#and aegon seems to have gotten some measure of happiness back with daenaera and viserys to help

[navree]

To say that Rhaenyra died a dragons's rider death is just coping atp , does that means people in riverlands and kingslanding died a dragons's rider death? The slavers in essos died a dragons's rider death? It's screams coping and seething because rhaenyra turned into a literal dragon's poop ..

It's absolute hardcore cope to try and make her death seem more epic than it is, which is dumb because that's kind of the point? Her death isn't grand and glorious and this amazing moment of dragonrider triumph (she did not fly Syrax once in the entire war she did Nothing it's literally confirmed canon that Syrax hadn't even done so much as hunt for herself in years by the time the Dance started she was incredibly useless), because nothing about this war was grand and glorious. It was an ignominious, ugly, and painful way to die, in front of her own son, because this war was an ugly thing. Like, this war was a bad thing for House Targaryen; no one won and nobody came out of it unscathed and the entire family was weaker from that point onward until Aerys dealt the death blow by being The Worst. The only person who has a maybe cathartic death in the entire Dance is Daemon, and that's a strong maybe, every other character has one that feels unfair.

Laena had her thing about wanting a dragon rider's death in order to foreshadow the unfairness of her own situation, and she chose self immolation via Vhagar because it was either that or death by childbirth anyway, she was caught between a rock and hard place and at least chose to have a dragon involved. Not to mention that she chose it, Rhaenyra certainly didn't choose how she died. Random people getting torched by dragonfire isn't the same as a dragon reader deciding that, if she's Got to die now, she's going to die on her own terms with her dragon at least partially involved. It's hardcore cope and it's missing the literal point of this entire sad saga.