#and anti Hotd writers cause...

[mhsdatgo]

Always hated the way according to TB I'm supposed, as a woman, to root for Rhaenyra "Mary Sue" Targaryen because she's a Valyrian woman and can't do no wrong. Otherwise I'm framed as a misogynist, an enabler, a rape apologist, every name in the book. As if this isn't the same girl who coerced her bodyguard because her erectile disfunction uncle didn't wanna bang her after leaving her in a brothel, naked and on plain sight for any kind of perverted brute. As if this isn't the same girl who weaponized both her and her best friend's trauma to twist a truth about something she very willingly did that could've had her disowned if her father was anyone else other than the weak ass neglectful rapist pedo father she had instead.

This is the same girl who ignored and mistreated Alicent when all she did was convince Viserys to allow her privileges she never had, like choosing a husband. Like it or not, it was Alicent the one who gave gave and gave, and Rhaenyra the one who took took and took and even MOCKED, time and time again. The same girl who acted like a victim when the girl she called her literal best friend (only when it benefitted her) was getting maritally R*PED in the next room by her crusty ass father. She never tried connecting with her siblings because they were Alicent's children. Not because their minds were poisoned, not because they were apparently bitter towards her. Because they weren't her mother's children. Same as Viserys. Guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

I'm supposed to root for a woman who doesn't do one single thing for the claim she feels so entitled to (who was purely based on Viserys' grief and guilt for Aemma)? I'm supposed to root for a woman who brings back to the line of succession the same man everyone wanted far from the line of succession? I'm supposed to root for the woman who wants to be the exception, not give possibilities to other women like an ACTUAL feminist does? She usurps her stepdaughters' claims in favor of her obviously bastard children, and no, betrothing the fpur of them isn't the same. If they die, the girls' claim dies with them, and guess what, exactly that happened.

No, I will not root for the woman who wanted a teenager's head because she was black and because she couldn't cope with the fact that "hEr pRiNcE" didn't love her, only what her title could offer. Or the woman who put a price on a 6yo's and a 2yo's head simply because they were her brother's children, thereby proving what Criston said about what was needed for Jace to raise to power after his mother. She even denied the request of multiple older daughters/sisters who rightfully wanted to lead their houses, with the excuse that the relam would be far too 'imbalanced'. Girl, are you that dense? There's the smallfolk getting eaten and burned and taxes by your dragon and your entire family fighting wars and dying left and right and you think two women ruling their houses will destabilize the realm?

Rhaenyra is many things, but feminist is not among them, no matter how much you cry and whine about it. Yes, I'm aware that no woman in asoiaf or f&b can be described as feminist. But the convinction (and delusion) that Rhaenyra is, without a shadow of doubt, is mindblowing. She's arguably worse than any of said women combined.

No, I don't feel represented or uplifted by a tyrant, classist, racist, hypocritical, spoiled kinslayer with god complex because she's albino and has a pet dragon as spoiled and as useless as her. Sorry not sorry.

[queenvhagar]

Rhaenyra sends a boat of food past the blockade and it's framed as a politically smart maneuver as if it wouldn't just highlight that she has full control over the blockade and it's because of her that there's no food for anyone in the city 🙄

[ladyofchroyane]

When I see stuff like this I kinda want to bash my head into a wall:

To start off, I’m not sure whether this person was commenting on book or show Cersei, but honestly, it doesn’t even matter because she’s so much more than the ‘ambitious villain’ or the ‘murderous girlboss’ tropes in both the book and show.

(Of course, I do have my issues with the way Cersei was written in the show like most people but this is simply a rant post so I’m not going to go through the differences of Show vs Book Cersei)

Cersei is a female character who was shaped by her environment, who’s insecurities were created by her environment, and she’s a woman who’s idiotic mistakes can be traced back to how her environment shaped her. She’s much more than a murderous girlboss, she’s both a victim of the system and also a beneficiary of it, while also acting as an agent of it to keep the status quo while also desiring what the system denied her.

Cersei is NUANCED and complicated and even now people hate that about her and want her to have been a purely evil woman handcrafted in a vacuum, ignoring the context of her life because readers would rather not engage with Cersei’s victimhood and nuances because that ruins their idea of: She Was The Problem and Always The Problem. (People would rather say that she deserved her walk of shame instead of interacting meaningfully with the theme of systematic gender-based violence that is so prevalent in Cersei’s story. The exploration of patriarchal violence in Show Alicent’s story is done so horribly in comparison.)

And what really pissed me off about these tags is that this person has clearly decided that they don’t care to interact with the nuance of Cersei and are fine with flattening her, and yet they shit on others for not liking Alicent.

Because of the way Alicent is written in this show, she almost always has a ‘woe is me I can do no wrong’ attitude, which of course drives people away from the character (woe is me I deserve to take a child’s eye 🥺). However, what actually annoys me is how she’s made out to be stupid, foolish, ignorant, and inconsistent due to the horrible writing of this show, all of which are deviations from her book characterization. Also, I despise it when people want me to support writing decisions and changes made in adaptations that are downright misogynistic and are meant to attract the male gaze.

But what pisses many people, including myself, off is how the changes made negatively impacted many other characters. Alicent’s terrible characterization is like a black hole that distorts and warps the whole story! It’s annoying af!

So when people like this say: ‘She’s nuanced and people just can’t handle it 🙄;’ I say: No. She’s horribly written and a different character from the book and people have a right to be critical about these changes that stripped a female character of 1) her agency and 2) her intelligence!

And the thing is, there was little reason for the writers to have made all these changes to Alicent’s characterization! In the book she is an interesting character with clear motives and understandable reactions. She’s cunning and ambitious and acts the way a noble lady who became queen would. And despite her clear ambitions and dislike of Rhaenyra, she still makes a comment wondering about who would protect the Princess from Ser Criston, and yet she then takes Cole into her service after his falling out with Rhaenyra. That’s a perfect example of nuance! Show Alicent could never compare to book Alicent’s clear moral values and consistent disregard of said moral values in pursuit of power.

