#hotd episode 9

[greenqueenhightower]

I don't understand why people get upset with the Greens' and Alicent's willingness to believe that Viserys' deathbed prophecy truly was about Aegon? I think that the show explained very well why they needed to believe this. Aegon never had a single ounce of acknowledgment from his father growing up. Of course he would have very much liked to believe that his father had a prophetic revelation that restored him as a rightful son in his eyes. All he wanted was to feel worthy of him (see Ep. 9, the carriage scene with Alicent). And so did all of the Green kids, they wanted to feel worthy of their father's love and somehow feel that they belonged. That they were Targaryen enough for the standards of their father. And Alicent wanted her sacrifice and devotion to have a meaning so, of course she would have hung on to the idea that Viserys, even if it took him 20 years to do so, finally recognized her sacrifice with his dying breath. They needed this confirmation more than anything and when the opportunity came they were more than ready to delude themselves. Because feeling completely abandoned and unworthy hurt even more.

They are so tragically desperate and I love them to bits.

[drakaripykiros130ac]

I have to say that the one scene in HotD that really annoys me is the one between Rhaenys and Alicent in episode 9.

I’m not even going to get into how much they downgraded book canon Princess Rhaenys Targaryen. The show version is almost nothing like her.

In that scene, the showrunners were using Rhaenys to try to gather some more sympathy for Alicent, with the whole heart-to-heart about the “window in your prison” bullshit. As if Alicent didn’t play a huge part in creating that “prison” for herself. And I’m sorry, if as the Queen, the most powerful woman in the Realm, you still act like a victimized prisoner, even though you had power to control your own life, then that makes you a pathetic and crappy Queen. Alicent is blaming others because she herself didn’t take control of her own life (as one of the very few women in the Realm with the power to do so).

In this scene, Alicent tries to recruit Rhaenys and by extension, the Velaryons (non-book canon), with no other argument other than badmouthing Rhaenyra. I’m sorry, but this just shows blatant and mindless pro-Green favoritism on behalf of the showrunners.

Nothing about this makes sense. Princess Rhaenys Targaryen was in a similar position as Rhaenyra many years prior. Did Alicent really think that Rhaenys would help her do to Rhaenyra what the lords of the Great Council of 101 did to her???

Like I said, logic truly seems to fail the showrunners. Either they used the moment to try to portray the Greens as the better party, or they wanted to show how much intelligence Alicent lacks (the canon version of her wasn’t the brightest but not quite this dumb either).

Canon GRRM version of Princess Rhaenys Targaryen was a fierce and intelligent woman, who didn’t hesitate for a single moment to take Rhaenyra’s side and uphold her claim. She despised Alicent and would never give her the time of day. Not to mention that Rhaenys never held back. She wanted all out war, and she was the one to propose the use of dragons (not Daemon). All of this because she sympathized with Rhaenyra greatly and she was not going to stand by and experience a deja vu. She wanted Rhaenyra to succeed, because she didn’t.

The showrunners made their version of Rhaenys have some sort of beef with Rhaenyra out of jealousy (because Rhaenyra has an actual chance to be Queen, whereas she didn’t), while at the same time, she shows sympathy towards Alicent (for some non-understandable reason).

And for a show whose purpose apparently is to impose feminism, they sure have a way of limiting their female characters, making them act all “proper” and “lady-like” and wanting to resolve matters “peacefully”. In an attempt to make Alicent the absolute victim, they even scrapped the idea that she was the mastermind behind the usurpation and the leader of the Greens. She was supposed to be the one in charge, not Otto.

In actual canon, the women were the ones who waged war, and the men obeyed.

The super biased mentality of these showrunners never ceases to amaze me.

