#asoiaf asks to me

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Honestly as a neutral party I would prefer Jaehaera living to Daenaera being introduced. Jaehaera is an innocent, mentally disabled child and her death is needlessly cruel. Her death is the least plot relevant of all of the child deaths that have happened in the dance and it's reasonable for people to want that changed since it comes off as pointlessly cruel. Killing Alicent or even just focusing on her imprisonment more is enough to show that the greens have paid for their betrayal. At least Daenaera can still be introduced and do something else in the narrative even if she doesn't marry Aegon.

I've already explained why Jaehaera's death was plot relevant HERE and HERE.

A)

Daenaera's entire narrative purpose was to marry Aegon and have his children to propagate the Targ line AND to become part of Aegon's mental rehabilitation from the effects of the civil war and watching his own mother get eaten burned/alive by a dragon. This is also reason why she's a fan fav in the first place; it's seen as a noble undertaking to some and a way for the Targs to move away from the greens finally. What other narrative use would you have her have?!

We can't bring up how after the War of the Roses the two fighting houses (Yorks and Lancasters) were successfully brought together in marriage to justify Jaehaera marrying and having a family with Aegon. Because:

Elizabeth of York wasn't disabled like Jaehaera

neither her nor Henry Tudor were little kids when they married

this is a fictional tale that, while modeled after some real events and people, is using them as springboards for a specific, purposefully created "message" unique to the author's

and imagine what it would being pregnant several times really be like for a very mentally incapacitated and traumatized girl like her?!!

Much less the other traumatized boy who's to be her husband? What the consummation and all the...impregnating times looked like?! Then, imagine what the family life would have been like, with these parents unable to ever connect thus the resentment is worse and their kids seeing that?

This doesn't justify Unwin Peake murdering Jaehaera, but no she never should have been married off to Aegon or anyone in the first place and that was not Unwin's doing but a larger group's--Aegon's council/patriarchal feudalism. This is what GRRM's trying to tell you, stop resisting it.

B)

I can believe that it is the way she died and the other context of so much violence men and adults perform against women and girls in this world is what really offends people enough for them to say that somehow, this a narratively irrelevant death. Because they're just that horrified.

The feelings are valid. But the action to erase the significance of the death is not valid. You definitely can wish for a much less violent one, like a poisoning that puts her to sleep or something. The death is supposed to be tragic and make you feel that it wasn't deserved, was horrible, etc. Because it was all those things.

And to say such an untrue thing as "not narratively relevant" also leads me to suspect that some people don't like Jaehaera's death either bc they just:

wanted the greens to win in some way bc they favor them and their cause (my second linked post)

you--knowing that Daenaera will likely be black in the show IF they ever get to the Maiden's Ball--go so hard for Jaehaera bc she at least is a white girl in the universe of HotD

want excessively centrist politics to sway the story at the expense of actual understanding of why we should change and upend the status quo entirely (here the feudal entrapment of girls and women); deny a reality, discourage learning to the oppressive status quo can prevail [on this trend of neutrality]...the truth is the villains/antagonists were always the greens

AND/OR, are avoidant of facing ugly, sordid truths of oppression because they are close to it in real life and haven't found ways of separating that from collective understanding of oppressive systems/coping mechanism

Look anon, Alicent's imprisonment doesn't make up for mass death. Because it's not even just about Alicent as the individual, the grandmother, the mother, etc. It's the effect of her actions on a population. Jaehaera was one of many girls Otto AND Alicent endangered (another being Halaena). Though her actions became something much bigger than her & things went out of her control, that doesn't stop them from being hers AND having affected thousands of lives. Her main aim was to accrue power through her kids and grandkids--who she chose to risk by usurping Rhaenyra and beginning the war--the consequence is she loses said kids and grandkids through other's similar ambition. Again, bc even though those kids were noble and were supposed to be relatively safe, because they are all technically heirs or adults around them can use them accrue power (whether by killing them or through marriages or whatever), they were also targets. We could say similar for Rhaenyra's children, as what happens to her youngest 2; all of them in one way or another die because they were or could be used. however, they AND the greens' kids were all safer if the greens had not usurped Rhaenyra.

The greens were the aggressors and transgressors. The ones who started this war and looked for something out of it. They tried to act worse against Rhaenrya before/during the war AND the whole of Westeros before/during/after, thus they get the worse punishment and lose more than she did.