And because of this, Book Alicent isn’t easy to stomach. It’s hard for most people to come to terms with a character like her and it’s even harder for people to feel sympathetic for her at the end when she went mad with grief.

On the other hand, Show Alicent was designed in a way to garner pity, and when the writers felt like her current arc wouldn’t be enough to garner the specific reaction they wanted they would then throw in a time skip and suddenly she’s completely different and yet still Thee victim. She’s designed to be as sympathetic as fucking possible! The camera angles, the background music, and the lighting is set up in a way to make sure you the viewer feels pity or sympathy for her! Cause that’s her role in this series! She’s thee Ultimate Victim!

But too bad for the writers as many people are fed up with this kind of inconsistent writing. Even when the writers created a whole new challenge for Alicent where she’s shitted on by the green council and forced to face the beast she helped to raise, I and many others could never feel any satisfaction as it was clear that once again Alicent was being made to be Thee Ultimate Victim who was just led astray by the patriarchy and was a victim of it and was only just realizing it so don’t you pity her don’t you feel sad for her and now she’s trying to do the right thing so pls pls pls pity her 🥺~ So it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are annoyed by these eNLiGhtEnEd changes that have led to a complete deviation from the source material.

To summarize: Cersei is an excellent fucking character who’s by no means easy to stomach, and because she’s not easy to stomach she’s often reduced to annoying ass tropes by dumbasses who are reading above their comprehension level. But when you actually try to understand her, you can easily see why she turned out the way she did and you can feel sympathy for her while understanding that she’s both victim and perpetrator! On the other hand, Show Alicent is a mess and HOTD is trying to make her serve a different narrative role than she did in the books so ofc people are going to be unhappy with the changes as book readers are once again faced with the annoying reality that the writers don’t give a fuck about the source material.

[darklinaforever]

Just because Emma D'Arcy says Daemyra is grooming doesn't mean that's the case. The actor, in the same interview, was literally wrong about Rhaenyra's age in episode 4.

Emma D'Arcy is an imperfect human being who can say stupid things. Especially today, many people use big words without knowing their real definitions.

I will add that even if Emma was talking about grooming, they did not agree and still did not find the scene where Daemon strangled Rhaenyra coherent, and rightly this time. Emma also said that they reads Daemyra fanfiction. So that basically means that they ship despite the problematic aspect. I wouldn't call it a victory for the antis.

Essentially, Emma D'Arcy seems neutral on Daemyra.

Also, Emma D'Arcy is an actor, paying to say certain things in interviews. Who's to say they's not just following the writers' stupid agenda ?

Then, I have already explained countless times that no, Daemon is not a groomer, notably in these posts, where I have also for some addressed the case of Emma D'Arcy and they grooming statements :

Moreover, even if the writers seem obsessed with a non-existent story of grooming between Daemyra, they do not seem to deny that it is a romance either. These people, and even HBO, obviously still have their ass between two chairs :

I will add that no, Daemon is not a pedophile either. Go to @nrilliree to get the definition because I'm clearly too lazy to explain again :

Especially since if you give me the example of the young prostitutes (which the antis also love to pass off as younger than they probably realistically are, like under 13 years old, just to make it really disgusting) when Daemon was in his 20s, know that they were all maidens.

“Maidens” is a term they use to refer to young unmarried women. In brothels these maidens were most likely between 15 and 17 or higher do to the lack of nutrition of the peasants. A bad nutrition causes someone's period to come later.

So no, they weren't little girls. This was for the time of young women literally according to society's of Westeros marriageable age.

The worst you can say about this case of prostitutes is that Daemon had a fetish for virgin maiden for a period in his younger years. (And even if it's obviously not great, I'm not sure #irony that we can put it on the same level as a groomer, a pedophile and a rapist... Yes I'm making an insituation in Aegon II for the last 2 points. We're getting there...)

Aside from that, Daemon was in a relationship with his then favorite, Mysaria, an adult, he also married Laena later, also an adult, and also married Rhaenyra when she was an adult (all according to our modern standards), although yes, he courted her when she was 14. But I remember that Rhaenyra had reached the age where she could marry and had already been courted by men. It's not surprising in the context that Daemon courted her. Especially since there is no evidence that anything sexual happened between them at that time. (One talking about sex is Mushroom, and we know to what extent he is obsessed with it and therefore that his testimony is almost worthless, and the second is Eustace, pro greens. And I remind you that the greens were already making up bullshit on Rhaenyra's sexuality before Daemon's return)

Basically, Daemon has always slept with maiden, and always of varying ages. (which is completely wrong with the definition of pedophile)

Limit, you can talk about ephebophile, but as @nrilliree already said, there is no evidence on this subject, especially since Daemon has also been with adult women several times (Mysaria for a little more than 1 year, Laena for 5 years, and Rhaenyra for 10 years), and this by our own standards modern.

Also, what makes me laugh is that these same people who will claim that Daemon only likes young girls who are essentially minors according to our time (because obviously they will look at age only according to our time, which is an error given that the historical context of this universe is completely different from ours, but in short), claiming that Daemon only married Rhaenyra for power and striving to say that Laena was 15 / 16 years old like in the HOTD show when he married her, while no, she was 22 in Fire and Blood. Well these same people will come and tell you and claim that Daemon did cheat on Rhaenyra with Mysaria, in addition to Nettles, during the dance.

An event whose veracity we also cannot prove and which seems somewhat strange when we take a closer look (so you will guess that I don't particularly believe in it either). See @horizon-verizon posts for that.

Why do I say it's funny ?

Well because Mysaria is an adult woman, much older than Rhaenyra and Laena.

But tell me... if Daemon is so obsessed with underage girls... why would he have slept with a former lover of his, who was already an adult at the time, and even older at this point there ?

