#sara hess IF I GET YOU

[la-pheacienne]

"One of the things that gave me the most respect for Hillary Clinton was in the aftermath of [the 2016 election], how she navigated her role/non-role and brilliantly maintained her dignity, self-respect and leadership. That felt like territory that Rhaenys was treading".

@alethiaii i'm suing you for therapy expenses

[mydairpercabeth]

Team green (excluding Helaena) they could never make me like you

[thestarlightforge]

“COME WITH ME”

[daenerystargaryen06]

Hot take: but maybe it would have been better in the show if in Daemon's most recent vision within Harrenhal it was Aemma he was with over Alyssa.

I have seen both sides of the argument here for and against Daemon's scene with Alyssa. But overall I still get a sense of disgust and question wtf the writers were on when they made that scene with Alyssa and Daemon. If you like the scene, great, more power to you. But overall a good majority of people were revolted by this scene. And I think that if they had replaced Alyssa with Aemma, the scene still would have the same effect, just in a different narrative.

Let's go with the theory that Alys is attempting to use the visions Daemon has as a means of building him up as King. Making him think he should have had what Viserys did, because he was better. Ultimately her goal for this theory is drive Daemon mad and make him think he would make a better ruler over Rhaenyra, thus turning him against her.

Let's begin with a breakdown of this vision. Daemon is committing incest and sexual acts with Alyssa, while she praises Daemon. Here is what all she says to Daemon: "Daemon. Daemon. You were always the strong one. The finest swordsman... the fearless dragonrider. Your brother had great love in his heart... but he lacked your constitution. Viserys was unsuited for the crown... but you... Daemon, you were made to wear it. If only you'd been born first. My favorite son." This dialogue is reminiscent to what Viserys tells Daemon in season 1 episode 4. Daemon was their mother's favorite. He had that in regard above Viserys.

But, why need to showcase him having sex with his mother just for this? The scene could work just as well if you replace Alyssa with Aemma, and it feels so less revolting if it had been Aemma. The reason Aemma would work just as well in this scene is because she is also the representation of what Daemon never had but Viserys did: -A loving wife and Queen with him as King -Their daughter, Rhaenyra, who Daemon clearly favors

-A stable marriage and the appearance of a good life (despite Viserys' actions against Aemma regarding childbirth and her death)

Aemma could have been the Queen Daemon could have gotten if represented in this vision over Alyssa. She could have been implemented as a way of saying- "See? You could have had all that your brother did and more if you had only been born first or made King over Viserys. You should be the one to rule, and Aemma should have been your queen, not Viserys'."

Daemon was stuck in an unhappy, loveless and childless marriage when Viserys was with Aemma. She could have been shown in this vision as a "what Daemon could have if he was King" over what he had been (or what he felt he had been) burdened with. Aemma also possessed Targaryen blood despite also being an Arryn, and has the Targaryen look in the show. She also could have been another known face Alys uses against Daemon to weaponize him against Rhaenyra (like how he saw young!Rhaenyra and Laena).

The dialogue Alyssa says in the show could also be rearranged to fit Aemma: "Daemon. Daemon. You were always the strong one. The finest swordsman... the fearless dragonrider. Your brother had great love in his heart... but he lacked your constitution. Viserys was unsuited for the crown... but you... Daemon, you were made to wear it. If only you'd been born first. My favorite [one/husband/lover/brother (not incest brother but favored brother out of him and Viserys)]."

Really only one word needed to be changed to fit this. The dialogue overall is neutral before that one word 'son' comes into play (fucking nasty). They wouldn't even need to change the blood that was on Alyssa for Aemma either. Aemma had died in childbirth, as Alyssa had, mirroring Daemon's mother's own fate. It still would have had the same effect, which is planting the idea in Daemon's head that he should be King (and should have been made King before Viserys) and manipulating him.

