#not her book self or show self but just 'dany born 200 years ago'

[navree]

It's so annoying how a lot of Rhaenyra's fans draw straws to deny how awful she was? It feels like they actually wish she was a completely different character or delude themselves into believing that. Especially when they try so hard to invent parallels and similarities between Daenerys and Rhaenyra. Daenerys is my baby girl and it's an insult to her character to compare her with the likes of Rhaenyra.

Yeah Dany and Rhaenyra are incredibly different characters, not just in terms of personalities but in terms of life experiences, outlooks on the world, attitudes towards queenship and governance, family connections and backstories, and basically everything. And I'll be honest I do say that as a point against Rhaenyra, as someone who is actually fairly neutral towards Rhaenyra (the rhaenicent shipper in me can never fully abandon her). There is very, very little that can actually connect Rhaenyra and Daenerys other than Valyrian features, bloodline, and their last name and it's why I've never taken many of the "parallels" between them seriously.

There are things to like about Rhaenyra. Again, neutral on her so a lot of them don't do much for me even if I don't hate her the way other people do, but those reasons do exist. But like, why do you need to only like her if you can compare her to Dany? Why do you need to force similarities and "oh she's just like this other character" vibes on her in order to enjoy her? Why can't you just like her on her own merits, for who she is as a character herself, rather than trying to shove her into a Daenerys shaped hole? There are Targaryens in HOTD I like quite a lot (duh) but I like them for who they are themselves, not because I want them to be carbon copies of Dany. To me it just shows that they don't really like Rhaenyra that much at all, they don't want to get to know her as her own person with her own narrative and arcs and development in her story, they just want her to be someone else. And if your main reason for liking a character is that you want to erroneously make them into someone else entirely, then be honest: do you even actually like that character?

Anyway Dany and Rhaenyra are so completely different it's almost insane to imagine that they're part of the same lineage at all and it's about time some of the rabids realized that.