to learn as a child Gustavus Adolphus once was. And we all know what a wonderful person (brave, clever, kind, quick-thinking, righteous...) Gustavus became upon coming of age.
It must have been for a reason that an unusually emotive Charles IX liked to stroke his eldest son's golden hair as he said "Ille faciet": "He shall do it".
The same thoughts may be on Stannis's mind, though in feminine, obviously. Not knowing myself the Valyrian words for "She shall do it",  I would wish to express it as "Illa faciet".

And so my guess is that an adolescent Shireen Baratheon will outlive her father Stannis, put an end to the war, and sit on the Iron Throne. There is no doubt that she will be a better ruler than any of the feuding Baratheons of the previous generation.


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