#nettles' characterization

[horizon-verizon]

Nettles is Daemon’s daughter and absolutely no one can convince me otherwise. First of all, her personality is incredibly similar to Daemon’s mother, Alyssa, which I don’t think is a coincidence. Both are anything but refined and ladylike, Alyssa is “as bawdy a wench as any barmaid in King’s Landing, as she herself was fond of boasting”, Nettles is “a filthy girl with an even filthier mouth”, both are tearaway tomboys, they are both described as not conventionally attractive, Alyssa has a broken nose and mismatched eyes while Nettles has a scarred nose and crooked teeth. And not only Alyssa, but also Baelon’s bravery, bopping Balerion on the nose, Baela and Daemon’s personalities all echo in Nettles, particularly in how she tames Sheepstealer. There are too many similarities between them for it to be random.

Second of all, if we look at Daemon’s reaction to “Rhaenyra’s” letter, there’s something a lot of people miss:

The prince greeted me politely, but as he read I saw the joy go from his eyes, and a sadness descended upon him, like a weight too heavy to be borne. When the girl asked what was in the letter, he said, ‘A queen’s words, a whore’s work.’

He was happy when he got a letter from his queen and wife, but became very sad when he read its contents, he was crushed with grief. He then blamed Mysaria for the content of the letter. This reveals several things:

1. If he lost attraction to Rhaenyra and was cheating on her, why would he be happy to get her letter ?

2. If he didn’t care about Rhaenyra, why would he be sad instead of angry ? Why did he feel no guilt or shame, or try to cover up the truth if he was cheating ?

3. If all he wanted to do was control Rhaenyra as a puppet, if he only cared about himself having power, why didn’t he fly back to King’s Landing after letting Nettles escape and come up with a way to gaslight Rhaenyra, who at this point was beginning to lose her handle on King’s Landing ? Wouldn’t he have wanted to prioritize winning the war ? Persuade Rhaenyra to name their son Aegon heir instead of Joffrey ?

4. A “weight too heavy to be borne.” That isn’t the reaction of a man who got caught cheating and regrets it, it’s the reaction of a man devastated that his queen and wife lost faith in him and made him choose between her and his daughter.

He blames Mysaria for the letter, instead of getting angry at Rhaenyra herself. Why is that ? Because he lived with Rhaenyra in an unconventional joint family for a decade and yet Rhaenyra is unable to accept Nettles and doesn’t trust him anymore. Rhaenyra and Daemon raised all of their children together. He likely expected that he’d be able to officially introduce Nettles as his daughter after the war. But those plans were dashed terribly.

Yeah, it's exhausting to point out all of the things you say abt Mysaria, Nettles, and Daemon time and time again over the past few years to people. As for Nettles being Daemon's bio daughter, I truly believe in it. At first I was like "🤨" but then "🤔" and now I've been on board for a while. It just makes sense to me, esp when you contemplate that Daemon absolutely would have been sleeping around on Rhea while a few feet/miles from the Stepstones or slept with some pirate or whatever. And yes, it adds so much to see Nettles act Baela-Daemon-like or have more...room to behave contrary to the ideal "lady" when she's had to look out for herself perhaps from very young childhood.

[horizon-verizon]

Some team black people hate Daenerys and it makes no sense to me.

Most Important Part in discussing the Context of the Dance in Regards to Daenerys Stormborn:

Despite House Targaryen embracing the sexist Andal traditions about succession, the future of the house now rests on the shoulders of a woman....Not only that, but she awakened dragons from stone, thus beginning to heal the damage done by the Dance and the greens' misogyny.

As OP states, Rhaenyra should have been Queen. Two things can be true:

The same classist paradigm coming from the process of Targ assimilation & supplying the rationale for the greens's cause/that they use to usurp Rhaenyra is ALSO exactly what Rhaenyra came to rely on too much for power--shown through her quickened end in how she treated Nettles the way she does.

tweets come from former brideoffires:

Basically, like Nettles, Dany relied more on compassion & wit, and through these she will save the world, herself, and her own family legacy. Even though Rhaenyra, in a patriarchal world, had to appeal herself to men in some way to get them to fight for her own cause (as she does with Rosby & Stokeworth), this is different from the Nettles issue because she definitely had a freer choice there. To just believe Daemon and wait things out.

Yes, she was paranoid from:

2x child-loss grief

at least 2 betrayals from those who she had granted privileges & access to dragons

has had the anxiety of having to live with a whole faction plotting against her from childhood AND then when she likely thought things would go well for her, she was usurped

BUT

unlike the Rosby & Stokeworth deal, whether she killed Nettles or imprisoned the dragonseeds or not was not going to actually materially affect her ability to keep her throne. She went after Nettles & the dragonseeds leftover (Addam & Alyn Velaryon/of Hull) just to feel more in control. And it was the wrong, damning choice.

Dany will be that necessary healer & savior of both the general Targaryen error/wrongs AND Rhaenyra's complicity in that wrongdoing. We have a lot of paradoxes in GRRM's writing, and it's fun/rewarding to acknowledge them.

Rhaenyra's Victory

The "nobody won the Dance" argument is so ridiculous and just flat out wrong. Certain fans (read TG stans), constantly argue that, because Rhaenyra and Aegon both died, the Dance had no victor. GRRM clearly disputes this in both F&B and ASOIAF.

In F&B, the end of the Dance is clearly in favor of the Blacks, despite Rhaenyra's murder. Cregan Stark and the rest of the Black forces took KL, forced the last of the Green supporters to surrender, and placed Aegon III (Rhaenyra's oldest surviving child) on the throne. After that, the last of Aegon II's line died with Jaehaera, leaving Rhaenyra's as the only legitimate and surviving royal line. That means, in simple terms, Rhaenyra's family won the war. They were the survivors of the war and ruled for the rest of the Targaryen Dynasty.

Speaking of the rest of the dynasty, there's a second way GRRM makes Rhaenyra's victory clear, and that's through Daenerys Targaryen. Despite the Blacks winning the final conflict of the Dance, male primogeniture was accepted and reinforced throughout the following kings' reigns. Baela and Rhaena were passed over as options to be Aegon III's heirs before his marriage to Daenaera. Daena and her sisters were passed over in favor of Viserys II and his children. Vaella was dismissed in favor of Aegon V. The first woman to be named heir to the IT since Rhaenyra was Dany, something done purely because she was Viserys III's final surviving relative (no, the relatives in other houses don't count).

No matter the reason Dany was named as heir, she eventually succeeded her brother as the head of House Targaryen and the rightful ruler of Westeros. After becoming the head of the house, she awoke dragons from stone and became Khaleesi of her own Khalasar. Dany then began a conquest across Slaver's Bay and eventually conquered Meereen and became its queen. Thus she became a conqueror and queen in her own right.

Despite House Targaryen embracing the sexist Andal traditions about succession, the future of the house now rests on the shoulders of a woman. Dany is the final ruler belonging to the house, a queen regnant who overcame every man who stood in her way. Not only that, but she awakened dragons from stone, thus beginning to heal the damage done by the Dance and the greens' misogyny.

Dany, a woman, is the savior of House Targaryen and arguably one of its most powerful rulers to date. She not only is continuing its legacy, but is bettering it. Rhaenyra's legacy is her female descendant who will save not only the house but the whole goddamn world. Dany enacts radical social change in Essos, rules her city well (as much as she can with the slavers' interference), and brought dragons, the key to defeating the Others, back into the world. Daenerys is Rhaenyra's final victory over the greens' misogyny and treason.

