dany and rhaenyra really couldn't be more different considering dany grew up in abject poverty and rhaenyra was constantly shielded by her status and name. for dany, her name was a death sentence, so they exist in totally different frameworks of what being a “targaryen” even means. it’s this vast difference in upbringing that informs how they rule as well with daenerys giving a lot of attention to how her actions/rule affect the oppressed while rhaenyra doesn’t particularly care about the common people at all!
I'm gonna do what we do at work which is start this out with a lil ground rules corporate talk thing: We assume positive intent as a starting place. I'm taking this in good faith and I hope if anon sees this, they take it the same.
So the first point - that because dany grows up in poverty due to being a targaryen and rhaenyra grows up in privilege due to being a targaryen, that means they are too different and thus can't be compared. Firstly, I think it's just a bit silly when people say stuff like this. Sansa's sexual abuse and isolation at KL isn't somehow less traumatizing simply because she had access to food (food she frequently doesn't eat, because she's traumatized over all the sexual abuse!) nor is Arya's physical abuse in the Riverlands somehow less purely because she had a handful of friends. Catelyn having a husband that loves and respects her doesn't mean that there are not similarities in her raging against the system that has turned on her with Cersei's own rage against the system. There need not be a one to one similarity in order for us to find commonalities in themes and I think this constant "you can't compare those two" just stinks of ~oppression olympics~ but oppression just doesn't work like a checklist and if you experience the required threshold of terror, you "get" to call yourself oppressed in some way.
Moving on, the thing is, both of them experience the emotional and sexual incestuous grooming from an older relative that goes with being a Targaryen:
He pushed back her shoulders with his hands. “Let them see that you have a woman’s shape now.” His fingers brushed lightly over her budding breasts and tightened on a nipple. “You will not fail me tonight. If you do, it will go hard for you. You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” His fingers twisted her, the pinch cruelly hard through the rough fabric of her tunic. “Do you?” he repeated.
Daemon spent long hours in her company, enthralling her with tales of his journeys and battles. He gave her pearls and silks and books and a jade tiara said once to have belonged to the Empress of Leng, read poems to her, dined with her, hawked with her, sailed with her, entertained her by making mock of the greens at court, the “lickspittles” fawning over Queen Alicent and her children. He praised her beauty, declaring her to be the fairest maid in all the Seven Kingdoms. Uncle and niece began to fly together almost daily, racing Syrax against Caraxes to Dragonstone and back...Eustace, the less salacious of the two, writes that Prince Daemon seduced his niece the princess and claimed her maidenhood...The whole tale soon came out, in no small part thanks to Mushroom himself. King Viserys at first refused to believe a word of it, until Prince Daemon confirmed the tale was true. “Give the girl to me to wife,” he purportedly told his brother. “Who else would take her now?”
both of them also experience a much older sworn sword preying on their youth and fondness for him-
"What did she look like, your Lady Lynesse?"
Ser Jorah smiled sadly. "Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys." He bowed low. "Sleep well, my queen."
Dany shivered, and pulled the lionskin tight about her. She looked like me. It explained much that she had not truly understood. He wants me, she realized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as a man loves a woman. She tried to imagine herself in Ser Jorah's arms, kissing him, pleasuring him, letting him enter her. It was no good. When she closed her eyes, his face kept changing into Drogo's.
Though many lords and knights sought her favor, the princess had eyes only for Ser Criston Cole, the young champion of the Kingsguard and her constant companion. “Ser Criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from Ser Criston?” Queen Alicent asked one day at court...
However it happened, whether the princess scorned the knight or he her, from that day forward the love that Ser Criston Cole had formerly borne for Rhaenyra Targaryen turned to loathing and disdain, and the man who had hitherto been the princess’s constant companion and champion became the most bitter of her foes.
they are both forced into marriages they don’t want to be in-
Dany looked at Khal Drogo. His face was hard and cruel, his eyes as cold and dark as onyx. Her brother hurt her sometimes, when she woke the dragon, but he did not frighten her the way this man frightened her. “I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”
"No." On her terrace, in her bathing pool, the little fish would nibble at her legs as she soaked. Even they kissed with more fervor than Hizdahr zo Loraq. "I do not love you."
