Title: I Was Whole, Whole I Would Remain
Author: Dwellingondreams
Genre: AU (rebellion era)
Status: Complete
Library Category: Other Fandoms
Pairings: various

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542842/chapters/43949878

This is a good fanfiction.

First, the premise: When Aerys dies unexpectedly and his heir, Rhaegar, is nowhere to be found, Rhaella and Elia, the Queen Mother and the Queen Consort must work together to save Westeros.

Bam. Great premise. I love it from the start for three reasons.

1. It is centered on little loved, often ill-respected characters in the fandom who should be significant but are always sidelined.
2. It has a real gut-punch starter, with the King coughing up blood after exerting himself too hard raping his wife. Really gets things off to a fast start
3. It is centered on the girls! And its not centered on their sex lives! Who knew women did other things than have sex?

But good premises are easy. How is the execution?

Oh. Well. Its very good. The prose is simply beautiful. Gorgeous. The descriptions drip off the page and its apparent that the writer is a highly literate person who draws from a deep knowledge of the English language.

The characters are rich and carry distinct voices, especially as they're often operating at cross purposes and have completely different conceptions of right and wrong. We jump from Lyanna in one chapter, trusting completely in Rhaegar's assurance that "Elia and the Faith will be okay with bigamy" to Elia herself in the next chapter going "Oh HEEEEELLLL no."

It isn't a perfect fanfic. The descriptions break the flow at times and certain sequences are recycled. If you read the thing in one go you'll find yourself skipping over certain paragraphs where a a character says something they said 2-3 chapters ago. Certain characterizations are somewhat questionable and feel almost cartoonish. But the core, the heart of the story, women trying to guard themselves and their children in a world that's out to get them... that is damn near perfect. Easy 5/5.

 

It took a moment of reading to remember this. I'm not sure exactly when I checked it out, but I recall it, though I don't remember rating it here.

Rating it is a bit complicated at first, but the conclusion is a relatively easy one to draw. The premise itself is okay- not great or terrible. Enough to start a divergent point, but the story will have to stand on merit.

And on that it fails, I think. I would say that the idea is decent enough, but the execution very closely fails. It's bizarre in a way, the writer clarly has some skill, and envisions workable dialogue, but then just as I think that they are skilled, they commit some basic writing mistakes. And I do mean very basic.
This seems like a person who has a level of skill and a good idea of what they want to present, but not enough experience actually writing or even reading things to recognize when something is wrong or bad to do while writing. For this reason it presumably (I wouldn't know) improves with time, but for me it was too late, as I couldn't really get invested.

In a vacuum it would be a 2/5, though considering what sort of company that rating would provide, perhaps a 3/5 is more appropriate.

 

I've read a number of dwellingondreams' stories, they are to my eye well written character studies. No major errors jump out, all the side characters stay in character and they're no silly fanfic moments.

But at the same time I can barely remember any of their stories, they usually start strong and while they don't fade down, they do become rather bland.

For this story I would give 3.5/5. dwellingondreams fics are still better than over 90% of asoiaf fanfics.

 

I don't recall reading the story or rating this. I seem to have rated it at 2/5.

I am unconvinced by just how quickly Rhaella turned her character around and took control. Pycelle's incarceration didn't fit Rhaella's motivations. It seems to have been an afterthought and done simply because it could be.

I have a similar quibble with the rest of the main characters as well. They're treated with velvet gloves (they're always reasonable and right) and everyone else is put down in some fashion.

There's far too many words for the progress made. Some insight into character's thoughts is fine, but there's far too much of it here and it's not new insight either.

It's not a 2/5, but not a 3/5 either.

(Read till the end of chapter 13)

 

I'm not going to quibble with every point. I agree about the issues with overdescription and the somewhat meandering nature of the plot, and I mentioned them in the OP. Ultimately, I hardly think this is a perfect fic as such, I'm wholly subjective in my ratings and don't feel the need to justify a 5/5 beyond saying that I found the core concept compelling. I suppose on its own merits I might be convinced that it should be a 4/5. There are better fics, certainly.

But. I will disagree with this much. Rhaella and Elia are more or less reasonable figures, sure, but Lyanna's portrayal is that of someone who has been horribly misled and has very odd notions indeed of what the result of her actions has been. The narration is sympathetic to her, but [ispoiler]she still suffers horribly and from her perspective the story is nothing less than a tragedy.[/ispoiler]

And I mean, on another level, protagonists who are generally correct is hardly an inherent flaw. Most stories do this to some degree.

The only real example of what you're talking about from what I can see how the fic handles some side characters in the later parts, most notably [ispoiler]brandon. Arguably Rhaegar too I suppose, but I see this as a valid interpretation of his actions in canon.[/ispoiler]