u/No_Psychology_3714

New blog post by Elio Garcia. Some interesting insight into how canon the play is. Seems like Elio is saying that they got insight from George regarding unanswered questions and adapted that into the play, but of course some things had to be changed for the sake of theatre.

"As we all know, that can really only refer to the big, headline mysteries: what motivated Rhaegar and Lyanna, who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and a couple other things at that high-level. But as Macmillan says, when he calls Martin a "fantastically trusting collaborator"
', we think that's the big sign to
bear in mind that this means GRRM trusted Macmillan to work a lot of things out as he felt worked best for the story he wanted to tell on the stage, using the limitations and the advantages of the theater to make the best play possible.

This is not the same thing as making the most canonically-exact play possible. It means preserving the big, key parts, but being able to collapse, reorder, reframe, add, or omit details as necessary. So, our expectation is that the play contains answers to some of the major questions surrounding Harrenhal-questions readers have debated for many years-and that at least some of those answers (but not necessarily all! derive directly from George's own conception of the history. Those central revelations may therefore tell us something real about the underlying canon.

Do not read this post if you do not want to be spoiled for the next episode.

- Criston dies

- Alys presents Aemond with dragon eggs and they kiss.

- Alicent is sent off to kill Aemond at Harrenhaal.

- Rhaenyra gets cut on the throne.

- Helaena discovers that Alicent lied about Jaehaera being brought to her, her mental health is declining after being left alone and locked in her room.

- Gwayne is hinted to be gay by Ormund.

- The biggest change of all: Corlys is captured. It seems to be unclear as to whether he dies or is just abducted.

I've been seeing some anti Gwynriel comments being made that essentially bring down the ship because "Gwyn would be a second choice".

This idea of "first choice" and "second choice", I think is useless especially because multiple characters in SJM universe have multiple relationships/attractions before endgame. However, if we go by this argument and mindset, then Elain is already the second choice here.

Azriel's attraction for Mor is plain as day and is canon. It also does not suddenly disappear when Azriel meets Elain. We even see hints of it in ACOSF, a book where Azriel has an established attraction to Elain. He also ignores Rhysand's question when asked about his feelings for Mor, instead of denying it's existence.

In ACOFAS, a book where he was moments with Elain:

"I had to look away to keep from laughing. Az, to his credit, gave Mor a smile of thanks, a blush creeping over his cheeks, his hazel eyes fixed on her. I looked away at the heat, the yearning that filled them."

If Gwynriel were to ever become canon, I would not deny that he had a past attraction to both Mor and Elain. That's why I don't understand why anti-gwynriel arguments completely forget Mor's existence and act like it's not canon that he had that attraction.

I just don't understand the argument that Gwynriel is bad because he had an attraction to another woman while knowing her when... the same can be said for Elain?

New rumored leaks is that Alicent will try to find a way to abort Helaena's baby. Not sure why it doesn't work. Maybe Helaena refuses.

This is confusing for me because Olivia implied that Rhaenyra would be the one to force moontea on Helaena if she found out.

I know some people might be mad about this especially Helaena does not want it but Alicent might be desperate to not enrage Rhaenyra further and wouldn't want to risk their position. But we'll see how it plays out next episode.

I'm sure there's casual readers who might not remember her just like they won't remember most of the plot points since the book came out 5 years ago and casual readers don't involve themselves in fandom so they don't think about the books again until a new one comes out.

But if you're trying to convince me that you recently read the book, have an opinion on ships, but don't remember a character that was imporant in the last book then yeah I'm not falling for the attempt at pretending. These people can remember the smallest of interactions between Azriel and Elain in ACOWAR but somehow seem to have blanked through most of ACOSF.

I mean... I've seen comments of certain shippers replying to any mention of Gwyn(riel) with the whole "who's gwyn 🥺" and pretending not to know her just to feed into the whole bs of her being irrelevant. So yeah that whole narrative of gwyn being unknown to most readers is genuinely just made up.

