#acknowledging viserys's wrongs would be acknowledging that she was victimized

[bbygirl-aemond]

“He was very fond of me, and i of him” NOOOOOOOO ALICENT STOP THE AVERAGE VIEWER DOESN’T HAVE THE MEDIA LITERACY TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN’T VERBALIZE YOUR OWN ABUSE DUE TO YOUR UPBRINGING AND YOUR OWN COPING MECHANISMS AND THAT IT MEANS YOU SPEAK KINDLY OF YOUR ABUSER IN A WAY THAT IS NEITHER TRUE NOR DESERVED

[lemonhemlock]

let's consider for a moment that rhaenyra is the rightful heir and everybody agrees on it. nobody doubts her right to succeed viserys just like how arianne martell is heir to sunspear even though she has two younger brothers. I don't see why it's so hard for people to be like "Rhaenyra is the rightful heir" for such and such reasons but also be like "I also acknowledge that her three eldest children are bastards and therefore have no right of succession" People talk a lot about the Green line ending as narrative punishment but it bothers me how all three of Rhae's illegitimate sons died while both of her legitimate sons with Daemon survived. If you wanted to, you could also frame their deaths as narrative punishments. Rhaenyra intended to sit them on the Throne after she died and all three of them predeceased her.

I do agree that Rhaenyra is absolutely punished by the narrative, even more so than Daemon. I think that, ultimately, if she had been intended as the cautionary tale of the wronged victim, she would have been given a more sympathetic end, not the double shame of being rejected by both castles she ruled (driven out of King's Landing, only to find she's been so easily ousted from Dragonstone). Daemon did get a pretty epic death scene, after all.

[horizon-verizon]

This is about the show only:

Viserys, as the King, is the patriarchy, and Rhaenyra is only able to get away with rebelling against it because Viserys lets her. Viserys expects Alicent to be a dutiful childbearing wife but let’s Rhaenyra do basically whatever she wants because he feels guilt for what he did to Aemma. And Rhaenyra is okay with that. She doesn’t care about other women suffering. She only wants to bend the rules for herself.

Instead of being angry at Viserys for marrying Alicent she is angry at Alicent, who had no choice. Alicent has been maritally raped by Viserys for years. She dutifully bore him three sons and daughter. They even all have the Targaryen look and ride dragons. She did her duty, and he still doesn’t give a shit about his kids with her and clearly favors Rhaenyra. Still, Alicent took care of Viserys for years when she could have just let him rot. She may not love him romantically but she clearly cares about him, despite what he did to her.

Alicent has been a saint, because if I were her I would have poisoned both Daemon and Rhaenyra and also Viserys to protect my children. Alicent, as a victim of Viserys has every right to advocate for her children and put them first. She has every right to want Aegon to be king, not because she’s some woman hater like y’all think, but because she’s simply a mother who wants to protect her children and frankly deserves to have her bloodline on the throne after everything she went through.

She doesn’t even want Rhaenyra dead, she still cares for her despite everything. Alicent isn’t perfect but neither is Rhaenyra. You can support and root for Rhaenyra while acknowledging that Alicent does have a point and that the story is not black and white. I understand why Rhaenyra wants the throne but I also understand why Alicent thinks crowning Aegon is necessary.

Special Note: Since the show's world is the same as the ASoIaF canon's, the cultural, legal, and political laws and situations and contexts I will bring up are all valid. Plus, I've made several posts as to how this show is garbage in terms of writing and characterizations & basic consistency. This post will put that aside (for the most part) to be Watsonian.

*EDITED POST* (4/7/24)

Can you do something for me, anon? Point out to me a single scene or family that is actively preparing to usurp Rhaenyra before any of the greens did. We see Borros shout at Lucerys, but did you actually see him with troops and supplies stored places in preparation to usurp Rhaenyra BEFORE Aemond arrived?

Alicent's kids were always safe. You, like her, took Otto's words for granted, and for why?

I explain how Otto and Alicent were wrong about the lords rebelling (w/o green interference) all in my points below.

A)

Let's take a breath. Imagine what having a female Queen Regnant--not just a Queen Consort, Queen Dowager, or Queen Mother--would do for any other woman seeking power in a male-dominated society that frequently abuses its own women from noblemen to common blacksmiths (Megelle).

There is now a precedent (since people shout "what about precedent?!") of a female leader. Such that would socially justify and legitimize further other female claimants of noble seats across the realm.

Jeyne Arryn is an example of a woman who would have benefitted even more from Rhaenyra ruling, even w/o Rhaenyra being Aemma's daughter and thus Jeyne's cousin. Her rule of the Fingers, Vales, etc. would have had much more confidence and power than if Rhaenyra hadn't had an unencumbered reign as a woman in her own right.

("The Blacks and the Greens") -- the greens looking over list of those who could support them:

("A Son for a Son") -- Jeyne's reasoning for supporting Rhaenyra:

But because Rhaenyra not ruling, what happens? For years, women/girls like Arianne Martell, Sansa and Seren Stark, and Jeyne Poole (Arya Stark, if she hadn't gotten out) are even more abused--physically and emotionally--by power-seeking/misogynist men.

You bleat about how Alicent is abused. Well, by her participation and actions in usurping Rhaenyra, she made life worse for all women in Westeros. Because the idea that women should not be leaders and that men should always have power over them became stronger (posts and reblogs by brideoffires).

If Rhaenyra had been allowed to rule, would any of what happened (during the Dance) to the common-born or any noble person in and out of King's Landing have happened? NO!

B)

Rhaenyra had been heir for at least 12-13 years in the show and Lord Caswell was killed for trying to escape and alert her. I'll bring up the book once here just so my point is supported: those oaths that Viserys had the lords make for Rhaenyra? Most followed through and supported her throughout the actual war...that the greens started. Many of them enthusiastically did so. (Frey, Blackwood, the Arynns/Jeyne Arryn). Even a Stark, Cregan, kept fighting for her.

And a quick note: Also, do you know another person who plunged Westeros into war based on their anger at a handful of people for merely personal AND unjustified reasons (I will explain how Alicent is unjustified to be against Rhaenyra way below)? Aegon IV against Naerys and Aemon for their possible affair and Naerys birthing Aemon's child. It was said that Aegon believed Daeron, his official son, to be the bastard son of his siblings Aemon and Naerys.

In this case, Aegon IV was the type to prefer everyone suffering if he had no control, instead of doing as Viserys I did (if it was true or not, that part really doesn't matter politically) and kept hypothetical non-bio-son as his protected heir. I say "protected" because by naming all his bastards legitimate on his deathbed, Aegon IV endangered Daeron II's body and claim.

Yet this show will have us think that Alicent thinks always or mostly in the favor of "the realm" and unselfishly. And a huge reason why I that Alicent presents as "unselfish" more than hypocritical by the show's wriitng rather than her own hypocrisy is because Rhaenys--the resident supposed "wise" woman--has named Alicent as "wise" depsite immediately following that up with Alicent only making "windows" in the "prison" their patriarchal system shoves her into.

Another way is the effect of the Nymeria page she sends to Rhaenyra to try to dissuade her from war and just accept Aegon's rule...reminder, this page is of a woman nonDornish Westerosi would think a woman abnormal for her being a ruler onto herself AND Nymeria was a woman who while had to flee her past home and war with many lords for her people to survive....like Rhaenyra in this situation, aso had to fight wars (even when they were of conquest) to ensure her people's survival. She changed Dorne not for any noble reason, but for necessary self-oriented reasons of survival. And she's remembered as one of the most influential, important figures of Westerosi history, having created an entire different and lasting society in Dorne. Nymeria being framed as abnormal or cautionary--like Rhaenyra & Alicent have been in the in-world document of Fire & Blood--is par for the course and if Alicent was trying to be cautionary to Rhaenyra through the cautionary example of Nymeria, it would make sense for Alicent to do that. But it doesn't, really for Rhaenyra to fully & sincerely accept that line of persuasion. In other words, we shouldn't be validating--if what I said abt Alicent trying to use Nymeria as a cautionary note to Rhaenyra and not something like "remember when we used to be friends?!" way--and saying her reasons AND her way of ending a war are justifed or good...because she's still stealing something, one of the only things Rhaenyra has had that a man is allowed in this world.

MOST of the Westersi lords were in support of her and her "bastard" son Jacaerys. There were no real, substantive pushback or material war preparations against her for a real rebellion. Helaena was safe to marry Jaecaerys and become Queen herself, but Alicent refused why exactly? Because Jaecaerys was, to her, a bastard unworthy of her daughter...

C)

AND because she was still angry with Rhaenyra for...what exactly? Because Rhaenyra lied about "losing her virginity"?

Why does this matter to Alicent, when it is the fault of her father for making this public news? Why couldn't this be kept secret, as all the other times a noble girl/woman has had affairs and bastard children? (I get into real-life scenarios of kings actually allowing their wives to birth bastards and have lovers way below). Hint: Otto wants Rhaenyra to be replaced above him doing his "duty" to Viserys and actually being a good Hand. To pretend otherwise is a delusion.

Let's review the context of Rhaenyra's lying to Alicent (scroll down to "The Context of Rhaenyra’s Lie in Episode 4").

D)

You: "Viserys, as the King, is the patriarchy, and Rhaenyra is only able to get away with rebelling against it because Viserys lets her."

1.

Did you witness episode 6, where Alicent nearly lead most of the council meeting while Viserys sat close to her?

We are meant to understand that over the years, Viserys lets Alicent do more and more. He also allows her to demand Rhaenyra's children be brought before her every time they were birthed or not long afterward, knowing that Alicent wants him to call them bastards and declare them as such.

Customarily, Queen Consorts don't sit in councils unless their husbands allow it. Otherwise, they aren't included. Alysanne was involved because Jaehaerys allowed it.

But do you hear of any Queen Consorts joining the council After the Dance? Was Naerys involved when Aegon IV ruled? What about Daenaera and Aegon III? Shaera and Jaehaerys II? What about Rhaella and Aerys II? Cersei and Robert?

No, again, it is after the Dance that women are customarily excluded from substantive politics even as a Queen Consort. (Queen Dowagers or Mothers do not count because the king is usually their son/stepson who is either too weak to rule independently or officially too young like Alyssa Velaryon was for Jaehaerys).

You need to remember that Alicent is trying to force Viserys' hand and reveal the boys' parentage to everyone so her own sons get support, knowing he did not want this, knowing that he is king.

Like Rhaenyra pointed out about Otto tailing her, questioning the heir/princess about their business and especially the parentage of their kids is treasonous (without concrete proof, and honestly she has none because one can never prove another's parentage at this point in history AND they had room to claim that the boys could very well have inherited darker features from their Baratheon kin).

In this light, we can say Alicent acts "treasonously". Yet Viserys lets her get away with it instead of putting his foot down. Doesn't really matter that he was ill and rotting, he was able to muster the strength later when he was sicker so that anyone who questioned Rhaenyra would not be left alone to live. Why couldn't he do this earlier, when he was healthier and stronger?

Yes, Viserys ignored her about the Velaryon boys...what did you expect him to do, renounce and abandon his daughter just because she birthed kids, not Laenor's? And make Corlys' ire worse? The guy who WANTS Luke to inherit Driftmark? Not only that, ruin his daughter and the house's images more than if he did as he did and allowed them to be legitimate? Then wouldn't Viserys be a worse father? Alicent was suggesting trash "advice" on that, both politically and personally.

So really, it seems you want him to be evil to Rhaenyra alone, rather than actual fairness.

2.

I don't think you watched episode 4 well.

I agree that HotD!Young Rhaenyra is freer than Jaehaerys I's daughters of the book. But what Viserys gives Rhaenyra is actually not much choice or room at all. unlike Jaehaerys' daughters, who have both parents one of whose problems were that there were too many children,

Rhaenyra's mother's death by Viserys mission to get a son AND her immediately being named his heir gave her new unique anxieties and burdens.

Her distance and rebuttals are all results of Viserys taking her friend as a wife and breaking one of those few bonds left to her. Because you can't be your stepmother's/Queen Consort best friend when she will birth other competitors (at this point, show!Rhaenyra was in deep doubt).

In that episode, we see how much choice he actually gives Rhaenyra:

Not letting her speak, not working with her to shut down Otto

dismissing her concerns about Otto until she gave him an ultimatum, which only seemed to work because he already suspected or disliked Otto

Not considering how it would rather benefit her claim to marry her uncle, as was the point of all those incestuous marriages between cousins and siblings and uncle-niece/aunt-nephew both in Valyria and Andal/FM Westeros.

*not in the episode, but still a part of this* marries her only friend, knowing that she is literally her only friend, all so he can avoid marrying another younger girl and have his cake/eat it too--attracted...knowing that they would never be the same again

He wanted obedience, anon. "You are my political headache!" Meanwhile he doesn't see how it would be politically better for her to marry Daemon.

3.

Laenor is gay. We already know that he and Rhaenyra tried but nothing came of it. There were never going to be any kids from that union.

What did you expect Rhaenyra to do exactly? Rape Laenor? Get a Lysene sex slave to impregnate her? You'd be the first to call her terrible for either of these.

Not have kids? That is even worse than not birthing her husband's children. For someone like her, the heir to the throne, to be called "barren" and unable to produce heirs herself. A thing Otto can use against her and promote Aegon the Elder as heir, which would give Otto more power over Rhaenyra.

