u/DumbTeen9

I think we oversimplify the council a lot

Yes, it comes down to sexism, but it's not that clean cut.

1. Im not saying jahaerys is a usurper- some would while others would say he took the throne from maegor thus deserves it and that is not my current discussion- but he needed to quiet down whatever whispers remained of him having usurped rhaena and her girls, even if they were dead with rhaena having never tried to press their claims

By establishing that "see? The Lords of the realm prefer my affable idiot grandson over my strong-willed trained granddaughter, I didn't do anything wrong

2. Corlys Velaryon was a problem. In the case of laenor, the guy has 0 ambition, so while the boys would be remembered as velaryons by Law, jace specifically was (and would've been) largely remembered as his mother's son. The same can't be said for corlys.

Corlys would've had house velaryon essentially usurping the throne. Rhaenys was much much younger than him (isn't he older than her dad? Eugh) thus very easy to manipulate and coerse, basically ruling through her, and would've been too prideful to let the realm forget his last name. Made even more memorable by his then relatively recent journeys in comparison to rhaenys' youthful inexperience

3. Rarely does ANY succession go without a hitch so people would've spoken for vizzy eitherway especially with baelon's earlier dubbing, having rode balerion (yes even if he got so bored he died after flying twice) gives him an undeniable symbol of legitimacy in the eyes of the strongest targ supporters.

4. Daemons army, and that's one of the most important things. The velaryons had a fleet and multiple major houses declaring for rhaenys, BUT at the same time, they wouldn't go to war against the king's decree (unlike some people, the hightowers, AHEM). Meanwhile, viserys had Daemon's battle ready and battled experienced caraxes, men of demons ilk glad for a fight. It all culminated into expecting rhaenys to settle for disinheritsnce.

Nb: due to point 2 I believe rhaenys would've still been outvoted, but 50 to 1 when it's rhaenys' by right is too much of a landslide to be believable So I genuenly think there was some tampering on behalf of the maesters (probably on jae's orders, he's not lacking in the mysoginy department)

Visenya might've played a big role in the whole thing with Maegor out of bitterness for always being the other woman, the less beloved between her and her sister depite being more accomplisjed, indignation on maegors behalf for years of negligence from his father, BUT no one can say the woman wasn't productive.

Had the most kingdoms bend the knee even the Eyrie who were known to be prideful and wealthy enough to be independent, established most laws, the kingsguard, was remembered as someone "as comfortable in mail as she was in silk", a temptress and a formidable fighter, sustained the kingdom after aegons death, sat the iron throne (so did rhaenys) in his absence not as consorts, but as ruling Queens in their own right alongside him, saw the hughtowers for the overpowered threat they were, was ready to burn down the faith for her son, she ran the kingdom like the military istg.

Visenya Targaryen the woman you were

When someone tried to convince me they loved eachother when he abandoned her in kl, was famous for repeatedly cheating, and her on line 'on council' was hey maybe let's send a letter before we send assasins 🤦🏻‍♀️

Alyssane and jahaerys wanted carbon copies of themselves. Baelon was a great guy apparently and viserra loved him (or at least preferred him to her other options which were mainly old far away dudes) and yet... despite the fact she wanted for a second son whi stood to inherit no more than she did other than his brothers good graces to have a council position at the time was still called grasping, vindictive, and overtly ambitious

Unless alyssane foresaw aemon's death or something that was foul, otherwise also foul

Yet all major achievements regarding magic and dragons is credited to women (jahaera balaeris who rode a dragon furthest South, rhaenyra the youngest dragonrider, rhaena the last for almost 2 centuries, daenerys the only one to bond with multiple and is called the mother of dragons, Nissa Nissa's blood sacrifice) and the betrayal/usurpation of the amethyst empress and rhaenyra respectively caused the king night and dragons never hatching properly again till danny/one of the longest winters in westerosi history

Yet "blood purity" is shit on time and time again by making almost all dark haired targaryens amazing people and "worthy heirs" which can be paralleled to the prejudice against interracial marriage because that's what it is

Yet "bastards" are not automatically bad and if they are it's a product of their environment. Hugh and ulf had nothing then everything and made it everyone's problem (the self perpetuating nature of prejudice), the velaryon boys all being accomplished, protective and loving, gendry in asoiaf was a great person, tommen and myrcella were innocent, joffreys cruelty has nothing to do with his blood but only his royal upbringing.

Morality isn't fluid, you can acknowledge that "everyone does that/this is their moral code" while still acknowledging that its wrong

Sometimes I don't know what to think about the harwin situation.

On one hand he looked nothing like rhae which set her on a bad path (yes I know the bastardy allegations were never a legitimate argument merely court scuffles and gossip).

