#asoiaf shipping

[horizon-verizon]

Daemyra stans on Twitter are so misogynistic, illiterate, and racists. They missed the entire point of Rhaenyra’s story. It’s scary how they refuse to admit that people have several loves in their lives. I hope they never met a remarried widow/widower irl.

*EDITED POST* (10/8/23)

Please refer to this post to get a more in-depth answer.

A)

It's pretty clear that in both the show and the original story these two would have preferred to marry each other from the beginning. I am not totally sure if book!Daemon would have actually pursued, developed a relationship, or "looked" at Laena while married to Rhaenyra like I suspect he did "when developed a romance/had sex with/pursued/"looked" at Rhaenyra when she arrived at Driftmark and visited during the duration of her friendship with Laena.

Repeating myself, which is most likely? IF Rhaenyra was not okay with an open marriage nor in love with/attracted to Laena herself: Book!Daemyra marry from the jump and Daemon has a relationship with Laena or acting on the attraction I think he'd still have & pursuing a relationship with her? Or Daemon and Laena being married & later Rhaenyra shows up and he pursues/looks/develops a relationship with her while married to Laena?

I do not think he stopped loving or caring for Rhaenyra in their unique way after he married Laena. However, in the original story it is more than obvious he loved & cared for Laena.

B)

Here's the thing, I was/am a Daemyra Stan before and after HotD existed and I love their story. I read them as intentionally the OTP of the narrative. But I also don't really get how book!Daemon was seen as uncaring didn't love or wasn't at least emotionally as well as physically attracted to Laena.

I as a reader/audience/consumer of stories do prefer soulmate and one-true-love stories over many other types of love stories, but it's not enough for me to measure a person or character's worthiness based on how many people they've been with. And in real life, it's just a fact that people fall in love (and I still don't know what that's supposed to mean myself, what "love" is) more than once in their lives. Doesn't seem fair to be so repressive and deny the possibility for DaemonxLaena to have more respect, affection, or care in a TV adaptation, which is what some do. The show we do have barely delivered and made it seem that Daemon cares but is much more distant than even what the original text shows.

So I don't begrudge people for saying show!Daemon should have been genuinely in love with or loved and cared for Laena, even while also in love with Rhaenyra. One, the text supports that possibility, and two, love could be different without being less or "more" or "less" as in quantity, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Outside of narrative, yes I do think it's possible for a person to want to be with one person more than another person, and the original story gives enough for us to believe that there was real love and caring between Laena & Daemon. In canon, they marry they married in 115. In 116 A.C., he took it upon himself to write a letter to Viserys un-flashingly (as is his way) to get him and his family to stay at Driftmark so their daughters could grow up in one of their ancestral homes. Before that, they lived together touring several Essosi cities before settling in Pentos so Laena could birth the dragon twins 116. Only a few months pass before they move to Driftmark so the girls can grow up there. So they had been married for a year or so, alone, for a year. At some point in 117, Rhaenyra becomes friends with Laena. Laena died in 120 A.C., so Laena-Daemon-Rhaenyra was a unit of some kind longer than Daemon and Laena were but Daemon was obviously still sleeping with Laena for her to be pregnant and die of her labors in 120 A.C. The man also grieved heavily after she died.

Meanwhile, he spent a few months with Rhaenyra after he came back from the Stepstones in 111 A.C. and before his next exile. Still, Rhaenyra admired him familially/platonically before Mysaria's exit and for years. I do not think he ignored her or did not spend some time with her before he went to the Stepstones, and he was not responsive to that, even if not to the same degree. There was a bond made there that facilitated/informed their later bonding after he returned and began to court/"court" her.

This is what I think DaemonxLaena's pre-marriage relationship was like and why he chose her/she chose him in the first place.

I don't think he loved her exactly like how he loved Rhaenyra nor that they immediately built a relationship like the one he does with Rhaenyra, but these women are two different people and the circumstances of their getting together are very different. And I am not sure if Laena thought of him as her great love so much as her partner because it likely wasn't that type of relationship, as: the text centers Daemyra more; we do not get a clue as to Laena's feelings for Daemon as much as we have considerations for how he felt for her besides her wanting to marry him (and not likely not wanting to marry a freeloading poor Braavosi boy-man); and the text emphasizes how much Laena loved dragon-riding and her bonding with Vhagar at 12 over any romantic feelings for Daemon while they were married. Her relationship & feelings of love (of any kind) for Rhaenyra also seem evidently stronger than her feelings for Daemon to me during the actual marriage. (But IDK, bc we don't have actual details!)