[bohemian-nights]

People really are missing the point of a character like Nettles. Being the a non-Valyrian dragonrider is what makes her different(in every positive definition of that word) and helps to serve a larger purpose in this story.

Valyrian blood is not special. It’s not needed to do great things. No one is special because of what family they happen to be born into.

A non-Valyrian Nettles shows that we are more than the circumstances which we are born into. Our birth, our names, and our very blood does not define us. Our actions are what do. We can overcome so much and rise to become absolutely extraordinary with a little bit of determination, patience, and a dash of help along the way. Nettles exemplifies that to the fullest extent.

She's more than a Black Valryian. She doesn’t have to be Valyrian. She shouldn’t have to be Valyrian.

She’s a survivor. She’s a final girl. She’s a Black low-born girl likely without a drop of dragons blood that tames a wild dragon with patience that killed countless others who had dragons blood. She survived the Dance where others high and low alike fell and perished to become a firewitch to the Burned Men.

Her legacy is immortalized in the history books(and by the Burned Men cause they still worship her) as one of the last(if not the last) dragonrider(s) before Dany all without having any known Valyrian ancestry.

[ride-thedragon]

'Nettles characterization wouldn't work if she's older."

A smart, foul-mouthed, dirty, twenty five year old who manages to be the only person since Old Valyria to claim a wild dragon.

A thief and loner whose sexual promiscuity is built into the narrative.

A home rennovator and big sister type at the same time, in the same family...

Her knowing Marilda as a peer on Driftmark

Understanding her background through her well into adult mannerisms

Self preservation without kids at that age

Potential sapphic undertones

Daemon pulling someone age appropriate.

A woman in ASOIAF whose sexual relationships don't affect her innocence in the narrative and actively serves to save her.

What's not working?

Where is the Ayo casting announcement?

Are you not a Natasha Lyonne Fan?

Are you LGBT?

[navree]

i hate twitter i did NOT just see someone comparing jace and baela and rhaena to the conquerors, the disrespect

[horizon-verizon]

that part

Ryan did a bunch of interviews recently that I've been reading and I have some thoughts. You can find the interviews here and here.

There's a lot of terrible stuff in it but I don't have the time or inclination to bother with all that. I'm going to be focusing on two things he said in the interviews.

Starting with this from the House of the Dragon podcast which I've linked above.

In it, Ryan talks about why he decided to contrast the lives of Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White with the lives of the privileged Targaryens. It was fascinating to get a peek into his head.

Ryan reads a rapist and thinks "this is a person worth deepening. We need an in-depth exploration of what goes on in this rapists head. We need the audience to sympathise with them."

Which wouldn't be so bad on its face, there's always room to analyse a fictional rapist. The problem is that he then reads about a little Black girl who raised herself on a tiny island rising up to become a dragon rider on her own merit. A little girl whose Valyrian heritage is constantly debated and discounted. He reads that and decides that there's nothing worth exploring there. Her story isn't unique. She isn't unique. In fact, she's so common that while we adapt and humanise not one but two rapists, we're going to erase one Black girl and turn the other into everyone's punching bag.

Then I read his puff piece from Big Think.

This is a fascinating glimpse into his thought process. I read this and Ryan Condal's baffling decisions began to make a little more sense.

By his own admission, Ryan's ideal show is one where Black women are erased, flattened and ignored. He claims to write powerful women but we've not seen hide or hair of these women. In Ryan's show, nothing is ever deliberate and the women are largely passive participants in their own lives.

In Ryan's ideal show there's no room for a little black girl to claim a dragon with nothing but faith and her wits. In Ryan's ideal show we need all of the rapist men but the Black women are interchangeable AND replaceable.

In Ryan's ideal world, it is too much to ask that a Black girl be adored, have songs written about her and knights joust for her favour. In Ryan's ideal show, Black people aren't fully developed characters, they're props that he forgets about for episodes on end.

And that is why the show will continue to drop in ratings. When I saw the Nielsen numbers for the premiere, I laughed until I cried. The biggest streaming day ever for Max and they couldn't beat The Boys or Your Honour. The most recent numbers are even funnier.

But don't worry gang, House of the Dragon is doing great. It's now number three. It finally beat a four year old show! Everything is fine.

[horizon-verizon]

The only reason Nettles was cut was to give Rhaena some role, because she is useless throughout the entire dance and she appears for one minute at the very end. That's why they created a "conflict" between her and Daemon over a dragon.

You should block me anon, bc I disagree with this notion on mainly 3 accounts:

LINK (Rhaena's characterization and her role vs Nettles' during and after the war) -- no matter what, Nettles & Rhaena's stories are NOT interchangeable without destroying a lot of the lore and the connection to Dany they each have uniquely on their own…which is the point of F&B, to contextualize Dany's importance and character

the Dance is not just about the war but what lead up to it...GRRM himself has said he'd rather they began the show with Aemon & Baelon...that's a story right there even thought these 2 characters are not at all a part of the actual war. You have been fooled into believing the war is the only or primary event that created the characters instead of the characters making/creating the circumstances for the war...or you are one of those people who don't like to go over themes, can't stand non-war/violent/frenzied drama character action & development, and/or exploring-discovering depth & nuance in characters as they directly interact with their world and people (as Rhaena: schmoozing lords, getting to know how to rule or observe social situations from Jeyne, observe human behaviors and relationships through Jeyen-Jessamyne and develop a relationship with Corwyn Corbray so that when the war ends we can feel THAT much more broken over the end of her family and "what could have been"--OR her trying to find a way to hatch her dragon egg by looking for scrolls and such--- would/could have become--ALL of which is Rhaena is another link for Jeyne to Rhaenyra and Targ interests what present another layer of "women need to stick together" that Jeyne was canonically all about...there is an added layer of FAMILY & unity over and over again that the show simply refused or ignorantly didn't take advantage of).....in which case--as Condal might have missed hearing-- Go be with God. Nothing much else to say. You either are open to story, or you're just here "for a good time" and spectacle. In which case, don't claim spectacle = story and just be honest about it. To yourself and others.

With F&B, there are already storylines that anyone could have just "filled in" with plausible and lore/plot/character-faithful "elements" or "what could have happened" to connect the written plot events to each other in different ways and become diff trajectories of the same story; there are many ways that one could write the Dance while keeping the FACTUAL (as in they def happenid in Planetos and back then i the Dance era) events, their sequence, and the lore intact. Therefore, you could create a very round and interesting and full-of-heart story for Rhaena at the Vale, esp if you maybe included her also studying up on Valyrian stuff in her own attempts to hatch what would become Morning.

[blackcat419]

There is no story or logistic reason for Nettles to not be in HotD.

No excuse the creators will give will justify not including her.

Too many characters? Cut Ulf or Hugh, they’re the same guy

Her story line is unclear? Literally everyone has an unclear or incomplete story line. Ulf and Hugh don’t have characters beyond drunk brute and you gave them characterization!

Want Rhaena to have more of a plot? Then make up a plot for her! Give her the job of negotiating with Pentos or organizing the vale army.

The Velaryons are already black? Is there a limit on the number of black characters now?

Any excuse the show runners use is just their thinly vailed attempt to disguise their racism, misogyny, misogynoir, and classism.

