#i'd like to reiterate i am not a fan I am simply a nuanced person

[jackinalex]

I get what y’all mean by saying it’s odd how Alex stopped wearing the ring when Lisa still does. But all this makes me think about is how my parents never bother wearing theirs either and still everything’s fine in their marriage yk. My mom used to wear hers until she was like “this is uncomfortable” so she didn’t put it on ever again. My dad didn’t from the beginning on cos he’s a construction worker. Sure, that’s very different from Alex and Lisa’s situation but maybe Alex just doesn’t feel like wearing it and lisa is fine being the only one wearing hers. I do also guess she wants to wear it cos she’s literally a wedding planner and guesses it looks “better” to have it on her finger yk

Tho I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s sort of a silent treatment for lisa. It’s been that way since their separation right? I suspect that alex was actually ready to break it off so he took off the ring and did whatever with it idrc but since they’re back together he might be like “I know if I put it on you’re gonna feel safe to f up so I’m gonna keep it off to have u know I ain’t playing anymore” and has been testing waters with jack again. I mean, what would Lisa have if he divorced her? Nothing besides her wedding planning. All her life is literally built upon having the same friends as Alex. She’d have nothing left. She literally has to hold on even if it looks stupid to us and makes their marriage seem ridiculous. Since their marriage she’s based her life off of their farm life. Nothing would be left if they were to choose different paths. I’m convinced Alex paid most to build their supposedly perfect life. She couldn’t manage everything on her own even with stupidly overpriced weddings.

I've said before that my parents haven't always worn theirs either, but I just think it's especially telling that he wore his for so long. Then months before they separated, he just stopped wearing it through the separation and the reconciliation. Lisa only ever stopped wearing hers during the separation, and I think you'd have to move heaven and earth to get her to stop wearing hers. I also think that, if anything, Alex would wear the ring to prevent himself from straying. It's a constant reminder that he's locked down.

I definitely don't think that Lisa would have nothing if Alex divorced her. She has a great life. Her business is wildly successful and she puts on beautiful weddings (though they are way too overpriced). She's gorgeous and glamorous and has a great support system. She's college-educated and very close with her family. She and Alex's Baltimore friends are as much hers as they are his. Remember, they all went to high school together. Her family as well as his are well off, so I don't buy that Alex bought the house and farm on his own. Lisa's business makes a lot of money, too. I think with her job and her family's wealth, she's just fine. Lisa does seem to genuinely love the animals and the farm, too. Believe it or not, I really admired her when they were separated and she was fully doing her own thing. She was girlbossing and taking care of business by herself and she looked the hottest she has in a long time. Her identity is just so ingrained in being Mrs. Gaskarth and has been for so long that she can't sustain that girlboss-ness, sadly.

[minetteskvareninova]

Oh, hey, @horizon-verizon is here! Remember when I used used to respect their opinions? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Well, that was before... Well, let's not get needlessly political here. This post is probably going to be needlessly inflammatory anyway.

You know how people on here often say shit like "it does not have to be somehow morally deficient for you to not like it, stop making shit up about why perfectly okay media is Problematic, actually just to feel superior in hating it"? If you want to see who in the name of all that is holy would even think of justifying their dislike of media by bullshit social justice* points... Horizon-verizon, that's who.

Look, I don't think the point I made is perfect, it IS overly technical and @faintingheroine, because unlike y'all she's good at nuance, did a good job of deconstructing my post here: https://www.tumblr.com/faintingheroine/740905723811282944/based-on-this-discussion-made-into-a-separate

But this gives me just the PERFECT opportunity to roast horizon-verizon over the coils for their terrible Hot D opinions so what gives.

