#tb discourse

[amorremanet]

“i found someone whose takes on my ship are top-notch, who’s clearly writing with love for both halves of the ship, who doesn’t treat either side of their complicated relationship unfairly……and i can’t read their fics because alas, we are exclusively committed to diametrically opposed top/bottom preferences”: the most tragic self-help manual you will ever read

[maybeiwasjustjade]

Genuinely, perhaps 99% of me, believes that the only reason Condal and Hess made HOTD Aegon a r*pist/have adult Aegon’s introduction the aftermath of the SA of a maid, was because they knew that if Aegon was just a drunk and a cheat—like almost all Westerosi men—he would be too tragic of a character not to root for, and they really couldn’t have that. No, Aegon has to be the monster to Rhaenyra’s saint, because if you took away the act that made him monstrous, he’s so easy to root for, and the TB/TG divide would be significantly larger.

Cheating and visiting brothels are quite common in Westeros, with the vast majority of male characters doing one or the other or both. Drinking is even more so. Aegon would still be palatable with either or both traits because it doesn’t make him worse than Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra had three bastards with Harwin because Laenor’s gay, so it makes her affair understandable and valid. Aegon was forced to marry his own sister as a young teen, and clearly despises the whole targ-incest tradition. Why is it a crime that he doesn’t find his little sister sexually or romantically attractive???

Aegon’s basically a Greek tragedy made flesh. The eldest son conceived to be a long-awaited heir, yet simultaneously cheated out of a birthright. Born wanted yet unwanted, the heir who is not an heir. Meant to be loved, yet raised without it, with a mother’s disdain and fear as his only companion. His father stopped wanting him sometime after his second birthday (probably around the time Jacaerys was born), and his mother never wanted him anyway. His mere existence is a threat to a crown he never wanted, yet nobody cared when they placed it on his head. He wants love but no one loves him, and contrary to popular belief, that lack of love didn’t just stem from adulthood. He was a little boy once too, who very much didn’t deserve that level of apathy.

Married to his sister despite his clear disdain for his family’s incestuous tradition. Forced to father children on her at the grand old age of sixteen (and she fourteen). The only thing he ever really loved was his dragon, and the children he had. And even those he loses to tragedy, and someone else’s doing.

It’s not at all a surprise that Aegon’s defining trait is his love for Sunfyre. A ridiculously strong bond, born from years of having only each other. Moreover, a dragon is the symbol of power, which Aegon has little of. He can’t protect himself from his own family’s abuse or machinations, and unless he claims the crown everyone he loves will die. Dragons also represent freedom, and the ability to just fly away. And if there’s one thing Aegon wants more than anything in the world, it’s to run away from his family and the accursed throne.

In that, he’s not so different than a young Rhaenyra (pre-personality change anyway). Young Rhaenyra hated having to conform to societal standards. Hated having no choice but to marry, and to whom. She too wanted to fly away to freedom. There’s too many parallels between the two, even down to their ages pre-timeskip. Rhaenyra was about 18, and Aegon now is only 20. Yet Rhaenyra at 16’s only problem was whether her infant brother would replace her as heir, while Aegon’s was being forced to play house with his sister and newborn twins.

Perhaps misogyny and society would always be Rhaenyra’s greatest opponent, and the same Aegon’s ally when it comes to their claims, but it was not the only issue. Precedent declared that Aegon would be heir ahead of her, yet it was Rhaenyra’s position and honor that Viserys defied law for, even when she committed high treason against the crown thrice. She got everything; Aegon had nothing. He’s the underdog of the story, not her. So had they not made him an on screen r*pist (unlike Daemon who was off-screen one and merely an on-screen pedo and wife-killer), it would’ve been very hard for the writers to push their “Rhaenyra good, TG bad” narrative. Those two would’ve had too many parallels and foils for it to work, and they really couldn’t have that, could they.

No, Aegon has to be the villain; Rhaenyra has to be the hero. It’s a black and white war, good vs evil. That’s the story HOTD is trying to sell, and not at all the complex tragedy of a family tearing itself and its dynasty into pieces over greed and idiocy.

[fraternum-momentum]

mfs when they see dead dove content in the game that the creator specifically warned them about

[reineyday]

why do they keep making bucky a government-manipulated pawn 😭 from the american military to hydra to whatever weirdass public relations campaign valentina is pushing the thunderbolts through (see: end credit graphics & the cereal campaign), like he had his brief time on the run and his goats in wakanda but he's sucked back into a sketchy institution once again like what are they doing with him. sure the movie was fun, but every time i think about it i just end up head in hands.

