#anti stannis baratheon stans

[lives4lovesworld]

smartasses; pOweR cOrRuPTs aNd abs0luTE p0wER cOrRuPTs, invariable and with no regards to good intentions (funnily enough is only ever said in the context of talking about Daenerys and her ancestors)

also them about their favs; 🙈 or. "he is sUch a MaNNis" 🤤 (meant unironically) ThE kIng wHo cARed when Stannis runs around burning everbody left and right because he is megalomaniac, sucks strategically and nobody gives a lick about him or his cause + "I want my oh so gullible, naive fave of a litEtaL cHild in an absolute power" 🤡

same goes for the dragons; when their mother commands them she is hitler with nuclear weapons but any able-bodied joe in the series is just the man™ when they get them in their incels fans's power fantasies

[crimsonbastard]

What ASOIAF taught us: How Prophecies are not be taken at face value. How acting upon the said prophecies will only lead to your doom. How justifying the violence that you unfold for some "higher purpose" is not valid and How it will bite you in the ass later on. How thinking you're the Rightful monarch for the throne is exactly why you shouldn't have it.

Targ Stans: pRinCe tHaT waS pRoMiSed.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

The stansas are apparently complaining that Stannis not supporting Sansa? Like, don't get me wrong, I don't like Stannis, but how does it not make sense that he'd support Jon over Sansa? Let's go through the heirs of House Stark and where they are right now.

Let's start with the boys: Robb is dead, murdered at the Red Wedding, and Stannis was planning on either forcing him to bend the knee or execute him. So he's out of the question. Bran and Rickon are believed to be dead, so Stannis can't support them.

What about the girls? Well both are married to his enemies, sort of. Sansa is married to Tyrion Lannister and has gone missing, so no, he can't support her, to support Sansa is to support her husband, a Lannister. And no, it doesn't matter that they didn't consummate the marriage, they are married, end of story. Then Arya is supposedly married to Ramsay Bolton, so also allied with the Lannisters.

Now who does that leave? Well Jon Snow, Ned's bastard who can easily be legitimized. Now I saw a stansa saying that since Stannis didn't support the Joffrey and his siblings, he shouldn't support Jon. Why not? Jon was raised in Winterfell, the lords all know him as Ned's son, and he has Stark blood. Cersei committed treason by having her children and trying to pass them off as Robert's. Plus, her sons have no Baratheon blood, therefore, no claim to the throne (and before anyone tries to drag in anything about a certain Velaryon succession, that was a different situation).

All this to say, no, it makes a lot of sense why Stannis isn't supporting Sansa. Jon is his best option to claiming the North, not any of the other living Stark children. Plus, this whole debate is pointless, Stannis is pretty misogynistic, I don't think he'd support either Sansa or Arya considering how he viewed the Dance of the Dragons.

[lemonhemlock]

What do you think of Rhaenyra and Stannis parallels? They both claim that they’re the rightful queen/king and everyone else is a traitor, fire obsessed lover, the bastards around them, etc.

I think you could strike up parallels between literally anyone if you set your mind to it, even if you randomly pick two strangers off the street. But it doesn't mean those parallels would have symbolic value. Such is the case of Rhaenyra and Stannis.

The main difference between them is that Stannis is the legal king of Westeros after Robert's death, while Rhaenyra simply isn't, according to Westerosi law, which Stannis himself is quick to point out. Moreover, I don't think Stannis would necessarily welcome a comparison to Rhaenyra at all. 😅

Stannis thinks everyone else is a traitor because he is also very inflexible in his application of the law, he's always going to prioritize the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, which is why he cuts Davos' fingers off, even though risked his life to keep Storm's End supplied while it was under siege. The term 'claim to the throne' in Stannis' case is a little misleading: it's not that the law isn't on his side, it's just that he is militarily incapable of seizing the accoutrements of power and defeating his rivals, which is why his lawful title is demoted to ~claim. He is, in effect, ousted/usurped by the Lannisters via lies, wealth and military alliances.

It's very important that Cersei's treachery holds enough plausible deniability that allows her allies to discard the truth, allows them to place their own interests over the proper inheritance pattern because they can easily argue in public that they are respecting the proper succession laws. I've argued this before, but it is very important that Cersei's children look like her and that Jaime is her twin, which makes it only natural if her children look like him as well. So, in that regard, they could be Robert's children, just favouring their mother's side. Robert's grandmother was a Targaryen after all, so blonde children are not out of the question. And wouldn't it be just so convenient for scheming Stannis to make up such lies in order to usurp his brother's crown? This plausible deniability is completely absent from Rhaenyra's situation with her three eldest children. Cersei's lie was just better and it paid off.

