#cause guess what? it's pointless. it's stupid and it's just like the dance: utterly uncalled for!

[jaundicity]

this might be a hot take depending on whoever comes across it, but if the writing crew at HOTD had pushed themselves into truly showcasing the horrors of war and conflict within the dance throughout the show, i doubt that there wouldn't be as much team-related animosity as there is right now inside this fandom.

this can either be interpreted as fact or assumption, i'm okay with both and neither, but genuinely, if the show that we were given had been a lot more true to its original themes of war and its devastating effects along with many other factors like necessary evils, the failure of government through the targaryen royal family, the unjust acts towards innocent people regardless of social status through tumbleton and blood & cheese, etc.. and had explicitly shown that; no glorification, no glamourization, no nothing– just straight up horror?

we would all be too horrified to even think of rooting for one side or the other.

and to be honest? i really wish that were the case.

war isn't something to root for. it's something to dread, something to fear. the dance was exactly that, and we need to be more aware of the fact that just like war in general, it was utterly pathetic, pointless, and downright a cruel attack on the entire country through its own rulers.

sure, we can root for our faves all we like.. but we can't save them entirely from the fates that george originally wrote for them.

for example, i like alicent. she's one of my favourite characters, but am i gonna let her off the hook for the part she played in the war? not really. the same goes for rhaenyra, aegon, aemond, jace and co, who are all characters that i do genuinely like despite the show giving them all the worst writing that doesn't even concede with their major actions in the book. i'm not gonna come out and say that they're all innocent angel babies who just got dealt a bad hand. i know what they did in the OG story, and that's on them for doing it in the first place.

we can love our faves and all, and i do appreciate how much us fans do care for these characters, but let's be real. they played a part in this violence. not one or two, but a lot of them. all of them did.