30 DAY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME;;
DAY THREE (x)
Choose a different time period and describe what your character would have been like in that time period. Any excuse to talk about Lyanna’s modern verse (x). Since I already have a post about how Lyanna’s circumstances differ in this verse, I’d like to focus on how those differences change her personality and how she diverges from default verse Lyanna. I think the biggest differences are that she gets to keep Jon, not as many people die, and her relationship with Doran Martell is very different, too– all of which impact her personality.
By far, the most important of these is having her son with her. Jon’s presence in Lyanna’s life not only redirects her focus to him and his wellbeing, but it also makes her an inherently happier person. Jon is the most important thing in her life no matter what verse she’s in, but in her modern verse, Lyanna can do something about that. She makes sure there’s leftover Chinese in the fridge, that there’s always money in the cookie jar and menus in the silverware drawer. She does his laundry (not well, but she does it) and leaves baskets of folded clothes on his dresser for when he wakes up in the morning. Lyanna always reminds him to wear a sweater, always makes sure he has extra socks, and hands him a granola bar or a pop tart pack on his way out the door no matter where he’s going. Her mindset shifts dramatically from how can I serve Dorne best to how she can give Jon the best life. She is more at ease, more satisfied with life, more fulfilled. She sleeps better at night, she sings in the shower before bed. Sometimes, Jon will come home to her dancing in the living room to Metallica, if she’s had a particularly good day at work. #justmomthings
Secondarily, but perhaps just as importantly, Lyanna doesn’t suffer as many losses in her modern verse as she does in her default verse; furthermore, those losses that she does suffer are far less obviously a result of her actions. While she did blame herself for a lot of what happened when she was sixteen, her actions didn’t tear apart a nation in the modern verse, and so much of this self-loathing has reasoned out and dissipated over time. Yes, she made some dumb decisions when she was a kid– but what sixteen year old doesn’t? A lot of this progress was made in therapy, where she learned to differentiate between other people’s horrible decisions and her own. What happened because of business and money and ambition is not what happened because she fell in love and got knocked up and ran away. It isn’t her fault that her father and brother died. It isn’t her fault any of these things happened the way they did– she was just a kid. Lyanna does have a certain sadness and regret for her past, but it does not rule her the way that it does in her default verse. Emotionally, she is much healthier.
I haven’t really considered Doran’s level of involvement in Lyanna’s modern life ( @theeldestsun hmu ), but since she’s not living with the Martells in this verse, and because her focus is on raising her son and has been for the last 15-18 years, her relationship with Doran personally is very different. Obviously, her position with him is much more professional and with his company, so she is much more hesitant to cross personal boundaries with him, and even though he has likely helped her many times over the years (being a single, teenage mother is not easy), she is also far more independent from him by this point (15-18 years later). The dynamic they share in their default verse is likely not to be as strong or close of a bond, which does contribute to Lyanna feeling much more on her own, more isolated and having to rely on herself. Modern Lyanna doesn’t feel like she really has a family outside of her son. She is far less likely to feel connected to something larger than herself and to have a group identity like she does in her default verse, where she feels accepted in both Dorne and abroad. She also wouldn’t have the same experiences traveling, and likely her interests in foreign cultures and language would not be as nurtured as in her main verse. Ultimately, though, it’s a much happier verse for her.