Find another Valyrian-descent-male noble or blonde guy? And what guarantee do we have that he wouldn't try to take advantage of Rhaenyra though his blood link to any children he would sire and endanger her--plus those kids'--lives and reputations and positions?! We see how men in Westeros and beyond reach for power through even those children they do love...Rhaenyra was with Harwin bc he didn't demand anything of her nor looed for advancement through their kids. He was there just for her.

Do you want that, maybe because you already have a deep hatred for Rhaenyra that is irrational?

4.

Viserys got Rhaenyra into the mess that she was in with Laenor for his own ends and by his own cowardly need to have Alicent/someone that he thinks he chose as freely.

He is not only responsible for Alicent's misery but Rhaenyra and Laenor's as well. He also was responsible for Rhaenyra having to have kids whose parentage would always be doubted since it was an open secret that Laenor was gay.

Again, what do you think Rhaenyra was supposed to do? Demand an annulment and risk insulting the already ruffled Corlys? We already saw how Viserys was determined to have her marry Laenor to ensure a Velaryon alliance and smooth over his rejection of Laena. Do you really think that she could have done much there, when she already depends on Viserys for the said inheritance for the throne, as you have stated WHILE battling her other feelings of grief, anger, etc.?

So no, Viserys doesn't give her much choice or many allowances.

5.

In real-life medieval, Tudor, and early modern history, kings, lords, etc, there are many examples of husbands and fathers (latter less occurring) actively encouraging or allowing their wives, daughters, etc to have their own lovers or even children with said lover that the husband then names as his own.

Whether because:

the lover is an accomplished politician who takes the burden of rule off of him

wanted to stay married to said wife because of her dowry, other inheritances, or political connections

because the husband is infertile

because the husband is gay and unable to impregnate his wife

or because they already have kids and the king/lord/husband/etc do not want to jeopardize or draw suspicion of their kid's legitimacy -- better to claim all than to risk some

Sometimes it is even the court and territory's nobles and courtiers who want the queen/lady/wife to have lovers and children outside of her legal marriage just for the heirs, to avoid the madness of said king/husband, or to obtain a more competent politician/commander. The open secret if you will.

This means that Viserys sees many benefits in Rhaenyra having any sort of kids, which explains how he was willing to claim her sons as legitimate. I also have to remind you that Corlys also accepted these boys because he also wanted an heir.

Yes, Viserys loved his daughter in some capacity and wanted to protect her, but we can't ignore the political benefits that come with her having children within the cover of a legal marriage to a gay man.

In this way, Rhaenyra is further trapped in marriage, popping out sons and kids that while she comes to love, are also there to be heirs for another man. Does this sound familiar?

You should take read of Eleanor Harman's Sex with the Queen to learn more. Here's an excerpt:

With regard to royal children, the only consideration more important than their kingly blood was the monarch’s self-interest.  Many kings acknowledged children they knew had been fathered by someone else. Often, kings did not want to cast doubt on the paternity of older children they knew to be their own. In the case where the king could not father children, sometimes court factions heartily desired the queen to bear bastards in order to stabilize the throne and cement their own interests.

Fortunately, the queen’s complete and utter disillusionment with her husband usually set in after the birth of the heir.  And so it was not deemed worthwhile to lose international prestige, throw the nation into tumult, and question the paternity of all royal children, simply to deny the one cuckoo in the robin’s nest. In the early nineteenth century, the last son of King John VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina of Portugal was extremely good-looking and slender - unlike either of his parents - and happened to be the spitting image of the handsome gardener at the queen’s country retreat. Other than a few snickers behind painted fans, no one said a word.

E)

You: "Viserys expects Alicent to be a dutiful childbearing wife but let’s Rhaenyra do basically whatever she wants because he feels guilt for what he did to Aemma. And Rhaenyra is okay with that. She doesn’t care about other women suffering. She only wants to bend the rules for herself."

Already explained the little-to-no choice for Rhaenyra aspect.

Yes, Viserys does expect Alicent to do this, because, unlike Rhaenyra, Alicent is not facing 10% of usurpation or pushback that Rhaenyra--as heir--would/could.

She is Queen Consort, not soon-to-be-present Queen Regnant. Alicent is not his heir. She is his wife and the person who bears him other children, his "spares". Unfortunately, that is the way of feudal, monarchial patriarchy. Of which Alicent wants to use it for herself and uses it to judge/make Rhaenyra seem unfit...the very system and principles that oppress her, Alicent.

This does not mean Alicent had no right to pursue power for herself by principle, even though I want Rhaenyra. Show!Alicent, however, lives to give up power for conformity's sake in comparison.

And Viserys should be held accountable for sleeping with a teen girl who clearly didn't approach him with full willingness. And if not Alicent, it would have been any other girl or woman. Because girls are socially eligible to become wives as soon as they get their periods in Westeros, even if the practice is that parents and guardians usually wait until the girl is in her later teens (16-19). That's a societal problem that both he and Otto can and did take advantage of.

But again, anon, what exactly did you expect Rhaenyra to do? The girl was also 15, like Alicent!!!!

You seem to give the mantle of responsibility if Alicent's suffering to her. I said this already in another post, but Rhaenyra just lost her mother a few months earlier (something Alicent has experienced) and she has taken to her duties as heir. Alicent is the one who was more available for her than she was to Alicent. Can Rhaenyra read minds, now? Why didn't Alicent let Rhaenyra at least know that Otto was forcing her to do this? That, at least, was within Alicent's power.

What is Rhaenyra supposed to have done when Viserys and Alicent both explicitly told each other (episode 2) they'd keep their meetings secret from Rhaenyra, thus keeping Rhaenyra totally out and in the dark whilst she was mentally preoccupied?

NOTE: I want to clarify that I don't think Rhaenyra would necessarily become Alicent's savior and stop Viserys from choosing her and use chess moves against Otto, or that Alicent should have thought Rhaenyra would 100% deliver her from this situation. Rhaenyra may or may not have been at least able to bring them together to think of how they could Viserys to know of Otto's plans, but that is not the point I make when I compare Alicent and Rhaenyra during this time. Alicent seems to have lived her entire life pressured into suppressing her desires for the sake of obeying her overbearing father, and it would be terribly hard to overcome that and see through those teachings instilled in you. But just by these statements alone, Rhaenyra proves to not be her actual enemy nor the cause of her suffering.

I could flip it around: If we say they were truly friends, why not say something--if we presume that they always talked about Otto's suffocating expectations of Alicent and their supposed many years of close friendship? The show--by not letting us see how they actually related their relationship with their families to each other (the jump cuts and lack of any flashbacks)--refused to allow us to better qualify the character of their communication habits. (I already answered this in the paragraph above). How close were they really? We only get their relationship through the lens of Rhaenyra's family's succession crisis. Before the events of episode 1, did these two girls tell each other a lot of things that they wouldn't tell others, and I mean the most private things--or do they hold those back and why? Would Alicent tell Rhaenyra about her father sometimes drunkenly bemoan her mother's passing if Otto did that? Would Rhaenyra tell Alicent any of her crushes? Would she tell her what she thought about the Faith, and if so, where did she stop if ever? Either way, with what is presented on-screen, the onus of their relationship did not/does not rest fully on Rhaenyra, esp when she didn't even know and could not spare time or thought to Alicent while going through shit herself.

So it doesn't look like Alicent gave Rhaenyra much of a choice either, to even attempt to help her out or give room to process information and respond, choosing to keep it close to her chest. Maybe to not lose her friendship sooner than she liked, it being due to obedience to her father and Viserys keeping it secret, or afraid of Rhaenyra not believing that she wasn't being overly ambitious and disrespectful towards Aemma's memory, etc. Once again, the point is that Rhaenyra had less ability to anticipate all this happening, so there needed to be just one person who told her all this. And in friendships & any relationship, one has to know when the ball is in their court, and in this instance, it was Alicent and Viserys. But both chose to keep Rhaenyra out of the loop completely until the last minute bc neither wanted to deal with what they both knew would be very hurt & angry feelings from her.

Meanwhile, before Viserys announced his marriage, Rhaenyra was actually being very helpful and "obedient", performing her tasks/duties. If you think ignoring Otto and choosing a capable fighter, specifically saying that "my father needs a worthy fighter with experience" and choosing Criston is her not following the rules or thinking of Viserys, you'd be dead wrong. This also goes for her suggesting they use dragonriders to join Corlys in the Stepstones, to which, once again, Viserys refuses and makes her look dumb, all because it was an interruption in "adult", manly matters. (Yes he allows her on the council later, but first events matter and he allowed a bad image to be made that day of her. Stupid of him.)

Finally, Rhaenyra is ranked lower than Viserys, THE KING, despite being his daughter. It appears you want some grand gesture or a big power play from Rhaenyra to protect Alicent from soemthing she doesn't even know is happening. What would you want her to do? To repeat myself, demand an annulment or a cancellation after it's already been announced? Again, if she had known prior, maybe something could be done and she could persuade him otherwise, but we'll never know, will we? And risk insulting Corlys? Again?!

So really, you should be angry at Otto and Viserys more than anyone. They are the ones with the power to put Alicent into the position that she is in. That's the patriarchy talking. That's not Rhaenyra's doing.

As for Rhaenyra's anger:

mother just died

Alicent's silence/keeping such secrets from her

Viserys' public dismissals

feeling some self-hate and disappointment for not having a male's value in her society

If you are going to advocate for Alicent finding fault in Rhaenyra's ability to find holes in the patriarchal mold made for her, we should keep in mind that Rhaenyra was deliberately kept out of even knowing what would happen to her and what she'd be up against later on in the first place. Would this not sting at least? Especially after she's told Alicent, presumably, about her fears for Aemma, her disappointment in Viserys' disregard for her before Aemma died, and her fears of being discarded once a male child arrives? All those years of friendship and thinking Alicent would tell her such important information? If we can forgive Alicent for thinking Rhaenyra would literally kill her kids or endanger them bc she fears her father and believes everything from him, why can't we "forgive" or cut Rhaenyra some slack for being angry that her best friend didn't tell her anything that could determine her future?!

When you've been doubted and sidelined all your life, it would take a lot of ability to compartmentalize (certainly more than anyone in this show has) to see past the nail in the coffin before it came down, which is not necessarily a good thing bc you risk repressing too much of your own emotions and thus debilitate yourself from making more rational decisions or debilitate your own ability to process information and get to conclusions as fast as you could.

Honestly, both girls are beleaguered and have much in common in terms of suffering from patriarchal authorities. Both are forced to have children for the sake of politics, one sexually abused and denied sexual exploration alrogwthwr before she hit 18, and the other totally shut down in any participation in politics as well as trapped in a position more vulnerable to others machinations if she hadn't had kids.

Their fathers both are the ones truly trifling.

F)

You: "Alicent has been maritally raped by Viserys for years. She dutifully bore him three sons and daughter. They even all have the Targaryen look and ride dragons. She did her duty, and he still doesn’t give a shit about his kids with her and clearly favors Rhaenyra. Still, Alicent took care of Viserys for years when she could have just let him rot. She may not love him romantically but she clearly cares about him, despite what he did to her."

1.

I wrote a post about feudalism, Queen Consorts, spares, etc for Alicent and Viserys, and the claim that just because she birthed him, children, doesn't mean he customarily owes her anything, much less making her kids heirs. Because this show's world still has the same sexist circumstances, same as what I said there for the show.

Anon, it's misogynist to go "Alicent did her duty by bearing four 'obvious' Targ children" when Rhaenyra's kids also ride dragons while not looking "typically" Targaryen.

You're saying that Alicent's kids are "worth" more than Rhaenyra's because she was a good girl and birthed heirs. You also fell for the court idea of "trueness" being "obvious" in appearance--blood purity.

Finally, are Alicent and Rhaenyra only worth their wombs, now? Is that what you want from your (assumed) fav, to just be a pawn spawning out "true" heirs for her father to take advantage of? Whose fault is it that Alicent is put into her position? Viserys is obviously partially at fault for choosing her at all, but who put her there? Otto. For purely selfish reasons. Why are you so devoted to hating a girl for mourning and being busy, whilst the true perpetrator of Alicent's suffering is Otto?

Why do you think that suffering for doing your "job" of being a baby factory and enduring marital rape = having "good morals"?

2.

*Disclaimer*: I do recognize how show!Alicent was sexually abused, as she was obviously unwilling.

My point is that why does sexual abuse have to be or is a requisite for respect and a tool of exchange for power? Why is it characterized as a thing that Alicent "let" happen to her, instead of just socially forced onto her? You do this when you argue that she "did her duty" and consented to give Viserys children without it being a problem about how Otto put her there in the first place, a place where she had little to no options. You don't mention this.

Children trump wives/husbands/spouses/SOs, as you argued that Alicent's love for her kids trumps whatever she feels towards any hypothetical husband/Viserys.

Why are we asking him to emotionally abandon Rhaenyra altogether for Alicent's kids? Romantic love is a nonfactor. Romance doesn't get top priority when we're talking politics, nor is it always or should be the final authority on who gets more favor. I mean, if we're talking about the characters only, Rhaenyra is Viserys' daughter. You're revealing that you'd prefer if Viserys gave his political favor to his wife over his daughter, which is pretty crazy considering that Rhaenyra is his heir and his eldest child, the child he's known and emotionally engaged with far longer than he's known Alicent. And this is coming from a person who agrees wholeheartedly that he was a terrible dad to any/all of his kids in different ways but was worse towards the green kids with his comparative neglect.