[theweirwoodfiles]

HOTD Fandom Behavior

This is going to be a little long winded but this has been on my mind for awhile.

Why does it seem like it's only team black that gets put in the hot seat for fan behavior? I understand that team black makes up the majority of the fandom, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't address the rampant misogyny that has been present in the team green fandom since day one that has gone unchecked. The show amplified the voices of misogynists who feel drawn to the story of the dance because they enjoy Rhaenyra's suffering and tragedy. Not to mention the other, actual fans, who still just hate her for whatever reason and can't do so without being misogynistic just helping normalize that kind of behavior.

And I'm not talking about "well I just like Aegon more than Rhaenyra", but the fixation on Rhaenyra's sex life and weight, the ai slop photos or wojaks where she's a misogynistic caricature, the fact that there is genuinely a huge portion of team green fans that cannot admit to their dislike of Rhaenyra without falling into misogyny. Those people are not outliers, and they've made themselves very comfortable in that part of the fandom. They feel no shame and sometimes even get viral posts.

"I'm not team black because the fans ruined it for me" but the team green fans calling Rhaenyra a fat ho or saying she deserves everything she gets for daring to have sexual agency didn't turn you off from being team green?

[greenqueenhightower]

Hey.

I constantly argue back and forth with TB stans that Jace, Luke and Joffrey aren't legitimised just because Laenor, Corlys and Viserys go along with Rhaenyra’s lie about them being "trueborn". As I'm sure you're aware, in Westeros only a king can legitimise the illegitimate by first declaring their bastardy and then legitimising them afterwards. And TB stans. Just. Don't. Get. It. They also seem to think that the King's word is law in Westeros. They don't understand that this a feudal monarchy where the king and his vassals are reliant upon each other and both must respect the social contract in order for the Westerosi social structures e.g. monarchy to be maintained.

IMO, they fall for the narrative trap of the Targaryen characters. Just because Viserys and Rhaenyra say that the King's word is law doesn't actually make it law. It's only law as long as the king has the ability to enforce it. Therefore, if a king did something insane in the eyes of his noble polity, e.g., try to place his bastards in the line of succession, they'd rebel proving accurately that the King's word is in fact not actually law. Aerys's overthrowing is a great example of this. As is the reign of Daeron II: if his word was law and everyone had to obey him, no one would have joined Daemon Blackfyre's rebellion.

Anyway back to TB stans. I think alot of them don't actually realise how the world works. Even GRRM confirmed the bastardy of Rhaenyra’s 3 son's for goodness sake. Every time they try to deny it using the aforementioned argument it only confuses me. Are they insecure about Rhaenyra having illegitimate children? Is that how far they're para-social relationship with her goes?

They also have another stupid argument that Rhaenyra's kids having her blood means that they can inherit her throne. No no no no no no no no no. THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS TB. If it was Westerosi lords with bastard relatives, it would allow them to inherit. You have to be trueborn. It's unfair but these unfair laws are what keeps Westeros from constant civil war. That's the point of inheritance law in the Seven Kingdoms.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. It's just that sometimes when I argue with certain TB stans they don't seem to understand the laws of the world they're fans of. They will bend over backwards to excuse their faves, not understanding that you are allowed to criticise a character you like (& in their case love). I think Rhaenyra is an interesting character - moreso in the book TBH - I just don't get why so many TB stans willfully refuse to understand the way in which the laws of the world she inhabits work. Any thoughts?

Hi anon, it took me forever to get to your ask but you're right! 💚

Not all TB stans share the same views, and there are people in here with whom you can converse intelligently, but I have also seen the discourse you're referring to, and it is very annoying when the stans don't get it.

You put the Westerosi legitimization process very well. If we consider the greater Middle Ages-inspired world-building context that Westeros is based on, it makes sense why bastardy is a stigmatized social issue. Blood "purity," lineage, and legitimacy are important because they are the only way land and titles are bequeathed and inherited.

The King is the only one who can legitimize his own illegitimate children as heirs, but he can do so for other illegitimate children, regardless of whether these are related to him by blood. King Louis IV, for example, legitimized John II Duke of Brabant's son, Jan Cordeken, after a petition John wrote to him thus enabling him to inherit his father's fortune and found the House of Glymes. From Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome to Enlightenment Europe, there are examples of Kings legitimizing not only their children but also the children of their officials, courtiers, and friends. It was seen as granting a favor to them, and when it came to personal matters, a King might choose to legitimize his children when he ran out of heirs, or in the case of Louis XIV, because he could and wanted to.