And though His Grace reasoned with her, pleaded with her, shouted at her, and called her an ungrateful daughter, no words of his could budge her…until the king brought up the question of succession. What a king had done, a king could undo, Viserys pointed out. She would wed as he commanded, or he would make her half-brother Aegon his heir in place of her. At this the princess’s will gave way. Septon Eustace says she fell at her father’s knees and begged for his forgiveness, Mushroom that she spat in her father’s face, but both agree that in the end she consented to be married.
and start conflating violence, power, and safety in their minds-
The princess was not slow in answering this charge. She dispatched Prince Daemon to seize Ser Vaemond, had his head removed, and fed his carcass to her dragon, Syrax.
“He would make a monster of me,” she whispered, “a butcher queen.” But then she thought of Drogon far away, and the dragons in the pit. There is blood on my hands too, and on my heart. We are not so different, Daario and I. We are both monsters.
you say for dany her name is a death sentence, but for rhaenyra, being a targaryen is also a death sentence! not to "they very much killed jesus" you here, but they very much kill rhaenyra! if rhaenyra remains a “good targaryen” she is acutely aware she will lose everything, and this is something dany is aware of as well, it's why she reacts so badly to daario's "queens have no purpose but to warm some king’s bed and pop out sons for him" comment about her marriage to Hizdahr. rhaenyra's mother and both grandmothers die before they’re 25 of childbirth. rhaenyra grew up in the same court gael did, that saera did, that viserra did, likely knew the truth of what happened to each girl, and as a woman who is concealing her bastards, all of that has to terrify her. so she stays the “bad woman” the tyrant, the whore, the visenya, in an attempt to protect her children and that gets her killed. being a targaryen has devastating effects on both of them.
as for the differences in how they rule - i’m gonna be honest and say does it matter how they feel if the result is the same?
when they first come into true power, both women are more concerned with getting revenge than they are for settling the unrest-
“How many?” one old woman had asked, sobbing. “How many must you have to spare us?”
“One hundred and sixty-three,” she answered. She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon.
...whilst at the Red Keep Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen set about rewarding her friends and inflicting savage punishments on those who had served her half-brother...Henceforth, Celtigar decreed, traitors, rebels, and murderers would be beheaded within the Dragonpit, and their corpses fed to the queen’s dragons. All were welcome to bear witness to the fate that awaited evil men, but each must pay three pennies at the gates to be admitted.
both of them compromise on a stance that is integral to their whole platform-
Dany was shocked. “They want to be slaves?”
“The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor.”
“I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.”
“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.
“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides.”
But the Queen’s Hand argued against this, for both girls had younger brothers. Rhaenyra’s own claim to the Iron Throne was a special case, the Sea Snake insisted; her father had named her as his heir. Lords Rosby and Stokeworth had done no such thing. Disinheriting their sons in favor of their daughters would overturn centuries of law and precedent, and call into question the rights of scores of other lords throughout Westeros whose own claims might be seen as inferior to those of elder sisters. It was fear of losing the support of such lords, Munkun asserts in True Telling, that led the queen to decide in favor of Lord Corlys rather than Prince Daemon.
both of them act vindictively and violently towards a low born woman in conjunction with stupid behavior from the violent men they’ve been groomed into loving-
Forgive me, sun of my life, she thought. Forgive me for all I have done and all I must do. I paid the price, my star, but it was too high, too high…
“I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur,” she said, “for the lessons you have taught me.”
“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.
“I will,” Dany said, “but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.”
