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nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma · 6 months ago

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Consequences of Driftmark for Alicent and Rhaenyra

*In F&B, the events at Driftmark take place during Laenor's funeral, not Laena's, and Harwin is still alive, and Lyonel Strong is still Hand.

In bold are the consequences that are depicted in House of the Dragon - the rest are cut.

Consequences of Driftmark for Alicent in F&B:

Aemond (10) accidentally loses an eye, scarring him for life

Viserys publicly forbids any questioning of Rhaenyra's sons' parentage

Consequences of Driftmark for Rhaenyra in F&B:

Jace (6) is 'savagely pummelled' by Aemond and Luke (5) has his nose broken

Viserys orders Rhaenyra to move to Dragonstone to put an end to the fighting, therefore distancing her from court

Viserys orders her lover Ser Harwin Strong away to Harrenhall to dispel the rumours (resulting in his and Lyonel's deaths by fire)

Viserys considers but passes over Rhaenyra as his new Hand and reinstates Otto instead.

Meanwhile in House of the Dragon:

Harwin is already dead after being sent away for beating up Ser Criston Cole defending the honor of the Crown Princess against the Kingsguard knight who is apparently allowed to publicly shit-talk her?

Rhaenyra has already chosen to exile herself to Dragonstone because something something wise sailor steers to avoid the storm??

Rhaenyra is never even considered in the running to serve as her own father's Hand despite being the Crown Princess. Viserys even mentions that his own father Baelon had served as Hand for his father King Jaehaerys... but nope he just gives that pin straight back to Otto.

And then there's Rhaenyra immediately marrying Daemon after faking Laenor's death...

Again, Laenor is already dead at this point in the book. It is his funeral, and that is why we're having the first public confrontation over the boys parentage now, when Laenor is no longer around to refute it. Yes, Laenor is an unfortunate example of an LGBT character getting killed off, but the attempts by the show to avoid burying their gays creates a new host of problems. Laenor is now ok with murdering an innocent bystander, and then traumatising his parents and children with a body burnt beyond recognition. Rhaenyra is now also ok with this. This is now a part of their characterisation, but not one the show actually addresses or acknowledges - because it was only ever a temporary characterisation for the purposes of finding a way to get rid of Laenor without repeating a harmful trope. Similar to how it is now apparently a part of Rhaenys' characterisation that she will slaughter hundreds of smallfolk (and keeps a nifty change of armour in her purse for emergencies). This was purely for the Doylist purpose of having a big shocking Game of Thrones Episode 9 Moment, as evidenced by the weak Watsonian reason for why Rhaenys didn't end the war there and then ("she wouldn't do that to another mother" "it wasn't my war to start"). Not to mention that by episode 10 both Rhaenyra and Rhaenys seem to espouse the ideals of the Geneva Convention.

The change makes Laenor a suddenly very shitty person - particularly considering he left his kids with a burnt corpse so soon after their biological father actually died in a fire (it's not as though the show even makes the most of this trauma to actually develop Jace as a character). If Laenor is to exit the show anyway, at least have him exit with integrity. Then instead of spending his final episodes setting up Laenor faking his own death we could have explored his relationship with his children. What if instead of Harwin defending the boys in the training yard we had Laenor facing off against Criston Cole? The man who murdered his lover and now bullies his children? This would also establish Laenor as a father figure whose presence would actually be missed - as it is he is treated as a political nuisance to be bumped off so Rhaenyra can finally marry Daemon.

Which is also a consequence of changing the order of deaths around - Harwin is still alive during Laenor's funeral in the book. If Harwin were still alive in the show, Rhaenyra would not be looking to marry Daemon - as GRRM said in an interview, he could write at least a novella about Rhaenyra's romance with Harwin. Rhaenyra certainly would not have been plotting to get rid of Laenor. Again, it is as soon as Laenor dies that there is a public confrontation over about their sons' parentage; losing Laenor only hurts Rhaenyra.

On that note, while Daemon is rumoured to have paid Qarl Correy to get rid of Laenor, he is not the only one who stood to benefit from Laenor's death. It is much easier for the Greens or for Vaemond to challenge the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's children with Laenor no longer alive to claim them as his own. Especially if you kill him off before the now-betrothed Luke and Rhaena can grow old enough to marry and seal the alliance (in the book, it is Laena who arranges to betroth the children - perhaps she knew her cousin Vaemond would have no qualms usurping her daughters). And especially if Harwin is still alive and looking very suspicious as Rhaenyra's sworn shield. Imagine Harwin at Laenor's funeral, unable to comfort his grieving children without raising suspicion now that Laenor's absence leaves them exposed.

Providing an alternative suspect for Laenor's death would allow Daemon to be a more mysterious and grey character. I think one of the best moments of the show was when it cut away from Daemon's 'Heir for a day' toast to Otto reporting it to Viserys. Matt Smith apparently delivered the line with more sincerity than Otto makes out - a creative choice which is very in keeping with the spirit of F&B, filled as it is with biased narrators. I think it's a shame the show dropped this approach - imagine if the audience only ever heard rumours of Daemon murdering Rhea Royce, or murdering Laenor? Imagine if we had to balance for ourselves the light and dark in the character, analysing for ourselves how much truth was in the rumours. Imagine if Rhaenyra knew as much as we did, and had to decide what story she believed (what story could she live with?). This is the approach Game of Thrones should have taken with Ned Stark and Littlefinger - instead of Littlefinger monologing his evil plans like a pantomime villain it could have placed the audience in Ned's point of view (like in the book), forced to make decisions on who to trust based on limited information.

It would also make it more believable for Rhaenys to back Rhaenyra. True, Show Rhaenys doesn't leap to ally with Rhaenyra because she suspects she had a hand in her son's supposed death. But she also gets over that a little too easily. There is the Watsonian explanation that Rhaenys decides she can live with backing her son's potential murderer out of political pragmatism. But since by the finale she is fiercely defending Rhaenyra and singing her praises I'm going to assume that she's just in tune with the Doylist explanation that Laenor isn't actually dead. They could have at least have Rhaenys only suspect Daemon, and have the source of the rift be that Rhaenyra does not share her suspicions. That way Rhaenys can reconcile backing Rhaenyra without insulting her son's memory.

In addition to insulting Laenor, these changes remove sympathy and context for Rhaenyra's character.

Now Rhaenyra does marry Daemon within half a year of Laenor and Laena's death, and this is considered scandalous in the book. But the show makes it out to be immediately after his death, and it removes everything that happens within those 6 months. And a lot happens. Again, Rhaenyra is exiled away from court to Dragonstone.

To prevent further conflict, and put an end to these “vile rumors and base calumnies,” King Viserys further decreed that Queen Alicent and her sons would return with him to court, whilst Princess Rhaenyra confined herself to Dragonstone with her sons.

Yes, Rhaenyra 'took possession of Dragonstone' as her seat when she was 16, and she spent a lot of time there. We know she visited Laena at Driftmark from Dragonstone, and we know she gave birth to Joffrey on Dragonstone. But Dragonstone is close enough that Rhaenyra at 14 was racing Syrax between Dragonstone and King's Landing daily. And we know that until the events at Driftmark her sons were being raised and educated alongside Alicent's:

Though all six boys attended the same feasts, balls, and revels, and sometimes trained together in the yard under the same master-at-arms and studied under the same maesters, this enforced closeness only served to feed their mutual mislike, rather than binding them together as brothers.

Aemond losing his eye at Driftmark was what caused the final split of the royal family - not Rhaenyra getting embarrassed by her breastmilk leaking during a council meeting. Rhaenyra did not willingly leave King's Landing, because that would be a bad move, and the show knows it's a bad move, which is why they had to come up with that dumb line about the wise sailor steering to avoid the storm.

Next, Harwin is sent away, resulting in his and Lyonel's deaths.

Henceforth Ser Erryk Cargyll of the Kingsguard would serve as her sworn shield, whilst Breakbones returned to Harrenhal.

Lyonel Strong, Lord of Harrenhal and Hand of the King, accompanied his son and heir Ser Harwin on his return to the great, half-ruined castle on the lakeshore. Shortly after their arrival, a fire broke out in the tower where they were sleeping, and both father and son were killed, along with three of their retainers and a dozen servants.

So after being effectively exiled by her father and being forcibly separated from her lover, Rhaenyra suffers another huge personal loss. And so soon after losing her best friend Laena, and her husband and friend Laenor. Most importantly, by placing the fire at Harrenhal before Driftmark, rather than in the aftermath of Driftmark, the show erases another huge blow to Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra is passed over as Hand.

