The Dead at Our Doorstep
, formerly known as A Ballad of the Dragon and She-Wolf, is a Game of Thrones fanfic by weirwood_bonsai.
It takes place within a hybrid continuity of the show and books, and diverges from the canon of the show after the events of Season 7. A major element is that Arya and Daenerys become close friends, which profoundly affects the politics of the show as well the mindsets of the characters. Several book characters appear, many as cameos but others have strong relevance to the plot.
A Ballad of the Dragon and She-Wolf provides examples of:
- A Glass of Chianti: Cersei is almost always seen drinking wine, most often reds.
- Agent Peacock: Kulungu wears an ornate feather cloak typical of Summer Islanders when not in combat. In combat he wears sensible armor.
- Amazon Chaser: Tormund, like on the show, is infatuated with Brienne.
- Apothecary Alligator: Qyburn has an apothecary lizard lion in his laboratory. The Seneschal of the Citadel also has one in his office.
- Audience Surrogate: Daenerys often serves as one in scenes where Jon or Arya tell her about different locations they visit, this provides readers with lore they may not be familiar with.
- Badass Preacher: The OC character Most Holy Moishe is the head of the Faith in the North and was once a feared outlaw.
- Basilisk and Cockatrice: Tumco Lho's coat of arms features a basilisk and his helmet's crest does too, fitting as he's from the Basilisk Isles.
- Bathtub Bonding:
- One chapter has Arya and Daenerys share a bathtub. They have a deep conversation and their nudity parallels their frankness.
- They also bathe in a hot spring after Daenerys' sword lessons, along with Brienne. Both chapters with this are from Brienne's POV and she finds cathartic in improving her body image and self esteem.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Maege Mormont is this for Tormund.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: Arya and Arianne both have shades in this, both of them hail from Great Houses but live scandalous and unconventional lifestyles involving things like casual nudism.
- Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Daenerys' Queensguard is an unusual take on the trope since they don't all come from the same places. The late Barristan was from the Stormlands, Jorah is from the North, Red Lamb is from Lhazar, Tumco Lho is from the Basilisk Isles, Grazha is from Meereen, and Belwas and Larraq are presumably from Meereen as well but its uncertain.
- Collector of the Strange: Qyburn has a number of odd artifacts in his lab, including the above mentioned lizard lion.
- Cool Helmet: The Queensguard wear great helms, each member has a unique crest.
- Cool Mask: Several examples:
- Morna wears one carved out of weirwood resembling a Heart Tree face, complete with the crying eyes.
- The Great Walrus wears a walrus mask with actual tusks.
- Quaithe wears a lacquered red one.
- Cool Sword: Several in addition to those from the books and show.
- One subplot involved the rediscovery of Valyrian steel and two swords Daenerys commissions, one for her with a dragon bone hilt and pommel carved like a dragon's head and another for Arya with a weirwood hilt and pommel carved like a wolf's head.
- Kulungu has a Valyrian steel scimitar with an antler hilt and shapes cut out of the blade (similar to certain West African swords).
- Manfrey Martell has a broadsword with a basket hilt shaped like three entwined snakes.
- Death by Adaptation: Podrick Payne is killed fighting wights and Bronn is executed by Jon for trying to kill Jaime and Tyrion. Sam Tarly ends up dying during the Siege of Winterfell, and Archibald Yronwood suffers the same fate shortly after.
- Dirty Old Man: Qyburn isn't above admiring the scantly clad bodies of females, but can keep it to himself most of the time. Same with the Seneschal of the Citadel.
- Dream Land: Arya's warg powers enable her to visit the aptly named Dreamlands, which appear to be an homage to H.P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. The laws of physics don't seem to apply, animals talk, multiple realities happen simultaneously, amongst many other oddities.
- Dream Sequence: Arya has dreams where she visits the Dreamlands and all have a coherent, if ambiguous, narrative.
- Dream Walker: Arya encounters her wolf Nymeria and other dreamers, and Daenerys mentions being visited by Quaithe similar to how she was in the books.
- Druid: Howland has shades of this, he is very close with animals and nature and seems to be rather mystical.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Some characters can't help but admire or check out the attractive bodies in their vicinity.
- Everyone Is Bi: Ellaria seems to believe this, but the also bisexual Yara says that idea is preposterous.
- The Fair Folk: The Children of the Forest are benign examples, the Walkers are malevolent ones.
- Family Relationship Switcheroo: Succinctly summed up by Jon: " My father is my uncle, my aunt is my mother, my lover is my other aunt, my siblings are my cousins, my grandfather killed my other grandfather."
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: There are a number of examples:
- The Skagosi are given traits of Alaskan and British Colombian tribes like the Haida and Tlingit, notably cedar hats and armor, button blankets, and totem poles.
- The Crannogmen seem to have Cajun elements, especially with their food.
- The Manderlys are given a very Greek aesthetic, which works given their sigil is Poseidon in all but name.
- Besides their canon similarities with Moorish Spain, Dorne also has elements of India and the Middle East.
- Fascinating Eyebrow: Daenerys is described as having a highly expressive face with many dramatic eyebrow gestures, which the author says was modeled after her actress Emilia Clarke.
- The Fashionista: It's acknowledged that Sansa is very good at designing clothes based on what she has available.
- Father Neptune: Dagmar Cleftjaw is an ironborn pirate who acts as a father figure to Theon, much like his book version and very different from his show version.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: Not exactly fetish but Missandei is very interested in learning about foreign cultures and writing about it in her journals. Tormund is also a downplayed example, being more fascinated by all the strange and new cultures he meets on Winterfell rather than any bigotry.
- Friends with Benefits: Daenerys reveals to Jon that she and Missandei used to be this before she ended with Grey Worm and they went back to just friends.
