#taking an inherently multiple - inherently contradictory - inherently biased set of accounts

[mswyrr]

Reminder that the book age gap could easily be a mistake/confusion that entered the historical memory of Westeros. It is entirely supportable for the show to present a narrative where Rhaenyra and Alicent are close in age, based in how historical records for early periods work. And it is certainly supportable for them to explore this as an example of queer people being erased from historical memory.

"Fire & Blood" is fundamentally different from the main books of the series. Those are written from the pov of characters directly experiencing events. "Fire & Blood" is a series of biased, largely secondhand accounts mashed together long after events by someone who wasn't there. The text itself tells you it's biased and confused in stunning moments like this:

--"Fire and Blood," page 502

We don't even know if Rhaenyra wept or SMILED at the sight of her little nephew's decapitated head! How can you look at a text like that and try to say there's a firm "canon" there that the show or other fans have to rigidly obey? It's intentionally written in such a way where there is no such thing, and the tv writers have leaned into the potential of that.

In our own world--as I've discussed before here--the ages of historical figures can become confused, especially from earlier periods. As a moot pointed out to me, even someone as famous as Anne Boleyn's age is a matter of debate:

I think people should be able to explore the text multiple ways and play with different interpretations, but the (so often repeated) argument that the tv show's approach is "breaking with canon" (as if such an idea even applies to an intentionally biased/conflicted set of narratives as the one we get in Fire & Blood!) is trying to fashion the text into a weapon in a way that it is ill suited to.