r/HOTDBlacks

"We cherish the old stories for their changelessness. Arthur dreams eternally in Avalon. Bilbo can go "there and back again,"and "there" is always the beloved familiar Shire. Don Quixote sets out forever to kill a windmill... So people turn to the realms of fantasy for stability, ancient truths, immutable simplicities.

And the mills of capitalism provide them. Supply meets demand. Fantasy becomes a commodity, an industry.

Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great storytellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable."

By Ursula K. Le Guin, on what makes commodified fantasy different from true fantasy works. I don't know how true the books can be said to be but I think this describes the show pretty well.

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)

Last year the offical trailer dropped 33 days before the premiere date. What do you guys think?