While it's fair to say Viserys should pay more attention to his other kids, I don't think that's all you want. I think that you want him to just name Aegon heir, that he can only express true love for his other kids by giving the heir title to Aegon and removing Rhaenyra. Because you think that the throne is Aegon's birthright. And you think it is his birthright just because he has a penis and Andal male-preferred primogeniture exists. Meanwhile, if you go through Westerosi history and read carefully, you will see that while girls are not as preferred to boys, you will see examples of girls leading houses even with male relatives available. Jeyne Arryn is one, who had male cousins and uncles by no brothers after they and her father died. You may counterargue and say either Jeyne had to take power to have it and/or that in Westerosi tradition the girl can only inherit if she has no nuclear-male relatives, and you would be correct.

Problem there is that you would be defending a patriarchal setback for women, and are therefore misogynist because you do not want women to have real autonomy. Autonomy is the power of self (it's in the word). Power that comes from and is practiced from the self, exists by itself and is generated from the self. It is the ability to make decisions for one's self, by oneself, as far from others' always-biased-and-never-fully-understanding-of-you's perspectives or abilities. More substantial power is not when a woman/girl only gets power when all other male options are unavailable, is that actual autonomous power or a pure autonomous claim the same as a man's? No.

So if you, anon, are upset with the idea that a woman seeks power for herself or ways to shape her life how she wants it without a man or man-lead/filled/prioritized institution making decisions against her, then you yourself prove to be misogynist and hateful of women seeking autonomy.

3.

What about when she grows older? Do you suggest that Alicent remains powerless then? Again, what I pointed out about Viserys letting her have a lot of power for years from episode 6. You should be troubled by how it's told how the Queen consort's only true job is to be a fertile womb, not congratulating her fertility under this context. Why is passive "power" the only power you want to afford a woman?

Once again, Alicent is Queen Consort. Not a Queen Regnant as Rhaenyra would have been.

After Viserys gives her that power and she gains much more in episode 8 in his illness, she is the next in the show's hierarchy/authority, as we saw by her giving orders to the Kingsguard. At least next to the King's Hand. She is also in charge of the running of the castle in that she dismisses servants and makes sure that whoever is in charge of collecting and organizing accounts of food, supplies, etc. (usually a castellan or a steward). Servants including those who dress and take the king's piss/poop out. Those who are literally close to Viserys. We see it in episode 3, where Alicent sends the servants away and cleans Viserys herself.

She has more influence or power than she or some fans think bc she is closest to the King. Not official policy-making, law-making, war-waging power, but a lot of social court power. Power that does not come from Otto.

In Westeros, it appears the heir officially outranks the Queen Consort because we haven't seen a Consort boss around the heir on their rank alone [a parent can do do with a child, but what about if the Consort isn't the parent of that child?] but in the show, they try to reverse that in episode 6. This doesn't track at all unless the writers do what they should have done and show accumulations of moments where Alicent gains more unofficial power as Viserys deteriorates and lets her go off to the races OR/AND she more and more gets him to feel that he needs to give her such power. Queen Consorts don't sit at council with the King, once more, it's a privilege granted to them and is actually an anomaly. Therefore, it would have been that much more meaningful to show how Alicent got where she got in at least 3 episodes preceding what we get in episode 6, even though it still wouldn't b match what happens in the original story. This is an example of the writers creating a new lore point but not sticking to their own invention or being logically consistent abt it.

Yes, her main and defining "job" -- by those patriarchal more she herself is trying to enforce -- is to give Viserys children and be the model of female chastity that Andal tradition dictates to her (alms, faith to the Faith, only having sex with Viserys). Plus run/oversee the royal inner household (its resources [ex. food] & the royal offspring), and possibly arrange marriages. She is even expected to bear with her husband's bullshit because he is her husband and she is a woman. (You'd be surprised at what Queen Consorts had to put up with in real-life history.) But she is not completely helpless & she doesn't have 0 agency. She just doesn't have any imagination and is resentful of Rhaenyra instead of the real perpetrators. Mostly because her imagination or independent thinking has been stifled by her social role as a female noble.

No, she could not have let Viserys rot with no (at the very least) supervision because that would put a social mark against her and her public image as a merciful Queen--the customary standard for a Queen--and be seen as her neglecting her husband. And Alicent had no intention of inviting that sort of censure. I recognize that she grew to have some sort of care for Viserys enough to be upset at his suffering and death, but that is something that is unequally expected of her as a wife and Queen Consort. the pressure is more on her to fulfill her duties to her husband than it is on Viserys to his wife, and he does not have the same duties as her, thus less pressure. He can take a mistress all he wants if he's adamant or sexually seeking enough. This is a world that is harsher and more expectant on the wife than the husband, even placing conditions of legal treachery into the mix. What do you expect as a "reward"? You don't get power or respect by complying or submitting to already oppressive systems/individuals' oppressive actions. Do you think that if you are a "good girl", you get to be happy and safe and compensated? That's not how hierarchies work. As a commentator below states. No, you get crumbs that you are taught to "enjoy" or have no other choice but to swallow.

So, it is not black-and-white "pure" & "free" devotion that she just wanted to take care of Viserys. She's also motivated by what she thinks she has to do to be a good woman/Queen/wife, which is all patriarchal bullshit. She thinks she has to be so accommodating towards Viserys because she knows that is her feudalist role as a Queen/woman/wife and that that will somehow give her peace. She thinks being perfectly chaste and caring will bring her some sort of satisfaction with how her life turned out, but suppresses her anger and probable feelings of shame that she seems to ignore.

Shame for having been spent to Viserys at all while having been above reproach before then (there should have been court gossip, but that's another thing).

Shame or guilt for not letting Rhaenyra know.

Shame for replacing her friend's mother when she listened to her speak about her family drama AND lost her mother herself.

All works as a paradox for living as a Queen Consort.

4.

It is by Andal tradition (not Valyrian) that the husband has nearly full power over his wife's life and that a wife obeys her husband. Rhaenyra is Viserys' eldest and Alicent gave birth to Viserys' "spares", which by the Widow's Law, we very well can make a strong case for how these kids do not go before Rhaenyra in the line of succession:

To rectify these ills, in 52 AC King Jaehaerys implemented the Widow’s Law, reaffirming the right of the eldest son (or daughter, where there was no son) to inherit, but requiring said heirs to maintain surviving widows in the same conditions they enjoyed before their husband’s death. A lord’s widow, be she a second, third or fourth wife, could no longer be driven from his castle, nor deprived of her servants, clothing, and income. The same law also forbade a man to disinherit the children by a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat or property on a later wife or her children.

Rhaenyra can use this law to argue -- not that she should be put on trial, she's made heir by her father and since it was his will/word that's the definite LAW -- and strengthen her monarch-given right to ascend.

Your wife/Queen Consort can be good to you all she is. If you, the king, say that the heir is a specific person, they are that person regardless of who his wife is or how dutiful she is. State matters can and have been influenced through marriages and interpersonal care, but it can just as well not be because it all depends on the king's/monarch's disposition and the political context. That was the risk Otto took and used his own daughter to try and manipulate. Not Rhaenyra's fault at all.

That Alicent failed to see that until the 9th episode (the show itself, for all its flaws, is telling you this, anon!) shows how intelligent/narrow-minded/unrighteous Alicent has been from the time she set herself against Rhaenyra in their conversation of episode 4. And even before, when she never told Rhaenyra Otto's instructions to her and for years pushed that burden of responsibility on Rhaenyra..

When she's yelling about "having one child like that", she's referring to children born out of wedlock to a girl who doesn't act within her patriarchal sexual restrictions. Said restrictions are that women/girls should expect to only sleep with the man/boy their authority figure designates for them while their husband sleeps around and fathers bastards indiscriminately.

So, yeah, Alicent is a misogynist towards Rhaenyra.

G)

You: "She doesn’t even want Rhaenyra dead, she still cares for her despite everything. Alicent isn’t perfect but neither is Rhaenyra."

1.

Anon, you really don't get human psychology. A parent's love and care for their kids is such a visceral thing.

How is it in any way feasible that 8th episode-Alicent's behavior is realistic or consistent with how real people behave toward what they think is a threat to their kids? It doesn't make any sense how Alicent changed her tune after Rhaenyra apologized in episode 8. By:

calling Rhaenyra's sons bastards, endangering them all (whether by social shaming/ostracism [which can and has caused mental deterioration in human history], exile, or actual execution)

humiliating Rhaenyra by demanding that Joffrey be brought to her right after Rhaenyra birthed him to show the entire court that she doubts his parentage

by dismissing all her concerns and demands to deal with the Stepstones problem in a much more substantive way than just leaving it up to Daemon to stave off the Triarchy

There was no coming back from the years Alicent spent antagonizing Rhaenyra. She herself broke that connection based on false notions. Alicent has shown malice before episode 8. HERE is my past post about how Show! or Book!Alicent was never going to be a woman I rooted for when a possible Queen Regnant was available.

2.

Rhaenyra is the rightful heir and has always been so. Therefore, what Alicent was doing was usurping her.

...Usurping means killing people 80% of the time (an arbitrary number, but you should get it). And of the two sides, the greens were the group who'd be more willing to carry out unprovoked assassinations (Aegon after Jaehaerys' death [book, who knows if the show will include this], Aemond killing Lucerys, all the ploys Otto made behind Viserys' back, Aemond firing on the riverlands and killing all the Strongs, etc.)

To quote a lot of green stans and flip it: looking back in real history, people killed for thrones and power more often than they did in imprisonment, and even with imprisonment, it's usually not long before the person mysteriously dies in prison. Know your history and upgrade your understanding of human behavior and motivation. If any person who seeks to usurp someone else truly-duly thinks they can do so without killing them or having one of their supporters kill them (unprovoked), they are delusional. Or at least if you use this argument for why Alicent should act as she did, why isn't this the same for Rhaenyra/the blacks' end?!!

As I've said, Rhaenyra had several supporters who even fought for her after she died.

Watching episode 9, how could you think that Alicent actually had any influence and power over Otto and the councilors, who plotted behind her back to kill Rhaenyra? That she had to give her feet up for Larys to masturbate to in order to just get verbal info? (This is all after Viserys dies, so do not try to use me saying she had power under Viserys above when she loses much power after he dies, which is my point and which HotD exaggerates).

She couldn't use her brain to figure out Otto was behind her suffering all along? Until episode 9?

Show!Alicent never claimed power, so she was in a worse state than book!Alicent was. Your fave is an eroticized doormat for the male gaze (xenonwitch's reblog), not a powerful, self-driven woman.

3.

Their friendship never made sense anyway. From a Doylist standpoint. And show!Alicent herself is a terribly constructed character; Rhaenicent doesn't make sense (article in Polygon).

4.

Sure, Viserys supposedly treats Rhaenyra well and lets her get away with a lot of behavior that these other fathers of ASoIaF would never, BUT he also doesn't:

[book & show] give her enough political training, or equal to that of an male heir--though he does makes her his cupbearer and allows her to sit in council to hear said council (passive learning), he does seem to properly engage, quiz, test, etc. her in decision-making for economic, political, etc. stuff; he does not seem to ever ask for her opinions of certain laws or policies, existing or currently considered; he does not let her make many decisions without lecturing her or ignoring her in front of others (episode 3 with her suggestion about taking dragons to meet Daemon); NOR does he get some sort of tutor through some sort of training, military-wise--likely strategy, not actual combat training (a tutor even from Essos, there would have been many businesspeople and wealthy business families available and eager to work for the royal Targaryens)--that Dany in the main series had to herself must learn and continue from her earlier exilic education on the go. Rhaenyra herself must learn most of what she knows by herself when she heads to Dragonstone! If you can give your heir/child the material to help advance their understanding of certain things even in ordinary education, why are you holding back for this specific instance when the stakes are higher?!

[book & show] he does not firmly, properly, and publicly denounce Alicent's harassment and accusations

[book & show] make one or more of her sons his cupbearer/transition him into being a part of the council as well

[book & show] he does not try to prevent other's talk of Rhaenyra's sons until much later when it is way too late

[show] he doesn't question Alicent's asking for baby Joff at all or pursue why Rhaenyra was even there and bleeding apart from how she shouldn't be there--he quickly moves on, too

[show] In the book, he does send her on a "meet-and-greet" tour or "progress" of the realm to: put a face to the woman in her oath-bound lords/houses' minds -> amplify her "Realm's Delight" image, and reinforce her attractiveness/desirability/sexual purity -> make her more real and appealing. Show!Viserys sends her out on a point-blank marriage-tour where she hears marriage suits after her. The book version explicitly has Viserys/his council at least make Rhaenyra meet her subjects and hear their desires, concerns, and what they think of her. There is less of the kind of formality and distance than what the sho made in changing it into a straight-up marriage tour, so the ladies and lords seeing Rhaenyra for the first time only get to see her under the more stressful (for them as well as for her) and less emotionally engaging context of a mere business exchange. Also, Laenor was always both show!andbook!Viserys' final choice for Rhaenyra. Book!Viserys is just a little bit smarter and more careful than show!Viserys.

Viserys is better than most Westerosi men in how he treats Rhaenyra--book and show--, at least those fathers we get to hear about or get to know. Better, but not still not enough to meet the demands of his daughter's actual needs.

