#aegon and aemond are like the anti viserys and daemon

[silver-dragonborn]

"B-but Aegon would never treat his brother like that! He would never do something like this!"

No.

Aegon II has already done something like this and will continue to do something like this because he can. Now that he has a crown on his fat fucking head, he will resume his torment of Aemond because now that he's the most powerful man in Westeros, no one, not even Saint Alicent, can stop him from torturing his family and exposing their humiliations to outsiders like his frat house Kingsguard.

[nikosdaydreams]

I actually feel for Alicent and her kids. Don't get me wrong, because the Greens did horrible and inexcusable things, but if you do think about it from a fraction of her perspective it makes sense.

If Aegon doesn't sit that throne, then it means she survived at least four pregnancies, years of an unhappy and borderline abusive marriage, losing the love and trust of her closest friend, being used as a pawn of her father - all for nothing.

She will have gone through a lifetime of loss, heartbreak and trauma and none of it will have mattered in the end.

And it still stays a theme throughout the Dance, the sacrifices Alicent had made to put Aegon on the Iron Throne:

She lost Viserys. Of course, he was horrid to her and her children, but he was still her husband, and her King, who she had looked after in his ailing years. Regardless of how he had treated her, there would have been some element of grief - considering she had been the one caring for him.

She lost Jaehaerys. Her son's heir, her daughter's baby, right in front of her very eyes, murdered cruelly. And in the wake of her grandson's murder, came Aegon's rage and drunkeness and Helaena's madness - the things that led to their downfall.

She lost Maelor. She must have felt even a whisper of responsibility towards him, having become his de facto carer. To lose not one, but two grandsons, in such a violent and brutal manner, would be a heavy weight on Alicent's heart.

She lost Helaena. Her only daughter. She could see herself in Helaena, and she must’ve wondered - had she subjected her daughter to the same fate as her own? After so much suffering and torture and trauma of watching Jaehaerys die and hearing of the death of Maelor, still a young child, the child she had named. Meant that her beloved, sweet Helaena, no matter how quick her death, would have died in agony.

She lost Aemond. The boy who wished for a dragon, the boy who hugged her as he bled from his empty eye socket, the boy who calmed her by saying that in losing an eye he had gained a dragon. Was no more. She would have known about his rampages in the Riverlands, surely, but losing one's own child is still a harsh blow to any mother.

She lost Daeron. Her youngest child, who won vengeance for his nephew, and fought alongside his kin, her son, only sixteen when he died.

She lost Rhaenyra. Once her best friend, then her stepdaughter, then her enemy. No matter how long it had been or what they had done to one another, I still wonder if Alicent felt a pang of grief after Aegon had ordered his half-sister killed by Sunfyre.

All this death, all this suffering, all this bloodshed, just to put her eldest son, her last standing child, firmly on the Iron Throne, so that she can justify the years of suffering she endured at the hands of her father and Viserys.

And then he just. dies. Poisoned by his own men. He had only managed a two year reign.

And all that suffering.

All that sacrifice.

All the loss that she endured to make him King.

Was all for nothing.

Her final child. Her last son. The man she had given everything to keep in power. Poisoned like a rat.

And all Alicent had left

was her traumatised, orphaned granddaughter Jaehaera

and her own grief, madness, and self-pity.

This was all she had to show for the years of suffering she endured.

No wonder she died so alone, sat in her chambers, wanting nothing more than to see her sons and her sweet Helaena one last time.

[jonquilspool]

daemon and aegon ii have very similar attitudes and beliefs the only difference in outcome is aegon was primarily raised by an overbearing mother trapped in the feudal dystopia that is being female in westeros while daemon was primarily raised by a distant father trapped in the feudal incestual dystopia that was the targaryens under jaehaerys. in this i will--

[aurabora]

is it safe to point out that alicent is the luckiest woman in westeros for marrying viserys based off the same westerosi norms and culture that greenies cling onto to declare aegon has to be king simply because he has a cock and rhaenyra doesn’t and it’s for the stability of the realm?

[llilychen]

it’s really sad that i always looked forward to rhaenyra and/or alicent scenes last season but i now feel the urge to fast forward every time one of them comes on screen

- every alicent scene is her looking sad or crying or her with cole but nothing she does adds anything of value to the plot

- we get the same black council scene in which the men are undermining rhaenyra twice per episode and still nothing is done (i do believe she will make some progress in the next episodes but it’s just so boring to watch her have the same scene over and over again)

cersei and dany i miss you both so much

[thesilverlady]

I'm not enough of a book purist to not being able to enjoy headcanons, crackships etc (as a matter of fact I do love them). But seeing newbies unironically and completely serious considering aemond to "trying to be the perfect son", or "heleana is the people's princess" or "rhaenyra is calm, collected and strategic", "Daemon is the family's clown, the agent of chaos" legit gives me a headache because they are nothing like that.