Lord Strong had been the King’s Hand, and Viserys had come to rely upon his strength and counsel. His Grace had reached the age of three-and-forty, and had grown quite stout. He no longer had a young man’s vigor, and was afflicted by gout, aching joints, back pain, and a tightness in the chest that came and went and oft left him red-faced and short of breath. The governance of the realm was a daunting task; the king needed a strong, capable Hand to shoulder some of his burdens. Briefly he considered sending for Princess Rhaenyra. Who better to rule with him than the daughter he meant to succeed him on the Iron Throne? But that would have meant bringing the princess and her sons back to King’s Landing, where more conflict with the queen and her own brood would have been inevitable.

Viserys needed a new Hand after Lyonel's death, and he almost called Rhaenyra home. Her exile to Dragonstone was almost temporary, and serving as her father's Hand would have done wonders to smooth her transition to power. But Viserys prioritised avoiding conflict between Rhaenyra and Alicent and clearly decided 'happy wife, happy life' - and gave Otto the pin instead. Which positioned Otto perfectly to arrange a coup.

For all TG complain that Rhaenyra faced zero consequences for Aemond's eye - she sure got royally fucked over in the aftermath of Driftmark. For all TG complain that Viserys played favourites and let Rhaenyra get away with everything, his desire to avoid conflict and placate his wife seriously sabotaged Rhaenyra. He may have backed the legitimacy of her sons, but overall Driftmark was a political win for the Greens... and for Daemon.

These rulings pleased no one, Septon Eustace writes. Mushroom demurs: one man at least was thrilled by the decrees, for Dragonstone and Driftmark lay quite close to one another, and this proximity would allow Daemon Targaryen ample opportunity to comfort his niece, Princess Rhaenyra, unbeknownst to the king.

However you feel about Daemon, the timing and context of Rhaenyra's marriage to him is important.

Yet hardly had Ser Otto arrived at the Red Keep to take up the Handship than word reached court that Princess Rhaenyra had remarried, taking to husband her uncle, Daemon Targaryen. The princess was twenty-three, Prince Daemon thirty-nine.

Otto arrives in King's Landing to take the position that is rightfully Rhaenyra's, and Rhaenyra marries Daemon (upstaging Otto in the process). That's the context of their marriage. Daemon (however you interpret him and his motives) comforts Rhaenyra at a time in her life when she is losing everything, one after the other - her best friend, her husband, her lover, her influence at court, her position, the security of her succession. Rhaenyra marries Daemon to feel stronger again, at a time where much of her strength is being stripped away. Daemon was there at an extremely vulnerable time for her - he may even have related to her how he was also exiled by Viserys, how he was also passed over as Hand.

Based on the timing, Rhaenyra was also probably already pregnant.

Septon Eustace claims that Rhaenyra knew her father would never approve of the match, so she wed in haste to make certain he could not prevent the marriage. Mushroom puts forward a different reason: the princess was once again with child and did not wish to birth a bastard. And thus that dreadful year 120 AC ended as it begun, with a woman laboring in childbirth. Princess Rhaenyra’s pregnancy had a happier outcome than Lady Laena’s had. As the year waned, she brought forth a small but robust son, a pale princeling with dark purple eyes and pale silvery hair. She named him Aegon.

Even accounting for the possibility that Aegon was born early - which is likely since he is noted as being small - it is possible Rhaenyra conceived him before her marriage to Daemon. The year after all began with Laena's death and ended with Aegon's birth, and as I've detailed Rhaenyra goes through a lot between Driftmark and her wedding to Daemon. So while he is comforting Rhaenyra for her many losses, Daemon gets her pregnant.

The show does at least keep the context of a grieving Rhaenyra having recently lost Harwin when she finally sleeps with Daemon. But by changing the order of events they remove much of the context that made this such a low and vulnerable time in Rhaenyra's life. She doesn't lose a best friend. Her children don't lose a protector in Laenor. She leaves King's Landing voluntarily. She was never in the running to be Hand. Her exile is erased from the show.

In the show, it's "hee hee we'll get rid of Laenor and then we'll be an unstoppable power couple and RULE THE WORLD - from Dragonstone though, 100% voluntarily, because something something wise sailor avoids the storm..." And this is apparently the more interesting and complex improvement on F&B?

At this point the show had already changed Rhaenyra's childhood so she is no longer bullied by her stepmother and groomed by her sworn shield. These instances of adversity in Rhaenyra's life are exchanged for a version of Alicent and Criston that are more sympathetic and that many find more interesting. I may personally disagree, but I can understand it, and I can understand why some fans like these changes. However I do not understand why it was necessary to keep taking away even more instances of adversity faced by Rhaenyra - why erase her exile, why erase her being passed over as Hand? it does not make the story more interesting, and it makes Rhaenyra's story less compelling.

How much more heart-breaking would it have been to see Rhaenyra begging her dying father to wake up and defend her, if the show had stuck closer to the book version of events? After forcing his daughter into an unwanted marriage with a homosexual man, after exiling her while she was grieving, after passing over her as Hand, after hurting her transition to power, after failing to to bring her home... how much more emotionally satisfying would it then have been to finally see Viserys drag his corpse out of bed to defend Rhaenyra and her sons?

The book version of events would also open up a more interesting relationship dynamic between Rhaenyra and Daemon than "lets fake my husband's death so we can be an unstoppable power couple and rule the world!" If I were adapting it, I would have kept Daemon's possible involvement in Laenor's death ambiguous - uncertain to both the audience and to Rhaenyra. Again, suggest the possibility that it could have been the Greens. Have Rhaenyra, at her lowest and most vulnerable moment, convince herself that she can live with the doubt. Because at this point, with Laena dead, Laenor dead, Harwin dead, and with her father exiling her, Daemon is one of the few allies she has left. A Rhaenyra who chooses to kill an innocent bystander to fake her husband's death is cartoonishly evil. A Rhaenyra who chooses to live with the possibility that her new husband murdered her old husband is interesting.

Meanwhile Alicent goes from victor to victim at Driftmark...

Yes, of course in both book and show her child is the most seriously injured and, again, scarred for life (though in the book it is the result of violently bullying little kids half his age so 🤷‍♀️). But politically, Alicent comes out on top after Driftmark.

See Book Viserys doesn't give Rhaenyra an honour without also giving Alicent one, and vice versa.

King Viserys loved both his wife and daughter, and hated conflict and contention. He strove all his days to keep the peace between his women, and to please both with gifts and gold and honors.

And because Alicent champions the patriarchal status quo (and in the book is an adult battling a child) this 'neutrality' is to Rhaenyra's detriment. So yes, Driftmark sees Viserys publicly forbid anyone from discussing Rhaenyra's sons' parentage - that is a loss for Alicent and a win for Rhaenyra. But Alicent's victories at Driftmark are much more significant - Rhaenys is effectively exiled from court, her rival's influence at court is severely diminished, Otto is brought back as Hand and gets to stack the council with Green supporters. Viserys' weak efforts to stop the fighting and placate everyone ends up favouring Alicent significantly.

In the show, its all 'poor Alicent can't even get her mean husband to cut a 6-year-old's eye out for her and its making her big beautiful brown eyes sad'. The show removes all the consequences Rhaenyra faces at Driftmark, and replaces it with Alicent snapping because 'that spoilt Rhaenyra gets away with everything'. All of Alicent's victories from Driftmark have already happened before Driftmark, and they don't even count because Alicent's big beautiful brown eyes are sad. Rhaenyra has already committed political suicide by voluntarily leaving King's Landing, and Otto is already Hand because Rhaenyra was never in the running.

This is worsened by the fact that the show feels very inconsistent in how it depicts Alicent's position as queen consort. In the book, as stated, Viserys strives to please his wife with gifts and gold and honors, and Alicent is surrounded by a 'Queen's party' of 'lickspittles, fawning over Queen Alicent and her children'. Alicent's worth is apparent in the fact that Viserys throws a huge tourney to celebrate their 5-year-anniversary - Alicent is the centre of attention and celebration. Because this is the 'benevolent' form of misogyny Westeros takes in the books - one that celebrates and reveres wives and mothers like Alicent (while of course not permitting them bodily autonomy) and demonises non-conforming women like Rhaenyra.

In the absence of Alicent's special tourney in the show, we don't get Rhaenyra's iconic dress entrance - instead it is given to Alicent during Rhaenyra's wedding to Laenor. Because this is such an iconic moment for Rhaenyra, the show tries to compensate in episode 3 by having a bloodied Rhaenyra upstage Aegon during his birthday celebrations. Since this is no longer the culmination of years of being bullied by her stepmother, the moment loses quite a bit of its impact (at least the soundtrack is gorgeous). This version also replaces Alicent's special day with Aegon's special day - which depicts a very different world of misogyny. The more complicated benevolent misogyny of the book is replaced with a more basic misogyny in which Alicent is simply ignored and unappreciated.