(8/21/23):

THIS is a great post by mononijikayu about medieval queens, female rulers, the history of how women in leadership positions were made and seen as threats to the very structure of social “order”, and contextualizing Rhaenyra thru Empress Matilda. I didn’t even know about Matilda’s husband being comparable to Rhaneyra’s Daemon! PLZ READ!!!!

Excerpt:

just as much, along with these fictitious portrayals, more lies are depicted. these women are considered vixens that cause havoc to men by shifting them into desires and danger. through the written word, we see how women are cast in roles of villains in men’s lives. it is because by their conclusive thoughts, women are the only creatures that are able to turn ‘good honorable men’ into despicable creatures who do shameful, deplorable acts for the sake of women’s pleasures. […]  it is within this narrative that ancient chroniclers declare that women were in fact the doom of men. if they were not able to control the dangers posed by the wiles of women, then the foundations of the mighty society they had built would be up in flames.  [...] as i mentioned, these factors of community are written down and preserved. and with that, the example of the ancients were the foundations by which medieval society built itself. the same concepts continued to cause the same issue within society and that was the exclusion of women from participating in the bigger picture of community and state, much so with governing states in their own right—without judgment or disapproval. 

[alicentsgf]

Why are you judging Rhaenyra for falling in love after she was forced to marry someone she didn’t love and couldn’t even give her children. She loved Harwin, what did you wanted her to do? Are you judging her for having consensual sex with the man she loved? She didn’t had any way to not have children with him.

I don't judge her for loving Harwin, but yes I absolutely judge her for being blind to and never mitigating the consequences. Yes, she's a victim of the world she exists in and of course she should be allowed that freedom. But that doesn't mean she wasn't also niave and/or selfish. Look at the cost to everyone around her? To her own children? To Harwin?

Whether we like it or not, this isn't a world that was ever going to let her get away with it. She must have known how suspicious it looked, especially after Jace was born, and bastardry allegations are a lot to put on the shoulders of your own children. This is not trivial shit and Rhaenyra would absolutely know that power struggles over birthright get people killed. Most especially when they're heirs to "the most dangerous seat in the realm". She was setting them up for really uncertain, dangerous lives and she so determinedly resists acknowledging that fact. She also seemingly fails to understand Alicents perspective/how direly this threatens her own siblings as well. At the very least she should have considered conceding her claim to Aegon, if she was too in love with Harwin to stay away from him (which I am inclined to believe just because I literally cannot rationalise her risking so much for anything less).

Like don't get me wrong it all fucking sucks but literally so many lives hung on Rhaenyra's actions. If she couldn't bear to be apart from Harwin she could have conceded her claim and petitioned Viserys with Laenor for an annulment (bc lets be honest Corlys and the rest of the Velaryons would never have just let her annull the marriage without conceding her claim and the marriage agreement was with house Velaryon, not just Laenor.) So yeah she loved Harwin and her boys, but did she love them more than she wanted the throne/to be her father's heir? Or idk perhaps she truly managed to delude herself to the point where she actually believed it would all be okay. Would have been great if she could have had it all, but the cost was so damn high and she seemingly wasn't prepared to sacrifice any of her desires for the people she loved. Should she have had to? No. But its what we fucking do for people when we love them and want to protect them.

[nrilliree]

 I didn't see the interviews and all for season 1, but doesn't it seem like Rhaenyra is brought down and I don't know kind of insulted in some of them. It's great the actors are friends but Alicent is genuinely not a good person, show or book. If the show writers wanted a wlw show that bad, why not write an original story.

It's kind of weird, the EW recap interview, saying vaemond is not entirely wrong, blaming Rhaenyra and Daemon for the eye accident, that they were shagging, Alicent is not blamed for anything actually, talking about Laena as an afterthought. Then there was the one interview, where it was said about rhaenyra she just lies. If these are jokes, or meant to be funny, they are not, and are in very poor taste.

 Alicent is pillar of truth? Marrying viserys, meeting him behind her friend’s back, whatever crap she had going on with larys, making aegon king, literal poisoning her kids against rhaenyra. List is endless. The whole EW promo, trailer, alicent holds love for enemy, yeah, right. But showing the trailer rhaenyra questioning daemon, you can bet he will say in show, its because I do see you as my queen and ruler I am doing this, going to harrenhall, that’s the theory I saw that he is going there and rhaenyra doesn’t want him to.

 It is Corlys' inheritance, not his greedy brother’s. His wish, who he wants to make heir. Reminds me of Knives Out, the man gave everything to his nurse and family got upset. But we as viewers weren't defending the family, in HOTD it's the opposite. At least Luceyrs has Velaryon blood if TG fans are being very cruel and horrid. Targs and Velaryons married for generations. Corlys, Viserys, the king, Laenor acknowledge him, not even anyone else cared except for miss alicent and her greens.

Also people celebrating the assumed Daemon cheating scene, uh. Why do people hate Aegon and like Alys when this vile woman very much likely ra**d, enchant Aemond, and it's likely being presumed she is doing the same with Daemon. She is a rapist too like aegon. Would love to see Daemon choking her. Cause she is just bad, it would be deserved instead of the unnecessary daemyra one. I can't stand her character. Would actually make sense with book that Daemon did not fall for her tricks. Not to mention Aemond is already a victim of sexual assault in show, courtesy of aegon.

The way we got Aemond's weepy shot in trailer, he is not gonna force anybody, least of all the wannabe witch, he is 16 according to show. His derogatory remarks about rhaenyra in books, for bastards, he hates them, alys is all of that, way older than rhaenyra or even alicent.

 if he is forcing people, there were other women too there. And she is not good looking, please, not looking your age doesn’t mean a person is good looking, that’s just her fans delusions. Again funny fact, rhaenyra is beautiful, the realm’s delight, but all I see is whining from certain fans about why they didn’t make her fat, being vile about the actors playing rhaenyra who are good looking when alicent’s whole story is opposite of what she is.

Some Hotd fans are  strange. They are like, nah, its good aemond was enchanted, raped cause he is villain. Now the daemon haters are like, oh goody, he’ll be assaulted by alys. Why are they rooting for a rapist? Or maybe it shouldn’t be shocking since people love aegon 2. Ra**st whether a man or woman is a monster in my eyes.

Okay, I'm curious about one thing. How could Daemon be blamed for the eye accident? How? That he didn't force his grieving daughter to try to bond with the dragon that burned her mother alive? I guess that's a good thing after all…? Or that he had sex with Rhaenyra? And if he didn't do it and went to sleep, would he be guilty too? Because he was supposed to stand and plinch Vhagar? Or children? What should Criston do? Or Alicent, because it was her son who escaped to the dragon :P?

And...

"Alicent is pillar of truth"

"Alicent is a pillar of truth"

"ALICENT is a pillar of TRUTH"

I died. I just died. Guys, this is the funniest thing I've read today :D Really. I'm not lying, I choked up when I read this. Please tell me this isn't true and someone didn't say it seriously. I'm begging you.

I'm officially dead.

[darklinaforever]

The way Greens try to villanize Rhaenyra in the Driftmark episode is insane. Rhaenyra did acknowledge Aemond’s loss of an eye when she called it a regrettable accident. She clearly wasn’t happy about Aemond losing an eye but Alicent then tried to make it look like Aemond was entirely innocent and that Luke just walked up to him and slashed his eye for no reason. Luke said it himself twice “Aemond was going to kill Jace.” Luke was a six year old who had to act quickly to defend his brother, and he obviously wasn’t aiming for Aemond’s eye in particular. It was an accident.

I understand Alicent being upset that her son lost an eye, Rhaenyra would have been too if it was her own son. But Alicent’s problem is that she refused to accept that it was an accident done by a terrified six year old and that her son was no innocent. Alicent was intent on making Luke look like the villain and Aemond like the blameless victim. I do think that Viserys should have comforted Aemond later because that is his son. But Rhaenyra herself did nothing wrong.

She was forced to defend her sons constantly because Alicent kept trying to make it look like they were monsters. It’s also insane how Greens just ignore the fact that Alicent literally wanted to take out Luke’s eye and asked for that very clearly three times before trying to attack him herself. Rhaenyra only asked for Aemond to be questioned which is what Viserys literally did. I understand Alicent being upset about Aemond’s lost eye but she was still in the wrong, not Rhaenyra. Sorry for the rant lol I’ve just seen some awful takes on Twitter.

Greens are awful !

[here-be-tangents]

I think George presents Dany as a vindictive saviour throughout, until the increasing collateral damage and lack of long-term benefits leads us to realise this similarity between Dany and Mirri. Specifically, the double-standard that was applied to the rebellious slave verses the (white) liberator. But I would say that recontextualization (one of many that occur throughout the series, from Jon Arryn's true killer to Varys' true master) is the point. And moreover, Dany's own realising of this - the value of a life, the value of agency regardless of birth, the value of giving others the freedom to choose rather than choosing for them to be free - is her arc.

I've seen Dany be criticised for her actions - from Mirri to Astapor to Meereen - and it's correct to criticise her. But I don't think it's right to criticise the arc or Dany's narrative because (like literally ever protagonist) it's a journey of them going from wrong to right; Dany's treatment of Mirri was her failing her first encounter with abolitionism and popular empowerment, and she's gradually tried to refine things with each encounter (Astapor's ruling council, Yunkai's status quo, Meereen's directly-supervised Recontruction-esque process).

And I think Dany's final chapter is full of death imagery - but also confrontations with her past, and letting go. She acknowledges Viserys' death, she loses the memory of Eroah, she miscarries (which is tragic, but also evidence that Mirri's curse has passed/was not real); while none of these are absolutions of her actions, to me they indicate a transition from a fundamentally flawed perspective (she alone can fix things, others are either victims or enemies) to a perspective that's more mature and less ego-driven (she has made mistakes, she has made things worse in trying to help, but she can do better if she learns from this).

The unjust death of Mirri the rebellious slave is the foundation of hypocrisy upon which Daenerys' narrative is built, a journey of confronting the hypocrisy around her so that she might eventually confront it in herself. It's a great narrative for a woman who needs to - and seems poised to - improve.

Why yes literally everything about Mirri Maz Duur is what causes me to call everything Dany does, especially in relation to slavery, into question because what Dany does or does not do to help slaves has always led to her recieving great amounts of power for herself and no one else.

Why was it alright for Dany to encite slaves to rebel against their masters but it wasn't alright for Mirri?

If Dany was sure Mirri did it on purpose why do they both seem to talk around the issue as if one of them is avoiding the truth and which one of them ultimately dies in the most, cruel, horrific of manners before that truth is revealed?

Why should Mirri care about Rhaego when his would be parents are still Mirri's masters/enslavers?

Why if Mirri didn't want to help did she give specific instructions to Drogo and Dany which are explicitly not followed and thus it gets worse naturally?

If Mirri wanted to always do this why did she try and warn Dany that allowing Drogo to die naturally would be a cleaner way, and only did it after her master told her to do it?

If burning Mirri was only about justice why does it seem to match terrifyingly close to the tragedy at Summerhall except she actually doesn't actually suffer ANY of the loses that Aegon did and she ONLY gets exactly what she wanted out of it? Which was dragons.

This isn't a fair execution of a criminal. This is Dany sacrificing her slave in a horrific fashion in order to try and recreate the attempt of reviving Dragons of Summerhall, under the guise of getting vengeance on her own slave who at worst, rebelled against her masters.

Mirri wasn't Dany getting vengeance. Dany used Mirri as an excuse to use blood magic to succeed where Aegon at Summerhall failed.

[zeciex]

I haven't read the chapter of 93 but I saw someone quote. I understand and appreciate that Alicent will stick to standing by her kids no matter what. But the fact she tries to call Daenera out like she doesn't have the qualities to be a perfect dutiful wife. Like they said I can't wait until Daenera finds out about Cole, because Alicent needs to be knocked down a peg and realize she is not above being judged. Like she is the only one who is perfect. I would love to call Alicent out on her hypocrisy like asking I wonder you judge me but I find out you visited my grandsire the very next day my grandmother was burnt and then you become Queen. If anyone should be judged as a whore like you do my mother it should be the Queen Dowager." This would knock Alicent off how would Daenera know this unless Otto spills something or she overhears it from someone? Like Daenera doesn't even know it is true until she sees Alicent expression and realizes it is true. Like Alicent literally could have had a lover, anytime she wanted while Viserys was sick no one told her to stay faithful.

I think it's important for us to think about why Alicent went to Viserys. She didn't go there on her own volition, she was coaxed into going there by her father who was effectively pimping her out. And before that, she had been brought up under the strict influence of the Faith. She knew it was wrong, but she has always been told to do as her father commanded and be the good, dutiful daughter. She didn't want to go--she didn't want to betray Rhaenyra. One could argue that both Viserys and Otto groomed her. And we saw that she did try and make an effort with Rhaenyra after the marriage, she tried to not plot and scheme against her friend. But she is ever the tool for her fathers use--for his ambition. She is not wrong in thinking that she was a piece for him to move about the board, she is not wrong for saying that HIS ambition and desires were impressed upon her. What she is, however, fully responsible for is how she went from Victim to Victimizer. She is responsible for repeating the cycle of abuse, she is responsible for setting her children against Rhaenyra, she is responsible for her actions after she began to plot and scheme against Rhaenyra by her own volition.