On the other she as a valyrian looking woman renting out a valyrian looking lover rare and expensive as they're alluded to be when daemons appetites for more white haired purple eyed majdens are discussed would've been extremely suspicious. People would've sniffed around, they would've made bold claims that alongside laenors appetites would've made things even worse Plus she needed someone she can trust and according to her conversation with daemon for a long time the only person she wholly trusted in the red keep was harwin

We know that show laenor couldn't and book laenor either that or wouldn't give her heirs to calm the court a little and a velaryon cousin other than being extremely demeaning and outright disgustingly mysoginistic/hateful to demand of her wasn't possible because of how ambitious said cousins are said to be.

George literally gave her misfortune after misfortune 😭😭

I was working on a one shot centring around book rhaenicent, currently a little over 3 thousand words in.

So what do you guys actually think about book alicent? Other than varying opinions in her one liners

I love how parents are shown in hotd, so let's look at the main contenders: Viserys, alicent, rhaenyra, and aegon

Viserys loves rhaenyrs that much is true, but aemma's death hangs between them. Where he was too meek to make his decision in making her heir when aemma repetitively proved incapable of carrying a child, he was too meek to truly protect her in court, so he sees her as the strength he and aemma lacked thus keeps her as heir even when he has aegon and aemond (guilt plays into it as well but saying that's all is a disservice to the entire narrative, I think he's also mentally making uo for rhaenys by trying to establish absolute prominogeiture ("their first CHILD, once HE OR SHE ascends the throne shall do so bearing the name targaryen"))

As for his children with alicent, he feels disconnected from them. He is ill most of the time and as we see viserys is a man that prefers familiarity thus seeks only rhaenyra for comfort while over all lacking in duty.

Much like rhae herself (in vizzy's case I'm merely explaining not justifying) he sees what he killed a woman for- loved her or merely his guilt twisted into such after her death aside his conscience is heavy with 5 dead children and a dead wife so he can't look at the rest of his children with the purity he Ince had when rhaenyra was a child, when life was easier

Alicent's mother died when she was younger so she probably has the barest idea of what motherhood is supposed to be like

She married Viserys because the faith teaches her to obey her father (thus the increasing religious imagery in her dress and manner throughout), she didn't want anything to do with him but withstood it and thought herself entitled to more than what she was promised for it.

She loves her children, she very very easily believes her father when he says the only way they're safe is if aegon is king thus her increasing envy at rhaenyra pushing for her to be disinherited, undermining her at every turn, the episode where joffrey's born, etc

Aegon is both gift and punishment. Gift in the sense that he's an instrument with which she can grasp at power to fill the void, punishment in how he turned out due to how her bitterness is naturally channelled into her children alongside viserys' characteristic neglect

Someone pointed out that he gets the eldest daughter treatment and I love that so much

Aemond I would say is the one influenced the most by her anger, he readily believes her when she redirects his anger at Aegon, luke and jace to just the later two turning childhood digs into a bitterness so profound he was ready to bash jace's head in when he tried to defend baela

Similar to how alicent herself redirected her anger at how dirty she was done by societal and religious expectations to a bone deep hatred for rhaenyra— the person she loved most beforehand

Helaena is her little girl, she is complicit in/subjects her to a marriage while disgustingly young because perhapd to comfort herself she sees nothing truly wrong with it beyond "a womans duty", she goes to her when she wants company, she's the most tender around helaena because the boys by virtue of being boys are vessles to her fathers will but helaena is the only one who will be truly hers

Rhaenyra misses her mother, the futility and cruelty of aemma's death haunts her, from what we see they have a great relationship.

Viserys on the other hand is neglectful be it before or after the time skip

He loves her yes, she's his daughter a representation of simpler times where he wasn't dying, where the court wasn't split into factions, when his biggest problem was daemon and otto barking at eachother and corlys occasionally being a bitch. So he loves her but in a distant superficial way, he doesn't understand her

She's courted by pedoes, babies, mysoginists where she needs someone who will bow to a queen and stand by her side not above her, she's tricked into a brothel then forced to marry a gay man who embaresses her left and right by being far too open about his affairs for such a setting, harwin was the only person she could truly trust with fathering her kids descretly after laenor proved himself incapable and unwilling

So her reprieve is her babies, she tries to be what viserys should've been— what she wanted him to be.

She keeps up with jaces lessons and listens to him in council, allowing him a say, crafting him into an "heir worthy of the iron throne" and a boy fiercely protective of his family

She's open with mature jace, protective and gentle with gentle luke her parenting style is dependant on the child just as she wishes viserys' was ("I want him to see me as more than just his little girl")

She would take a knife for them, and she did. Where alicent loves her kids as a mother should but doesn't necessarily like them or see them as their own people, rhaenyra manages to grow to be the opposite.

