#also they completely ignore racism and act like the Velaryons would be seen on the same level of blood purity as the Targaryens

[alicentflorent]

I don't know if this will make sense but the women on game of thrones (when they were adapting the full source material ASOIAF) actually felt like women living in a feudalistic society and most of them were layered, three dimensional female characters and there was enough world building that we understood the world they lived in and how this impacted who they were. In HOTD however, it doesn't feel like they even live in a feudalistic society and they are clearly being written and viewed through a modern lens and this is obvious when you see the people involved in the show constantly comparing their women and the storylines involving them to the modern, real world ("women for trump", Hilary Clinton losing the election etc) when there are plenty of historical women and historical examples they can compare it to, I mean Rhaenyra was literally based on empress Matilda!! but they aren't capable of world building this medieval style society despite the fact that the books have already done it, another show has already done it but these showrunners and writers aren't capable of writing a story without allowing their modern world views to affect it and not in a critical but authentic way but in a "I'm going to treat these women as if they haven't been socialised in a feudalistic society where misogyny is the norm and another fatal flaw in the system and write these characters like they should know better than to act like Noble women living under feudalism.

[horizon-verizon]

Even if she didn’t specifically direct it, she implicitly approved of the murder of Jaehaerys in retaliation for the murder of her son Lucerys. This had no real military or political value; a small child was killed violently out of spite. She never rebukes Daemon for it and shows no remorse or sympathy.

She sank into paranoia and tried to hold innocent people in her camp responsible for the actions of a few. This drove Corlys Velaryon and Daemon away from her, lost her Nettles and Sheepstealer, and compelled Addam Velaryon to go on a suicide mission on Seasmoke that he otherwise might not have done. She was unable to capitalize personally or politically on her victories or to cultivate and keep loyal people around her.

*EDITED POST* (4/9/24)

Perhaps a response to this post about Rhaenyra and Nettles.

If this is commentary on Rhaenyra not being the best ruler or not one people should have? Sure. If this is supposed to justify what happens to her, no. If this is to justify the anti-female rulership Fire & Blood takes as its stance? Again, no.

Rhaenyra's issues stemmed a lot from misogyny out of her control as well as the classism she performs that guaranteed her end. The generations-long misogyny set her up; then, after she lost more and more agency and children, she clinched it for her self.

Rhaenyra's grief and paranoia, sure, lead to her being unable to see the threat that was Mysaria in her treatment towards Nettles (and the dragonseeds, but worst for her). AND it is definitely true that Rhaenyra brings about her own downfall in her trying to kill Nettles through a proto?-misogynoir act of trying to regain her sense of control & agency through political authority.

But while this is true, it is also true that you are putting aside the misogyny for blood purity as if the misogyny's effects against Rhaenyra collapse under the blood purity she performs. No, the misogyny doesn't and will not disappear once blood purity and racism enter the chat. That makes it easier to identify the misogyny part of misogynoir and its motivations to make femaleness/womanhood inferior to any invention of manhood.

It was never about only Rhaenyra's leadership skills. I think that it is an error to assign racism, and blood purity to bad leadership and NOT/NEVER misogyny on the part of Aegon, Alicent, and Jaehaerys I.

A)

You: "This had no real military or political value; a small child was killed violently out of spite. She never rebukes Daemon for it and shows no remorse or sympathy."

I find it funny that in order to condemn or push more blame onto Rhaenyra and the blacks and make this argument, you have to:

re-position Rhaenyra's approval or disapproval/allowance for the killing of her nephews into a more strategic or political motivation than it actually was/would be (basically vacuuming out or reducing her emotions about Luke's death and his death's emotional value)

completely ignore how Luke's death itself was both cruel and totally unnecessary and unjustified bc his slashing Aemond's eye was self-defense both in the show and originally

completely ignore how the greens/Alicent/Aemond were the ones to act unethically first with their sense of patriarchal entitlement-- from Rhaenyra's sons being seen as illegitimate and themselves thinking they have the real right to rule because 3 of them are Viserys' only boys and Rhaenyra doesn't act "chastely"/conform to Andal/Faith patriarchal constrictions of female sexual autonomy

I don't know, I just find it absurdly funny how all of this is absent in your assessment. So much bad faith.