We see that what really interests them is more to say bad things about Daemon whoever he is, rather than having any real consistency in their comments and accusations. (And if anyone dares to say that Daemon was sleeping with Mysaria to ensure he got her on his side... wtf ? Rhaenyra is the queen. She pays Mysaria and assures her safety. Why would sex with Daemon be the only way for Mysaria to ensure her loyalty to the team Blacks ? She literally hasn't seen Daemon in over 20 years I think. What would she care about him sexually or otherwise at this point, except perhaps for personal revenge ? And then, if Daemon really was with Mysaria to ensure her loyalty to his side... Well he's a bit much of an idiot if he really slept with Nettles after that. These people love to say that Daemon is a great master manipulator who places his pawns well in advance, especially when it comes to women, except that... Daemon does not seem to have been very intelligent if we follow this belief that I have already seen among antis, which is once again inconsistent with the speech Daemon was a master manipulator of women... I mean, according to their point of view, Daemon knew how to pretend for 10 years with Rhaenyra. Why couldn't he have lasted longer to play the charade with Mysaria ? Once again, the consistency of their words does not interest the antis. They only care about saying bad things about Daemon !)

And don't come for talk to me about Nettles, because I've already made some rather long posts on the subject, go see them if you want :

As well as I highly recommend the extremely in-depth analyzes of @horizon-verizon.

Basically, the story with Nettles could never be proven, and I personally don't believe it.

On the other hand, Aegon II is a character who could be described as a pedophile (by Westeros standards and ours) in Fire and Blood, having been with a girl (= child for Westeros. There is no adolescence in this society. Only childhood and adulthood. As a girl and not a maiden, a woman having her period and therefore marriageable, the individual with whom Aegon II was therefore indeed a child), and not a maiden, from precisely 11 / 12... And he's being also reported as having several inappropriate behaviors / touching towards women, strongly insinuating that he is a rapist (by the own maesters being on his side). And no, Eustace never denied the girl's age, and continued even though he referred to her as girl and tried to downplay the scandalous event.

And why am I talking about Aegon II fans ?

Because it's systematically them who come to me to tell me the bullshit about Daemon being a groomer and a pedophile while sometimes maintaining that their little favorite is not a rapist, and a potential pedophile.

Which is still pretty damn cheeky...

[lemonhemlock]

The episode where Rhaenys busts through the floor and murders countless smallfolk and it having absolutely no narrative consequences on the story or condemnation of Rhaenys' character, and the episode where Aegon murders the ratcatchers causing Otto to crash out have this whole monlogue about Aegon being The Worst being written by the same writer really tells you all you need to know about HOTD. And before you ask, yes, they were both written by Sara Hess lmao.

Yeah, I know there was discourse a while ago, because this dissatisfaction regressed into racist and misogynistic attacks directed at Sara Hess. Obviously, that's vile and people should, first of all, rid themselves of this despicable framework of viewing the world (because, as always, this is absolutely just another opportunity to dunk on a woman - these people don't care about good storytelling) and, secondly, learn how to actually formulate an argument that doesn't sound like the ramblings of a basement-dweller.

That being said, she is categorically not a good writer, there's no other way to put it. She can come up with some good ideas (or, at least, a glimmer of good ideas - for example, the daemyra argument in S02E02 was good - one of the season's highlights, actually) and her line-level writing is... adequate. But, on the whole, her record on House of the Dragon is littered with inaccuracies and logical fallacies. I haven't seen her other shows, but I decidedly have no desire to and will be actively avoiding if I see her name. And I am including Ryan Condal in this mess, too, because he has the ultimate say-so on how the scripts look. These two together truly are the blind leading the deaf.

I think the ratcatcher pity party was, in a way, a reaction to all the backlash she received for the Meleys dragonpit scene. But, instead of fixing her mistake and making it work in the context of what she had already written, she made some absolutely abysmal storytelling choices that defy common sense and contradict her own text. A very easy fix to this would have been to show the population of King's Landing become very anti- Meleys, Rhaenys and, by extension, Rhaenyra. But, of course, the wider narrative set by her genius colleagues was that KL couldn't possible have any negative feelings towards Rhaenyra, so it's completely swept under the rug and the commoners are made to consider Meleys' death a bad omen.

But, naturally, they had to do something about all the criticisms that they are not focusing on the negative effects this war has on the population. However, instead of showing that in a balanced way, they decided to pile all these evils on the greens again. Rhaenyra faces no backlash from the low-born for any of her actions. She does sacrifice them to Vermithor, essentially, by preventing their exit and it's framed as the beginning of her moral compromises and falling into self-aggrandizing behaviour. Yes. But where are the consequences to this? There are no consequences. These dragonseeds don't seem to have any family who are asking questions about them or blaming Rhaenyra for setting them on fire, basically. Not even one noble person hears of this and goes "hmmm that's kind of fucked up actually". Larys, the literal Master of Spies, who might have reasonably be shown to have found out this inside information via his network of spies, might have had some lines informing the green council about this awful thing Rhaenyra has done. Might have even informed the population, in order to turn them against her. But no, of course not, we can't have anyone actually be anti-Rhaenyra.

Meanwhile, we have close-ups of the fucking dog longing for the ratcatcher who literally kicked it in a previous scene. How do you even qualify the framing decision to invite the audience to feel sorry for a child-murderer? To feel more sorry for him than for the actual mother of said murdered child? We have Otto, of all people, lecturing Aegon about how over-the-top he is acting, because he executed a couple of ratcatchers. Otto, who, by the way, is shown in S01E09 to be executing people because they would not bend the knee to Aegon. Otto does not value commoner lives more than noble-borns (last season, he refuses to outlaw child pit fighting and, even in the previous episode, he gets annoyed by Aegon ruling too much in the smallfolk's favour), but he grows a temporary conscience for the purpose of this one scene, because we have to engineer another situation in which Aegon looks cruel or stupid (or both, preferably). Alicent's entire household was purged by Larys for supposedly being Mysaria's spies, the brothel was even set on fire and she gave zero fucks about that, but Aegon's ratcatcher execution is somehow one step too far.