And I'm not talking about ppl writing fanfics with this type of characterization, but ppl legit having takes based on the terrible portrayal of the show. And even when they go to read f&b they still have the image the show gave them because they don't seem capable of letting go.

it just feels like Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen character assassination all of again.

There are so many people who consider Jon to be basically ned 2.0 and Dany a mad queen-girlboss-slay

I just wish we could seperate books from adaptations. That's all

[el-is-green]

I am of the firm belief that if he actually loved all five of his children, the Targ dynasty would’ve have lasted for much longer! But no, he had to be a clown

Sometimes that thing you’re searching for your whole life, it’s right there by your side all along. You don’t even know it.

[fatum679]

Thoughts on ep 6? I see a lot of praise for it but I'm like 🤔. A lot of things were annoying and illogical and I don't like what they're doing with most of the characters this season. Now even Daemon gets a redemption arc, Aegon is the biggest victim of his family, but Aemond is 100 % evil, Helaena barely appears at all (at this point Sylvie and Dyana might be more important to the story). I'm just disappointed.

Hello dear.

I'm terribly tired of this season, it's a complete disappointment. Many fan theories and fanfictions are better written than this series. I don't know what writers get their money for. The whole season 2 is like Groundhog Day. The sixth episode is just water.

We continue to be shown Daemon, his hallucinations and his “redemption”. We are promoted that he loved his brother, but this love did not extend to Viserys’ other children. Daemon and Rhaenyra actually spent their entire lives ignoring, neglecting, rejecting, and abusing Alicent's children because their grandfather was Otto. Viserys did not accept his children because ANOTHER WOMAN gave birth to them. Alicent's children were indeed discriminated against by their paternal relatives. Therefore, I do not believe in the propaganda of Daemon's redemption, that Rhaenyra is kind, and Viserys is a good parent. Besides, I'm terribly tired of all these hallucinations in Harrenhal. It was interesting in the beginning, but now it's endless repetition.

The pointless scenes of Rhaenyra and Daemon could have been spent on a story arc with the north and Sarah Snow, showing Daeron, more scenes to Helaena.

It looks like we have Daemon, Rhaenyra and Alicent, other characters, playing the role of «trees» or «decorations» for them.

They decided to show Aegon as a victim. This is a cheap scenario move to divide the TG stans into two camps: those who support Aemond and those who support Aegon. As if we weren't already divided into helaemond stans and anti-helaemond long ago. Aegon could have been given a bit of heroism to get burned by Rhaenys. But we have what we have. The dynamic between Aegon and Aemond reminds me of the dynamic between Viserys and Daenerys. It really is déjà vu, but I don't believe the writers intended it that way.

Aemond tries to deal with the problems that Aegon and Rhaenyra created. The birth of the rebellion began after Aegon carried out a reign of terror by hanging the rat-catchers. Rhaenyra set up a blockade. Aemond closed the gates, but if he had not done this, the entire infrastructure would have stopped working, since there would be no people left in the capital. It's cruel, but it's true and it's wartime. The problem is that Aegon, as king, failed to convey to the people that they were starving because of Rhaenyra, staged a public execution and fired Otto. Aemond can no longer do anything, because the mechanism has already been launched and a riot was inevitable.

I don't think they're trying to make Aemond evil, but the normies will think he's evil. He is cruel to his brother for personal reasons, he fired Alicent (which I support him on) because she loves Rhaenyra (Alicent actually had a chance to end the war in episode 3, but she loves Rhaenyra more than her children). Aemond brought Otto back because he knows that his grandfather is the best Hand.

I feel bad for Helaena the most. I really believed that she would be on the small council. Ewan talked a lot about Helaena: “She is good with books and money.” I'm really upset. We weren't even shown the Dreamfyre. Why does Alice Rivers have more screen time in the Targaryen story? Where is Helaena's coronation?

Alys Rivers is absolutely disgusting to me. She's a maniac on the hunt for Targaryen sperm. She drives Daemon crazy like a brain parasite. I hope people stop romanticizing alysmond, because the same thing awaits Aemond.

Sylvia was offended that Aemond no longer came to her and did not pay her money, so she decided to spread lies about him that he was throwing a feast in the castle. Even Diana doesn't believe her because she served the royal family and knew Aemond's character. Sylvia is not a hero, she owns a brothel. She abused (ra**d) 13 year old Aemond and I'm sure other children too. She manipulated Aemond, and when he left, she decided to take revenge on him.