In other words, Viserys, who knew of but chose to ignore Rhaenyra's sons' (his grandsons') bastardy, had ample time and opportunity to legitimize them but chose to blind himself to the truth instead. What was that about Alicent calling Viserys "weak" in one of the deleted scenes of S1? Well, "weak" isn't the only word I would use to describe him... also irresponsible, foolish, and inadequate.

Nevertheless, the legitimization process in history was seldom favored by the court, the King's vassals, and the people, and caused quite a stir. As you say, the King's law didn't hold up that much ground compared to the law of tradition and at times the Church. The people didn't care if a King legitimized a child by naming them heir... the stigma of being born "illegitimate" wasn't washed off that easily, because bastards were seen as devilish, impure, half-breeds, unnatural hybrids, and so forth. So Viserys choosing to ignore the issue face front was bound to be catastrophic, because no matter how he tried to silence the tongues that wagged by threatening to cut them off, the issue of his grandsons' apparent bastardy remained, and THE REALM would not accept any of them on the Iron Throne, for the same reasons.

And Viserys did nothing about it. He could have confronted Rhaenyra when Jace was born and reminded her of the stark reality of the consequences of what she was doing. Not only did he name Rhaenyra (a woman) as his heir, which alone was controversial and unprecedented, but a woman with three illegitimate children, whose existence never even tried to correct or prevent. Viserys alone weakened Rhaenyra's claim with his lack of foresight and counsel.

If TB uphold the "Viserys loved his grandsons and he accepted them as they were" narrative, they are not only deluded but lack media literacy as well, because Viserys DIDN'T CARE if his grandsons were trueborn or not, or if that would plunge the realm to war, the same way he didn't care that he had named Rhaenyra as his successor when the realm, who was so used to having Kings for centuries, knew he had THREE legitimate sons of his own.

So my two cents on the discourse would basically be that those who don't understand the social and political repercussions of Rhaenyra having bastards, not being counseled as to why this is destructive, left on her own to raise them, and having to cope with the consequences of her actions as she realizes that the father she so loved and admired didn't protect or support her at all, are missing out on a much more interesting character in Rhaenyra and a more complex dynamic with her sons, who she now understands are exceptionally vulnerable and potentially threatening to her cause.

This is a far more intriguing reading than anything TB stans are getting at with their "no criticism" ban on Viserys and Rhaenyra.

[atopvisenyashill]

Bro the ppl you stan are so at odds with the other, your level of starkcels are always alicent-sansa stans, which is a shame bc if they open their eyes they'll see the sansa-rhaenyra-catelyn parallels 😔🥀

Messing with my stats fr 😒 (no hate btw, I'm also a sansa-rhaenyra stan)

it GENUINELY causes me pain, and like i get it, the fandom beefs go crazyyyy and i blame both d&d and the shitty way we teach literature analysis in high school for it getting as bad as it has. one of my xwitter moots got into asoiaf thru hotd bc she saw “lesbian undertones & dragons” and got curious & she said the other day never has she been in a fandom as genuinely evil, she was NOT prepared & i would say that’s just xwitter but we’ve ALL seen crazy behavior on every platform & also i can fully acknowledge that i, like many others, have gotten pettier & more quickly annoyed over the years ajsjdj. but my GOD i really do choose the toughest battles for no goddamn reason 😭🤧.

it’s pretty much like a two way split in fandom the way i see it, and i’m speaking in just the most broad, wankified strokes imaginable but -

targnation aka tb/dany(/arya) people who will genuinely honest to god argue that nettles is valyrian & daemon’s daughter bc only valyrians can ride dragons & really disingenuously misunderstand every point you make about how few good options a lot of the people on tg had.

the starkcels, infamous for being staunch jonsa shippers and/or sansa qitn truthers/stans, & they are all hardcore tg-but-usually-specifically-alicent stans. these people never stop BITCHING and NITPICKING, with the worst of it very much directed at being disingenuous about rhaenyra & baela’s motivations, in a very *dakota johnson voice* ellen you know that’s not true, sort of way.