My basic problem with the way they and their ilk, of which @la-pheacienne is just one, characterize show!Alicent is that they simply refuse to accept that yes, Virginia, stories where we have two opposing female protagonists that are both sympathetic do exist! I am far from the show!Alicent's biggest fan - you might say, even, that I dislike her as a character. I am also very critical of the way she is written, which is a very different thing despite the fact that horizon-verizon seems chronically unable to make that distinction. That does not preclude me from admitting that show!Alicent's characterization is not, in principle, sexist. She's a complicated person who turns into a sympathetic antagonist of the story because of the maladaptive way she deals with her terrible situation. Now, you could argue the show suffers from severe lack of commitment to her antagonist role, making not just the feminist message, but the whole story suffer. And by "you", I mean "I, I actually think that". But that's not the same as denying there was a clear intent to portray show!Alicent as being, in fact, in the wrong. That's why I also dislike her as a character within the show, not just as a creation of bad writers.

Now, to summarize op's overly long points:

A) Basically just reiterating that book!Rhaenyra has characteristics that in a Madonna-Whore Dichotomy narrative would make her the unquestionable Whore. Which is true, I don't think there could be any argument against the fact that the Greens in-universe use the Madonna-Whore dichotomy to great effect and that this is very intentional on part of our author. What I am arguing is that Madonna-Whore Dichotomy is not in fact a necessary component of the Wicked Stepmother trope; they can be used together, but absolutely do not have to. But I'd like to have this discussion with someone that understands nuance and horizon-verizon is most definitely not that person.

B) Basically, horizon-verizon makes two points here and both are some of the most wrong-headed things I've ever heard. 1. Show!Alicent is only sympathetic because she is a victim of sexism and sexual assault. This is untrue because while yes, her characterization is INFORMED by the difficult situation she is in, the way she deals with this difficult situation is just as important. This point is kinda sensitive for me, because my Jaguś could be reduced in the exact same way. "Oh, she's only sympathetic because she's in love with a man she can't have and a victim of repeated sexual assault." You clowns. You absolute fucking fools. 2. As a result, show!Alicent is inherently more sympathetic and in the right than show!Rhaenyra. Which... No? Why would you think that??? Because it most certainly can't be because you've seen the fucking show. Like. The show literally spells out ALICENT IS WRONG in big bold letters during her confrontation with Rhaenyra! Again, you can argue that the show tries to nooance around her too hard and doesn't commit to the "antagonist" part of sympathetic antagonist bit. That's definitely a big flaw of the writing that should be criticized. But the intent was definitely there, visible to all but the most ardent Alicent fans and show haters to see!

C) Basically just reiterating that book!Alicent has characteristics that would make her the unquestionable Madonna in the traditional Madonna-Whore Dichotomy narrative, and how she subverts them (Note how they make no point about Rhaenyra's role as the Whore being subverted - perhaps by having a just cause despite everything? But who am I to tell them how to make their arguments?). Again, as I pointed A), true, but not really relevant.

Now to the core of my argument - I think the B) point is very illustrative of the kind of black-and-white thinking that horizon-verizon suffers from. Show!Alicent is portrayed sympathetically? Surely, you must mean that she's a poor little meow who never did anything wrong, innit? They do this. All. The. Damn. Time. Because of this, they also conflate writer mistakes and misinterpretations of canon by parts of the fandom into one big Wrong version of the story, as opposed to (their interpretation of) the book, which is, of course, the Right version. Now, I am as frustrated by the conflation of book and show as anyone, but the antidote to that isn't to put the book version on a pedestal and deny any and all merit the show writing has. And it most definitely doesn't mean you have to conjure out a moral justification for your opinion that the show has bad writing. Hell, *I* think the show has bad writing at times! And I totally get why you'd dislike the show for that alone! You don't have to make up reasons why the show isn't just bad, but morally wrong, when it isn't really! (Okay, it has some problematic points, but not those that horizon-verizon outlines in this post.)

*because horizon-verizon is well-known for their lack of reading comprehension and love of painting all of their opponents as reactionaries, let me spell it out for you: "bullshit social justice points" does not mean you can't hate a piece of media based on social justice points (see my beef with Death Note), it means horizon-verizon's social justice points are bullshit because of reasons outlined bellow

Ok I've rambled about this before but I want to do it once more.