Rhaena was given the Nettles line, which is quite disappointing. Once again the writers show that in TB this is the Mary Sue team. The writers actually decided to remove the cool character because they didn't want to ruin daenyra.

Helaemond is pain. The writers decided to gaslight us. The entire written plot in the first season was destruction, all the potential was destruction. Ewan and Phia say that Helaemond was not in the scripts, but I don't believe it. There are many scenes and hints in the second half of the first season.

House of the Dragon is truly a complete disappointment for those with critical thinking skills. The scriptwriters' favoritism is not even hidden.

Bring back Miguel! He is the only one who knows how to write a script and characters!

We have two more episodes, but there's not much hope.

p.s.

Aemond showed Larys his place and immediately understood his manipulation - the best scene of the whole season.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Rhaenyra and Motherhood

Motherhood is an integral part to Rhaenyra's character, both in the show and the book. So many of her actions are based on her children and her legacy is carried by her sons Aegon III and Viserys II. However, her antis are obsessed with removing motherhood from her character or claiming that she was simply a bad mother.

Rhaenyra's motivations throughout the Dance were driven by her love for her children. From the loss of Visenya fueling her desire to reclaim her throne to Joffrey's death causing her to return to Dragonstone. Even before the Dance, Rhaenyra's desire to protect her children was part of her motivation for marrying Daemon so quickly.

Despite these facts, Rhaenyra's antis always want to portray Rhaenyra as a selfish woman who doesn't care about her children and only wants power and to get laid. They blatantly ignore how Rhaenyra loves her children so completely.

Rhaenyra raised Jace to be someone even Mushroom agreed would be a great king. He was kind, intelligent, protective, a good military strategist even at fourteen, and a skilled fighter. Even though the show decided to give many of his attributes to Aemond, he's still a good man and much wiser than his older uncles. He was also respectful towards women and had a good relationship with Baela.

Lucerys was greatly loved by Rhaenyra, in the show she calls him her sweet boy. She raised Luke to be a kind and brave boy, he was respectful to Rhaena and had a sweet relationship with her. He was protective of his siblings and just wanted to make his mother proud.

Joffrey was a brave boy, perhaps too much for his own good. He wanted to defend what was left of his family, which led to his untimely death. But in life he was loved by his siblings and Rhaenyra and she was fiercely protective of him.

"Nor would she suffer to be parted from Prince Aegon, her last living son...day and night the boy remained by her side like a small pale shadow."

Even though the show hasn't yet given us any stills of Rhaenyra and Aegon the Younger, we know a lot about their relationship from the book. After the deaths of her other children, Rhaenyra held Aegon closer than ever. He grew to be a good king, despite his severe PTSD. He was firm with his advisors, stabilized the realm after the Dance, strove for peace, visited the sick, and tried to bring back dragons using magic. The only reason he isn't remembered fondly is because he wasn't happy or interested in kissing up to the lords.

Due to Viserys' age at the time of the Dance and his subsequent separation from his family, we don't know much about his relationship with Rhaenyra. But we do know that his disappearance was greatly grieved by her and that he was very close to his brother Aegon. Regardless, Viserys was a good king and such a skilled politician he was compared to Jaehaerys himself.

Visenya may have been stillborn, but she was greatly loved by Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra's only daughter, she was mourned greatly by her parents and it was her loss that helped spur Rhaenyra in her desire to reclaim her throne.

Motherhood is one of the key aspects of Rhaenyra's character. Her trauma revolving around the tragic death of her mother makes her love for her children and happiness as a mother even more compelling. She was at her happiest when she was able to live with her beloved husband and children unbothered by the Greens. She deserved to reign with her children around her. Their loss destroyed her emotionally and removed any hope Aegon and Aemond had for mercy from her or her faction.

Even though the misogyny of Westeros prevented her from being remembered as a true queen, her children are still fondly remembered. It's through them her legacy and final victory over the Greens live on, and the Green stans hate that so they try to remove her connection to her children. But their efforts are as useless as their favs, as Rhaenyra's legacy is alive and well in ASOIAF through Daenerys and their beloved usurper and his bitch mother are only remembered as war mongers and power hungry thieves.

[reignof-fyre]

Book!Alicent: ambitious woman who wanted her son on the throne and emotionally and mentally abused a child to obtain her goals, began smear campaigns against Rhaenyra and rhaenyra's sons with absolutely 0 proof they were bastards, waved off Jace, Luke, and Joffrey's deaths as "bastard blood spilt in war" and wished rhaenyra would die in childbirth, demands lucerys' eye BEFORE Rhaenyra requests that aemond be questioned sharply about where he heard that jace, Luke, and joff were bastards

Show!Alicent: whitewashed victim-complex who had many traits that are, in actual fact, rhaenyra's. Boring. Bland. Religious fanatic.