But I digress. I'm not sure Melisandre is meant to be any Daemon stand-in. Their purposes and means are entirely different, even if the fire priests and dragons will come to interact in some way. Daemon does what Daemon will, his interest is Valyrian supremacy and his personal advancement, while Melisandre's objectives are more ideological: she thinks she is performing a collective good by aiding against the great Other. Stannis, advised by Melisandre, goes North to fight against the white walkers; Rhaenyra, advised by Daemon, continues her fight for the throne till the very end.

As for bastards.... Stannis has none, while Rhaenyra has three. The bastards surrounding Stannis are meant to test his morality, what kind of morally reprehensible acts is he willing to commit in the quest for gaining the crown, which is where Melisandre's blood sacrifice proposals come into play. Whereas the dragonseeds are more of a vague concept of Targaryen bastardy (no direct lineage can be ascertained for sure) and are there to make the Dance of the Dragons more exciting by providing additional air battles.

[astradrifting]

Hi! Were there any perspectives in the ASOIAF fandom that made your eyes roll? If there are, what made you say so? Thanks!

[mostly written in 2021, and posted very late. Sorry nonny!]

woof, this could open up a can of worms. I'm almost afraid this is a bait ask but I'm also very willing to run my mouth online about ASOIAF, and I love making fun of dumb theories, so let’s go!

Every time someone says that Jon and Dny are the song of ice and fire, my soul dies a little. Enough said.

I also hate the idea that parallels between ASOIAF history and the events of the books don’t matter. Not to state the obvious, but Westerosi history isn’t real. No part of it actually happened organically, GRRM has manufactured all of it, so everything must have been written with a purpose. I don’t buy that it’s just all world-building, because if parallels are obvious to us, they must be a thousand times more so for the man actually writing it all, and the army of editors who are probably helping him keep it straight.

There is absolutely no way that anything about Jonnel ‘One-Eye’ is a coincidence. Half-brother to Rickon Stark is obvious enough, but then we have his mother. Lynara sounds very similar to Lyanna (side note: a jonsa baby named Lynara would be adorable), but the real link is that she was born a Stark - all of the women on the family tree are listed under their maiden names. Her relation to her husband Cregan isn’t specified; it would have been so easy to have her be from another random house, or even a Karstark, yet what George wanted to convey is that Jonnel has a Stark mother, as well as a Stark father who happened to be heavily involved with the Targaryens.

Another fun thing linking Jonnel to Jon! Jon’s first relationship was with a red headed girl, who claimed that they were married because he’d stolen her. In the same conversation where she’s called half fish…

“You know nothing, Jon Snow. I’m half a fish, I’ll have you know.”

“Half fish, half goat, half horse…there’s too many halves to you, Ygritte.”

(ASOS, Jon V)

this conversation is already jonsa gospel as foreshadowing because of “half-fish”, but the horse part was always a little strange to me. As far as I remember, they didn’t have a prior conversation about her loving horses or riding particularly well, so that was seemingly out of left-field.

Well Jonnel’s second wife was a Ryswell - their sigil is a black horse’s head with a red mane.

pictured: the jonsa agenda winning again

The idea that Stannis will take Winterfell isn’t as personally annoying to me, all these dudebros have very detailed, tactics-based reasons to believe he’ll win I’m sure (something about a nightlamp?), but I just think it doesn’t do anything for the narrative, nor does it make sense with either his arc or Jon and Sansa’s.

Winning Winterfell will put Stannis in a position of strength, give him a base of operations in the North that’s not on loan from the Night’s Watch, and would probably lead to most of the Northern houses swearing allegiance to him, as Manderly has already promised to do. Why would a man in that position ever choose to burn his daughter, his only heir, alive? That is literally one of the few guaranteed book plots we have, so IMO speculation about Stannis all needs to work backwards from this end point; it’s ugly and horrible, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach reading it, but it’s the only ending to his arc that makes sense.