The entire point is that the greens lose everything, because they went after "everything". They lose everything, including their kids bc they relentlessly and hypocritically ran to obtain more power for themselves by attempting to exclude a woman from the position she never would have had without the will of a man.

They went on the basis that a girl/woman should not rule or become an heir before any direct male relatives...so Jaehaera was cut out of the line of succession by her own side of the family, thus she was also less prioritized, thus she was made into a baby factory for Aegon III. She became their last chance to get their blood to at least be part of the future line, but even that's dashed by a man who had similar ambitions as Otto and Alicent.

In trying to go against the king's word/an actual law, the greens also made it much more justified for someone to not care much for Aegon II's claim or authority...bc if you can so easily flout a king's word, why should you care about the guy you're trying to make king?! And using people who themselves are willing to be so dishonest creates a higher likelihood that they'd betray you, as similar to Ulf and Hugh betraying Rhaenyra. (And somehow, Rhaenyra is the only naive one when she expects people to follow through with their oaths 🙄)

Have you ever thought, anon, about those other girls who were maimed or terrorized into not appearing before Aegon III in the Maiden's Ball? Sure, most of them weren't disabled (Priscella Hogg was, I think), but what happens to Jaehaera is because she was girl in the way of a man's ambitions and not because she was disabled. What about all those Tumbleton folk, Bitterbridge refugees (the raped septas and girls as young as 8!), and riverland peasants--most of them children! Undoubtedly, you will have disabled children in those populations, anon. Why is Jaehaera's death so much more valuable than these mass deaths of also children? Remember that Alicent raised her kids to easier justify committing these atrocities. Maelor and Jaehaerys' deaths also reflect these events. Jaehaera's death was markedly different in meaning from theirs (to open up space for another girls who's being used) because she was female. In the first linked post, I talk about why and how people used Jaehaera's marriage to Aegon and how that reflects on her death being unique from her brothers' because of her gender.

GRRM comments, through Jaehaera and these girls and Rhaenyra what one pattern of F&B has: being female is dangerous because it is to be more of an object or property in lieu of self-concerned ambitious men to the point where the most vulnerable and those who cannot practice some of the same sort of agency can experience gruesome consequences--sometimes to become terrors themselves in their attempts to gain denied agency or defend themselves.

[crownedtargaryen]

anon asks are back! 🤍🤍 please be kind and don’t do what they did.

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Do you know why so many people didn’t like tv Jon snow?

Because he killed Daenerys Stormborn.

He was written as a male world-savior to her bastardized character. He is integral to the sexist & just plain horribly written end to this series. Daenerys was never meant to become something like a Paul Atriedes figure, someone with good intentions or looking only to survive but still ends up about to ruin the world or bring only destruction to an already fraught world. But the GoT producers, D&D, decided that this was the ending that made the most sense for her. Her death at the hands of her lover (which constitutes as femicide & intimate partner violence). And this, in turn, has speared a cult of Jon stans who think that GRRM will end the actual story this way or something similar. Harassing Dany stans online and people who actually have faith in her, or just have good media comprehension and are willing to use it. D&D basically enabled a lot of Jon stans (overwhelmingly male and entitled) to feel that much more superior to women, and we all know that's just what we need, right?

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HOTD IS ALREADY A VIOLENTLY ANTI BLACK SHOW BUT RACIST PIGS WANT TO HAVE ANOTHER BLACK GIRL SIDELINED IN FAVOR OF AN IRRELEVANT & UNINTERESTING WHITE NON-CHARACTER.

When Aegon III look at Jaehaera, her face, her eyes, I know he saw Aegon II’s face. With Jaehaera, he can’t escape him, he can’t escape his mother’s violent death, he isn’t allowed to think of anything else, he’s forced to revive his olympic trauma over and over again. But with Daenaera, it’s UTTERLY different.

Jaehera dying is the story coming full circle. A greedy and ambitious hand wanting to make his daughter queen started the war but now his line ended by another greedy and ambitious hand who wanted to make his daughter queen. The point is that the Greens didn’t get what they want in the end because someone, one of their supporters, had the exact same mindset as Otto. Karma got to them. The Greens started this entire war to get their blood on the throne and their last chance to get their victory is dashed by one of their own people doing the same thing to them, GRRM is a genius, it’s ABSOLUTELY PERFECT.

