#joseph sugarman-jaehaerys is so good tho right next to joseph-tywin.

[atopvisenyashill]

As someone who has read Fire and Blood and watched Bojack Horseman, how would you compare Jaehaerys Targaryen to Joseph Sugarman?

that's a GENIUS comparison omg.

okay this is something i and a few of the oomfs have talked about, that like, viserys DOES have some culpability in the dance, obviously, but a lot of what he does is just him trying to replicate jaehaerys' approach - placate your annoying wife, isolate & bully the heir you don't like, and who really cares about who is sniffing around the heir you do like, that's someone else's problem. and that really reminds me of the way bojack horseman slowly peels back the layers over the years that the slow moving car crash of sarah lynn didn't start with bojack's failure to protect her, because bojack was failed as a child as well, but it didn't start with him either because look at what his parents went through, all going back to this insane business joseph sugarman who held the threat of lobotomy over beatrice's head, until beatrice becomes a different yet so similar sort of boogeyman to bojack (and bojack leads sarah lynn to her death).

it hits on that same theme that tyrion points out, one of my favorite lines in the series-

“It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.”

Bojack's issues with alcohol don't start with him; he's not leading Sarah Lynn down into a life of vice because he's actively trying to harm her. He was so young when he started drinking he barely even remembers when it started, barely remembers what its like to be sober anymore, and he got that from Beatrice (and his father) who were, just like him, drinking to forget the god awful things that happened, to forget how miserable they are; they aren't trying to fuck up Bojack's life either. And even Joseph Sugarman - he rushes Beatrice to the hospital, he's kind and affectionate to Honey early on in their marriage. He's not trying to destroy their lives, he's trying to get them to live what he feels is Their Best Life but he destroys them nonetheless with his casual and vicious cruelty! And I think that's a really good way of looking at the Dance - Rhaenyra and Aegon aren't trying to kick off a bloody war, they're mostly just doing what they're told by their counselors, and Alicent isn't aware of her hypocrisy here, she's just afraid for the lives of her children, and Viserys isn't actually trying to ruin the lives of his kids, he's doing what he's been taught! And who was he taught by? The boogeyman, Jaehaerys, who simply wants everyone to do what he says because he is the patriarch and he knows best. Like Joseph, he's not actually trying to destroy the lives of the women around him. And yet it's exactly what he does, and the affects of his behavior reverberate down the family tree.