#The Plantagenets | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

horizon-verizon · 8 months ago

Text

A) The Inevitably or High Probability that there'd Be Rebellion WITHOUT Green Intervention or Accusations

i'm not judging rhaenyra's choice to have children with harwin. but having bastards weakened her position - she was forced to leave court because of the rumors. her sons succession was challenged by vaemond - who, btw, genuinely believed that he was in the right and rhaenyra was an evil woman trying to usurp his home. did vaemond had a wife ? children? other velaryons that loved him & will want to avenge him & refuse to accept luke?

And who enables Vaemond (who was literally the only person who tried to go against Rhaenyra or call her son's bastards)? The greens. Vaemond seems to try by himself anyway, but how easy would he actually have found it to try to claim the Driftmark seat without the greens and meeting with Otto? He would have been killed or imprisoned a lot faster, or someone could have made an easier job of talking him out of it with such arguments that I'm making right now about him having no real means to go against Rhaenyra... basically he needed support to do so. Again, which he got from the greens who were essentially going to rule against Rhaenyra anyway, as was clear in the 8th episode.

Realistically, what chance did Vaemond have without Otto & Alicent? Truly? Even in the book/original lore, with Vaemond's nephews and others actually doing as you mentioned and trying to go against Rhaenyra (by going to Viserys himself, another dumb move), Viserys nevertheless had all of them immediately punished by cutting out their tongues. The challenge was handled. And the evident challenge only came from this group of people.

This reflects & mirrors the Green supporters that you mentioned. The ones that are with the greens are the Hightowers, Brackens, Lannisters, and some of those under their banners, etc. The Hightowers are Alicent's maiden house, so regardless of it being true they are bastards or not they would have backed her/the greens bc they have a direct stake and benefits in her and her sons. And the rest say opportunity. But where is the proof that they were planning to go against Rhaenyra independently? Would they have done anything WITHOUT the greens pushing for Rhaenyra to be removed through their specific accusations? Could they, or did they have the ability? Short answer, no (since I already listed why/how above in the first reblog).

Those supporters of the greens had no evident plans or preparations BEFORE they aligned themselves with the greens, why? Because they didn't have dragons and the greens did. They had a way in through the greens' actions of going against Rhaenyra, similar to how show!Vaemond's way was lubed by the greens and made a more of a real problem to Rhaenyra. The greens materially opened the way towards any possible rebellion against Rhaenyra that you are saying would be inevitable without those close to Rhaenyra doing something to invite such actions from external lords. This isn't a chicken-egg situation,o one thing clearly happened before the other and caused the other. There was no vague passive force pushing the greens to do what they did, and there was no vague passive force enabling the lords to make their moves or to choose the greens.

rhaenyra was also forced to marry the boys to baela and rhaena (again, referring only to hotd) instead of making matches with other houses and securing their alliance. and again, not judging rhaenyra or saying that she should've had children with laenor.

Even in peacetime, these betrothals would have likely happened or at least been at the top of the list of marriages because of how prestigious and blood-close the Velaryons are. Both of the Targ girls came from dragonriders, why wouldn't Rhaenyra marry her dragonriding sons to dragonriding girls? When the point of marriage was to produce children who would likely inherit specific privileges, etc.?

Does it benefit her own claim and her sons' or protect them by ensuring that their Velaryon allies were even more invested in them? Of course. Did the announcement of betrothal come after Vaemond's accusation & death? Yes. Does this necessarily mean that she only thought of marrying her kids to the girls after Vaemond? No, not necessarily. Because of all the reasons it is a good reason why she marry them to those girls even without her being the heir and a woman. Does this mean that she never would have betrothed them even without Vaemond at her neck? No, of course not.