Book!Rhaenyra: fully desires her birthright, the Iron Throne (and why shouldn't she?), delights in her feminism, never once wishes she was a boy to please her father, named heir at nine years old, adored by the smallfolk, best friends with laena velaryon, apple of her dad and uncle's eyes, is verbally abused and smeared by the greens because she has the audacity as a woman to know what she wants. Likely Jace and Luke are Laenor's with the Baratheon/Arryn looks because rhaenys has black hair and rhaenyra's grandfather was an arryn with brown hair *gasp* genetics is a thing

Show!Rhaenyra: indecisive about being heir, constantly wishes she was a boy, whitewashed and victimised and written blandly

Book!Daemon: morally grey anti-hero who loves his family and the targaryen Dynasty and does questionable things, loved by the smallfolk, adored by rhaenyra, raised a literal army to put his brother on the throne, had ample opportunity to overthrow viserys and never did, was thousands of miles away when rhea Royce died, loved laena, loved rhaenyra, loved his children, even rhaenyra's three sons, fought to the death for rhaenyra's claims

Show!Daemon: I am villain he-he

Book!Rhaenys: never held her not being named Queen against Rhaenyra, was disinherited by Jaehaerys, a bamf bitch who loved her family, openly and proudly supported rhaenyra, had black hair streaked with white

Show!Rhaenys: I shall take my anger out on an innocent party and hold onto my resentment for years and insist the succession crisis isn't my problem when my granddaughters are in danger by association because that makes sense

Book!Otto: plotted and schemed for years to have his blood on the throne and conspired with his equally conniving daughter to do so

Show!Otto: pretty much the same, yeah

Show!Aegon; drunk, sad-boy rapist chad

Book!Aegon: drunk, sad-boy rapist chad who refuses to take his sister's birthright

Show!Aemond: whitewashed victim sad-boy

Book!Aemond: cold, calculating sociopath who willingly and happily kinslayed his nephew Lucerys over an incident years in the past of his own making and went on to commit genocide in the riverlands and take Alys Rivers as his spoils of war

Show!Helaena: dragon dreamer baby girl

Book!Helaena; sorry, but she's actually pretty irrelevant but she's still a baby girl

Show!Daeron:...doesn't exist? Yet(?)

Boom!Daeron: just as sociopathic and murderous as aemond, also commits genocide by burning an entire village to the ground

Show!Laena: kind of just around???

Book!Laena: best friends with rhaenyra, also likely her lover, loved by Daemon and Rhaenyra both, did not die by ordering vhagar to burn her, actually died much more tragically, rider of Vhagar, all around bamf

[thephantomofthenight]

1) like I said before it HAD BEEN SIX ENTIRE MONTHS before Viserys said anything to Alicent about not telling Rhaenyra. If Rhaenyra is a liar then so is Alicent for knowing the kings intentions and still blindsiding her. However, in the show at least, Alicent is a victim. Unlike her evil ass book counterpart who was beefing with a eight year old.

2) “You fucked Daemon in a pleasure house.” - Alicent.

Rhaenyra did in fact not fuck Daemon in a pleasure house. They kissed and it went on like she said he abandoned her. Otto had every right to be fired. He was spying on the heir to the throne and also whored out his 14 year old daughter to the King. And as for fired behind her back? All Rhaenyra said was that Otto was a self interested man and Viserys listened cause he realized the Hand was in fact self interested when sending his 14 year old to “comfort” the king.

3) Criston and Rhaenyra situation if swapped would look the exact same to me. If Rhaenyra was a woman in her thirty’s that knew a teenage Criston since she was fourteen it would be very fucking weird. You keep calling daemon a groomer but what is Criston? Alicent was even concerned about their relationship in the book and that’s saying something cause her ass hated Rhaenyra.

Yes this adult man looks like he is having a terrible time with the teenage girl. As for Viserys he never found out because Rhaenyra said she wouldn’t say anything and she didn’t. She could have got him killed but she didn’t. She let him stay a Kingsgusrd even though it was clear he bullied her children. As for his entire “suicide” he was going to kill himself because he A) got rejected and B) just MURDERED SOMEONE AT A WEDDING. Then Alicent swooped in and somehow managed to cover for his angry ass for him to later murder another noble years later.

