#also i think with this i've kind of exhausted the possible rhaenyra criticism

[lemonhemlock]

it's amusing to me how ppl will try to criticise alicent's "where is duty, where is scarifice" by saying it's just her demanding why rhaenyra doesn't "submit to men", "scarifice her happiness", "give up her bodily autonomy" blah blah blah.

there is such a smugness and it's made worse by their security in them thinking this defense of rhaenyra is flawless."

submit to men". im not even going to deign to respond by pointing out all the ways which shows this simply isn't true or at least challengeable for alicent, but in the context of rhaenyra....its questionable because who made rhaenyra his heir in the first place? quickly. her father. rhaenyra "submits" to viserys' will by accepting his decision to name her princess of dragonstone. obviously she's only 14 then but it's a decision she continues to, using their language, "submit" to well into her adult life. of course, you could say that rhaenyra wants the throne anyway and that's fair but rhaenyra's own wants/needs are still ultimately irrelevant. they just happen to align with viserys' own wishes that stem from his powerful guilt over aemma and his conviction that he misread his "prophecy" wrong. it's because of these factors that one can find it really questionable that viserys would have listened to rhaenyra if she asked him to change the succession. what's more important, his daughter's happiness, or his need to redeem himself through her? im comfortable saying this because viserys at his core seems allergic doing right by his kids.another way it's questionable because again who is the final "authority" on rhaenyra's sons? quickly. her dad. rhaenyra's word by itself isn't good enough, she still has to submit to viserys' will through getting his protection.

"scarifice her happiness". mind you rhaenyra calls her own life a "droll tragedy". how great could that "happiness" (harwin) have been then? it's also very clear that harwin was never going to be enough for rhaenyra.

"bodily autonomy" I mean, I wish they kept this energy for alicent. but they don't. alicent's line to viserys "to have one child like that is a mistake" is also really interesting to me concerning this whole subject because it suggests that alicent would have been sympathetic to rhaenyra if she had been honest from the very start with jace's birth. but she doesn't and she ends up lying again and again. obviously rhaenyra lying about such a matter is going to be a huge trigger for someone like alicent whose father was removed from his position partly because of rhaenyra lying or not being wholly truthful.

sorry for the long post!

Hi there! I think there's a lot of naff defence of Rhaenyra and hypocrisy towards Alicent in TB's discourse, but, by now, there are a wealth of critical posts available that highlight these discrepancies and, if they don't pose any interest to them, we kind of, at some point, have to let bygones and be bygones and leave them to their little bubble. They can educate themselves from many sources now; it's not like when the show first aired and the meta was dominated by TB content. But if they don't want to engage in good faith arguing, then there's not much point in getting worked up about it. IMO a lot of these posters skew on the younger side, have a rather primitive view of feminism and rely heavily on anachronism, so girlboss pew pew is appealing to them. Maybe they'll grow out of it, maybe not, but we can't be educators for everybody.

That being said, onto the points you highlighted. I think I agree the most with "sacrifice her happiness", because Rhaenyra had all the options in the world for a husband, but she didn't take any of it seriously and exhausted everyone's goodwill after a ton of resources were wasted on her marriage audition tour for nothing,* until Viserys got tired of her tomfoolery and forced her to marry a closeted gay man. This is where a point about bodily autonomy can also be made, because Rhaenyra could have very well married Harwin (who was in her social sphere), had she taken any of this seriously.

*think of the cost of transporting her and hosting so many suitors under one roof - some of the bill being footed by the lords who were hosting her. Perhaps Lord Baratheon had better use of his time and money than organizing Rhaenyra's engagement contest. And you can bet she didn't just leech off of him, she must have visited other castles as well, since she is said to have been gone for several weeks (? can't remember). And all for what? It's very disrespectful.

