#thoughtd

[imperatorcaesaraugustus]

Jace, Mysaria, and the Dragonseeds: Disruptions to the Social Order

(this is one section of my House of the Dragon Season 2 Review)

One of the most significant storylines in season two of House of the Dragon is that of the Dragonseeds, lowborn descendants of Targaryens who find themselves thrust into an unexpected position of privilege and power for having claimed dragons. The Dragonseeds demonstrate an uncharacteristic level of social mobility for Westeros, embodying an inherent challenge to the status quo and the attitudes that uphold it. Around this issue, the characters of Jacaerys Velaryon and Mysaria come to represent opposing perspectives. Mysaria, a commoner who has managed to rise to a position of power and influence, sees them as a vital asset regardless of their origin, while Jace, a member of the nobility whose position is somewhat precarious, views them as an existential threat.

            Let us start with the Hull brothers, Alyn of Hull and Addam of Hull. We are introduced to Alyn first, a serious, stalwart, and dutiful man working in the Velaryon fleet. We are told that he is the one who saved Corlys from an incident that nearly cost him his life last season, and Corlys attempts to reward him for this, raising him up to command a ship in the fleet, though Alyn is very resistant to Corlys’ aid. His brother, Addam, is shown to be a more free-spirited person, but receives little screentime until he is confronted by the dragon Seasmoke. Alyn swears his loyalty to Rhaenyra without hesitation but is still heavily mistrusted by the members of Rhaenyra’s council. It is also at this point that I believe it is confirmed that Corlys is the father of Alyn and Addam, though I can’t be sure because I read Fire and Blood and thus knew from the jump what their lineage was. When the decision to find more Dragonseeds is made, Corlys goes to speak with Alyn, who decides not to make the attempt but rather to stay with the fleet. Alyn then chastises Corlys for the way he and his brother were ignored growing up, forced to live in poverty and work for everything they achieved because they were bastards, and to be honest if I just wrote out the text of that speech instead of writing this section of the review it would get most of my point across.

            After the brothers of Hull, the Dragonseed we see the most of is Hugh, known in the book as Hugh the Hammer. We first meet Hugh petitioning before Aegon on behalf of the smiths of King’s Landing. He asks for a portion of the payment for the weapons and armor being made for the war to be paid in advance, as waiting for payment after the fact is placing them in a difficult financial position. To Hugh’s surprise, Aegon agrees to this demand, but it becomes clear later in the season that the institution of government never made good on these promises. Hugh serves as our primary perspective on the smallfolk of King’s Landing throughout the season. When Melys’ head is paraded through the city after Rook’s Rest, he is the one who voices the collective realization that dragons are not gods, but just meat. We see through his struggles to take care of a sick daughter the hardship that is imposed by the blockade on King’s Landing, and he is present for the start of the rioting that occurs when Rhaenyra sends food. When the sowing of the Dragonseeds occurs, we learn that he has a negative view of the Targaryens due to the treatment of his mother, Saera, but he goes to Dragonstone in the hopes of acquiring a better life.

            The next story I want to look at is that of Mysaria. Season one established her as the head of a network of operatives working towards the betterment of the conditions of the smallfolk, but her base of operations is burned by Larys. She is found in this season attempting to leave King’s Landing via ship, and her capture leads her back into Daemon’s control. He promises her freedom in exchange for her help in arranging the Blood and Cheese incident but leaves for Harrenhal before he can grant her that freedom. Rhaenyra, after some deliberation and to Mysaria’s surprise, makes good on Daemon’s promise, but Mysaria stays in her service. Mysaria becomes one of Rhaenyra’s most trusted advisors, the only one who does not doubt her ability, even developing into the beginnings of a possible sexual relationship towards the end of the season (though it only seems to be present in the one episode and is not touched upon again). In her position of power, Mysaria consistently voices the potential that lies with the smallfolk of King’s Landing, and her idea to send food to the city successfully causes the people to riot against the Greens.