4) So Rhaenys had dark hair because of her Baratheon blood. We never get a description of Aemma but she was half Arryn half Targaryen. Therefore Rhaenyra herself also has Arryn blood which logically speaking could be passed down to her children. We never get a description for Harwin in the books and don’t even know what the man looks like. However show universe what did you want Rhaenyra to do? She needed heirs and so she had them. They are Targaryens just as much as Alicent’s children are and Laenor claims them as his own so legally speaking they are not Strongs they are Velaryons and died remembered as Velaryons.

5) And who started those whispers and gossip? It was Alicent and her entire faction because she was bitter about being lied to over a decade ago. Besides that point if Rhaenyra called to see Alicent’s child straight out of childbirth you all would have been screaming, crying, throwing up, and called Rhaenyra the most entitled person in the world.

6) What do you mean? They had people that Otto killed. Literally strung them up for people to see. Also when Rhaenyra takes kings Landing back the Gold Cloaks open the door for her. She had people on her side. It was the fact that they quite literally his the kings death and locked up servants/Rhaenys so no one could say anything until after Aegon was crowned. They said Rhaenyra had a temper tantrum after. She was having a full blown miscarriage after finding out her father was dead and she couldn’t even bury him. Also Rhaenyra said she would be coming back. She told Alicent she was. Then Viserys went a croaked.

7) Once again she’s a fucking princess. Alicent is spoiled. Aegon is spoiled. Aemond is spoiled. Helaena is spoiled. They are all fucking spoiled. They are royalty. It would be surprising if they didn’t act spoiled. Aegon is exactly the same using his mommy to clean up his messes which is the servants he rapes time and time again that Alicent covers up.

As usual is kinda hard not to bring up Aegon when calling Rhaenyra a entitled brat when her half siblings are just as entitled and even worse than she is. Alicent wants dignity and sacrifice to prevail?

Tell that to the constant victims she covers up for her son. She screams and cries that Rhaenyra had bastards but honestly I would prefer my bastard sons over a man that rapes my own daughter and servants. Then after everything she still crowns him. Knowing the abuse he does as a prince. Imagine what the fuck he is going to do as king.

If you’re team green you support Aegon. You can claim it’s all about Alicent all you want but when it comes down to it who did she put on the throne? Her rapist, drunkin, usurper, cunt of a son.

Anti-Rhaenyra

So, this is just what I would like to say to Rhaenyra supporters.

Rhaenyra isn't told by her father that he is secretly seeing her best friend and plans to marry her. When Rhaenyra found out that her father was going to marry her best friend Alicent, she insults her. She lies to her best friend about something she knows Alicent cares about. She sleeps with her uncle Daemon, who has by the way just killed her wife. She sleeps with Cristin Cole, a kingsgaurd who by the way has sworn:

I swear to ward the Queen with all my strength and give my blood for hers. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.

This makes him feel like a sinner and he attempts suicide (I won't justify his actions since he should of course be held accountable for his actions as well). Then proceeds to sleep with Harwin strong and have kids with him. And expects to have them crowned after her death? She goes off to Dragonstone while her father is sick instead of taking care of him. Leaves Kings landing to her stepmother and half-siblings. Knowing very well that her oldest half-sibling Aegon ii is a boy with a legitimate heir and men are seen better fit for ruling. Because she wants everyone else to take care of her problems and then just enter kings landing and be crowned queen. Then when she finds out that her stepmother has crowned her half-brother after 24 hours which just shows how disconnected she is from kings landing, has a dramatic mental breakdown. 🙄

Summary: Rhaenyra is a spoiled brat and a daddy's girl and can't handle her problems.

[eschercaine]

One of the things I hate about that Dragon Show© is everything is just an accident or misunderstanding.

The Greens usurped Rhaenyra because Alicent misunderstood what Viserys said? As if they were not plotting to put Aegon on the throne from the very beginning.

Almond killed Luke by accident? In the book, Aemond is a Targaryen version of Joffrey Baratheon. He didn’t think twice about chasing and killing Luke in a storm.

And now what? Blood and Cheese killing Jaehaerys is because they misunderstood the assignment? Or is it an accident on their part?

But when it comes to Rhea Royce, who died during a hawking incident, she was killed by Daemon... who was, in the books, several miles away from her?

I’ve read Fire and Blood, though I haven’t finished it yet. But from what I see, the Greens are the villains. Alicent is a Karen. Criston is an incel; nothing happens between him and Rhaenyra. In either two versions, they both rejected each other. Daemon didn’t kill his first wife.

Yet the writers are trying desperately to make the Greens the “victim” in all this, making excuses for their behavior. While Rhaenyra who was just doing the best she can after her own father thrust her into a dangerous position is being... “villainized”?