Apparently, it isn't that Rhaenyra may have seen how she would never even get to bury her son (they never found the body), how the greens already tried to either put out his eye for something that wasn't his fault, how they all have consistently been targets of the greens' abuse or public undermining for years before Rhaenyra went to Dragonstone, how the Velaryon boys were very likely undermined by the court itself in myriad unsubtle to subtle ways from childhood from not being Laenor's kids....none of that matters and couldn't possibly have inspired rage and grief to even not be that bothered to punish for when someone else decides to make the greens/murderers of your kid pay with literal blood. I really don't think many people would do differently and this doesn't make them necessarily evil, even if it's morally wrong. It's obviously a irrational reaction/lack of reaction but not one that is unique or extreme.

BTW, I already wrote about this thing about Blood & Cheese in connection to Aemond claiming Vhagar and Luke's death HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE (scroll down to "The Context of Aemond’s Tactic in Episode 7" for the last post). So you either are new, you forgot these posts, you were not online at a certain time to see this post, or you decided to test me or trip me up.

B)

You: "She sank into paranoia and tried to hold innocent people in her camp responsible for the actions of a few. This drove Corlys Velaryon and Daemon away from her, lost her Nettles and Sheepstealer, and compelled Addam Velaryon to go on a suicide mission on Seasmoke that he otherwise might not have done. She was unable to capitalize personally or politically on her victories or to cultivate and keep loyal people around her."

So, to you, her inability to suppress and compartmentalize her grief well is the real and primary culprit of her demise and her losing followers? One's ability to put aside their grief makes them the better ruler?

True. It was that that lead to her decision to Nettles. Doesn't mean that if the greens had set aside their own ambitions, not raised Aemond the rest as seeing Rhaenyra as their enemy unjustly, and not usurp her, that their own kids wouldn't be exposed to war or revenge. They were the aggressors.

Simultaneously, Aegon the Elder partially goes into the battle of Rook's Rest to avenge said dead child....but got so severely hurt he basically couldn't sire more heirs and had to give the practical command to his even less-anger-control-managing younger brother?

He threatens Corlys with Baela and was going to mutilate his own nephew to push off Rhaenyra's remaining supporters ("driving" people so far from him that he was poisoned & eliminated by the same man and Larys Strong)?

And yes, Rhaenyra gets both a little more sympathy and grace from me because her children's deaths came from no instigation from the blacks nor her, but years of the patriarchal apathy and entitlement that greens are inherently characterized by. Which allows Aemond to act as he did toward his cousins and nephews in either the book or the show.

Aegon the Elder is "unable to capitalize personally or politically on her victories or to cultivate and keep loyal people around her". Aemond is "unable to capitalize personally or politically on her victories or to cultivate and keep loyal people around her". not only did the second brother refuse to go to the capital and save his own mother and sister, he refused to join Daeron and the Hightower army in battle because, he says explicitly, that it is "cowardly" and he wanted to have his own way of accruing battler glory. And this is pretty clear how he would conduct himself once he became Prince Regent and the council around him tried to stop him from going to Harrenhal and essentially leaving KL too unprotected...which allowed Daemon to take KL for Rhaenyra. (Fuller quote HERE).

Criston leaves him alone at Harrenhal! With a full-assed army! After they have already decided to partner expeditiously after Aemknd made his choice to invade Harrenhal in the first place! And Aemond decides not to leave bc he wants glory and coercive sex. What a partner!

I find it funny how Aegon the Elder's leadership & decisions aren't being put into question or vacuumed of emotional motivation despite your arguing for how Rhaenyra can't keep her feelings in check! Not only is she the worst sort of king you can find (to be nearly outdone by Aegon IV and Robert Baratheon), Rhaenyra's actions in the later part of the Dance are precipitated by people trying to undermine her worth and take what is publicly given to her!

Aegon is not a better candidate than Rhaenyra legally nor ethically or practically! He is categorically worse! There was no alternative to him other than Aemond (you should now why he shouldn't be king), and Daeron was a child!

