PERIODIC TABLE

ALBERT BANDURA'S BOBO EXPERIMENT

AN OBJECT LESSON IN NATURAL HISTORY

This is a healthy frog in its natural habitat (freshwater):

This is chlorine (Cl, atomic number 17), used as a chemical weapon during the Great War (the Germans threw chlorine grenades at the British and French intrenchments):

These are chlorine tablets, used by humans to purify freshwater:

This is a chlorine dispenser, used to purify freshwater in swimming pools. It contains chlorine tablets:

And this what happens when a frog meets a chlorine dispenser:

A dead frog.

MY WESTEROS SOUNDTRACK

In case you ever wonder what kind of songs I would have for the characters:

CAST HERDS I-III: DRAGONSTONE, HIGHGARDEN, ROYAL COURT

• Stannis/Melisandre: Lady in Red (is dancing with me...)
• Stannis/Melisandre: Light My Fire, The Doors (Come On Baby Light My Fire)
• Stannis: Hellfire (Hunchback of Notre Dame)
•  Stannis Baratheon... The Arbiter (from Chess)
• Stannis Baratheon: Carolus Rex (Sabaton)
• Stannis Baratheon: Hellfire (from The Hunchback)
•  Davos: Valjean's Soliloquy (I am reaching but I fall), also from Les Misérables (Jackman version)
• Renly & Stannis Baratheon... Two brothers on their way, one wore blue and one wore gray (US folk song, covered by Tom Jones and many others)
• Renly Baratheon: Rainbow High (from Evita).
•  Renly Baratheon (death and its aftermath): Rex regi rebellis (Turisas)
• Renly & Loras: Mann gegen Mann, Rammstein
•  Brienne Tarth: Reflection (Fa Mulan)
• Brienne Tarth: Sans contrefaçon, Mylène Farmer (Sans contrefaçon, je suis un garçon)
• Brienne Tarth: I can't say I'm in love (Meg's song from Hercules, fits Brienne's feelings and backstory rather well)
•  Brienne Tarth: Bad Romance (about her relationship with Jaime)
• Jaime and Brienne: Поручик Голицын, as well. Brienne being Kornet Ovolensky...
•  Jaime and Brienne: He's just a bit of a fixer upper, from Frozen (Troll song, the trolls sing to Anna that she should accept Kris the way he is)
• Jaime & Brienne: The Edge of Heaven, Wham!
• Jaime & Brienne: There's Something There (Beauty and the Beast, Belle/Beast duet)
• Jaime Lannister: He is not One of Us (Lion King 2)
• Jaime Lannister: I Can Go the Distance (Hercules)
• Loras Tyrell, after Renly's death: Ohne dich, Rammstein.
• Loras Tyrell (after Renly's death): Careless Whisper (I'll never gonna dance again)
• Margaery Tyrell (after losing Renly): Ha majd a nyarunknak vége, Kárpátia.
• Margaery Tyrell (after Renly's death): Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler.
•   Margaery Tyrell (Purple Wedding, feat. Joffrey): Heideröslein, Goethe (Sah ein Junge ein Röslein stehen, Röslein auf der Heide)
• Margaery Tyrell: Rosenrot (Rammstein)
• Margaery Tyrell: Make your Own Cross (Flash and the Pan)
• Margaery, Alerie, & Olenna Tyrell: We're Clearly Soldiers in Petticoats (Mrs. Banks's suffragette anthem in Mary Poppins)
•  Sansa: Once upon a December (Anastasia)
• Sansa: I Dreamed a Dream (Les Misérables)
• Jaime & Cersei: Spiel mit mir, Rammstein
• Cersei Lannister: Zira's Lullaby (Lion King 2), for singing goodnight to Joffrey
• Cersei Lannister: Hear me Roar, Katy Perry (What else)?
•  Cersei Lannister: Killer Queen, by Queen (Wanna try??)
• Tywin Lannister (feat. Cersei): Gold, Spandau Ballet
• Tywin Lannister: Don't Fall in Love (BATB 2)
• Tywin Lannister (& his Screwed-up Children): Be Prepared (Lion King, Scar's song. The Swedish version "Var beredd" is the best one, IHMO)
• Varys... Lasha Tumbai, Verka Serduschka
• Robert Baratheon (as a young man): Don't Fall in Love (BATB 2)