The Dragon Show©, to me, is like Ryan Condal’s fanfic version of Fire and Blood with pro-Greens and anti-Blacks propaganda, plus with the butchering of every character.

If one has to make a tv adaptation from books, video games, or any other form of media, at least respect the source material.

[jacaela]

Rhaenyra and Aegon anti-parallels

Lifestyles:

Yet Princess Rhaenyra continued to sit at the foot of the Iron Throne when her father held court, and His Grace began bringing her to meetings of the small council as well. [...]He gave her pearls and silks and books and a jade tiara said once to have belonged to the Empress of Leng, read poems to her, dined with her, hawked with her, sailed with her, entertained her by making mock of the greens at court, the “lickspittles” fawning over Queen Alicent and her children. [..] Uncle and niece began to fly together almost daily, racing Syrax against Caraxes to Dragonstone and back. [..] Breakbones (or Brokenbones, as Mushroom had it) filled his place, becoming the foremost of the blacks, ever at Rhaenyra’s side at feast and ball and hunt. The groom was fifteen years of age; a lazy and somewhat sulky boy, Septon Eustace tells us, but possessed of more than healthy appetites, a glutton at table, given to swilling ale and strongwine and pinching and fondling any serving girl who strayed within his reach.

First acts as monarchs:

Her first act as queen was to declare Ser Otto Hightower and Queen Alicent traitors and rebels. “As for my half-brothers and my sweet sister, Helaena,” she announced, “they have been led astray by the counsel of evil men. Let them come to Dragonstone, bend the knee, and ask my forgiveness, and I shall gladly spare their lives and take them back into my heart, for they are of my own blood, and no man or woman is as accursed as the kinslayer. Word of Rhaenyra’s coronation reached the Red Keep the next day, to the great displeasure of Aegon II. “My half-sister and my uncle are guilty of high treason,” the young king declared. “I want them attainted, I want them arrested, and I want them dead.”

People's attitude:

There had been a time when she had been well loved by highborn and commons alike, when they had cheered her as the Realm’s Delight. Neither Aegon nor his brother, Aemond, had ever been much loved by the people of the city, and many Kingslanders had welcomed the queen’s return.

Reasons for support:

Viserys declared his daughter, Rhaenyra, to be his rightful heir, and named her Princess of Dragonstone. In a lavish ceremony at King’s Landing, hundreds of lords did obeisance to the Realm’s Delight as she sat at her father’s feet at the base of the Iron Throne, swearing to honor and defend her right of succession. “Thrice have mine own kin sought to replace me,” Lady Jeyne told Prince Jacaerys. “My cousin Ser Arnold is wont to say that women are too soft to rule. I have him in one of my sky cells, if you would like to ask him. Your Prince Daemon used his first wife most cruelly, it is true…but notwithstanding your mother’s poor taste in consorts, she remains our rightful queen, and mine own blood besides, an Arryn on her mother’s side. In this world of men, we women must band together. The Vale and its knights shall stand with her…if Her Grace will grant me one request.” “King,” insisted Queen Alicent. “The Iron Throne by rights mustpass to His Grace’s eldest trueborn son. Rhaenyra had taken House Baratheon for granted for too long, his lordship told Aemond. “Aye, Princess Rhaenys is kin to me and mine, some great-aunt I never knew was married to her father, but the both of them are dead, and Rhaenyra…she’s not Rhaenys, is she?” He had nothing against women, Lord Borros went on to say; he loved his girls, a daughter is a precious thing…but a son, ahhh…should the gods ever grant him a son of his own blood, Storm’s End would pass to him, not to his sisters. “Why should the Iron Throne be any different?”

Love for remaining children:

She could not sleep and would not eat. Nor would she suffer to be parted from Prince Aegon, her last living son; day and night, the boy remained by her side, “like a small pale shadow.” The old man’s words fell upon deaf ears, however. Queen Alicent had reluctantly agreed to the betrothal of her granddaughter to Rhaenyra’s son, but she had done so without the king’s consent. Aegon II had other ideas. He wished to marry Cassandra Baratheon at once, for “she will give me strong sons, worthy of the Iron Throne.”

Queen Rhaenyra had believed herself victorious after taking King’s Landing, the northman said, and Aegon II thought that he had ended the war by feeding his sister to a dragon. Yet queen’s men had remained, even after the queen herself was dead, and “Aegon is reduced to bones and ashes.”

[navree]

The truth of the matter is that both Targaryen and Velaryon are of the Valyrian race. That’s all Showrunners Ryan and Sara are considering. They are not viewing it as a racial issue of the white family targeting the black one and trying to steal their land.