To claim so, we need more specific scenes of Rhaenyra either never having thought of it before the "trial" or her, again, being reluctant as such a prospect. But there's no hard evidence in the show/season of such because we moved immediately to the small dinner after Viserys defends Rhaenyra. And to claim that the ONLY reason that she's marrying them to those girls is because of a fear of a threat thus comes into question under. Without proof of Rhaenyra having some sort of reluctance or without disapproving how she's really that different from most nobles by doing this, I don't think we can begin to argue that she had to be compelled to marry her sons off to the Targ girls. I think it's getting ahead of ourselves to argue that she ONLY sought a Velaryon-Targ marriage in her kids for her/her sons' claims. The show indeed seems to frame it in a way that Rhaenyra seems as if she were responding to external pressure by marrying her sons to those girls, but this reveals more that the writers wanted this dramatic moment for episode 8 when we consider that she had all that time (10 years) at Dragonstone living with Rhaena and her own kids for those mids to be very happy with the idea of marrying each other. Evidenced by their looks and smiles in episode 8. But even more so, where was the lack of surprise on those kids' faces? This supports the idea that such was discussed to them before the dinner AND that they had a while to process said information.

Nobles are always thinking of potential allies or accruing more wealth or access to certain lands for other purposes when they are considering who to marry or marry their children. It is already a custom in Westeros--HotD or not--that people marry their first cousins or cousins and nobles often try to marry relatives as close to them as possible to reduce the number of possible competitors to the children's claims or inherited resources/wealth. Rhaenyra would not be unique in doing what she did in betrothing her kids to those girls, even with the earlier attempt to marry Jace to Helaena, which reads as much more desperate than her marrying the Targ girls to her own boys.

In HotD & the original story, the Targaryen girls are both stepsisters and cousins of the Velaryon boys. In HotD, they went against one particular piece of lore (fosterage and who gets to actually marry some scions) to justify the idea that Corlys or Rhaenys had more say in who the girls married without Daemon's permission. Corlys, show or book, maintained that he didn't want Baela or Rhaena as his heirs above the boys and he didn't consider them a part fo his house even though they were his and Rhaenys' granddaughters by blood. They both "belong" to House Targaryen precisely because they are girls and are not heirs. Even so, why wouldn't Corlys desire or even seek out a marriage b/t his Targaryen granddaughters and the Velaryon boys when he was eager to marry Laenor to Rhaenyra in the show and the canon? And I mean why wouldn't Corlys be the one to ask Rhaenyra this before he left for that 6 yr war project? And if he didn't, again, wouldn't such a marriage only work more toward his long-held desires for power and prestige?

the fact that there are lords who believe that aegon should be king instead of rhaenyra is a danger in of itself - that's the point i was trying to make.

The greens' supporters are not the only nor had most of the most powerful lords of Westeros. Here is a list of those who supported Rhaenyra and kept fighting for her and her sons's claims after she and the V boys died. Plus, it is canon that Aegon III had his claim through his mother, not Daemon nor Aegon II being his uncle. As you mention ("like rhaenyra said, challenging luke is also challenging jace and her own claim to the throne. so even before viserys's death - her position was already challenged.") this means that those lords, who overwhelmed the greens, all supported both Rhaenyra and her V boy sons (as she even declared Joffrey her heir later) as those boys being the heirs to her was the condition that came with her being the next Queen. They were a package deal. Of course, there were defectors on both sides during the entirety of the war.

This society is definitely a sexist society since the core of Rhaenyra's claim and motivation to go to war is not that she was the oldest but that Viserys chose her (and that girls in Westeros already could & did technically inherit before younger brothers or cousins, it just wasn't preferred). However, that doesn't mean that what actually happened during the Dance doesn't inform us of how much support she actually did have & came to have because of this argument and her son Jace's efforts to gather people for their cause. Plus some of the Greens' dumber decisions before and during the war.

This is all important bc it contradicts both the idea that it was inevitable she'd rebelled against. When push came to shove, she had enough people fine with her ruling even with her having children that you'd or some in-world people'd consider bastards. The future that became the present contradicts your claim.

So, no, WITHOUT the greens' accusing Rhaenyra of infidelity and having bastards, there is little substantive reason or material for us to speculate that it'd be more likely that Rhaenyra would be forced to kill her own siblings.