[bbygirl-aemond]

thinking about how alicent is the only person who tells rhaenys she should have been queen without having something to gain from doing so. sure, corlys says rhaenys should have been queen, but we see again and again that power is his top priority and rhaenys has got to know that if it didn't bring corlys personal gain, there's no saying he would believe that. sure, her children have probably told her that, but again it's difficult to divorce that from the power they would have gained.

for alicent, it's entirely the opposite. she would have less power if rhaenys had become queen, because her husband would be a prince instead of king. and yet.

and yet.

i just think it's very telling. i mean, eve best also point blank says the same thing, so it's not just me. she says this makes rhaenys "look at alicent for probably the first time." it makes rhaenys "take alicent seriously." it makes her "quite impressed by [alicent's] strength and tenacity." it makes her see that alicent is "remarkable."

[horizon-verizon]

Rhaenys killing smallfolk is so…. Like wtf, and then people be like “Kinslaying is the worst crime there is! She’d be stupid to do it!”, first HOTD never introduces the notion of kinslaying, and killing hundreds of people is a crime too! She is already a criminal for what she did, why stop halfway if you’re going full murderer ? If you’re gonna commit a decapitation worthy offence, then you might as well kill the people who are a legitimate threat to your future great grandchildren and granddaughters themselves.

Them coming out saying that Rhaenys didn’t kill them because it’s not her war…. Lol, it was her war the moment she agreed to betroth her granddaughters to Rhaenyra’s sons. Her family (the little that is left of it) is in legitimate danger and she passed up the opportunity to kill people who WERE ACTIVELY PLANNING ON KILLING HER FAMILY ANYWAYS. (Yes, I know it was mostly Rhaenyra and Daemon but Jace and Luke and Joff would have to go too and Daemon is the father of Rhaena and Baela, the twins have legal claim to the throne, so no ways they letting that slide either).

Yeah, this has been my argument as well. I will never not be angry about this damned episode, esp this scene.

My biggest gripe about this fool of an episode is that if Rhaenys says she doesn't want to "be involved" in "their" war is that in ANY iteration of these events where Baela & Rhaena exist without turning this into a full-fledged AU like sweetestpopcorn's "The Black and the Greens", Rhaenys will ALWAYS be "involved"...

because those girls are DAEMON'S DAUGHTERS and ONE OF THEM LIVES WITH DAEMON AND RHAENYRA!!! And this Rhaenys constantly has said she primarily cares about her own kids and grandchildren, not Viserys, Daemon, or Rhaenyra...so what gives?!

In a world where these strategy-minded people would, you know, think strategy...Rhaenys practically spoon-fed them a public reason to go to war and assume a protective-justice persona!!!

To further paint the blacks as violence mongerers or even just shit-starters, even with those killed being peasants, bc the sheer number of people killed simultaneously who live around you & around your castle who have historically been a part of some Faith-led attacks against the crown (Aenys, Maegor, Rhaena & her brother Aegon--the Poor Fellows) is astronomical. Killing that many smallfolk doesn't pay and rather makes for a larger number of angrier smallfolk with a reason to be angrier than average. You'd think she'd realize that and idk, maybe not kill dozens if not thousands of smallfolk.

Otto will always look to them as possible rivals because of that connection to the person he thinks will likely always contend with him/anyone for power, espe after he includes the younger boys' hostage-taking in his terms in episode 10. Aside from Otto--who had a grip on Alicent's decision-making until it came to Rhaenyra (as if Rhaenyra doesn't come with her kids, who Alicent has accepted the risk of exile or total ruination for 10 years, but I digress).

And Alicent--by the next season's 2 trailers--appears to go back to Otto as a consultant and guide as to how the greens will face the blacks, so we can't argue that she will not escape his influence even with her allowing herself to understand his manipulativeness. She obviously didn't want a war and has tried to stave it off by holding Rhaenys hostage and sending that damned page to Rhaenyra with Otto's terms--that is if she actually sent it--she also sets up a possible war through usurping Rhaenyra in the first place! And Alicent isn't actually fighting against Rhaenyra for the sake of "the realm" but for for her own position as the mother to a possible king/wife of a past king and the lives of her kids.