            And now let us talk about Jace and about the sowing. In this season, Jace chafes against the position he is in, too important as Rhaenyra’s heir to contribute to the fighting. He desperately wishes to advance the cause, taking his own initiative to treat with House Frey in order to do so. It is from this same desire to contribute that he proposes the idea to Rhaenyra of searching outside of the Targaryen family for new dragonriders, notably wanting to find them from among the nobility of Westeros. When the attempt with Ser Darklyn fails and Addam of Hull turns up with a dragon instead, it is Mysaria who presents the idea that the lowborn descendants of Targaryens are, in fact, the best place to look. This upsets Jace greatly. He, being widely perceived as a bastard, is less secure in his position than most of those around him. Rhaenyra can afford to disrupt things somewhat in order to gain an advantage in the war, but Jace correctly identifies that his own legitimacy is further called into question when bastards are provably able to ride dragons. And his fears seem to be proven right after the sowing occurs. Addam and Hugh are respectful, but Ulf the White treats Jace as an equal, just a fellow dragonrider. And when Rhaenyra flies to Harrenhal, she brings Addam with her and leaves Jace behind.

            The reality, of course, is that Mysaria is right, and so is Jace. The smallfolk have power in numbers and they have the potential to be just as capable as the nobility. And because of this, the power the nobility has over them is fragile. The Targaryen claim rests foremost with their dragons, as that is the power through which they enforce their will. If the lowborn are capable of riding dragons, then what is there to separate Targaryens from commoners? Monarchs are just people, and dragons are just meat. This season does a good job of highlighting the arbitrariness and unfairness of the social order here. Alyn’s tirade against Corlys in which he highlights the way his life differed from that of Laenor simply because they had different mothers is the best example of this, though the effectiveness of Mysaria’s smallfolk-focused strategies also underlines this theme. There are some places where this falls short, however. For one, the scenes where Corlys is talking with Alyn prior to the final episode never seem to go anywhere. But more substantially, Jace’s position as a protagonist means that his concerns are given weight. We see Ulf as unduly rude, as an interloper who refuses to see Jace as his superior, when these themes should lead us to the conclusion that Jace is not, in fact, superior to Ulf in any inherent way. Both of them, and Addam and Hugh as well, are the descendants of Targaryens, and the only difference is that Jace was raised as though he were a trueborn son.

            This leads me into the final thing I want to discuss. The above has been an analysis based on what is in the season, but now I want to turn to something that wasn’t. If you want to stop reading here, feel free, it should be a more or less complete review without this next bit. For those of you who want to continue, however, it’s time to talk about Nettles (probable spoilers for Rhaena’s story next season).

            Nettles is a character in Fire and Blood, the book from which House of the Dragon is derived. Nettles was one of the characters who showed up for the sowing of the dragonseeds, but the book suggests that she was not actually the descendant of Targaryens. For one thing, she is described as having brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes (the Velaryons in the books have pale skin, as do all people of Valyrian descent). This doesn’t fully preclude the possibility of her being a dragonseed, but when combined with the way in which she claimed her dragon, it seems likely she was not. Targaryens seem to have some sort of magical bond with the dragons they ride. Each person can only ever ride one dragon, each dragon only has one rider at a time, and the way a dragon and rider choose one another is somewhat mysterious. Nettles, however, used a different method. The dragon she went after was Sheepstealer, a wild dragon whose preferred food was sheep. Nettles would bring the dragon sheep until it was full enough to be docile, at which point she mounted it, a method much closer to taming an animal than the mysterious mystical connection that comes with being a Targaryen.

            Dragons are, among other things, an allegory for power. The Targaryens can ride dragons because of their blood. It is through their lineage and their racial purity that they claim the right to rule. In this way, they are emblematic of the feudal monarchy over which they preside. Nettles has none of these things. She is lowborn and dark-skinned, and yet through her ingenuity she claims a dragon anyway. Unlike the other dragonseeds, she defies the common knowledge that only those born from a certain lineage are able to ride dragons and – in the allegory – able to rule. Rhaena, who seems to be taking Nettles’ storyline in the show, does not fulfill this thematic role. She is, unquestionably, a member of the royal family. She views herself as being of lesser worth because she has not claimed a dragon, but there is not much evidence of others holding that opinion. She believes she was sent off to the Vale because she was unimportant, and it is true that she could not contribute to the fighting, but the tasks of keeping safe Rhaenyra’s children and working to maintain a critical alliance are not the trivial things Rhaena thinks of them as. Rather than being the most disadvantaged of all the characters and claiming a dragon anyway, Rhaena is more secure in her position than even Jace and her lack of a dragon has become an issue of self-worth more than anything. Self-worth is important, but I find it to be a very disappointing substitute for Nettles breaking the illusion that enshrines the nobility’s monopoly on governance.

[playtheshadw]

Metamorphosis

[o-sunny-day]

Something weird I've noticed, and have only been able to put into words now, is how “absent” Caine feels within TADC.

