#and that men's inheritance of 'social progression' is men's inheritance alone - women don't have an inheritance

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

As much as I love reading feminist history, it's downright depressing to see just how cyclical women's liberation and patriarchal domination is: the moment women start shaking off the chains, men replace those chains using the same methods, their threats and acts of violence and their ridicule, every. single. time.

[gameofthronedd]

Susan, I've seen ostensibly “progressive feminist women” say the most heinous, disgusting things about Rhaenyra and her sons in a way that I'm absolutely convinced they believe the same things about real women as well. You don't get to spew endless vitriol about natural children and sex outside marriage, advocate for male primogeniture, obsess over Catholic imagery, and praise dutiful and obedient daughters/wives online all the time and then pretend that doesn't indicate what you view about real women, it doesn't work like that. Regurgitating conservative and far-right talking points but frame it as leftism or feminism is a pattern we have seen before.

It's just so transparently misogynistic who people, including allegedly liberal women, view as deserving of love, especially since they always forgive fictional and real men for things they'd never forgive real or fictional women for. Do you realize there are STILL countries where inheritance laws remain strongly biased against women and daughters & sons don't have equal inheritance ? Where children born outside of marriage faces persecution, degradation, discrimination and are denied legal documents such as birth certificates and citizenship ? Where unmarried mothers are socially ostracized and rejected by their families, or worse ?

Now, would you believe it, but BOTH "sides" are completely able, willing and DO say heinous shit in either direction. Self-identifying feminists, too. People attack Rhaenyra and attack Alicent and are awful all around. It's not one side alone perpetuating misogynistic and shitty views. And not just towards characters either. People are awful to each other. I'm not that big on engaging with fandom discourse - Tumblr is the only place I really do it - because there's some batshit crazy people out there on all sides and I personally don't understand losing my shit over fictional characters.

That's my issue, overall, with fandom discourse; people getting on their high horses and trying to prove how morally good they are, despite everyone and both "teams" being capable of having and expressing morally shitty takes. Team Green fans attack Rhaenyra, Team Black fans attack Alicent. Factionalism at the end of the day is going to produce biases and people are going to put their blinkers on and pretend like the source of morally unsound opinions is solely the other side. But the truth is that everyone is an individual and regardless of who you support you are going to have opinions that upset others and you are always going to be capable of having an opinion that is morally "bad" or questionable in someone else's eyes, regardless of how morally righteous you feel.

Point being, no team is morally "righteous", especially in terms of fandom behaviour. Being on HOTD twt, especially, I see the most vile and heinous shit being hurled BOTH ways. No team is better than the other. End of.

It's really ironic, for example, that those that claim moral high-ground and righteousness by being Team Black also engage in misogynistic bullshit with 0 self awareness. Victim-blaming, hoping Alicent gets SA'd, sexualising Rhaenyra whilst she's literally enduring a traumatic labour, strange af behaviour surrounding Daemon & Rhaenyra etc. No one is blameless.

Maybe some people actually believe the stuff about natural birth and male primogeniture but from a personal stance and from what I can assume about others who analyse Alicent & the Greens, it's moreso just that: ANALYSIS. The ability to seperate ones own views and the context of the media/literature is how I conduct my interrogations of characters and events. I have my own views but if I'm objectively trying to consider a character and events of the world, applying my own views isn't going to help me understand character actions or why things happen the way they do because these characters aren't 21st century feminists.

Does everyone obsessing over Daemyra believe that incest is good? Hopefully not. Does everyone obsessing over Daemon think that murder and DA and grooming is good? Hopefully also no. Do people who like Viserys - being a relatively popular character - think that marital r*pe is acceptable or that child brides are a good thing? Also hopefully not. Fandom discourse has so many of these contradictory points. People will ride so hard on the Daemyra ship train and point out how incest is normal because it's Targaryens (despite knowing how wrong incest is irl) and argue consistently that there was no grooming or problematic undertones to the Daemyra situation (despite knowing, hopefully, that there are some seriously sus undertones to the relationship).