Also, I ask for proof of the ideas because Westerosi society, as I already mentioned, though sexist has had female leaders or girls/women considered as heirs. Therefore, we must go off of more than "it was a sexist world" to claim that there was absolutely going to be a rebellion WITHOUT the greens coming in first with their accusations.

B) Another Approach to the "My Kids Are in Danger"

So, HotD wise, Alicent's motivation is supposed to be that the lords will endanger or force themselves/their interests on her kids in a rebellion against Rhaenyra. We can argue that even bk!Alicent always believed that her sons would die if Rhaenyra became queen.

Bk!Alicent says, in the green council, that she thinks that Rhaenyra or Daemon would come to kill her kids if she succeeds in becoming queen ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

confidently "forgetting" that the Vhagar-claim incident and the fight was a literal fight b/t under 10s...except Aemond who was older than the rest, Joffrey having been 3. That Aemond was the one to push said 3-year-old and his brothers came to Joffrey's defense. Not that Aemond was necessarily evil for his pushing Joffrey, but he's not innocent nor NOT the provoker of the violence there. And still, in the show, he's the one to provoke the others or perform a "trick". Because after he pushes the group of younger children off of him, he proceeds to try to fight them again and would have bashed Jce's head in with a rock (because if you rewatch the episode, he re-raised said rock even as the others backed off). But as I already did in my last reblog, no, Alicent of nay version was wrong even if she felt that this was going to happen. Again, this is even if we argue that Bk!Alicent actually believed that Rhaenyra ore someone else would kill her kids...which she didn't she specifically says DAEMON would.

But here's the thing about her thinking Dameon would kill her kids: apart from his making fun of her after he came back from the Stepstones (and does mocking a person = beating them up, grabbing their shirt with a rock in the other hand, or actually planning to murder them? No.), do we have concrete, textual evidence from either the show or the book that Daemon would go after Alicent or her sons IF they do not try to make any moves against Rhaenyrs or Viserys? No. Daemon could have done a lot to Viserys when he forced him to abandon Mysaria and his first-ever child, but Daemon reluctantly and resentfully sends Mysaria away and that's the end of that. He would not kill Viserys' children even if he disliked them or thought them obstacles...until any of them did what Aemond did and kill Luke or seriously harmed Rhaenyra and the rest. Daemon had all the time in the world to harm his stepsons/the V boys, but didn't. And we see no time where he ever overruled Rhaenyra even when she later doesn't take his advice (delight spoiler but not rally, you'll maybe see). No, Daemon is not this stupid rabid dog who goes after people just because he doesn't like them AND he does place value on what may hurt his brother, niece-wife, stepsons, etc. Alicent and her sons simply never established any sort of bond with him, so he left them be until Luke. This all goes for the show!version of Daemon as well (not the overruling or trying to roughshod Rhaenyra part, that was purely a show invention/change). Even if he wanted, to he's not stupid enough to make any moves without provocation to the greens because he knows he'd be at the top of the list of being suspected, which in turn would harm his niece-wife and brother's needs.

In HotD, Otto from the jump says that he's making moves against Rhaenyra & that he's doing so because he believes the reason the lords will rebel against her or not accept her is bc of her gender alone. Doubly so, we understand that he's motivated not bc of bastards bc Rhaenyra is not even married at the point he says this.

Otto has much more influence and power than Alicent in the first episodes of the season. And over her. He's the one who gives Alicent the notion that her kids are even in any sort of danger. He's the one setting up that motivation that many say justifies Alicent's actions against Rhaenyra & her children. Without Otto, show!Alicent would not have really been so set against Rhaenyra, or at least have utterly destroyed their friendships by the numerous attacks. Without Ott, Alicent would not have perceived a threat to her kids bc she never conceived of such until he mentioned it.

We see instances of lords thinking Viserys will change his heir to Aegon in episode 3, absolutely, but if we're just going by HotD, I ask again where do we get the idea of there being either an absolute or very good chance that they will rebel against Rhaenyra for either her gender or, later, her bastards?