And if you really don't know who Gwyn is... dw you'll find out a lot more about her 😌🤍

https://x.com/thinkercooke/status/2071426124421235014?s=20

I wonder if this is actually going to be a thing or it's just the actors saying something that's not reflected in the series. Leaks say Alicent doesn't really have much a reaction to Otto's death but we'll see...

😭 no words

Is this regarding the alleged leak about Jasper?

They're trying to pass of Rhaenyra as distrustful of everyone. Logically, how is Alicent the one person that she ends up trusting?

Like it or hate it but I definitely think this is how the show is preparing to take their relationship.

I already have thoughts on how Alicent will have a different ending than her book counterpart: https://www.reddit.com/r/HOTDGreens/s/yTVJmpoKvB (she'll be the advisor to Rhaenyra's sons an obviously will poison her own son).

I think that the show is prepping for them to run away together especially with the "Come with me" line. Rhaenyra only refuses because of her duty (as mentioned by the director). Not because she hates Alicent, not because she actually wants the throne and not because of her kids. So once KL turns against Rhaenyra and she realizes her power is dwindling she will join Alicent.

As said by Olivia multiple times, she dislikes her sons and wants to be away from them. Daeron is with the Hightowers. Her father is dead. And the only loyalty she has is for Helaena. Who will die by this season. So, there's literally nothing left for her. She will tell Rhaenyra to join her and they will try to run away.

It's foreshadowed in every season with that whole line of "we will go away together and eat cake" in episode 1 and the "come with me" line. Now, I'm not sure if this will happen by the end of this season or season 4. But I'm convinced it will happen.

I don't think they'll actually change the ending so that Rhaenyra lives (who knows) but they'll run away and get caught. Aegon will see his mother with Rhaenyra and will take pleasure in killing her especially since it's a common thing for him to yearn for his mothers love and she refuses to give it to him.

The actors and show runners have made it very clear that the story will end with their relationship as that's the basis of the whole thing.

Also, this might be reaching but Olivia's outfits to each premiere does say something. S1 she wore red (wife of Viserys), S2 she wore blue (leaving TG and wearing blue for Rhaenyra), and now she wore white (wedding/peace) and she changed to grey (matching only with Emma).

Okay so first of all:

I hate how Alicent is now considered a victim of her own son, with constantly unnecessary sexual harassment scenes that weren't even in the books. First Viserys, then Larys, and now Aemond. They're constantly humiliating the character when they know the audience does not sympathize with her. That's not feminist.

Also, I understand why TG hates this. They love adding all these weird scenes for TG and the audience will only be like "look at these weirdos!!!" because they aren't capable of analyzing the bigger picture. Those verified accounts on twitter constantly posting Facebook ass memes and getting 100K likes will have a field day with this. Meanwhile, they make romantic ship edits to an uncle and his niece that he was grooming since she was a child.

But LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICTURE:

We're talking about a show that the entire audience loves to celebrate a family where incest IS NORMALIZED. In fact Targ fans love it and constantly romanticize these dynamics. The most popular ships within these fandoms are aunt/nephew (Dany/Jon), Baelon/Alyssa (sister and brother that were groomed to love each other since they were young), and Daemon/Rhaenrya (uncle and niece).

The idea is that, in a family where this is completely the norm, OBVIOUSLY some of these children might grow up to have weird understanding of where their romantic inclinations can end up.

I mean who was the only nice person to Aemond in that whole family? He grew up being bullied with only HIS MOTHER defending him. He grew up watching his brother marry his sister and his sister marrying their uncle. He grew up with NO BOUNDARIES around family/romance. There isn't a line that was drawn.

So yes to any normal audience with comprehension skills, this is something that can be talked about in regards to the messed up Targ customs and how it affects family members.

But of course, this fandom and their inability to analyze or think of anything besides "Team Green bad" will not be able to think critically of the Targs and will instead just trash on TG.