no but the way viserys continues to haunt the story through rhaenyra and alicents conflict, which gets passed down to both of their children, is crazy good content.
the irony in that viserys the peaceful was the one who started this war, and the downfall of the dragons/his family in the first place.
viserys and daemon had their own conflict, but when viserys alienated rhaenyra initially by marrying her best friend, he then ignored his and alicents children, eventually later his actions leading to rhaenyra marrying his brother (who he'd also taken for granted and ignored).
he then kept doting on rhaenyra up until the moment he died, further seperating himself from his own children by alicent.
alicent knows of rhaenyras affairs, grows hateful and takes that resentment out on her own children instead, while her father otto is further poisoning her and them for his own ends to scheme for the throne.
so then alicents children learnt to grow up disliking rhaenyra's. the only time you see them even remotely amicable is when theyre bullying aemond, another bond made through cruelty instead of kindness. this is ironic considering at laenas funeral you can see that aemond actually thinks about trying to offer comfort to i think baela and rhaena (if i remember correctly?)
aegon and helaena couldnt care less, which to me makes it even more sad. if aemond had, he might not have then been so quick to rub his claiming of vhagar in their faces, and he might not have lost an eye.
the taking of the eye plus viserys' incompetence reignites and cements alicents hatred for rhaenyra even more. viserys takes rhaenyras side, not defending his hurt child at all, even going as far as to shout at aegon for even the mention that he might have said something against rhaenyra. this causes alicent to attack her, and later making her then double down on her efforts to pressure aegon into hating rhaenyra, further distancing him from her.
later we see with aegon that his mothers pressure leads him to find affection in other very unhealthy and harmful ways, assaulting his maids, excessive drinking, brothel going, and assumably fathering many bastards, leading him tho the child fighting rings as well. aemond too starts going to the brothel and avoiding alicent, but for platonic affection instead of anything more.
helaena is the one who received the most of her mothers love and the least of her cruelty, however their relationship is similarly screwed up because shes the only child that doesnt actually want affection from her...
meanwhile rhaenyra is a very loving and fiercely protective mother to her children, fighting for them above all else, especially when their parentage is concerned. she does anything for them, and it shows in their natures that their upbringing, other than the scrutiny from other nobles about their father, that they were raised kindly and wisely.
whats also completely different is that rhaenyras children have not one but three father figures, all of which love them in different ways, which is three more than alicents children have. you could make an argument for cole being a prominent male figure in their lives but he is also quite cruel and hateful.
we see team greens children grow up to be anxious, affection starved control freaks, with mummy and daddy issues, with not one of them knowing how to be a leader even though they are all in some way forced to be one.
aegon is an incompetent drunkard of a king who knows nothing of court or war or politics, not even high valyrian. he is only a figurehead, but is strangely empathetic towards his subjects and loves his children.
aemond is cruel and objective, a fierce fighter and being the most studied and educated of them all, but with no care to his subjects and far too willing to disregard or maim his own blood for his own ambitions.
helaena is the gentlest but she herself has no ambition to rule, she is kind but also an outcast of their society because of her prophecies. she also does not particularly care for her subjects, even being scared of them and their willingness to get to know her.
meanwhile in complete contrast jacaerys and lucerys are kind, more than willing to learn, theyre fluent in high valyrian, they are very interested in their histories and heritage and they learn sword fighting from harwin and assumably laenor? later probably daemon too.
they stand in the war council room with their mother and learn, and even baela and rhaena are involved by rhaenyra to both take part and learn.
the generational trauma goes crazy in this show, but all these characters are so compelling. i dont think there is a single main character that doesnt interest me. yes most of them are bad people and have done awful things, but its also so interesting to see how they got that way and see how one fathers actions, or lack thereof, caused so much destruction.
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Kotoko and her connection to Dante’s Inferno’s Satan
Disclaimer: This is just about symbolism and I know how it sounds but I promise I’m not trying to imply anything or demonize her! I love Kotoko! Ive just been repeatedly noticing details about the parallel for several months now and I just really want to bring it up! This is just an analysis of the details MILGRAM has provided for it. I’m incredibly sorry if I make a mistake!
Kotoko has a lot of parallels to Dante’s Inferno Satan, especially in relation to Es.
To make sure we’re all on the same page, Dante’s Inferno is a Christian poem that outlines the 9 circles of hell. MILGRAM directly references Dante’s Inferno by quoting it in all the t2 door arts.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter.” A quote derived from a sign at the gate of hell in the poem.