Is this because Laena had a smaller role to play in the story and did not do any political act besides marry Daemon have his kids and betroth her kids to Rhaenyra's and therefore there was less attention paid to her and her feelings for Daemon? Is this because those who could have brought more insight for us were at the Essosi cities the couple spent more time in than in Driftmark? Or is this because she just actually didn't express affection with Daemon in their time at Driftmark? IDK.

Conclusion(?)

It's also safe to say that he really did love/care about Laena when we know how he treated Rhea Royce. But, I can see how Daemon would love Rhaenyra more...intensely, I guess? There's a je-nais-se-quois to it.

Because it is without a doubt true that he spent with Rhaenyra not very long after Laena's death if he hadn't already been doing so before she died. Pretty sure that post-death sex was for intimacy and to "consummate" something interrupted and thus longed for.

Like I said in an earlier post, it's better to say that book!Rhaenyra was Daemon's first, enduring, and most intense(?) love. It's hard to impossible to quantify the unquantifiable.

NOTE

IN THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS POST, PLEASE SET IT "Newest first" TO SEE A VERY IMPORTANT REVELATION!!!!

[mneiai]

Since Snow is Jon's actual name and "Stormborn" is just Daenerys' nickname, whenever people use "Stormborn" as the ship name, I think they're shipping Jon Snow/Edric Storm.

[effemar]

Great Red Dragon, Woman Clothed With Sun

[goosemixtapes]

“a relationship should be between one man and one woman” a relationship should be a cunty backstabbing swordsman, a butch knight with autism, and the emotional shadows of the two kings that died under their respective watches

[nedseii]

your style is just gorgeous and i see you like rare pairs! would you ever consider drawing jon x margaery?

Here you go! Thanks for introducing me to this ship >:) I hope you like it!!

[imjustapoorwayfaringgeek]

Ship Drawing Challange Day 1

flowers and hair 🌸

[itbmojojoejo]

Brienne of Tarth + Tormund Giantsbane

[a0random0gal]

Shipping in Asoiaf and hotd be like:

[laurellerual]

The mummers off the Ship showed her how a hero stands, and taught her speeches from The Song of the Rhoyne, ...

@insomniarama

[nepobabyeurydice]

are you a proshipper ? i’m not following you if you are .

….I'm in the song of ice and fire fandom

[horizon-verizon]

Rhaenyra: (in Valyrian) You seemed so content on Dragonstone. Why did you come back? There is surely more to your return than simply taunting my father. [pause; Daemon fingers the pendant of her necklace]  Rhaenyra: (In the Common Tongue) So... what do you want? Daemon: Only the comforts of home. Rhaenyra: I had not thought you particularly comfortable in this home. Though I do suppose you seem changed by your adventures. More mature, perhaps. Daemon: You've matured yourself these last four years, Princess. You'll get used to the attention. Rhaenyra: The attention I can endure, it's the rest I could do without. My father seems content to sell me off to whichever lord has the biggest castle. Daemon: There are worse things to be sold for. [pause] (in Valyrian) Marriage is only a political prospect. Once you are wed, you can do as you like. Rhaenyra: For men marriage might be a political arrangement. For women it is like to be a death sentence. Daemon: Would that it were. I would have been rid of my Bronze Bitch ages ago. Rhaenyra: Your wife has been fortunate. You haven't put a child in her. Daemon: I doubt a child could grow in such hostile environs. Rhaenyra: My mother was made to produce heirs until it killed her. I won't subject myself to the same fate.  Daemon: What happened to your mother was a tragedy. But this is a tragic world. You cannot live your life in fear, or you will forsake the best parts of it. Rhaenyra: I have no desire to live in fear. Only solitude. Daemon: (In the Common Tongue) Such a lonely prospect.

HotD; Season 1, Episode 4; “King of the Narrow Sea”    

[linaartsblogsworld]

ELIA MARTELL And RHAENYS TARGARYEN

[wodania]

“Be my dog, ser. The night’s alive with promise. We can howl together, and wake the very gods.”

prince daemon and ser duncan 🎻🌳

[chiaracognigniart]

Elia and Ashara WIP for #SixCharacters ship challenge commissionated by @MaraHasBooks

[nedseii]

HELL YEAH!!

And thank you both for your kind words :') !!!

[imjustapoorwayfaringgeek]

Day 2

"Has he done this before?"