#The Unjust Orders

[awkward-sultana]

"Everyone knows about his majesty's feelings for Hürrem. She has been stuck in his heart like an arrow for years."

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[wishesofeternity]

My problem with The Dragon Prince is that while it preaches about "breaking the cycle" and "choosing love", it repeatedly does so in a way that echoes the age-old idea of telling victims to passively accept their lot in life and the injustices inflicted upon them while their perpetrators never have to acknowledge their wrongs or face consequences for their actions. This is the kind of narrative they follow on both a personal and systematic axis, and it's exactly why the show will always frustrate me.

[booty-uprooter]

truly, it is the subtlety of one piece's political messaging that makes it such an enduring work of art

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Alright!! Here's the first batch of goodies from that parcel: the LoR and L. Corp merch!! I have no clue where I'm putting this Angela standee, but all the stickers are very cute ... as is Nothing There. My favorite body horror doggo ... aside from Mountain of Smiling Bodies, of course. Also a huge fan of the Roland charm--it's a shaker charm, and all the popcorn inside has his face on it. Very silly ~

[meangreennunseen]

When I want to write stuff but I cannot write stuff...

[lovesickeros]

thought abt focalors + tsaritsa sagau fic bc it'd be funny as hell to throw them in a room together but now its actually got me thinking a little too much.......similar but only in the barest sense and complete opposites..one of them fearing celestia and the other trying to bring celestia down.

[tyrellia]

[thisbibliomaniac]

I have cyberbullied our weenie governor

[awkward-sultana]

"According to the criterion of stipend, the haseki, or favorite concubine, enjoyed the greatest status in the imperial harem after the valide sultan. The haseki, a slave concubine and no blood relation to the reigning sultan, ranked higher than the sultan's own sisters and aunts, the princesses of the dynasty." - The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire by Leslie P. Peirce

[balleater]

every time someone talks about the raven queen as if she's some sort of heartless cold bitch of a god i think about the fact that one of her champion's primary duties is to soothe the fears of those most afraid of death when their time comes as they are guided into the afterlife.

[reginrokkr]

𝐗𝐋𝐈𝐕. Given that Dain addressed this topic in a direct way himself, this is as good of a moment as to revisit and expand on an old headcanon, which is his ability to sleep [or lack of thereof]. Firstly, I will start by saying that in his own transcendence, he's reached to a point where human physiologic necessities don't apply to him since the moment he was cursed by the Heavenly Principles through Ronova and corrupted. However, that isn't to say that he doesn't continue practises like sleeping, if only to keep stubborn to his humanity and also because sleeping should be of help for him to rest and for his mental health... technically.

◜Frankly, I don't believe dream therapy works for everyone. Sometimes, a brief moment of bliss only magnifies the melancholy that follows in its wake. I don't mean to dismiss the strength that people gain from life's fleeting moments of beauty: under normal circumstances, this is the way things ought to be. But my circumstances are far from normal. The things I have seen and that fill my dreams have no place in a normal life. A peaceful night's sleep is now but a vestige of days long gone— a time I can only look back on with longing.◞

— Yumemizuki Mizuki miscellany.

As he himself says, normal circumstances don't apply to him. His words allude to the notion that sleeping peacefully no longer happens and that both his own experiences in combination to the nightmares that plague his mind make sleeping an object of longing. For that reason, it's safe to say that for the past 500 years, he was unable to rest properly through his sleep and that he's better off without sleeping unless he reaches to a point of exhaustion that leaves him with no other choice. Following next, I'll expand on the multifactorial reasons why he's unable to sleep properly, these being: chronic physical pain, nightmares and involuntary visions (from the past and the future).

✦ Chronic physical pain.