I have said this before, but just thinking "civilians don't matter" in the ASOIAF universe betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the themes and message. Can you ultimately be anything other than a "bad" writer if you miss the point to such a degree? And you can tell that's her true opinion about all this, because she can't write a storyline in which civilians do matter to save her life. The suffering of the lower classes only matters in her stories just as far as she can instrumentalize it to demonize the greens. She's not interested in any kind of systemic exploration, because that would also involve the blacks and it would interfere with Rhaenyra's hero framing. Like Ryan Condal, she doesn't have the chops to write beyond the hero-villain binary, hence all the flip-flopping and the retconning and the logical fallacies. And, at the end of the day, I can just watch a Marvel movie for that, you know?

[reignof-fyre]

If Daemon really, truly was Maegor come again like Otto and team green really thought he was, Viserys' reign would have been a lot shorter, just saying.

Because Viserys didn't have a dragon or a son, only a daughter. And if Daemon truly was Maegor come again and wanted the throne as badly as the show writers think he did, he'd have no qualms about being a kinslayer or usurper.

But he didn't. He supported Viserys in the ways he could: as a soldier. He did his job as Commander of the City Watch, gelded rapists, cut off the hands of theives, executed murderers....but this is too much? This is a medieval world where prison time does. Not. Exist.

Also, Daemon only lost his potions on the small council because of Otto. Otto was the one to tell Viserys that Daemon was doing his job incorrectly, so Viaerys fired him. He was then given the post as LC of the City Watch, and he did his job effectively.

Otto claimed it was overly brutal and harsh, but the punishments actually fit the crimes of the time period. And Daemon spent a lot of time in the bowls of Flea Bottom and the smallfolk loved him, and he cared for them. So of course he's gonna go overboard to look after them. He wasn't called Lord Flea Bottom and Prince of the City for nothing.

Also, Daemon gathered an army and used Caraxes to support Viserys' claim at the Great Council, and at this time Daemon likely believed Viserys would have a son. He wasn't supporting Viserys cause it would bring Daemon himself close to the throne, he did it because Viserys is his brother and he loved him.

The show runners of hotd have truly, absolutely done a disservice to the character of Daemon because he is both good and bad, light and dark, the epitome of an anti-hero and morally grey protagonist. The show has made him into some sort of villainous caricature who twirls his villain moustache and cackles weirdly.

It's utterly ridiculous they looked at Daemon from F&B and thought...that is a villain and a villain only.

He's not. He's a morally grey anti-hero who does bad things for what he believes as good reasons and for his family and the people he loves most.

[chicken-wayng]

rather than handing Rhaenyra everything she wants on a silver platter?

No offence anon but I don’t think you quite grasp what was happening in 2x08 if this was your ultimate conclusion.

First of all you need to understand two fundamental things about the HotD’s writers:

They’ve put Rhaenyra on a pedestal

They don’t like Alicent

Alicent can’t make any demands that negatively affect Rhaenyra, she cannot request an alternative which would mean Jace is disinherited, she can’t do anything that is ultimately anti TB because that’s not the show the writers have made!

Watch 2x08 with the writers’ logic that Rhaenyra has never done anything wrong in her entire life, you’re not even allowed to ask she punish Daemon because that would suggest her welcoming him back with open arms was wrong.

After you’ve done that tell me if you really think they’d have Alicent stand up for herself and her family?

Yup! Alicent cannot stand up for herself or make an autonomous (I think that's the word, if not excuse me I legit just woke up) decision. The first one she made was to wear green, then to support her father's (and her own after a while) ambition, then lastly to go to Nyra. All of her decisions have literally bit her in the ass. I think she's very good as representation for the lesbians that are born into a religion/society that gas lights them. Nyra's never really made a decision without fully thinking about it (She's a blonde that gives us other blondes that reputation 🤣💜) but has always thought she's been the one in control. She's in control of her gender crisis, her sexual identity, so obviously she's got everything figured out. She's a very good rep for the masses that grew up in a religious place, but didn't notice how much it had an effect on them until it was too late and an irreversible issue was caused. Neither of them are truly free, both birds in a cage thinking their song is the prettiest because they've never heard how happy and free the birds outside sound. I cannot to see Nyra's religious madness and for them to knock her off her pedestal (I'm relate most to her btw, shes literally tloml so I'm saying this as a person whose gone through a similar type of religious breakdown), I literally need it if I don't get anything else on my Xmas list but I got that I'd be okay.

Thanksya for putting it into a good explanation for me. I do think prev.anon was talking about how Nyra gets everything on a silver platter, not Alicent. However I like their metaphor because following it I can say that while Nyra's always had a feast in front of her, imagine it's like yellowjackets. In front of her is the young version of her, dead and cooked, smelling of fire and blood. A feast for everyone to enjoy. Behind each person is a vulture. Just cuz it's a pretty platter don't mean the vultures aren't gonna eat. But they're not the ones feasting is literally everyone from Viserys to Daemon to her kids to Otto to her council to the men that trick her and her Aegon into coming to Dragonstone for her death and even Allie. Or even the food is rotten if that's too vulgar, but in both arts (the yellowjackets cannibal feast or the rotten smorgasbord) I'm picturing she's eating with a blind fold.

Anyways sorry for this grammarless spiel, thanksya'll for sharing your opinion and letting me share mine!

[darkpoisonouslove]

HotD S02E05

I had things to say about this episode before I'd even watched it, which I'm sure tells you that everything is magnificent and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I see we've now established a pattern of one episode being more setup and then the following having all the good stuff. I'm just kind of running out of patience and tolerance for the bullshit writing decisions that I'm forced to witness all over the place.

I see that the writers are really going to ignore Meleys killing all of those people during Aegon's coronation just to make a fool of Criston and make a victory that's already cost a lot cost even more. Personally, if I'd heard about all the people that were crushed by a dragon during the king's coronation and then I saw the same dragon killed, I'd be relieved at least, if not cheering. We heard so much about how killing the ratcatchers was bad because it alienated the Small Folk, but apparently avenging all the deaths of said Small Folk at your coronation is also somehow bad for PR? How am I supposed to take this as anything but anti green propaganda at worst and a sloppy plot device at best?