Even in the book--if you are inclined to believe that she believes this and/or has sincerely taken Otto's fear of Daemon as her own maybe bc similarly to the show he instilled in her that fear of him--Alicent brings up Daemon's supposed bloodthirstiness and inevitable murder of her kids as reason to usurp Rhaenyra ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

As for the kinslaying part, they refused to insert Rhaenyra's lines of that, instead making her grab Otto's pendant and throwing it off the bridge in a much more flaccid version of what she does with Orwyle's chains in the book. Without the context of her giving Aegon that chance to withdraw AND criticizing Orwyle taking the green side and basically going against his own maester code of following traditions and laws, show!Rhaenyra's protests against Otto is more losing the desired cool & careful, wise reservedness that HotD already favors over original "proud" book!Rhaenyra. And I think that it's to give the Dance story this faux measure of "balance" that ozymalek talks about HERE:

People often argue whether HOTD showrunners are biased in favor of Team Black or Team Green. I think the answer to this question can't be encapsulated within the context of "bias", at least not fully. They are biased for both and neither at the same time and it's difficult to explain, but I will try to articulate how I see it. The Dance era in "Fire and Blood" is something that will fundamentally cause the feelings of cognitive dissonance. I think this is why people initially disliked this book when it first came out. It did not provide easy answers, it was written as a historical account, the in-universe historians were clearly biased. People, however, had trouble realizing who the historians are biased for and against. Team Green would have you think that "F&B" is biased against the Greens, because their allegiance as maesters clearly being to Hightowers notwithstanding, they could not evade simple historical facts: that most of the kingdom supported Rhaenyra, that Greens were horrendously misogynistic and that her usurpation was clearly wrong. That's why, approaching it from the "choose your favorite war criminal" point of view, it was difficult for Greens to accept that their preferred side is so cartoonishly evil - obviously bias must have been involved, even though the only pro-Black narrator of F&B is Mushroom, the rest are Greens. The maester's anti-Targaryen bias, however, manages to sneak in and mess with the reader's balance, causing said cognitive dissonance. It's hard to deal with it as a reader, let alone as a showrunner who's trying to adapt a story in which not everything is set in stone. They incorrectly assumed that, because they are constantly forced to question what is happening in the story, the bias is with the underlying idea that there was a correct side. As such, they assumed that all the inconsistencies result from maesters not choosing to view it that way. Ryan Condal repeatedly stated that he does not want watchers to pick sides, while George RR Martin embraces it and even encourages it (and I think that he himself has picked the Blacks). Such is our nature as human beings. So they decided that they have to balance the scales. Because Greens are poorly developed, they added more characterization for them that contradicts their book personas (abused child bride meow meow Alicent who is clueless about the plans that in the books she herself set in motion, for example) while simultaneously taking the characterization AWAY from team Black members. Rhaena and Baela barely have any lines, and though this may be the case of simple racism, it's pretty telling that they ignored the fact that Baela is tomboyish and has short hair. Rheanyra herself is so toned down that she does not resemble her book counterpart in the slightest, making her seem weak, stupid and undecided. Daemon straight up becomes a villain and a wife murderer rather than a throughoutly gray character (book!Rhea Royce unambiguously dies after a hawking accident while Daemon is still fighting in the Stepstones); that's because Team Black was in a desperate need for a corrupting influence in order to balance the scales. But some Greens aren't spared from this treatment either. Otto is made much worse than he was in the books, he straight up pimps out his teenage daughter so that he can elevate House Hightower. While Aegon is also a sex pest in the books, showing him openly rape a lowborn woman was a risky decision (as was the not very subtle implication that he rapes Helaena as well); not to mention that the child fighting pits come from Mushroom, whose entire gimmick is making shit up. So neither side is really spared from being villified and whitewashed, depending on whom we look. The showrunners were fully committed to making choosing sides a confusing process, making the cognitive dissonance of this story to be even stronger. This is why they aren't really biased for or against anyone.