Going back to kinslaying, Alicent thinks it's a good idea to directly antagonize the woman who she says would have felt necessary to have her kids murdered...then proceeds to give her even more reason to do so?! In this scenario, it's different if she had approached Rhaenyra as a friend so that IF Rhaenyra were told or advised to execute her brothers, Rhaenyra would hesitate & thus there's more room for counter-advise or to prepare against hat. But, no show!Alicent decides to risk (since we're talking abt "risk" a lot) Rhaenyra being less hesitant towards the idea of killing her own siblings. Again, this is all in the case scenario that somehow Rhaenyra WAS as some for the she-could-kill-them arguers say she would or could be.

C) The Context, Nuance, & History of Bastardry; On Specifically Whether or Not the V Boys were Bastards or Proven to Be; Why Proving Matters in General and for Rhaenyra

In HotD, yes, Rhaenyra's sons are biologically Harwin's. (Me, I argue that even in the original story, at least Luke & Jace were likely Harwin's bc Laenor was not physically close to her for long periods until after things grew worse b/t the greens and blacks after Luke's birth.) I'd agree that considering that Rhaenyra's gender places her in the position that she follows contradictory rules about leadership, Rhaenyra's position would be troubled by having bastards in a way that it wouldn't for a man...however, the meaning or at least consequences that inform the meaning of bastard does not just mean or is defined by "not biologically" in a society that didn't have foolproof/good enough technology to prove the parentage of a child.

A reminder: HotD's Jaehaerys I's mother was a Velaryon & the Velaryons in HotD are black; yet Jaehaerys and all the Targs shown except Baela & Rhaena are Euro-Americana white bread white with no hint of Afro features that Euro-American racialization would designate as "Black". Or most other places in the world. Orig!Alysanne Targaryen's hair & eye color were not Targaryen-typical, being blond and blue respectively. We have Orig!Alyssa, with her having one green eye to her other purple eye, and "dirty blonde" hair. For these two women, we have yet to see proof that they didn't have the features I described in the HotD universe the writers constructed, so for now they have those features in the show as well. Orig!Rhaenys had dark hair. In later Targaryen families (& it's very doubtful that they will make biracial & Black or PoC main Targs in later period Targ stories if they adapt them), we have Baelor Breakspear & Rhaegar's Rhaenys. The first had dark hair and eyes, while the later had dark hair. Then there is Aegor Rivers and Shiera Seastar, Shiera had a blue and a green eye, while her mother (Serenei of Lys) very likely had the full-blown silver-gold hair & purple eyes of Targs (or had at least one typical Valyrian feature) because she was from Lys. Of course, Aegon IV was typically Targ-looking. Aegor had dark hair & purple eyes. The bastards I mentioned are all bastards not because it was materially proven that they were biologically not Naerys' (Aegon IV's only legal spouse), but because people observed that Naerys did not carry them respectively but that other women did. So, we see that regardless of who was the Targ parent (mom/dad), the undoubted parentage of various Targ children--trueborn or not--produced children with all sorts of looks. IF we stick to how real genetics work & try to apply it to ASoIaF and HotD, take also the cases of interracial marriages sometimes producing children that look like they are of a completely different ancestry or ethnicity than from one parent. Genetics can be wild. I mean, look at Alicent and all four of her children with Viserys come out having the silver-gold hair and the purple yes. Neither of which the Hightowers typically have (or it would be mentioned or shown, and what we do see in the show, the Hightowers are mainly brunettes).

Noblemen in Westeros, whether this is HotD or the canon--bc they are allowed to have affairs and cohabitating/non-cohabitating lovers even while married--wouldn't think of or really need to claim that their bio bastards are really their trueborn because they mostly have their mistresses or affairs publicly known and displayed. And they can't because they are not the ones birthing them. Whereas when noblewomen have bastards, it's usually kept very secret and the child is shipped off to another family to be raised while she's married off to prevent her from not being able to marry IF the news of her birthing said child reaches more people/out of the family, so that the family would also not lose reputation or opportunities for others to marry, build alliances, etc.