[horizon-verizon]

By just the revelation told here about Nettles' purpose, yes I'd say that Nettles is very relevant. Dare I say, she is a pivotal character.

Even if you defined Nettles-the-person through her presence through her "making doubts in Daemyra's relationship", just by those words, you'd be saying that she is critical to the story. It is the final "doubts" of their relationship with Rhaenyra/in Rhaenyra's perspective/what Rhaenyra herself perceived that seals Rhaenyra's fate.

It is through the threat Rhaenyra saw in Nettles that Rhaenyra brings about the last few triggers of her own fall, the last moment of her tyranny, the last things that she unknowingly made turn against her. It is through Rhaenyra's belief in Nettles seducing Dameon away from her that Rhaenyra basically catalyzes her own, previously slower, loss of control. (told more about it HERE) Rhaenyra uses her class/position against Nettles to try to gain back a sense of political-social control that she's been struggling to maintain since she was at least 14--it's not just about "Daemon and I are soulmates".

It also reveals--sad to say it, but it is true--Rhaenyra tapping into a Targ-Andal blood purity and racism that has been there, latent, since Westeros' monarchy's inception even if not all Targs themselves are necessarily racist or blood purists like Alicent and the greens. Has to do with the Jezebel stereotype of black women, which you can find HERE in a Twitter thread I wrote.

I'd also argue that Hugh and Ulf biggest moments are them betraying Rhaenyra at Tumbleton and afterward they aren't that interesting aside from threatening Daeron which was bound to happen. And they also aren't mentioned much in the Battle of the Sowing aside from their gloating and celebrations...but we see Nettles have literal tears in her eyes at Jace's death. And yet this isn't enough to mark her as "special" by virtue of her being able to build unlikely connections or have compassion/sympathy for the unlikeliest of people (or dragons) or outliers. Funnily, she mirrors post-war Baela in this way, which lends some symbolic credence to the she-is-Daemon's bio-daughter theory.

Nettles is also not just her personal relationship with Daemon, but bigger pic wise, by managing to independently bond with Sheepstealer and gaining their trust she challenges the widely-held belief that 100% of the time, Targs are the only ones who can bond with dragons, even if we find out that she was Daemon's or any Targ's bastard daughter and thus already had an affinity with dragons that a Plumm in the main ASoIaF series said he had through one of his ancestors. ("Challenege" doesn't mean "prove", though. I'm sayin that she has poked readers' assumptions and gotten then to begin to think more critically or at least more curiously and maybe do some research. Always good.)

Not saying that anyone could bond w/dragons successfully (as the Sowing showed) and yes the Targs do have a special and magical bond with dragons that their ancestors likely engineered with actual blood magic for centuries to then make a material Valyrian ability...but Nettles's entrance into the Dance and physical nonconformity (whether a Seed or not) raises/reminds us of questions on just how organic the relationship b/t Targs and their dragons are and what are the parameters for such a bond. After the first "genetic engineering" (as that's the closest I can call it even though it's much more than that, given how Dany uses blood magic to revive decades-old dormant eggs, something that genetic engineering has yet to do with much more complex life forms), can this sort of bond be said to be "naturalized" like how we call blue eyes "natural" after it came as a mutation thousands of years ago? It even calls into question what exactly is "magic"?

Finally, if you truly think there isn't something racial going on in just the show, perhaps you are:

of the opinion that Laena and Daemon did not at least have read some romance in their marriage (I am a Daemyra, but to say there was no romantic love nor sexual attraction b/t Daemon and Laena is myopic), therefore Daemon not really having much chemistry or regard for Laena's feelings in the show is justified

used to Black women taking on most of the brunt of on-screen physical violence (Admittedly, I was one of those who didn't see the issue with this part until I was really confronted with it: Laena died surrounded by loved ones in canon, and did not ask to be literally burned alive as if this was in any way less painful or more "dignified" than dying in labor--btw, this idea is sexist, why is burning alive [sexless] more dignified than dying in labor? [female-exclusive]--AND when we go study immolation of women, it's usually a way to eradicate them after their husbands die, or at least this practice has the strongest history and value in such a purpose)

used to writers removing their biggest moments (claiming a dragon) while keeping the exact same kind of moment to the sexist-to-be-but-still-learning white kid (Laena vs Aemond, who do we see claim Vhagar? And how would have Aemond gotten on that dragon w/o the ropes we can surmise Laena wound around her to be able to climb up?); if we are truly pro-black faction, why wouldn't we want to see the mother of Daemon's first kids/Jace & Luke's future brides/Rhaenyra's best friend as a young girl claim the principal dragon before a black enemy/ a green child does?! Why isn't this exciting prospect, no...even a necessary one?!

ignoring how removing scenes where Baela self-asserts her desire to protect her family to Rhaenys...but leaving in the part where Vaemond kinda shuts her down in his confrontation with Rhaenys (and again, little to no lines as she gets older)

ignoring how older Rhaena literally has only 2-4 lines in the entire 1st season -- while you (OP) want Rhaena to have a stronger bond with Daemon in season 2, she won't bc she is being sent off to the Vale to wait out the entire war, and by the leaks, it seems she'll be sent off either early in one of the first 3 episodes....HotD lost their chance entirely when they only put in Daemon's seeming inability to relate to his daughter apparently bc she hasn't been able to hatch and bond w/her dragon...which looks worse when we know Viserys (Daemon & Rhaenyra's son) never ever hatched and bonded with his own--with how this show already made Daemon less gracious to his girls than he would have been, there is likely going to be a discrepancy in how he interacts w/Rhaena vs Viserys (hint: gender optics -> fan dissatisfaction caused by unprepared writing) -> Reminder, this season will only have 8 episodes to the last season's 10 so if they truly want to create a holistic story here and include Daemon actually bonding with his daughter, they'd better make 2-hr long episodes

don't put much stock into the Laena-Rhaenyra relationship of canon, which is also myopic bc it itself shows a form of female solidarity that some people thought was insufficient or self-contradictory in the show's Rhaenicent AND it is through their relationship that their kids are betrothed -> semi-/indication of matrifocality

I am just loving the so-called “concern” TG stans seem to suddenly have for Nettles being cut out of the show, seeing as how it was literally their only chance to make a dent in Daemyra.

“She was such an important character. Bla bla bla”

Was she really?

While reading the book I always got the impression that the only purpose in her character appearance was to create doubts in Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationship. Her only grand moment was the way she managed to claim Sheepstealer. Alys Rivers had more purpose in this story (and I don’t even like her).

Let’s be real here. Certain people wouldn’t have cared so much about her being cut out if she weren’t black. Choosing to not include her doesn’t make the writers racists, considering that they went against book!Canon and made the Velaryons as well as Daemon’s daughters black. And now we have another set of black characters coming in season 2: Addam and Alyn. In terms of representation, I think we’re good.

And seeing as how they might give her character ark to another black girl, Rhaena, you’re going to have to work real hard to convince people of any “racism” going on.

I am personally hoping the writers use this opportunity to have Daemon and Rhaena bond. Not to mention that her claiming a wild dragon would be a big 🖕to Aemond, as well as a reference to her conversation with her mother Laena in episode 6.

[whateverthought]

Oh, House of The Dragon is a feminist show? Team Black is a feminist team?

