#i don't think daemon respects jace much either¸ and that jace's beef with him exist solely in his mind 😭

[allyriadayne]

what do you think jace thinks of daemon?

oh this is very complex and delicious. to me jace is of two minds when it comes to daemon:

1) he's the man who married his mother just after both of jace's father figures died of mysterious circumstances, therefore making daemon into a unknown entity who is stealing rhaenyra (adding that after a long separation, daemyra was v busy with each other).

and

2) daemon is jace's stepfather. and what is more, daemon is jace's longtime stepfather who makes his mother happy and after those tumultuous and traumatic events during eps 6 & 7, daemon is a stable parental and/or adult figure in jace's life. and most importantly, in whose presence jace implicitly feels safe.

i think for most viewers it's easy to see why jace dislikes daemon and it's the same for jace himself. daemon doesn't make himself likeable or palatable, he has rhaenyra, he has his family, he's safe and doesn't hunger for viserys' love as much. he's free from two half miserable marriages, he's more himself now than he ever was. conversely, jace is growing up in an unstable family context where he feels like he has to perform and prove himself constantly whether it's about his targaryen realness heritage and claim as second in line to the throne or about his role in the family when laenor checked out a long time ago and his other father figure harwin cannot act like one in public. i will be so bold as to say, jace was one of luke's primary caretakers too. this kind of parentified child might feel threatened ( + the obvious resentment jace feels for his parents) when another one comes into the picture.

jace might have felt after the driftmark episode that rhaenyra was alone and that it was his job to step-up so to speak (more or less what happened to aemon during the same scene, another parentified child!) so when daemon comes to the picture and he's planning to stay it clashed with what jace thought their life could be.

i don't think daemon really made any effort to parent the older kids (it's okay jace has bad vibes), but just because he married to rhaenyra he becomes jace's stepfather by default. but jace is so over fathers, he doesn't want another father who will die and leave him alone (and all the feelings of guilt bc maybe if jace hadn't complained and fought aegon better then harwin wouldn't have felt the need to defend him and be sent to harrenhal as punishment. where he died. in a fire. it's all jace's fault). so his best bet is to deny daemon any possible overture, anything that could made him be endeared to jace. he doesn't want the pain of losing anyone else.

and daemon is so easy to hate. easy to hate when he gives rhaenyra the silver haired purple eyed targaryen sons, when he can effortlessly and without bother or prejudice teach luke (and we know luke wants to please people so much, he would embrace daemon as a father) and joffrey how to swordfight, when he's already loved by baela and rhaena.

but the thing is that jace trusts daemon. he doesn't trust him per se in the emotional sense but he trusts that daemon will never hurt rhaenyra or his siblings, that he won't claim baby aegon and viserys are the better heirs over him (i've talked a bit about this subject here). this gets demonstrated in ep 10 where jace takes a more active role as rhaenyra's spokesperson when daemon's "gone to madness. gone to plot his war". while he seems nervous about speaking out, i don't think he's really afraid that daemon will do something to him, instead daemon takes him outside and does a very obvious show of loyalty, one that i don't think jace will dismiss even in his dislike. same thing in ep 8 where daemon cuts down vaemond velaryon for calling rhaenyra a whore and calling into question the birth of her older boys.

this is the man he's seen every day for six years, rhaena and baela's father, the man his mother loves above all. jace is not afraid of that.

tl:dr. jace trusts daemon with their safety but doesn't respect him (i.e. see how he calls him just "daemon" without titles). he purposely shuts him out emotionally because he doesn't want to get hurt again like after laenor's and harwin's death. he resent's daemon's role in the family as a result of being a parentified child in an unstable family context. i think they are fine.