Y’all REFUSE to let Rhaenyra have some crubs, it’s so disgusting. The Greens already have their own victory, Aegon II is the one remembered as king and Rhaenyra as an usurper, but he must also have descendants (the Blackfyres I guess) who tries to usurp Rhaenyra’s descendants and grandsons who became kings ??? OUT OF QUESTION, LET IT GO. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

The Greens started this entire war to get their blood on the throne and their last chance to get their victory is dashed by one of their own people doing the same thing to them

Heavy on this, anon. In fact, let me go back an insert the part about Jaehaera being the green's last botched "chance".

Anon refers to this post I wrote from a person expressing why they thought Jaehaera's death was "narratively irrelevant". And why Daenaera can still be written in without marrying Aegon.

It's true Aegon the Elder is held as one of the kings in the line of monarchs while she is not. That is not bc she usurped Aegon, but because they wanted to discourage the idea and practice of naming women or girls as heirs altogether. It was about female rulership being made into the cause of disaster or conflict, not Rhaenyra necessarily!

I still don't think Rhaenyra is universally remembered as the/a usurper, because by their own vocabulary Rhaenyra can never be a usurper...she was declared heir by the monarch and held as the true heir for years. Gyldayn calls her "Queen" several times and unironically and out of the then-living people's perspective. To be a usurper, you need to violently or unlawfully seize power, which Rhaenyra never ever did. The greens did that.

Once again, Stannis is not a reliable source to judge history, because the man is a walking self-denier and nihilistic user of fear to get his way. In the actual novels, Rhaenyra is thought of a civil conflict more than the direct cause of one through usurpation and "usurpation" itself is never mentioned unless it's Stannis saying so. And yes, Arianne Martell had the right of it, even though she is also using history for her own claims...the difference is that her reading of history and Rhaenyra's position is correct.

The people who want things to be more "equal" or "balanced" bt the greens and the blacks or have the greens have a sort of victory like the blacks just sound really desperate. And for what? For patriarchy to reaffirm itself deeper than ever and more than if Rhaenyra had just been queen?🙄

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‘Sunfyre and the pedophile have the strongest dragon-rider bond in Targaryen history’ when Daenerys, the MOTHER OF DRAGONS, literally BIRTHED IN THE FLAMES AND BREASTFEEDS her three dragons, HOTD truly created the most insane and delusional people I’ve ever seen.

The misogyny never really banked or went away, though.

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Its unfathomable to me people thinking Daemon hated the Velaryons boys, so he only shared Rhaenyra’s grief because he didn’t get to kill her sons himself ? He didn’t gaf that his biological children adored those boys ? He lived with them for ten years, if Daemon wanted his step sons dead, he would’ve already done it. Why can’t people fathom a successful non-nuclear family ? He would have killed Joffrey before going on his suicidal mission to finally avenge Lucerys as he had promised from the beginning. He knew their family was destroyed (psychologically), and he wanted to give them a fighting chance to survive, so he sacrificed himself to end the threat of Vhagar, knowing that Joffrey was heir to the throne at that point, never pushing for Aegon the Younger as heir. He betrothed his daughters to those boys, Baela refused to leave Jace, insisted on fighting by his side on her dragon even though Moondancer was not yet large enough to be ridden, and announced she would marry Jace immediately, Rhaena went to the Vale with Joffrey, c’mon.

@kataraavatara has a video on their TikTok that lists some of what you point out HERE. Go check it out, they're consistently great.

Yeah, pretty much.

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Rhaenys killing smallfolk is so…. Like wtf, and then people be like “Kinslaying is the worst crime there is! She’d be stupid to do it!”, first HOTD never introduces the notion of kinslaying, and killing hundreds of people is a crime too! She is already a criminal for what she did, why stop halfway if you’re going full murderer ? If you’re gonna commit a decapitation worthy offence, then you might as well kill the people who are a legitimate threat to your future great grandchildren and granddaughters themselves.