It's not that he actually is absent, or at least not more absent than any other character that isn't Pomni because- we’ve got 7 characters and only 4 episodes, it just feels like we’re missing out on something every time.

Zooble, Kinger, and Gangle are barely in most of the adventures, and yet I feel like saying they’re absent as a whole is inaccurate. We know them, we get their struggles. And with Ragatha and Jax, despite not GETTING them yet, we still get to see a lot of them, just, as they are vs WHO they are.

And with Caine, he is absolutely the same way. We don't get him at ALL, but his presence looms everywhere in every episode. When he's not on screen, the gang is still experiencing an adventure HE made, Pomni is looking at the behind the scenes of the stuff HE makes. Caines face plastered on every swear word, and periodically in stained glass windows and books in his office. His name mentioned whenever things go wrong, BUT WE DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT HIM IS THE THING, in every episode however, there's a little MOMENT that Caine fans get to snack on for the months in between episodes.

In episode 1, It's the diner scene, where we get to see where the eccentric ai decides to spend his time. In a natural, fancy, quiet restaurant.

Then in episode 2, we get “who knows what…could happen.”

THEN in episode 3, we get the whole glitching therapy scene.

And lastly in episode 4, I can't exactly tell what would count as THE moment since this one is an outlier with more little moments that pile up in the “wtf is going on” category. The whole “you can shut up now” line, the implying that punishment will be brought up again when Caine says that “motivation” has been what his adventures have been missing, and the unprompted glitching at the very end,

That's where I feel the differences are with him, Ragatha, and Jax. We know them, and we can assume what their issues are, it’s just the how/if they will be solved thats the question. For them, we don't need an episode focused on figuring out what their deal is like we did with Gangle, Zooble, and Kinger. We need an episode to show how all that growing tension is going to explode with them pretending that they don't HAVE issues like those other 3…

And yet with Caine, we DEFINITELY NEED AN EPISODE THAT EXPLAINS WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON- On the surface, Caine is a weirdo, somewhat sadistic, ringmaster that makes little to no sense half the time.

But these little moments reveal someone who has somewhat human attributes in the way he takes breaks, has a troubled past, is very insecure, and in general is falling apart at the seams. Losing his patience, desperate for something to fix the multitude of issues happening in the circus.

Those moments just leave us with more questions than answers. Unlike Ragatha and Jax, that more show us a side of them that they hide.

[eiraeths]

soap getting hit with shrapnel or stabbed and the 141 are low on supplies and he’s getting close to bleeding out so they have to cauterize the wound with a flare without painkillers

[rewrittenwrongs]

New Wind headcanon: he can hear background music

[bcbryar]

Can't stop thinking about raping a pretty boy. He's smaller than me, thinner than me. I can pin him so easily, he's powerless. Want to shove my cock deep inside him, like I'm trying to carve a spot for myself in his psyche. Want to hear him cry out and bite his own tongue trying to hold back his screams. Tangling my fingers in his hair and whispering at him to just relax, it'll be easier that way. Maybe I'll smash his forehead into the wall just for fun. Maybe I'll sink my teeth into his neck to leave a mark for everyone to see, or maybe I'll be careful not to hurt him so he has to live with this, only the two of us know unless he actively decides to tell someone, putting the choice in his hands. Maybe I'll press close to him, whisper in his ear like an intimate secret, tell him about all the times I've thought about doing this, all the times I held back, until I couldn't anymore, until he made it too difficult for me. I wonder if I can make him sob.

[tinyfantasminha]

aaaeeeeeeeeeeesbgsbgsgbgbghehnbbuebeubeubeaubufhsjgnnjngfdhjghgfdh0h-fdn4ntjfdhgbfdhgdfbh aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IM STILLIGIL IM STILLL PROCESSING IT ALL GGIVE ME A MOMENTTTTTTT

[willowser]

roommate touya who falls for you bc of your thoughtfulness tho 🥺 when you order food there’s always something for him too. you bring him back coffee every time you do a starbucks run. you share everything you have with him too, like your nice smelling shampoo (even tho you make fun of his three in one body wash conditioner shampoo LMAO). maybe you get the two of you fun pairs of comfy slippers to wear around the house to. you make the house into a home and he’s so smitten because of it

anon 🥺 you gettttt itttt 🥺🥺 i have such a detailed idea for roommate touya i want to write it so bad !!! i just. have such a vision for him in my head.....it's weird that yall are still roommates....bc you didn't even start out as friends.....keigo and rumi both moved out and you were just. together and that was it. and then you got sick of your apartment and picked a new house to rent. and you just. live together and do everything together and it makes no sense !! you're adults !!! but you're too used to each other 🥺🥺🥺 WAAAHHH YOU GET IT YOU GET IT EXACTLLLLLYYYYYY