I swear to fucking god, if I have to hear one more time about how peaceful things were under Viserys' rule, I'm flipping a table. As if Viserys isn't solely responsible for this whole mess by not managing things better at least if he couldn't be bothered to keep it in his pants and not have any more children. I for sure enjoyed Rhaenyra admitting that he didn't teach her shit but it's so very funny how she says that now while in 1x10 she was explaining to Luke how her father passed all this knowledge down to her and she'd do the same for him. The writers are clowns.

I love how they were so set on making Aegon look like a fool, especially in last episode, but Rhaenyra is in the exact same position! How is her Council talking over her not the same as Aegon's council pretending he's not even there? And yet the show's framing is so insistent on how that's a great hurdle for her to overcome while in Aegon's case it's proof that he's not worthy to be king. To be pretty fucking honest Aegon is at a disadvantage because he's younger. Rhaenyra had time to prepare herself but she was the one who chose to hole herself up in Dragonstone and have sex with Daemon instead of being in King's Landing and ruling in her father's stead and building her positions.

Not Jace complaining about being kept safe at home to the same girl that his mother is treating as disposable just to not risk his ass. And they had to have Baela comforting him.

I've seen people complaining that Daemon is not supposed to remember his mother and they just included this willful incest to make him look worse. Enjoy! Clearly he's manifesting his complexes about being the most suited heir to the throne by having mommy tell him so and take him as a lover because he's just so great.

He's really funny, though. He's threatening left and right and then he can't even follow through because he knows he stands no chance without the people he was just threatening to burn alive. At least when Criston was threatening executions, he committed to them. Literally how are the Blacks in such deep shit when they have more dragons and more houses pledged to them? Looks like a skill issue.

They fumbled my Criston x Alicent x Larys love triangle so bad. I wasn't expecting them to actually do the funny thing, though they still can! With the way things went between Alicent and Criston, now is the perfect time for Larys to pull some Parent Trap shit to make sure Alicent is indulging. I think Alicent might be more receptive to hearing him out than Criston. His argument was the only one that wasn't based on her own mistakes in recent weeks. But he is now essentially saying "you have to make the sacrifice for our cause" when just last episode he wanted her to stop her self-sacrificial agenda and start giving into her impulses. The way that things have shifted since then is insane.

I see people also going "gotcha" at Alicent for the fact that the Small Council didn't back her claim and I must say... As a staunch Alicent supporter, who has constant brainrot about her, I have to agree with their decision. Alicent has done nothing but hinder them at every turn with her refusal to go against Rhaenyra. Thank god they don't know about her Sept escapades with Rhaenyra or they might have wanted her punished for treason. But yes, if I saw this woman completely ignore the fact that her six-year-old grandson was decapitated, I wouldn't trust her to lead me either. The way the writers have chosen to make her act is just completely nonsensical.

Listen, I know it's the same country and everything so the battle strategies would be mostly the same but I can't get over how copy-pasted HotD and GoT feel. The fact that both sides have dragons here should change things drastically and yet...

Daemon having the nerve to comment how awful of a person Aemond is. I'm sorry, did you project too hard? Tbh I hate how they've changed Aemond's character completely from the book and from the first season where he could have easily gotten the throne for himself but he didn't. And all of that just to have their parallels between Daemon and Aemond and still manipulate the viewers into siding with Daemon. I mean sure, he's refusing to recognize Rhaenyra as his ruler but he's still talking about them ruling together. Meanwhile Aemond went and straight up Dracarys-ed his brother. I have no words left anymore. Just fucking change everything so that Rhaenyra wins and put me out of my misery already. It's clear that that's what they want to the point where I'm not sure how they'll keep true to the story.

Corlys finally deciding to make Baela heir to Driftmark is the epitome of too little, too late. The fact that they made her decline too and with that stupid explanation. As if Joffrey or whoever's now named heir to Driftmark isn't "fire and blood" either. Istg this show fucking hates everyone that isn't Rhaenyra or her children.

Daemon, you had one job! Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say the same for Aemond because I hear he burns the Riverlands in the book. Like, bud, how'd you fumble that so bad? They are yours for the taking (assuming this isn't something the writers just invented).

Love how they gave Rhaenyra one (1) idea in sending Ser Alfred to deal with Daemon and then instantly upstaged it with Jace's idea for the Dragonseeds. Almost as if they are so afraid to let Rhaenyra do anything that they have the men around her do her ruling for her. I mean, this could blow up in their faces.

I have to say that I'm not even excited about next episode. What do I have to look forward to? The writers continuing to butcher all the other characters for the sake of their team Black agenda?

[dirtytransmasc]

I think something about HOTD and it's framing is that it had the chance to do something beautiful, or more accurately, it did something beautiful and fascinating either on accident or with intentions that make it practically meaningless, and fucked themselves over with it cause now they can't use it.

the way the shows pacing, framing, and story writing is set, it is insanely easy to get caught up in the pro TB anti team green narrative, cause there is just so much information getting launched at you, you barely have enough time to understand what your seeing surface level, let alone processing it critically on your first watch.

but the more you watch it, the more you process it all, the more logically and critically you think about it, that pro TB narrative starts to lose standing. you see how flawed Rhaenyra is, you see the true situation the greens are in (between a rock [death] and a hard place [usurpation], to put i tot simply), you see the web of politics binding.

if the writers saw what they had done, they totally could have used it to their advantage, they could have used it to really beef up both sides in terms of characterization. or maybe they did realize it, maybe they did it intentionally (I can't tell if I think they're competent enough to do that, whether I like it or not, or incompetent enough to do it by accident and then fumble the bag with it...), maybe that was the intent overall, to destroy TG, not by making them actually awful (outside of what they did to Aegon), but to instead go so overboard you can't see anything else but their TB bullshit.

either way, it had so much potential and they just squashed it.