I do have some sympathy for her because it's a lot to ask a 15(?)-year-old to start seriously considering marriage proposals, when that's probably the last thing she is interested in. And it is normal for teenagers to be immature. But there's got to be some give-and-take here. Rhaenyra can't both be the nominal heir and future queen, entrusted with more power than anyone else in the kingdom, and not heed any of her responsibilities. It is a position that comes with sacrifices and responsibilities; it's part of the job description. Making a politically-advantageous marriage is one of those compromises. Acknowledging that is not anti-feminist lol. God forbid kings and queens can't just do whatever the hell they want all the time.

And Rhaenyra is presented with choices: at no point does she refuse Viserys' offer to name her heir. He straight-up tells her at one point: choose a husband or I will name Aegon instead. She could have very well said "You know what, I didn't really think about what this would entail when you nominated me in the first place and now I kind of realise this is not for me. I don't really want to get married and I'm not particularly inclined towards politics either, so can we find some kind of alternative arrangement here?" Does she? No!

She doesn't want to run away with Criston and eat oranges either. Fair enough, but then you kind of have to move your butt and work towards securing your position as heir to the throne. Does she do that instead? No, lol. She's the definition of eating one's cake and having it too. In ep. 7 she bemoans to Viserys "I thought I wanted it" (i.e. the throne). So she does want it!

As far as her just going along with whatever Viserys wants, I am going to be generous again and say that I get she doesn't really want to disappoint her father and appear diminished in front of him, cool, but at some point you have to start taking responsibility for yourself and not just explain everything away resorting to your shitty childhood and relationship with your parents. And Rhaenyra never does. Especially when the stakes are this high. We're talking about the possibility of civil war here. It's very laissez-faire to the point of irresponsibility to just "go along" with this, in spite of succession laws, when you know people are going to be opposing your shaky claim, if you don't really want the throne deep down and are just half-arsing it.

And Rhaenyra can't blame it all on the follies of youth either. Because there is a time when she is a mature woman with three illegitimate children under her belt, not really putting in the work to diplomatically advance herself, being rude to people at court and just interested in her love affair and doing whatever she wants. But, by that time, Alicent had already produced 4 children, so Rhaenyra could have just noped out of this situation, if she considered it so shitty, and conceded to Aegon. Viserys by then was old and weak, he wouldn't have really put much of a fight if that's what she truly wanted. She could have lived her life as a very rich, privileged lady, but instead she chose to escalate and marry Daemon. And, no, the greens would not have killed Rhaenyra and her bastard children, not because of the kindness of their hearts, but because Rhaenyra's claim is comically weak and would not be taken seriously by any medieval historian, let alone by a person actually living in those times.

So this is where I wrap it up with the "submitting to men" argument. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to categorise Rhaenyra accepting Viserys' decision to name her heir as going against her will, because she is known to want the throne. What I think is more relevant here is to consider that Alicent is in a much more powerless position than Rhaenyra and doesn't really have much of a choice when it comes to defying men. Alicent is the daughter of a second son and she doesn't have a dragon soul-bonded to her who can roast people who annoy her. I think it quite trite to be "angry" with her (lol she's not real) that she has the (normal) coping mechanisms that she has and is not magically transformed into a rebel Lagertha figure who does whatever she wants and takes no shit from anyone.

However, I don't see the solution as Rhaenyra "submitting to men" either. I think that's a misrepresentation of the green stance (although I'm sure there certainly are green-aligned posters that skew more towards the Kinder-Kuche-Kirchen disposition). On my part, I don't see Rhaenyra respecting the basic law of the land as her submitting to men. Kings have to follow succession laws to acquire the throne, too, and then produce legitimate children to succeed them. Of course the law is meant to favour men, but not once does Rhaenyra do anything to further the cause of women in Westeros, only to further herself. She wants to be Queen, but it has to be served on a platter to her and she is not interested in putting any work in. She's not interested in the plight of bastards in Westeros, as long as her own bastards get comfy seats. At one point you have at least concede that she's mainly on a one-woman mission for her selfishness. And anyone is welcome to like her exactly as she is! She doesn't have to be morally pure to have fans.

But there comes a time when, after appraising the inequalities of the world, you also have to adjust your own behaviour so that you won't end up causing more harm in your quest to advance your own interests. You have to find a balance between your desire for absolute freedom and reforms that are achievable, because some progress is always better than no progress.