Them coming out saying that Rhaenys didn’t kill them because it’s not her war…. Lol, it was her war the moment she agreed to betroth her granddaughters to Rhaenyra’s sons. Her family (the little that is left of it) is in legitimate danger and she passed up the opportunity to kill people who WERE ACTIVELY PLANNING ON KILLING HER FAMILY ANYWAYS. (Yes, I know it was mostly Rhaenyra and Daemon but Jace and Luke and Joff would have to go too and Daemon is the father of Rhaena and Baela, the twins have legal claim to the throne, so no ways they letting that slide either).

Yeah, this has been my argument as well. I will never not be angry about this damned episode, esp this scene.

My biggest gripe about this fool of an episode is that if Rhaenys says she doesn't want to "be involved" in "their" war is that in ANY iteration of these events where Baela & Rhaena exist without turning this into a full-fledged AU like sweetestpopcorn's "The Black and the Greens", Rhaenys will ALWAYS be "involved"...

because those girls are DAEMON'S DAUGHTERS and ONE OF THEM LIVES WITH DAEMON AND RHAENYRA!!! And this Rhaenys constantly has said she primarily cares about her own kids and grandchildren, not Viserys, Daemon, or Rhaenyra...so what gives?!

In a world where these strategy-minded people would, you know, think strategy...Rhaenys practically spoon-fed them a public reason to go to war and assume a protective-justice persona!!!

To further paint the blacks as violence mongerers or even just shit-starters, even with those killed being peasants, bc the sheer number of people killed simultaneously who live around you & around your castle who have historically been a part of some Faith-led attacks against the crown (Aenys, Maegor, Rhaena & her brother Aegon--the Poor Fellows) is astronomical. Killing that many smallfolk doesn't pay and rather makes for a larger number of angrier smallfolk with a reason to be angrier than average. You'd think she'd realize that and idk, maybe not kill dozens if not thousands of smallfolk.

Otto will always look to them as possible rivals because of that connection to the person he thinks will likely always contend with him/anyone for power, espe after he includes the younger boys' hostage-taking in his terms in episode 10. Aside from Otto--who had a grip on Alicent's decision-making until it came to Rhaenyra (as if Rhaenyra doesn't come with her kids, who Alicent has accepted the risk of exile or total ruination for 10 years, but I digress).

And Alicent--by the next season's 2 trailers--appears to go back to Otto as a consultant and guide as to how the greens will face the blacks, so we can't argue that she will not escape his influence even with her allowing herself to understand his manipulativeness. She obviously didn't want a war and has tried to stave it off by holding Rhaenys hostage and sending that damned page to Rhaenyra with Otto's terms--that is if she actually sent it--she also sets up a possible war through usurping Rhaenyra in the first place! And Alicent isn't actually fighting against Rhaenyra for the sake of "the realm" but for for her own position as the mother to a possible king/wife of a past king and the lives of her kids.

Even in the book--if you are inclined to believe that she believes this and/or has sincerely taken Otto's fear of Daemon as her own maybe bc similarly to the show he instilled in her that fear of him--Alicent brings up Daemon's supposed bloodthirstiness and inevitable murder of her kids as reason to usurp Rhaenyra ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

As for the kinslaying part, they refused to insert Rhaenyra's lines of that, instead making her grab Otto's pendant and throwing it off the bridge in a much more flaccid version of what she does with Orwyle's chains in the book. Without the context of her giving Aegon that chance to withdraw AND criticizing Orwyle taking the green side and basically going against his own maester code of following traditions and laws, show!Rhaenyra's protests against Otto is more losing the desired cool & careful, wise reservedness that HotD already favors over original "proud" book!Rhaenyra. And I think that it's to give the Dance story this faux measure of "balance" that ozymalek talks about HERE:

