#I don't want anyone to think that because of this set that I'm team Laris

[rosalie-starfall]

Tallinn

Star Trek: Picard - Two of One

[lemonhemlock]

For me it's really the alicent + larys scene. it's so strange. such deliberate dialogue there. like what was the exact reason for it to be said like that? why include it? what were the writers trying to prove about alicent's character that we don't already (extensively) know? we already know she's angry about rhaenyra's bastards and the fact that viserys pretends he doesn't know the truth, we know that if anyone it's HER trying to be dutiful and play by the rules so she would believe that she can be Impartial regarding something like that (even though that exact belief of hers is proven wrong and her (understandable) hypocrisy is displayed in that same exact scene when she says she wants her father back and larys calls her out on it and we see that alicent obviously knows he wouldn't be impartial). we know all of this! for them to write a line that so SPECIFICALLY puts her on the spot: "you'd surely suffer the same affliction, if it came to it" "i would not." this isn't a necessary line for her character! (unless... they are trying to use it to refer to something specific). the only other bastards alicent herself would ever have to potentially deal with are aegon's bastards, and we know those aren't the ones larys could be referring to here. because alicent is obviously not going to accept or be willfully blind or care whatsoever about aegon's bastards. the only other scenario they could be setting her up for narrative wise is if we're talking about her "legitimate" grandchildren, the heirs to the throne. i'm not 1000% sold on the helaemond kids theory being in the show, but to act like this isn't a bizarrely revealing, very specific deliberate piece of dialogue the writers chose to include is absurd. in this specific regard, they are clearly setting up alicent to be a hypocrite. (i say this with affection and understanding, not to bash alicent's character! she's my girl! i don't think being hypocritical is exactly the war crime of the century as apparently some team green stans do? it's perfectly human and understandable. also ironic, since aemond's entire book arc (and most likely show arc; we'll see what direction they go in) is grounded in him being a hypocrite! this dude runs the strong bastard hate club and proceeds to... knock up a strong bastard with another bastard! he deludes himself into thinking he is a dutiful and worthy son only to be the exact opposite and forsake any "duty" he has to his family and gets them killed!). point is, something like hypocrisy is a prominent theme in the story because hypocrisy is a prominent theme in human life! the moment is weird. for larys, of all people, to set her up like this is weird. it's compelling!

I don't really have a lot to add to this, because it's already so well-said and I basically agree with everything. People get so pressed about this for nothing. We have no proof that the writers will pick up this thread in S2, but they very deliberately shoehorned this in so they could have OPTIONS. The Larys scene you are referring to made me alert to a potential set-up for Alicent's hypocrisy as well. Or narrative irony at the very least. Pretending it doesn't exist or acting willfully blind about it is comical. It's not going to make it go away just because a part of the fandom doesn't like it. Object permanence is a thing? 🥲

[iwanttostayanonymoustoo]

Thank you for the detailed reply! This is Anon here - the ask wordlimit is too short so I'm replying via reblogging (I'm fairly new to tumblr so please let me know if it does not follow tumblr/ the fandoms' etiquette :))

For aegon, I think it's reasonable for him to hate Rhaenyra at that point, as you mentioned there's already so much bloodshed between the two houses and Aegon lost a large part of his family to the Blacks. I would definitely execute Rhaenyra too if I were in his position. However, feeding your enemy to dragon is another level of cruelty, which I don't think is justified. In the books Rhaenyra showed no sign of wanting to feed her enemy to the dragon - to be fair, Daemon might, perhaps; but not Rhaenyra. One clear evidence is she kept Alicent alive after all these time - which to me shows she might not even want to be a kinslayer, let alone perform such cruel executions. Because if Aegon can blame Rhaenyra for Blood and Cheese (of course without a reader's perspective he has no way of knowing it's actually Daemon), then Rhaenyra is also in every right to blame Alicent for all her family member's murder. And even if she did want to execute Aegon, for political reasons if not for revenge, I wouldn't think she would do it in the same way as were done to her.

Also for him recognizing Aegon the younger as heir, if I remember correctly it was a term set out by the Sea Snake - Alicent were "outraged" and had to be persuaded by Larys to concede. In fact, on the same day "King Aegon II preparing once again to behead his cousin Baela", very much showing the choice of heir is not a sign of him putting the past behind him, but only a reluctant political concession in exchange for the support of the Velaryons

For the iron throne. Yes I agree Rhaenyra is by no means a good leader during her time in king's landing - I would have stood by the people to oust her too. But I doubt the other way around also stand - the throne cut both Maegor (who is a terrible leader) and Viserys (who is a mediocre leader), can we then deduce Aegon II is a good leader? The F&B itself decreed it to be a "sad" reign.