Which feels like overkill. I don't think this change was necessary to understand Show Alicent as a victim. Personally, if I was pimped out to my friend's dad and suffered through marital rape and unwanted pregnancies with zero bodily autonomy, I wouldn't consider a tourney to be adequate compensation. Alicent can be appreciated and celebrated and still suffer. If anything it could further feed into her self-identification as a martyr.

So the show depicts an underappreciated victim Alicent with her big beautiful sad brown eyes. But episode 6 depicts Alicent as having accumulated a significant amount of power as Queen. The episode establishes that Alicent is powerful enough that she can demand that the Crown Princesses' newborn be taken away from his mother and brought straight to her (in a world of high newborn mortality rates) - and the Crown Princess has to comply. It's implied that this kind of behaviour isn't new, and either Viserys isn't intervening or Rhaenyra is just not telling him for some reason. Meanwhile Alicent can shut down a proposal by the Crown Princess that the King is in favour of, overturn the Crown Princess at council meetings, and seems to be the final voice at the council meeting. Not to mention she has made Criston Cole so untouchable that he can murder vassals of House Velaryon, publicly bully Prince Jacaerys, and openly speculate on the sex life of the Crown Princess (and it is Harwin who gets punished???).

But one episode later and Alicent is snapping in despair because Viserys won't cut out a 6-year-old's eye for her. And the subtext of the scene is that it isn't really about the eye, it's about a marriage where she has gone underappreciated and unrecognised, and Viserys always chooses Rhaenyra over her and his other children, and big brown eyes are sad... All ignoring of course everything that she gets away with in the previous episode. Really, it feels like Driftmark is a last straw for Viserys - he's been essentially letting her run things so far but he draws the line at cutting his grandson's eye out.

And I would be willing to accept this inconsistency as purposeful - people are inconsistent and hypocritical, and Alicent self-righteously views herself as a martyr. And there is a tendency for critics to mistake in-character inconsistency for inconsistent characterisation and bad writing, and I do see this tendency a fair bit in discussions of Alicent (some instances being more valid than others). However I get the impression that this is not a purposeful in-character inconsistency, or at the very least there were competing visions behind the scenes. And this is because of the victimised way Alicent and her big beautiful sad brown eyes are framed - and because of the way the events at Driftmark are also shifted around.

Firstly the dynamics are changed between the children to make Aemond more sympathetic. The age gap between him and Jace is narrowed and Baela and Rhaena are added to the fight - making it a fight of 1 against 4 kids who are close in age. Meanwhile in the book, Aemond is 10 and starts the fight by hitting a 3-year-old Joffrey for making noise. A 6 and 5-year-old Jace and Luke then come running to defend their little brother against a much older and bigger bully - who easily beats them up.

Joffrey had run to get his brothers when Aemond took to the sky, and both Jace and Luke had come to his call. The Velaryon princelings were younger than Aemond—Jace was six, Luke five, Joff only three—but there were three of them, and they had armed themselves with wooden swords from the training yard. Now they fell on him with a fury. Aemond fought back, breaking Luke’s nose with a punch, then wrenching the sword from Joff’s hands and cracking it across the back of Jace’s head, driving him to his knees. As the younger boys scrambled back away from him, bloody and bruised, the prince began to mock them, laughing and calling them “the Strongs.” Jace at least was old enough to grasp the insult. He flew at Aemond once again, but the older boy began pummeling him savagely…until Luke, coming to the rescue of his brother, drew his dagger and slashed Aemond across the face, taking out his right eye.

Jace's injuries are much much worse in the book, and he is much much younger and braver. I mean, it takes balls for a 6-year-old to go up against a 10-year-old - and a 10-year-old with a giant fucking dragon at that.

And then there is 'questioned sharply':

Afterward, King Viserys tried to make a peace, requiring each of the boys to tender an apology to his rivals on the other side, but these courtesies did not appease their vengeful mothers. Queen Alicent demanded that one of Lucerys Velaryon’s eyes should be put out, for the eye he had cost Aemond. Princess Rhaenyra would have none of that, but insisted that Prince Aemond should be questioned “sharply” until he revealed where he had heard her sons called “Strongs.” To so name them was tantamount to saying they were bastards, with no rights of succession…and that she herself was guilty of high treason. When pressed by the king, Prince Aemond said it was his brother Aegon who had told him they were Strongs, and Prince Aegon said only, “Everyone knows. Just look at them.”

The order is reversed. In the book Alicent is the first to demand violence against a child - in the show it is Rhaenyra. Now I argue that Rhaenyra's demand was more toothless - in both book and show it was more about backing Alicent into a corner to get her to admit to plotting a coup. But In the book, both mothers at least had an understandable context behind their shitty demands - Alicent's son had just lost an eye, and Rhaenyra was responding to a violent threat to her son (plus, Aemond had just savagely pummelled Jace). Since Alicent is publicly demanding violence against a 5-year-old, now is a good time for Rhaenyra to ask 'hey, I wonder who taught Aemond my sons are bastards, hmm Alicent?'

But in the show, Rhaenyra is the one made into the aggressor, and Alicent is now the victim reacting defensively. Rhaenyra just opens with wanting to question Aemond sharply, right while Aemond is in the middle of getting his eye stitched up. In the book, the argument between the mothers comes after the boys have been made to apologise to each other, which implies that at this point Aemond has at least already received medical attention. But in the show, Viserys immediately goes along with Rhaenyra making her sons' parentage the more pressing priority - all so the scene can escalate towards Alicent losing it and demanding Luke's eye. The scene is more dramatic and nonsensical as a result - it is bewildering that this is the order of priority and this primes the audience to sympathise with Alicent here. Viserys is shouting at his injured son and Alicent's big brown eyes are sad. And Rhaenyra is temporarily characterised as the sort of person to demand her brother be tortured - as the aggressor rather than in a reaction to a threat - for the Doylist purpose of a more dramatic escalation towards Alicent picking up the knife.

Now Viserys making the question of his grandson's legitimacy a priority could make sense in the show's version of events - if there is a potential coup it does have to be shut down immediately. The consequences for his children and grandchildren are after all life-threatening. And to be fair to him, his first impulse (while Aemond is receiving medical attention) is to ask the children how the fight started, which is reasonable enough, and the episode has already established that he's not in complete control of his mental faculties.

But emotionally, we the viewer are watching an injured kid get yelled at by his dad while Alicent's big beautiful brown eyes are sad. And not only are the events around Driftmark changed to remove the adversity Rhaenyra faces, but the events at Driftmark are changed to add to Alicent's victimhood. She is no longer the aggressor, she is depicted as undervalued, and her victories at Driftmark are erased.

And by episode 9 it seems Alicent is so powerless as Queen Consort that she has to let Larys masturbate over her feet. And episode 8 makes out that she's been acting as nurse maid to Viserys, instead of Viserys having servants to look after him (though we did see Alicent voluntarily sending these servants away back in episode 3 - did she send them away permanently? Were there spending cutbacks on staff to make way for the redecorating?)

But in episode 8 Alicent also appears to be running the kingdom, and has the power to decide on the succession of Driftmark. Alicent even tells Rhaenyra that she will be the one sitting in judgement while Viserys is ill - not Otto, the King's Hand, but Alicent. How is this consistent with Alicent being undervalued and underappreciated, if she is given this power and responsibility? How is she so powerless that Larys gets to masturbate over her feet?

From these inconsistencies, TG draws the following picture: underappreciated Alicent is busy running the kingdom, while spoiled Rhaenyra is off 'playing house' with Daemon and avoiding her responsibilities. Poor Alicent is depicted as doing all the work while Rhaenyra is off having fun, instead of Rhaenyra being effectively exiled against her wishes to placate Alicent. It's almost as insulting as the change to Rhaenyra and Criston - instead of Criston (who is exactly the same age as Rhaenyra's mother, by the way) grooming Rhaenyra from the age of 7, he is the one presented as Rhaenyra's victim by TG (like poor friendzoned Jorah).

Alicent's victories are presented as unappreciated sacrifices and burdens, and Rhaenyra's losses and adversities are presented as her idiotically skiving to live in domestic bliss.

And the problem to me isn't simply that there were changes made, or that I wish Alicent was a more one-note antagonist etc. Though I would have preferred a more book-accurate adaption, I was initially cautiously on board for the changes in the first half of the season. They at least seemed interesting, and I was intrigued to see where this high-budget fanfiction would go. But the show goes too far in taking sympathy and depth away from Rhaenyra to shower it on Alicent - the accumulation of changes tips it over the edge. There had to be a better balance than what the show gave us, one where we could root for Rhaenyra as she struggles in the face of adversity (making the eventual dark path she goes down all the more tragic). The sympathetic version of Alicent that the show gives us simply does not demand taking so much away from Rhaenyra.