Aegon is alot like rhaenyra in this aspect, tgc spoke of how aegon thinks he can start again- be good with jahaerys, we see him including jahaerys instead of scolding values into him, we mainly see him laughing around his baby

Where he feels suffocated by alicent's expectations, he's extremely permissive with his own son and genuenly grieves him only caring about the war in truth when jahaerys is killed

I just find it all so interesting, one of the few things the show did right

For some reason, I like to think rhaenyra liked to dance, especially alone when it's quiet and dark - something like ballet for that leg strength

Rhae in my brain is a mix of book on show, tell me that absolute diva ain't graceful

Andal tradition favors rhaenys then laenor so by marrying rhaenyra to laenor (which was fucked up due to his seeming infertility, and that part fixed by corlys viserys and laenor claiming them making that argument null and void, something eustance who apparently didn't like rhaenyra said was only popular rumor amongst the "greens") viserys actually set her up pretty nicely by uniting the 2 true contenders for the throne, his chose heir and the boy he supplanted

The fact no one argued this is a huge plot armour move on grrm's part (alongside both her largest armies being held up by their own internal issues, her being unable to take the treasury from the lannisters by force since daemon had to deal with vhagar first bc aemond's bitch ass was laying waste to the riverlands, etc etc) which he himself admits to saying he wrote an ending and a beginning and needed to sandwich in the rest thus didn't use his "gardening technique" bc it would've taken too long

Another thing is the widow's law, which I hate the show for omitting, it would have given more credibility to rhaenyra feeling secure in her position, framing it more as trust in the law (and thus "southern chivalry" in robb starks words) and less trust in daddy and his ilk. It would've been perfect to mention it when viserys says, "jahaerys would've disinherited you."

For context, the widows law is something established by the good queen alyssane to protect children from grasping stepmothers because she noticed a trend. No matter how mysoginistic the trope sometimes is, there's a reason it's there and that popular

Basically, one can not under any condition disinherit a child from a previous marriage from anything that was declared theirs before their stepfamily coming along

So yes, actually, laenor was the perfect husband, but rhaenyras shit luck in life strikes again

And I think this makes it pretty clear the book isn't black biased. In fact, they are chronically unlucky, unlike how some claim

"Grrm doesn't like rhaenyra" my brother in a q&a he mentioned her love story with harwin as an example of why he wants to revisit fire and blood

Im not specifically discussing his relationship with anyone- but daemon as a character. Show or book

Show rhaenyras passivity actually makes sense and thats what's so infuriating about the show as a whole

Sara in lersuit of a more feminist narrative leans into the gentler sex thing and seems awfully skilled ar it for someone so progressive ("I was so ahead of the curve rhe curve became a sphere" lol)

In the books rhaenyra is a tragedy, we only see her through the lens of bitter rumors on her much too young self and later on we only see her responding to death after death- I swear grrm only gave her so many children to checkbox a list of "worse ways to die in a war; 1. An envoy under protection of such, 2. Saving your siblings but getting shot out of the sky, 3. Trying to save your dragon thus forgetting a cardinal rule of dragon riding. Etc etc"

But she also has some degree of agency.

She has morals, her only violent acts are to protect her children and she refuses ro go to war at first because of how she abhorrs kinslaying, and offers full pardons including her siblings- even alicent- retaining their positions, only to be called an ungrateful wh**e

she's loved by courtiers because of how before taking possession of thus responsibility for dragonstone she held a meaningful position in court, many are loyal to her as shown by how most Lords sided with her and many Lords were tortured/executed for siding with her

Bur she's no saint either, her paranoia gets to her as she demands addam and nettles for ulf and Hughes betrayal, she gets overwhelmed and enacts taxes she knows got jahaerys' master of coin killed instead of trying to negotiate with the iron bank of braavos or sending a dragon to the lannisters for the treasury back. Her mistakes are all products of tough situations but they're HERS yk?

Show wise her situation is different- alicent's cruelty comes at a later age and is accompanied by the conflict of "she's a victim too" plus handling her feelings on the matter with a more level headed nature (13 and 8-10 are very different, a childhood friend and a nice but still strange maternal figure are VASTLY different) naturally resulting in rhaenyra not being nearly as vindictive

But in pushing that feminist narrative sara takes away rhaenyras authority on council showing a little girl undermined left and right thus a meek pacifist adult constantly holding back

Sara hess' rhaenyra is a natural if not a little too gentle result of sara hess' hotd

And perhaps I a way so is alicenr, at the end she wants to sacrifice people in penance for using viserys' frailty and allowing herself to be pushed this way and that by her father resulting the loss of rhaenyras children and in an indirect way her own grand babies but this would've been fun to explore if she wasn't so willing to put forth her babies and if they didn't centre rhaenhra for alicenrs arc

"Rhaenyra Targaryen, the realms delight, the half-year queen passed from this veil of tears... she was 33 years of age"

Why is rhaenyras death described this way?

Her death is most poetically embellished (aegon is just said to have been way too quiet the day he was poisoned, alicents death is said to be a mercy perhaps for both herself and the keep, daemons death is decribed to be certain yet mysterious, helaena's is mainly described in terms of political ramifications etc etc) plus it has tons of religious symbolism

Passed from this veil of tears is how passing I to the Christian heaven is described apparently and 33 is Jesus age when he died, why? I like to think she had some religious trauma but that's not a reason

What do you guys think?