Some of this stuff is really complicated, like how can you integrate bastards in the inheritance process when most of the wealth is acquired via land and you live in a society in which people of means turn marriages into economic alliances, with vested interests in passing down that wealth to children related to both parents? The short answer is that you have to diversify the sources of wealth, but, for that, you need technological advancement, the rise of the middle class and, ultimately, to dismantle feudalism. Could Rhaenyra have accomplished this during her reign? No. Could anyone? Absolutely not. These are historical developments that happen gradually, over a great span of time, so the best any decision-maker could do is introduce incremental reforms that can help speed up this process, increase literacy rates* (you cannot become free if you cannot read) and, yes, tumblr is going to hate this, but engage in harm reduction - basically don't become part of the problem or an active vector of destabilisation.

That is wisdom that Rhaenyra never comes to possess. And, to cut her some slack again, this is truly visionary stuff, like very few people would be able to be so politically avant-garde. But, at the very least, Rhaenyra could have engaged in harm-reduction. And it's pretty insincere or misguided of TB to reduce this resolution to just "submitting to men".

*But can you even? You'd need to invent the printing press for this. See my mentioning the need to technological advancement.

[horizon-verizon]

You know, after someone on Twitter pointed out that Rhaena--Dreamfyre's rider--booked it with not only her child but Blackfyre to get away from THE Maegor but people think Helaena could do nothing, I got to thinking about other criticisms about Helaena's passiveness contributing to the usurpation.

I also saw someone say that she should have been written to be more like Young show!Alicent.

Overall, I've shifted in my some of my thoughts...a little. Or perhaps I'm just explaining myself.

We don't have any indication that Helaena and Rhaenyra were all that close--saying "sweet sister" could also mean Rhaenyra showing mercy to a non-actor, make sure her kids at least have a mother (even though at that point, Rhaenyra hadn't thought of even killing her brothers), or maybe because she felt Helaena was still also a pawn and thus deserved to have the chance of living along with those ids peacefully.

I'm not saying bk!Helaena was objectively totally helpless to at least declare she wouldn't be using Dreamfyre or anything like that. I'm saying that she believed she was. And possibly and very likely like Young!Alicent, learned to put herself subsidiary--body and mind--towards Aegon-being-king goal and probably convinced herself that the "best" thing for Rhaenyra and herself was Aegon being king.

It's also important to note that the greens would very likely have thought that Helaena shouldn't actually fight on Dreamfyre or fly away to Dragonstone:

Aenys didn't want Rhaena to take her dragon out on the progress he arranged for his chosen heir/her brother--Aegon (the "Uncrowned")--because he didn't want to invite any public emasculation for said heir when Aegon tUC didn't even have a dragon yet. Dreamfyre is also, very likely, much bigger than Sunfyre. Obviously, societal gender ideology playing their hand here in how the monarchy/higher classes will control their own image...

For a group trying to push forward and maintain a male's superiority and later tries to use the symbols of rulership during a hasty coronation, then had Aegon ride his dragon around KL after said coronation...even on point of an actual battle--unless they felt pressed to have to rely on Helaena in the "last" moment--they will not want Aegon to look "weak" in anyway when placed next to his own Queen Consort.

Helaena has her "job" in KL to safeguard the wellbeing of the heirs Aegon has, and like with Rhaena in a way, she is compelled to stay behind to present a force of protection for said heirs.