People often argue whether HOTD showrunners are biased in favor of Team Black or Team Green. I think the answer to this question can't be encapsulated within the context of "bias", at least not fully. They are biased for both and neither at the same time and it's difficult to explain, but I will try to articulate how I see it. The Dance era in "Fire and Blood" is something that will fundamentally cause the feelings of cognitive dissonance. I think this is why people initially disliked this book when it first came out. It did not provide easy answers, it was written as a historical account, the in-universe historians were clearly biased. People, however, had trouble realizing who the historians are biased for and against. Team Green would have you think that "F&B" is biased against the Greens, because their allegiance as maesters clearly being to Hightowers notwithstanding, they could not evade simple historical facts: that most of the kingdom supported Rhaenyra, that Greens were horrendously misogynistic and that her usurpation was clearly wrong. That's why, approaching it from the "choose your favorite war criminal" point of view, it was difficult for Greens to accept that their preferred side is so cartoonishly evil - obviously bias must have been involved, even though the only pro-Black narrator of F&B is Mushroom, the rest are Greens. The maester's anti-Targaryen bias, however, manages to sneak in and mess with the reader's balance, causing said cognitive dissonance. It's hard to deal with it as a reader, let alone as a showrunner who's trying to adapt a story in which not everything is set in stone. They incorrectly assumed that, because they are constantly forced to question what is happening in the story, the bias is with the underlying idea that there was a correct side. As such, they assumed that all the inconsistencies result from maesters not choosing to view it that way. Ryan Condal repeatedly stated that he does not want watchers to pick sides, while George RR Martin embraces it and even encourages it (and I think that he himself has picked the Blacks). Such is our nature as human beings. So they decided that they have to balance the scales. Because Greens are poorly developed, they added more characterization for them that contradicts their book personas (abused child bride meow meow Alicent who is clueless about the plans that in the books she herself set in motion, for example) while simultaneously taking the characterization AWAY from team Black members. Rhaena and Baela barely have any lines, and though this may be the case of simple racism, it's pretty telling that they ignored the fact that Baela is tomboyish and has short hair. Rheanyra herself is so toned down that she does not resemble her book counterpart in the slightest, making her seem weak, stupid and undecided. Daemon straight up becomes a villain and a wife murderer rather than a throughoutly gray character (book!Rhea Royce unambiguously dies after a hawking accident while Daemon is still fighting in the Stepstones); that's because Team Black was in a desperate need for a corrupting influence in order to balance the scales. But some Greens aren't spared from this treatment either. Otto is made much worse than he was in the books, he straight up pimps out his teenage daughter so that he can elevate House Hightower. While Aegon is also a sex pest in the books, showing him openly rape a lowborn woman was a risky decision (as was the not very subtle implication that he rapes Helaena as well); not to mention that the child fighting pits come from Mushroom, whose entire gimmick is making shit up. So neither side is really spared from being villified and whitewashed, depending on whom we look. The showrunners were fully committed to making choosing sides a confusing process, making the cognitive dissonance of this story to be even stronger. This is why they aren't really biased for or against anyone.

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I will say Aegon II cutting Rhaenyra’s breast makes me more pissed than her actual death. This is such a gendered thing, choosing to specifically cut her breast instead of other body parts to draw blood, they deliberately wanted to humiliate and punish Rhaenyra as a woman one last time.

Yeah, it further clues us in that her death was gender-discriminatory-motivated, if people haven't already realized when the entire war was waged to prevent Rhaenyra from succeeding the throne for her rapist brother the HotD.

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Alicent would HATE Anne Boleyn, a reformist who helped instigate the break from Rome and the Catholic church, and would call her the “concubine”, “whore”, she-devil”, “Jezebel”. Alicent would call Elizabeth a “bastard” and would support Katherine of Aragon, the pious, loyal and dutiful wife, a daughter of Isabella the Catholic.

Anne was everything that the ideal woman at that time wasn’t meant to be. She wasn’t submissive, she wasn’t meek, she wasn’t somebody who withheld her emotions, she was bold, she was very outspoken, she was emotionally demonstrative, probably emotionally sort of rather immoderate and rather extreme and not at all retiring, very assertive. And I think ultimately somebody who wanted to be in control of her own destiny; in that way makes her quite modern. I love her speech at her trial, in which she describes her one “crime” as not having shown Henry enough “humility”. I think that’s an extraordinary, “feminist” insight for a woman of her time. “I confess I have had jealous fancies and suspicions of him, which I had not discretion enough, and wisdom, to conceal at all times”, she recognized that she had transgressed against the norms of wifely behavior, that she didn’t remained in her proper place. To describe her as a feminist would be an anachronism, but she did step over the ever-moving line that marked the boundary of the comfort zone for men of her era, stepping right into the epicenter of politics during a volatile, dangerous time.