(there’s other radioactive flavors, we don’t need to get into the aegon ii/king jon-or-stannis types on reddit, for instance).

and the problem here is that i call that second group my home bc it is a break off from the Main Branch which is very hostile to jonsa & associated theories, and therefore a lot of the most intensely starkcel people (such as me 😁) congregate there

(which, bizarrely to me, the Main Branch consists of largely tg/dany stans IF they watch the show seriously, if they don’t watch the show well that’s just main branch & it takes a second longer rant to explain that one but all of these groups are very hostile to starkcels & tbf starkcels are incredibly hostile to them aksjd). i Do believe i get the worst of both worlds as i try to exist in multiple subfandoms, altho i’m sure people at other intersections in fandom will disagree (they’re wrong i have it worse).

and this is a fandom just WILDLY HOSTILE to comparisons. u even think the words “sansa & ned are a little similar” and u get tomatoes thrown at you and that’s just her FATHER. i saw a minor meltdown on two different websites bc someone called margaery “the little queen” when “well that’s DAENAERA’S TITLE” brother no character owns a phrase or archetypes, and george’s style is basically just writing the same 12 archetypes that he really enjoys and doing them slightly to the left each time and as someone who loves doing that (there’s so many things to say!!! so many ways it can go if you just tweak one thing!!!!!) this series is crack to me, but if u dare compare two characters that have a different group of stans, even if those characters dead ass have the exact same life on paper, they try to execute you in the town square. so we just ignore the sansa-rhaenyra and rhaenyra-catelyn parallelism even tho it’s very obvious to me, bc it is apparently an insult to george himself to compare two characters he wrote 🤧

anyways sansa-rhaenyra stans of the world unite, there are dozens of us. dozens i tell you!!!!

[dirtytransmasc]

Are yyou team green or black? And why?

team green, though I'm not in support of every green character (namely Otto though my opinion of him is complicated. I also have opinions on Aegon and his characterization that makes it even more complicated)

[I have only read bits and pieces of the book, so my opinion is based almost solely on the show. keep this in mind]

I'm team green for 3 big reasons. they're more complex, thought not perfect by any means, more morally "right", and are simply more my vibe when it comes to characters. now this is very simplified and not at all nuanced, so stick with me for a minute.

Firstly, they're more complex. the greens have very deep, detailed, and nuanced lives and stories that lead to them being very complex characters that can't be put into a box. Alicent was a child bride who had lost her mother young became a mother young and suffered at the hands of power and men all her life. her children were affected by this and the world they were forced to grow up in throughout their lives. even individually her kids are drastically different; aegon the child who was forced into a life he did not want and suffered due to his father neglect and mother pain. Helaena who was never understood and grew up treated like an oddity. Aemond who was never seen to his full potential, always ignored or looked over, angry throughout his life. each of them has strengths and weaknesses, flaws and benefits, they're imperfect but never completely horrid. they're also never simplified (not entirely, even when the plot and writers seek to simplify them) to the point that they put on a moral pedestal or made straight evil (i'd even argue that the attempts of the writer to oversimplify them as evil and in the wrong makes them 10x more fascinating). I find TB characters tended to miss the mark on that, always put in the moral light, not even allowed a moment to reflect on their actions, lives, or positions in any nuanced or meaningful way, so they always just feel dull. they're also out on a moral highground that they can never be budged from, which makes them harder to like and honestly, really boring. they get away with everything instead of being emotionally and morally nuanced.

secondly, they're more morally "right". I will never say that any of the greens are perfect, they are far from it (with the exception of Helaena and her kids, who have done literally nothing to anyone, but I digress). what I will say, 9/10 times there is some level of reasoning that has some level of reasoning. Alicent always tries to do whats best for everyone, all throughout the series she tried to do best by the court, the king, her children, the realm, and Rhaenyra. did she always succeed? no, but she always tried and her mistakes were almost always honest. I will say she held resentment towards Rhaenya, but honestly, I can't blame her. Rhaenyra's lies and behavior hurt Alicent over and over again so for her to be angry is expected.when it came to succession, Alicent backed Rhaenyra until it was made clear she and Daemon would be a threat to her children's lives and even than she held mercy for Rhaenyra. Aegon's drinking can be blamed on the abuse and neglect he suffered at Viserys, Otto, and Alicent's (though the abuse and neglect from his mother is insanely different and nuanced. she perpetuated her pain onto him because she couldn't heal herself. so I hesitate to call it abuse, cause its so much more complicated than that) hands. though nothing will justify his rape of Dyana, I personally think it was a bad add in on the writers part, and leave it at that. Aemonds rage after years of being ignored doesn't entirely justify what he did to luke, but he had reason for his cruelty after years of Luke (and jace tbh) being cruel just because they could. TB characters tend to do terrible things in response to either A. nothing B. their own terrible things. Daemon kills who he wants when he feels like it, even for stating facts. Rhaneyra will lie and hurt those around her to protect her bastard children. both of them conspire to protect themselves and allow themselves to be wed, really just cause. while there are times they have their reasons, its a lot less of the time, and typically the backing to their actions, is they were trying to unbury themselves from within their own graves. (to preface, I don't care about rhaenyra sleeping around, it doesn't bother me, but its the fact that she will hurt everyone around her to protect her lies, allowing a child to be maimed and people to be murdered)