They wrote out Nettles, a canon black woman. They threw away Rhaena's storyline and subsequent characterization. They wrote out her storyline and replaced it with the canon black woman's storyline. Because Rhaena's a black woman in the show? Are they the same now? Because women's stories are interchangeable?

Rhaenyra has spent 5 episodes making no decisions during a War, they changed her grief from ugly and volatile and brutal to the more appropriate sad and weepy, as all good mothers should be.

They changed Laena's death so they can set a precedent for how honorable Rhaenyra's will be. To prop up a white woman. Why is her death not her own?

Daemon kills his wife, who he calls misogynist names constantly, by his own hand. No plausible deniability, no assassins, he's there. Why did they show it? A woman's death that was only implied to be his fault in the books, but they had to portray a woman's death. What did it accomplish? What did I have to see so bad? Is this Domestic Violence?

Both Daemon and Rhaenyra have sex on the day of Laena's funeral, with her family in the building, including her grieving daughters. And then they get married that week. That was his wife, mother of his children, someone whose death brought him to tears. Even if Rhaenyra isn't friends with her in the show canon, she should have some respect for this woman. Do they not honor the dead in Westeros? Do they not have mourning periods? Religion or not, her body was closer to the castle than it was the bottom of the sea. Why did she have three actresses? Why did she have an extra growth spurt? Why was her adult actress significantly older than both Alicente and Rhaenyra's? Wasn't she younger?

Why does Baela only support Jacaerys but not her sister? Why does Baela talk about Rhaenys but not her mother? Because her father has a new wife? Why does Rhaenyra care if Helaena was hurt or scarred by Jaehaerys death when they don't interact at all? Because she's a mother too? Does that make her saintly now? Was Rhaenys not a mother when she wanted Laenor dead? At his sister's, her daughter's funeral. How does she know Helaena is an innocent? How can Rhaenyra be ambitious enough for the throne, how can Alicente be a silver-tongued usurper but not Helaena? Why doesn't Rhaenyra have female friendships? Why are all her female conversations only about making her queen and the war? No wonder people ship Alicente/Rhaenyra

[certifiedskywalker]

Three Weddings and Your Funeral (Part 2) - Daemon Targaryen

Anonymous asked: Hi certi, how are you ? I love all you're stories and most you do daemon targaryen characterization justice could you do second part  to Three Weddings and Your Funeral - Daemon Targaryen ?

Before the Dance of Dragons, there was another waltz. You and Daemon Targaryen were always drifting in and out, always spinning about one another without moving at all. Your dance of stillness stretched across the continent; but you thought you ended that dance long ago…Daemon, as always, had other ideas.

Part One

A twig splintered beneath your foot with a sharp, ear-tingling snap. At the sound, you caught your loud, ragged breath in your throat, careful not to add insult to self-inflicted injury. You let your gaze fall to the split thing under your shoe and cursed it in the quiet of your mind before daring to look back up towards the abandoned fishing hut. The storm-toppled tree branch that split its planks would be a warning realized too late. When you did look, its foreshadowing was the furthest from your attention.

“I thought I taught you better,” Daemon chided, slinking out of the shadows cast by the hut. His dark armor and silver hair glinted in the moonlight. Under its glow, he was alive and rippling like the bay waves that lapped quietly at the shoreline. One step in the wrong direction and you would be overcome: dragged under and drowned in him. It didn’t help that his eyes moved like the tide too: wishing and washing up and down your frame. “You look well.”

You swallowed after a long moment, forcing the caught breath into your lungs. “Sneaking about King’s Landing in your shadow hardly constitutes a lesson.”

Daemon hummed, the sound light and affirming, tilted up like the start of a dear song; and there you were, being lulled into the warm ease of familiarity. No, nothing about being familiar with Daemon was warm or easy. It was sweltering and you had somehow forgotten about the heat. It returned to you then, and the memory stung with vengeance. 

“What are you doing here?” Your voice did not waver with the question, which surprised you. Perhaps time weakened Daemon’s ability to drag you under. 

“I could ask the same of you,” he countered. The closed-lip smirk etched onto his features was unmoved by your bravery. “You sent word.”

“And you listened, after all this time.” Daemon lingered in his spot in the sand before he stepped towards you, his expression becoming clearer and all the more taunting. It was as if he knew how you, just hours before, had clutched the parchment and traced his lettering. “Did you ever stop listening?”

Nettle-like memories again: endless, stinging flashes of tourneys and weddings spent at Daemon’s side. So many years spent biding by his beck and call like a hound eager to please. What did you have to show for your dedication? A single kiss, before being left entirely to fend for yourself. How you had loathed his silence then; but, with him stood just a pace away, you found yourself unwilling to give him the satisfaction of the truth.

So, you ignored him and asked again, this time through gritted teeth: “What are you doing here?” 

Daemon cocked his head, his smirk widening ever-so-slightly, and stepped towards you until he was only an arm's length from you.

“Why?”

“Why?” 

“Why did you come to meet me here?” His eyes were dark but not like the pitch night about you. The fire in him shone through as it always had, but it was dimmer than you remembered. At your last meeting, his gaze had been wild, spitting like coals needing air…needing you, however briefly. What had he blamed then?

“Impulse.”

With the word, memory stung Daemon too. His smirk melted into the lines on his face, some old and others new. Impulse made your hand twitch with an itch to reach up and be taken under his current. Then, you could learn those new lines and trace them as you had with his lettering. 

You managed to still yourself, curling your fingers into tight fists. Daemon’s gaze flicked your hands before it settled on your face with a gripping cold. His scowl-stuck lips parted, sealed, then parted again, a hesitation that had you almost gleeful. At long last, you had knocked him off balance; though, he eventually found his words.

“You married,” he snapped, his tone icy and startling, and suddenly you were the one careening. He leaned in, his eyes searching yours for…what you were unsure. “Did you not think I heard?”

Your marriage into House Cox of Saltpans had been no great news, hardly news at all. It, like many a marriage, was strategic: safety from dancing dragons seemed a better bet in the far, underfed reaches of the Riverlands. 

Saltpans was a quality choice in that regard, having been stymied long ago by men who called themselves River Kings and ruled the Bay of Crabs by boat before Aegon conquered by dragon. Left charterless, the town never sprawled into a city, and trade, while present, was limited to the sweet meat of pygmy crabs and seashell beads carved by those living nearer to the Trident. With such limitations, House Cox, as the town’s stewards, had few arms to provide to the war effort, an insufficiency that left it rather uninvolved in combat. 

At most, what you heard of the Blacks and Greens was the distant roars of whichever Targaryen most recently claimed the ruins of Harrenhal. Though, it seemed that relative, personal peace had worn out. The wave of dread that accompanied that realization washed your mind clean enough to clarify the object of Daemon’s searching eyes. How could you?

“I am married,” you replied, your voice barely above a murmur, “as are you, thrice over.”

Daemon scoffed, letting his face turn down and to the side.

“Did you truly expect me to wait for you after all that happened?” 

“Do not think me so foolish,” he snapped, his head lifting to meet your gaze. In his eyes then, you saw the Daemon so many feared, the worst of the man you had loved for so long.

“I knew you to be so foolish, or at least so cruel as to expect that of me.”

“Yes, so cruel,” he stepped towards you as he spoke, his boots sinking to the sand with such heated anger that you were surprised the grains did not turn to glass beneath him. “Cruel, yet I have kept my promise. You, your Lord, and these wretched reaches of the Riverlands have been spared dragon fire. Do you think that was by fate? By the Old fucking Gods?”