And she is very much responsible for much of her own misery. She upholds the Faith and the patriarchy because that is what she has always been taught to do. She cloaks herself in this image of honor and righteousness and piety, and she clings to that. She willingly blinds herself to all the wrong she has done, all the wrong and the bloodshed that has been done on her behalf. She has made herself a symbol of piety and honor and duty--which is then dismantled by literally showing how she 'sullies' herself. We wouldn't be so annoyed with her if she hadn't cloaked herself in this illusion. And worse yet is that she cannot face up to the fact that it is an illusion.

Alicent in this scene and most scenes with Daenera, is caught up in the illusion/mask of piety and faithfulness. She projects this in a most volatile way where she pushes it upon everyone else. And she uses it as a way to shame other women and to humiliate them and force them into conformity. Alicent very much can't help herself.

I understand Alicent's character and I love it so very much. Is she horrible? Yes, utterly hypocritical and deplorable, but she's so very interesting. And I think it's important to acknowledge that much of her character has been picked apart and reshaped into what she is now by the men around her--and her own resentment of this happening to her.

And I hope to make it satisfying when Daenera finds out. They'll definitely have a conversation about it and there will be some mud throwing. But from where I imagine her finding out with a certainty, there will also be a vulnerability then and Daenera will begrudgingly help her.

[bbygirl-aemond]

As a book reader, I wanted to know if you've read the books and maybe understood why book readers despise Alicent and the Greens. Like she's not a child bride, she's not Rhaenyra's friend, not a sad victim but an active player. That Aemond isn't maybe as sad as the show portrays? I can't see why maesters would change Alicent's age and motives as propaganda when most in the story agree the Greens had the right idea, men should rule?

hi hi! i am actually still a book alicent apologist. i don't think she actively seduced and wanted to marry viserys; and i don't think she was wrong in fearing for her children's safety.

as for marrying viserys: you're right that the age gap between her and viserys is smaller in the books, and that she wasn't raised as rhaenyra's best friend. however, i think the power dynamics of gender and political station are still very much in effect. when the most powerful man on the continent expresses interest in you, it's really hard to say no. the power difference is just too extreme for consent to truly be given. think bill clinton and monica lewinsky.

as for playing the game for her sons: there are others than me who have written really useful descriptions of some of alicent's reasoning here. this post HERE helps to explain, using historical examples, why alicent's children were always going to be in danger; that even if rhaenyra didn't want to kill them, she would eventually be pressured into it--or someone like daemon would do it for her. this helps us to have more sympathy for why alicent's fear isn't necessarily a slight against rhaenyra's morality, but an acknowledgement of the pressures that constrain her.

this post HERE does a really good job of explaining why we can't take the things depicted in fire and blood as verbatim truth, especially anything related to women like alicent but also rhaenyra. grrm and the show have made it a major focus that history often misremembers or fudges details. fire and blood is written by a collection of incredibly misogynistic men, of varying loyalties, who have probably done their best to make both alicent and rhaenyra look terrible. who of course would have no sympathy for alicent; who would blame her for everything that happened, rather than the men truly at fault.

lastly, i think the changes the show made (widening the age gap, introducing the friendship with rhaneyra) were only meant to help create more sympathy for alicent, knowing how hostile the book was towards her. her relationship with viserys was already problematic; the show only made more obvious what was already there. maybe they didn't have faith in viewers to realize alicent wasn't meant to be the epitome of evil which, given hotd twitter.... fair.

[gameofthronedd]

It's entirely depressing(ly ironic) that some people who consider themselves feminist and anti-patriarchy, who are Team Black/Rhaenyra and slam those who criticise Rhaenyra as "misogynistic", also engage in and perpetuate misogynistic rhetoric (seemingly without self-awareness?)

Mentions below of strong language, SA & victim-blaming.

Namely Alicent-antis seem to have a serious issue with this (Sansa-antis, too).

For example, calling Alicent "Alicunt". Most women know that that word can be incredibly offensive, rude, shocking and, of course, dehumanising. Purposefully using it in a pejorative way to refer to a female character, particularly as a woman or someone who considers themselves anti-patriarchy, is insanity to me. If someone used a similar pejorative for Rhaenyra, would you jump to put down such a nickname? I'd assume (and hope) so.

A similar issue I've seen is making fun of, minimising/belittling aspects of trauma in Alicent's story as well as perpetuating a culture of victim-blaming. This ruffles my feathers quite a bit, actually. And unfortunately I've seen it quite frequently, too. People saying that Alicent should fight back and that she's less deserving of respect/sympathy because she "lets it happen". Things like that. Heck, I've even seen some people say that she didn't "fight back" against Viserys and therefore she wasn't maritally r*ped.

Responses like that are quite common, if not integral, in victim-blaming rhetoric and feeds into this narrative of SA victims having to be the "perfect" or "ideal" victim to be able to prosecute, get justice or even gain any sympathy or empathy. Victims of SA have their lives put under a microscope and if you aren't "ideal", then you get criticised. It's horrible and wrong, and shit needs to change, which is why it's particularly striking to see those fight so aggressively for Rhaenyra be so vicious towards Alicent, and engage in narratives and rhetoric that are highly misogynistic.

Obviously, there are lots of aspects to this. Everyone comes from different environments and has different personal morals. Basically, all I want to say is, simply labelling oneself as anti-patriarchy or feminist doesn't instantly mean you're devoid of the impacts of patriarchy. And, alongside that, supporting Rhaenyra as a character does not instantly mean that you're in the right/morally superior. We're all susceptible to bias and internalisation. Part of being human is acknowledging our flaws and addressing subconscious and internal biases and preconceptions, and trying to better ourselves (imo).

I don't want to sound like I'm standing on my soapbox or whatever. The alternative was saying that everyone who perpetuates victim-blaming and misogynistic rhetoric, even as a woman, is a piece of shit and I'm not quite that mean :)

[gojuo]

Hello can i ask you a quick question can i have your opinion of the strong bastards please i know you don’t enjoy them and i personally think they are hollow af and without substance but what do you think im curious

Hmm I don't hate them really. I think they're spoiled and protected from consequences all the time, which is bad parenting, but the worst thing about them is their parents in my opinion. Rhaenyra and Harwin knew very well what trying to pass off bastards as trueborns set to inherit the Iron Throne meant (exile/death), yet they still decided to have children. Jace could have been an accident, fine, but then they went on to have 2 more kids, which is just awful. A good parent that actually cared for her children would never put them in such a precarious and deathly situation, yet Rhaenyra and Harwin still did it. Not once, not twice, but three fucking times. Rhaenyra having bastards is not high treason, it is the fact that she tries to pass them off as trueborn which is. The way to prevent her children's execution/exile would be to abdicate from the succession and just live her life as a normal noblewoman, yet she did not do this, therefore making sure that her children would always be on death's door. Jace, Luke and Joff did not deserve that. I don't believe that children should have to pay for their parents' sins and in the show we know that both Jace and Luke know they are bastards. I imagine growing up with the knowledge that at any moment in time you could be executed just for being born was extremely damaging to their psyche, but it was also made very clear to them from a very young age that they would always be protected by the crown. Which led to their sheltered/spoiled upbringing (less noticeable in Jace than in Luke). They got away with everything, with maiming and permanently disabling the king's son, with being bastards who by law cannot inherit yet still being pushed to inherit the IT & Driftmark, with never apologizing for any of the wrongs they have committed, etc. The example set by the adults around them led to Luke (less so in Jace's case and Joff is still a little child so let's forget him) getting away for years with his awful behavior towards Aemond. Aemond is the king's son, Luke is the king's grandson. In all fairness, Aemond is closer to the king than Luke is, yet Viserys clearly and publicly showed the entire court which of the two he actually gave protection to and which one he did not grant such sympathies towards. It's what led to Luke getting away with not once in his entire life apologizing for permanently disabling a prince. That's pretty fucking horrible. Losing an eye is not the same as getting a cut on your arm, yet Luke never had to face any consequences for it. It happened and that was it for Luke, but for his victim, for Aemond, his entire life changed. Then he had the gall to scoff at an ancient bullying joke right in Aemond's face. Like ???? Who tf even remembers such a memory from back when you were 5 ten years later? It just goes on to shows how Luke was unrepentant of any wrong he has committed against Aemond, and that's awful. Aemond deserved an apology. Aemond deserved multiple apologies actually and he deserved acknowledgement. But he never did. Everyone just moved on like it never happened, but Aemond has the permanent psychical evidence of why he could not just "move on". He was only 10 years old...

I'm lukewarm towards the Strong children. Jace is an ok character, even though he is just your average nice guy with little personality outside of being nice. I don't have any strong feelings against him. Luke is a different story as you've just read. I don't hate him, but I hate that his parents raised him to be this way. I don't think he deserved to die while terrorized, but I also don't mourn him. Joffrey is just a little kid so no opinions on him really.

[esther-dot]

There are some BNFs who hate Rhaegar, Viserys and Aerys and some deranged Targs, think that Martells especially Elia and her children deserves better but go ahead and stan Dany. They think Dany is a hero. Because apparently Dany is nothing like her deranged family and breaking traditions of Targ legacy. Dany hero-worship her brother after knowing his deeds and refused to acknowledge her father tyranny would somehow is better than her family. Plus the way they excuse the racism in her story.

I mean, they have a point. If people choose to just stand there and burn, that’s their fault. Dany is a hero and the smallfolk really should consider the consequences of their actions (making Dany, a hero, look bad) when they opt to die.

(I feel compelled to say that I am not being serious there!)

I recently unfollowed a blog I like because they had a little spiral into the “Dany can be the hero even after she mass murders the people of KL” cesspool, and I understand how having so many morally grey characters can make us ignore red flags, but Martin already indicated what he thinks about this issue.

Stannis’s choice to continue on his path of burning people alive will result in him burning his own daughter alive.

Let’s think about that.

The point is that these steps the characters take mean something. They’re being led down a path to their own destruction. These characters aren’t purposing to do evil, they do evil because they convince themselves it’s ok when done in service of their greater good.

Dany kills masters because slavery is wrong but then uses unpaid labor, she profits off of slavery, not because she thinks those things are right, and she certainly isn’t doing them because they’re evil, she just decided it’s worth it to get her throne.

Stannis and Dany are both doing this. It’s an incremental descent, and denying the descent might make fans feel better, but there’s a clear destination. Stannis allows kinslaying to get his crown and will end up killing his daughter. Dany burned a woman alive to get her dragons and will end up burning countless people to get her throne. How can we all recognize the horror of Shireen’s death and deny the horror of Dany burning KL just because many of her victims will be unknown to us? Burning KL is an atrocity and Dany’s point of ultimate corruption, just as burning Shireen will be Stannis’s.

It makes no sense to insist that all the steps leading these characters to such acts don’t matter, or that Dany will be a hero even after she does that. Isn’t that the moment the audience realizes, “oh shit, this is what her choices/experiences made her.” I understand that other than Sansa stans few people will admit this, but I think that’s clearly what we’re meant to do. See and think about the descent of these characters, not pretend that actually what they’re doing is fine and things will be ok for them in the end because they’re a hero, dammit! The group think around Dany and the weird “she’s a girl, we can’t judge her” is bizarre because these are often the same people who think it’s imperative Sansa prove she is no longer shallow by ending up in a romantic relationship with a grown man who assaulted her. If they’re finding fault with Sansa, I’m not sure why they can’t be critical of AGOT Dany pouring oil on Mirri’s head and burning her alive. Actually, it’s weird that a lot of the BNFs are S@ns@ns or adopt a lot of their interpretation, love the Hound, a burn victim, feel immense sympathy for him even to the extent of denying his actions, and still stan a woman who burns people alive. Idk, his wounds sound pretty horrific to me, his trauma pretty severe, if they can extend their sympathy to him, why aren’t they thinking of all the people who haven’t ever murdered a child who Dany is about to burn? All the children she will murder?

Also, Dany specifically says some crappy things about Elia because she can’t imagine blaming Rhaegar for ya know, publicly humiliating his wife and paying what may (or may not) have been unwanted attentions to a teenager. Like, how do you hear that story and think, “Elia made him do it.” How do you read Dany thinking that, and not wonder, “huh, maybe not recognizing that Rhaegar caused this mess is a bad omen for Dany’s ability to understand what her family did to Westeros/how she will be viewed.”

Rhaegar is a real mystery to me because he totally changed who he was to save the world and either threw that aside because he fell in love with Lyanna or he was willing to kidnap/rape her to get his prophecy baby. I really don’t know how Martin will depict it because it seems like both interpretations involve some contradictions to how he is presented elsewhere. Either way, I still hate him because to me, his choices are what led to the death of Elia and her children, and I will never forget little Rhaenys hiding under his bed (it may be the most upsetting line in the series to me). But, even so, his desire was to save the realm, Dany’s is to conquer it. Dany is setting out to cause a war.

That’s Dany’s intention. 

How is Dany the aberration from the Targaryen legacy when she is setting out to conquer and reinstate Targaryen rule? How is that breaking traditions? It’s more of the same. Actually, her whole story is very enmeshed with Targ proclivities and some similarities to Rhaegar specifically. Rhaegar wanted three heads of the dragon which led to Lyanna’s death, and a woman dies in the funeral pyre from which Dany got her three dragons. We don’t know exactly what happened with R/L, and Rhaegar wasn’t there when his family died, but the idea of human life paying for Rhaegar and Dany’s ambition, for their dreams being born in death…let’s not ignore this stuff.