Kinslaying reoccurs time and time again in Stannis’ arc. Kinslaying for his own personal benefit, no less. In his first appearance in ACOK, he listens to Selyse suggest that he kill Renly, then stands by whilst Melisandre kills Maester Cressen, his surrogate father. Cressen raised him and loved him like a son; yet if he had killed Melisandre instead, Stannis would have lost the power she wields for his benefit, the main reason he has a chance at the throne. Later in the book, he implicitly allows his brother to be murdered so that he could gain the Stormlords that had rallied to Renly instead of him (anyone trying to argue that the shadow wasn’t technically Stannis so technically it wasn’t kinslaying will be put in the naughty corner for excessive pedantry). In ASOS, he’s willing to sacrifice his nephew, an innocent 12 year old under his guardianship. He says it’s for the realm, for duty, but really it’s for his destiny. What is the life of a bastard boy against a kingdom so close to his grasp?

It’s escalation. Each time so far he’s had a layer of deniability, but he’s not going to have that in the end. Ordering Shireen’s death himself, murdering his daughter in some desperate bid to secure victory over the Boltons, will be the final step off the cliff. Maybe he’ll have some military victories before that, smarter people than me have no doubt discussed the parallels to the Greek myth of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia, but I have no doubt Stannis’ story is headed only towards tragedy.

….Turns out that I do have a lot of feelings about Stannis. But to get back to my original point, Jon and Sansa taking Winterfell back together, travelling through the North doing the work and proving themselves as worthy rulers, makes a lot more sense for their future roles in the story than Stannis winning it all for them. It’s also much more affecting and thematically resonant, so I refuse to believe D&D entirely made up that storyline.

I also inevitably end up rolling my eyes whenever I'm bored enough to go onto r/asoiaf, there's always a bad take right on the front page. One that annoyed me enough to go into @istumpysk’s inbox and kickstart my jonsa blogging was one asking what the point of R+L=J even is, because it never amounted to anything and just muddled up J/D being “the song of ice and fire”.

While it gets so close to the point that it’s funny, there’s no way the “song” is going to boil down to a relationship, let alone JD. I would almost buy Jon and Dænerys being the song of ice and fire if Jon actually were just Ned’s bastard, all ‘ice’. Hell, if he really wanted to make a relationship the song of ice and fire, he could have cut out the middleman and made Jon a trueborn Stark from the start - make them starcrossed lovers from warring families, truly ice and truly fire. Utterly boring, but thematically coherent at least. A major point of Jon’s character is that he is both - and something a lot messier than that besides, as a bastard.

It's not all bad on r/asoiaf though, when I went back to look for that post I saw another about how the Titan of Braavos is a Pacific Rim-style mech that will come to life to fight any dragons coming to the city, a theory that I will be championing from this moment henceforth.

Wait, nevermind, in that same thread someone said that Jaehaerys is the sexiest Targ name, so r/asoiaf is immediately cancelled again. That's another fandom perspective that makes me roll my eyes, the idea that Jaehaerys is in any way an acceptable name, especially as Jon's ‘secret’ name.

This 👏 is 👏 Targaryen 👏 propaganda 👏

Just look at it!! How do you even pronounce that? The hill I will most definitely die on is that this name is ugly.

[la-pheacienne]

Omg Targ antis are truly pathetic lol. Imagine watching a show about a family you hate just because you want to see them destroy each other. I think they’re also just really salty that the Stark prequel got cancelled and a Targaryen prequel was made instead. I also find it funny how they hate the Targaryens for conquering Westeros but yet are okay with the Starks who also conquered the north. They really need to read more about Stark history so they can see all the horrific things the Starks did to take over the north.

Hating on the Targs because they "start wars" and because they "colonize" the east or south or north is the result of the ridiculous anti-war agenda that SO many of the (mainly american) fans share. I have written a very long rant on the anti-war agenda where I explain that GRRM is not "anti-war" in the way these people interpret the term and that it's ridiculous to be anti-war while reading a series of books and watching a decade-long show whose SINGLE theme is war. Like, if Game of Thrones has ONE theme, that is war. All of the main characters are warriors or leaders to battle. Daenerys, Ned, Jon, the Lannisters, Brienne, Stannis, ALL OF THEM. If you are "anti-war", do not watch the show, period. It's like watching Breaking Bad, a show about drugs, and hating on the characters because they sell drugs. No shit Sherlock. I personally don't sell drugs, I have never taken any drugs and I don't like people that sell drugs, but criticising a BrBa character for selling drugs is simply not relevant in the context of the show because everybody does it. If that's your criteria, who are you going to support, Marie? Same thing with war, I don't particularly fancy decapitating people that piss me off but in a TV show where literally everybody does the exact same thing, which character is left to support? Even Sansa goes to war lol.