- Gardening-Variety Weapon: Many Poor Fellows used sharpened tools as weapons because they can't afford swords.
- Going to See the Elephant: Literally when Cersei has a tour of the Golden Company camp.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The Golden Company loves bedecking all their belongings with gold and precious gemstones. Every officer and soldier who can afford it boasts fancy custom arms and armor along with lots of jewelry. The jewelry also serves a practical purpose as its monetary value is enough to serve as ransom in the event the wearer is captured.
- Home Nudist: Arya always strips down after her retiring to her room for night and doesn't get dressed until the next morning.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Very much averted, unlike on the show. Almost all characters wear helmets in battle.
- Illegal Religion: Its revealed Dorne has a cult devoted to The Stranger, despite being condemned by the Faith.
- Intimate Marks: Yara has a starfish tattooed on her buttock.
- Knight in Shining Armor: None of the knighted characters really fit the bill, but the late Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy are described as this in spades. Jaime idolizes both, and his failure to live up to them is a major source of distress. Daenerys mentions that Rhaegar is often seen as one, despite the horrific crimes he was accused of.
- Knightly Sword and Shield: Most of the knights fight use this, with the known exceptions of Jorah who uses the two handed Heartsbane and Larraq who fights with a bullwhip and trident.
- Lemon Fic: It's rated explicit and the tags don't leave much to the imagination. However, all the four chapters with Explicit Content are tagged. The explicit tags have since been deleted.
-
Les Yay: Sansa speculates that Arya and Daenerys are more than just friends. - Lovable Sex Maniac: Yara, Ellaria and Tormund constantly think or talk about sex and whom they should fuck next.
- Medieval Prehistory: Besides the canon examples of dire wolves and mammoths, mastodons are found on the Isle of Faces and Morna mentions there are Megaloceros-like elks Beyond the Wall.
- Mooning: Yara flashes her ass at a cranky watchman at Southshield, who is not amused. She does it again to the captain of House Serry's guard, who finds it Actually Pretty Funny.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Played straight when Jon wakes Arya up. Subverted when Daenerys does as Arya has no hangups about other women seeing her naked and simply kept the covers up for warmth.
- Named by the Adaptation: Hagen's daughter, one of Asha/Yara's crew members in the books whose name was never given, is named Helga here.
- Noble Bigot: Lord Glover makes casually racist comments about Freefolk, Crannogmen, and Kulungu's Summer Islander heritage. Despite this he is shown to be capable of heroism when the time comes.
- Nudity Equals Honesty: Whenever characters are naked together they always have frank, often deep, conversations.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: No actual mermaids have appeared so far, but Sansa and Arya both have personal merwolf sigils that combine their father's wolf with their mother's trout.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Night King uses his magic to create undead minotaurs, called auroch men by the living.
- Out-of-Clothes Experience: This is observed when people witness Arya enter the Dream Lands.
- Power Tattoo: Euron has several occult symbols tattooed all over his body, many from the Shadow City of Asshai.
- Promotion to Parent: Jon takes on this role with Sansa and Arya, providing them with guidance and wisdom often repeated from Ned.
- Redemption Quest: Lord Glover is one of the first to volunteer on a mission to fight the Dead, which he does in penance for his past refusal to aid Jon and Sansa against the Boltons. Glover's mere participation redeems him in Jon's eyes, but when they get overwhelmed by wights Glover volunteers to stay back and fight them off so the rest of the party can escape safely.
- Remember the New Guy?: While the story mostly follows the plot of Season 8 in Broad Strokes, several characters who weren't present in the show, like Val, Morna, Arianne Martell, Victarion Greyjoy, Edric Storm and Edric Dayne are all introduced as if they had been there the whole time.
- The Remnant: Harrenhal is the last stronghold of the Faith Militant, all other members having been killed by Cersei before the fic's divergence from show canon.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Quentyn Martell gets annoyed that people assume all Dornish are hot-blooded, whores and poison masters.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Sarella Sand, who pretended to be an Acolyte named Alleras until she was found out. Turns out Pate and other Novices actually suspected she was a girl but said nothing because they thought they had a chance with her.
- Skinny Dipping: Arianne and Sarella swim nude in a pool at the Water Gardens.
- Sleeps in the Nude: Arya and Yara both do this.
- Straight Gay: Jon Connington/Griff lacks any stereotypical gay traits, much like in the books. However his sexuality has yet to be discussed.
- Tangled Family Tree:
- The fact that the Starks and Targaryens share descent from House Blackwood is discussed, which means that Jon and Daenerys are distant cousins on top of being aunt and nephew.
- Before learning his true parentage Jon mentions that his mother was possibly a Dayne, another House which married into the Targaryen line; if so that would have made them distant cousins twice over.
- Tea Is Classy: Sansa frequently drinks various herbal teas, it is implied that she drinks tea as a mild form of self medication for her mental struggles along with using scented candles and balms.
- Technicolor Eyes: Daenerys has purple eyes and silver hair, despite otherwise resembling Emilia Clarke.
- Trial by Combat: Ellaria demands one in order to avoid punishment for killing Doran Martell, with Yara volunteering as her champion against Manfrey Martell. Yara wins.
- Two-Person Pool Party: Yara and Ellaria enjoy themselves at a private pool in Sunspear.
- War Elephants:
- The Golden Company has these, which the author uses as a selling point for the fic since they famously didn't appear on the show.
- Both living and undead mammoths are used as beasts of war.
- The Wild Hunt: Arya witnesses them in a dream, most likely a stand in for the Army of the Dead.
- Winged Humanoid:
- Grazha Gallare's coat of arms and helm crest feature a harpy, a tribute to his home of Meereen.
- The Army of the Dead has undead harpies.