I just feel it would be better if it was Aemma? His mother was a weird take. I get somewhat what the showrunners were trying to do here, as I've said: I've read the arguments and points for Alyssa's implementation into the vision. But it still feels wrong. Targaryen's practiced incest, yes, but never parental x child incest. I get that Daemon never knew his mother but including her into a scene such as that was just... jarring and did not leave the taste I think the showrunners wished it did. I had liked Daemon's arc within Harrenhal up until that point. It was like a gut-punch and just felt icky in the end. And even MANY had assumed that it was Aemma in the vision over Alyssa, which just proves Aemma could have been a better fit over Daemon's own damn mother in this scene and it still would have been just as effective.

Or... maybe, just maybe- if they really were so damn set on it needing to be Daemon's mother in that vision- they should have done it differently.

Idk maybe have Daemon walk into the Throne Room, and instead of young!Rhae, he sees Alyssa. If it has to be intimate, make her treat him like an actual MOTHER would and not a fucking lover. Daemon missed out on having motherly love and affection -don't fucking come in my comments saying 'but Daemon never had motherly love so it makes sense he sees it as sexual since he views women as sexual blahblahblah' go read the fucking books- so they could have used that scene as a way of showing Daemon something he never got to manipulate him and add in the dialogue and boom, same impact.

It's just fucking gross, all right? I wish it was Aemma. I don't wanna see someone having sex with their MOM on screen. It's gross. Never bring that shit before my eyes again.

[rainy-writers]

Remember when we thought that Lucerys’ death would haunt the narrative and we’d all be sad whenever people bring up how it was unfair that he was murdered and Aemond would actually be called a Kinslayer for it? Yeah me too

[atopvisenyashill]

i am guilty of retweeting one or two emma d’arcy thirst traps & the rare bran stark fancam and that’s it! can i be blamed for being gay or susceptible to sad songs & neat transitions!!

[mrderofcr0ws]

even the finale’s name was fucking stupid….

[lady-corrine]

Eye-

[dulcewrites]

Hey, just wanted to say thank you for being one of the few writers that writes Aemond centric fics without feeling the need to bash the living daylight out of Aegon. It’s always so frustrating to see most fic writers drag Aegon through the dirt ten times over to make Aemond seem more likable.

no problem!

I do try to walk a very… delicate line with how I write/discuss Aegon. Because though I think it is fair to dissect the disparities between how narratives were set up, at least in s1 (Aegon vs Rhaenyra, team black vs team green, Alicent vs Rhaenyra), I do not want to slip into rape apologia territory. Which unfortunately, and I don’t think people are trying to but impact and intent aren’t the same, I do feel like a lot of people trying to ‘defend’ Aegon or just make sense of the choices the writer/producers made end up doing. It is entirely possible to write/discuss his character true to form without either erasing the bad parts (even before the events of ep 8) or exacerbating them.

Honesty, one of the reasons why it’s hard for me to continue with my Aegon centric work that I never feel like I have a good handle on his character. I try to do the characters justice and I’m annoying about my shit always, and it’s made worse when I can’t characterize someone right. It’s something I’m working on slowly but surely

[navree]

gonna be entirely honest i think a LOT of people are missing the point here. the issues surrounding characterization and bad dialogue and lazy plotting and changes that weaken the story and lack of internal cohesion would have existed anyway, because those are issues that came directly from condal and hess, yes. but it IS actually a massive fucking problem that the network decided to slash a FIFTH of the time the writers thought they were gonna have to tell their story, and that they decided to do that mere weeks before shooting, likely when things were starting to be pretty firmly locked down. it IS a huge issue that this created an insane amount of work for the writing team to try and make that sudden limited time work, especially with the deadline of the strike on top of the deadline of shooting. that was ALWAYS going to create a disaster of a season.

