#MUSE / Rhaenyra Targaryen

[weirwoodarrow]

[kaitlinamberxo]

“Everyone says Targaryens are closer to gods than to men, but they say that because of our dragons. Without them, we're just like everyone else.”

kaitlin's 100 favorite female muses — 42/100: Rhaenyra Targaryen

[lovelyy-moonlight]

Emma D'Arcy for MUSE.

[riothegreenwitch]

While I do find Rhaenyra/Mysaria in itself compelling, especially in regards to Rhaenyra’s feelings about gender and Mysaria as a character, I think it’s more likely that the kiss was more about Daemon’s absence from Rhaenyra’s life and how Rhaenyra is reacting to that rather than any real romantic sentiment. It happening directly after Rhaenyra describes herself and Daemon as “two halves of a whole” and grappling with the idea that she may have lost him for good speaks volumes. Rhaenyra will do anything in this moment to get close to Daemon again, and Mysaria as his ex lover is the closest she can get, for now.

[black-queen-rising]

Me desperately trying to find this so-called "bias" it often feels like a solid two thirds of this fandom claim that the HotD producers/writers have towards Rhaenyra when literally every single change to other characters has fundamentally come from minimizing/obfuscating/or otherwise reducing her narrative and overall characterization and character.

Yes, I'm sure this woman who they have invented continual bad decisions, internalized misogyny, blatant disregard for the people closest to her, ineptitude, blindspots, and blatant, borderline unbelievable public disdain for in their adaptation of her character; who's background as a victim of child abuse, of continual misogynistic psychological and eventual physical violence, who's love of both other women and her own womanhood, infamy in her charm and popularity and continual attempts (and yes, often failures) to rise above the positions she was forced into they have also ERASED...is actually someone they're going out of their way to portray sympathetically?

Oh, but they favor her because...idk they haven't shown her being violently raped or repeatedly physically abused? Because you believe they actually think that making her seem like an idiot who never knows or thinks about what she's doing is somehow favorable?? Because it seems like ANY of these changes have actually endeared her to the fandom much less the show's general audience??? I literally cannot explain it most of the time, it baffles me.

I know I shouldn't be because why should any of us ever be shocked by misogyny in media anymore? By the portrayal of a woman for a mass-media (and heavily desired male) audience that's reductive and hollow?? But it's simply unreal to see how so many people somehow believe that this was done out of some sort of benevolence or favoritism. That so many people believe any of the changes made in the opposite direction of, and often active opposition to Rhaenyra's portrayal in Fire and Blood, were made out of some sort of desire to make her a tangibly more sympathetic or broadly understandable character, is something I'm not sure I'll ever be able to fully understand.

Except, of course, in the view that I really hope not everyone who says this sort of thing actually believes; that a self-confident woman who exercises her own agency is such an affront that even an unsympathetic, inconsistent, reductive, and idiotic cardboard cutout of a character is still a more respectable alternative.

[morpheusbaby3]

Morpheus' ex-girlfriends when they meet:

If I saw Morpheus's ex-girlfriend:

[hearteyedfeelings]

because they are like a gorgeous weed in my mind, still growing with plenty of thoughts even through concrete:

do you think part of the reason Alicent and Rhaenyra were so far apart in that finale scene was because if either were in touching distance they would haven’t been able to stop?

and who knows what then?

[king7doms]

Rhaenyra: I love all my siblings equally. Helaena *looks at smudged writing on hand* Eggyn and Alfred.

[namedcruel]

when   the   dragons   flew   to   war   ,   𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐   𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍.   i   do   not   wish   to   rule   over   𝙖   𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙙𝙤𝙢   𝙤𝙛   𝙖𝙨𝙝   𝙖𝙣��   𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙚. ©

[xxpeppermintxx109]

doing edits and remembering the way I made rhaenyra give jaime her favor unprompted at her wedding tournament. while her husband sits right next to her.

if i was rhaegar, i’d hate jaime too, cause what do you mean my wife just gave you her favor when you didn’t even ask for it??

[mainepdf]

my divorced mothers are coming home in june! (rhaenicent)

[abhorsenslives]

@sunfyre-rider cont from x

"I know you're alive and awake." She whispered, poking his side where she knew it would tickle him. She made herself comfortable lying down by his side once Rhaenyra got a reaction out of him.

[drakonquill]

@zalisdarys gets a lyric one liner. / rhaenyra

“do you like walking in the rain? when you think of love, do you think of pain?”

[foughtwcrs]

how she came to be within rhaenyra's presence would long be forgotten by the history books, maester's already scratching it free from their story - why let the unsignificant queen heleana, the mad heleana, be anything more than a pawn? yet, here she stands. pale fingers tremble, flesh devoid of warmth and colour as grief has marred her like the dragonflame of her family's legacy - heleana was withering away with each passing day. whether it be grief from jaehaery's death or from the maternal guilt of not putting up a fight, she could not say. the only words to fall from bitten lips was but a whisper, dull gaze focused on the cloth in her hands - if you look closely you may see the dried splatter of her son's blood painting the fabric. "why?"

@wcrriorhearts / starter call.

[claudiatherelentless]

Its thematically so so delicious that Rhaenyra and Aegon both have Golden Dragons [which is also the largest denomination of Westerosi currency] and honestly i would LOVE to see a Rhaenyra on Syrax V Aegon on Sunfyre battle like that would be So Tasty.....

[black-queen-rising]

New competitor for my list of: Top 3 Weirdest Phenomena in My Absolute Weirdest Fandom Experience of All Time.

Reading something that broadly fits under the #anti-HotD umbrella, that acknowledges the story’s underlying message of the destructive power of systemic misogyny, talks about how the show is incredibly reductive in it’s “feminism” benevolent misogyny, and how none of the characters are done well…and then after all of that flips things back around to say “and that’s why Rhaenyra was always wrong, why her reign would’ve ended in horrible destruction no matter what, why the simple energy or will to try to incrementally change this terrible system via the existing laws and precedents (which I have decided to obfuscate) was doomed to fail, and nothing ever will or can change.”

My brother in fandom do you truly not see a single inconsistency talking about ~toxic misogyny~ to justify a system and position that’s more conservative than Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I? More importantly, are you really going to talk about a narrative in which every. single. character. is eventually put through immense psychological torment ending in tragic death because said destructive misogyny. You can recognize what the show has done is reductive and ultimately harmful, congrats. Can you explain to me why Alicent and Aegon and Rhaenys and Helaena and (yes, no matter how much you hate them) Daemon, and Aemond, and once again every. single. character. were ultimately victimized, traumatized, lost everything, and then died in misery without bringing up the “choice” you believe Rhaenyra made to go to war?

No???

The point is that it does not matter if you work for the system or against it, if you are disadvantaged or privileged by it, if it has given you everything or taken it all away; when that system of toxic misogyny is left to flourish and let loose as a weapon against your enemies it will not spare anyone, when there is no counterweight to it the destruction will not die down it will simply grow worse, and choosing sides is pointless not because they’re “both bad” but because they have all been victimized by that system far worse than they ever could’ve been by each other.

You wanted a tragedy so bad? Congratulations, you’ve found one. Now stop wasting your time being pissy that Rhaenyra isn’t MacBeth no matter how bad you want her to be and start reckoning with the fact they were all forced to be Antigone no matter how desperately you want the ones who externally validate your views to be the only ones justified.