#daemon cannot be with rhaenyra during the birth nc it’s a choice she has to make herself

[rhaenyradelights]

something i think is so interesting is the way that rhaenyra and daemon are shown to have very similar morals/ideals/impulses but the way they operate in the world has, up to the ending of the black queen, been determined by their gender and station (and relationship to viserys). we’ve all said all of this before but daemon as the second passed over son, made for nothing but bloodshed and chaos, looking a cause and purpose. lashing out without thought or strategy because he has never been given one, and the only way he can contribute to ANYTHING is through brute force and terror. nearly all unchecked emotion expressed through conflict. he’s the rogue prince, the one who cannot be trusted, the one who loves more than he is loved, the one who wields visenya’s sword and who takes after his mother. then rhaenyra, who shares his selfish arrogance and his quickness to rage and desolation, who is also searching for her own place within a family and values above everything else for its blood and legacy… but she is princess. she cannot afford to act so brazenly (she can however, act with just as little thought to long term consequences). she represses her fire as much as she can, to ensure survival and seek approval, and a place to call home. her body cannot be a weapon - it is the site of violence against her. BUT THEN….. not only is she no longer the princess but she’s not even heir (that nebulous formless shape) she is QUEEN (king). she pulls her daughter out of her own womb, choosing herself in a violent act that prioritizes her gender-surpassing identity as King over her motherhood. she triumphs over that danger and arrives on the other side not only a woman who has suffered immeasurable loss, but a crowned king with a sworn sword at her side. daemon has been able to lash out and slash and kill his whole life, as a man, as a prince, as a soldier….. now rhaenyra has arrived at a place (both through her own decisions and through circumstances) where the trappings of womanhood and succession recede into the background…. the crown and the knowledge that she is the only one truly worthy of wearing it allows her the mirror daemon’s fire. she can give into impulse (a distinctly masculine trait thus far within the narrative)….. but only after so much of her previous self (two children, a father, a vision of a former home still accessible) is burned away (dragonhood babyyyy)