Actually, it’s interesting that Rhaegar’s father was mad and Viserys reads similarly, and we know Aerys was worried about plots and Viserys was showing the same kind of paranoia, and we read them as villains (they are), but their feelings weren’t unfounded. Rhaegar was planning to depose his father (or by another name, usurp him), and Dany effectively did usurp Viserys. Obviously he was abusive and threatening her life so we don’t care, but Dany determined he was no dragon before he threatened her child. Again, I don’t mind, but Dany is planning to take Westeros a la Aegon, she has some ties to Rhaegar’s story beyond just romanticizing him and imaging herself to be him. She’s already burned someone alive and even BNFs admit she will burn KL, so uh, there’s a connection to Aerys. Just because we know her (and some love her), doesn’t mean we can pretend the author isn’t writing this stuff into her story.

I mean, think about what their saying. They’re pretending there is no correlation between Dany burning KL and her father wanting to. How is wanting to do it evidence of Aerys being a monster, but Dany actually doing it doesn’t alter her hero status? How is thinking to do it worse than actually doing it?

If it was right to kill Aerys to prevent it (a universal sentiment in the fandom), then uh, it’s right for Dany to die for doing it.

I do think some people are reacting to our anti Targ sentiment because they’re thinking we are holding people responsible for their parents and that’s unfair, or saying Dany is doomed by her blood. But, that’s why Aegon matters. Bringing Aegon into the story is fun because he and Jon are what allow shades of grey rather than making this a screed against Targaryen blood. The Martells will support a Targ (Aegon) and also fight (Dany) a Targ. The Starks have Jon so they will support and also fight a Targ (Dany). It’s possible for Rhaegar’s sons to have the blood of Targaryens but not actually be Targaryen in the way that means death because ultimately, it’s your choices that damn you, not your blood. But Dany, Dany is a Targaryen in the worst way.

I wrote this sometime after the show ended in 2019 when a Dany stan was accusing us of sexism for saying Dany was a villain:

Even though that’s what I think, let’s say you guys are right though. Maybe the books will be kinder to Dany. Maybe book Dany is a hero, maybe she’ll have a grand romance with Jon before she dies a hero's death saving humanity. But if our heroes run around leaving the corpses of countless children in their wake as the cost of their ambition, I'm not sure that we should want them to be successful. I'm not sure that we should want them to survive.

If our heroes aren’t thrust into war but pursue it, choose to wage it because they want power, if they choose to paint their road to victory with the blood of innocents, well, with heroes like those, who needs villains? (Link)

This is why I call both incarnations of Dany villain. Book Dany is far more nuanced, I get that, but if this was anyone else we all would recognize her for what she is, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. I guess if I cared about the opinion of the ASOIAF fandom beyond our little circle, wanted to be popular or make money off of them, I’d deny the obvious too. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[daenerysstormreborn]

This has to be bait right??

Watch me, a Dany fan, read even more into the Irri sex scene.

First of all. “Irri chose to do it the first time, Irri offered” choices are not made in a vacuum like this is a core principle of feminist analysis. It is not as cut and dry as Robert raping Cersei but you have to recognize the power imbalance and the fact that Dany does understand that Irri sees it as a duty.

I think Dany not recognizing the power she holds over Irri and the fact that having sex out of duty is BAD is a result of her persistent romanticization of Drogo and denial of her victimhood in the situation. If she were to recognize the inherent power imbalance and any wrongness, she would be forced to confront her own victimhood. She would be forced to recall Drogo in a negative light. She doesn’t like doing this. When she starts having fantasies of other lovers, she forces herself to think of Drogo, tells herself that it’s Drogo she wants.

She has rewritten the narrative of her abuse into something she can take comfort in. A warm memory of someone who “loved” her. Dany is certainly far better to Irri than Drogo was to Dany, so to acknowledge the wrongness of what’s happening with Irri would say REALLY bad things about Drogo.

And I’d even go a step further as to say that she needs to maintain the positive, romanticized image of Drogo in order to absolve herself of guilt for killing Mirri. Dany is constantly questioning the actions she has taken, ESPECIALLY the violent ones. She even is plagued by the memory of Visery’s death and clearly feels guilt about it. But not Mirri. Acknowledging the reality of Drogo and the person he was would lead to a new train of thought: Mirri was not wrong for “killing” him. Then, Dany would be forced to wonder if the sacrifice she made to get her dragons was wrong. The thing that brought her her power.

Being good and just is so important to her, as is feeling loved. All of these delusions prop each other up to maintain those feelings in her. In Dany’s mind, if Drogo was a good and loving husband, if the sex between Dany and Drogo wasn’t abuse, then Mirri was clearly wrong for what she did and Dany was justified in executing her and her dragons were born of justice. Thus, having sex with Irri also cannot be abuse. It cannot be wrong to have sex with someone who feels they are doing it out of duty, or else Drogo was an abuser who did not treat Dany with love and Dany’s dragons were born of the murder of a slave, and Dany does not believe slaves should be punished for rising up against their masters.

This whole situation is an excellent example of how self deception and romanticizing your own abuse can lead to the harm of others and not just yourself. Generally (speaking as a victim of abuse within romantic relationships), some part of the victim’s consciousness understands that we are deluding ourselves when we romanticize the situation and make excuses for our abusers, but we can shut down that thought easily: “even if I AM romanticizing it, I’m the victim, so it only hurts me, so I have no need to confront what may be the truth.”

Like sure. Maybe GRRM wanted a f/f sex scene. But is this not more interesting? Doesn’t this add more depth and intrigue to Dany’s character?

How’s that for reading into it??

Ugh you’re reading way too much into the Irri thing. It wasn’t abuse. George just wanted to write a sex scene between two hot girls. That’s it. And how can you be a Rhaenyra fan and hate Dany 🤨

[aboveallarescuer]

Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.4: And Now His Watch Is Ended

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 4

Summary: show!Dany enters Astapor and exchanges Drogon for the Unsullied. Then, she orders them to attack the masters and has Drogon burn Kraznys. At the end, she frees the Unsullied and leaves the city.

As I've explained many times in my reviews of episodes 3.1 and 3.3, the show writers have sidelined Dany's thoughts and feelings and overall motivations a lot in their adaptation of the books' events. The moment above is another example. Do we have any clue on how show!Dany is feeling in the screenshot above? Because we do in the books:

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage. (ASOS Daenerys III)

When it comes to this change, it's important to have in mind how the show writers (particularly Benioff) perceive Dany at this point:

Benioff: Dany is becoming more and more viable as a threat, you know, both, you know, in attaining an army and because she's the mother of these three dragons who are only gonna get more and more fearsome. (Inside the Episode, 3.4)

~

The darker moments can weigh on fans, though. The Red Wedding in particular is infamous for making many fans very upset with the books. One reader once claimed on the EW boards that there are no heroes in Martin’s novels, only victims.

Benioff: Well, that’s not true. It’s hard to think of Daenerys Targaryen as a victim.

Weiss: She started as a victim. But many heroes start as somebody who is powerless. (x)

Because show!Dany is "becoming more and more viable as a threat" in Benioff's eyes, she is no longer even acknowledged as a victim (as if one ever "stopped" being one) and her emotional expressions are flattened accordingly. In the show, expressing fear and anxiety and sorrow is restricted to either powerless victims or unhinged characters, not "badasses". In the books, on the other hand, Dany is allowed to feel a variety of emotions:

Dany fed her dragons as she always did, but found she had no appetite herself. She cried awhile, alone in her cabin, then dried her tears long enough for yet another argument with Groleo. “Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.”

The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at the least. Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.

She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow, but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening his arakh with a whetstone. (ASOS Daenerys III)

On the night before she frees the Unsullied, Dany is restless. That's quite understandable - she is putting the lives of her entire retinue (which she describes as "small and insignificant" in numbers) and her child at risk to fight for the dignity of the slave soldiers. She even cries on her own, perhaps due to her guilt over the exchange of Drogon for the army. Then, she asks for the people whom she trusts to sleep in her cabin because she can't stand being alone during these hours in which there's nothing she can do but to wait and have doubts. This moment of calm before the storm is crucial because it perfectly illustrates Ned's lesson to Bran back in AGOT - by allowing us to see Dany's fear, her bravery becomes more apparent later. By allowing us to see Dany's vulnerability, we get a better sense of how difficult her narrative conflict is and her ultimate triumph feels even more hard-earned. Unfortunately, the show writers never understood any of this.

The calm before the storm is also important for this reason:

“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your strength.”


“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.

“The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”


“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

This is one of the key moments of the chapter, not only because it's one of the hints of Dany's eventual breaking of the deal, but also because it highlights Dany's character development: after being a slave and witnessing what others experienced as slaves, she comes to the conclusion that she is no true queen if she doesn't fight for and protect the oppressed. There are no feudal alliances or benefits to be found here, Dany is doing this just because it's the right thing to do.

Benioff may say that the surprise attack made sense in the books because of the hints scattered across the chapter, but neither he nor Weiss seem to have considered including any of the scenes above into the TV show. More than just signaling what will happen, they are pivotal to understanding Dany's character motivations. By understanding them, the resolution of the conflict becomes obvious in retrospect. Unfortunately, they don't care enough about them to make sure that they are conveyed onscreen. As a result, the show scene begins on a much weaker foundation.

Some key details are missing in the exchange scene of the show:

Aggo went before her with his great Dothraki bow. Strong Belwas walked to the right of her mare, the girl Missandei to her left. Ser Jorah Mormont was behind in mail and surcoat, glowering at anyone who came too near. Rakharo and Jhogo protected the litter. Dany had commanded that the top be removed, so her three dragons might be chained to the platform. Irri and Jhiqui rode with them, to try and keep them calm. Yet Viserion’s tail lashed back and forth, and smoke rose angry from his nostrils. Rhaegal could sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui’s hand. Drogon coiled into a ball, wings and tail tucked tight. Only his eyes remained to tell that he was not asleep.

The rest of her people followed: Groleo and the other captains and their crews, and the eighty-three Dothraki who remained to her of the hundred thousand who had once ridden in Drogo’s khalasar. She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red waste and black salt sea. (ASOS Daenerys III)

As we can see above, in the books, Dany brings her entire retinue and organizes them in a way that makes them look more imposing to the masters; it's a detail that showcases her political skills. In the show, she is only accompanied by Jorah, Barristan and Missandei (and Drogon). The Dothraki mentioned in episode 3.1 are nowhere to be seen here.

This part is also cut:

He looked at Missandei. “Tell her they are hers ... if she can pay.”

“She can,” the girl said.

Ser Jorah barked a command, and the trade goods were brought forward. Six bales of tiger skins, three hundred bolts of fine silk. Jars of saffron, jars of myrrh, jars of pepper and curry and cardamom, an onyx mask, twelve jade monkeys, casks of ink in red and black and green, a box of rare black amethysts, a box of pearls, a cask of pitted olives stuffed with maggots, a dozen casks of pickled cave fish, a great brass gong and a hammer to beat it with, seventeen ivory eyes, and a huge chest full of books written in tongues that Dany could not read. And more, and more, and more. Her people stacked it all before the slavers.

While the payment was being made, Kraznys mo Nakloz favored her with a few final words on the handling of her troops. “They are green as yet,” he said through Missandei. “Tell the whore of Westeros she would be wise to blood them early. There are many small cities between here and there, cities ripe for sacking. Whatever plunder she takes will be hers alone. Unsullied have no lust for gold or gems. And should she take captives, a few guards will suffice to march them back to Astapor. We’ll buy the healthy ones, and for a good price. And who knows? In ten years, some of the boys she sends us may be Unsullied in their turn. Thus all shall prosper.”

Finally there were no more trade goods to add to the pile. Her Dothraki mounted their horses once more, and Dany said, “This was all we could carry. The rest awaits you on the ships, a great quantity of amber and wine and black rice. And you have the ships themselves.[”] (ASOS Daenerys III)

We do get Kraznys's advice on what to do with the Unsullied, but we don't see the exchange of the trading goods happening in the TV show. Some might consider this a minor change, but it is, nonetheless, part of an overall pattern to reduce the extent of Dany's sacrifices to save the Unsullied.

Like in the books, show!Dany also asks Kraznys if the deal is done after she hands him the dragon and is given the whip. The way that show!Dany confirms that the Unsullied are now hers is different from the books, though:

She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!” (ASOS Daenerys III)

~

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Forward march! Halt!

In a way, I actually like this change. That show!Dany makes a command (rather than just an announcement) that the Unsullied obey gives her (and the audience) even more assurance that they will remain faithful to her - she is being clever here.

My only quibbles are that:

In the books, Dany shouting that the deal is done and that the Unsullied are now hers is Dany making sure that they'll fight against their former masters when she offers them freedom. This ties back into her questions to Kraznys and Missandei about whether the Unsullied want (or even can) turn against their previous owners. In the show, as I said, making sure that they follow a command is a surer way to guarantee their allegiance, but it's not connected to any of the many hints that she'd eventually rebel like the moment from the books is.

In the books, we are supposed to be unsure about whether the Unsullied would take Dany's side or not (and it's important that we don't know until the very end), but I'll get to that in a second.

