Talia took a 20+ Year Undercover mission a while ago
So! Talia is the Daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, and has been alive and at his side for many years now. Decades even. She is well into her 100's, even though her physical Body looks like that of a 20 yr old.
And in all the years that she has lived, what's to say she didn't take a few years off as a vacation? Even Ra's must take a few years off every once in a while, leaving to spend time on some remote island he can relax on for once. So, one day in the Early 80's she decided to do the same.
But she wouldn't be completely relaxing, she would take the break to further the League's goals still. She decided to Dye her Hair, change her Name, get into an acceptable College, and study Lazarus Waters to their scientific limit. She decided to name if Ectoplasm, to avoid any unwanted attention.
And while there, she met a pair of men doing the exact same.
Jack and Vladimir were nice enough. Although their Research was more focused on Ghosts, or as she would call them, Pit Demons. They were convinced that Ectoplasm and Ghosts came from another Dimension, and if they could find a way to open a Dimension Gateway to this theoretical Ghost Zone, they could aquire Limitless Clean Energy (and maybe find a way to contain the Ghostly threat).
Over the years, Talia Maddie would fall for Jack. Eventually, even after she had completed her College Studies and Vlad had left contact with them, she decided to extend her Vacation to further study Ectoplasm with Jack. One thing led to another, and eventually she found herself pregnant. And then it happened again.
Jazzmine and Daniel were the cutest little babies. But she knew the danger they would be in if it was ever discovered that she was their Mother, so she trained them in everything she could so they could survive. She knew her time as Maddie Fenton was coming short, but she resolved to stay, at the very least until Jazz was an Adult.
She didn't account for Daniel becoming a Small Town Hero, but those were just the Trials of motherhood.
Then, the day came. She left a note on her bedside table explaining that she regretted what had to happen, and left in the middle of the night. It was better this way.
...
The year right after she returned, her Father forced her to have a Child with his most prospective Heir. The Bat, he called himself. Oh he was Charming, there was no denying that, but unfortunately she was still working through her feelings about Jack.
She treated her resulting child poorly because of that, and that she regreted it deeply. She loved him, honestly she did, but it was hard to look at him and not remember Daniel. Still, she persevered.
The day she once again had to give up her son for his protection was the hardest of her life.
But it was unavoidable. The Coup that had taken her Father's life had also fractured the Organization, anyone could have taken their shot at her Son as the rightful Heir. She needed to protect him as she took care of the Traitors.
...
Damian always knew he was the One True Heir. It was his defining character trait for his early years of life. Even though he had grown to be more than just that over recent years, he always felt like it was a key part of his identity.
Until now.
Because the BatComputer had just finished running a DNA Test on the Blood of a man who he had spotted on his Patrol the previous night.
A DNA Test that had come back, with results claiming that the man, who looked almost exactly like a younger male version of his Mother, was his Half Brother.
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The disproportionate hate show!Criston gets is so bizarre. No argument I’ve seen his haters make sofar has made any sense to me.
He is outside of Mysaria the only siginficant lowborn character we meet. He rises up from the son of a steward of a minor house to the position of King‘s Guard thanks to Rhaenyra, who then pressures him into having sex with her, sth that could get him executed. Afterwards she not just rejects his proposal, but laughs in his face.
And when as a result of this experience Criston is shown to be emotional distraught and bitter, people call him an incel? (I assume that they refer to his ideology and not his actual status as a celibate, because not being celibate is literally what started this mess)
It really rubs me the wrong way, when people remove all context from this situation. A lower class person getting a well-off position from a person with authority, who they then end up having sex with is ALWAYS a relationship with a power imbalance (Obviously there are irl relationships like this, who work out and manage to be relatively healthy, but that doesn‘t remove the imbalance of power and the increased likelyhood of abuse).
We see Criston‘s reluctance when Rhaenyra makes her move. It does not matter if Criston was attracted to her or not. The simple fact that he is in a vunerable position makes him denying her a risk. It also does not matter that Rhaenyra had no malicious intentions, the simple fact that she ignores Criston‘s refusal and continues pressuring make this whole scene super uncomfortable. Her ignorance and naivety does not erase the impact of her actions.
Criston growing to hate her afterwards is perfectly justified.
As a man who grew up in Westerosi society, he inevitably holds misogynist beliefs, which is reflected in the insults he uses after this. But compared to the acts of every single character on this show, singling out his character is pretty ludicrous, when we have plenty of male (and female) characters who have done worse:
Like commiting SA (Viserys, Aegon), grooming young girls (Viserys again! I really hate this man, Daemon, Otto, Corlys and Rhaenys because telling your daughter she has to sleep with a grown man when she is 14 is pretty much the same thing Otto does to Alicent) and the only major crime Criston is guilty of sofar: murder (Daemon killed his wife and the servant in Driftmark, also he did large scale police violence which people love to forget about, Rhaenys killed potentially hundreds of smallfolk at the coronation)
Obviously, anybody is allowed to dislike whatever character they want, but a lot of people flatten Criston into just a misogynistic bitter incel who is just mad that Rhaenyra has sex, ignoring every bit of context we get for his behaviour.
This becomes escpecially weird, when those same people have no problem stanning Daemon, who calls his 1st wife a „bitch“, „uglier than sheep“ and then murders her, because he sees her as inferior as a none-valyrian. But Criston calling Rhaenyra, a person he feels personally wronged by, a „spoiled cunt“ is apparently a too far.
It is just really frustating when the character with the canonically lowest social standing gets afforded the least amount of nuance by the fandom (the writers are obvs not excempt from this criticism either).
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i know we've gotten eddie's side of things by virtue of him being a main character and shannon being a character in his story, but please for a second can we remember that before shannon's frontal lobe was finished developing she got pregnant, got married, lost her partner to the army without warning, went through a traumatizing birth, had her son diagnosed with cp, and had to deal with all of this in an in-law environment that was Less Than Ideal without a support system of her own separate from her husband
and then her mother got CANCER and was dying alone in another state and when shannon told her husband she wanted to move closer to her to take care of her he had the audacity to ask for TIME when her mother was DYING
and THEN after she made a horribly painful choice to leave her son so she could spend her mother's last months with her she finds out her husband moved to the very city she begged for them to move to bc of a job he could literally have Anywhere
shannon made some questionable choices i'm not saying she didn't but bestie no WONDER she wanted a divorce. the man she married was a stranger and the few concrete things she knew about him by s2 were not conducive to love. eddie was and is a great father but he was genuinely a horrible husband, and the fact that shannon could recognize that and choose herself is incredible to me.
edit: there is now a follow-up post about eddie
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