#c alice

[laurabenanti]

"I finally broke the curse."

[greenqueenhightower]

Alicole was underwhelming, but B&C takes the cake as the worst adaptation of a single asoiaf/f&b event so far:

It was so rushed and whitewashed and did not focus on Helaena at all. Where is Helaena pleading for her son's life and offering up her own life instead? Where is Maelor whom Helaena was coerced to offer up as a sacrifice and does not bear to look at? Where is Heleana being forced to make a decision that haunts her entire life? She is obviously traumatized by what happened, but having her just say "they killed the boy" does not do her character and her grief justice. I really hope we get to see more of Helaena in episode 2 because it would be really upsetting if the show just brushes her off.

Not to mention Alicent's absence from the events of B&C. Alicent was really there, worried for her daughter's and grandchildren's lives, and was the first person to offer Helaena some comfort and consolation. The more I think about it the more mad I get because we got robbed of what could have been a truly harrowing and distressing scene that would do the events and the characters justice. Book!B&C was about two mothers and their shared agony, pain, and grief. It could have been powerful and shocking from an acting perspective alone if they had followed the events of the book.

[true-bluesargent]

seen lots of articles and people saying that heartstopper was like "too clean" and that teenagers aren't that wholesome and they should be having sex and doing drugs and stuff and sure some teenagers definitely do have sex and party and do drugs but honestly a lot of teenagers DON'T and the idea in tv that all teenagers do that kind of thing can really fuck you up when you're like 16!!!! because you think you're behind your peers but mostly you AREN'T !!!!! we need boring teenager representation not everyone has a euphoria skins degrassi teenagehood some of us didn't drink or party or date some of us just did the kind of stuff they did in heartstopper like walk dogs and have sleepovers and skip prom to hang out at a friend's house and dance and have a good time and watch sitcoms!!! like heartstopper is good representation for people who just had regular uneventful teenage years!!!!

[taiyou-punpun]

Alice

[mothsintherain]

yeah, gwen and alice, *is* there something you want to talk about?

[florencebirdsong]

Coven of chaos more like coven of judging you

based on this gif set

[amaltheas-garden]

ryan condal decided Alicent was a worse person than the one we see in f&b, and lied about experiencing blood and cheese with her daughter. The account in f&b is the worst version of the actual event Alicent could come up with, and told it to smear Rhaenyra. But HotD is the way it actually happened. But Alicent isn't mean or ambitious or cunning and loves Rhaenyra and would never go out of her way to paint her as a villain. And we never see her lying and spreading the fake version of b&c around the Red Keep. So which is it condal? Is Alicent an evil conniving woman who made up a story about the most traumatic thing that happened to herself, her daughter, and granddaughter all to besmirch the blameless saint rhaenyra? The *true* B&C was just an oopsie but the *true* Alicent was also just a peace-loving woman who loved Rhaenyra and wanted her to be queen all along? Or maybe, just maybe, f&b B&C is just... how it happened?

[mejcinta]

Look how they massacred our Dowager Queen :(

When I catch you, Sara Hess and Ryan Condal!!!

[urdeftonesgrrrl]

me scrolling through the "anti team black" tag just to like every post I see

[gojuo]