thirdly, they're my vibe. I like morally complex character, who are, to be frank, pathetic. I like characters with complex trauma's and issues, who aren't perfect people but its not entirely their fault. I would much rather watch a whole show about alicent, a child bride who tries so hard to be a good wife, queen, and mother while not prepared for any such role. Aegon who is a boy with severe mommy and daddy issues, a drinking problem, a flawed past, and constantly wet eyes. Helaena an ignored girl who has suffered for no better reason then her family. and Aemond, a boy who was tormented, bullied, maimed, and made stronger by it at the cost of his compassion and emotional stability - over a nepo baby who was coddled by her father, her murderous husband with a knack for unneeded violence, and her similarly coddled children (the show boiled them down to this, in my opinion). one is simply more up my alley than the other. I want character that need to be dissected, who have suffered, who hurt me to look at.

also, team black created almost all of their own problems. seeing as the main source of contention had to do with Rhaenyra's kids being bastards, which was Rhaenyra's problem, which she caused, and kept digging and digging that grave (faking Laenors death just so she could marry daemon, turning the blame on aemond when luke maimed him furthering the divide amongst the house, trying to wed Helaena to Jace putting her in danger, trying to take the driftmark throne and killing Vaemond for a claim her sons did not have, etc,) till viserys's death, earns her a lot less pity from me. at the end of the day, her being a woman was only a needle in a haystack worth of problems she caused herself that hurt her claim. if she had just strived to create to connection with ancient and her kids, and didn't make herself look like a threat to everyone who lessened her claim (which alicents kids would be the first people to be taken out) alicent would have backed like she had all season and there would have been no war, maybe conflict, but no war.

theres also the effect of the fans on my opinion. I have faced more cruelty, terrible media analysis, and outright ableism/misogny/(blood and sexual based) purist ideology/etc. from the TB fans then I have ever witness by TG fans. TB fans have ruined almost all of the TB characters for me in more ways than I can count, so I will say I am very biased.

thats why I'm team green. as a whole they are simply more appealing, their stories are more interesting, demand more attention to detail and emotional understanding, and from my point of view were the "right" side to be on in the war (the war was wrong on both sides, but my chips lie in the favour of the greens).

[blamemma]

i do think, the best thing i have done for peace of mind, is to let certain comments wash over me. driver and team will have certain perception of events and comments, whilst other fans will perceive it differently. in my eyes, he's a privileged twat who doesn't know to keep quiet and has been spoon fed and coddled by his tp and alike...he couldn't do it that day, nor the week after, but someone else did. for me, there was a time to move on and let go, i will always dislike him, but i also dont think we need to discourse every thing he says in relation to that time....i think at this point we can be the bigger person and know we've moved on to brighter better things

[witheredoffherwitch]

Aemond fans hate it,

Aegon fans it,

AND Helaena fans hate it!

[greatwyrmgold]

y e s

That said, calling chicken "woke" is more absurd than complaining about your mayo-hating feminist daughter.

the filling in question was chicken

[atopvisenyashill]

listen my ULTIMATE STANCE is that there are just clear hits and misses on tg and tb when it comes to adapting them and i think it’s very silly to say the show favors one side of the other bc it “softened” a character as if they aren’t doing that for like,,,, multiple characters aksjd

[tentglitch]

wait I came back in time just for homestuck day fuck

[talmud-babely]

even aside from the abuse enabling and apologia the discourse out of there was wack as hell. like the worst parts of trans feminism and radical feminism just smooshed together. with a lovely dash of white privilege sprinkled on top lol

[hpmort]

I suppose an argument could be made for humans being able to process and extract themes on a level that other lifeforms and ai cannot, but if you’ve interacted with anyone in modern fandom, or honestly most people in general, you’ll find that a rare skill

further, we do have ai that can analyze the themes in poetry, though I don’t think that we’ve ever tested them on long form texts

"corporations don't have a soul" "machines don't have a soul" neither do humans. I won't convert to your religion. Think up a new argument.

[blackwaterbbq]

Kafka x Trailblazer: the Ship of Destiny

Firefly x Trailblazer: the Ship of Dreams

Bladie x Trailblazer: every toxic MySpace relationship status update.

Silver Wolf x Trailblazer: Ship of… gamer gremlins?

Elio x Trailblazer: ???