[bohemian-nights]

as a black gorl i find it really frustrating that a lot of black people rally behind rhaenyra so valiantly as if her actions (future, past, and present) haven’t been coded in such anti-black/misogynoir behavior towards the velaryons?

i wonder if the HotD writers are aware that the choice of making velaryons black no matter the intention changes the optics of EVERYTHING that happens now or later and adds a racial element to what was previously only reserved for nettles. the velaryons have been treated like shit from the very beginning in this show by the targaryens. rhaenyra doesn’t have a relationship with laena anymore and they deleted scenes of the two interacting so their show canon starts with laena attempting to befriend rhaenyra, and ends with rhaenyra sleeping with laena’s widowed husband at her FUNERAL (and calling LAENOR -her husband, the brother of the DEAD LAENA- “useless” because he’s inconsolable over losing his sister), uses laena’s daughters as bargaining chips so that she can put her white sons on the throne of their land instead of endorsing the twins (something even alicent endorsed when she was bargaining with rhaenys), vaemond is killed by daemon and calls rhaenyra a whore even though he never did that in the book so that a black man is given justification to be killed on screen??? like it’s just crazy to me how this family keeps getting fucked over by the tb targaryens and rhaenyra but niggas still stand ten toes down behind rhaenyra??? DID WE WATCH THE SAME SHOW?

and it’s even funnier because the treatment of velaryons only gets worse by all technicalities. the fact they even temporarily switched teams speaks on that so much. then you have corlys tortured by rhaenyra’s orders (and the optics of that is ANOTHER black man doomed at the expense of a white woman) and her council denouncing his bastards (and now with those bastards being black confirmed by leaks) when she spent years convincing everyone her WHITE ones were legit. and then topple that with the infamous nettles quote??? it’s not looking good for her i fear.

honestly i hope my fellow black people jump ship SOON because the egg will be on y’all faces if the show decides to keep all this in.

I wish they’d learn, grow a spine, and realize Missy Anne is not Dany(which is why they support her in the first place), but clowns will be clowns 🤷🏽‍♀️

And calling y’all clowns is me being nice cause I could call y’all the other c-word which is how a lot of you sound when you look the other way at your faves racism and your fellow white/non-Black mentally disturbed cult members I mean stans harassing Black fans and calling characters racial slurs🙃

My problem with them is less that they support Miss Maegor. I mean it is all technically fictional, so it’s not like they are stanning an actual Karen.

However, when they get mad at the fact that some Black people are uncomfortable stanning a racist psycho(especially seeing how her fanbase is comprised of actual racists) that doesn’t make a lick of sense.

They need to reassess cause at this point I’ve seen several of them try to throw other Black people under the bus for this fictitious racist who does all that you mentioned.

Like please save your energy for the stans calling Black characters the n-word, saying Afro hair looks dirty, and saying that it’s fine to cut the only in-canon Black character because there are already enough Black people on the show.

The fact that they seemingly have more smoke for other Black fans than the stans that are just using them to say see look this Black person agrees with me because they are butt-hurt that we all aren’t falling in line to defend a racist white woman and a crusty white ship is downright embarrassing.

[queenvhagar]

My perhaps controversial take on the HOTD characters, the GOT characters the writers are trying to mold them into, and the GOT characters they actually most resemble in the books (in my opinion - feel free to disagree).

Disclaimer: these are entirely disconnected series with unique characters, so it's impossible to do what the writers of HOTD seemed to be trying to do in season 1 i.e. mold the characters from Fire and Blood to fit the characters of GOT to try to recreate the success of the early seasons. Given this, I tried to choose one single character analogue from GOT that each HOTD/FB character is most like, but oftentimes the reality is that if any single character from Fire and Blood resembles a Game of Thrones character it is likely that they are a combination of more than one. All of this said, here is who I think the writers are trying to fit certain HOTD characters into vs the character they are actually most like (according to Fire and Blood):

Rhaenyra Targaryen: obviously the show wants her to be the new and improved Daenerys, a protagonist everyone can root for who wants to revolutionize the existing order. In reality, Rhaenyra is most like Cersei: a woman who seeks to use her three bastards to usurp thrones and gain even more power than she already has, all while committing incest with a family member and using her power to punish and silence her enemies. She uses the existing system to raise herself up and keep others below her. She does reach her goal of ultimate power but ultimately she is unable to hold it. In pursuit of holding onto power or gaining more of it, she watches as her children die early deaths. The smallfolk despise her for her methods of ruling. Eventually, she will cause her own downfall and die before her time.

Alicent Hightower: the show wants her to be Cersei, a mean-spirited, jealous woman protecting her problematic children and using her status as queen to put others in their place (they even used Cersei scenes as audition material for the role). In reality, I see Alicent as most like Catelyn - a flawed woman, mother to a king, seeking to further the rights of her son in the hopes of protecting her family from those who would harm them, guided by her own sense of justice, honor, and understanding of the laws of the land (and of course, hyper aware of the bastards in the room). All she wants is her and her children's safety, and she is willing to go to war for it. In the end, however, she watches as every last child is taken from her before she herself dies alone.

Viserys I Targaryen: the show wants us to see him as the ultimate father who loves his child unconditionally and always supports her, and that his view of right and wrong should be what guides the world. In reality, he is most like Robert Baratheon: a weak king unsuitable for rule whose mistakes and complacency lead to civil war after his death. His preoccupation with past events and people, and his role in a former love's demise, leads him to neglect his current wife and their children and make decisions that create long-term issues for his family and the realm.

Criston Cole: as soon as Criston turns away from Rhaenyra, the show wants you to view him as a Meryn Trant type of Kingsguard - a man unconcerned with honor and violently anti-women, more than willing to carry out terrible acts commanded of him. In reality, Criston is like more like Jaime: he seeks to make a name for himself as a knight, guided by his own sense of honor and justice, though he is judged by others as lacking such principles. His devotion to his position on the Kingsguard and his love for the royal family motivates him. Occasionally his self-confidence and delight in goading his enemies can make him appear callous and proud. Although he is not officially the royal children's "father," he has guided and protected them and their mother from early on in the absence of their official father.