imagine if, a month before it was schedule to start filming, hbo had demanded that succcession cut, at minimum, a full episode from their season. imagine if season 4 had that similar mandate, going from ten episodes (which it was, and which it crafted its story around) to eight. it doesn't matter how good the writing is, how on point the characterization is, how fantastic everything is on all other cylinders, demanding those changes in such a short time span is always going to lead to something sloppy and just not good. adding on top of that the fact that the writers were not able to keep on working on the show as they were filming (possibly using the time they were shooting early season episodes to work around the clock to try and make the time crunch make more sense wrt later episodes) due to the strike, which kept up for literally the entirety of shooting, at hbo's behest as well, any change that could have been made was likely incredibly half baked and needed a lot more refinement before it could even hope to work, and would have been that way for any production, even of the shows getting the most applause for their brilliance this year. abbott elementary, interview with the vampire, shogun, they would have suffered the same issues of pacing and lack of climax and both too much buildup and lack of buildup that hotd has been noted as having because of hbo's choices, and these are all shows where we know that the writing team is top notch and the showrunner has known exactly what they're doing and crafted it all expertly.

it's not about your antipathy towards condal and hess as showrunners specifically. i'm not pleased with them either, but in this i could honestly give a shit. it's about the fact that this is an insanely popular property, one whose success creates a lot of money, and the network responsible for it still made decisions that severely and detrimentally impacted its ability to succeed. this season was doomed to fail before a second of footage was shot, and a lot of that blame can and should be laid at hbo for the choices it's made here. there likely wasn't much that would have been able make the writing of the season better, because of the issues already highlighted, but this didn't fucking help. this made it infinitely worse, and created an unsalvageable situation from the getgo that possibly wouldn't have been there if the episode count hadn't been cut, if the writers had known their final count from the getgo, if they'd been given more time to rework the season, if hbo hadn't kept up filming in spite of the strike so that the writers could keep working without screwing over the rest of production.

way too many people are missing the forest for the trees here. yes, condal and hess made bad decisions all the livelong day, and yes that's on them, ring the shame bell at them. but it doesn't matter in the discussion here. the discussion here is on what's now a very clear pattern of hbo and the broader wb/discovery crew making constant choices that denigrate the actual craft of storytelling and are clearly meant to maximize their own profits at the expense of the artists involved in creating those profits, as part of the broader entertainment executive industry's disdain for creatives as a whole that we've been seeing with the strikes and generative ai and now this (and also the trend of david zaslav's incredibly bad business management that is alienating so many people from everything under the wb/discovery umbrella). that's why hbo making these choices is essentially dooming the season to fail from the outset (which is what it was, there's no way anything good could have come from this situation even if the entire writing staff was blessed by the muses themselves, it was dead in the water from the getgo because of this specifically and then only made worse by shitty writing), and something that should be talked about with the gravity it deserves, irrespective of whether or not the dragon show did a plotline you liked or not.

i'm sorry hbo allowed this writing team to plan out a ten episode season until a MONTH before shooting when they cut it down to eight????? and then kept production going when the writer's strike started like two weeks after and kept up for the entirety of the filming schedule??????? i said that filming during the writer's strike was the death knell of this season but oh my god i did not expect to be this fucking right

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

PHIA SABAN INTERVIEWED BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.

SO MUCH HAPPENED IN THE FINALE, AND HELAENA WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SO MUCH OF IT. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU FOUND OUT HOW MUCH INFLUENCE HELAENA WAS GOING TO HAVE IN THIS EPISODE?

"When I read the episode, I was so excited to be involved in that trippy dream sequence."

"I was hoping that I was going to arise from a lake of goo or something, or fly."

"But I was also really happy to stand there and talk."

"That was really exciting because we did that all in a green screen stage, just me and Matt, so it was really cool."

"I watched the last episode last night, and it was really cool to see all of that come to life."

"I was very pleased to be involved in that."

"My other thought was if she feels this kind of clarity in that scene that she has with Aemond, and that isn't historically how she's felt about her power and everything."

I needed to work backwards from there and try and work out what journey she has been on, for that moment to be so clear, when usually she's a bit more like, "Oh, there's a beast somewhere."