What’s up with Alicent’s stans trying to force nonsensical parallels between her and controversial & challenging women (Anne Boleyn, Medea, Clytemnestra, etc) ? Who’s next, Scarlett O’Hara, Anna Karenina, Hester Prynne ? I thought Alicent was the Virgin Mary who never did anything wrong and whose only character trait is suffering.

Answer to this post?

Again, haven't gone into any real depth with Anne Boleyn, but these sound convincing from what I do know of her. You really got me with the supporting Catherine of Aragon bit, because...whoo, Alicent would.

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Targaryen antis/TG going out of their way to promote hill’s alive channel who is a whole Zionist, made multiple pro-Israel posts on tumblr (she’s hellsbellschime here) and support Genocide Joe, what happened to shame ?

Also the fact that she harassed Phoebe Tonkin SO MUCH that the actress called her out on twitter BY NAME and asked her to stop ??

Anon talks about this reblog/post.

If true, that's embarrassing for her and those who had to witness that as it happened.

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Baela & Rhaena placed a hit on Jaehaera cause why Baela had Daenaera up in KL like it was nothing ?

I think Rhaena had spies & courtesans whispering in Peake’s ears like “you are the hand, your daughter could be queen” knowing that he would try to harm that girl. Baela was tasked to find a replacement, a Valyrian bride from Essos perhaps with the help of Velaryon fleet.

Fast forward and instead of sending Alyn all the way to Essos to find Aegon’s new wife, they managed to find a Velaryon girl, Baela’s ward, an orphan, just like Aegon. Rhaena’s plan comes to fruition: Peake trying to pull an Otto and killing that girl. All Baela and Rhaena need now is to prepare Daenaera for KL.

It was genius when you think about it. Baela gets to solidify her maternal house status in KL by having the king’s wife be from House Velaryon & giving more protection to her brother, and Rhaena managed to completely destroy what’s left of the Green’s influence on the council by having him demoted.

Rhaena is very political astute and one thing about the Greens… they gon throw childish tantrums when their plans do not go as planned. She most likely knew Peake was going to threaten the king & council with his resignation. But the greed he had shown by trying to marry his daughter to Aegon rubbed the rest of the council the wrong way. thus no one was sad to see him go.

....I'm going to treat this as the joke I think it is and just not give a real answer.

btw, anon seems to respond to this post

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Aegon III and Jaehaera “healing together” would be like:

Jaehaera: I miss my father.

Aegon III, having a PTSD trigger: Well, I miss my mother! AND YOU KNOW WHO GRUESOMELY KILLED MY MOTHER WHILE I WAS WATCHING ?!

Jaehaera: And I miss my twin brother! AND YOU KNOW WHO SEND THE MEN WHO BEHEADED HIM IN FRONT OF ME & MY MOM ?!

Aegon III: Nothing would have happened if your grandmother didn’t usurped my mother and your uncle didn’t ruthlessly murdered my brother.

Their marriage would have been SOOO INCREDIBLY UGLY, BITTER, MISERABLE AND HOPELESS. That union never stood a chance. Aegon III spent about 3 years married to her and never made any attempt to befriend her and had more interactions with Unwin Peake’s daughter than her. They wouldn’t have any children, he’d abdicate in favor of Viserys if he didn’t marry Daenaera and then locked himself in a tower.

Yeah, I agree. I understand that the real English War of the Roses that war/sub-battles ended with a happier and successful marriage between the two warring houses of York and Lancaster so it seems that Aegon III and Jaehaera could have also had a great marriage--or at least a civil one with a lot of kids/heirs. However, though yes we had the structure of "one child of the two warring families marry for peace" of the War of Roses, the Dance was modeled and takes inspiration from the Anarchy. Where Empress Matilda fought against her male cousin, Stephen of Blois, for the English throne. Where the conflict was strictly about who deserves the throne: the female declared heir or the eldest male relative? And who will obtain it, who fights for them, who suffers, etc.

Plus Henry VII of the Plantagenet branch of Tudor (through Jon of Gaunt) & Elizabeth of the house of York--the people who married each other while from the opposing houses after the Battle of Bosworth Field--were both relatively healthy adults AND Henry actually won the throne through his own leadership in battle after killing Richard II (her paternal uncle). The same uncle whose mainly held responsible for Elizabeth's younger brothers' disappearances. So Henry & Elizabeth had a way better beginning than Aegon III & Jaehaera.