The one scene in the second half of the show where we get to see how adult Rhaenyra deals with adversity is her introductory scene. She responds to Alicent's demands by walking bleeding up a flight of stairs rather than let go of her newborn. And this is where my frustration lies with the show, because it has so much potential and yet it is so inconsistent. On the one hand, it's ridiculous that Rhaenyra doesn't just ignore Alicent. But on the other, it's a decent way to compensate for the change to Rhaenyra's childhood. Since we no longer have young Rhaenyra getting bullied by her stepmother, we needed this big moment of cruelty. And it shows just how much Rhaenyra will fight for her children.

And yet the same episode will have her voluntarily abandon King's Landing (and far far too early - there is a point in F&B where a considerably more broken Rhaenyra faces a similar choice, and we are nowhere near that point yet). Rhaenyra ditches because she's been, in her words, humiliated. This would be salvageable if this was simply a case of Rhaenyra deciding not to put up with Alicent's shit and establishing herself from a seat of strength at Dragonstone. But staying away? Being absent from court for years? Episode 8 even establishes that Dragonstone is so close that they don't even need to stay the night when they visit King's Landing! This woman walked bleeding up a flight of stairs rather than let go of her newborn baby, and now she's just relinquishing all influence at court to the greens? This isn't consistent or accurate characterisation.

Rhaenyra already has plenty of canon flaws, without adding that she voluntarily leaves and stays away from King's Landing and her dying father. Even when ordered to move her family to Dragonstone, Rhaenyra in the book always tried to come home. She brought Maester Gerardys to save her father's life. She at least tried to influence the council by nominating her choice of Archmaester. She doesn't just roll over and let the Greens tilt the council in their favour without a fight.

Though Grand Maester Mellos washed the cut out with boiled wine and bound up the hand with strips of linen soaked in healing ointments, fever soon followed, and many feared the king might die. Only the arrival of Princess Rhaenyra from Dragonstone turned the tide, for with her came her own healer, Maester Gerardys, who acted swiftly to remove two fingers from His Grace’s hand to save his life.

Princess Rhaenyra wanted Maester Gerardys, who had long served her on Dragonstone, elevated to replace Mellos; it was only his healing skills that had saved the king’s life when Viserys cut his hand on the throne, she claimed. Queen Alicent, however, insisted that the princess and her maester had mutilated His Grace unnecessarily. Had they not “meddled,” she claimed, Grand Maester Mellos would surely have saved the king’s fingers as well as his life. She urged the appointment of one Maester Alfador, presently in service at the Hightower. Viserys, beset from both sides, chose neither, reminding both the princess and the queen that the choice was not his to make. The Citadel of Oldtown* chose the Grand Maester, not the Crown. In due time, the Conclave bestowed the chain of office upon Archmaester Orwyle, one of their own.

*the seat of the Hightowers - great attempt at neutrality there Vizzy

With King's Landing so close to Dragonstone, there is no way Rhaenyra didn't do what she could to mitigate the damage of her absence. The fact that she is noted as being in the confinement stages of her pregnancy during the coup, and that this is considered serendipitous, suggests to me that Rhaenyra otherwise would have tried to attend court as much as possible:

With the princess in confinement on Dragonstone, about to give birth, Queen Alicent’s greens enjoyed an advantage; the longer Rhaenyra remained ignorant of the king’s death, the slower she would be to move. “Mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth,” Queen Alicent is reported to have said (according to Mushroom).

If the draft script leak is true, the show initially had Rhaenyra explicitly say that she abandoned King's Landing to strengthen her claim, which is both nonsensical and adds to my belief that the show didn't fully understand that they were taking the fight out of Rhaenyra by having her voluntarily leave and stay away. Or maybe they did understand it, seeing as they replaced this statement with the more vague 'wise sailor' line, with Rhaenyra's theme music playing triumphantly to trick us into thinking they weren't assassinating her character.

I've seen essays by fans of the show that have tried to argue that Rhaenyra leaving and staying away is actually a compelling character flaw, spinning it as either the inadvertent self-sabotaging actions of an overprotective mother, or an entitled antagonist who wants the throne without working for it. The latter is character assassination and inconsistent with the rest of her characterisation. The former is also inconsistent, and for it to work it would necessitate that the show spend more time actually fleshing out her children and her relationships with them. These inconsistencies, and the half-hearted way the show tries to rationalise her decision, leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that the show is simply less clever and more inconsistent in quality than it had the potential to be. Which is all the more infuriating in a show that has potential - it can be very capable of writing compelling characters when it wants to, it just rarely does when it comes to Rhaenyra and her children.

Ultimately, a character who fights as much as they can is always going to be more compelling than one who rolls over. Is anyone honestly looking at, say, Sansa in the early seasons of Game of Thrones and thinking "hmm yes I'm glad they got rid of Sansa sneaking out to the Godswood to plot her escape, tricking Tyrion into thinking she was just praying, refusing to kneel during her forced marriage and learning valuable lessons from being used as a political pawn by the Tyrells. It's so much more compelling watching Sansa spend her time getting petted by Shae, Margaery and Tyrion, not knowing what sheep shit is, and getting passively whisked off by Dontos in a surprise rescue".

Rhaenyra has had to fight ever since she was named heir aged 8, ever since her stepmother started bullying her as a child. That fight is an indispensable part of her character - whatever other changes you may make, taking away her fight is not on the table. And above all, taking away the adversity she faces removes opportunities for her to be interesting.

#hotd critical #house of the dragon #pro rhaenyra targaryen #pro team black #driftmark #laenor velaryon #alicent hightower #rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyra defense #valyrianscrolls #daemon targaryen #sansa stark #fire & blood

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crimsoncold · 4 months ago

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AEMONDSA: A crack ship with unexpected depth and appeal

A treatise (in four parts) on the intriguing parallels and complementary contrasting of Aemond and Sansa and the subsequent allure of them as a romantic pairing in Fanfic

- from the perspective of a sansa-stan, jonsa + sansa-centric multishipper, and someone who is generally Targ critical

Now while my general stance of "ship and let ship/don't worry so much about what other people in fandom focus on or ship/etc" still stands i wanted to do a little write up on what I've found so appealing about this particular crack ship.

Not to justify it (again fandom and shipping in general is just about enjoying/thinking about fictional characters and scenarios... no one needs to justify why their imagination likes to think about two characters interacting romantically) but because there isn't a ton of metas addressing the interesting parallels between these characters and the appeal of them as a ship so I wanted to make one so the handful of people who do ship it get to see some more positive engagement/responses to this pairing.

I just unexpectedly ended up loving this pairing so much and I always have a particularly strong urge to contribute to fandom content on the rare pairs/crack ships that I like....So here have a deep dive into the parallels, and contrasting but complimentary aspects of Aemond and Sansa, and the unexpected appeal of Aemond x Sansa as a pairing in fanfiction...

PART 1: MY EXPERIENCE WITH ASOIAF/GOT & HOTD FANDOM AND WHY AEMONDSA IS A PLEASANT SURPRISE

So I'm going to be drawing from both book and show elements when I consider and compare Sansa and Aemond's characterization and plot arcs (particularly since this tends to be how they are handled in fanfic- which all have differing combinations of book or show canon for both characters)

(this is a HOTD S2-free zone though... HOTD's writing has certainly not improved and it's inconsistencies even compared to their past writing and characterization of many characters including Aemond has made such an absolute mess so for this post I'm ignoring the worst part of HBO's attempt at making hotd fanfiction i.e. S2- and I am basing my understanding of Aemond on a combination of what can be gleaned from book canon and s1 because that was what initially interested me AND because that is what the aemondsa fanfic I've read has also been based on)

Now Just to set the scene for my journey as a stark fan, jonsa shipper, and generally targ critical person to become an appreciator of aemondsa...

GOT had a steep decline in quality in the later seasons and HOTD despite the incredible effort of the actors/sfx people was not particularly good to start with in terms of writing/storytelling...yet disappointing or poorly written shows are not without their appeal for participating in fandom and reading/writing related fanfiction, particularly when there is a handful of interesting characters-looking at you stark kids who suffered through the writing of GOT's later seasons and HOTD's team green-that fans want to rescue from the terrible writing/butchering by the showrunners and to explore alternative stories/endings for them... sometimes it is even one of the most appealing sort of set up for fandom/fanfiction to take over and fix things.

I was already a huge Sansa fan, and she was the original draw for me towards asoiaf/got fandom and fanfiction, and while jonsa has been and remains my favorite pairing for her I've always been open to dabbling in various other sansa pairings/crack ships.