Another change is that, in the books, her advisors do not look surprised when they see her speaking to the Unsullied (we witness Missandei's surprise earlier in the chapter), only one of the masters do (while the others are too distracted to pay attention):

She glimpsed old Grazdan turn his grey head sharply. He hears me speak Valyrian. The other slavers were not listening. They crowded around Kraznys and the dragon, shouting advice. Though the Astapori yanked and tugged, Drogon would not budge off the litter. Smoke rose grey from his open jaws, and his long neck curled and straightened as he snapped at the slaver’s face. (ASOS Daenerys III)

While we're at it, remember how I mentioned in my reviews of 3.1 and 3.3 that the show writers tend to center on show!Jorah's perspective and make it the one we're supposed to relate to?

Like in episode 3.3, his reactions were conceived to mirror those of first-time viewers (and Benioff's):

“It’s a hallmark of a number of scenes in [A Storm of Swords] where, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming because George laid out all the pieces, he had given you all the clues,” Benioff said. “The best kind of surprises aren’t the ones that come out of nowhere. The best ones are where after you see it you’re asking yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see that was coming?’ I remember reading [Dany planning to give up Drogon to the slaver] and thinking, ‘Oh, this is kind of disappointing.’ When the real plan was revealed I think I even called [Weiss]. This was before we had met with George, when we were still trying to figure out if this show was possible. The culmination of that scene was one of those moments when we were like, ‘We got to make this f–king show.’ It was very gratifying seeing that wish fulfilled … I think it will be one of the most staggering things ever put on television.” (x)

It is, of course, problematic to prioritize the perspective of a male slaver over that of the female revolutionary who is the POV character in the books. It's also sad to see, even early on, that her male advisors were given priority over her. It just wasn't as noticeable because, despite everything, we were still supposed to be on her side rather than torn between her and her male advisors.

Like in the books, Drogon won't obey Kraznys, which leads Dany to tell him that "a dragon is no slave". Then, the sequence of events change.

In the books, Dany makes that statement, hits Kraznys in the face with the whip (as a payback for his whipping of the slaves and everything else he did in the previous chapter) and has Drogon breathe fire on him immediately after:

And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon,” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Chaos ensues in the Plaza. The masters shove one another as they attempt to escape, Viserion and Rhaegal are unchained (which doesn't happen in the show) and Dany's bloodriders and Belwas defeat the Astapori guards before they can do anything to help. Meanwhile, the Unsullied remain still. The master who heard Dany speaking Valyrian tries to order the Unsullied to attack her in vain:

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding his sedan chair broke and ran, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. The old man crawled to the first rank of eunuchs, his blood pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer. (ASOS Daenerys III)

This is why I said it was important that we didn't know that the Unsullied would be on Dany's side or not until the very end of the chapter. Not only that intensifies the tension, it also highlights that Dany's leap of faith ultimately paid off because the Unsullied were still willing to fight for their freedom. Kraznys might have said that they no longer had any desire of their own and weren't even worthy to be called men anymore, but the narrative ultimately proves him wrong: there is still enough strength of will in them to fight for their dignity. So, when the chapter closes on this note:

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. (ASOS Daenerys III)

It is all the more impactful because it reinforces that the Unsullied willingly took the opportunity that they were given to fight for their rights.

On HBO, after show!Dany says that "a dragon is not a slave", she doesn't attack Kraznys with the whip nor does she burn him via Drogon. Instead, this is what happens:

KRAZNYS: You speak Valyrian?

DAENERYS: I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue.

As @mytly4​ explains here, Dany's mother tongue in the books is not Valyrian in the books, but rather the Common Tongue of Westeros. My guess is that this mistake was made simply because they wanted to make it clear that show!Dany is sassy and completely outsmarted Kraznys. Don't get me wrong, I love to see Dany being a badass, but it was still a change made overlooking her characterization (which, sadly, is the pattern for the show writers).

Then, she orders the Unsullied to kill the masters and has Drogon burn Kraznys:

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!

KRAZNYS: I am your master! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!

DAENERYS: Dracarys.

The change in the order of events is a problem here. As I just explained, the books make this moment about the Unsullied: when they refused to obey and then responded to Dany's order, it meant that they decided to fight for themselves. On the other hand, in the show, Dany gives the Unsullied the order before their former master attempts to have them obey him once more, so their act of defiance from the books:

The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Is impossible to happen in the show. This change makes the show scene culminate in this point:

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!

KRAZNYS: I am your master! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!

DAENERYS: Dracarys.

When it should have culminated in this one:

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding his sedan chair broke and ran, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. The old man crawled to the first rank of eunuchs, his blood pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. (ASOS Daenerys III)

To summarize what's happening above:

Books: Master Grazdan tries to get the Unsullied to his side, but they choose not to => Dany commands the Unsullied to attack the masters => Dany says dracarys and the Unsullied shout it back

Show: Show!Dany commands the Unsullied to attack the masters => Kraznys tries to get the Unsullied to his side => Show!Dany says dracarys

As I just said, it was important that Dany would give the Unsullied the order to attack the masters only after they decided to not remain on the masters' side - this reinforces that the scene is not only about Dany, but also about the Unsullied's newfound agency. On HBO, the scene where show!Dany gives them the order happens before Kraznys tries to have them to get them to his side, so it becomes less about them and simply serves as a buildup to Dany saying dracarys and burning him.

Speaking of dracarys, as one can see in the quote above, the word is associated with freedom in the books. This intertwines Dany's mhysa identity (the part of Dany that wants to protect the freedmen and give them freedom) with her mother of dragons identity (the part of Dany that birthed the dragons and said dracarys). That's only fitting since, as @yendany​ said to me in a conversation, Dany was acting as mhysa way before she was hailed as one. On HBO, dracarys will be remembered simply as the word that show!Dany used to burn Kraznys (which happens in the books, of course, but the most relevant part is cut). Changing the order of the events overfocuses on show!Dany's "capacity for cruelty" (as Weiss puts it) which was not the point in the books.

Also, as @yendany​ notes in this meta, many of Dany's servants were seen actively helping her during the slave revolt. In the show, their roles are transferred to the Unsullied while her entourage reacts to the events passively and seemingly with apprehension:

While partly triumphant, the song "Dracarys" also hits dark notes that signal show!Dany's so called "capacity for cruelty", which is not at all supposed to be the purpose of the scene in the books. There, the author cuts the action in the middle of it because the point is not to highlight the violence and how ~wrong~ it is, but rather the adrenaline one feels in the midst of a successful and rightful slave rebellion. These statements from Frederick Douglass that GRRM recently posted in Not A Blog only further strengthen this reading:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

~

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

On HBO, on the other hand, having show!Dany order the Unsullied to attack earlier leads to the audience witnessing the slaughter of more people than in the books (which cuts the action). Again, this deviates from the main thematic intent of the scene. That's not to say that Dany did things perfectly in Astapor - we'll see negative consequences on ASOS Daenerys VI, when we find out that her council was deposed for the sake of the Butcher King. Here, however, Dany is doing the right thing. One can still interpret the show scene as such, don't get me wrong, but it rubs me the wrong way that the show writers would rather talk about this scene as one that indicates show!Dany's "capacity for cruelty" or how she is "becoming more and more viable as a threat". Also, in light of the show's ending, the scene becomes even worse: because show!Dany is killing Ghiscari characters, the show asks us to root for her. When she eventually kills Westerosi characters, on the other hand, she (and the Unsullied and the Dothraki) will be the villains.

*

DAENERYS: You have been slaves all your life. Today you are free. Any man who wishes to leave may leave, and no one will harm him. I give you my word. Will you fight for me? As free men?

This part of the scene was an addition from the show writers. It's a good one on its own. To begin on a positive note, we see show!Dany explicitly freeing the Unsullied, promising that none of them is forced to stay with her and wanting them to fight for her because they want to fight for her. This erases any doubt that show!Dany didn't free show!Missandei in the previous episode (which didn't show Dany immediately freeing her like in the books).

That being said, there are still issues when you compare what happens in the final scene of the episode with what happens in canon. In the books, as I said, the Unsullied are seen willingly rebelling against their former masters when they ignore Grazdan's order. In the show, while this final scene still features the Unsullied making their own choices, it doesn't have the same impact because they weren't shown choosing a different path even when they had another one just as viable (similar to how the negotiation scene on HBO took away show!Dany's alternatives and undermined her altruism).

One could argue that there was another viable path in the show scene too: they could have left. However, considering that the option of staying with your master (which is the one the books presented) would be much easier and that the books deliberately complicate how much of a choice the former slaves really have even after being freed ... I would say that the scene does lose part of the impact. In other words:

Books: Do I stay with my former masters? VS Do I fight for my freedom?

Show: Do I stay as a freedman with Dany? VS Do I leave?

One dilemma is about their freedom, the other is about whether they join Dany or not. This change ties back into others I've addressed in previous episodes, namely how the show writers have overfocused on Dany's need to get an army.

Second, I don't like that it's implied that show!Dany leaves Astapor in the same day that she sacked it (she's still wearing the same clothes she wore during the sack of Astapor and it's evening). It gives weight to the superficial read (that ignores her entire characterization, of course) that she primarily wanted an army and freeing the slaves was convenient. In the books, I highly doubt that she left in the same day. Since we know that she left the city with a new government, she must have spent some time there choosing (or letting the freedmen choose) which freedmen she would support as the new leaders:

Dany had left Astapor in the hands of a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest. Wise men all, she thought, and just. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

We'll find out in episode 4.5 that show!Dany did the same thing, sure, but, on its own, the scene makes it seem that she just sacked the city and left.

Third, we don't see the Astapori freedmen following her like in the books:

Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor. I gave them the city, and most of them were too frightened to take it. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

For all the show writers will say that they cared about showing the viewpoint of the lowborn when they had show!Dany burn King's Landing, they sure as hell didn't care about it before.

Fourth, I've seen people argue that the timing of show!Dany's rejection of the whip means that she is doing what she's doing for self-interest. In their opinion, she should have discarded it before she had the Unsullied attack the masters and before she asked them to fight for her. That's another stupid misreading that would have been easily fixed if the show writers had had show!Dany use the whip against the master and thrown it away earlier like in the books.

Fifth, it's certainly gorgeous to see the dragons at the end of the scene, but it also makes me resentful considering that the show writers think Dany is overdependent on them and her advisors (so much so that they thought that she had to learn to be self-reliant in season two):

Weiss: This whole season is really the season where Dany learns the lesson of self-reliance, she's never, it's a very painful lesson for her to learn, I mean, she's lost all her people, she's lost her husband, she's lost her bloodriders. The temptation for her has always been to lean on someone else, a man of one kind or another. So, I think for her, what she's learning in this episode, especially, is that she can't trust in other people, ultimately, she ends up in a place where she needs to do things for herself and she needs to do things that nobody in the world could possibly do, except her.

Benioff: Dany is so defined by her dragons, they're so much a part at this point, they define her so much that when they're taken from her, it's almost like she reverts to the pre-dragon Daenerys, you know, everyone is a bit defined by who they were when they were an adolescent, you know, no matter how old you get, no matter how powerful you get, and Daenerys was a scared, timid, abused adolescent and I think when her dragons are taken for her, all those feelings, all those memories and emotions are triggered and come back and all the confidence that she's won over the last several months, it's as if that just evaporates and she's back to being a really frightened little girl. (Inside the Episode, 2.6)

None of this, of course, is true in the books, hence why I've been writing a series of metas to show how Dany's choices and actions are her own. Heck, even in this episode, the dragons barely play a role. Drogon was the bait, sure, but Dany's plan was all hers.

While one can appreciate the final scene simply for what it is, it's important to have in mind that it is informed by the misconception that Dany is "nothing without her dragons".

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.4

Weiss: We never really got this, a sense of her capacity for cruelty. She's surrounded by people who are terrible people, but haven't done anything to her personally, and it's interesting to me that, as the sphere of her empathy widens, the sphere of her cruelty widens as well.

Benioff: I think she becomes harder to dismiss, you know, for a long time people have been saying, even if she was alive, you know, really, the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen, great, but she's a little girl in the edge of the world, so she's starting to knock on people's doors a little bit.

Weiss: All at once she becomes a major force to be reckoned with, she spent a lot of time kind of banging her fists on the doors and declaring that she was owed the Iron Throne by right, but now she's stepped in her own as a conqueror.

Benioff: Dany is becoming more and more viable as a threat, you know, both, you know, in attaining an army and because she's the mother of these three dragons who are only gonna get more and more fearsome.

Weiss: I've already written on how the dichotomy of mhysa and mother of dragons doesn't actually exist in the way people like Weiss talk about. In fact as I said above, this scene in Astapor actually merges these two identities. Also, while I was complaining to @rainhadaenerys​ about what D&D were saying, she called attention to how stupid it is that he is saying that show!Dany is cruel for harming people who "haven't done anything to her personally". This informs the show's framing of the Starks taking Winterfell back or show!Sansa's killing of Ramsay or show!Arya's killing of the Freys as "righteous" while show!Dany's pursuit of the Iron Throne was seen as "bad".

Benioff: His observation about the episode showing how "Dany is becoming more and more viable as a threat" misses the point because, in the books, the scene is not framed negatively in a way that makes us focus on and/or question the violence. Instead, it is framed triumphantly as the Unsullied get to make their own choices and Dany's draconic force is associated with freedom. Also, it's infuriating that he thought that "the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen" until the sack of Astapor, for we already had lots of moments in which Dany displayed her intelligence and political skills before it happened.