[whogirl42]

I finally watched episode 9 of hotd I know I know it's about goddamn time and it literally amazes me how in every scene he's in Otto Hightower is unapologetically framed like a makivalian supervillain

[visenyaism]

i have to speak my truth i do not understand what everyone has against sara hess I feel like every episode she is involved in she swings for the fences and a very interesting way? it does not always work for me but having someone in the writing room who is clearly willing to push a lot of the adaptational conventions for a book that is not very good on its own is a net positive. I feel like people just wanted to find a woman to blame for everything they didn’t like.

[elialys]

ANNA TORV as Revna | Nautilus - Ep. 9

[allyriadayne]

ALICENT'S REBELLION

[anamazingangie]

House of the Dragon, episode 9 + text posts (x)

[stuffydollband]

The only House Of The Dragon discourse worth having is about how Matt Smith doesn’t age while the entire cast has to be replaced every 3 episodes

[greenqueenhightower]

Why did I just notice that???

Do you see how Alicent is so dissatisfied in the scenes during the Green Council meeting in episode 9? How utterly surprised and somewhat disappointed?

It's not because she falls from cloud nine to discover the possibility of Aegon becoming king when she learns about the lords' "long-laid plans" from Tyland Lannister. She knew that it would make sense for Aegon to inherit the throne for both the realm and the survival of her family, and basically gave us hints she realized this as early as the hunt scene in episode 3.

More specifically, she understands that she might have to put Aegon on the throne during the scene when a heavily drunk Viserys laments his fears of making a mistake in naming Rhaenyra his heir since he now has a son, and reveals to Alicent his prophetic vision of seeing his son with the conqueror's crown. Even if at that moment, Alicent reassures Viserys he made the right choice, you can see that the doubt lingers in her mind, and in seeing Rhaenyra return from the hunt covered in blood in absolute and ruthless callousness, Alicent recognizes the danger.

It is a wake-up call: in the end, she might have to choose her son over Rhaenyra.

And of course, we know that as Aegon was growing up, Alicent spent hours musing these doubts and even confronts him with them in episode 6: "You are the challenge, simply by living and breathing. You are the king's firstborn son and what they know, what everyone in the realm knows in their blood and in their bones, is that one day you will be our king."

So what explains her dismay during the Green Council meeting??

As I see it, the cause of Alicent's distress during the Green Council among other things is not that the lords planned a whole operation to crown Aegon as king, but that they did so behind her back, as if she is not fit to be included in these discussions, let alone be consulted for her own son's future and survival.

She rightly says: "Am I to understand that members of the small council have been planning secretly, to install my son without me?" and right after that comes the condescending reply: "My queen, there was no need to sully you with darkling schemes."

No sh!t.

Remember how betrayed and distraught Alicent felt went Aemond lost an eye and everyone dismissed her concerns as that of an overreacting and overbearing mother? The Green Council scene gives flashbacks to this.

Once again, Alicent's wishes, her wills, her thoughts, and her whole person as a mother, queen, advisor, and woman, are sidelined and minimized by members of her own council.

So this is why I think it makes sense that episode 9 is called "The Green Council" which contrasts the name given to a different council meeting in episode 10, namely, "The Black Queen." Because apparently, Rhaenyra owns her council meeting, even if she has to shut down Daemon to do so. But Alicent is not yet perceived as her own council's queen.

I hope we can somehow see Alicent truly become her own Green Queen in season 2.

[redrosesandcharmingsouls]

I dont think Alicent has actually any personal ambition when she puts her son on the throne .Not because i think women having ambition is bad or that it makes her less of a caring mother but i dont think Alicent actually ever thought of herself as someone who could/should wield power unless it was for serving either her family or the realm.We are still pretty much talking about a character who lost her sense of personhood when she was a teen .And i dont think of Alicent as someone who thinks of political power as something that makes her feel fulfilled .Because being queen at the end only caused her unhappinnes and i genuinely think that something that would make her feel fulfilled would be everyone to be happy ,no one bothering her family and her actually having some kind agency over her body and personality .All of this isnt to say Alicent is some kind of saintly motherly angel who has no selfish desire ,i just think her wanting political power isnt one of them.