Yeah that's, like, kinda the problem. In the book the Targaryens and the Velaryons are both Valyrian, so issues between them cannot be viewed through a racialized lens beyond Valyrian supremacy vs the whole of Westeros (which doesn't show up on the Velaryons' end in the book anyway), so that critique cannot exist. But the showrunners changed that, they deliberately changed that by making the Velaryons Black and the Targaryens decidedly not. Which fine, go nuts, but when you're doing that kind of "race bending", especially when adapting a property that already exists, you need to be conscious of that.

I've talked about it before in my discussions on why a lot of "color blind casting" for historical dramas tends not to work out (the 2021 Anne Boleyn show cast Black Boleyns without thinking about the implications of sexually aggressive, dirty nailed, Black Anne Boleyn not only being rivaled by but also literally forcing a kiss on sweet, demure, lily white Jane Seymour, or of giving Black George Boleyn a story about abandoning a child he has with a woman and then of being murdered by his white king due to his white wife fabricating false accusations of sexual impropriety against him, so instead of whatever the Hell they wanted to do, we just had a boring TV show with some really racist implications). And that exists when it comes to adapting race from one story to the next. If you're going to turn white characters into characters of color, that's all well and good, but you need to acknowledge that the way they live their lives and look at the world and are viewed BY the world is going to subsequently change. And more importantly, you need to be aware that how those characters and their storylines are perceived by the audience is going to change as a result of that switch as well.

Because suddenly, it's not two different families of white people fighting over some rock in the ocean. Suddenly, it's a white family, with significantly more social capital and influence in their world, attempting to dispossess a Black family of their longterm, ancestral homeland, that is the only piece of land that they have, for that white family's gain. And that is something that comes with a lot of historical context and historical implication (we're STILL dealing with the ramifications of white-run cities and wealthy white people straight up stealing land and property from Black people during Jim Crow), and that's going to be on people's minds, especially in a show made by an American company and aired on an American network. You have to be aware that you're now not just writing characters, you're writing Black characters, and even in a fantasy world that might not have our history of anti-Black racism, that doesn't exist in a vacuum, especially to the consumer, and that there are going to be implications that might not have existed before that you need to be aware of and take into account.

And this doesn't even touch on my issues with the fact that, out of all the characters, the Velaryons absolutely got the fucking shaft writing wise. And I'm not sure how much you can divorce building up Rhaenyra and Criston or Harwin but not Daemon and Laena, or spending time developing fully fledged personalities for Aegon and Aemond but not Baela and Rhaena, or attempting somewhat consistent motivations for Viserys but not for Corlys and Rhaenys, from the fact that one half of those pairings is Black, and one is white.

They might not view it as a "racial issue", but when they made the change to the Velaryons' race, they made it one, at least in the eyes of the viewers and the context we grew up with and the knowledge that we have. Because creation doesn't exist in the aether, it is influenced by humanity here and it influences how we take it in once we put it out in the world.

[drakaripykiros130ac]

Green stans complaining that the show is pro-Black never ceases to amuse me, considering how the writers are doing their best to make the Greens somewhat sympathetic. If anything, the Greens are the ones being “whitewashed” and it’s pretty evident.

In the book, the Greens are portrayed as cartoonishly evil. Alicent is literally the “evil stepmother” who purposely seduced Viserys so she would be Queen (speculated she was sleeping with him even before Aemma died). She is the ring leader of the Greens, knows exactly what she is doing and purposely let her husband’s body to rot while she made plans to stage a coup and crown her own son. Otto has no ulterior motive for doing what he does: he is a pure opportunist who schemes just like a villain from the time Jaehaerys I is King. Aegon is implied to be a r*pist. He is constantly sexually harassing servant girls and is just a despicable human being. As for Aemond…he is pure evil. He has no redeeming qualities. Period.

What the writers of the show try to portray: Alicent constantly acting the victim and preaching the Faith when she does despicable things (plotting, lying, stalking, gossiping), Aegon is a sad little boy who r*pes servant girls because he doesn’t get any attention/love from Mommy and Daddy, Aemond “accidentally” killed Lucerys, Crispin “accidentally” killed Lord Beesbury. I wouldn’t be surprised if everything the greens do starting season 2 will also be “accidents”. Oh, and they decided to make Helaena a “dreamer” just to give her character some purpose since she is completely useless in the book. And even her being a “dreamer” is pointless. She is repeating things that nobody in the show listens to and as most viewers have read the book, we already know what she says. It’s not some great mystery.

I mean, this is just ridiculous.