For aemond, the ask had a word limit, so I didn't manage to mention the beheading of the house of strong, and the burning of the riverlands. But yeah, there's that…

For Lucerys's death, I do agree F&B's narration is sometimes unreliable, but this is all we've got (and true to both Team Black and Team Green) and everything else tbh is up to us to interprete. Don't get me wrong, I do think people are free to have their own interpretations and "both sides lost control of their dragon" were definitely a popular one, but then we lose any common ground of discussion as anyone is free to interprete everything in every way possible.

What we do have in common, however, are what is presented by the books. And in the books the only thing we know is Aegon killed his sister in a cruel manner; Aemond killed his nephew in a cruel manner. All the rest are interpretations.

Nonetheless, I'm not trying to defend Book!Team Black by criticizing Team Green. Rhaenyra, Daemon, all have their own faults (I can never forgive Daemon for Blood and Cheese, for example; and I don't support what Rhaenyra did in Kings landing at all). But I do think the Blacks not being great people (in the books) does not absolve the Greens of any wrongs on their part.

Hope I did not sound too defensive (if yes I do apologize! English is not my first language so I might sound rather blunt). I'm not trying to argue, but I do want to discuss Book!Team Greens with someone who likes them, and understand my own biasness if their is any :) As a book reader I generally support Rhaenyra's claims to the throne (from a feminist perspective, although I know she probably only wanted to bend the rules for her alone and not fighting for women's rights), but don't really root for any side as I think they all have done terrible things in the name of war.

Thank you again for the great story of stormbreak tho - everyone is a darling and had so much depth. This is definitely one of my favourite version of "interpretation" of GRRM's history <3

Hi hi! (Before I begin I wanted to say I really love Stormbreak <3 Your writing is so powerful!) I have read your reply for anon on why you are a Book!Alicent apologist - as a book reader I'm not fond of her but I do concede to some of your points. However, wondering how you find Book!Aegon or Aemond? Aegon didn't rape, which is a good thing, but he also fed his sister alive to his dragon. And Aemond chose to pursue and kill Lucerys out of his free will (and not because he can't control Vhagar)

oh yeah i very much have thoughts about book aemond and aegon! let me say a few things here:

for aegon, there are still some allegations of him touching young girls inappropriately, though it's ofc always hard to tell with f&b what is meant to count as the accurate version, but i don't wanna ignore that since a commenter pointed it out.

as far as him feeding rhaenyra to his dragon, think of it this way: by this point in time, rhaenyra has had his six-year-old son slaughtered, has driven his wife insane to the point of suicide, was the reason his brother (aemond) was killed, and STILL poses a threat to his remaining family's lives. i would've fed her to sunfyre too at this point. if the roles were reversed, rhaenyra would have also done the same, and i would've also defended it.

i think aegon's willingness to keep aegon the younger alive and even to install him as his heir points to how willing he was to let bygones be bygones at the end of it all. he didn't want to punish baby aegon for who his mother was, and i think that's fairly honorable.

there's also the fact that the iron throne never cut aegon, which i think is so interesting. grrm makes a point of showing how when people are bad leaders (think viserys, think maegor towards the end of his life, and think rhaenyra towards the end of her life) the throne will reject them by cutting them. as a side note, i think rhaenyra would've been fine if she hadn't been so traumatized and twisted by the dance, i don't think she's inherently a bad ruler.

as for aemond, the book actually leaves it up to interpretation! as the accounts point out: no one knows exactly what happened up there. we know that both dragons took flight, and only vhagar and aemond returned, and that he did have lucerys's eyes. even the details we have, remember, can't be taken as actual fact, since the entire point of f&b is that history remembers things incorrectly. but still if you take them at face value, we don't know what actually happened up there, which is part of why the show didn't actually contradict the book with the season one finale. it simply added details the book did not show.

of course i'll always be the first to admit that i have a habit of trying to view characters from both sides in better lights than they are possibly meant to be perceived. but i still hold myself to using critical thinking and crafting actual, defensible arguments. i think part of why the unreliability of f&b is so interesting to me is because in many ways it doesn't rule out the possibilities of characters being actually not that evil, even while trying to make you think they are 100% evil (again this is true for members of team black as well imo and especially the women, not just for aegon and aemond). it has very clear agendas but doesn't always have evidence to back them up.