so this is how blood & cheese should have went down if hotd had actual good writers: the plotline starts with rhaenyra wailing and sobbing over luke's death on dragonstone. daemon tries to console her as much as he can stand to do so. she tells him that she wants them dead, every single last one of those traitors. daemon grins of course, because this is how he raised her to be: a vengeful, spoiled, hateful, vindictive monster (he has been grooming her since she was 8 years old to hate her half-siblings after all). the next scene in this plotline would have us see to daemon and mysaria in bed together in harrenhal, where he painstakingly details out what he wants her to do exactly. he gives not just mysaria, but us, the viewers, word for word the sequence of events that he wants to happen on the night of the assassination. we the viewers are deeply horrified by his orders, because what he orders is monstrous. book readers would be kept on their toes, because surely the show would change this event in some ways, right? daemon describing it exactly as it was in the book has to be a red herring right?, is what they would be thinking. and show-only watchers would be on the edge of their seats wondering throughout the entirety of the episode if something so horrific would actually take place on screen. both book readers and show watchers would be left with the question of, is this seriously what's going to happen? no fucking way..., when watching the episode unfold. the next scenes concerning the plotline would be mysaria hiring blood and cheese, a scene or two establishing their characters, them getting intel on where helaena and the kids will be, talking about how difficult it would be to break into maegor's holdfast bc of all the guards so the only option is the tower of the hand ... and then eventually night falls over king's landing and we are in the red keep. we'll be near the end of the episode, like the last 15 minutes, and we follow cheese as he leads blood through the tunnels to the tower of the hand where alicent's room is. earlier in the ep we learned helaena always takes the kiddos there to say goodnight to grandma. they sneak into the room where they strangle her maid, kill the guards in front of the door quietly, and beat alicent until she's knocked out and they tie her up and gag her so she cannot be heard. then cheese goes to stand next to the door in preparation for helaena's arrival, while blood sits on a sofa facing the door. the next scenes would be focused on helaena as she gathers the kiddos to go from maegor's holdfast to the tower of the hand, and we are getting eerie, dark gothic grunge vibes from the camera shots as she gets these weird premonitions, shivers crawling up her spine. but she still goes to the tower of the hand, while the viewers would be screaming and yelling and crying and sobbing at the tv begging her not to go there. but helaena goes anyway because this is a canon event baby. i told you in the beginning of the episode what was going to happen :^) and then it happens exactly as described in both f&b and earlier in the ep by daemon. the beheading would of course not be shown but i would have jaehaerys' blood spray all over helaena and alicent while she does the ellaria scream and alicent is crying unable to do anything bc her hands are bound behind her back and she has a gag in her mouth. the final few shots of the episode would be in slow motion (all the while you hear helaena's screams) as the entire red keep hears this harrowed shrieking and so the guards and the maids and the servants all run to alicent's rooms and we see the pools of blood underneath everyone's feet as they go in and out of the room then finally we come to the last shot of the episode which is aegon's frightened face as he slowly walks through the chaos, puts his hand on the slightly closed door, pushes it open (all the while we hear helaena's unending screams), and he quietly says, "jaehaerys?" roll credits.

that's how you write and adapt a fucking book scene @ ryan condal & co you pieces of worthless shit.

[kass-of-the-midlands]

Alicent’s “this is happening because the gods are punishing my sins” is fucking heartbreaking. Can you imagine. Using religion as a way to bond with your mother, then having to endure decades of marital rape and abuse and even after the fucker dies she can’t have peace. And she thinks the murder of her grandson is because of her, the gods she loves laying a curse on her.

[alicentflorent]

seeing helaena and alicent together during the riots, Alicent immediately concerned about helaena, trying to shield her, protect her and keep her safe and then we have helaena also showing concern for her mother, grabbing her hand when they were running away and worrying about her. It just reminded me of what we could’ve had if blood and cheese had been close to book accurate

Just imagine Alicent terrified for helaena as she sat there tied up and helpless knowing she couldn’t help her daughter and sweet helaena walking into that room with her children to say goodnight just to see her terrified mother held hostage and gagged, she instinctively wanting to help her before she quickly realises that she and the children were the targets. Alicent silently breaking down unable to do anything to help her daughter, just watch the torment as we see the fear, despair and anger flash through her eyes. Helaena going through a mothers worst nightmare, Alicent witnessing what they did to her girl. We wouldn’t need to see any gore or traumatised children because Olivia and Phia’s face acting and silent communication would have impacted us just as much as the horrific act of psychological torture and the innocent toddlers murder.

[greenqueenhightower]

This image shocks me immensely because of:

a) the horror and determination engraved on Alicent’s face

b) Heleana watching her mother defending (and holding onto) Aemond in the background.

I think that the incident at Driftmark had a different potency on each of Alicent’s kids, but especially upon Heleana it must have impressed the idea that “a mother fights for her child no matter what” and that she doesn’t stay silent.

I can only imagine how Heleana feels after B&C, but the sense of being unable to protect and stand up for her son must be devastating.

And further than that, Heleana must be repelled by the idea of being coerced and finally having chosen to sacrifice one of her own kids. She probably feels that she has failed as a mother. That unlike Alicent, she has no right to demand justice for Jaehaerys’ murder because she herself chose him over Maelor. Maybe she blames herself for not doing enough to save him (even if she offered up her own life instead of her children’s), and possibly compares her efforts to defend her children with Alicent’s defense of Aemond. In essence, she probably tragically feels that she offered up one of her children herself instead.