You may need to sit down for this one but the Wicked Stepmother Trope is a reflection of very real life situations. There were and still are, "wicked" stepmothers. This is not just a stereotype. Irregardless of the societal reasons behind this (patriarchal structure of society), we cannot deny the fact that women, deprived of any real political power in the outside world, often abuse the little power they had inside their own household, at the detriment of other, weaker family members. Women are people, not holograms. Women historically had power however limited, and they too abused that power when they could, and they could do that against children because children are weaker. This is a centuries old societal problem that still exists today, especially in more traditional cultures. It is not mere construction. If you are not familiar with this issue, you have lived a very privileged life and I am happy for you.

However, let's suppose for a moment that the Wicked Stepmother Trope is indeed problematic and has a misogynistic nuance. I believe this is often the case and I will explain why.

If you want to deconstruct the Wicked Stepmother Trope, you have to be sure that there is a proper Wicked Stepmother Trope to begin with in the source material. You also have to make sure that the Wicked Stepmother Trope isn't already deconstructed in the source material. Which is EXACTLY the case in Fire and Blood.

So let's take a typical example of the Wicked Stepmother Trope : Cinderella. Let's compare Cinderella with Fire and Blood for a second.

There is no Wicked Stepmother resembling Cinderella's stepmother in Fire and Blood, for the simple reason that there is no Cinderella héroïne. What is a Cinderella héroïne : a passive, innocent, purely reactive girl, that patiently suffers and awaits for her Prince (a man) that will save her from her evil Stepmother (a woman). All these elements need to exist in order to talk about a proper Wicked Stepmother Trope. This trope gets this misogynistic nuance only when it is paralleled with the poor innocent fairytale heroine. It's the antithesis of the willful and driven woman that is punished in the end (stepmother) Vs the passive perfect feminine figure that is rewarded in the end (stepdaughter), that gives the Wicked Stepmother Trope the misogynistic nuance it has. And this is very important.

Now back to Fire and Blood.

Well, Rhaenyra isn't a Cinderella character at all. She is willful, she's radical, she claims her birthright, she makes mistakes, she dares, she goes against the status quo. She fits the stepdaughter role, and she too has a dashing Prince that tries to save her. Except that he doesn't. He dies, and so does she, horribly. She is not rewarded by patriarchy for her youth, beauty and submissiveness (very important factor if we wanna talk about misogyny in fairytales). Quite the contrary, SHE is punished by patriarchy.

Alicent fits the stepmother role, except that she doesn't fit the misogynistic Wicked Stepmother Trope because her punishment does not constitute an exemplary punishment for NOT being a Cinderella type of female. It's this juxtaposition to Cinderella that makes the trope misogynistic to begin with.

If anything, the Wicked Stepmother Trope is ALREADY deconstructed in the source material. By not respecting that, the writers achieved of course the contrary result : a deeply misogynistic narrative. Rhaenyra is basically a whore. The entire Dance stems from the fact that Rhaenyra had extramarital sex and that's it. That's literally it. The main antagonist was reduced to a rape victim, and had no ambition whatsoever. Since Rhaenyra wasn't a rape victim and had sexual freedom, morally she comes across as more ambiguous than the pure one dimensional victim that show!Alicent is. Rhaenyra had a choice, Alicent doesn't. So the whole BS that both women are equally victims of patriarchy comes at the expense of the actual female protagonist, the willful, daring, non-conforming female character trying to preserve her agency : Rhaenyra. It also comes at the expense of creating characters that feel real and consistent and are not just the product of a power-point on misogyny in uni.

Book!Alicent does not fit a stereotypical misogynistic Wicked Stepmother Trope, a trope whose main goal is to reward submissiveness and punish willfulness. It's already deconstructed in the source material. The author did all the work, all they had to do is copy it. They didn't, which is why we have takes like "oh if Rhaenyra didn't want to be burned alive she shouldn't have had a paramour in Court".