Daemon Targaryen: the show wants you to both love and hate Daemon. It seems he should fill many roles that Jaime did - a sword fighter whose swagger and danger mix together, whose dishonorable acts follow him through the world. He acts primarily out of love or his pursuit of it, whether for his brother or his lover and her children. The viewer is supposed to see that deep down he is a good guy, no matter how many characters say that he's not. In reality, I see Daemon as a more capable Viserys III: a man adamant in his family's racial superiority, who believes he and his loved ones should have access to unchecked power because they're better than everyone else. A man who enjoys exercising his power over others and demanding obedience out of fear of his wrath. A man who uses his younger family member to further his own interests without much thought to her own wishes or agency and willing to hurt her if she doesn't act the way he wants her to.

Otto Hightower: the show wants you to view Otto as a new Littlefinger, someone sly about his intentions who uses spies, information, and unsavory methods to take advantage of the ruling family and further his own interests and increase his own power. I see him instead as more similar to Tywin: a Hand of the King seeking to put his family close to the throne in pursuit of legacy and advancing his family's station, a man who arranged for his daughter to marry the king so his blood would sit the Iron Throne and bring his family power for generations, a man acutely aware of the political world and how the game is played and willing to get his hands dirty to play it.

The Strong boys: the show wants you to root for Rhaenyra's perfect, good natured and pure intentioned sons as if they were the Stark boys (mixed with Jon Snow). Raised in a good family, these boys know right from wrong and love each other. Yet some people unfairly think less of them for their birth. In reality, the Strong boys are closest to Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella. Bastards set to inherit positions they have no claim to, they are coddled by their mother and protected from any consequences to their actions. When one attacks another child, their mother demands that the other child's family is punished for their actions (and doesn't even reprimand the child for his role in the conflict). The result is the child has no remorse for the harm done, and the other child's family festers resentment against the child. Some people uncover the truth of their birth and object to their place in the line of succession, and these people are killed for speaking the truth. Eventually, a war is fought to keep them and their mother away from the throne, resulting in all of them being killed.

Aegon II Targaryen: the show wants you to see him as Joffrey 2.0. A man interested in viewing sadistic acts for his own pleasure, who abuses women for his own enjoyment, and who is unfit to rule. In reality I see Aegon as closest to Robb: a first born son reluctant to rule as king once his father dies but who rises to the occasion to try to keep his remaining family safe. A king willing to fight his battles alongside his men, no matter the risk it might pose to him. A king who tries his best to rule but makes mistakes along the way that cost him dearly. In the end, he watches as he loses everything, and he dies young.

[lol-jackles]

Now that House of the Dragon is officially over, do you have anything to say about it?

What do you think about Daemon's hallucinations?

The unnecessary dialogues and scenes in Alicent?

How fascinating did you find the characters' High Valyrian? I love Emma Darcy's pronunciation, she does it really well.

What do you think about the theft of everything that is Jacaerys' story? They relegated it to the background.

Overall I liked season 2 despite it's less-than-tight pacing and execution compared to season 1. This season largely function as a set up for season 3, which caused character developments for most of their major characters to significantly slow down, though not completely stalled. One of Games of Thrones greatest strength is it showed that decisions have consequences and a character’s downfall is because they didn't see it coming. Aegon's foolish rush into battle have immediate consequence, and then he thought he was getting bailed out by Aemond and Vhagar, only to get toasted by them and lose his health and his dragon. He never considered that constantly humiliating Aemond could have consequences.

HotD followed GoT's formula of the penultimate episode featuring big battles or plot twists and using the finale to mop up and set up storylines for the next season. The issue is that season 2's finale is too similar to season 1's finale: setting up for war, and why it felt anti-climatic because we seen it before.

The finale's saving graces is we finally see Rhaena get her wild dragon and we're finally done with Daemon's hallucination bender and announce his commitment to Rhaenyra and her cause. I give credit where credit is due in that they did a good job of stretching out the high stake and tension over 6 episodes on whether wildcard Daemon would betray Rhaenyra and seek the Iron Throne for himself. The other saving grace is the introduction of Tyland Lannister and Admiral Lohar, the new odd-ball comedy couple in the spirit of Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth.

"The unnecessary dialogues and scenes in Alicent?"

I mostly diagree because it was the first time we've seen Alicent coming to her own, realizing her mistakes, acknowledging her past, and why she did what she did. In exchange for mercy for herself and her daughter, Alicent tells Rhaenyra of Aemond's plan to go to the Riverlands, thus leaving King's Landing open for conquest, furthe engineered by Alicent ordering the Kingsguard to stand down. But Rhaenyra tells her former friend that "it's too late" because blood has been shed and cities burned down by dragons and most of all, Rhaenyra can't truly win until Aegon is dead. “A son for a son.” Alicent mumbles something about Aegon bending the knee but Rhaenyra is resolute even as she softens just a tad while her ultimatum sinks in for both women. Finally, Alicent agrees not to stand in the way of her firstborn son's death. But unbeknownst to Alicent, Aegon had already fled King's Landing and now making him the wildcard.

"What do you think about the theft of everything that is Jacaerys' story? They relegated it to the background."

Yeah that was very annoying. They could have easily cut scenes of Daemon's hallucination bender in half and given the rest of the scenes to further develop Jacaery whose little brother JUST DIED. It reminds of when The Walking Dead writers forgot that Maggie had a little sister and shoehorned in two seconds of her reactive grief over Beth's death.

In conclusion the finale wasn't the strongest but it has a pretty good build up with montage of armies, navies, and dragonriders gearing up and marching and sailing towards the battlefields. I look forward to season 3.