Unlike Rhaena, who's mortal enemy was Maegor--the died she was running from--Helaena in this scenario would be betraying her own family who hadn't r*ped or directly threatened her kids the way Maegor did Rhaena. We may argue that her marriage to Aegon must have had some acts of nonconsensual contact bc of who Aegon was (some'll argue that like Rhaena, she should have taken this for the horror it was or have some perspective and dip), but it's also important to note that (a) this was a world where marriage isn't really that much of an option for any noble offspring (much less the girls) (b) this marriage was not the type of "against her will" as Rhaena's or made during war, but the "ordinary" aristocratic kind--thus Helaena had no necessary substantial push or incentive to "defect" or go against Aegon and her entire family (c) "duties and obligations" feudal mindset amplified by family bonds is strong enough for many ordinary people to not pursue any possible doubts they may have.

unlike Rhaena, Helaena more or less has been kept like a pseudo-child apart from marriage bc of that intellectual, emotional, etc. isolation she'd have

I think that bk!Helaena had to have leaned towards on Aegon having more of a "right" because she, like show!Alicent but I still also think she never expected to actually be called to war on Dreamfyre because of her role as his wife...at least until they have exhausted their "resources" so they can win the day, as men & these systems tend to do (exclude women until they absolutely need them). The difference b/t her and Rhaena's situation is that:

Rhaena seemed to have made that decision herself or mostly herself after Aegon decided to not send their daughters away, whereas Helaena's green part of the family would have made this decision for her and she anticipated this and chose not to try to resist even if she felt even a bit trepidation of some kind of betrayal against Rhaenyra [look below in the next paragraph]

As both her maternal and paternal parentages are either Velaryon or Targaryen, Rhaena didn't have anyone else to really raise her kids if she AND her brother Aegon (the "Uncrowned") were to die in battle. No family outside of younger children, no other army besides that of her closest friends which wasn't enough against Maegor in general. Helaena, however, has her mother's maternal house already hosting her younger brother Daeron AND at least 2 other dragons-riders (yeah I'm including Aegon even though rulers really shouldn't go to battle themselves unless extreme circumstances call or suggest that's needed--I think she would have known he'd go of his own will) before she'd ever be "called" to fight

I'm talking the greens/Alicent being even more extreme in their Faith beliefs and/or putting on performances of faithfulness towards the "natural", gendered order favoring male primogeniture that the Faith constantly affirms.

Despite what I point out abt Aenys and the progress and Aenys' own desperation to get the Andal descendant subjects to "love" him through his people pleasing, they still were not exactly zealots but being zealots; more than anything, they feened for validation form people around them and to successfully assure the dynasty's survival through people pleasing. Rhaena had parents who were something from accommodating towards her despite their own version of desperation one might parallel to the greens' shadier one. They did not force Rhaena to conform at the same level or consistency. And we know this bc Alyssa herself points out that if she had been a bit more hands-on with Rhaena, she wouldn't have had to see her hang out "too much" with her female friends, which is why she was much more observatory of who Alysanne spend her time with (funny how this still didn't work, but I digress).

There's sometimes, with some girls/women, a point where a woman/girl would just "give in" to the prominent sense of her particular group when she observes she has little real say or agency in most things, including her own body and isolated from any other alternative base of knowledge than what those who raised her have given. And this could come with a sense of having to go towards the "easiest" route available to you and "everyone" involved. Conflict avoidance. And it begins really young, of course.

So, to review, Helaena probably never even thought that a declaration to not use Dreamfyre was even necessary because she nor the greens around her would have thought to use her in that way. And thus, I still think she decided to "make the most" of a situation by complying with her green side and look for a more peaceful end, and thus both decided to clam Aegon down at that council by going along with Orwyle's more "Rhaenyra will have to see reason" attempt at negotiations ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

Both women are looking to avoid losing their own kids, but Alicent more than Helaena is actually willing to wage a war if "need" be. This quote makes me feel like what I've argued above about Helaena always looking to go the more conflict-adverse option available.

This doesn't mean she wouldn't be culpable, but neither does it mean she eagerly thought Aegon "deserved" to be king or was so zealous about male primogeniture as some imply just because she didn't announce herself "neutral", grab her kids, and fly to Rhaenyra to prostrate herself.

Not exactly "brainwashing", more a self-defeating understanding of herself and the world about her based from a very common education of one's relationship to authority. Younger show!Alicent annoyed me, but I didn't exactly have any negative passion for her until her confronting Rhaenyra in ep4. I do think that it's pretty cool people have thought show!Helaena should have acted more like Yshow!Alicent; I agree!