Nadya's Fanfiction Planning 1

                                                     Nadya's Fanfic Planning no.1


My choices happen to fall on the Fantasy/legend/myth genre of television, novel and film series.

These are my options: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin

                                    Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien
                              
                                   Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
                           
                                   The Kane Chronicles, also by Rick Riordan

                                   Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini

Huh. What a range of choices. I was going to consider J.K Rowling's famous Harry Potter novels, but then again, that is just so common among fanfiction writers that I decided against it, no matter how tempting it can be. Tolkien fanfcition is even more tempting to do for me, but it requires too much research and too much explaining and words, particularly with the Silmarillion, Tolkien's prequel.
Inheritance Trilogy would be too simple for me, and the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series and Kane Chronicles would take a great deal of effort into thinking up action scenes. My last option would be A Song of Ice and Fire.

So here. After reading a few A.S.O.I.A.F fanfics, I've found some stories ( see links below), and made my choice!

The Other Dragon
An alternate story of what might have happened if Rhaegar defeated Robert on the Trident, and The Mad King Aerys listened to Varys, instead of Grand Maester Pycelle who urged him to open the Gates to Kings' Landing to accept the Lannister forces.

The Lady of the Rock
Joanna Lannister was the late wife of Lord Tywin and mother to Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion. She died giving birth to Tyrion and Cersei and Jaime missed her terribly, Cersei even grudged against Tyrion for her death, and hated him ever since. Lord Tywin also never smiled again, never remarried and turned dark and cold, hating Tyrion. Aerys, the Mad King, was also said to lust for Joanna, so what kind of person was she?

Fic Eleven: Covet (Lysa)
Lysa Tully Arryn, sister to Catelyn and wife of Jon Arryn- who died at the first book/season finds herself coveting the look of the Lannister queen.

So, is that so bad?

I often wondered what Westeros would be like many centuries after the War of the Five Kings.
Compare: War of the Five Kings to Wars of the Roses. As not only in terms of similarity but time.
What if after the same amount of centuries passed in that world as the centuries that passed since the Wars of the Roses? What would Westeros be like? Would the people there be as technologically advanced as we are in this world? How would history be written? Written records may be different from actual events. How would people perceive the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, innocent or guilty? Will things be written as hey occurred, or will some of it be considered myth, for example, Daenerys giving life to the dragons? Did she actually, in the eyes of the modern day Westerosi?
Did someone give her the eggs, or she find them and hatch them herself? History is like the game, Chinese Whispers, it is misheard, gets distorted, written records are even more scarce the further back you search, and not all of it may be true. After all, Tolkien created legend and myth, Martin wanted something just as fantastical but seemingly more realistic. Ned Stark didn't believe in the Children of the Forest or The Others/"White Walkers", and he lived back in the Westerosi Middle Ages.
How would the historians of Westeros, tourists and the school children view these stories and histories as they walk through historical World Heritage monuments, such as the Red Keep, the Great Sept of Baelor and the Dragonpit? Would it be like us as we walk through the ancient city walls of Jerusalem, the Forbidden City or would it be more as if we were walking through Camelot?

Who knows?

My main character is a modern day girl named Daenerys. Or Dany, for short. Her historian mum, Cassana named her after Daenerys Stormborn, the Dragon Queen. She isn't a lady, she isn't a princess, she isn't some lord or king's illegitimate child, she's just a student going on a high school trip to King's Landing, centuries after Aegon the Conqueror and his wives Rhaenys and Visenya landed and made the site their capital, riding on their enormous mounts. It's also centuries after the War of the Five Kings, which she's supposed to be researching. Dany's with Olyvar, a thin gangly guy, who stares at everything blankly with a shock of pale blond hair and dreamy blue eyes- he's like Wee Dingwall in Brave! Baelor, the supposedly arrogant I'm-so-good-looking guy, a narcissistic male model, and top athlete, who pursues Dany, who believes that he's just out to win the one girl who doesn't want her, Leona a good sweet, intelligent, though shy, friend and Jeyne, a promiscuous, none too clever, girl, with only two things in her head- boys and clothes. That and other members of their class, from Highgarden's Margaery Tyrell Private High school, named after, well, we know who she was- or at least those who've read the books or watched the series does. A trip, via plane, to King's Landing, would be the highlight of the school year. The years before it had been Sunspear, Dorne, the Eyrie in the Mountainlands, formerly called the Vale of Arryn, Pyke in the Iron Islands, Riverrun in the Riverlands, Storm's End in the Stormlands, Casterly Rock in the Westerlands and Winterfell in the Northlands and Dragonstone. Nice school, huh?

 
Dreadful group though. The trip to King's Landing in history class takes them to the historical sites of the Dragonpit, the Great Sept of Baelor and the Red Keep. Targaryens are in power- again, and are now a constitutionally ruling royal family. Lannisters and Baratheons survived- barely, Starks, Martells and Tullys have survived- although the Tullys had to put up with a revolution at one point. Houses Greyjoy and Arryn are still there, but Frey, Bolton, Baelish,  and numerous other houses -good and bad- have gone extinct- in the male line at least, with no one to carry out the family name, before gender equality was formalised. In the history written by Maester, "we-can't-even-remember-his-name" the Song of Ice and Fire was made legend and Dany's mum Cassana is a historian and a historical fiction author as well as an archaeologist, who is deeply immersed into trying to find out the secrets of the past long gone. Were the Stark siblings really wargs? Who killed Robert Baratheon, was it murder or just a stupid accident? How did Daenerys Stormborn obtain dragons, thought to be extinct? Did Catelyn Stark really come back from the dead? Was Cersei Lannister just an innocent pawn, whose actions were actually done by manipulative persons, or was she a tyrant murderess and a scheming femme fatale? Dany believes the past is just going to stay silent.


