#this is the aegon im here for

[melrosing]

so stuff I’ve not liked about the finale and S2 more generally…. unfortunately it’s a lot and i'm thinking i might need to say this in several parts but first and foremost: the pacing really was shit and i don't just mean there weren't enough action scenes i mean the whole season they've had almost nothing to say about these characters and have just been making us think they do by having them repeat the same ham-fisted monologues about power and peace and the cost of war and whatever whilst moving at a glacial pace from one minor plot point to another and by the end of it most of these characters STILL haven't changed, and where they have it feels undeserved, and yes they really are at roughly the place they started so what have they even got to show for these eight hours of TV?? like damn

and I do get that the writer's strike has really effected them here and HBO hacking two eps off their season affected them too and that really can't be helped. but the pacing has been pretty poor from kick off and I can't just put it down to this being a more 'internal' season. i do not care about big battles. it's fine to have a season of a show that’s more about the characters’ interiority rather than plot action. that’s the exact reason why I like AFFC so much.

but these characters barely have interiority like idk what to say. some like Rhaenyra, Jace and Alicent have been spouting the same monologues every episode about wanting peace/wanting agency/wanting peace again etc etc, and the more interesting moments like Alicent's apparent suicide attempts, Rhaenyra's butchering of the dragonseeds etc... I mean where IS the interiority here?? unless they are spelling out a character's thoughts in the most literal way they can (as per Jace's diatribes about the dragonseeds), they leave their audience to do absolutely all the work by showing us nothing, and just leaving us to figure that the characters must be having some kind of thoughts but y'all can decide what they are.

and even Daemon, whose entire ARC was about his interiority.... like look I was so so ready to love this arc. i love fucked up little dream sequences. i love harrenhal. i was really enjoying the angle they took with alys. i was here for it. but now we've seen the whole of his S2 arc, im going to say yes, it was intended as a redemption adjacent kind of arc, and it isn't a very good one. Daemon has a handful of weird dreams, gets shouted at by some Riverlands folk, and he's a changed man.

consider the character everyone compares Daemon to (and who I'm always more than happy to talk about) and that's Jaime. and look at the sheer ground covered in ASOS: Jaime breaks out of a dungeon, Jaime meets a younger version of himself, Jaime gets his hand hacked off, Jaime reveals his anime villain backstory in the bath, Jaime deals with Roose Bolton, Jaime has a weird weirwood dream, Jaime fights a fucking bear - and at this point we're still only about halfway through.

now in contrast, what have they actually managed to do with Daemon this season. where has that finale moment with Rhaenyra been earned. this is not slow pacing for the sake of powerful character development, it's slow because they don't have anything else to say.

and also look at the state of characters like Aemond who seemed really promising in S1, yet in this season he barely reflects on the fact that he hadn't meant to kill Luke, and this war is an accident that he started, etc etc - he's just a killing machine lol. there were some nice touches in there, like i say i enjoyed Helaena telling Aemond how he'll die in the finale. but I no longer trust these writers to do anything with their more inspired ideas because they just consistently fail to do so.

look at Baela!!! like my god, has Baela had the opportunity to do anything except A) what she's told and B) counsel men on their feelings. she has like one moment looking at Daemon and you feel like the series is going to explore how complex it is to be Daemon Targaryen's daughter.... but my god they never do!! so where IS this interiority we've spent eight episodes on! what have they got to show for it!!

and i talked more weeks back about how frustrating i've found the writing of women more generally in this series and as of the finale I am finding it so egregious and so condescending. women want peace. women want to protect their children. women are tired of men. women are tired of war. women are trying to end this war peacefully. women are pacifists. women hate violence. and so on and so on and so on like jesus christ who am i even talking about here. even i don't know. it's so boring. it's so dry. and it requires female characters to always be the paragons of virtue, never do anything truly condemnable, never be unlikeable, never fucking anything except stand around saying how much they hate this. im bored of it and it makes me angry that they would do this in a series that specifically seeks to make everyone grey and everyone complex - they keep suggesting that might extend to the women before abruptly shutting it down again. see Alicent and Rhaenyra even STILL, after EVERYTHING, trying to peacefully shut down the war for the sake of love and friendship in the goddamn finale. I don't believe it anymore!! it's not cute! it's just dull!!!