Even with the Anarchy, GRRM doesn't transfer all of the events or major ones/results into his fiction. The conclusion of the anarchy was still a woman being passed over: Stephen won and got to rule but Empress Matilda's son--Henry Plantagenet-- was designated as the next to rule in the Treaty of Wallingford. She wasn't brutally murdered in front of said son like Rhaenyra, and despite Stephen's efforts his own sons never sat the throne. But the war ravaged England as the Dance did Westeros enough that in both the lords/barons sought peace above all AND Matilda lost the throne. GRRM seemed to want to capture the sense of futility of the war's destruction. There was no happy-dappy marriage or even an attempt at one in the real thing.

Jaehaera was made totally disadvantaged for a reason:

a) making her and Aegon both children in the aftermath of the war, controlled by ambitious adults still who do not have their best interests at heart makes to highlight theie vulnerability and the cause being misogyny and classism leading those in power to declare such wars

b) their parents fighting and destroying each other to the bitter end instead of what occurred in the actual Anarchy

c) the greens pushed for war under the principle of "men only" at the cost of its female members' mental and physical health or putting those in danger (mainly Helaena and Jaehaera) for the sake of power. Jaehaera could have grown up happier and for longer if her own father hadn't decided to calm down and not try to go after several of Rhaenyra's supporters in the way that he was planning to, nor should he have usurped his older sister. He shouldn't have celebrated Lucerys' murder at the feast he threw that was almost certainly part of the inspiration for Blood & Cheese whereby his oldest male heir was killed. His other male heir was put into danger when he, again, usurped Rhaenyra and led armies against her when she had been already declared and ACCEPTED as Viserys heir for years. All he had left was his daughter left, but bc the whole point of his claim was "males only" AND he was himself an asshole, he decided to marry again to get another male heir. It was also Alicent who tried to intimidate or persuade her granddaughter to kill Aegon as if the child wasn't already scarred from war and mentally fragile from her disabilities so that she, Alicent, could get revenge against the already dead Rhaenyra. The greens, not the blacks or Rhaenyra, are the main ones at fault for Jaehaera's demise--her death is on their hands since every which way, they chose power over her.

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I thought that last comment you got about Elizabeth I and how she was never ashamed of her mother was really interesting because it reminded me of Aegon III and Rhaenyra.

People ask why Elizabeth I never attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of Anne Boleyn, why Aegon III never legitimize Rhaenyra’s reign... Both could do nothing practical, without stirring up a hornets’ nest of political controversy, divisions, and old wounds, Elizabeth I wisely kept her thoughts to herself and her mother’s memory in the form of a tiny portrait in a closed locket, found and seen by others only after her own death... Aegon III only wore black because he was mourning Rhaenyra for the rest of his life. They loved and cherished their mothers but were clever enough to know its better to leave things in the past. They may well have been too damaged to even think about revisiting that trauma after years had passed.

Anon's talking abt this post.

This is such good insight!

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“Who are these men you’ve hanged ?”

Edmure glanced up uncomfortably. “They came with Ser Cleos when he brought the queen’s answer to our peace offer.”

Catelyn was shocked. “You’ve killed envoys ?”

— A Clash of Kings, Catelyn V

Killing envoys is a war crime, they weren’t in open field battles, no war has been declared yet. Lucerys went there as an envoy under a peace banner. He’s 14-years-old with a young and tiny dragon, Aemond is 20-years-old with the largest and oldest dragon alive. Aemond murdered Lucerys in cold blood and started the war.

And not only Aemond ruthlessly murdered Lucerys, but Aegon II LITERALLY THREW A FEAST TO CELEBRATE HIS DEATH.

Like... Daemon and Rhaenyra are SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME, because if this had happened with my child, I would’ve also killed Jaehaera and Maelor and played with their heads like I was Messi. Not even joking.

War Crime definition:

an action carried out during the conduct of war that violates accepted international rules of war

Again, it's not condoning child murder, it's pointing out how hypocritical the anti-Daemon/anti-black/anti-Rhaenyra arguments for B&C are.

It's pointing out that killing envoys is taboo--or at least socially considered condemnable and ethically incorrect--in Westeros.

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It’s mind-blowingly obvious that Young Griff isn’t Rhaegar’s son, at that point, Daenerys’s haters are operating on pure bias.