Thing is, these people are not even properly anti-war, they are anti-war only when Dany is concerned. That is an entirely different problem. @jackoshadows explained it BEAUTIFULLY here : the sexism and the double standards regarding Dany are insane.

So you are either hating on Dany and every military leader in GoT because you are "anti-war", in that case you are a moron. Or you are hating on Dany but stanning other characters that are military leaders, like the Starks or Stannis Baratheon, in that case you are a moron and a misogynist.

[elegantwoes]

Stannis stans are just as delusional as Dany stans

[infinitestalia]

What us your opinion on those Dany stans saying that the show's downfall is because of Dany's downfall, because "Dany is the heart of the show".

Dany isn’t even the clipped toenail of the show. This show’s “downfall” began at the absolute travesty that was S5 and peaked at the humiliation that was S7. They’re only mad now because their fave got was coming and what any semi intelligent viewer predicted years ago. And it’s so telling that the show wasn’t ruined for them when:

- Sansa was raped for half a season, with her book plot thrown out of the window, for no reason but to motivate Theon. Only to go back home and to be looked past for Jon-I-Never-Asked-For-This-Snow, and serve his character’s interests.

- Stannis was butchered just to have his plot given to Jon and to be killed by Brienne in a moronic act of love for that donkey Renly. Any tragedy, nuance, purpose of his arc wiped away because a man who starved for a YEAR couldn’t hack two weeks of cold and hunger?

- The pathetic joke that was the Jonerys “romance” (RIP, we’ll always have #YouAreMyQueen while he stares at her like he’s constipated) and how it destroyed the remnants of Jon’s character, to the point where the greatest revelation of his life, of this series, is all about Daenerys and how she feels.

- All the in universe established rules of the show being thrown out the window for teleportation and cheap gags for the entirety of S7, with no logic or coherence left, only mindless spectacle and CGI lizards.

- Every single character’s arcs and personalities condensed into shitty clichés, with literally thousands of pages of material discarded, leaving them shells of their former selves and with no real contribution to the story.

-And above all, the absolute ruin of Dorne and its wonderful, brilliant, heartbreaking characters, in a plot that went no where and achieved nothing, just to make racist, sexist caricatures of the five characters they actually bothered to introduce.

But the #empowered blonde lady who screams about burning cities to the ground actually burned a city to the ground, and now it’s too much? Shut the fuck up.

[lives4lovesworld]

How Dany's inability to recall Hazzea name and her reaction to Viserys’s death are shamelessly twisted for a narrative of her as a heartless monster, another "seed" to her descend into madness by others, and how it's incredibly hypocritical of them:

Firstly, it should be empathized that most characters/rulers do NOT even bother to care about any common born casualties in the first place, let alone learn their names and remember them over a large period of time as Daenerys (and Arya) do. So, even IF her name will one day truly fade from Daenerys's memory, i) it still makes her a morally better person and ruler than everbody else ii) it (/memory loss) will never be an indication of a descend into madness.

Such a " critique" is especially hypocritical coming from Sansa and Baratheon stans to do so, given that Sansa Stark herself couldn't even show remorse or sorrow for her sister's friend and innocent child, let alone learn his name. In fact she tried to spin a narrative where his brutal, unnecessary murder was justified and simultaneously gashlighted her devasted sister. Only one time, after her rose colored glasses were ripped off did she even mentioned Mycah's fate to the Tyrells, referring to him only as "butcher's boy" yet again. Otherwise he remains utterly absent in her head space. And given that both Stannis Baratheon and Robert Baratheon’s small council argue for killing innocent children if it’s profitable for them (x, x, x, x ,x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x). Common born casualties in wars are simply of no concern for most characters on a personal level.

While Daenerys is condemn for her lack of visible devastation at witnessing her abusive brother being killed after threatening her, Sansa's first action concerning Jory's murder, a leal man of her father, she had known her entire life, can be emphasizing Joffrey's lack of blame for this innocent man's brutal, unnecessary murder. With her second action being feeling proud that a more handsome man is filling out Jory's place, as well as witnessing Clegane killing a youth in tournament, and yet feel nothing nor cry and forget about his name as soon as she heard it without being used as "proof" for her mental decline.