[kpopscruggles]

i’ve just thought of something else omfg (can you tell my mind is fucking racing rn)… eunseok suggesting tying your hands up (with ribbon bc it’s pretty and cute) while anton fucks you from behind😵‍💫😵‍💫 eunseok making you take him in your mouth, god both of them would be dirty talking sm making sure you don’t last long and that you cum multiple times for them - 💐

I can see eunseok tying your hands with the ribbon and maybe having sit himself a spot in the room, he's leading Anton...

"Go on..she's so wet, you have to make sure you take that chance"

"She's begging for your fingers but don't you think she deserves to be teased? SHe doesn't think her sweet boyfriend could do such a thing.."

THE WAY ANTON WILL REALIZE THAT JUST BEING ROUGH IS NEVER BETTER THAN ALSO TEASING YOU

[imperatorcaesaraugustus]

Jahaerys, Rhaenys, Aegon, and Cole: The Brutality of War

(this is one section of my House of the Dragon Season 2 Review)

Like the other sections of this review, I have named this one after the principal characters discussed. This section, however, is in truth less a discussion of certain characters and more a discussion of certain events. Here we will analyze the consequences of the defining incidents of the beginning and middle of the season: Blood and Cheese and Rook’s Rest.

            The Blood and Cheese incident is the name given in the book to the murder of Aegon’s son, Jahaerys. Daemon, seeking retribution for the death of Luke at the end of last season, travels to King’s Landing to speak with a guard of the city watch and a ratcatcher of the Red Keep. He hires them to sneak into the Red Keep and kill Prince Aemond, but he does not give clear instructions on what to do if Aemond cannot be found. So long as blood is spilled, any blood will do. And so the two assassins, after encountering a series of obstacles and disruptions to their plan, finally stumble upon Helaena and her children, the twins Jahaerys and Jahaera. They decide that killing Jahaerys would be the best way for them to achieve their goal, a son for a son. After a moment of confusion, Helaena tells them which child is which, and they cut Jahaerys’ head off.

            The death of Jahaerys ripples out among the members of the Green faction. Aegon is driven to fury, desperate to exact revenge against Rhaenyra for what has been done to his family. Criston Cole is also motivated to act, but out of guilt. He was with Alicent when the incident occurred and therefore could not prevent it, but he cannot admit this fact, so he projects this onto Ser Arryk, sending him on an assassination mission to Dragonstone. Aegon promotes Cole to Hand of the King for this, dismissing Otto who is pushing for a more measured response, and thus his grief leads to the inevitability of greater bloodshed and the death of the possibility of more diplomatic solutions. Ser Arryk, for his part, is spotted by Ser Erryk, and so brother kills brother in an act of tragic violence that produces no greater ends. Helaena, meanwhile, says to Alicent that she does not feel as though she can grieve Jahaerys since so many others are also suffering in this war. She is correct in her understanding that everyone in the city is a victim of the war, just as Alicent is correct in saying that Helaena still has the right to grieve. When Rhaenyra first meets with Alicent this season, the death of Jahaerys is a major reason why they are unable to stop the war.

            The second event I want to discuss is the Battle of Rook’s Rest. In this battle, Cole and Aemond conspire to set a trap for the Black faction. They attack the seat of a member of Rhaenyra’s council in the open, hoping that a dragon will come to lift the siege. When one does, Aemond will attack with Vhagar. The plan starts off successful, with Rhaenys arriving on her dragon Melys, but before the trap is sprung Aegon shows up on his dragon Sunfyre. In the end, many die, including Rhaenys, and Aegon is left horribly burned.

            Rhaenys’ death is deeply felt among the Black faction. Rhaenyra looses her most capable dragonrider and one of the only members of her council who does not constantly doubt her, but more relevantly to the theme we are focusing on in this section, Corlys mourns her loss deeply. He questions his support of Rhaenyra, having already lost his daughter and, he believes, his son. In his eyes, the connection to Daemon and Rhaenyra has cost him his entire family. He begins to consider the future of his house in this difficult time, asking Baela to be his heir, but she turns him down. She is a Targaryen, not a Velaryon, eager to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother. Through this war, even one of the most powerful houses in the

            Aegon’s story after Rook’s Rest is the story of a discarded veteran. Before the battle, he was eager to fight, wanting to contribute to the war. Afterward, he is told by Larys upon waking that he will forever be remembered as someone who survived dragonfire, but materially he has been pushed aside, his throne taken from under him by the brother who burned him. The only one who seems not to forget him is Larys, who understands what it means to exist as a disabled person in the society of Westeros. Larys informs Aegon of the harsh reality of what his new life will be, consistently pushing him to improve faster so he may survive in an uncaring world.