He was close enough to you then that his breath kissed the peaks of your face, just as it had so many years ago, on another beach, when he told you of his intentions with Rhaenyra. The aching depth of feeling then… It welled up inside you and spilled onto your lips. “Daemon-”

“It was me,” he finished, his nose nearly knocking yours as he leaned closer. “Nyke jāhor daor ivestragī ao zālagon, and you have not burned.”

Daemon smelled of dragon and sweat, and there was the swelter again. Perhaps it was that familiar heat that pushed you to take that one, drowning step, or maybe you were just exhausted by a dance you thought ended years ago. As if you were with Caraxes, you reached a careful hand up to test the heat of the air about his face. Your palm was immediately met with warmth and Daemon’s cheek as he pressed his face into your skin. 

Your breath hitched at the feeling, but your thumb traced the peak of his cheekbone with a gentleness you feared you had lost when you lost Daemon. Comforted and angling for a different approach, you asked your first question again, gentler than before: “Is that what brought you here?”

Daemon merely closed his eyes and pressed his face harder in your touch. So, you asked another way: “Were you compelled by another impulse to tell me, again, that you have danced about me without my knowing? You have known where I was since my leaving you and, again, shielded me from the hard truth?”

“From war,” he murmured, the edge of his lips tickling your palm.

“The truth,” you asserted, and before he protested, you continued. “How?”

Daemon’s eyes fluttered open and it was as if you were children again, before weddings and feelings and knowing. “When I first took Harrenhal for Rhaenyra. I heard of your marriage from the Strong’s there and sent to have eyes on you.”

“By your own admittance, House Cox is removed from your war. There are no spies here in Saltpans.”

“Anyone can be bought,” Daemon answered, much too simply. 

His features went startlingly grey as if remembering a time buried under the sea’s stone bottom, and his eyes fell past you, seeing through the sediment of time. Just like that, Daemon was far from you again. Within your grasp yet entirely out of reach; but there were no arms of another brilliant bride for him to run into. He was, for however long you could stretch this moment, only with you, and how right that felt.

Right, but you knew that, with all he had confessed, you should feel violated, exposed. You should be scathing and demanding an apology. No, you should be demanding that he leave. You and Daemon were married after all, not to each other. Never to each other.

That thought, as it always had, pulled you out from under the tide of him. “You did not answer my question.”

“I did,” he said, his voice alarmingly soft as his gaze flitted back to you. “I have protected y-”

“No, Daemon,” you interrupted, your hand falling from his face. He went rigid immediately, his posture straightening as if shocked by a stabbing blade. The heat of him lingered, but the comfort you had taken in it was gone. “Why are you here, after all this time and everything you have done? If you knew I was here for so long, why not come to me sooner?”

Daemon just stared at you, his sharp eyes and features unyielding. You drank in the sight of his steadfast expression, unsure of how long it would be before you saw it again and too sure that Daemon would leave without giving even a moment’s notice. It was then you saw his armor again, but this time, you saw past the shine of it. You saw the scorch marks, the scratches, each new, like the line in his face. A different sort of heat rushed like a wave against you, nearly knocking you over.

When you looked up at Daemon again, tears stinging in your eyes, he knew that you understood. “I’ve come to take Harrenhal for the last time.”

“The last time,” you echoed grimly, your tears falling freely.

“I wrote to you and then to Green’s own kinslayer,” he winced as if the word struck him before pivoting in his speech. “I am to face Aemond.”

Then, it was your eyes that searched Daemon’s. Your object: fear. When you found no trace, more tears streamed down your cheeks, but Daemon quickly raised a hand to wipe them away. Despite the tenderness of his touch, the pad of his thumb was rough against the apples of your cheeks. Had he ever been soft? You couldn’t recall a time he wasn’t all rough edges.

“He will have Vhagar,” you murmured as the tips of his fingers skimmed the edge of your lips.

“And I will have Caraxes.”

“Daemon, he is swift and fiery, but Vhagar is-”

“I know,” he interrupted, his hand cupping your face. His thumb rubbed against your cheek and, despite the shadowy loom of a stacked fight, Daemon smiled. “Do you remember our first meeting?”

All thoughts that consumed you were of your last meeting, your parting words a terrible echo in your skull…it will be your funeral. How could he be smiling?

“It was Viserys and Aemma’s wedding,” Daemon pressed on, “and you were waltzing with some hoary goat. Do you remember?”

You stared at Daemon, trying to place his smile and intent. Your funeral. You shook your head as you were unable to think of anything else but Daemon’s doom.

“Old fool kept leaning on you. Too frail maybe, or ripe with lust, I never did know which. All I knew is that I needed y- I needed to intervene,” Daemon cocked his head and leaned towards you. His breath fanned across your face as he asked in a whisper: “Do you remember how?”

The question had you drowning in him as if it were the first time. “You came in like the sea and washed me away into the rest of the waltz. You led,” you sniffled through a bitter smile, “rather poorly, I recall.”

“Yes, well, if you recall, I despise weddings. I never intended on enjoying myself, it jarred me.” Daemon brushed the tips of his fingers through your hair slowly, savoring the feel of those strands of you against his skin. “Though, I do like to think we have been dancing ever since then. Married in our own way, without the garish decor and ghoulish crowd.”

“Daemon-”

“So, if you find it in yourself, I would like to dance a touch longer.” He took a step back and let his hand slip from your face just to let it hang in the air between you. An offering you could not refuse.  

The time for words having passed, you took Daemon’s hand and let him lead you until dawn broke at the edge of the Bay of Crabs. When the first rays of Sun kissed the sand, he let the hand holding yours fall while the other remained wrapped about your waist. He pulled you against him until you were sharing the same air, and you could not imagine a day to come where you did share the world with him.

“I cannot turn from you again,” you whispered, your lips brushing against Daemon’s as you spoke. His hand held you tighter.

“You will not have to,” he replied, before kissing you at last. There was no rush to his kiss, despite the distant cries of a battle-hungry Caraxes. There was only Daemon’s last, perhaps only, bit of softness; saved for you. Lips still locked, he spun you in the sand. 

When you parted and opened your eyes, you saw, past Daemon’s shoulder, the shoreline castle seat of House Cox. Quickly, you refocused on the man before you, wishing you could drown in the pools of his eyes as you had done in the past, in those moments that stretched just long enough. All steps in our dance.

“I’ll go,” Daemon said, his tone gentle but his words an order. “Then, after a while, you will go.”

“What if I do not listen this time?”

Daemon let out a breath of a laugh, one heavy with knowing but sweet enough to make you hope. Perhaps you were the fool. “We both know that you will.” “Just this last time,” you murmured. “After this, you are to listen to me.”

“Of course, issa jorrāelagon,” Daemon leaned up and kissed your forehead. The swelter eased with the act and you felt your stomach twist. He took a step back and smiled. “Of course.”

Then, Daemon Targaryen kept his last promise to you: he turned away. 