Yeah, right. So like many of their modern day inspirations, or similar countries/regions, the Iron Islands are like the Scandinavian countries, then and now. The North is Britain, Dorne- the countries of the Mediterranean, the Reach is Western and Central Europe, Westerlands are the north regions of Germany and Burgundy in France, the Vale/Mountainlands are Eastern Europe. And, yes, Dragons still exist, they are classified as a rare, and endangered- and dangerous- species, but the Targaryens, owing to family tradition, still keep them.








               

Nadya's Fanfiction Planning Semester 2 Part 2

                                                Nadya's   Fanfiction Planning no. 2



Okay, I've decided not to proceed with A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. I'm utterly brain-fried with that. I have to choose something else.

My first choice would be Tolkien. However, this would mean I might have to do some explaining or try something simpler for people who don't know their Tolkien mythology.

My character is Estela. An elf, a princess, but not something out of a fairy story.
She is one of the few red-haired elves in Arda- Tolkien's world, and although famously beautiful, is also a noted warrior- something which made humans then look aghast at this.
                                                                                                    
            Top Left and Right: Ships arriving to Valinor/Aman, the Undying Lands. Bottom: Tirion, capital of the Noldor elves on Valinor.                                                                                                
Her backstory is painful. She's related to Galadriel, as her paternal grandfather was Galadriel's father's half-brother and her mother was Galadriel's mother's (full) brother's daughter. This means- for Tolkien fans, that she's Feanor's grandchild. Feanor, the most gifted elf that ever was. He invented the elven script- the Tengwar- and made the Palantiri the seeing-stones- which people would probably have seen in the film series (which Saruman used and Gandalf tried to hide from Pippin) and also made the three silmarils, the most priceless, beautiful, brightest gems in the world.


Readers of Tolkien would remember that Feanor- who had a bad temper and a big ego- managed to sire the largest number of children that any elf couple ever had. Seven sons- though no daughters- and Estela's father Maedhros "The Tall" is the eldest. Feanor either cast a long and dark shadow over his children and grandchildren or kept a controlling hand over all of them, the latter of which occurred to Estela before he died.

                                                            
Top Left: Feanor most gifted elf ever born. Top Right: Feanor pregnant Nerdanel and four of their later seven children. Bottom: Curufin "the Crafty" his wife and Celebrimbor, his son and later maker of the Rings of Power.

She was a little charmer, loved a lot by everyone who knew her, but the darkness lingers in the back of her initially happy childhood. Her great-grandmother was the first elf to give up her life willingly, and her great-grandfather, the King Finwe, had remarried- to everyone's shock and to his son's resentment. But while the elves lived in the bliss of Aman/Valinor- the Undying Lands- a great deal is happening. The Ainur- Tolkien's angels had long ago been sent to earth to make the lands and seas flourish, and had a nemesis- Melkor/Morgoth- Tolkien's version of Lucifer, who rebelled against God and made a great deal of the Maiar- the Ainur who were helpers/companions/friends of the Valar- the most powerful of them- turn to his side. One of them was Sauron. Morgoth wanted the silmarils and stole them, killing Finwe and driving Feanor to madness and grief. Estela witnessed the brutal murder and watches helplessly as her father and his brothers were ordered by their father to swear an oath to get the silmarils back, no matter what they have to do- or be doomed to everlasting darkness should they die. She witnesses atrocities her uncles commit and her father was forced to take joint responsibility for- and loses pretty much all of her family when they ended up dying or leaving Middle-Earth to return to the Undying Lands. Her cousin creates the Rings of Power and dies by Sauron's hand. She, on the other hand had to stay because she knew her destiny was to fight the new Dark Lord- Sauron. She can't yet return home. So she stays.

Top: The Kinslaying at Alqualonde, Bottom Left: Melkor/Morgoth and Ungoliant, mother of Shelob sucking the light and life of the Two Trees of Valinor. Right: Feanor and his sons swearing the oath.
                            
This story comes up to the Last Alliance when Isildur, his father Elendil, Gil-galad, Elrond, Thranduil and pretty much everyone else- except for Hobbits, march upon Mordor and face Sauron's forces. This begins when she first met Gil-galad. the High King of elves on Middle-Earth. There will be a few flashbacks and maybe even an epilogue, but only a few.



                                                                 

Left: The Battle of the Last Alliance. Right: Gil-galad the High King of the Elves on Middle-Earth.

So these is the fanfic that inspired me to do this 
Tainted Light
A story of Maedhros and Silme and their love. Possibly the best- if not one of the best- fanfiction I have ever read.

Another Man's Cage
This is Feanor before he turned mad, his sculptress wife Nerdanel and their- then only four- children in a year of drama in Aman which would look fairly mild compared to what they don't know is coming for them.

Waves of Fire
Feanor and Nerdanel's first meeting and her perception of him as a young adult.

May the Valar protect them
The story of Little Legolas' birth and how he has to undergo a great journey with his caretakers to go home after his mother and brother were killed by some raiding humans.


Encounters in Imladris
Chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3
Elrond meets Celebrian, daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn for the first time, before he married her. Gil-galad teases and reassures him in turn, by remembering his own love story.`

Elanor's Yuletide
Elanor Gamgee, a.k.a "The Fair" daughter of Samwise Gamgee is a companion for Aragorn/Elessar and Arwen's daughter Princess Luthien. She misses Yuletide at the Shire with family as the season draws nearer to Gondor.