Are you are trying to say that her paranoia does not come from a valid place? No, it doesn't matter that even before she became a mom, Alicent targeted her indirectly from the time she was a child and: make her feel small and look small to the court for being "unladylike" or "chaste" and unfit for the throne from the time Rhaenyra is 10 or so? The psychological weight of this plus how long Alicent would have kept it up, how it would have shaped Rhaenyra's prepubescent and adolescence, her personality and need to self-assert herself and develop a stubborn emotional resilience without as much support as she could have had (again, she was a literal child, children don't form factions!) doesn't matter at all?

No, a mother possibly cannot be so in pain and outrage that she does this on her personal loss alone. It's inconceivable, but worse...it doesn't matter bc somehow Rhaenyra--more than Aegon--is wholly to blame for her own actions and decisions bc she happens to be the leader of the blacks and a woman fighting for what was already given to her by the previous king.

Even Daemon, who directly (as you yourself put it) planned for harm to come to them, he gets less of your condemnation. Once again, in another post, I will link later, along with the feeling of retribution from some sort of punishment for Luke's death

(bc what do you think the greens would have done if Rhaenyra demanded retribution in a "peaceful" process anyway, anon?! And don't pretend your response wouldn't try to mirror those arguments that say "What was Rhaenyra & Viserys supposed to do, take out Luke's eye for Aemond's, their own son/grandchild?!").

C)

Jaehaerys I was a king who basically "put aside" the feelings of his daughters and neglected actually getting to know any of them past their use to shore up alliances. So when they all displayed some sort of will against his and Alysanne's arrangements, he became either dismissive and forced them to marry (Daella) or brutal (Saera). This makes Daella die of childbirth before she could really grow into her own or a semblance of adulthood, Viserra dead trying to feel better about marrying an old assed man and Saera endangering herself before she succeded in building a prosperous life in Essos. Targ assimilation = female Targ abuse and denigration = Targ's decline. His feelings about Saera lead to him viciously murdering one of her lovers in front of her, leading to her escape and decision to break totally with her family, and Jaehaerys showed shame and regret over it how he mistook Alicent for her several times as he lay alone and dying. Jaehaerys paid for his emotional neglect and undermining of female Targs (Rhaenys and his own sister Rhaena), too, by opening up the monarchy's succession to be questioned by subjects as if this weren't a monarchy. A monarchy that is NOT a constitutional one and never was. Despite his own attempts and life-long mission of consolidating more privilege and power for the Targaryen house! It also landed him with less members of the Targ house.

Also, I find it funny how Alicent's own emotional responses--especially her being the one to demand Luke's eye before it could be investigated properly and fairly--aren't condemned by you at all either morally or strategically. While eye-for-an-eye is a thing most understood, you don't think that this also could be used against her image of a benevolent grandmother, Queen Consort (Mother of the Faith/Mary, mother of God in real EU medieval societies), and stepmother to the heir?

Alicent also performed emotionally and unstrategically several times...this, the time she tried to negotiate with Rhaenyra to get her to not execute the green Targtowers, her measuring how many allies Rhaenyra would have for her own ambition, her demanding her granddaughter to kill Aegon III despite the war being over because she was in extreme grief and outrage for not only her kids dying but being the prime reason for it AND losing. I'd go far as to say that Alicent should have known she lost, that she did know, deep down and aware enough that she is a huge reason how she lost everything. She is the one to call the council to usurp Rhaenyra, to leave Viserys' rotting corpse to do so, to imprison people to get this underway, to install her son, to collect and get people like Larys and Criston on the side of the green...all without being the leader of her faction. She was the driving force behind the faction, the one to consolidate its power. Without her, there was no faction! Is she then, not a "leader" in her own right?!

Yet no discussion about that. Funny.

D)

I even already wrote about the often-neglected side to all of this that I not-so-briefly mentioned before: Rhaenyra's psychological journey and looking at her writing/narrative purpose

...despite her being the goddamn protagonist.

*EDIT* (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.