            It is through Cole that we see the effect of battles such as Rook’s Rest on the common people. Cole is deeply traumatized by the destruction he witnesses, men burned to death and left as suits of armor filled with ash. He begins the season eager for war, doubling down once Jahaerys dies and he is made hand. After, he is unable to think of anything but the agonizing death that awaits so many when dragons are led into war.

            The question now is whether or not these stories and this theme worked in the show. Let us start with Blood and Cheese. I did not like Blood and Cheese, but my disappointment largely comes from comparing it to the book, and I want to try and examine the show on its own merits here. The beheading of Jahaerys was a truly horrific act, and it does serve to highlight how the cycle of revenge and the decent into war causes the death of innocents. But I do feel the gravity of the moment was somewhat undercut by the comedy of errors that was the infiltration of the Red Keep. One could read it as being part of a broader theme of poorly thought-out actions having serious consequences, in line with the death of Luke at the end of last season, but I just don’t think it really lands here. Helaena’s reaction to the death of her son, both in the moment and afterwards, seems to have been a matter of controversy among some fans. She shows very little outward reaction and later says that she does not feel like she can grieve. I personally had no issue with the immediate reaction, it seemed very clear to me that she was shutting down in response to the event, clearly traumatized even if she was not crying and wailing. As for her later statement, I read it at the time as Helaena not allowing herself to grieve rather than genuinely feeling no grief, but that is admittedly a charitable reading and I don’t know that her later scenes really supported that interpretation. The battle between the Cargyll twins was excellent, however, and solidly supported this theme with how tragic and ultimately pointless it was.

            In contrast to Blood and Cheese, I thought the actual event of Rook’s Rest was very well done, displaying not just incredible spectacle but also showcasing the horrors of war. As for the aftermath, each story supports the theme in a different way. Rhaenys dies, leaving behind a void that cannot truly be filled. Baela is inspired to follow in her footsteps, showing the ways in which the drive for war spreads and ensnares further generations, an ever-descending spiral of tragedy and revenge, while Corlys is left alone, his whole family lost to Rhaenyra’s war. Aegon lives but is physically disabled. He is given credit for the victory and for the death of Rhaenys and Melys, and Larys tells him that he will be forever remembered for the extraordinary feat of surviving dragonfire, but these platitudes do not change the position he is in. He has been discarded, left in his bed while his brother rules the kingdom. If he were to become to inconvenient to Aemond, he would be killed. The Grand Maester works to heal him, but it is Larys and only Larys who understands him. Finally, Cole is physically unharmed, but mentally he has been scarred by the battle. The things he has seen, things that he himself helped bring about, haunt him. Of everyone, Cole’s post-battle story epitomizes this theme the most strongly, though I think of them all Aegon’s story is the best done and one of the strongest in the entire show. It does stand out to me having written this that this particular theme is shown with the Greens far more than the Blacks, but I think that may just be an accident of where we are in the story, and we cannot forget that the season begins with the reaction to the death of Luke. Neither side is devoid of loss, and both will experience more, for that is the inevitable consequence of war.

[mariako-750]

Did a Vivinos vids tier list.

Thoughts?

[serenadeofsunshine]

(PLATONIC) they’re so interesting to me. under the microscope for these two

[rat-shark]

Mike Chilton is super asexual and on the aro spectrum while Capri is a chronic flirt and dates so many girls she lost track. It balances out

[nanamimizz-archived]

i literally deserve to fuck his ass and he wont let me like fuck man. cant have shit in detroit

[lipschitzrichie]

hi so my kink speculation is power play and youre probably also really into sub tops ngl

-the mysterious anon

so the funny part is that not even i really know most of the things im into 😋 im pretty cool with sub tops despite mostly being a sub myself idk really where i land tbh...i usually say sub bottom or switch i am NOT a top. never will be a top. cant do it sorry this pussy is too good SORRY SORRY SORRY anyways....power play though...meoowewwww

tldr im kinda bad at labeling myself snd things i like oops.

[liamastatine]

I just hsd the most minecraft moment ever