(While the parallels don't take the exact form as the ones between Sansa and Jon- and obviously aemondsa isn't accompanied with the incredible foreshadowing and potential that jonsa is- this pairing still feels similarly compelling due to the sheer amount of parallels between the two characters and for the fact that its a ship that is appealing and seems quite fitting without fanfic writers having to stray too far from canon personalities/back stories to make them work as a romantic pairing- beyond you know the obvious aspect of them being alive at the same time)

When HOTD first came out and before i discovered Ameondsa was a thing I was staying away from HOTD fanfic for the most part despite my interest in a few of the characters

HOTD's most predominant focus in both it's fandom and fanfiction seemed to be Rhaenyra/Team black/ Daemyra centric- all of which I was at just personally not drawn. Aemond (hot dramatic anime antagonist transported into hbo's HOTD and personal favorite of mine) centric fics unfortunately tended towards shipping him with various TB characters or TB OCs but both as a concept and due to the handling/set up these fics were generally not appealing to me (more on this later).

Furthermore hotd fandom itself seemed to be shaping up into a new edition of targ stan centric fandom- specifically a new "team black only" brand of stanning... which is definitely not something I am interested in.

Being someone admittedly anti targ/targ critical in general who just happened to be more intrigued (and sympathetic) to the greens in HOTD it did seem that the bulk of hotd fandom was probably going to a similar if even more extreme form of what I encountered with targ-stan segments of the GOT fandom as a sansa-stan/jonsa shipper (ie. Less posts/fanfic that i would personally agree with or be interested in from these fans and potentially hostile and unpleasant responses or takes from the majority of these fans)

As a result of my general avoidance of hotd (i.e. the very pro targ/pro TB fanfiction that hotd fandom offered) Aemondsa, already an extremely rare pair and crack ship, wasn't even a pairing on my radar until one of the authors i was subscribed to started a hotd time travel fix it aemondsa fic...I have an appreciation for well written crack ships, and I am willing to give most pairings or fandoms a chance when I'm already a fan of either the story's main characters or of the author specifically ...but I was actually incredibly suprised how compeling Aemondsa was as a pairing in this story..as well as how much I enjoyed the other Aemondsa fics that I checked out afterwards..it seemed this was a niche segment of hotd fandom that i was going to absolutely obsessing over.

There was a lot of depth to them for a crack ship, which was achievable without altering their personalities and backstories very much from canon (dont get me wrong I love crack ships even ones where people and the plot are altered significantly to make a ship feel possible but there is something uniquely compelling when characters fit together without having to be too ooc) so I just wanted to write a bit about what is so fascinating about this ship since it's such a new rare pair that hasn't accumulated a massive audience or a ton of discussions or write ups yet.

PART 2/4. THE SURPRISING AMOUNT OF PARALLELS BETWEEN SANSA AND AEMOND (FANDOM, PLOT-WISE, but most of all regarding FAMILY)

(Uh ....Brace yourself? this section ended up way longer than expected)

For me the initial appeal comes down to intriguing Character parallels between Sansa and Aemond which fanfic at least offers the opportunity to explore in a story format ....

On a surface level they are (in the shows particularly) both intelligent and underdog figures with fantastic little sassy moments - true queens of dealing out backhanded and cutting compliments, or being unapolegetic critical towards some of the flawed and extremely privileged individual's they encounter who are used to receiving only coddling and fawning worship.

Both characters seem to get shit treatment, sometimes from the fandom other times due to the terrible choices/handling by the writers/showrunners.

Both were characters I personally found interesting and sympathetic despite how fandom- some of it for aemond and a significant amount of it for sansa- had deemed these essentially young and still innocent characters worthy of being reviled and harmed for the ways the adults in their lives had set them up for failure or abuse. Forever dismayed by the way they (unlike certain fan favorites) were somehow never deemed by fandom as deserving of sympathy for the horrible things that happened to them, and how notably they never recieve the same feverent forgiveness/understanding/support for their more dangerous or dark actions the way other characters did

Looking at the difference in fan responses to show!Arya or Dany compared to Sansa- though when it comes to the sheer amount of violence, destruction, and murder or the act of threatening their kin obviously despite what Sansa-antis say Sansa is the only one who should not even be part of the discussion, and how Dany or Arya always recieves excuses, sympathy, forgiveness, or outright praise from the core audience for their more questionable actions while somehow Sansa is deemed as the unforgivable, dangerous, evil, traitorous, and foolishly reckless character

How Aemond (and all of TG really) are set up and considered by TB stans to be unworthy of their house/rightful inheritance and the ones most at fault for the onset and destruction caused by a civil war... never victims mistreated or endangered by the more privileged and powerful members of their family... just the people who only ever deserved what was inflicted on them by TB for the crime of being forced to wed a disgusting and neglectful King or for being threats to Rhaenyra's family or throne simply by existing? How the morally questionable or violent actions of Rhaenyra, her sons, or more particularly her uncle-husband will always be seen as either justifiable, in the right, excusable, or literally worthy of praise the way Aemond's and his family's actions will never be viewed by this core audience

I think about how much like segments of asoiaf fandom bash Sansa by deeming her too southern/too Tully/Too Catelyn-like to be a real Stark (unlike her "truly northern" siblings) their are also segments of hotd fandom that have chosen to see Aemond and his full siblings as only Hightowers who are wrongfully stealing from TB/the "true Targaryens"

But there were even more striking parallels when it came to their characterization and plot.

Both younger (non heir) children, presented as being intelligent, incredibley dutiful and studious, with a very close relationship to their mother, in a sort of intense people pleaser manner - trying their best to excel at all the skills/duties that their parents/society deems necessary for their position and sex because that is the way they receive acceptance, attention, or praise from their family/the adults in their life

Aemond and his studies, his apparently dedication and success in training with the sword despite his own disability, his determination and recklessness to finally become a dragon rider like the rest of his Targaryen family- as it is what is expected and what he has long been mocked over by some of his targ kin, how despite his own ambitions and the way he thought himself particularly suitable for rulership he remained the dutiful and loyal younger brother who served as regent for his gravely injured older brother but did not attempt to stylize himself as King and steal Aegon's throne.

the way that Alicent seems to be the only family member he allows himself to be vulnerable with, the one with whom he turns to for consolation and comfort, Alicent being absolutely devastated and incensed over the loss of Aemond's eye and the lack of punishment for the assault on his person, the only one to demand recompense, the only one to raise a knife to the blacks when she is denied, how Aemond is the one person who tries to console his mother in the aftermath, how despite having just lost an eye he is the one who actually tries to sooth his mother to bring a stop to the increasing and dangerous level of tension and conflict that had erupted between the blacks and greens at driftmark, Aemond's own longstanding protectiveness of and devotion to his family- most especially his mother- that lasts until his own demise.

Sansa and the way she thrives and enjoys the type of world and training that is more of a noble woman's or specifically her mother Catelyn's domain- unlike her wilder other siblings she is generally a steadfastly proper and gentle girl- no doubt a comfort to her mother not just because she is generally so well behaved but in the fact that unlike her siblings she is not shown to be obviously or very publically close with Ned's illegitimate child- who for Catelyn would be the literal personification of Ned's infidelity, the disrespect and humiliation he puts her through by raising him in their house along side their children, and her deep seated fear that he loved and will prioritize another woman and her child more than his own wife and family.

Sansa is the child who seemed to love all things "southern" the most (though undeniably despite how Sansa is looked down upon for her love of romantic stories and song her other siblings also certainly enjoy legends and tales of Knighthood or Southern Princes and warrior Princesses) and to be fascinated by the environment her mother is from, the one who is drawn to and practice her mother's faith in addition to keeping to the old gods,

How Catelyn though she truly grieves letting her daughter go seems to accept it not just because her belief that Sansa would excel as a princess and future queen but because she thinks Sansa would thrive simply through getting to experience the south...Catelyn seems to grasp the things Sansa dreams about and unlike many other family members she does not view Sansa and her interests with the same condescension, dismissal, or disdain.

Catelyn loves all her children immensely but there is something so tragic and beautiful in her love for her daughters, the desperate lengths she is willing to go to to ensure the saftey of both of them while the lords/males in her family have already given them up as a lost cause and inevitable and necessary casualties in their war for vengeance and northern independence

Despite this affection though there is a lot of pressure on both of them... almost to the point that their treatment by the adults in their lives has a bit of a "parentification" dynamic- a manner that sometimes puts the onus on them to be a support and a comfort to their mother amid any tension in the family/marriage (Aemond) or to be the perfectly behaved role model or minder for their less dutiful siblings (Sansa)

Sansa, in everyone's eyes a lady at three and a queen destined to be, the determined effort she puts into excelling at being studious, accomplished, proper, and ladylike, how much she tries to exemplify the behavior praised and exemplified by her mother and her septa

set up by the adults in her life as a go between for the stark sisters...used as the benchmark for their demands and expectations of Arya, being held up as the bar for perfect, proper, and praise worthy behaviour that Arya is presssured to also attain, the daughter who gets censured on the few occasions she acts out while her younger sister typically gets away with her poor behaviour (at least when it comes to their parents)... Sansa isn't just under the pressure of the exacting expectations for a lord's daughter she also experiences the stress of being put in the position of exemplar for her wild untractable younger sister.