In a voice as cold as ice, she commanded Ser Luthor Largent to take twenty gold cloaks to the Dragonpit and arrest Ser Addam Velaryon. “Question him sharply, and we will learn if he is true or false, beyond a doubt.” As to the girl Nettles, “She is a common thing, with the stink of sorcery upon her,” the queen declared. “My prince would ne’er lay with such a low creature. You need only look at her to know she has no drop of dragon’s blood in her. It was with spells that she bound a dragon to her, and she has done the same with my lord husband.”
and I do think there is some similarity in the way that Dany sacks Astapor and it turns into a nightmareish ruin, and Rhaenyra lets KL fall into ruin as well.
you say rhaenyra doesn’t care about the common people but we don’t get her thoughts nor do we get the thoughts of a single person who is willing to tell the truth about her. both of our reliable sources hate her and mushroom is actively concealing things. we know dany cares about the smallfolk because we get her horror over drogon killing a child - only for her to forget that child’s name and decide the cost of her war doesn’t matter so much as taking her throne. this is the exact same moral justification rhaenyra is making - the safety of the people of KL are an acceptable compromise for her own throne.
what both of them want is less about the crown and more about what it represents to them. for dany, it’s home, belonging, love, safety, the simplicity of her life when it was just her, a viserys who had yet to lose his mind, and an aging ser willem darry. for rhaenyra, it’s the exact same - the simplicity of her life before aegon was born & her mother died, the love in her father choosing her over the men around him, the safety of her children. Both of them reach for violence to achieve those ends because they’ve been taught through a life of violence - albeit different sorts of violence - that force is the only way to protect yourself. And since Rhaenyra ultimately fails in her goal, I believe Daenerys will fail as well. Whether she’s smart enough to pull a Nettles and disappear (disappear not spread more violence ~liberating~ places that are not asking for her help or cultural arrogance) or if she, like Rhaenyra, will find that when she’s reached her limit, when she’s finally and truly lost, the door she thought she left open to escape through has been slammed shut behind her-
But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.
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ugly maths.
i hate maths, right. i don't usually like numbers, and if i do like numbers it's gotta be an 8 or a 48 and nothing else.
thing is, i've recently caught myself doing maths again. ugly maths. the kind of maths that, really, i've been trying to avoid as much as possible because, well, it's ugly!
you... wanna see?
okay, fine... but don't say i didn't warn you!
ugly, see? look at all those numbers! not a 48 in sight!
huh? what's that? you don't see what i'm on about? oh... oh! hang on, lemme just—
better? yes? no? no? okay, what if i—
mmh, yes. ugly numbers. see it now? can you see why they're ugly?
here, i can make it worse.
these numbers are ugly. the maths they make me do is ugly.
now i'll level with you: the worst ones by far are the yellow numbers. the maths they make me do it the ugliest.
why ugly?
because it makes me ugly.
those numbers turn me into not only a suddenly number-obsessed fool, but a fool who also cannot understand these numbers and what they mean and why i feel like they reflect on me and my ability.
87, 75.
the thoughts are as follows:
• the orange numbers are big, so why are you being ugly about the yellow ones? you should be happy with what you have. so many nice big numbers! not everyone receives that.
• is it that there are two different audiences for these two different fics? perhaps. they are quite different works, with different appeals, and different themes. maybe you are reading too much into it.
• why are you obsessing over numbers anyway? you don't like maths! you left maths behind when you were 16, put it down!
okay, okay, fine! i'll put the maths down. right here, in fact!:
that 87 was an 83 at the start of the year. the 6161 it is attached to was a 5453.
4, 708.
ugly maths.
the 75 is a nice number. in fact, compared to 87, it is beautiful, radiant, enchanting. at the start of the year, 75 was 48. wow. now that is one sexy number!
27.
mmmm.
6161, 1061.
5100.
87, 75.
12.
mmmm.
you know, my most favourite comment left recently on a fic of mine was 2 characters long: :(
it made me :)
well, actually, it made me >:) because it was left in response, presumably, to one of the key scenes in a new chapter which left the exact impression on someone that i hoped it would.
they must be the only one who reacted like that, though.
1.
have i mentioned that that 87 and 75 include author responses?
i won't try to do more maths, there. it might not end well for me. the maths is making me tired enough as it is, and i have an early start tomorrow.
oh! but, that being said, i have another set of ugly numbers to show you, so keep 87 and 75 in mind.
ready?
838, 245.