In real life, what made one a "bastard" could also mean how "good" a lineage your mother or father had more than just if your parents were married or not, as was the case for William the Conqueror. And I specifically mean that even if they weren't married, you as a "bastard" could still be entitled or have more "claim" to something over to others, especially when the father names you his heir as William the C's father did with him. No, he never "legitimized" him nor ever got a higher authority to. And because HotD's universe both comes directly from the original lore and little about how nobles noble has been changed PLUS how canon mirrors a lot of real-life EU noble practices/social principles, these are relevant.

I'm sure we already know all this, but it is important to think of the implications of such conditions and how it applies to how "bastardry" is not a fixed condition that is 100% or even "75%" built on incontrovertible facts but relies a lot on timing, perception, and opportunity as well as how well can you use a precedent against current circumstances (Anstey case of 1100s).

So, what incontrovertible proof did Alicent & the greens have that Rhaenyra's sons were not Laenor's? That Rhaenyra or Viserys were lying? Where is the accusation really coming from, and were there actual dangers to her children if she/the greens stopped trying to put as much attention on Rhaenyra as they did? Even in HotD, where no one has actually seen Harwin & Rhaenyra have sex or Laenor NOT have sex with her? Who has monitored & recorded her movements behind closed doors day in day out second by second, etc.?

You can say you just need to look at them to know since all 3 had different features, but the issue is that even when this is true (that there is observable data of them ALL having different looks from their claimed father), Alicent, in the show (epi 6), wonders how they could have ever hatched dragon eggs from the cradle/when they were babies or toddlers (compared to her own kids, who at least 2 had to claim dragons when they were older). Why does she wonder this? Because, she's implying, that children inherit their most impressive or desirable traits of appearance or behavior or otherwise from their father, not their mother. And since Harwin is not a dragon rider nor has any known Valyrian background, it made no sense to her at all. Not only does this reveal how comparatively little they--court or larger Westeros society--actually relied on real material knowledge of genetics or otherwise to make their rules, but it is also a clear reference or pulls from this F&B/the original lore or story fact about said society/court ("A Question of Succession"):

which itself comes from the older legend of Rhaena the Black Bride giving Jaehaerys & Alysanne their dragons when she placed the eggs in their cradles and they both got their dragons to hatch without having to grow older and claim a dragon as Aegon I, Rhaena, Maegor, etc. all had to.

Point is that the show!Alicent is going off of book!lore's social and historical context directly. Which means the same feelings and ideas about physical inheritance have been directly transferred into the HotD Westeros/HotD's court. Directly.

I'd argue that since even if Rhaenyra's sons weren't Harwin's in the original story/the book (bc there is debate even on why they'd be described with the features they are in F&B when Harwin, for example, had a broken shoulder I think & thus would be out of commission for sex for months or us not knowing what he even looked like, etc.), the center at this consideration is that the truth of Rhaenyra's sons' patrimony does not supersede how it's very possible & likely that the greens merely used such an accusation against Rhaenyra or not.

I stress that without the original lore that HotD heavily relies on for context. Even as it sometimes contradicts & its logic in some places. This is one of those times that its world only makes sense if you know what's going on prior. Would we be discussing bastards and such without the original story that existed even before Fire and Blood?

D) The Real Life Comparisons

the fact that there are lords who believe that aegon should be king instead of rhaenyra is a danger in of itself - that's the point i was trying to make. that's why richard iii killed his little nephews, that's why henry 7 killed edward warick, that's why mary killed jane gray - who clearly had a much weaker claim then her to the throne.

Richard (III) got to Edward V & Richard (brother, the Duke) from Elizabeth, taking advantage of an already existing separation b/t mother & son and all those military protections that Edward could have had. By contrast, Rhaenyra and her kids and her husband were all on Dragonstone with their possible protections...which include dragons. Please, let me know how the lords could expect to catch her off guard as Aegon (II) try to do first with one debated assassination attempt (failed) and another through Arryk (and failed)? Thse lords would likely (Occam's razor) not have the confidence to trry to attack Rhaenyra openly; privately, they still would be deterred by how well protected she was and have to bank on a lesser chance of really gettign to her.