WHAT CONVERSATIONS DID YOU HAVE WITH SHOWRUNNER RYAN CONDAL ABOUT HELAENA'S EXPANDED ROLE AND HOW SHE'S GOTTEN TO THIS POINT IN THE FINALE? BECAUSE SO MUCH OF HER JOURNEY HAS BEEN INTERNAL.

"Actually, Ryan and [writer] Sara [Hess] and the writers, they very much left it to me as to how Helaena feels, how she connects to that side of it, and how it manifests for her, but it's an interesting one."

"The line between what I know and what she knows, I try and keep quite close together, so it's not always so helpful for me to have this really overarching idea of how exactly she plays in and what magic it is."

"Because I think every time when that happens to her, it feels like the first time."

"So I know as much as she does, in a way, but they were very keen for me to interpret it however I want."

"Then I think they're just going to weave it into the story in their magical way."

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PROCESS IN WORKING BACKWARDS FROM THAT CONFRONTATION WITH AEMOND. HOW DID YOU GET INTO HELAENA'S MINDSET?

"How I describe it is she has this amazingly strong intuition, and things come to her as gut feelings in flashes, but they're not always clear."

"She can't always turn them into advice."

"It's more of like a feeling that takes her over."

"That's where some of those really abstract things that she mutters earlier on comes from, but she also thinks of herself and knows of herself that she's quite a strange girl."

"There's a way in which her family lets her go and be her strangeness in her room and do all of her Helaena things."

But also she partially thinks, "Maybe if I didn't have these weird feelings or this strange intuition or this really intense experience that I have, then I could be a bit closer to people around me, or I could communicate better or it would be less strange."

"Part of her represses that stuff."

"Then I think with the trauma that happened to her in episode 1, essentially the worst possible thing happened, and there's a certain amount of dissociation and almost like a letting go of that, like trying her best to be the same as everyone else."

She has disassociated from the family reality, and maybe she has stepped in a little bit more to the other place, and she has more access because she's gone, "I can't abandon myself as well, so what is this?"

"She's given it the attention and the intensity it needed."

SINCE HELAENA BEING A DRAGON DREAMER ISN'T IN THE BOOK, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HOW YOU'RE GETTING TO CHART NEW TERRITORY FOR THE CHARACTER?

"It's really fun."

"I know that people feel so passionately and lovingly towards the original story, but I think that me, as a fan of things, I love a certain level of loyalty."

"Then I love the idea that I can be surprised or something could be subverted."

"It more flatters the audience's intelligence when you get to surprise them and subvert things, so I like the idea that people didn't see that coming for Helaena."

"Obviously, I can't watch the show as an impartial person."

I WOULD BE VERY IMPRESSED IF YOU COULD.

"[Laughs] I'd be like a psychopath, yeah."

WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING THE BRAN OF THIS SHOW?

"The thing is that I really have absolutely no idea what's happening next season."

"I think that moment in episode 8 is an example of how clear and how powerful she can be, but I don't think that's the beginning of now she can just communicate like that."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she walks away from Aemond, [mimes shaking her head and shoulders and blows out a breath], and she goes inside and goes to her room and that doesn't happen again for a long time."

"So who knows, but it would be really cool if I got to spend more time in that vision dream world."

"I would love that."

"There's that moment when Daemon's going over to the tree, and then there's a guy with a deer head or something."

"I think Helaena should hang out with him."

THEY SHOULD GO OFF TOGETHER HAVE THEIR OWN SIDE ADVENTURES. NEW SPINOFF IDEA.

"Yeah, exactly."

"That's what I want for the next season."

DOES THIS REVELATION THAT HELAENA IS ACTUALLY A DRAGON DREAMER MAKE YOU RETHINK YOUR CHARACTER AT ALL?

"Yeah, I think it's fun because it's essentially development, which is what you always hope for when you play someone."

"I just really hope that there's momentum from this, that we see her change more and more and keep on being surprising."

WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING THAT SCENE WITH MATT WHERE HELAENA KNOCKS DAEMON DOWN A PEG AND REALLY HUMBLES HIM IN THE FINALE?