In any case, this is such a heartbreaking and unsettling position to be in and it makes the emotional and psychological toll she consequently suffered all the more unbearable, because even if she drew courage and strength from and tried to imitate her mother’s actions, nothing could have ever prepared her for this.

[i-am-traveling-the-multifandom]

Blood and Cheese

Warnings: S2 E1 spoilers, mentions of SA, mentions of gore and blood

So, you are telling me that HBO made b&c an accident. It was supposed to be Aemond. And they made Heleana run while Jaehaerys was being killed and her daughter safe and sound. And Alicent and Maelor wasn't even there. What the hell??!!

They turned one of the best, in fact the only well written part of the book and turned it into this piece of crap

Aemond was never involved. Daemon wanted to kill a child when Luke died because he didn't have the guts to fight Aemond. Aemond might have been the reason the dance of the dragons began but he was never the cause of b&c.

Heleana begged blood and cheese to take her life instead of her children and in the show, she offers her necklace. The entire point of blood and cheese is to show a distraught mother trying to protect her children and being forced to choose which one of her children die. And they made her simply point at her son. Book!Heleana would never. Book!Heleana had to hold the lifeless body of her eldest child that didn't even have his head. She couldn't see his last expressions, was there fear on his young face or was it pain? She would never know until these ruthless killers were found. She would rather lose her life and her sanity than her own children. And in the end, she lost them all. And that is the tragedy of Heleana the Dreamer. That is the tragedy of a mother and a queen.

Jaehaera is sleeping soundly and isn't even harmed while in the books she was a traumatized kid. She was threatened with rape by a man when she was 6 years old. She watched her twin get killed in a helpless position and could do nothing to protect him. That possibly was a driving reason of her suicide.

Maelor was present there at the time of b&c and he wasn't even born in the show. He was two years old; he was a child who saw such a brutal murder. Heleana in her mind made the right decision by offering Maelor instead of the heir to the throne but imagine how much that would have mentally and emotionally scarred him, if it wasn't for his untimely death. He was a victim of 'the greater good'. But it was never him and if he had grown up enough to even form words they would have been of pain and sorrow.

Alicent was in her room having sex with Criston Cole while in the book she had to wait knowing that her daughter and grandchildren would enter any minute and be harmed. She was helpless in those moments, and God knows what went through the mind of this woman who loved her children so much. Her trauma is undermined. She saw her bed maiden killed knowing this might be the fate of her beloved children and it was for Jaehaerys. She had to take care of Jaehaera and Maelor while her own daughter sank into a deep and dark pit of madness. She saw her daughter commit suicide because of this. Do any of us ever stop and wonder if she blamed herself for all this?

Blood and Cheese was one of the most traumatic events in the entire history of Targaryens and I will murder those who say otherwise. Not because I am team green but because I have sympathy. Sympathy for two young children forced to witness such cruelty, sympathy for a child who was inflicted with such early death, sympathy for two helpless mothers who blamed themselves for their children's doom.

And the show destroyed it. HBO destroyed everything, from the cruelty and from the trauma. And those who have never read the book will never know. Never know the cruelty of team black. Blood and cheese wasn't revenge, it wasn't a son for a son. It was pure cruelty and malice. It was the murder of a child who had never done anything wrong, and the show erased it. They never showed what extents team black could go in the name of war and revenge.

And I despise HBO for what they did. Once again, they show that team black can do no wrong, that Daemon Targaryen's actions are justifiable because he did it for his 'family'. But he didn't, like always he did this for the sake of violence, and forever will.

This season is ruined from the beginning. HBO can do nothing to make it better.

[rain-dere]

There's something so sadly poetic about Rhaenyra risking her life to meet with Alicent, so sure that their one-on-one meeting could change the course of history and prevent a war. And then Alicent sitting in that council room, passed over by men who thought she was capable of nothing important. To have someone on the opposing side, who in season one acknowledged what Alicent accomplished during Viserys's long illness, sit in that sept with her and believe wholeheartedly in her political prowess, her ability to listen to reason, and her wisdom while her own council is largely blinded by misogyny and ambition.

[bored-boring-and-tired]