CAST HERD IV: NORTHERN LANDS

•  Jon Snow: He is not One of Us (Lion King 2)
• Ygritte (with Jon): Colours of the Wind (Pocahontas)
•  Ygritte: Wild Dances (Ruslana)
• Jon Snow & Ygritte: Up where We Belong (An Officer and a Gentleman)
• Jon Snow & Ygritte: The Love Tonight (Lion King, Elton John)
• Alliser Thorne (feat. Night's Watch Recruits): I'll Make a Man out of You
•  Theon Greyjoy: Shine on you Crazy Diamond, Wish You were Here, The Lunatic (from Dark Side)... Any Pink Floyd song dedicated to Syd Barrett
•  Theon Greyjoy: I Can Go the Distance (Hercules)
•  Theon Greyjoy: He is not One of Us (Lion King 2)
• Theon Greyjoy (feat. Ramsay Bolton): Mein Teil, Rammstein
•  Ramsay Bolton (Feat. Theon Greyjoy): Ich tu dir weh, Rammstein
• Ramsay Bolton (Feat. Theon Greyjoy): Wiener Blut, Rammstein
• Ramsay Bolton (being ironic): Penis Song (Monty Python)
  
  
• The Boltons: Masters of the house, also from Les Miserables (Thénardiers' song, the Baron Cohen and Bonham-Carter version)
• Ned Stark: Viva la Vida, Coldplay
• Robb Stark and Theon Greyjoy: Poruchik (Czarist Lieutenant) Galitzin (Поручик Голицын)...
• Robb Stark & Theon Greyjoy: Red & Black, from Les Misérables
•  Robb Stark (as a military leader): Kuruc Labanc, Kárpátia.
•  Robb Stark (as a military leader):  Zero to Hero (Hercules)
• Sansa Stark (young): Someday my prince will come (Snow White)
• Sansa Stark (young): Once Upon a Dream (Sleeping Beauty, Aurora/Philip duet)
• Sansa Stark (young): When Will my Life Begin? (Rapunzel)

CAST HERDS V-VI: DORNE & EYRIE

• Oberyn: I'm Sexy and I Know It!  
• Oberyn: First We Take Manhattan (Then We Take Berlin!)
•  Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, as a boy, in love with Cat Tully (soon to be Stark): Pretty Woman
• Lysa Baelish, formerly Arryn, née Tully: Mrs. Robinson, by Simon and Garfunkel
• Petyr & Sansa: Wiener Blut, Rammstein
• Petyr & Sansa: In the Dark of the Night (Rasputin's song from Anastasia)
•  Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish: Master of Puppets, Metallica
•  Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, Iago's Credo (from Verdi's Otello opera)
• Petyr & Lysa Baelish: Love Is an Open Door (Frozen, Hans/Anna duet)

VOX POP VS CULTURED MALES

Recently, I wrote a poll about who would be the best ruler of Westeros and distributed it among my Facebook acquaintances. All of the Baratheons were featured on the list.
I was one of the few (currently six) who voted for Renly. While Stannis never lost the first place, reaching up to 61 votes.
Definitely, the youngest of the Baratheons may have been popular in-universe, but the real world shows the true story. Most people favour Iago over Cassio, despite the latter being more popular in-universe, for the same reason that they prefer Stannis to Renly.
In these days, chivalry is out. WORSE THAN THAT, cultured gentlemen are often cast as villains (gay or het) in most celebrated films. Like Stuart Dunmire (Sir Not Appearing in the Book) in Mrs. Doubtfire, for example:

Dashy Stuart Dunmire (Pierce Brosnan!) walks in.  It’s obvious they’ve already had a thing for each other.  He is handsome, courteous, rich, and sexy but not interested in sex for its own sake, or for unhealthy reasons.  He is genuinely interested in her work and her personality,  and is cultured.  Stu is so sorry, he’d always hoped she’d find happiness.  How nice, Miranda is happy he remembered her and cared so much.  They go over designs together and plan to talk again soon.
 Lesson #4: nice cultured moral guys- how men are supposed to act- are the annoying antagonists.
 Stuart Dunmire, “pretty boy” or “lover boy” or whatever it is...
We don’t see or hear from Stu since he chokes.  Is he out of the picture?  Has he been “emasculated” by choking and doesn’t want to come back? (or does the film not want him back since he’s no longer “masculine”?)  An even worse possibility is that he isn’t seen anymore because he isn’t necessary anymore, that it doesn't matter either way whether he’s in her life or not. As an object of happiness for Miranda, maybe he doesn’t fit into the story anymore…
Stuart Dunmire is everything a woman can dream of.  He’s handsome, dashing, protective but not overbearing, not interested in sex for sex’s sake, and has good manners.  Did we mention he’s rich?  He loves the kids, is interested in Miranda’s personality and life, and is an object of her happiness and liberation.  He is portrayed as the kind but annoying new boyfriend, who has everything a girl can ever want…but isn’t right for her, since he makes her happy.

Or the Dandy Highwayman, that nerdy librarian and eighteenth-century otaku featured in "Stand and Deliver" (Scooby Doo Mystery Inc., Episode 46), who adopts a dashing and cultured alter ego, and abducts only female victims in the woods at night, to make up for the lack of success in love (heterosexual, indeed!) that his true self suffers from... incidentally becoming the villain of the week.

Making villains cultured and antiheroes losers. That's another tenet of anti-intellectualism (which I suspect to be a conspiracy to undermine the power of the intelligentsia).

Here's my law for reading the learned and/or dashing male appearing in media (except "chick" media, the exception).
 If cultured male characters are straight, they're the bad guys. 
If they're gay, they're good guys, yet in supporting roles.
 If they're asexual, they're good guys, yet in supporting roles (the notorious "learned equals celibate" stereotype). 
If they're bisexual... there's no such thing as bisexuality in the mainstream media!

In fact, I wrote The Ringstetten Saga (and many of my other works) to showcase the cultured male as heroic for being cultured (aside from 007, I can't think of any other straight cultured male lead not created by me!). Gerhard von Ringstetten and his male descendants as proof that a dashing and learned young officer (raised, originally, to be a courtier) may become a lieutenant, a landowner, someone successful yet not drunk on success...

LEGO LUNA LOVEGOOD

For all those Luna-tics out there in cyberspace...

Captured by the Inquisition (why is she so down?)... (humming Imperial March)

In her Ravenclaw uniform

With Xeno (and worried looks on their faces)

All dressed up for Christmas

EXAM SEASON

Terminology, Spanish, German... I hope I win all those tests, so I can get to Sweden this summer!

Due to intensive exam studying and project writing, this blog may be updated at a slower pace during this fortnight.

I CAN'T HAVE ENOUGH OF TSQ-IV RETELLINGS

A Eureka AU. The Clever Princess is Allison Blake.

This character has 2 Ph. D.s !!

 Her "fiancé" is Allison's fatherless autistic and surpassingly clever (aspie?) son, Kevin Blake.

The queen sought the most intelligent man of the kingdom to become her companion, and rumor has it she found him just a year ago in the kingdom of science.

The next day they arrived at the palace but found the doors barred to their entrance. ...over the walls, once in the palace,  the beautiful woman sank to her knees...