The show is pro-Black according to them although the writers did a lot of things that weren’t in the book which make the Blacks look bad: Viserys ripping Aemma open for the baby, Daemon killing Rhea Royce, Rhaenys clearly showing some resentment towards Rhaenyra because she is jealous that she never got to be the Queen and Rhaenyra is (I have to say that I really dislike how they are portraying Rhaenys in the show, compared to how she is in the book) and Rhaenyra’s first three sons being confirmed bastards (although it was left ambiguous in the book) not only through hair color but skin color as well.

If anything, I should be angry that the writers of the show are cutting the greens A LOT of slack.

GRRM is literally Team Black and very anti-green. If the Blacks still look better in the show despite everything, it’s because they are supposed to be the ones in the right. The anti-heroes. I mean, GRRM didn’t write the book to portray the “badness” of both sides in an equal manner (despite what many Green stans like to believe). You’re going to argue with the writer of the actual book?

[littlemisssatanist]

can i ask for a small favor? can you rant about daemon targaryen please? i just re-read your team green 💚 post and i'm reminded of how much ick i feel towards that character, especially in the wake of the team trailers being released.

hiii!!! tysm for this ask i was super happy when i saw it in my inbox i'm flattered people want to hear my opinions lol

my thoughts about daemon are very convoluted. i think he has the potential to be a very interesting character but it's kinda canceled out by the incest and pedophilia thing.

like. i understand it's an incest dragon show but my main issue with team black when it comes to their criticisms. they love to spout endless words about how aegon is a rapist and how alicent is a rape apologist for not... idk slitting his throat i guess.

it's really ironic to me, because these same people will turn around and then yap about how daemyra is the perfect ship. they'll be aghast when you even slightly suggest you enjoy aegon's character in any way but be in an uproar if you dare bash their dashing and roguish prince daemon.

honestly, name one terrible thing aegon did and i'll be able to give you something daemon did that is arguably worse than that.

aegon - raping a servant girl in the show (which honestly i'm treating more as a fanfiction considering how terribly written both the greens and the blacks are).

daemon - uhmmmm probably the whole thing with nettles. you know. the sixteen year old girl he groomed and raped (yes raped because minors aren't able to consent). actually, now that i think of it, he did the exact same thing with rhaenyra too, huh? or does team black find the whole fleabottom episode to be hot and rhaenyra being sexually free? that seems like the sort of thing they'd take from that whole fiasco.

on the topic of blood & cheese: the way some people defend this is honestly sickening.

'but poor luke was killed by his terrible uncle aemond' he was an envoy of war (not to aemond, btw, he owed him no safe haven) and also he kinda. yk. took out his eye. i'm not saying luke deserved to die, but i'm going to be honest this is one of the more mild things that happened during the dance.

whether luke deserved to die (which i'd like to reiterate: i do not think he did. i can understand WHY aemond killed him, but that is not me EXCUSING him. this is for those of you who don't know how to read and will inevitably find a way to start putting words in my mouth) b&c is completely unexcusable.

it's team feminism until its a woman who doesn't fit your little box of badass hottie. it's team feminism until that woman doesn't bow down to rhae-rhae and betray her own family and children in order to join the 'good side.' it's team woman until you point out that rhaenyra was groomed by daemon and continues to make decisions that are decidedly anti-feminist.

this is why i can't stand team black stans who say things like 'i hate the greens except for helaena bc she didn't do anything wrong' because you quite literally cannot do that without admitting that helaena suffered because of the blacks NOT the greens.

helaena suffered bc of DAEMON not because of any actions taken by the greens. DAEMON was the one who orchestrated b&c, the one who sent men to terrorize her and kill her children.

daemon did that.

i have no problem with people who can admit that their faves have flaws. i admit aemond's flaws, daeron's flaws, aegon's flaws. the problem i have with daemon is that his stans are so insufferably annoying and they literally cannot do any of that.

my last thought about daemon (at the moment, at least) is his relationship with strong boys.

lots of tb likes to say that daemon loved those boys like his own and would never do anything to hurt them. and i... honestly find it a little strange, and also a little embarassing, because how am i going to have a better grasp on his character than those that love him most???

i genuinely believe that daemon, had rhaenyra ascended to the throne like viserys planned, he would have caused 'unfortunate accidents' for the strong boys in order to get his blood on the throne. which, btw, was one of the main reasons viserys named rhaenyra heir, to keep daemon from sitting on the throne.

i think it the succession crisis had been between daemon and rhaenyra instead, it would have been a much more interesting storyline.

then again grrm isn't that good at writing interesting storylines when it comes to daemon considering he's a self-insert. honestly i wouldn't be surprised if when he died it was found out that grrm had a fanfiction written somewhere where daemon survived the fight with aemond and got to live out the rest of his boring ass life grooming little girls. who knows.