#i'm just a) rather hungry and b) this is just a shpiel i've honed rather well

[navree]

I think if they are going to make an Aegon a full on rapist they should do the Brothel Queen(s) so that the Black's image can suffer a similar blow because let's be real, people are already justifying B&C so there's no way they are going to be viewed as bad people. I feel sorry for Alicent obviously because I love her a lot and honestly I will cry if the BQ end up happening because she really can't catch a break (and I would also feel terrible about Helaena because she did nothing wrong, but it just makes no sense for her to be made to suffer it too).

But who am I going to lie to, they'll probably manage it terribly like they've done Alicent's rapes to date and they'll still find a way to make Alicent love Rhaenyra which makes no fucking sense

I think I've been open about my not wanting the Brothel Queens to happen, and honestly that's not going to change. It's a personal thing mostly, I genuinely don't care if it's a good narrative choice or if it would balance out bad portrayals and offer a more grey view of Team Black; any positives I might potentially feel about it are going to be washed away a million times over by how sick the whole thing makes me. I have no, none, zip, zilch, zero interest in watching scenes of two women imprisoned into literally sex slavery and forcibly raped for days on end in any situation, especially when those women are a) characters I like who're already going to be going through some heavy traumas and b) are 1) a woman who was a victim of marital rape since age sixteen and 2) a woman who's had a full psychological breakdown and is completely incapable of taking care of herself in any way let alone performing in a sexual situation. This could be the most well crafted storytelling with the most profound message and the utmost narrative consequences and I won't care, I do not want to see it and I will never want to see it and I get bile in my mouth even thinking of the fact that Mushroom even thought about making it up (which I'm gonna be honest, I'm firmly in the camp that he 100% did) because he found it hot.

And honestly, I don't think it'd be good storytelling, I think it would be really cheap. This show's parent series was notorious for using rape and sexual violence for titillation and shock value, something that HOTD has really shied away from (there's one on screen rape to the best of my recollection, Alicent's, and I actually didn't mind how they handled that in the show, starting it with the shot of Alicent's ruined fingers on the bed as she starts doing her nervous picking and then makes herself stop was incredibly haunting, it's the fandom's reaction to that scene that's insufferable), and going back to it is just gonna feel lazy and unoriginal to me, and more like the writers going "look how awful this is! aren't we so edgy and groundbreaking! aren't you shocked!" over and over. It'd just feel lazy to me.

The thing is, Team Black fans are going to justify anything their faves do, and that would likely include the Brothel Queens storyline, likely under the guise of Alicent deserving it or it being a just punishment for calling Rhaenyra's kids bastards. And listen, no shade, Aemond's gonna be committing war crimes right and left in the Riverlands and I'll be there in my full "you're doing amazing sweetie dot jpeg" era, I get it. But anyone who isn't a full stan, any casual watchers or anyone who's on the fence or just watching the show for the Hell of it, even them Burlington Bar folks, they're going to see the Blood and Cheese scene (provided it stays book loyal in its entirety and doesn't cut away from anything, which I'm hopeful for) for the horror that it is, and for the stain on Team Black that it is. We don't need gratuitous and graphic sexual violence to hammer the point home, especially when Rhaenyra's rule over King's Landing is already filled with a bunch of butchery that made the people turn on her and her family, and even more especially when we know what'll happen to Helaena eventually.

Listen, at the end of the day, you can give me any excuse in the world, that it'll make people realize Team Black are not morally superior, it'll make Team Green more sympathetic, it'll be good drama, it'll be a good storyline, it'll be a compelling narrative, it'll be profound, God himself could descend from the Heavens and tell me that he's ordained that if we get a Brothel Queens scene the entire viewing public will become fanatical Greens supporters, and it will not ever change the fact that I do not want this storyline to happen. Ever.