Aemond, apparent dutiful student in many areas expected as a child of nobility, who is expected to support Aegon in his rulership and war and (in the show) even takes responsibility for trying to keep his older brother in line, the one who after losing an eye takes the effort to comfort and console his mother's grief and rage when their father does nothing in response to an attack on Aemond other than threaten and intimate his wife and his children with Alicent in order to support his firstborn daughter, who becomes the human equivalent of not just a wrecking ball but a literal weapon of mass destruction sent out on behalf of the advancement of his family or later to enact terrible bloody vengeance on his family's behalf, his life his purpose and his death is all for his family's sake more than his own.

They put so much effort into being well behaved, to reach the exacting standards for a child in their position, setting an example for the less obedient/well behaved sibling(s) all of which in turn adds to significant strain or conflict between said sibling.

Sansa and Aemond are the sibling expected to and determidly striving to live up to the high expectations that the adults in their life put on them and to survive the extremely dangerous and high stakes scenarios they are put in (as a lord's daughter, prince's betrothed and future queen, a hostage and target for the machinations and ambitions of others, the older sibling, a ruling lady, and elected queen; a prince, dutiful son and brother, ruthless and dutiful defender of his family, and regent)

Meanwhile they have other siblings who struggled to meet said expectations or have given up attempting to all together (Arya, Rhaenyra, or to some degree Aegon)

Siblings who must from the perspective of Sansa and Aemond (who are still young, inexperienced, and have had a great deal of conflict with said siblings) seem to flaunt all expectations free to rebell, flaunt the rules, and generally ignore the high pressure expectations that children from their class face.

Undoubtedly frustrating since, much like their more rebellious siblings have failed to sympathize with the more responsible ones, Ameond and Sansa too have not (yet) been able to recognize the ways their less successful/dutiful siblings also suffer under the highly restrictive expectations of their class and position even if they do not choose or succeed in conforming to them.

They see that despite how they may excel in studying, striving and succeeding in their roles, and ultimatley exemplifying the high standards they were raised to it is these other siblings who seem to get rewarded (experiencing in their eyes at least what appears to be more freedom, less pressure, minimal censure or punishment for their misbehavior... while simultaneously receiving the bulk of the reward in terms of their inheritance, the attention they recieve, or even with regards to the amount of affection given by some of the authority figures in their lives, i.e. their fathers)...

To them it must seem that these siblings get to be not just easily forgiven for their mistakes and misbehaviour, but accepted as or outright adored simply the way they naturally are, whereas dutiful and non problematic children like themselves tend to be overlooked or underappreciated, and quickly criticized on the rare cases they misbehave... the acceptance and affection they recieve appears far more conditional on them behaving well according to the expectations of their family or various instructors/minders... whereas the affection their siblings receive, from say a certain parent, is show to be rather unconditional

Seriously they both give me such severe "easy" (i.e. overlooked) and "gifted" child trauma vibes... how much of their behavior is simply in their nature and how much is what they conform themselves to to make the adults around them proud... because as the quieter child or apparent outsider amindst their family/siblings this is the only action that comes natural to them and gets them some (hard earned) attention/praise in a rather large and loud family they otherwise seem a bit lost in... how much of their striving to succeed is dependent on the sincere belief/understanding that their saftey and potentially the future, saftey, and wellbeing of their family depends on it.

They both have a far more distant relationship with their fathers who favoured another sibling- a sister over them... father's who either didn't seem to know how to connect with them - Ned- or never really bothered to try- Viserys...

while i do believe Ned loves his children and they adored him in return i feel its obvious that he neglected in preparing any of them for the true dangers and realities of the world away from the satey and protection of winterfell and their Stark family, and he absolutely dropped the ball on keeping either of his daughters safe and supervised when he took them along into a very dangerous situation in kingslanding

Furthermore Ned never quite seemed to connected with or pay attention to Sansa they way he did with Arya... just something about the fact that when he follows the orders of his king/supposed best friend to kill Sansa's direwolf (the very symbol of their house) it is in replacement for Arya's Direwolf who was allowed to escape the cruel wrath of the Queen and Prince...and how he continues to fail Sansa in the aftermath

It's something about the gifts he gives his very angry and traumatized daughters to comfort them after- in lieu of truly trying to actually connect with and console both of them or to even properly mediate their increased fighting.

Arya (in the show and book) is given lessons with a "dancing" master who teaches her swordplay/water dancing, she was so excited and she always wanted to be outside learning to fight like her brothers got to, in this moment to her understanding she is not just seen by her father she is accepted and supported (a careful reader may see that Ned's attitude appears to be slightly condescendingly indulgent on the matter of her learning swordplay... but Arya gets the chance to do something she loves all the same)

Meanwhile (in the show) to try to console Sansa Ned gives her... a doll? (Honestly I can't recall any equivalent gift from Ned to Sansa in the books? the mention of her possibly getting harp lessons in Kingslanding was actually a promise Catelyn made to her on Ned's behalf rather than his own effort... and was something that Ned didn't actually ever arrange in the books)

But is this doll meant to be an appropriate gift to make up for the death of her direwolf? Is this gesture enough to comfort her and make amends after Ned killed her direwolf (notice its not exactly as spectacular, meaningful, or comforting a gift as arya's "dancing lessons"... certainly there is no indication that he has any particular understanding of Sansa or has given much thought into her talents, interests, or personality beyond the most shallow perusal)

In the aftermath of Lady's death Ned does nothing to truly protect Sansa or keep her away from the obviously dysfunctional and dangerous family he has promised her away to.

Yet he can take the time to comfort and have a frank conversation with Arya about how important staying together and supporting eachother as family is- especially when they are amongst dangerous people who mean to harm or separate them- and the specific importance her and Sansa will have to one another as sisters who share the same blood... further explaining how just as they will need eachother Ned needs them as well

Ned has no such comforting or distinctly meaningful exchange with Sansa... he doesn't explain the reality of the Lannisters/Joffrey/Robert (i.e. the truth of the people he has agreed to give his young daughter away to despite the fact that he either personally has no respect for most of them or has not been around them long enough to know anything about their true nature)

Yes it is the risk to his daughter that makes him willing to falsely confess to treason, yes eventually he decides its best to send his daughters back to winterfell, yes he finally wants to break the betrothal and he makes a beautiful promises to make her a match with "a high lord who's worthy of [her], someone brave and gentle and strong" ... but he is much too late to get both of his daughters away from the lannisters/kingslanding, way too late in his attempt to keep them safe, and he fails to handle Sansa with age appropriate respect and frankness and to actually tell her how dangerous things are in kingslanding and why joffrey (false prince -bastard born of incest) is such an ill suited match.

Maybe if he had put any effort into explaining things to her...or simply spending time with her, speaking to her, trying to understand her, comforting her amidst the loss of lady and the increased fighting with Arya, or doing literally anything other than just neglecting her and her saftey Sansa would have actually trusted his decision and seen it as him wanting what was best for her.

Maybe if he had been more proactive and focused on his daughters well being he wouldn't have brought both of them south after the altercation over their direwolves... or maybe he could have been successful at getting both his daughters out of kingslanding before everything went to hell.

Its almost like the whole point of the Ned/Arya/Sansa and the Ned/Cersei/Sansa dynamic isn't to show that Sansa is a naive girl who betrays her family for the lannisters but is instead to show that when you neglect your child emotionally they will turn elsewhere for comfort and will be particularly vulnerable to being manipulated or abused by other adults... its almost like this part of A Game of Thrones is more about the way even someone like Ned- a man who does strives to do what he thinks is right and a parent who does loves his children- can still fail.

Ned's treatment of Sansa is specifically intriguing, though i don't know if it will be addressed specifically since her relationship and dynamic with Ned is one that much like Robb ended with his tragic and unjust murder (leaving behind a grief stricken Sansa helplessly longing for the return of her family and home, grieving with a near devotional regard for her lost father and brother)... Sansa will never get to confront or reconcile with them over the many ways she was let down and left unprotected by her male relatives- and who knows if a traumatized and grieving Sansa will ever even recognize and admitt to herself the ways the people who she loved the most failed to live up to her expectations of them... how clearly that despite their love for her she was rarely their first priority ... how they both seemed to fail to follow their family mottos ... the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.... family before duty or honor... she was family yet duty and honor came before her in Robb's eyes... she was part of a pack but through Ned promising her to a marriage in the south, in him taking her and Arya away to kingslanding, in him failing to prioritize her saftey until they all were practically already on the chopping block, and in Robb abandoning any hope or plan of rescuing her she truly was abandoned by them ...to be a lone wolf without a pack to help her survive

Then there is Viserys who at the very least had a much stronger regard for Rhaenyra than all the kids by his second wife ...but can also quiet easily be accused of outright neglecting and mistreating them

The lack of guidance holds true for all his children really but with Rheanyra at least it is accompanied by an (ultimatley harmful) spoiled indulgence that he offers only to his eldest daughter- covering up her obvious blunders and threatening anyone who would speak the truth of her questionable actions and her children's legitimacy including his own wife and sons ... going against traditional succession not because he wants to promote first born succession/succession by "merit"/or treating daughter equal to sons in terms of inheritance or anything like that but because of guilt and unashamed favoritism.