Daenerys has a vision in the House of the Undying where she sees a “cloth dragon swayed on poles amid a cheering crowd”. The cloth dragon is “swaying” on poles amidst that cheering crowd. It’s unsteady, just as Young Griff himself is nothing more than a prop for JonCon, Illyrio and Varys. That’s what a cloth dragon is: a prop for actors. A mere “cloth dragon” will never get real support in Westeros. The cheering crowd is simply a reference to the Golden Company glorifying Young Griff when he calls himself a dragon and accepting his idea to sail West to fight for him.

Quaithe, a mysterious “shadowbinder”, warns Daenerys to watch out for the “mummer’s dragon”, the very same dragon she sees in her vision. Not only does this confirm that there’s a false dragon out there, it also seems to work as a double reference by pointing to Varys (who was a mummer in his childhood). Who is Varys backing ? Young Griff. In other words, Young Griff is a puppet whose strings are being pulled by Varys and Ilyrio.

Everyone around Young Griff is a mummer of sorts. JonCon who is pretending to be a mere sellsword, Septa Lemore a fake septa, and Haldon a fake maester.

Brienne is on the Quiet Isle and learns about a dragon sign that washed up there. The dragon sign was originally black (the Blackfyre sigil) and thrown into the river. By the time it washed up on the Quiet Isle, it had rusted such that it looked red (the Targaryn sigil). A black dragon (Blackfyre) washes up disguised as a red one (Targaryen). Once you get what the symbolism is, you can’t unsee it and it’s so obvious that it’s deliberate foreshadowing.

The Golden Company, originally founded by supporters of House Blackfyre, are famous for having never once broken a contract, but they broke one for Young Griff. “Some contracts are writ in ink, and some in blood.” - ADWD, Tyrion II. Myles Toyne specifically was the one who plotted with Varys and Illyrio and put his name to the contract. It’s worth mentioning him specifically because House Toyne is historically completely at odds with House Targaryen. Myles’s ancestor, Terrence Toyne, was caught in bed with Aegon IV’s mistress, Bethany Bracken, and Aegon IV had them executed. His brothers tried to avenge his death by attempting to assassinate Aegon IV, only to be slain by Aemon the Dragonknight. House Toyne never recovered from this. It’s entirely possible that Myles knew and fought for Maelys and Daemon Blackfyre before they died.

The baby-swap story doesn’t make any sense. It involves “Arbor gold”, used repeatedly in the series as a symbol for lies. The baby swap could only work if Aegon’s face was destroyed, something Varys couldn’t have known at the time. There’s also no reason they even had to do a swap; they could have easily just smuggled out both children and been done with it (which has historical precedent with Larys Strong smuggling out both Maelor and Jaehaera during the Dance of the Dragons).

“Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon. When Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones, it was the end of the male line of House Blackfyre.” - ADWD, Tyrion II. The emphasis is on the Blackfyres being extinct in the male line. Not extinct, period, but in the male line. This is what led to the theory that Illyrio’s wife Serra, from Lys (and Varys is also from Lys), was a Blackfyre princess and Aegon’s mother. Aegon is a female-line Blackfyre.

This is one of those ask-posts where I don't really have anything to add. but has to be posted for its observations and stating the ignored-obvious-that-nevertheless-needs-pointing-out-bc-stupid-people-exist.

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The fact that both Aegon III and Daenerys had to bear the weight of the entire Targaryen dynasty on their shoulders at a young age.

Daenerys held Doreah’s hand as she was dying // Aegon III held Tyland Lannister’s hand as he was dying.

Aegon III took care of the sick during the winter fever himself despite the Kingsguard’s protest // Daenerys took care of those who suffered from the pale mare herself despite her bloodriders’ protest.

In a different world, Daenerys would’ve probably worn Aegon III’s crown just like Aegon V did, all three of them are team smallfolk.

I think that though Daenerys is partly motivated by taking back what her family had won hundreds of years ago and very proud of some parts of her family's legacy, her main motivation is to rule fairly and altruistically. I think that she would have looked back at Aegon V especially in terms of what not to do or do in regards to implementing laws and the strategies behind getting those laws up despite the Westerosi nobles. Interesting drawing of those parallels.