and finally that just kind of brings me to how shortsighted a lot of the plot developments seem, when you see how the characters fail to reckon with their pasts or shit that just happened. Rhaenyra and Mysaria make out, and then that's never mentioned again and the tone never changes between them. Rhaenyra is done thinking about Luke. Helaena is done thinking about Jaehaerys. Aegon actually didn't mention Jaehaerys in the list of things he's 'lost' in that finale. Alicent's relationship w Viserys was just now condensed to 'we were fond of each other but he always liked your mum better'

like idk it's just. if this season's pacing is all about giving characters the chance to change and grow into the people they'll be when this war REALLY kicks off.... do it. write it. do not just write the same monologue a dozen times and hope it'll hit harder with each. doesn't work like that. sorry.

[manderleyfire]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON COUNTDOWN TO S2 Day 7 – Dynamics: Otto x Alicent x Aegon

[why] DO YOU [destroy yourself] LOVE ME?

[gojuo]

streets are saying this is his wedding ring he was fiddling with....

[estrangedandwayward]

Still thinking about larys helping aegon off the floor, a display of physical strength which he would normally keep hidden, a brief slip of his mask of helplessness he told aegon about last episode. He disarms himself in a way, by showing the strength most assume he doesn't have

[bluebellhairpin]

The Strong's of Harrenhal

(L -> R; Larys II, Dawsyn, Stephas, Ser Harwin, Lady Strong, Renei, Maryana) The finished version of this smaller line art, which I PROMISED I WOULD EXPAND AND FINISH which I now have :) This is my first time doing an artwork with so many people in it, and ngl I do think I slacked off with the kids just bc it was taking so long to do and I went "I NEED TO FINISH THIS SO I CAN DO SOMETHING ELSE" yk? Anyway it's done now <33

[jamespottersdaisy]

THEY CANT FUCKING GET AWAY WITH THIS

[steeb-stn]

the contrast between the brotherhood of viserys and daemon vs aegon and aemond.

viserys and aegon, the kings who arent really fit to be kings. aemond and daemon, the dangerous, unpredictable, ambitious secondborn sons. But viserys and daemon, for all that they were two deeply flawed people in a deeply flawed family/institution, loved each other so so much. And that love is just. Not there at all between aegon and aemond and that ruined them

[atopvisenyashill]

i like to believe that aegon iv and daeron actually look very alike but no one notices bc of the weight difference but daeron remembers when his dad’s face was skinnier & they were twinning and every time aegon is like “i bet your bitch mom was cheating on me” daeron is like “you’re not even angering anymore as a parent you’re just annoying to me now”

[nonbinarylesbianherb]

NOOO IM SOBBING I HATE IT HERE SO BAD HOW COME ALL THESE FUCKASS MEN GOT TO LIVE BUT SHE DIDNT WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THEM ALL IM GOING TO RIP THEM TO SHREDS.

[witchering10123]

nighttime sketches ☕

[harrenhalyuri]

spent the better part of the year in art block, first thing I managed to sketch last month was the green kids bc i really wanted to put them all together

so everyone is here! kinda...

(maegelle is my OC and daeron is being held hostage by HBO so lol)

[depvotee]

TG is so funny bc they see people make parallels of Rhaenyra with other characters on the series (Amethyst empress/Stannis) and then they go running to twist it all the way into making it about someone on the green side.

[mummer]

"sara snow" as if that could have ever been a real name. get real. That is a drag name

[maximofftwinsbitch]

im not team black, team green, team targ or team any noble house. i'm team leave the kids & small folk out of this jfc

[cl0ud-ninex]

I can just imagine lesbian Visenya laughing her ass off whenever she hears that ppl think her and Rhaenys are fighting over Aegon.

She don't want that man lmao!

[llilychen]

it’s really sad that i always looked forward to rhaenyra and/or alicent scenes last season but i now feel the urge to fast forward every time one of them comes on screen

- every alicent scene is her looking sad or crying or her with cole but nothing she does adds anything of value to the plot

- we get the same black council scene in which the men are undermining rhaenyra twice per episode and still nothing is done (i do believe she will make some progress in the next episodes but it’s just so boring to watch her have the same scene over and over again)

cersei and dany i miss you both so much