[bbygirl-aemond]

did anyone else have this realization while watching episode nine?? i remember going "aww that's so cute they all just hang out in alicent's room when she's not- OH GOD NO"

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that Alicent’s stans deluded themselves into thinking that she’s the reason Rhaenyra wasn’t beset by assassins in episode 9 and did something because she raised her voice to someone but the moment her father talked to Lord Westerling she remained in silence, it was his refusal that saved Rhaenyra, not Alicent.

And sending terms for Rhaenyra to deliver her toddler sons to live under Aegon II’s sadistic will as hostages is hardly defending Rhaenyra or doing any good to her, that’s fucking miserable, it’s insane how y’all believe that those terms were good, it’s awful on the show and on the book.

I get it now Alicent spent 10 years harassing and tormenting Rhaenyra and her underage children, openly saying she wanted her father there to take her side even tho she knew her wishes meant exile or even death to Rhaenyra because she was trying to influence the inevitable and protect Rhaenyra, true love 😍

Delusion--sometimes they are fun, harmless birds caressing us into safety, other times it's a steel band slowly starving us of or own intellect.

What really irks me are the damn terms being mischaracterized as harmless stipulations as if the greens (Alicent & Otto) are far more likely to be uncharitable to Rhaenyra's children than the reverse.

[Regardless of truebornness or illegitimacy, bc w/their regard for those not-illegitimate kids when they did live at the keep, they already showed they don't care all that much for how young and vulnerable and worthy of protection a child is; Daemon is more or less under rhaenyra's thumb and no I do not care about the choking scene bc no it is NOT even consistent with DaemonxRhaenyra--if they wanted to establish Daemon was abusive towards her, they should have shown scenes of him intimidating her or something in episodes 7-8! so I do not even think of this scene as HotD "canon" and you cannot convince me otherwise! just as I do not think Criston is Dornish in the show no matter what Alicent said or what he looked like--esp since if he was Dornish, it's far more likely he'd still look pale bc the northernest Dornish--the "stony" Dornish as Daeron I later calls them--are paler people who look your "typical" Westerosi..the Martells' looks are not ubiquitous in Dorne! Write better, and then I'll perhaps respect your storytelling.]

And while there are some sweet and rational rhaenicent shippers out there, the ship simply never made sense in the way that it was written in the show. Their development as close friends was never shown, and for how different they are, it needed to be shown! Especially with:

how Alicent really didn't seem to understand Rhaenyra as a person for her to act as she does in the Sept episode and attempting to reinforce "girls don't involve themselves with the politics of men" despite Rhaenyra being the freaking heir // while this is happening, Alicent visiting the king, with there being no sign of even hesitance , guilt, or desire to tell Rhaenyra about it--similar to how Criston should have known Rhaenyra would never leave with him and abandon her family or "duty" or the prospect of becoming the first queen of Westeros after years of everyone's doubt (2)

how she uses her queenly-stepmotherly authority over her (3)

how she continues this in her approach to her in that "queenly" way, accusing Rhaenyra PLUS the implication of her disapproving of her actions despite having to have known how Rhaenyra has felt Viserys has shunted her for most of her life....(4)

From the beginning, alicent has been too much of a ruler-follower to appeal to rhaenyra AND she has thought that for rhaenyra to be happy or at least content with her life, she must also conform to the obedient social rules of feminine conduct--ignoring any presence of inner conflict Rhaenyra has had or pondering over it.

[mejcinta]

When I say episode 9 was the DUMBEST I'm so serious. Because why would dragonriders in a cold war not expect hostility and have their dragons with them? Sara He$$ and Ryan have no excuse for this monstrosity of a scene LOL.

Sunfyre and Dreamfyre squaring up to Meleys would have made more sense than what we got.

[lunenvy]

well