Viserys refuses to give to his son what westeros society at least would deem as Aegon's birthright, while also failing to make arrangements for any his non-Rhaenyra children to have a future and saftey separate from the throne.

He doesn't arrange matches with other kingdoms and give them allies, protection, family, independence, or a power base independent of the crown/hightowers instead leaving them dependent only on the crown, vulnerable targets to be handled (i.e. no doubt killed on the orders of Rhaenyra and/or her uncle husband Daemon) as living they would remain the most significant threat to the legitimacy of their rulership.

Viserys looks the other way when Aemond specifically is permanently maimed by Rhaenyra's son...his only action after his son loses his eye is to threaten his second family, to intimidate them into staying quite on the topic of the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's children before he deems the matter concluded... as if the worst part of that altercation was Aemond calling them bastards rather than say four children ganging up against one and how one of these children attacked using a knife and cost the other their fucking eye?

That for Aemond more than anything must cement his understanding of his father's feelings about Aemond and his full siblings and mother. To Viserys they simply matter less than Rhaenyra and her children.

In fact their well being or saftey matters less than even an offense made to Rhaenyra's reputation... which shows Alicent and her children without question that they are in danger from the blacks and the King will do nothing to prevent the blacks from trying to severely physically harm Aemond or his siblings, and in fact that there will be no punishment for the blacks when they succeed in doing so.

A civil war between the blacks and the greens was inevitable... Viserys actions of protecting and favoring Rhaenyra while also not ensuring she is instructed on and practices/proves her ability to rule, willfully ignoring that she violates her own vows and that she passes off her obviously illegitimate children as trueborn heirs, of permitting her not just to inherit (and position her illegitimate son as the next heir to) what most considered the birthright of her brother but also for her to steal the birthright of her own cousins by supplanting them with her other bastard and demoting them to being simply their brides/consorts, him keeping her as heir not just after he has multiple trueborn sons but also after Rhaenyra gets remarried to the exact violent bloodthirsty man that so many feared and Viserys himself had previously removed as his own heir in favour for Rhaenyra.

Viserys doing all of this while still choosing to remarry and have MULTIPLE children with his new wife... the neglectful and disrespectful way he treats his second family... all of this ensured that the death of some (if not all) of his children, via either assassination or in outright civil war, would always have been inevitable.

There is so much hatred, fear, distrust, and tension between Viserys' family members... and not only did he fail to intervene or improve things he was the one most responsible for it ....so much of the environment Alicent lived in and Aemond and his full siblings were raised was permeated by not just a sense of deep injustice (particularly in Aemond's case with his treatment by not just the blacks but his own father) but also an undercurrent of desperate fear over what will happen to them and their family in the wake of a brewing succession crisis

The mommy, daddy, and sibling issues are so strong with these two and I'm so obsessed with how the complicated family dynamics and tragic family losses that Ameond and Sansa experience echoe one another in so many ways...there is just so much love, grief, rage, unpacked trauma, and hurt in them and I am always obsessed with stories that allow the narrative or characters to address such trauma.

PART 3/4. THE CONTRASTING AND COMPLIMEMTARY ASPECTS OF THEIR STORIES (SUFFERING AND GRIEF)

They were both were so young when they became targets of the wrath and dislike of powerful and corrupt "Queens"

Sansa who loses her direwolf at the demand of Queen Cersei, a queen who after long being abused by her own husband sees a perhaps more extreme form of that sort of violence in her own mad son being directed at Sansa, who rather than expressing or experiencing compassion or sympathy instead takes the chance to revel in the destruction of Sansa's innocence, to mock and emotionally abuse Sansa when she has lost her father and her only protection in Kingslanding, leaving her a hostage of war at the mercy of a violent and corrupt royal family

Aemond who after losing his eye to an attack instigated by Rhaenyra's children receives no apology or recompense...instead his own sister asks for her mutilated little brother to be tortured sharply questioned due to the offense he caused by accusing her sons -accurately mind you- of being bastards... Aemond and his siblings who were never truly ever treated by Rhaenyra as her siblings only ever the offspring of Alicent and thus obstacles and threats for her (and her uncle's) right to the throne.

Both were physically harmed or tormented by (or with the approval of) young members of royalty, with very little being done to intervene, stop, or punish those involved despite their own highborn status- which would generally deem them unacceptable targets for such abuse.

Young Sansa a hostage but still a high born daughter descended from two of the seven ruling houses in westeros, The Warden of the North and the Lord Paramount of the Trident, and niece/cousin to the rulers of a third kingdom, the Lord Paramount of the Vale. Who while under the "care" of the crown is tormented, stripped, and beaten in open court at the behest of a mad boy king... forced to look upon the severed heads of her father and household, forced into being an unwilling child bride to the house of her family's enemies, who is molested and threatened with sexual assault on multiple occasions

Prince Aemond son of the King who is mocked by his brother and nephews (or his king and father in the books) over the fact that he hasnt yet claimed a dragon, and when this makes him reckless enough to approach and claim the largest dragon in existence the torment doesn't stop it gets dangerously worse as the tension between the children of the blacks and greens escalate to the point of a violent confrontation between Aemond and his nephews and cousins... and the resulting loss of of his eye when one of his attackers brings out a knife. None of the children who banded together to attack Aemond would face any consequences, only Aemond himself and his mother and older brother would censure and outright threats from their King Father and Older sister. Whose earliest sexual experience- done at the behest of his older brother- was implied to be at the very least coerced, traumatizing, and humiliating- if not outright non consensual on his part.

Both Sansa and Aemond face a terrible sort of loss when they begin losing their family members to mass civil war ...often in a manner that is distinctly horrific or against all laws of decency in the 7 kingdoms

her father Ned unjustly executed for treason and whose decapitated head is displayed and used to torment her, her younger sister Arya gone missing for years and long thought dead, her home sacked and younger brothers Bran and Rickon supposedly murdered by her family's ward- a boy who grew up alongside the stark children- the burned/mutilated heads and bodies of two young boys being being put on display at winterfell, her older Brother and Mother slaughtered when their traitorous allies and bannermen men break sacred guest rights at a wedding, both their bodies desecrated in a mockery of their houses... Robb decapitated his direwolves own head placed ontop of his body while his enemies parade his remains around, her mother Catelyn's throat slit and her body dumped naked in a river and left to rot.

(In the show) Rickon being cut down before his siblings eyes by a madman who betrayed their house and had tortured Sansa herself, her "half brother" Jon betrayed and murdered by his men and later sent off into a lonley exile away from his family and home for the "crime" of taking out an invader who had just committed mass murder... Sansa being left to rule the north all alone with many of her family members long dead and the surviving ones being set on a path away from the north/winterfell while she is left to handle rulership in isolation

Aemond who after commiting the first Kinslaying of the "war of dragons" by attacking his own assailant and nephew Lucerys proceeds to lose all of the family that he loved.

Starting with the tragic murder of his innocent young nephew at the behest of his elder sister/uncle- who arranged for his mother Alicent to be attacked tied up and forced to bear witness to the gruesome murder of her grandchild,

His sister Helaena -who plead for her life to be taken to spare her son- forced under the threat of the rape of her young daughter to choose which of her young sons will be murdered. Only for all of them to be traumatize further when they kill Jaehaerys and leaving Maelor the son she "chose" to die to survive with the message that his own mother wanted him dead... the emotional torment this caused the whole family but most of all his sister who refused to eat, bathe, or look upon her remaining son due to her immense feelings of guilt

his older brother Aegon who has lost his son and heir, and whose sister/wife is in a grief so deep she cannot care for their remaining children, who is attacked and maimed but survives to live on in total agony,

the murder of Maelor, Aemond's remaining nephew at the hands of a mob

Aemond's last stand, sacrificing his dragon and his own life to take out his Uncle (the biggest threat to his family and the orchestrator of Jaehaerys' brutal murder)

The many tragedies that continued after Aemond's own death- his sister's eventual suicide, the death of his younger brother Daeron, his oldest brother outlasting all of his siblings and his own two sons only to be taken out by poison once the war is over, his mother spending the last of her years in confinement until she passes from sickness,

His niece Jaehaera, after the loss of her entire family, married off as a child in the name of "peace" and dying young and alone- of suicide or murder

There is just such fascinating potential when two characters would have so much mirroring grief and trauma ...there is such an undercurrent of helpess rage, guilt, and grief to them in their youth and a undoubtedly a feverent desire for either vengeance or justice against the many people who harmed them or slaughtered their family...