[visenyaism]

what triggered the daemon riverlands suicide bender again? like did he have a falling out with rhaenyra?

well the book doesn’t say a ton about what happened between them and it’s all made more confusing by the fake historical perspective and weird misogynistic characterization of rhaenyra and mysaria but. fire and blood unserious as it is establishes basically this sequence of events:

-once daemon and rhaenyra get to king’s landing he brings mysaria to court. they’re fucking every night which rhaenyra is seemingly fine with (surprisingly this bit is not a mushroom quote)

-rhaenyra makes a plan to end the war that includes daemon and nettles going and finding aemond in the riverlands to go kill him. unclear whose idea this was or whose idea it was to bring nettles also.

-daemon and nettles hole up in maidenpool because they can’t seem to find the worlds largest dragon actively terrorizing the countryside anywhere. they are weirdly close. because he’s grooming her. they cannot find aemond so theyre stuck like this for weeks. in my mind this is where daemon starts to lose the plot and just not have an exit strategy.

-two of the other dragonseeds betray rhaenyra and join up with daeron the not appearing in this narrative to sack tumbleton. rhaenyra reacts by charging up about 5% of the bastardphobia within the heart of the average team green twitter user and is like okay they are treacherous and base due to their bastard nature they all have to die right now.

-including nettles. rhaenyra sends a letter to the lord of maidenpool saying hey you have to kill this child my husband is obsessed with who is living under your roof i don’t care about guest rite i don’t care about him retaliating against you for this i am literally the king you gotta do it. don’t kill daemon though. xx rhaenyra

-this alienates daemon from rhaenyra permanently though he does take the time to call mysaria a whore and blame her for this too. what an upstanding guy.

-anyways the next morning nettles takes off out of the narrative on her lonesome and daemon tells the lord of maidenpool “this is the last you are ever going to see of me. tell aemond i’m at harrenhal” we can tell at this point there is no exit strategy but for:

-daemon engages in murder-suicide with his nephew who thinks they’re having a fight.

what do we learn about daemon from this? well that he has problems and also doesn’t ever have a long term plan

[bohemian-nights]

In defense of Nettles innocence 🐑

Unpopular opinions coming through, Nettles is one of the most innocent characters during the Dance.

Every account of her being “less than innocent” comes from biased sources(the chroniclers) that don’t think that a lowborn girl, especially a homeless Black lowborn girl with a prostitute for a mother who’s had to steal for her supper, can be innocent. She’s simply not allowed to be innocent(other than acknowledging that the execution orders for her were wrong) based on the boxes that she’s been put into.

When you are dealing with a character like Netty you can't take one action in a vacuum. You have to cipher through the biased accounts and take into her entire life story to see who she is. When you actually look at her you have a girl who still possesses a great deal of empathy and compassion despite everything she’s been through and she’s been through a lot.

We never see her harming innocents. During the Battle of the Gullet, we see her defending her home(Driftmark) from the Triarchy:

The civilian casualties came from the Triarchy’s end, not Nettles and Sheepstealer who had come in to attack their ships at sea after they(the Triarchy) had already attacked Driftmark. Nettles never rained “fire and blood” down on the innocent people of Driftmark. She had only come in to protect them.

Furthermore, she shows great empathy when Jace a boy she barely knew was killed before his time during the battle. She mourns for his loss and sacrifice(in conjecture with witnessing the overall destruction of her home).

When the Blacks take the capital, shes not raining down fire balls, she literally just lands her dragon on Visenya’s Hill:

She isn’t a warmonger, or a war criminal, and while she’s technically a soldier, we don’t see her harming any civilians or instigating any fights. She sees very little combat and she’s not terrorizing everyday citizens.

Now onto her “innocence” or lack thereof. If she was forced to prostitute herself(aka if you believe that she’s not a maiden) then it’s most certainly not because she wanted to:

Her losing her virginity isn’t an empowering moment. It’s not a moment we should look onto to show she’s got agency or control or God forbid that she’s a wanton Jezebel. It’s a moment where we see just how dire her circumstances were. We can see how Westeros society harms girls like Nettles and leaves them vulnerable to abuse.

Nettles isn’t willingly having sex(we’ve got no indication of her having normal sexual relations with a lover, with the exception of Daemon, only that she potentially trades sex to feed her belly).

She's not some liberated medieval woman who because of her low status in society has sexual freedom. She’s not choosing to f*ck. That’s not what is happening here. It’s about survival plain and simple. In a world where women do not have many options and lowborn women even less, this is her only option. The option being rape(because again this isn’t something she wants).

She’s potentially a victim of pedophilic rapists. She would’ve forced herself to endure rape when she was a child as young as 9 all to feed herself. The act of losing her innocence is a sin on her abusers and not on her.

Let’s talk about her relationship with Daemon Targaryen. The most “villainous” thing she does is sleep with a man, Daemon, in an open marriage:

A man with whom she finds some amount of happiness (and she’s gotten so little of that). A relationship that hurts no one except her when it’s cruelly ripped away from her (and leaves her reeling in the aftermath because unfortunately, she’s the innocent who suffers from loving a man like Daemon).

In her other sexual dealings(her rape) she isn’t willingly choosing the course of action she’s taking. She’s doing so to survive, but with Daemon for the first time in her life, it’s not only about survival. It’s about her joy. This is what she wants and she puts herself and has someone who is willing to put her needs first.

As far as her slaughtering sheep and symbolism go, the sheep are more so a metaphor for herself. The sheep are her, not her victims or her sins. She's the lamb for slaughter. She's the innocent who is destroyed and transformed by others' sins to

Slaughtering the black ram(which symbolizes strength, determination, and triumph over one’s enemies) when she leaves Daemon marks her final transformation, because up until then I think she had hope and had found some happiness/peace in where she was. She is still a seed sprouting.

However, the last shred of what was is taken away with her execution orders. She therefore grows as a person. She’s overcome what has been thrown at her to come into her own. She is not beholden to anyone. She's her own woman. Yet at the same time, she’s still the same empathetic fearless Netty that she was. Those demons who sought to destroy her did not break her spirit. She's just been freed from them.

At the end of the day, Nettles is just a young woman who’s been dealt an unfair hand in life but still manages to rise above it all and never impart harm on a world that has harmed her.

She’s a scrappy girl who has to do what she has to, but she's not a “bad girl.” She hasn’t done anything reckless or harmful enough(any time she attacks, or steals, or whatever it’s in self-defense) to be considered a “bad girl” (which is why I find the accusation that she is downright untrue when you look at her character's actions) or that she’s even “morally gray” or a “wayward girl.” I think she’s an all around good person who hasn’t done anything fundamentally wrong especially considering the world she lives in.

Nettles is well within her rights to exact some vengeance on a world that has shown her nothing but cruelty and contempt, but when it’s all said and done what does she do? She chooses to lead a quiet life away from it all. She isolates herself and shuns polite society. She chooses peace and solitude rather than violence.

Does Nettles have to be an innocent character? No, but leading with the argument that she’s somehow a deeply flawed character who’s not a innocent to prove a point that you can do bad things and still deserve sympathy which is an important point to make, but it isn’t telling her story. There are plenty of characters throughout the Dance who are less than innocent that you can sympathize with, Nettles, however, isn’t one of them.

I think it’s a cop-out to say that Nettles isn’t innocent because that’s how the world, both ours and in universe, sees her. She’s not a mother whose innocent child has been unjustly murdered right before her eyes, or a little girl who witnessed her family killing each other, and she’s not one of the faceless victims of the Dance. She doesn’t have blonde hair or pale skin.