Rhaenyra was already the monarch-designated heir, she was not a usurper. Richard III was never the heir, he was the usurper. Richard III took the throne away from his own nephews...of course, he did away with them. The throne was the nephews' by their "natural" male and direct blood rights by being Edward IV's sons. Richard was a usurper & usurpers must legitimize their rule when they seek to use illegitimate or violent means to force power into their own hands. Edward IV never named his brother (Richard) his heir over his sons, & his elder living son was considered a king in his own right before his uncle did whatever he did. So this is a false equivalence.

Rhaenyra is the one having something taken away from her. Not the greens/Aegon, Aemond, Daeron. Because Viserys explicitly did not name them as his heirs. And Rhaenyra was heir for almost 20 years before she was usurped.

So really, it is all her sons--especially Aegon III & Viserys II way later--who can be told to be in similar conditions as Edward V & his brother Richard, Duke of York. Aegon II is more like Richard III; maybe this is a spoiler since idk if you read the bk, but Aegon II threatens to mutilate the 10-year-old Aegon III and Aegon III is in Aegon II's custody before Aegon the Elder dies. He's also their uncle.

Unlike Elizabeth who actually seemed reluctant to get rid of Jane from an emotional place, Henry VII had Edward Warwick killed during a time when there were

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra had a much better line of descent/claim than Elizabeth or Henry VII by being the firstborn daughter of a man who declared her his heir and kept it so for years, never having legally named her as a bastard nor her sons as bastards. Rhaenyra had no such "kinks". Elizabeth had been ruled at one point a bastard while Henry VII had only a real claim to the throne through his mother. His house was a minor one descended from a bastard-turned-legitimate (John Beaufort, first Earl of Somerset, son of Jon of Gaunt and Katherine Synford, who birthed the Earl before she eventually married Jon of Gaunt. She had been his mistress for years until then).

Also, I don't understand why dragons are being left out of this conversation when they have been the game changer and the reason why the Targs are unique in their place from those real-life people that you listed. Elizabeth I didn't have dragons to feel like she'd be able to tell the lords pushing her to kill Jane "no" (she was reluctant in many sources). Henry VII didn't have dragons to deter or remove Perkin Warbeck fast enough, though he won the war by killing Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

There's a reason why dragons exist in this narrative, they serve the purpose of giving much more advantage or being much more of a deterrent against competitors. We really shouldn't underestimate not just their actual firepower but the role of them being deterrents. Once again, how likely were any lord to try to "force" any green boy to go to war against Rhaenyra with this in mind?

E) Using GoT

we also have dany and jon snow for example - dany was threatened by him despite the fact that he publicly swore allegiance to her. as long as a "stronger" alternative exists, rulers can't truly secure their reign.

I'm not sure using GoT Dany and the story they wrote for her to ascertain the realities and circumstances of Dany & Jon's eventual meeting in the actual story GRRM is creating, the politics, and how she'd react or think of them when they appear. Because Jon can be Rhaegar's son all we like, but polygamy was, for years, not accepted as legitimate after Maegor. Maegor got to be legitimately polygamous because he used his dragon & Visenya's support (Vhagar) plus the later army at his command to enforce it, as Aegon I did by winning his conquest (apart from him being already married to his sisters). Even we argue that Rhaegar could have restored its legitimacy, Rhaegar lost his chance to affirm his privilege to marry more than one woman by dying before he could announce Lyanna as his wife and for Aerys to maybe accomplish getting the rest & the Martells to accept such a union. This means his marriage to Lyanna in the show is not really that valid to make Jon Snow their legitimate son.