"It was fun."

We were there on the green screen going like, 'What the hell is this going to look like?'

"But it's great to do work with the people from the other team because at this point the relationships are so bad that you're really only going to get Helaena and Daemon together in a vision."

"They're probably not going to be having lunch together anytime soon."

"[Laughs] I'd love to go and hang out with Harry Collett and Bethany Antonia and Phoebe Campbell next time."

"I'd like to go and hang out with Alys Rivers [Gayle Rankin], all the people that live in different castles."

"Maybe I could meet them in dreams."

"That would be really good."

"It'd be like ... did you ever play Club Penguin?"

[LAUGHS] I HAVE!

"It could be Club Penguin."

It's like, "Meet me here at 3 p.m. by the igloo."

That'd be so fun if Helaena could just be like, "Let's go and hang out in dreams. Go and touch the tree, and I'll be there."

NO ONE HAS EVER LISTENED TO HELAENA UNTIL DAEMON REALLY TAKES HER WORDS TO HEART AND CHANGES HIS ENTIRE COURSE. DOES HELAENA FULLY APPRECIATE OR EVEN KNOW THE PART SHE'S PLAYING IN THIS WAR NOW?

"No, I don't think so."

It's all so intense for her and so immediate that I don't think she even is always like, "I have this overarching understanding of the story."

"I think it comes to her in moments."

"Maybe it muddies the water more, but I feel like that whole dream stuff is up for interpretation as well from the audience."

"How much is she a projection of his guilt, or how much did he just need to hear that from someone?"

"It's this magical realm, so anything could be possible."

"Maybe that's something that she could say in a moment, and then she's gone from there again, and it's just like she was just being channeled through."

"Who knows? Maybe we'll find out more."

I think to her it's just, 'This is my really intense experience of being alive,' and that's enough self-analysis for anyone in that moment.

It's like, "What am I going through?"

"And then there's this clarity."

"She's got a lot to process this season."

"Bless her."

WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING THE SCENE WHERE HELAENA STANDS UP TO AEMOND AND REVEALS SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HE DID? THAT'S ONE OF THOSE RARE MOMENTS OF CLARITY FOR HER.

It's really fun to work with Ewan — yet again, I'm answering the question in an annoying way because I'm like, "I just like working with those people!"

"[Laughs] That was really cool."

"God, this is really the first time... it's the most eye-contact she's ever made in both seasons."

And she's really going like, "Don't fuck with me."

Basically, "Because I have this knowledge that's on a higher realm and I cannot and will not go and kill people for male ego and toxicity."

That's the other funny thing with this family: Yes, he's the Prince Regent or whatever, and her husband/brother is the King.

But actually to each other it's like, "You're my brother and you can push me and you can push me, but I know you."

"That is more about a sibling dynamic."

"Actually, I think that Aemond ironically is one of the people that Helaena feels she can communicate with a little bit better."

"They have this sort of affinity."

"It's just fun to play with those dynamics because she doesn't have a lot of long chats with anyone, so it's fun for me."

YEAH, THE LONGEST CHAT SHE'S HAD UNTIL NOW HAS BEEN WITH HER BUGS.

"Exactly, and they don't really answer back."

"This is very new and very overwhelming."

HELAENA DOESN'T WANT TO RIDE HER DRAGON INTO BATTLE, BUT DO YOU? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MISSING OUT ON THE BIG DRAGON BATTLES SO FAR?

"Yeah! It's House of the Dragon, and I've got a dragon, and I haven't got on it."

"I'm rusty."

"I really wanted to get on the dragon."

"I went and watched a few people on the buck this season, and I was so jealous."

"I'd really love to get on the dragon, or at least have a scene with Dreamfyre."

"Dreamfyre, like Vhagar, she's super ancient and big and cool."

"I'd like to see Helaena and Dreamfyre having a sort of spiritual connection, but I'm not complaining."

"I'm just happy to be here."