(want a hint? the green numbers!)
838, 87. 245, 75.
9.6, 3.3.
ugly maths. it's ugly again, see? i don't like it. i'm seeing numbers within numbers within numbers, and i can't seem to stop!
the numbers make me ask new questions:
• why is it not good enough?
• people seem to engage more with one fic over the other, so shouldn't you prioritise?
• is all this maths this really good for you?
no, it isn't.
i want to avoid ugly maths. ugly maths makes me want to tear my hair out. it makes me want to start from scratch. it makes me want to grab someone and scream. it makes me want to cry and press a button that has tempted me many times before when the numbers become too ugly to bear.
ugly maths turn me into an ugly person.
ugly maths make me obsessive, paranoid, anxious, regretful, vindictive, spiteful, alone.
i hate maths. i hate numbers, just like, it feels, the numbers hate me.
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I'm so interested in your Anastasia au! will you tell us more?
yes of course i will! @revalito and i are genuinely so elated that so many people like the au HEHJKSDHJKS i will always want to talk about it trust
i don't know if there was something specific you wanted me to talk about, so i'll just talk about their time in the cloud recesses when they were younger =]
as i said before in my tags, wwx found lwj sitting outside the gentian cottage waiting for his mom and that's how they first met--he brought him a blanket and something warm to drink and offered to sit next to him. after that wwx would find lwj every now and then and hang around a bit but not for long. that does.. imply that his parents died sooner but well. HEJDSJKSD we figured one of the servants was his dad's close friend that agreed to babysit wwx for a while before they died, so now at least wwx has someone that was considered family (and that can tell him about his parents)
wwx didn't actually start working as a servant until he got older and that's when he was really allowed to interact with lwj. silly little comments turned into prompts to speak more and eventually, they'd have "conversations" (lwj would listen, wwx would talk) as wwx did what he had to. one day lwj asked wwx if he would be allowed to be a personal assistant on a quick task he had to do outside of the cloud recesses, and of course that's allowed. and that's the loophole they found to spend more time together =]
lxc knows about lwj's crush. he could read it on him easily HEJKSDJK i'd like to think one time wwx was called in to serve something to them, and as he did he made some comment to lwj. lwj acknowledged him with a small uptick of his lips and lxc was just ⁉️⁉️⁉️ HEHKJDHJKDHDJK he starts making excuses for wwx to go see lwj. the first time he asks a servant to call for wwx bc he needed something delivered to his brother it started a rumor within the servants immediately. this is where the teasing among them began HEHJKSDJKSDK lxc is the main reason why eventually wwx is the main servant/one of the only servants for lwj
wwx starts learning about cultivation in his free time--and we'd like to think the gusulan sect would set aside a teacher for willing servants on their breaks--but he never attends any actual classes. it isn't until they accept guest disciples when they're around 15/16 that he even entertains the idea. he probably makes a side comment to lwj, like "ah, guest disciples… it would have been nice to attend a class or two.." and lwj is immediately like i'm on it. he talks to lqr to attend the classes and ofc here lan qiren doesn't Need lwj to be a good example to wwx like he does in the novel, but we think lqr would still want to show him off HEHJKSJKSD also, lxc is probably like "it would be nice if wangji had more friends =] perhaps if we have wwx in there (someone he is already comfortable with) he would be more willing?" and that seals the deal HEJKSDHJKSD wwx is invited to his classes to be a "personal servant" to keep up appearances, but he is there to learn.
of course some other people there aren't to keen on the idea of having a servant in the class with them, so this time when lqr calls on wwx, it's not to test him, it's to prove his worth. he knows wwx and lwj are friends so in his head, his justification is that disciples are offending wwx -> they're offending lwj -> lwj is his nephew -> they are offending lqr too. ofc. HEHJKDSJKSDK lwj defends wwx in his own ways.
nie huaisang is the first to go up to wwx to chat and they become good friends, and since wwx is friends with lwj, nhs becomes friends with him too. it's a funny dynamic but lwj inwardly thinks it's nice.
thank you sm for asking! <3
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