A person not in need of twisting the narrative to unfairly condemn one to prop up another, would see that Daenerys and Sansa's respective reasoning behind their lack of tears in these two incidents are even similar: Both girls were emotionally utterly spent after their recent traumatic events (x, x). Yet, if extreme depravity, a miscarriage and the constant danger of hostile strangers and wild predators in the open, after the ordeal in the fighting pit are not sufficient as explanation for Daenerys's currently emotionally spent state and lack of tears for a girl Drogon killed than neither is Lady's death and Bran's fall for Sansa's utterly lack of reaction when witnessing a man dieing for the first time.

And, unlike Dany, Sansa was enjoying a tournament held in honor for her betrothed as a daughter of the King's Hand surrounded by her family's household in the pompous capital city. Unlike Sansa, Dany never actually witnessed with her own eyes the death.

It's maddening how there has been spun a narrative in which Daenerys is somehow responsible for Hazzea's death (some saying the same for Quentyn Martell's death) or doesn't care about her fate by sansa stans to villainize her. When that's just deliberately twisting the actual text and considering that their own fav is currently poisoning Robert Arryn, an innocent child and HER COUSIN (her last relative for what she knows) for her political ambitions. For which the most demeaning excuses are being conjuncted (such as Sansa simply being too stupid and "naive" to understand the danger of overdosing a child, despite Maester Colemon explain it), yet Daenerys gets vilified for lack of tears due to shock of seeing her abusive brother get murdered after he had threatened her unborn child.

sansa stans should truly be the last ones to prester anyone with their respective character's "lack of empathy" and bad memory nor proclaim a character is a "unreliable POV", especially when sansa has been be singled out BY THE AUTHOR to actually be one. (x, x) Same goes for Baratheon stans when it comes to other character's dismissal of innocent lifes and a mental decline linked to telling oneself everything is justified for the "Great Good".  

[sayruq]

PSA

stannis did nothing wrong ever. in fact he advanced women’s rights by killing shireen. it’s through his sacrifice that could people understand the systematic violence women face in his world and ours

cersei separated the state and the faith. she freed people from superstitious rulers. it’s because of her act that gay people could keep their lands without being mutilated and forced to join monasteries

theon is quite possibly the most radical character of all. by seizing winterfell, he was taking a means of production and asking his fellow westerosi what ownership even means and should one family own so much land. it’s due to his brave actions that the smallfolk were able to let daenerys targaryen know she was not welcome. after all that’s their castle now

euron greyjoy cared little that cersei was carrying another man’s child understanding that women have sexual urges of their own

[tipsytabellion]

ugh stannis sucks just die already

[scorpion-flower]

The same people who are cheering for the burning of Kings Landing, are the same people who were hating Stannis for killing his daughter and Arya for killing the Freys...

[weirwolves]

‘ned would be disappointed in his kids for not trusting dany’

[eyesofanapothecarian]

Omg people i cant even begin to fathom this one....

[nightqueendany]

Daenerys has no right to the iron throne! She’s a usurper Queen. The rightful king is Stannis Baratheon. Not some foreign whore from Essos who is a terrible queen there besides. Robert won the iron throne by right of conquest. His rightful heir is his brother, Stannis. The Targaryen dynasty was overthrown so any living Targaryens have no claim. If they want that throne back they need to conquer it just like their ancestor Aegon did. But they are not rightful anymore. Baratheons are.

Wow this is my first ever hate mail from a Stannis Stan! I feel special!

Newsflash: The Baratheons had to use their Targaryen heritage to cement their rule so the Lords of Westeros would accept them. Rhaelle Targaryen is Robert and Stannis’ grandmother. There are no more legitimate Baratheons left. The War of the Five Kings took care of that. So that means the Throne, by right, would pass back to any remaining Targaryens: i.e. Jon and Dany. Jon has already bent the knee to Daenerys, therefore making her the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

But since you mentioned him, let’s talk about Stannis, shall we?

Stannis:

Pressed forward with a battle when nearly all of his fleet had been blown up by wildfire on the Blackwater

Borrowed money from the Iron Bank to buy FOREIGN sellswords to continue fighting his war

Continued to pressed his claim though virtually no other Lords of Westeros backed him - most Stormland Lords save Davos, swearing fealty to Joffrey after Blackwater

Refused to hear council from anyone but a FOREIGN RED WITCH when he knew he was losing the war

Would have forced his subjects to convert to a new FOREIGN religion or BE BURNED ALIVE.

