#for the record criston is one of if not the only man in got/hotd to defend sex workers

[thepromisedbride]

🔥HOTD

i’ve said it before but i actually really like criston and i don’t for the life of me understand why people hate him so much. people keep calling him an incel and saying he’s bitter that rhaenyra didn’t want to sleep with him/did sleep with harwin when in actually rhaenyra DID want to sleep with him and he was the one who put a stop to their affair because he hated himself for it. also he doesn’t hate rhaenyra for sleeping with people other than her husband, he hates her because he has very complicated feelings towards a symbol of him breaking his oaths who wouldn’t let him restore that honour afterwards and who is in opposition to the woman who saved and is the dedication of his life. also lots of the hate towards him has clear racist or classist tones and it mostly makes me think that some people do not know how to understand subtext or watch a show.

bonus for this is that people who act like rhaenyra was disgusted by criston asking her to run away with him are not actually making her look good in comparison it makes her look way worse. she looked wistful and regretful when she turned him down, just like she did when alicent asked her to run away, and that’s so much better for her

[electricprincess96]

Far too many people in the HOTD fandom have heard the take "Fire and Blood is an unreliable narrator" and ran with that fact to justify every change good or bad from the book and to try and paint what happens in the show as somehow just as legitimate and somehow the "true" retelling of this event.

This is a fundamental misconception of what Fire and Blood is. Fire and Blood is written from the perspective of an in universe Maestor who is collecting historical records from various sources including first hand accounts FROM the period of the Dance of the Dragons (he actually does all the way from Aegon the Conquerer onward in order of Targaryen Monarchs the Dance is only a section of a wider book). Yes there are conflicting accounts that he lays out, yes there are moments that he has no reliable sources on etc. BUT there is a lot more things that are likely to have been reliably kept note of, such as Queen Alicent NOT being a child bride, and being significantly older than her step-daughter Rhaenyra. Highborn Men and Women would have almost certainly had their birth years kept record and the author of Fire and Blood would have access to those. Likewise Laenor dying in public would not be something various sources would just get wrong even with embellishments the fundamental fact of "Laenor got in a fight with his "favourite" and died as a result" is likely accurate. Or the fact Criston Cole killed Laenor's lover at a Tourney in the book, something that makes a lot more sense, would have been recorded since well a competitor died at a Tourney celebrating the Heirs Wedding, said victim was a "close friend" of said Heirs new husband and said killer was said Heirs former Sworn Shield. Like yeah it makes sense for that to be pretty accurately recorded thus I have no reason to believe it didn't happen this way compared to Cole just going nuts and offing a man AT THE WEDDING and then getting away with it. At least if it WAS a Tourney that makes sense cause people die at Tourney's all the time in this world.

The ambiguity comes in when the Maestor includes multiple conflicting sources for the same event, BUT it's less unreliable through omission which critics of F&B seem to believe and more unreliable as he has no way of proving which of these sources are correct or if the truth is somewhere inbetween however it's not deliberately misleading.

If HOTD was somehow the "true" events of the Dance some of things that have happened in the show such as Rhaenys blowing the floor out of the Dragon Pit, killing a bunch of smallfolk and then flying away at Aegon II's coronation WOULD have been at least ONE story that likely would have been recorded somewhere and mentioned in the book because the author isn't trying right deliberately mislead the reader in universe, he believes he's giving as accurate a depiction of events as he can. Sure there's biases as every historian has but he is choosing to often portray conflicting testimonies and while in text he himself will dismiss some, he still gives them allowing the reader to make up their own mind of what is likely to have occurred.

But seeing people say "unreliable narrator" for why Rhaena claiming Sheepstealer and Nettles not existing doesn't somehow break their claim that this is "true canon" when 1. I don't actually care about Rhaena claiming Sheepstealer I thought from the minute I heard they were adapting this story that they'd cut Nettles and 2. There's no fucking way there isn't multiple sources claiming Rhaena was in the Vale the majority of the war while someone else was riding a Dragon called Sheepstealer thus Gyldayn would have no fucking reason to make up a whole new person and write Rhaena's contributions to the war out. Like that just would not happen in universe and George would know that.

So just dismissing all complaints by book readers towards the show with "but unreliable narrator" fundamentally misunderstands Fire and Blood as a book. Yes it is ambiguous, and the story is not told to us clearly however taking into account the very nature of history books some of this stuff has no reason to be incorrect yet the show changed it anyway. And that's fine, the show can change whatever the fuck it wants but be prepared for book fans to check out AND stop trying to tout the show as somehow the 100% true canon of The Dance of Dragons when it just can't be.

Also, Fire and Blood is NOT the only time George RR Martin has written about this time period. The first time he did was in his Novella "The Princess and the Queen" which was part of an Anthology called Dangerous Women. He also wrote another Novelette a year later called "The Rogue Prince" about Daemon Targaryen which acts as a prequel to "The Princess and the Queen" and was part of an Anthology called Rogues. Yes, both of these are again written from Archmaegor Gyldayn's perspective but it does mean if George REALLY wanted us to know the TRUE history and it didn't involve some combination of the parts he's already given us (which I personally think all the important parts have been given to us the way George believes it happened but he wants us to make up our own minds about the parts he leaves ambitious) then he would have told us the TRUE history by now, he's had multiple chances to write about this era and be less vague.