[drakaripykiros130ac]

Basically, the main reason why you find people who stan the Greens:

At least this guy had the courage to admit it.

I blame the showrunners for this.

They hire someone like Olivia Cooke to portray Alicent and then obsess about her beauty, put her in the spotlight and turn her into a sex symbol. And you see people actually falling for that.

Olivia Cooke is like 30 (younger than Emma D’Arcy even), and she is portraying a character who is supposed to be in her 40s at the time of the Dance.

Not to mention how ridiculous it is that the actress is only two years older than the actor portraying her on-screen son.

The pro-Green agenda of Ryan Condal and Sara Hess looks like this:

1. Get the sexiest possible actress to play a whinier, Virgin Mary version of the real Alicent Hightower (even though in book canon, she was never described as an actual beauty. She remained slim after four pregnancies. That doesn’t make you beautiful), and eliminate any notion that she wanted power, so you can make sure that people sympathize with her.

2. Come up with the idea that Aemond was bullied (even though he was the bully in canon).

3. Instead of respecting canon and making Aegon a lazy and fat drunk, give him daddy issues and attempt to “justify” his harassment of women.

4. Make Helaena a dreamer, so she can be more relevant (but she’s not).

Get the picture?

Rhaenyra Targaryen is clearly described as a very feminine person in the book, who loved dresses and jewels, and she had a very girlish personality (in no way did she want to be a knight, or a boy, LOL). She should have been portrayed as such.

I am tired of showrunners who use their money and connections to make their own fanfic out of a canon story. There are many sites for that where you can write how much you think the Greens are “misunderstood creatures” or how you think they should have won.

If you’re incapable of being non-biased when running a show who is supposed to follow a completed source, then just stay out of it.

[joekeerys]

I find it interesting how we’ve never seen Jacaerys show any interest in women. Even in being betrothed to Baela, they act more like cousins than anything. His dance with Helaena was done almost entirely out of spite for Aegon, whom we’ve seen him show more interest in/affection toward as a child than anyone else. Then we have Cregan, whose relationship with Jacaerys in the book is…a whole other story. Jacaerys seemed quite fond of him in the short scene we got in the show too.

i’m gonna make a lot of people angry by saying this but i agree. i don’t think it’s any fault of the actors but jace and baela do not come off as a romantic couple at all. that’s entirely due to how condal & co chose to write them and their lack of scenes that would imply they’re anything other than close family. it’s unfortunate because i’d really like to see them explored more and they’ve already treated baela’s character poorly enough as it is. i highly doubt we’ll even get a kiss between them before jacaerys dies.

it’s obvious i’m a big jacegon shipper and, regardless of whether you view it as platonic/familial or not, the way they acted together as kids and the tension between them during the dinner because of that fallout is undeniable. we haven’t seen jace act the way he did with aegon with anyone else. i think some people downplay how much he looked up to aegon as a child (as they do with all of aegon’s relationships), especially considering it’s the reason why things were so tense between them after aegon very publicly betrayed him in 1x07. i’d argue that “everyone knows. just look at them.” coming from someone he admired so much is one of jace’s biggest reasons for feeling so inadequate his whole life. this got out of hand lmao but YEAH i think it’s interesting how affected jace and aegon are by each other and i do not see it as entirely platonic.

jace and cregan are a whole other story indeed. i’m not much of a jacegan shipper but cregan’s devotion to jace long after his death is interesting to say the least. i never bought into the whole sara snow thing and the absence of her in the show doesn’t bother me since it’s up in the air whether she existed at all and i take everything mushroom says with a grain of salt. i like the ship more as an idea. them seeing themselves in each other, jace finding someone he can be more comfortable with, and them finding a sort of intimacy in that. another instance where the he chemistry between them is pretty apparent and it helps that harry and tom are such good friends outside of the show.

i think there’s a reason why jace is normally written as gay in fanfics where he’s paired with a man, while the other party is usually written as bisexual. i wouldn’t go as far as to say that the showrunners write him that way intentionally because that would be giving too much credit to someone like sara hess who has called hotd “the gayest show on tv” for reasons beyond explanation.

i’ve always seen show jace at least as being more interested in men because that’s what we’ve been given. book jace is another story and harder to pin down. ultimately, i agree with you!