So my point is this: there are always going to be contradictions and excuses made so that you seem morally righteous. And, again, both "teams" are guilty of this. Contradictions between what is acceptable in-universe and irl especially.

I agree with the point about deciding who is deserving of love, especially when it comes to men. To bring up Daemon again. He has a legion of supporters who like him for being some angsty bad boy who is also a 🥺 malewife 🥺 yet it seems a lot of supporters blatantly ignore his instances of misogyny. They will rail on and on about the patriarchy in-universe and how awful the Green men are, yet there's little application of such critique to the men on Team Black.

To compare two equally morally bad situations. Alicent and Dyana, Rhaenyra and Daemon. Different contexts, I know, but they are similar in that one character is in the wrong (Daemon and Alicent) and they are both scenes that didn't exist in F&B. Fandom response, however, has been wildly different. Alicent is considered to be wrong and awful and an agent of the patriarchy. No one questions the presence of this scene. Daemon's scene, on the other hand, recieves a lot of hate for simply existing in the first place. Fans rush to say Daemon would never do that, that the writers hate him and are villainising him. A lot of Daemon thinks have expressed upset over the scene because "he wouldn't do that".

Neither scene was in the book. A scene where the woman is the perpetrator of a bad action isn't considered out of place and the woman in question recieves a crap load of hate for it. Yet a scene where the male is the perpetrator is seen as an action taken to vilify the man and the man is Innocent by Bad Writing. Alicent could do anything and she would recieve far more hate at the hands of women (and men, ofc) than anything Daemon gets.

I think Alicent and Daemon are in relatively similar position when it comes to fandom opinion. Team Green largely hates Daemon, Team Black largely hates Alicent. The situations are, of course, different, but I'd say that they're both at the forefront of the "this person is a MONSTER" arguments. And I think there's much to be interrogated about fandom reaction and gender. For example, I feel that Daemon gets away with a lot more because he's the Hot Bad Boy love interest. He can murder people, including his own wife, and repeatedly call women whores all he likes. He's just Daemon the Rogue Malewife, isn't he cute? Alicent, meanwhile, acts like a relatively normal woman for the given context and is treated like she's some supervillain plucked right out of a Marvel movie.

Anyway, my point is that it's a very big, complex and interesting topic to discuss. Gender in literature and media, and irl, is a big topic and it's difficult to just boil it down neatly into something simplified. Especially when it comes to a show like HOTD, where we are watching characters in a medieval-esque setting but watching through a contemporary lens of analysis.

My personal opinion is that you can analyse or consume it how you like. Other people will analyse and consume how they like.

I personally believe it's completely possible to have nuance and to be able to signpost when you're considering a character in-universe and when you're applying contemporary values to the piece of media. I, for one, wouldn't want to BE Alicent, nor do I necessarily agree with everything she's done, BUT I find her interesting as a character and I enjoy watching her on screen (Olivia does a fantastic job) and trying to understand why she behaves the way she does. The SAME is said of Rhaenyra. I wouldn't want to be her but I enjoy understanding her despite not always agreeing with what she does.

I'll boil my personal take on this whole thing to this: I literally just enjoy understanding characters. That's it. I have my opinions on actions taken by characters and my own moral stance on whether it is good/bad etc. But I find personal enjoyment in understanding why characters act the way they do. That's it.

I don't engage with HOTD/GOT/ASOIAF to find characters I agree with all the time based on my own values because then I'd have like one or two characters I like/enjoy. Heck, with HOTD my own values come into conflict with the overarching story aka I don't support absolute monarchy 🤷🏻‍♀️ My overall stance on the Dance is that neither Aegon nor Rhaenyra should be ruler and ideally the throne should be melted down and made into cutlery for the smallfolk 🙏🏻🥰

And, yes, yes I am aware, anon 😃