Imprisoned his best friend

Cheated on his wife

Plotted to murder his own brother with blood magic

Burned alive those who wouldn’t convert to the religion of R’hllor or were against Stannis’ having Melisandre on his council

Plotted to burn his own nephew alive

Burned alive those who refused to bend the knee (hmm I smell hypocrisy)

Burned his own daughter alive

In contrast, Daenerys:

Showed respect for the new Dothraki culture she had been SOLD into by: learning the language, participating in the heart eating ceremony, conforming to their fashion, riding her silver up until the end of her pregnancy, adopting their custom of making love out in the open in full view of the rest of the khalasar

Allowed those to go free who didn’t wish to follow her

Donned the fashion of each place she went to so as to show respect: bearing her breast in Qarth, donning the tokar in Meereen

Risked her own life and the lives of her dragons in order to free complete strangers in a part of the world she had no connection to

Decided to stay and rule over a city she had no intention of ruling in order to make sure the people she had freed remained free

Punished former masters and freedmen alike who committed crimes in her city

Treated with representatives of the other cities of Slaver’s Bay so that she may ensure peace for Meereen (books, Tyrion got that plot in the show - ie why we all call the show somewhat sexist)

Married a man she did not love in order to show respect for Meereen and the Ghsicari people

Allowed those who followed her to continue to keep whatever gods they had prior to joining her cause

Sat and held court so as to listen to the plights of her people

Allowed her new husband to hold court also, sharing in the ruling responsibilities rather than keep him merely as a consort

Reopened the fighting pits at the wishes of the former masters and freedmen alike so as to respect their tradition

Allowed her people to sell themselves back into slavery because she respected their wishes even though she did not agree with them - also did not allow parents to sell their children nor husbands to sell their wives, ensuring only those who truly wanted to be slaves again would be allowed do so

Imprisoned her own children when she found that the dragons were a threat to her people

Had a variety of people on her council of all different backgrounds, ethnicity, and status

…And that’s just book Dany. Can’t forget her requiring that the Greyjoys swear the Ironborn will not continue their ways of reeving and raping the shores of the Seven Kingdoms - also granting the Iron Islands its independence in exchange for them acknowledging her sovereignty and helping in her war against Cersei - something Stannis wouldn’t do for the Starks, instead using blood magic to try to kill Robb - allowing Jon to mine the dragonglass 100% free of charge, rescuing the Wight Suicide Squad beyond the Wall, seeking a truce with Cersei instead of just burning down the Red Keep, and pledging all her fighting power to the North to help them defeat the Army of the Dead.

So…why is Stannis the Mannis so much better than Dany again…?

Also, never call Dany a foreign whore again you misogynistic swine.

[the-daily-dreamer]

Targ stans are famously bad at both media literacy and critical thinking. If a war between five kings broke out over the Lannister bastards, then why wouldn’t ppl be upset by rhaenyra’s? They really thought that in this backwards ass world that is Westeros ppl would just be fine with rhaenyra’s kids clearly not being laenor’s. It’s kinda nice to once again say I told you so lol

It truly is a sight to behold. I get that the modern perspective means it doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t take the most galaxy brain in existence to realize Westeros is not taking place in the modern perspective.

Key point? Rhaenys and Rhaenyra. They are supposed to represent modern feminist ideology. (They don’t.) However, Rhaenyra believes she’s the exception to the rule of inheritance and it should only be sons after her. And Rhaenys had no problem marrying off her 12 year old to an old man so that her daughter could birth heirs and usurp Rhaenyra.

Stannis and Renly Baratheon declared war against Joffrey because he was a very clear bastard. “But they weren’t related to the king!” I hear antis crying. Yes. But none of Robert’s bastards that were related to him took the throne either nor did any of them have a claim.

Bastardy is a hot topic in Westeros. No matter how you try to construe it, bastards don’t have a claim to the throne. Therefore, Rhaenyra pushing them on the throne is treason. If it wasn’t a big deal that they were born bastards, Rhaenyra would’ve cried to daddy that her kids aren’t legitimate and asked him to legitimize them by royal decree. But she doesn’t do that. She hides it. Because it is a big deal and she knows she fucked up.

It takes the smallest amount of critical thinking to understand that Rhaenyra’s kids being illegitimate is a big deal that hurts her claim to the throne. But what can I expect from people that watched a white woman crowd surf brown people calling her mother and thought “Yes. This is clearly a good person.”