[lemonhemlock]

I did not get into Game of thrones when it first started airing. In fact, I waited until it was long past it's heyday (around s6 or 7) to check it out because the marketing and the conversation surrounding it misled me into thinking it was nothing more than "grimdark" bullshit. As one famous YouTuber sarcastically called it "hot fantasy that fucks." So, I avoided Martin's work for literal years due to the impression that I got from online reactors and show-only casuals who did as you and a few others have described as his work being fundamentally misinterpreted.

Fortunately, I overcame my hang-ups, purchased the books (even the supplementary material) and fell down an entire rabbit hole of ASOIAF which led me to recognizing that this world he spent decades creating is far more complex than what had been portrayed onscreen. Regardless of the possibility of the books remaining unfinished (which I am fine with, personally), what George has created is a genuine work of art that I imagine took a tremendous amount of time and energy. So, for so many people online to behave like children and throw tantrums because they feel entitled to him (ew) instead of ushering forth more reasonable conversations and legitimate debates about the nature of his situation frankly makes me look at this fandom with a heavy dose of skepticism.

It is truly baffling to hear even professional critics and see articles describing George as being "ungrateful" or "unprofessional" when it has been well-documented just how often authors get locked out of the adaptation process and left to the wayside as consultants. Look at what happened to Rick Riordan and Christopher Paolini! George R.R. Martin is not the only author to have qualms with how a multimillion dollar studio has mishandled his creative work, and to act like he should remain silent just because he's amassed a certain degree of wealth is quite frankly, ridiculous. He shouldn't have to settle down, be grateful, and stay quiet because the greedy corporate executives and their media drones will get offended by actual criticism that could alter the perception of the adaption being revealed as mediocre for having departed from the source material.

TLDR: authors should be allowed to speak up about their art being sacrificed for commercialization.

Thank you so much for this message, anon! This needs to be talked about more, because I don't think a lot of commentators truly understand the vulgar, late-capitalistic sheen that seems to set in and slowly poison any ASOIAF adaptation. It honestly baffles me how quick some members of this fandom are to rush to the defense of, what is essentially (let's not be kidding ourselves here), a cashgrab by a giant corporation to the detriment of the actual artist and the actual creative foundation behind it.

Why else would "MAX" (if that is even their name) make another (or several other) ASOIAF adaptations? Not to stay true to any philosophical aesthetic vision, as it has become more than apparent with Season 2, but to increase shareholder profits by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Even the basic premise has been shifted in order to address popular trends and satisfy the mindless consumer that doesn't want to engage with anything deeper than their favourite tropes, prettily packaged:

from a story about a doomed ouroborous family superimposed on the pitfalls of feudalism, with villainy and heroism to be found on both sides, it has been simplified and reduced to a narrative that exalts white feminism and disqualifies anyone who opposes its girlboss protagonist. This is Sheryl Sandberg's version of Fire and Blood.

Truly, I think Sara Hess did (unintentionally) outline it the best: "civilians don't matter in Game of Thrones". They don't matter in Game of Thrones, but they matter in A Song of Ice and Fire. The entire heart of the series is contained in Septon Maribald's speech. The writers "kind of", must have forgotten, though.

[mhsdatgo]

Hotd writers choosing to adapt Mushroom's records out of everything they had in hand is the worst decision they could've ever come up with btw.

It's been stated time and time again that while F&B is purely built on records and gossip and morphed retelling of events out of bias and propaganda, Mushroom is the LEAST reliable of all the sources. He's a fool at Rhaenyra's court, his job is make people gasp and laugh, not retell historical events.

We're talking about the same guy who said that he had a penis large enough to match the size of his head, mind you. Also, he's obsessed with little girls giving BJs to Targaryen men somewhere in Flea Bottom. It's happened twice according to him.