Who has/had the dragons between Dany and Jon, book or show? Who is the trueborn without any debate or "kink", hands down? Who had a fearsome army at their command and will definitely continue to do so when she meets Jon? Dany. Though she is a woman like Rhaenyra, she simply has too much on her side for her to be as nervous about the throne as D&D wrote her. It reminds me of when people tried to say that bk!Rhaenyra was legitimately or only resentful of Alicent bc she was pudgier than Alicent, when in fact it's far more likely she resented being compared to her as Aegon (II), Viserys, and Helasena were also pudgy people. No, Dany would not be that concerned about Jon. She'd more likely get a little frustrated with the sexism and scoff at the cheers for Jon, bc of what I mentioned.

Despite people (in-world and out) thinking that Jon was "stronger" bc he was a man & he rode one dragon, Dany was quite obviously the more powerful of the two with a stronger relationship with all three of those dragons she breastfed. Her dragons obeyed her, not Jon. If she did feel that threatened by him, that was an illogical writing thing on the part of D&D in their rush to end the show. Dany is more self-possessed than that ("Do you mean to make that [woman] as an insult?"), but they wrote her and several women more unnecessarily irrational, more like Dany consented to sex with a slave master, or more overtly and generally more sexual than their book counterparts without providing a bit of nuance in the sex we do see. We should then take their way of adapting with a grain of salt overall.

D&D made multiple consistency errors, multiple even sexist/classist/racist changes to characters and events, and forgot many things that they established in their version of ASoIaF, etc. So to use their writing to establish that things definitely would turn out the way they did is not useful.

One last thing that I don't know is a common point in the fandom: in HotD, Alicent & Otto both have many lords imprisoned, at least one killed, and they intimidated all of them at court to keep them from spreading the news of Aegon's coronation....if Alicent really were trying to protect her kids from rebellious lords...why is she giving them a far more tangible reason (than the already disproven "they don't want or can do something against Rhaenyra") to go directly against her, her sons, & the Hightowers?! One that has nothing to do with Rhaenyra herself and all to do with Otto & Alicent trying to clear the way for Aegon. And yes, Alicent imprisoned those people if not we remember Rhaenys she also explicitly says to the council that she endeavored to keep Rhaenyra out of the way and to crown Aegon. How to do that? Imprisoning those people is one way.

ok, so i've been getting a lot of "rhaenyra would never kill her siblings" asks recently.

first of all, no one is saying that rhaenyra WANTS to kill her brothers. but there's just no way that a woman & a bastard can inherit peacefully when 3 legitimate sons (with legitimate sons of their own) exist. this is not how westerosi politics work. the men in power wants to keep the men in power, this is the definition of patriarchy. and i'm not saying that's a good thing - because obvs it's not - but that's the truth. westeros is a patriarchal society.

the lords of westeros - the men in power - wants to preserve the existing order. legitimate sons inherit over daughters, bastards can't inherit. it's important to them because their own power is dependent on this very system. let's say rhaenyra becomes queen, and all of the sudden other firstborn daughters start to stand up and demand to be named heirs to their houses . let's say jace becomes the prince of dragonstone, and suddenly bastards that are older then their legitimate siblings start to demand their rights as well. from our modern pov - that's a great thing, but for the lords of westeros that's literally their worst nightmare.

"but a lot of houses supported rhaenyra". true! i'm not saying every lord in westeros will not accept her, i'm saying some of them def won't, and as long as aegon\aemond\daeron lives, there will always be someone advocating for their rights - and that's dangerous for rhaenyra and her family. so yeah, to protect herself and her children she will 100% kill her brothers. i'm not holding it against her - she's obvs going to care more about her children & herself then her brothers.

"but dorne ..." i feel like GRRM has made it abundantly clear that westeros does not want to become like dorne. dornish people are stereotyped and discriminated against - especially dornish women, that are viewed as promiscuous and are constantly oversexualized. westeros becoming like dorne is def not something westerosi men want.

ironically, jace will have to face the exact same situation with his own brothers aegon and viserys, but i digress.

also, did we forget how easily rhaenyra offered to have her 10yo brother tortured when she felt like her children were in danger? do you guys really believe that she's above murdering to protect them?