[homielander]

i’m not sure if this was discussed on your blog, but i just watched an old interview with emma d’arcy and olivia cooke, and they were asked whether they would have preferred to have been in targaryen or the royal family. both answered with “targaryen” with emma making a comment of “i’m anti-monarchy”. it kind of hit me that people perceive fictional monarchies as less egregious than the real-life ones, for some unknown reason. i’m not sure if being british (cringe) impacted both them and the writers room to such a degree that they are deeply unaware of what narrative they have actually constructed. like, the problem with the monarchy wasn’t that bad people ruled, and they way to fix it isn’t by placing a “worthy” person on a throne, it was the system itself that need to be rid of.

i haven't seen the interview you're referring to, but i honestly don't blame them for that answer😭 i'd imagine they view fictional monarchies as less egregious because they haven't caused lasting harm to actual people, so it's already the less politically fraught option. and targaryens are frankly just cooler because of the dragons!! i of course agree with you that monarchies should be abolished, although i wouldn't say this is the thesis of hotd, so it's difficult to fault the actors for providing a silly answer to a silly question

hotd focuses more on the injustice faced by the first female heir to the iron throne rather than the iron throne as a doomed pursuit in itself -- i wish that both these aspects were key to the story, personally, but it is what it is. even with this emphasis, i don't think they'll entirely forgo illustrating the pitfalls of the system considering all of the tragedy and destruction the targaryens unleash upon innocent people and themselves during the dance.

[freya-captain]

Alicent is a perfectly functional grownup. She, like anyone else, should take consequences of her actions.

Was she a victim? Yes. Was she a queen who enjoyed fine food and clothing while the smallfolks have to strive for life but still hard to feed themselves? Yes.

Was she manipulated by her father? Yes. Did she actively choose to usurp the throne and directly caused a war? Yes.

Did she misunderstand lasting words of Viserys? Yes. Did she believe that if she wanted, the war would not happen and every lord in seven kingdoms is happy and she could enjoy a life of dowager queen? Yes.

Was she wrong? Yes. Did she have to suffer what’s coming? Yes.

I’m a Alicent-anti. But I’m more hotd anti because the writers are crazy enough to create a evil and stupid female character who seemed know nothing about war and power and yet kept treated as the victim. It’s totally NOT LOGICAL.

young alicent was a victim and i feel so sad for her but older alicent is a grown woman and perfectly knows what she does. no longer a victim.

i said what i said 🤚🏻

[dulcewrites]

I spent nearly 2 hours on Tumblr on tag Aemond × oc and guess what 99% of them are Aemond and his sister/twin sister/niece. It's really hard task to find non Targaryen/Velaryon oc. At this point I am just fed up with this fandom. I actually did a little experiment and searched Aegon × oc tag and when it comes to Aegon it's versatile because oc isn't Aegon's sister or niece and I can't believe that I like Aemond as character more than Aegon, but I avoid Aemond fic or one shots (except fmo naturally) and read a lot about Aegon and all this fics about Aegon changing himself for his love interest made me love Aegon. This fandom is really crazy, I love him as character but I can't enjoy it because all these writers thought that Aemond could only fall in love with member of his close family. I knew that his words about doing his duty if Alicent only betrothed him and Helaena will cause all fandom to think he is so much into incest, but I hadn't realised how big is that. So I just keep reading Aegon's fics because they are the only ones that don't have incest basically bombarding all the readers. They are my refuge after seeing so much insert with Aemond

I understand your frustration. I do think there is slight lack of diversity (in many avenues) when it comes to Aemond, which is unfortunate bc he is such a fascinating character. Taking into account the book and show, there is a lot of stories you can tell through him. I do think this tends to happen with popular characters, regardless of the fandom. There seems to be a trend or trope that gets sort of placed on them, whether it is considered out of character or not.

I’m still shocked that “I would perform my duty (basically if mother wanted me to)” line got turned into yep he’d def fuck his close family member. He’s like 11, no dragon to his name, and clearly drinking the koolaid of “these are the things ‘real’ targs” do. It’s ironic that this is the storyline being placed one of the of the few targs (in this part of history) that never had to/was never groomed to want a family member. It’s just… ??? Idk a choice I guess. I see this more in the hotd side versus the asoiaf/got side but it seems like a lot of people take the incest as sort of an endorsement/a need to have a Targ story be interesting versus a cautionary tale about the family.

Aegon is an interesting person the sense that he is so… anti targ. He very clearly begins to spiral after he is forced to marry and sleep with his sister (though that does not negate his actions. Helaena also had to marry her brother and didn’t do what he did. If we are going based off the show).

Aemond (along with haelena and Rhaenyra imo) start to veer into self insert territory but in different ways. Helaena and Rhaenyra often get stripped of anything so they can be placed in relationships with the popular guys (Aemond and Daemon). And Aemond’s feelings get distorted to fit whatever narrative. He gets shipped with anyone and everyone even if it makes no sense.

Now this is ok but fanfic is just that… fan fiction. People can write and read what they want. It is all self indulgent to a certain extent. Even the stuff I write. That being said, it can get repetitive and sometimes harmful depending on the content we are talking about.

[melaninjoys]

i can’t imagine how you felt when black people or more poc appeared on HOTD 💀 there’s never an excuse to be so angry that you use racist, offensive rhetoric. you can be upset that foggy and karen are gone without blaming the two black women who are only doing their jobs! why is it so easy for people like you to get at poc characters/actors rather than going after the writers of the show? either way, your grievance isn’t valid because you think that non white people existing in fictional shows is “woke”. you could’ve simply taken accountability but instead you deflected and came up with a tired excuse in the replies to the people who were calling you out. imo they were being way too nice cause i would’ve cussed you out. but i’m not even gonna go there, reblogging this post is more than enough and i really shouldn’t be doing that either. honestly, i pity people like you who think this way. consuming media would be much more enjoyable nowadays if people of privilege weren’t crying that marginalized groups are getting representation and it’s not them for once. the mcu has ALWAYS been diverse and transparent btw, it’s sad how misogynistic and racist and xenophobia the fanbase has become post endgame. you’re a fan of a blind anti-hero but two black women is where you draw the line??

I was so hyped for the new Daredevil series, but now I wish they would have left it alone. No Foggy, no Karen, the "upgrade" sucks: I blame the woke mob for the two colored women replacing the old team - who wants this either way?

Maybe I will eat my words, but right now I have a déja vu concussion of Fisk repeating "this city" over and over again, with the same (old) hard emphasis.

But I miss the old team more than ever, THEY were the heart of the show.