The writers' reasoning for this choice is basically that F&B was written by Maesters and Septons, who were all greedy men, apart from being Green supporters. So anything they say is false, anything they say is written with sexist intent. Writer's intention was to do the exact opposite.

Then tell me, for the love of God, tell me, why is every woman apart from Rhaenyra, who is clearly whitewashed and I can go into heavy detail about that, basically shunned?

The Maesters claim Alicent left Viserys' body to rot and swell for days preparing and LEADING Rhaenyra's usurpation. She's the leader of the Greens, she and she alone. Not Otto. The Green Council answers only to her orders, they are loyal to HER.

I've seen people argue that since Alicent is what Maesters view as an "ideal" woman, then they would try anything to paint her in the best light possible. While I agree that this may be true, I don't think this is the case. In history books, even in real life, women are rarely painted as leaders or important figures.

For Queen Alicent to be written as THE face of the Greens, you know this mama wasn't playing around.

Now, how is this:

In ANY WAY, even comparable to THIS?:

At the end of ep.8 and quite literally the entirety of ep.9, Alicent is shown as a lost woman who doesn't even seem to know what she's doing, pushed by Viserys' last words about prophecy rather than SHEER DESIRE to get her hands dirty for her children's safety (which by the way will always be superior imo). The Green Council conspires behind her back, and on top of it all, she's yelled at by one of her own men and is made to take it like a beaten dog.

Moreover, we had Helaena's ROAST (yes it was a roast, my Queen inherited cunty lines from her cunty mother) against Aegon and her coronation, the latter being addressed as something quite wholesome, if you ask me. Alicent places her own crown upon her daughter's head and calls her "my Queen" after kissing her cheeks and kneeling. Afterwards, her and Alicent are literally written to be the only ones who could get through Aegon II's thick skull when he wanted to start the war right then and there as a result of Rhaenyra crowning herself on Dragonstone.

You hear me??? Aegon sat down and fucking listened to the two women in his life. Not the Council, them. These two were dogwalking him, the KING, on the daily, how is that sexist writing on the Maesters' part????

Yet these things are nowhere to be seen in Ryan Condal and Sara Hess' "progressive" show. We got beaten dog Alicent and Helaena being nothing but a walking spoiler machine other than yet another instrument to paint Aegon as the big bad wolf and usurper. Not a single scene of them counseling Aegon.

Baela and Rhaena have nearly no lines or scenes that don't show them in the presence of the Strongs. They are seemingly okay with anything Rhae throws their way because it's Rhae. The one and only scene about Baela openly speaking to her grandma about her wish to fight for Rhaenyra was deleted.

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra is stripped of her rage and thirst for vengeance, and instead made to negotiate for peace while in the books she was the one pushing to go to war first.

Can you tell me, again, how the fanfiction that is Hotd supposed to prove that they want to be "progressive" in contrast to the Maesters' "sexist" work, when literally all they do is whitewash Rhaenyra and sideline any woman who isn't her?

[coffeebooksrain18]

Something I never understood is why the show runners had to do the whole "good vs evil" trope. Like thats not why people watched GoT, we watched it cause it had complex characters that did bad things but we could understand why they did them. Like even Joffery Baratheon could be understood in the sense we all understood he was bad shit cause he was a incest baby.

But HotD makes it where if TB does something it's out of sacrifice and good will, but if TG does the same exact thing in the same exact way its made out to be out of greed and cruelty. When in reality all of these characters are cruel, greedy, have made sacrifices, done things for the good of others.

If I wanted to watch a Good Vs Evil show I would go to Disney not a asoiaf show. And Ryan Condal and Sara Hess need to fucking get that instead of treating us like we're dumb and just can't get the nuances. We can, your just horrible show runners and show writers who are so prideful and full of yourselves you can't admit when your wrong and that you've ruined this story to the point it's not even close to the same as it was in the book.