Show!Dany’s clothes

This is what Dany wears in the exchange scene:

Today she rode her silver, clad in horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of Dust. (ASOS Daenerys III)

I appreciate how the single bell is mentioned to indicate Dany's confidence:

“Drogon,” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.”

~

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”  (ASOS Daenerys III)

It will be mentioned again in the next chapter (where she will have one more bell after her victory in Astapor) when she is talking to the mercenaries and when she rides to meet her children:

“They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Not only the bells give Dany confidence (the way her Targaryen heritage does) in ASOS, they also come up in these moments in which she is embracing her mhysa identity by giving her people the agency they didn't have. This is very fitting; as this meta notes:

Khal Drogo is, admittedly, a surprising model for a lefty revolutionary to pattern herself on, but I think the important thing is less his example, and more that he and his khalasar provided her with a new set of rules to explore herself within. Knowing them gave her permission to live among her people, putting on the face she needed to guide them to safety, and to allow herself to be called upon through a criteria other than blood and birthright.

While it's true that the Dothraki culture is rooted in violence and misogyny, it's also true that it helped to shape Dany's sense of equality. That's why it's appropriate that the bells are ringing in these moments from ASOS and will ring once again in TWOW. As @yendany​ aptly said to me, Dany gave up on being both mhysa and mother of dragons when she allied herself with the slavers (even if she thought she was doing the right thing for the freedmen). On the other hand, by re-embracing her Dothraki roots and her identity as the mother of dragons, Dany will be able to truly protect her children and be their mhysa.

On HBO, show!Dany is still wearing the blue dress, this time with a cape:

I couldn't find any interview from Clapton or anyone else explaining why that cape was added. @rainhadaenerys​'s guess is that she wanted to have show!Dany look like a superhero, which is a good one, though it's questionable since she couldn't remember show!Dany having ever done anything that is not necessarily for personal gain until season seven.

What actually impressed (and delighted) me was to realize how show!Dany's and show!Missandei's outfits are made to resemble each other starting from this episode until the end of the series:

I'm not sure how these similarities were designed to tie into show!Dany's characterization since both the show writers and Clapton misunderstand the character she's based off. That being said, if you choose to not take their word into consideration (and that's more than possible, considering the vast amount of show canon evidence that there is to support show!Dany in the last season), I would say that they highlight how show!Dany, like her book counterpart, also desires equality for everyone.

[zcldrizes-a]

idk i just want to know how you feel ,,, do you also think that narratively what was done to dany made no sense because it completely throws away the fact that she was 'special' in the sense that she had dragons for the first time in hundreds of years, aside from the character assassination? like dany being the dragon queen and the unburnt & mother of dragons is thrown away when it seemed like it was supposed to ... mean something?

honestly nonnie, i feel a lot of things right now and let me try my best to explain them as much as i can, because i have to be honest, i spent most of yesterday very empty following that finale, and now i think i’m finally ready to begin putting some of it into words.

the first is that i just feel like d&d missed the mark entirely when it came to her characterisation. if she was always meant to go mad - why did they have to spend the entire season isolating her from everyone in order to make this happen? it’s made very clear to us that she has no one - she’s at odds with half her advisors, and when that’s not the case, do they make much attempt ( outside of jorah ) to talk to her in a capacity that isn’t related to “my queen”? even jon himself ignores her and avoids her, and then after the reveal that he is her last family, still manages to isolate her but now it’s worse because we know that she was already aware she would be betrayed for him to be king by sheer fact that he has the rightful claim. a storyline which now, in the end, makes no sense other than narrative use to push her closer to madness, might i add? we see her lose her oldest friend, followed by her second dragon to die at the hands of an enemy, we see her lose missandei, we know at this point her army took the hardest hits ( until they respawned in the season finale because where the fuck did they all come from ) and the only thing she wants at this point is to be recognised as something other than “queen” because she’s realising that’s the only thing that she’s seen as, and we get literally none of it.

this was a woman who was loved beyond the narrow sea - a woman who earned her loyalties, even ins how canon. we only need to look at missandei in season 7 - “she’s not our queen because of some king we never knew; she’s the queen we chose” - or tyrion in season 7 - “she protects people from monsters” - to see that her actions were revered there because they were selfless. and suddenly we get closer to this goal that she’s wanted all her life, and in the space of the last few episodes, she physically takes hit, after hit, after hit, on top of the mental trauma of her isolations all through her time in the north, and it just felt so forced as a justification for her going mad so that they - the writers - would cop less critique,

a lot of people keep saying that in the books there’s many more hints for it, but for as many hints of the targaryen madness ( and can i just say on the “madness” - what the fuck is this madness meant to be? clearly targaryens aren’t born bad - viserys took the final loss of giving up his mother’s crown for him to be cruel, and we see they literally have to force it on dany to trigger her “madness”. let me pose a question: is this “madness” or is this just grief and anger and the desire to hurt someone who hurt you, and if so, why do we conflate the two? ) we get as many hints of the opposite. ( Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. “I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by," ) so for this to be the ending to all of the special things she did, just...? i have to be honest, i thought her destiny books wise would be to die as per the nissa nissa / azor ahai prophecy, and i would have been happy with that.

i would have been happy seeing her dying trying to make a better world, but instead we get a forced death because the show wanted to convey that she “wasn’t done” and wanted to continue her fights elsewhere in breaking the wheel, and it just made no narrative sense to me beyond needing to continue being the final trigger in her descent to “madness”. she is used as a plot device to justify jon still being good, and to justify how good and selfless these men are - did tyrion not kill his lover in jealous rage, after her betrayal, with his bare hands? his own father? did jon not also kill innocent people?

and no, i’m not justifying her acts at king’s landing, it’s more of just a question that even before her acts there, she was already being questioned as going mad - why is it ambitious women are “mad” but ambitious men are “fulfilling their destiny”?  and on that, let me reiterate, we went from two competing female power claims in cersei and daenerys, to a council of mostly men who literally laugh at democracy as an ideal, before placing a man in power - and their justification is that he has a good story to tell? that he won’t succumb to emotion? wasn’t the critique on dany and cersei that they were cold and calculating, and yet simultaneously, that they were hysterical, and deranged, and mad? why do we punish women for being emotionless and emotional simultaneously, but we don’t critique their male counterparts? yes, it’s a feudal world and gender roles are still a thing - but this is a show divergent of those books, where we’ve seen modern ideals thrust in before, and at a time where we need women the most, we reverted back to men being the heroes of the story. already, i’ve seen posts and comments on videos from men literally laughing about dany’s rape and saying she deserved it, after what she did. i’m sorry, what? this is 2019, how are we still using sexual violence to hurt women even in retrospect, i’m?

and finally, literally just, i fucking hate the message behind it all. this was a survivor of rape and abuse, who in the end, was a victim to her own mental state and paranoias, and who died yes loved, but unaware of that love. what does that say to so many of us, who resonate with her story? how am i, as someone who has been through my own traumas similar or different, who saw her as someone to look up to, as someone who was special and strong, meant to reoncile that? she wanted to break the wheel and build a better world - is the wheel not in place, still? the iron throne is gone, but we still have a king? we still have lords and ladies deciding who will take the throne next? we have privileged people on the council - and for some of them, underqualified but chosen just because they happened to be there? if the dragons were born for the first time in years, what for? the war against the dead? because she got no acknowledgment for that. what was the point of daenerys targaryen, except for to rid the world of cersei lannister? how did we come from villains like joffrey and ramsay and euron to the ultimate villain being a victim of rape and trauma and abuse? how could the writers even back that development and turn her into that?

and maybe that’s why i’m so bitter at everyone who got their happy endings. i can’t cheer about sansa as queen of the north, because it’s such a sharp contrast to what dany lost. i can’t cheer on jon coming back to the wall, because the only way we got that ending was to destroy dany’s. i can’t be happy about the new council, or the king, when daenerys got so destroyed. and the thing is, i can’t justify her actions or support her, because what she did was wrong, and there’s no explanation behind it, and they’ll never be canon on this blog for that reason alone, that i can’t comprehend why she’d do it - but i also can’t abandon her, or hate her, and i don’t think i’ll ever be able to. one of the writers for the show said now whenever you watch the show, you’ll see her story as the rise of a villain instead upon rewatch, and it just fucking breaks my heart that she’s reduced to that. it’s a time for wolves, but they killed the dragons to get to that point, and i fucking hate it. so in summary nonnie, i don’t understand the point. and i’m hurt, and i’m sad, and i’m numb, and at this point, i have nothing else to say except that i hope george takes the overwhelming backlash from her developments this series and gives her the ending she deserves.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Idk if you've answered this before, but why is Rhaegar still so revered by the people of Westeros? Yes, he was the perfect prince with the harp and skill and whatnot, but regardless of what actually happened between him and Lyanna, it's more or less agreed upon that he kidnapped her. How are people like Kevan, Cersei, Barristan and Jaime ignoring this? Robert takes it too far, but even the others seem to think nothing of the fact that it was an official kidnapping, almost to the point of denial.

First of all, please consider the sources here. The Lannisters were Targaryen loyalists up until Rhaegar’s death. (Well, Tywin was fence-sitting, and only nominally loyal at that point anyway, but still he wasn’t officially part of the rebels until he began the Sack of King’s Landing; and Jaime was loyal until the middle of the Sack.) Barristan went down at the Battle of the Trident fighting for Rhaegar and Aerys… and he never truly lost his loyalty to the Targaryens, in his heart, despite Robert’s generous pardon. Jaime knows it was right to kill Aerys because of his crimes, though he’s haunted by guilt for it anyway, but he’s literally haunted for failing Rhaegar. Cersei dreamed of marrying Rhaegar, and still believes the wrong man came back from the Trident. If you asked any of them, they’d say it was Aerys’s crimes that brought down House Targaryen, not Rhaegar’s.

Secondly, for just about everyone except Robert and the Starks, Rhaegar’s kidnapping of Lyanna is framed as something romantic, done out of passionate love for her. And when I say romantic, I mean chivalric romance, courtly love. Think Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Isolde – both of which are stories of adultery, yet where the cheating lovers are held almost blameless by the narrative because of the pureness of their love, because of their destiny to be together, etc. (Though of course they’re also grand tragedies where almost everyone dies.) The people of Westeros are no more immune to the power of romantic stories than we are… less so, in fact. (Consider TWOIAF and GRRM’s DotD novellas, how often the maesters Yandel and Gyldayn keep ranting about how the singers have gotten history so wrong.) And Rhaegar presenting Lyanna with the rose crown of the Queen of Love and Beauty, choosing her above all other beautiful women (including his wife) at the grandest tourney in Westeros, is remembered as a deeply romantic moment. (Further on this topic, consider the romantic connotation of the word “ravishment”, as opposed to “rape” or “kidnapping”; and note the distinction is not all that modern, especially in chivalric romance.)

Thirdly, Westeros is a very patriarchal, misogynist society, highly prone to victim-blaming. (Not unlike our own.) Dany was told by Viserys growing up that if only she had been born earlier Rhaegar would not have needed to marry Elia, he would have been happy with no need to find another wife. (Blaming Elia for making Rhaegar cheat and guilting Dany for not being born, at the same time – heck of a job, Vissy.) Dany even asks Barristan if it’s true that Elia treated Rhaegar so badly, for him to seek out another. Cersei, Kevan, Jon Connington – they all blame Elia for not being “worthy of Rhaegar”. And when they’re not blaming Elia, they’re blaming Lyanna and her “wild beauty” for making Rhaegar stray. (And it’s not just the characters doing this – I still remember this c.2012 Tourney at Harrenhal fanfic where Lyanna is this seductive little temptress viciously reveling in her power over Rhaegar… ffs, she was fourteen.) But either way, it’s never the man’s fault – it’s the other woman that’s the homewrecker, or it’s the fault of the unworthy shrewish wife that drove him away.

And lastly, as you say, Rhaegar was the perfect prince, handsome and noble and valiant and talented. Little things called facts aren’t going to change this rose-colored vision for the people who saw him that way. “Almost to the point of denial”, heh… it’s not just almost. Just look at how these characters view the incident: “Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved”, “[he] stole her away from her betrothed”, “If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl,” “Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna,” and so on. So for these people, Rhaegar didn’t kidnap Lyanna – he took her away (from her unworthy betrothed), carried her off, because he was in love. He was tempted by beauty, he was lost to passion… but it’s not his fault, it doesn’t make him wrong or bad. (Though it is interesting to note that while there is a constant refrain that Rhaegar loved Lyanna, none ever say how Lyanna felt about it.) If they even acknowledge that it was a crime, then it was a crime of passion, a crime of love (“the things I do for love”)… and love forgives all.

So… I hope this helps you understand. And again, note it’s not just the characters of Westeros who feel this way about Rhaegar – because of how GRRM has framed the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna, because of the general romantic inclination of fantasy fans, it’s no wonder that the tendency to romanticize and forgive Rhaegar is prevalent in the fandom as well. (There’s so much beautiful romantic R/L fanart. So much.) So even if the truth turns out to be far more complicated, I’m sure there will still be people overlooking Rhaegar’s actual genuine problems for this idealized romantic view. (Though for me, Rhaegar just makes me feel disappointed and sad, and I don’t expect GRRM will tell me anything that’ll change that.)