Physically, she’s not what we think of when we think of “innocent” and that blinds our own opinions of her and her story despite who she’s shown to be.

It takes more to see past our biases, to take off the goggles, and to truly recognize that she’s not a corrupted person than to say that she’s innocent because that is what we see when we look at her.

We don’t recognize that someone like Nettles is one of the innocents whose life was almost destroyed by the destruction around her. We don’t see that she is unquestionably a good girl who has a lot of garbage thrown her way but manages to rise above it and not sink into its depravity because that is not what we have been taught to see.

Instead, we see the less-than-innocent girl who while she did not deserve to be murdered, she still has something about her that leaves one feeling like she is tainted.

[jacaela]

Of all people, these two idiots decided to make Jace out to be a hater of the idea of ​​bastards having dragons, and a smallfolk's hater. He always had good relationship with his mother, nobles and commoners. He was the one who came up with the idea of ​​putting bastards on dragons, not Mysaria. Jace is so good that dumb and dumber 2.0 decided to completely dismantle his character, they will give his characterization to the tent boy.

Not all those who came forward in answer to the prince’s call were seeds, nor even the sons or grandsons of seeds. A score of the queen’s own household knights offered themselves as dragonriders, amongst them the Lord Commander of her Queensguard, Ser Steffon Darklyn, along with squires, scullions, sailors, men-at-arms, mummers, and two maids. “The Sowing of the Seeds,” Munkun names the triumphs and tragedies that ensued (crediting the notion to Jacaerys himself, not Mushroom). That Addam and Alyn were dragonseed no man who looked upon them could doubt, though their mother steadfastly refused to name their father. Only when Prince Jacaerys put out the call for new dragonriders did Marilda at last break her silence, claiming both boys were the natural sons of the late Ser Laenor Velaryon. None dared name her liar, however…for it was Laenor’s own father, Lord Corlys himself, who brought the boys to Prince Jacaerys for the Sowing. Having outlived all of his children and suffered the betrayal of his nephews and cousins, the Sea Snake seemed more than eager to accept these newfound grandsons. Not long after Addam of Hull had proved himself by flying Seasmoke, Lord Corlys went so far as to petition Queen Rhaenyra to remove the taint of bastardy from him and his brother. When Prince Jacaerys added his voice to the request, the queen complied. Addam of Hull, dragonseed and bastard, became Addam Velaryon, heir to Driftmark. Yet none of these losses were felt so deeply as that of Jacaerys Velaryon, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne. It is written that when the Sea Snake was congratulated on his victory, the old man said, “If this be victory, I pray I never win another.” The girl Nettles did not share their celebrations. She had flown with the others, fought as bravely, burned and killed as they had, but her face was black with smoke and streaked with tears when she returned to Dragonstone.

Though his fifteenth nameday was still half a year away, Prince Jacaerys had proved himself a man, and a worthy heir to the Iron Throne.

[ride-thedragon]

My Characterization of Nettles.

I saw it come up that she's often mischaracterised, and rather than thinking about it throughly, I decide to take it as a criticism of the people who go out of their way to write her with broken English (I speak in my dialect so it's especially strange seeing some form of it written) and entirely childish, ignoring the fact that she's, smart and lived alone in a classist society, surviving so long by herself.

I also want to justify my own characterization because I think it's a bit different.

So the way I think about her is a smart, mouthy girl. She speaks well enough. She picks up different cultural slang and languages from around Driftmark, and her naiveté only shows itself with her actual age. She's at the age where most people question the systems that harm them, and as a brown skin, poor person in this world, she'd be in a unique position. She overcompensates for it, though. She doesn't let it show as much.

I think she's a quick thinker and fast learner as well. She observed the way Sheepstealer was interacting with people and saw the only thing he'd bend for, using it to her advantage. So, while Daemon is teaching her these things, she's actually responding to it.

She's a bit inquisitive as well. She cares to understand what she has to do before she does it.

Now, the mouthy part comes into how I think she earned the foul-mouthed reputation. She doesn't code switch while interacting with anyone. Say how she'd talk to Jace and a bar maid it doesn't change. She knows she can, but she doesn't want to. She speaks with the common tongue well enough, but she doesn't speak in the manner of someone who's talking to a prince and ladies.

It's genuinely vile things that shouldn't be said as well as just cursing.

Now, the next part is tied to her alleged love interest, Daemon. But I think she can be a very disagreeable person when she wants to be. It's not something that has helped her, but it is the reason why she doesn't have a lot of people around her early on. Daemon tends to like strong personalities.

She doesn't deal with authority well. That's just based on the fact that she's been alone for so long, with no one going out of their way to treat her like her age.

The innocence of her character is something I tend to disagree with a lot as well. She would hurt a fly, she'd kill a sheep, and she was raised on the streets of Driftmark. The moral pillar of innocence, like being overly trusting and caring, is a strange thing to apply to her.

She isn't a pious person. I know this part is strange, but in a world like Westeros, where sex is a form of currency, especially for non royal/rich women, I think she's had a few sexual encounters. Now I love the avoiding brothel work characterization, but I don't think commodifying sex is such an out of place thing for a girl in her position, it was a learning curve for figuring her way in the world without a big concequence like a kid. ( A small headcanon is that she fell for a bard from essos once, like a crush a young girl typically has).

I think her grief over Jace came from a place of bonding and putting her trust in someone for the first time and losing them so violently. Most people, unless they are victims of propaganda like Mr Jamie Lannister, don't want to fight in a war. During the fight, bodies are burned and piled, and entire ports are left burned and filled with ash. We see the Driftmark Characters have a distinct reaction for participating in the war that burned the place they were raised. Nettles has a lot of blood on her hands.

She has no one to confide that in.

I think after that, she gets a lot more agreeable because no one is looking out for her. It's a dangerous place to occupy, Rhaneyra is hardened by Jace’s death,and is killing people left and right for treason, that's terrifying.

Thankfully, she's sent away with a stranger who's dealing with the same shared grief that she has. She's been at the brunt of them losing two more kids and has just lost her home.

She's also sent away in a very similar situation to what had her crying on Driftmark. She has to see what Aemond is doing to the Riverlands after the Battle of the Gullet. She has someone to lean on, though, seeing as she gets really close to Daemon.

Close enough that her life being called for by the ruler of the seven kingdoms is put at the same risk factor as killing her and him finding out.

I genuinely think she becomes very similar to the person she was before which is why......

Lastly, she doesn't willingly leave. This is attributed to the tears, but I think Daemon lied and said he'd return to his family. That he wouldn't fight Vhagar. I don't think she'd allow him to sacrifice himself in that way.

All of this is speculation based on a character we don't know, so if it seems strange, that's fair.

[horizon-verizon]

This is what Gyldayn, the writer of Fire and Blood and its sections about the Dance says about the rumors and belief of Daemon and Nettles’ relationship:

Though the years had thickened the body that had been so lithe and lissome, Prince Daemon remained in her thrall, and called upon her every evening…with Queen Rhaenyra’s apparent blessing. “Let Daemon slake his hungers where he will,” she is reported to have said, “and we shall do the same.” (Septon Eustace suggests somewhat waspishly that Her Grace’s own hungers were slaked largely with sweetmeats, cakes, and lamprey pie, as Rhaenyra grew ever more stout during her days in King’s Landing.)