 She was beautiful, but her skin was the warmest earthen color, her energy was golden.
“I am Lady Allison. It has been a long time since I have felt such devotion in my court.”
 “Then my little prince and I shall help you,” she decreed, gesturing to a small boy, skin as dark as midnight but with a smile as golden and bright as day at her side. “This is Kevin, who I love as my own son,” she introduced him. “And like many of our magical scholars, he has shunned the Snow Queen’s ways. 

WESTEROS AU XI: THE QUEEN BEYOND THE WALL

The sun resounds, like she's done ever,

in the great concert of the spheres,

and she completes her fulfilled journey 

amidst loud thunderclap and cheers.

She gives strength to the failing angels,

though they can't sound her core or may.

The undescriptibly high opus

remains sublime, like the first day.

Goethe, Faust. First words of Part I (my translation from the German).

This AU is Andersen's classic The Snow Queen in Westeros.
From Evenfall Hall on Tarth to the woods and ice caves north of the Wall, the story follows Brienne in her search for Jaime, who has been abducted by the Night's Queen, a legendary female White Walker.
Every chapter in the Swedish-language novella will open with some poetry, like the one above, for the First Story.

Dramatis personae

• Creators of the Mirror: Maesters
• Breakers of the Mirror: White Walkers
• Gerda: Brienne Tarth
• Kay: Jaime Lannister
• Gerda's Nan/Herself: Septa Roelle of Evenfall
• Gerda's Father/Himself: Selwyn Tarth
• Kay's Father/Himself: Tywin Lannister
• Kay's Sister (Lady Not Appearing in the Fairytale)/Herself: Cersei Lannister
• Snow Queen: The Night's Queen or Queen of North (female White Walker who married a Stark Lord Commander of the Night's Watch during the Age of Heroes)
• Erring Freakshow Troupe that Captured the Night's Queen: Themselves
• Springtime Sorceress: Melisandre
• Her Accomplice/Himself: Stannis Baratheon
• Flower Spirits: Stannis's Army (&) Stormlanders Burned at the Stake
• Wild Crow/Pet Crow: Edric Storm (Sir Not Appearing in the Series) (Margaery Tyrell, in the finale)
• Clever Princess: Renly Baratheon
• Clever Princess's Fiancé: Loras Tyrell (&) Margaery Tyrell
• Royal Family: The Tyrells
• Wicked Highwaymen: Brave Companions (Locke and his Cronies)
• Good Highwaymen: Meera and Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, Hodor
• Robber Maiden: Meera Reed
• Pigeon: Bran Stark as the Three-Eyed Raven
• Reindeer: Summer (possessed by Bran Stark) and Ghost (possessed by Jon Snow)
• Saami Woman/Shaman: Maester Aemon Targaryen
• Finnmark Woman/Shaman: Lord Commander Jon Snow
• Captain of the Black Betha (Sir Not Appearing in the Fairytale)/Himself: Davos Seaworth
• Surgeon on Board the Black Betha (Sir Not Appearing in the Fairytale): Himself

Opening Verses for the Chapters

First Story, Of the Night's Queen and the Maesters' Looking-Glass:

The sun resounds, like she's done ever,

in the great concert of the spheres,

and she completes her fulfilled journey 

amidst loud thunderclap and cheers.

She gives strength to the failing angels,

though they can't sound her core or may.

The undescriptibly high opus

remains sublime, like the first day.

Goethe, Faust. First words of Part I (my translation from the German). 

Second Story, A Courtier Boy and a Gentry Girl:

Say which day

does a young child cease to be a child?

Say which day

is a young child's friend no more a friend?

Say which day

does a person lose those good rights

to safety, solace, and grace?

Say which day

is one regarded as coming of age,

and must keep tears off the face?

Barbro Hörberg, "Gamla älskade barn" (my translation from the Swedish).