Each ring of Hell contains sinners with different levels of sins, and each ring’s sin was meant to be worse the further inside you go. Ive seen a couple theories that each prisoner correlates with a specific ring of hell. (Ex: Haruka is ring 1, Limbo; Yuno is ring 2, lust; etc)
But Dante’s Inferno only outlines 9 rings, what about our 10th prisoner, Kotoko?
While it could be that she’s again the “outsider” to the other prisoners, the last section of the 9th ring of Hell is significant because it is the center of Hell, containing Satan. So it could be reasonably argued that Kotoko correlates with it.
MILGRAM already has a TON of religious references. One that I’ve seen pointed out is how it seems the cover art of each novel is a reference to a famous Christian art piece.
The Es in each novel seems to be where Jesus relatively is. Remember that Jesus is both the son of God AND God. God gives sinners their judgements which sounds very similar to Es and how they're giving the prisoners (the human sinners) their verdicts.
Plus, the quote Milgram quotes is on the doors the prisoners are entering, and in Dante’s inferno, it’s on the gate of hell so you can compare or theorize that MILGRAM is a parallel to (or straight up is) purgatory. And Es, being the one who decides the verdict, parallels God.
Also, her t2 VD is named “YONAH,” which is the masculine version of the name Jonah. Not only does this relate to her themes of masculinity again, Jonah is a name that originates from Hebrew origins which means “dove.”
It is also a reference to the book of Jonah. A main theme of this book is “Jonah wants God to operate on his timeline [...] He wanted God to dole out punishment on his clock instead of according to God's plan. Yet God showed Jonah that in his infinite wisdom, he can't and will not be rushed.” Which is pretty much exactly what happens in YONAH, and also once again compares Es to God.
Dante’s Inferno’s Satan was an angel, a splendid being, apparently the most perfect of God's creatures… an “Angel of light.” We/Es deemed Kotoko innocent in t1. She had the highest innocent percentage in t1 too because a lot of people thought her murder was justified. You know, the most perfect of God’s creatures. The most perfect out of the prisoners.
“We really can work together.”
But then Satan tried to usurp God.
“If you don’t have the strength on your own, let me take care of it. Es! I can do it in MILGRAM!”
Kotoko wants to be the prison guard because Es isn’t capable in her eyes.
Satan was ultimately sent to Hell and punished as "the ultimate sinner" for his betrayal of trying to usurp God.
We are now punishing Kotoko for her attempts to judge the prisoners herself and “usurp” Es. It works even better now that she has the highest guilty percentage in all of MILGRAM so far as the “ultimate sinner.”
As a lot know, Fuuta also has tons of religious references too. (Ex. His VD is titled Baptism by Fire) By him also passing judgements onto people, you could say that he was trying to play God.
What is that saying about us, the audience, then? And our parallel/foil to Fuuta/Kotoko?
Dante’s Inferno as a whole is very much based around the idea of “evil will be punished,” which not only encapsulates Kotoko’s ideals but MILGRAM’s as well. It makes sense that MILGRAM says that Kotoko is a perfect parallel to the facility.
(I also wanna mention that there's something that could be said about the holy trinity in relation to Es + the audience + jackalope. For example, how Jesus is God in the flesh and Es is the audience "in the flesh," by acting as a personified version of us to interact with the "human sinnners" but I feel like I might be going into tinfoil hat territory.)
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MMA Fighter AU for @bobadinweek's bingo - with which I have a bingo! (I'll post my card under the read more cut for proof) I treated it more as a pose drawing exercise, but in the process I grew very fascinated with the idea of Boba having some biomech tattoos (as opposed to the geometrical armor based design I default to for Din) especially on the leg he is often headcanoned to lose to the sarlacc - and if you can make out anything of that on Boba it was inspired by Arno B Ink's work
Whoop whoop! I've never achieved a bingo before!! I did a bit of colour coding, because that's how I work, and the blue ones needed to be switched up (the orange ones are the prompts I REALLY want to complete, and the yellow circles are the ones with the possibility of an idea.... So I'll want to go off these prompts outside of the deadline as well, I suppose. It'd be a shame to waste all those reference images I took for the Razor Crest Lives prompt XD). I've been aiming for the T-shaped bingo, but I don't have very high hopes with finishing anything for the FREE and Assassins & Spys prompts in the remaining time - gotta get back to work and all that....
I will make a round up post in two weeks with all my finished prompts all the same however many that will be - we shall see! :)
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