It is described explicitly that the Abyss [Marana] precipitates everything to death through various means, one of which being consuming every living being's life force until there is nothing more to claim and they pass away. The same is true in various degrees for the curse of immortality —which degenerates an individual both physically but also mentally—, letting the affected individual experience their own rotting without ever experiencing death because of the curse that impedes them to pass; and the corruption Dain has been experiencing for 500 years —apparently stagnant but not any less corrosive to the mind and body, the latter already half-turned into a monster—. In addition, there is a factor that charactertizes the Abyss which is the magnification of one's senses, leading to disorientation and loss of perception of the reality due to how strongly the negative feelings are expanded.

Moreover, Dain's case has another layer of complexity that adds to the physical pain he endures, which is the existence of two energies coexisting within him: Aether and Void [Abyss]. These have their separate effects on their own, the latter being obviously toxic to everything. However, there is the additional layer that makes the two of them be mutually virulent: one being lethal to the other and being the most vulnerable to the other all the same. Be it because of his connection to Irminsul —which is clearly opposing in force with the Abyss due to its purifying and curative aspects—, the power from beyond he's achieved —which seems to negate the Abyss—, a combination of both or even something else, Dain counts with an energy within him that is in direct contradiction with the Abyss. Its will to attack it causes an inner strife to his immune system that is beyond painful, as well as its weakness to it causes further damage than that.

✧ Nightmares.

Like it was previously mentioned, the Abyss doesn't only affect one's physical health but the mental one as well. It takes every negative emotion, trauma, fears, etc. and magnifies them limitlessly. Furthermore, the Abyss in itself is an entity that is terrifying and it's in constant evolution of learning how to attack in order to subjugate everything under its might. Dain himself, who had a family that in his eyes had betrayed him (Vedrfolnir) and who once had a homeland that he's lost given that he was powerless to do anything to stop its own destruction as well as the divine intervention that followed as a result of part of its citizens' transgressions (his brother's included) has a deep-rooted trauma followed by feelings such as survivor's guilt or self-deprecation followed by a psychogenic amnesia [ x, x ] as a result of these. It is also of great importance to mention that he feels the curse slowly replacing his very being.

✦ Involuntary visions —past and future—.

Albeit a most coveted one, the weight of knowledge is one that not everyone can bear nor hope to stay sane in full. Due to his connection to Irminsul, Dain has access to events that had already happened in Teyvat and to foresee what is bound to happen in the future, given that Irminsul itself is the Tree of Time. This knowledge he gains continuously challenges and destroys the grounds of what he believed the world to be. Some truths can be pills hard to swallow, many of them shocking by themselves until they're properly processed and understood. What's more, Dain has a perspective of the world like none other, enough to understand that in order to defy it a power from beyond is needed and have the strength to push himself to search it from outside the fabricated sky. It's no exaggeration to say that Dain has reached a level of enlightenment that very few have at the present, and that comes with a heavy weight.

It's important to note that despite the fact that these factors determine Dain's lack of sleep until he finds himself in circumstances under which he has no other choice but do so, he has a fortitude of mind that has nothing to envy the others'. He's been living with this for over 500 years and despite the negatives he has to live with, to this day he still managed to keep his humanity and sanity to the point of not succumbing to what would've been a kinder outcome for himself. Whether this is fed by his will of revenge to his brother and the other Sinners, his sense of justice for the world against the gods or something else, it's of little importance.

Lastly, just like the balance of the odds in which he won't sleep or sleeping is a manner of suffering to him is inclined towards the negative more than the positive, there are instances in which he can experience the best outcome he can hope of sleeping: neutrality. He doesn't need it to be particularly blissful, as that would only make him drown in the magnified melancholy thereafter, but at least devoid of nightmares. In the moments when he's on his own and he knows he needs to rest somewhere, he will go to places where Irminsul's emanations are present —Sacred Sakura, Kala Kapatcir's tree, Weeping Willow are a few examples— or Irminsul directly, as he knows that the purifying traits will give him some manner of respite that he can't find elsewhere (other places like the inverted fountain from the Nameless City in the depths of the Chasm count too).