Third Story, The Heretic Burnings of the Priestess Endowed with Powers:

She looked over his shoulder

For ritual pieties,

White flower-garlanded heifers,

Libation and sacrifice,

But there on the shining metal

Where the altar should have been,

She saw by his flickering forge-light

Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot

Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)

And sentries sweated for the day was hot:

A crowd of ordinary decent folk

Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke

As three pale figures were led forth and bound

To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all

That carries weight and always weighs the same

Lay in the hands of others; they were small

And could not hope for help and no help came:

What their foes like to do was done, their shame

Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride

And died as men before their bodies died.

W.H. Auden, "The Shield of Achilles".

Fourth Story, The King and Queen of the Reach:

She didn't fall being so careless:

a demigod of royal name,

came down, just like a golden downpour,

onto the young maid of good fame.

With modesty within her bosom,

yet stature- and countenance-proud,

she went off to court, to encounter

the cold, piercing glares allowed.

The guards, the pageboys, and the courtiers

stood there, dazzling candles so tall,

and on the lace frills of their cravats

the curls of allonge wigs did fall.

The court ladies, dressed for the gala,

they curtsied the best to appeal.

And the maidens curtsied the lowest:

here, power was true and was real.

The worship of the royal lover

was made known to his entourage.

That "strength renders tribute to beauty",

was drawn with his and her visage.

Carl Snoilsky, "Aurora von Königsmarck" (my translation from the Swedish).

Fifth Story, The Little Greenseer:

At evening, when the stars had just begun

To move along the edges of the hills,

Rising or setting, would he stand alone,

Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake,

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands

Press'd closely palm to palm and to his mouth

Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls...

William Wordsworth, "The Boy of Winander".

Sixth Story, The Maester and the Lord Commander at the Far Side of the World:

Follow me beyond the mountains, beyond cool and tranquil rivers,

where the oceans slowly fall asleep in rock-beds that slope down...

Somewhere there, beyond the heavens, there's my home, and there's my mother,

in a golden mist she's hidden, made of roses is her gown.

May the dark and salty waters soothe my cheeks, ablaze with fever,

may we be miles away from this life when night gives way to morn...

I was not from this world, and, due to my restlessness and passions,

I have gone through endless suffering, and pain, and woe, and scorn.

Dan Andersson, "Omkring tiggaren från Luossa" (my translation from the Swedish).

Seventh Story, What Happened in the Ice Cave Beyond the Wall, and What Happened Afterwards:

Everything that shall end

is but a clue.

What cannot be reached

does here come true.

What cannot be described

is here made real.

The eternal feminine

leads us to feel.

Goethe, Faust. The last words of Part II (my translation from the German). 

Canon divergences

• In a memorable scene, Brienne wounds Jaime in the side, causing him to fall unconscious, with a piece of dragonglass (she got it from Jon Snow), when they reunite in a glacier north of the Wall. So Jaime and Brienne have wounded each other in the side, she thinks she's killed him, a frozen teardrop of hers falls between his lips and her warm blood stains his hand and wound... he swallows the teardrop, and he comes to, still pale, his eyes shifting from ice-blue to their usual green colour... (cathartic indeed!)
• Jaime has his hand cut off by Loras Tyrell on the homecoming to Tarth, as both leading characters are banned from the Reach and blamed for Renly's death at Storm's End (he tries to make peace between Loras and Brienne à la Mercutio).
• Since Jaime's character arc is different from canon, Bran became hemiplegic when he accidentally slipped from the walls of the ruined tower at Winterfell.

Lastly, there is a relevant hypothesis at the end...
In the original fairytale, when Kay and Gerda return home, they find Nan reading the Gospel of Matthew. In my AU, Jaime and Brienne find Septa Roelle reading a hymn to the goddesses (Maiden, Mother, and Crone) of the Faith of the Seven... which is, coincidentally, the last stanza in Goethe's Faust Part II... which acts, like the Lutheran hymn "Roses grow and fade away" in the original tale, as the leitmotif and the coda.
Therefore, it is implied that the World of Ice and Fire is either Earth in the future or a planet colonized by humans from Earth (could it be?)