(Fire and Blood; “Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

–AND–

How much credence can we give the fool’s testimony? Nettles was no more than ten-and-seven [17], Prince Daemon nine-and-forty [49], yet the power young maidens exert over older men is well-known. Daemon Targaryen was not a faithful consort to the queen, we know. Even our normally reticent Septon Eustace writes of his nightly visits to Lady Mysaria, whose bed he oft shared whilst at court…with the queen’s blessing, purportedly. Nor should it be forgotten that during his youth, every brothel keeper in King’s Landing knew that Lord Flea Bottom took an especial delight in maidens, and kept aside the youngest, prettiest, and more innocent of their new girls for him to deflower.

The girl Nettles was young, beyond a doubt (though perhaps not as young as those the prince had debauched in his youth), but it seems doubtful that she was a true maiden. Growing up homeless, motherless, and penniless on the streets of Spicetown and Hull, she would most likely have surrendered her innocence not long after her first flowering (if not before), in return for half a groat or a crust of bread. And the sheep she fed to Sheepstealer to bind him to her…how would she have come by those, if not by lifting her skirts for some shepherd? Nor could Netty truly be called pretty. “A skinny brown girl on a skinny brown dragon,” writes Munkun in his True Telling (though he never saw her). Septon Eustace says her teeth were crooked, her nose scarred where it had once been slit for thieving. Hardly a likely paramour for a prince, one would think.

(Fire and Blood; “Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

The passages are rife with misogyny and dismissals or ignorance of how Daemon and Rhaenyra might have lived together on Dragonstone for years without there ever having been evidence of Daemon skipping around the fishing villages around Dragonstone or going to Spicetown/Hull for some sexy fun times. And how that would have changed after Rhaenyra lost her sons, was betrayed by the dragonseeds Ulf the White and Hugh the Hammer, King’s Landing erupting against her, so on so forth.

Daemon’s Reputation vs His Life Away From King’s Landing

The people who Gyldayn refers to–“every brothel keeper in King’s Landing”–haven’t seen  the man in years. What do they know about him now? (Again, no evidence or suggestion that he went away to have sex with other women before Rhaenyra took King’s Landing).

How do we know that Daemon didn’t like Rhaenyra’s shape?

There are so many assumptions being made here without a full and comparative element. 

And how much power does a young peasant girl really have over Daemon–of all people–instead of the other way round?! 

Nettles

Nettles, from what little we know of her, seems very practical, patient, and brave. And if she did do sex work, then it was clearly acts of self preservation. But it seems like Gyldayn is going off of the belief that the lack of virginity is not an attractive quality–he goes on to list all the ways how Nettles couldn’t possibly be attractive to Daemon based more on traditional ideals of Westerosi feminine beauty. It serves to yes lay Daemon off of infidelity, but does it by making Nettles undesirable period.

Being alone for a while–thus showing how resourceful she is–why would Nettles risk self-preservation to mess with the person who’s allowing her to roam and prove herself by fighting for her? If Nettles becomes a sort of aide to Rhaenyra, then the problem she presents to Rhaenyra and the Targ’s power can be morphed into her being a Targ agent.

It’s in Nettles’ best interest to be on Rhaenyra’s best side, obey her, and to make herself useful, which would be another point of her and Daemon going to find and confront Aemond together.

Prince Daemon himself would take Caraxes to the Trident, together with the girl Nettles and Sheepstealer, to find Prince Aemond and Vhagar and put an end to them. Ulf White and Hard Hugh Hammer would fly to Tumbleton, some fifty leagues southwest of King’s Landing, the last leal stronghold between Lord Hightower and the city, to assist in the defense of the town and castle and destroy Prince Daeron and Tessarion.

(Fire and Blood; “Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

This is an opportunity that most in Nettles’ position wouldn’t smartly give up and I do not think she was as stupid or swaggery as the two treacherous dragonseeeds. I think she’d be what some people call “humble”, but is really her choosing not to rock any more boats than she needs to and prioritizing survival.

Rhaenyra

Mysaria was not a virgin or “beautiful” anymore by Gyldayn’s/Septon Eustace’s standards yet they ascertain that Daemon was attracted to her enough to have sex with her. Let’s say that they did get into a sexual relationship. By their own telling, Rhaenyra herself was okay with it. 

And that would be plausible after I’ve thought about it for q while and read a few other persons’ posts that Rhaenyra wanted to be left alone with her grief, forestall further pregnancies, focus on winning and putting down troubles, etc. Her paranoia would have gotten worse after the Tumbleton betrayals and Daemon being out of her sight. She could have also allowed Daemon messing w/Mysaria because Mysaria truly has nothing to offer Daemon anymore anyway.

It would be the same with her if they didn’t have a sexual relationship. Here, Rhaenyra agains just wants to be left alone as much as possible. Mysaria may or may not be resentful of Daemon.

Mysaria

Now Mysaria seemed put off after Daemon left by the words that Gyldayn gives us (which anon treats as gospel):

Then the White Worm raised her eyes and said in a soft voice, “The girl has already betrayed you, my queen. Even now she shares your husband’s bed, and soon enough she will have his bastard in her belly.

(Fire and Blood; “Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

Why would she emphasize there being a child in Nettles? (Aside from Rhaenyra already getting suspicious with bastards after the Tumbleton betrayals). There is something strange about how Mysaria emphasizes that enough to paint a stark image of a fetus in Nettles, growing and becoming Daemon’s child and real that becomes menacing when she’s talking to Rhaenyra. And the notion of a pregnancy is like a “penetration” through Rhaenyra’s own power, as the Tumbleton betrayals are. (The language is styled that way to me.)

We go back and remember how she purportedly lost her child with Daemon all those years ago. And it appears, through Daemon’s words towards her similar to how he regarded Rhea Royce, that they never got to a level of intimacy that would induce a real romance. Because why would Mysaria even say shit about  Daemon if she were happy or content with him after sleeping with him? She wouldn’t have been forced to sleep with him, like how Alys was with Aemond. 

Mysaria may have been going through her own refreshed grief and so decided for power here, “monopolize” Rhaenyra for herself so her own influence can grow. And Daemon had to be taught a “lesson”–in her eyes–for abandoning her. If she was with him for years, maybe it’s even true that she expected Daemon to be defiant and risk his life both for his own glory and to help Rhaenyra by killing Aemond by himself. 

This is a different story than the usual scorned lover sexist trope because Mysaria here is actually is not all just about Daemon but about her own loss and what that means for her to gain back power that she loses.

How would he have been able to give Nettles a manse of anything during this war, whether he was at KL or at Maidenpool, though?

So to counteract people who weaponize Daemon against Rhaenyra,grrm himself did it btw,you Daemyras choose to ignore every wrong thing/betrayal Daemon arguably does to Rhaenyra,I mean since she was pretty young there are questionable thing he does,then he had at least two lovers,the text tells you he fucked Mysaria every night and was still as enchanted by her as he was years before,then the text wrote Nettles as a romantic interest with all the problems it brings,like she is 16 years old and Daemon 50 and the text(George) make it clear that is something Daemon would pursue he blatantly makes a parallel with how he wooed Rhaenyra,but you decide to just ignore all that why? Because you can accept Daemon was not good to Rhaenyra? He could still be kind of a hero and not treating Rhaenyra very well,like George is the one who made us believe she was unloved and ditched for a teenage girl,and that’s not something honorable or positive on Daemon’s part,no matter how you spin it.