And here is where things begin to differ between the two in interesting ways

with Sansa who has these violent wishes/impulses but is not in a position to see them fulfilled herself- her desire to push Joffrey to his death even at the cost of her own life, her wish that someone will throw Ser Meryn Trant down and cut off his head, her hope that various people will fall/be unhorsed...

Sansa who recieves a direwolf, Lady, the very symbol of her house and potentially a companion that would have offered a connection that was an extension of her own soul only for Lady to be cut down so quickly and unjustly... Sansa who loses not just the connection/companionship she recieved from Lady but also the protection such a bond would offer her ... she is left vulnerable in so many ways and has no promise of reuniting with her own direwolf later on... that will never be a comfort or form of security offered to her after all the danger and trauma she experiences

While Aemond, who spent much of his young life similarly helpless to act or respond to insults and assaults on his own person or immediate family, (that his father/king either never deemed worthy of interference or punishment... that is when it wasn't the King himself who was the perpetrator of such offenses) unlike Sansa experiences a change of fortune in the form getting to bond with the symbol of his house

He gains (and gets to keep until his own death) a bond with a different sort of mythical beast companion... a dragon and as a result recieves all the potential for power and destruction that comes with being a dragon rider

By claiming Vhagar Ameond is the closest he will ever be to untouchable, not just from the harassment he personally experienced from his family but with regards to how grave and dangerous a threat/target he had now become for the blacks during the dance of dragons

Aemond now a dragonrider of the largest living dragon, a child and later teenager who is in control of the narrative equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction, and he is no longer held back from acting on his anger once the rule and interference of his neglectful father king is over,

he is in control of the most massive beast of pure destruction and unlike Sansa, who for now in the books- or for much of her story in the show- remained an unprotected hostage or pawn in the hands of those who mean to harm or use her... who handles her trauma very internally as she is not in a position to fight back, and must rely on her words, intelligence, and ability to read and strategically interact with people as a way of defending and keeping herself safe, Aemond is now in the position to enact every bloodthirsty impulse of revenge he ever experienced

He was held back from enacting vengeance only through his own will, which ultimately proves not enough- he commits the first kin slaying and soon the actions of each side escalated into a horrific bloodbath where nobility and small folk alike suffered or die en masse

While Aemond's story may be one of family devotion and loyalty, mistreatment, injustice, and suffering that ends by showing the terrible outcomes of revenge and uncontrolled cruel brutality Sansa's story feels like one where grief, rage, and mistreatment exist but where family, love, compassion, kindness, justice, and integrity will win out in the end.

Sansa was certainly developed into a more discerning strategic and ruthless figure in the show but justice, duty, and forgiveness were still very prevalent in her storyline

she does have ramsay killed in a fittingly horrific manner, but she later holds a public trial for littlefinger- who was responsible for much of her familys suffering, the death of her father, and her own torment and rape- before she has him executed,

She feels compassion and forgiveness for theon the man who had betrayed her family and drove her young brothers out of their home, who only after experiencing significant torture himself became devoted to protecting the remaining starks and was able to find the courage to disobey his own torturers in order to help Sansa escape,

She possessed a concern for other people that few ruler do in asoiaf/got... speaking up against Joffrey's cruelty even as a powerless hostage, being the person concerned with the more practical matters of caring for and feeding their people during a harsh winter- a notable development in comparison to say everyone else just focusing on battle tactics and the upcoming battles (as though feeding an army is not an essential part of warfare), and the invader who just burned westeros' food stores en masse and now expects others to feed not just her armies but also demands that her dragons be fed "whatever they want"

I think in the books however that despite Sansa's internal grief and rage and her burgeoning political acuity there will be a gentler end to her arc where her own innate sense of duty and her (now more discerning) sense of compassion will win out in the end when she takes back her name, identity, and birthright ... that she along with her surviving family will have justice administered in the name of their lost family and people... efficiently bringing down righteous and necessary judgement on those that harmed and betrayed them rather than simply dealing out some form of mass, bloody, cruel revenge on her enemies (I'll leave that for lady stoneheart) ... and that a satisfying ending for her and the other starks will balance them realistically addressing the dangers and betrayal they faced with their own personal resolve to hold true to the values imparted to them by their parents.

... yet after all her suffering (and the frustrating lack of trust, consideration, or support she was given by her own family in the later GOT seasons) there is something darkly appealing to the idea of her getting (not a hero precisely) but a ruthless and devoted sort of monster to support her and bring down unholy vengeance on her various tormentors

PART 4/4: THE RESULTING DRAMATIC AND EMOTIONAL APPEAL OF AEMONDSA FICS

This after their many parallels and complementary contrasts is what intrigues me the most...the interplay of a potentially wary, cautious, traumatized but still duty and justice oriented person and a companion or lover who is comparatively more ruthless, unhinged, capable of atrocities, and who is more equipped to dole out violence en masse... (guys the pipeline from dark jon/dark jonsa to aemondsa just makes so much sense)

the question in Aemondsa fics of what will win out in the end- the shared grief and rage or them both controlling/channeling such impulses into strategic righteous fury and justice is always fascinating... and most of all the idea of Sansa (after all the trauma mistreatment and grief she has experienced) attaining the interest and eventual devotion of someone who despite being capable of monstrous actions is also incredibly loyal, devoted, and ruthless in the pursuit of their loved ones interests ("I want you to put out your eye ... plan to make it a gift if it to my mother" indeed) is just as appealing as the idea where an isolated, lonely, traumatized, grieving, and dangerously angry young man like Aemond gets to find acceptance, affection, companionship, and belonging with an intelligent strategic but more importantly an exceptionally compassionate person like Sansa.

Its just a dynamic far too intriguing to ignore especially for someome who already loved Time Travel/Reincarnation Fix IT AUs in fanfiction

While emotional catharsis and Sansa returning home and having the dreams she had wrote off as impossible be fulfilled (i.e. building a loving partnership and marriage, having children with someone who loves and wants her more than her claim itself, reuniting with her family) is something I love- and what I want to happen in canon (hence my otp being Jonsa)- there is always an interesting/guilty pleasure aspect of fanfic where Sansa (or the Starks in general) get to wreck terrible bloody victory and vengeance on those who betrayed and butchered their family and people (not really the ultimate message or point of the book but definitely emotionally satisfying in fanfic)

Just like there is a sort of appeal that exists in hotd fanfic that is sort of the opposite ...ones that alter the violent senseless and tragic trajectory of the dance of dragons... to either change the course of a brutal civil war or prevent it all together

and the Aemondsa pairing's time travel or reincarnation fics provide an opportunity to explore both of these diverse dynamics.

Sansa will always deserve the world... in canon and in fanfic i want to see all her dream and hopes come true whether it is with a truly good and just partner with whom she gets to build the life and home she always dreamed of or through her getting her very own devoted monster who would do anything to keep her safe from the scores of people who wish to misuse or harm her

and I always wish that hotd fanfiction offered more Aemond centric fics with a love interest that you know actually likes, sympathizes with, or understand him? He feels too tragic a character for me to want him to experience the typical hate and love (enemies AND lovers) treatment he tends to get in fanfic... its not really satisfying for me seeing his typical pairing up with whatever team black character (or really TB character rewrite) or some Daemon's or Rhaenyra's daughter OC that is the frequent choice for aemond centric fics...him being portrayed as some impusive awful and villainous love interest who changes sides and abandons his family just to be with his lover/obsession feels so out of character in a way that erases the best, most compelling, and sympathetic parts of his canon personality, motives, and actions.

Luckily Aemondsa fics seems to be a pairing that offers everything I like in Ameond or Sansa centric fics....

In conclusion Aemondsa is surprisingly compelling and versatile dynamic in fanfic and I think that is why I've become such a fan of Firesteel/Aemondsa fanfiction (in a way I'm NOT at all a fan of the actual HOTD show writing lol)

I'm a proud support of crack ships/rarepairs and I'm always willing to add to the fandom appreciation of pairings that gets less attention or fandom related works... so expect to see the occasional Aemondsa fanart/fic recommendation post from me amongst my typical jonsa content (in fact expect one in the next in a day or so)

Otherwise I just hope established Ameondsa fans (or people who haven't ready any aemondsa fics but are fans of either character/curious about this pairing in general) have enjoyed seeing me fangirl about these two characters/this crack ship and feel inspired to check out or even make their own Aemondsa content!

-Crimsom Cold

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