#cersei eating robert's children taking back reproductive autonomy from the man that hurt her
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This is a very very unfinished thought but I've been thinking a lot as I reread the books about how the women of House of the Dragon don't really get catharsis and how that'll likely be worse in S2. Say what you want about asoiaf but a number of named women there experience catharsis.
They kill their abusers (Lysa, Cersei, Dany). They regain some agency after a violation (Lysa, Cersei, Lady Stoneheart, Dany), and they refuse to forgive the people complicit in their subjugation (Lysa, Cersei, Dany, Lady Stoneheart, Jeyne Westerling).
Obviously, three or four isn't enough in such an expansive cast of characters but the point remains that they claw back their autonomy however they have to. They're allowed to be angry, bitter, unforgiving and cruel to their abusers in a way women in House of the Dragon just aren't allowed. They're allowed grief, grief that is violent and destructive.
The women of House of the Dragon don't get angry. They stand around and stare plaintively at the camera, they cry prettily, and they plead for peace and non-violence. They suffer and suffer and suffer and there's no relief.
#although dany doesn't really set out to kill her abuser#in fact she doesn't really think of him as her abuser#but the fact remains that her story begins with his death#she gains her dragons and agency through his death#lysa murdering jon arryn#lysa not going to riverrun when hoster is on his deathbed despite cat's letters#she denies him relief for his crimes against her and it's one of my favourite moments in asoiaf#cersei killing robert#cersei eating robert's children taking back reproductive autonomy from the man that hurt her#lady stoneheart turning her grief and pain onto the riverlands#she hangs freys boltons and lannisters uncaringly#it's a failing of the storytelling because this is supposed to be the feminist retelling of the dance#but instead the misogyny that leads up to the dance has been defanged.#the point of the show has been obscured behind endless arguments of the supposed illegitimacy of rhaenyra's first three children#the women fighting for power have been replaced by evil men perched on their shoulders telling them to do bad things#they're helpless victims carried along by the stream of inevitability#or something idk#also i am not including alicent trying to take luke's eye and injuring rhaenyra as cathartic because they are not the cause of her sufferin#house of the dragon#not asoiaf thoughts#daenerys targaryen#lysa arryn#cersei lannister#lady stoneheart#alicent hightower#rhaenyra targaryen#helaena targaryen#rhaenys targaryen
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