A rarer chance for him to get a good sleep is in the company of someone who he deeply trusts and cherishes, regardless if it's platonic or romantic. Initially it'll be hard, as this doesn't erase the fact that he won't struggle with the physical pain and the rupture of reality with what he feels due to the Abyss nefarious effects over him, but with time he can grow to a point of getting used to it, of forcing himself to convince his shattered mind that being touched by that person doesn't hurt like the Abyss within him wants him to believe. That in combination with the knowledge that for once he can hide himself from the world and the gods, from himself and his self-imposed duty despite his painful awareness that he's subjecting himself to things he doesn't want for himself becomes a moment equally as precious as basking under the holy Irminsul's glow as he slumbers.

[skele8rity]

also in case you didnt know, terry from the dragon prince is a canonically trans character who explains his experience quite obviously and sincerely to someone and is met with tenderness about it. hes also voiced by a transgender voice actor. this is the tip of the iceberg for a lot of the really cool situations going on like that in the dragon prince.

its very good. i would recommend.

[bisexual-magneto]

I mean, I feel like it is a natural outcome considering that both the jury and the public seemed to completely forget that Depp v Heard was about defamation, not abuse, but it terrifies me that a lot of people don't realise me what a giant blow to women's freedom of speech this was. She didn't name Depp as an abuser in that article, she said she was a figure representing abuse. The article was co-written with the ACLU and one of the contested lines was written by the editors but she got sued for it. Not the Washington Post, not the ACLU. Which definitely is at least partially because she had the worst lawyers and partially to get back at the ex, but Depp sued the Sun in the UK. He does sue newspapers.

And this is another facet of the larger phenomenon where all those big Western values of liberty and individualism, the personal pursuit of happiness, civil liberties for everyone etc etc etc - is and always have been directed at (white) men, with anyone else being granted some of that as a concession. So many of the lauded works in our literature are about how any person has the right to take charge of their own fate and needs civil liberties to be able to take responsibility for their lives - but at any of those points of time, it was always clear that this does not apply to women.

That since men have decided that women are happier as housewives, they have to be housewives, it had to be made law and there had to be social pressure. Since men have decided that women are better wives if they're uneducated, they barred them from education. That since men had decided that women cannot handle stress, they have to be banned from all sorts of things. And so on. The ideal of self-determination has always been a gendered one. It is about the man as the special crown jewel of creation, the being of infinite value, intelligence and depth, alleviated to personal power by the Enlightenment - and the woman as the NPC beside him. The rib. Remember, the same phase in history when male philosophers and scholars started to push for the idea that every (white) man is created equal, has the same abilities barred by circumstances - that was the same time that othering was more and more transferred from a religious rationale to a scientific one.

And much in the same way, if a man - any man but especially a white man - had lost a defamation trial on such shaky, shaky grounds, men would be taking his side, sharing 1984 quotes or whatever and consider it a dark day for human rights. In fact, think of all the male pundits who will spin outright lies about some celebrity being part of a cannibal paedo cult - and when they're found out to be lying, their fans defend them and say that "well it's their freedom of speech!"

For the public, there is no urgency to defend women's right to freedom of speech, especially when they're talking about gendered issues, because quite classically, they think a woman has nothing meaningful to say and "should be seen, not Heard".

[cuintuar]

Every anarchist should carry a glass bottle around, so that when someone complains about "violent protests" during the likes of g8, G20 or literally anything else, they can suddenly smash it on the nearest surface and ask "was this violent to you?".

Because no it's not. Nobody was hurt, nobody was in danger and nobody even planned to hurt anyone. Sure, it might've been surprising, scary even, but you did was to break some glass in order to make a point. And it is, as such, no different than what's happening when protesters break the windows of a bank or those of a multinational corporation.

[thebleedingeffect]

Thinking about fierce deity again and while I very much understand where the thought of him being some sort of war god comes from- I just can't get myself to believe in it. I very much do believe that the fierce deity is capable of vast amounts of destruction and carnage, but I do not believe that he's the type to enact pointless death. He's capable of so much hurt, but instead, he commits himself to protection, justice, and the very people themselves. He's just not a violent guy, but he CAN be violent, am I making any sort of sense