BERNIE LIVES!

For reference, this was the text post:

My answer to your question would be: no. And I'll tell you why, even though you didn't ask. Firstly, just the practicalities - I'm basing this off of a possible "if I were in charge" scene in the upcoming seasons and my priority would be to get Eve Best back and for it also to be a one-off.

I don't need Corlys going through a Harrenhal-number of hallucinations (who has the time), I don't need magic involved, I'd just like a regular ol' "person talking to a loved one who isn't there" kind of a scene. I'd like to infer it's not something that's without regularity - he does speak to her, the special thing is just that the audience can see it this once. If you open that up to kids, then where does it end? Grandkids? Is Vaemond about to pop up with his head sewn together?

This brings me to my next point, which is that, in Corlys's psyche, for me, Rhaenys will always be on a different level. She's just different to all of his other losses and her purpose in "haunting" him would be different. Rhaenys is already haunting Corlys's narrative. She is the reason he is on the path he's on, why he's doing what he's doing. His business is her unfinished business.

There's no link like that with his children - whilst their deaths are likely on his conscience, there's no sense of (forgive me if this sounds callous) failure on his part - Laena died in childbirth, in a roundabout way, and Laenor was murdered. He had little proximity to the acts in making them happen in any direct way. There's nothing specifically unfulfilled or left undone.

Whereas, with Rhaenys, obviously, there was disharmony at the end. She dies in a way that he cannot get closure, he cannot understand. For all we know, as viewers, he never receives her body. Going back to this idea that he's doing everything for her, he's setting her on a pedestal. He's making her memory something for him to measure himself against and that's a very active decision and something that would need to be kept up.

It's also related to the fact that she was the one person he could be vulnerable with. She is the person that he spoke to. I like the idea of him continuing that tradition, or trying to, wishing (endlessly wishing) she were with him. Trying to live as she might want him to, to accomplish and be witness to things that she should have. Talking to her with the idea that she will answer.

So, a scene such as this has a very specific use in my head. It's a tool to get inside Corlys's head, it's a way to explore his motivations and grief. To check-in. See what brought him to this point and what he expects of the future.

Going off the back of that last question, whilst I'm thinking about it, I think Rhaenys loses the ability to speak to her son. Before his marriage, he'd been away for 3 years. He would have changed a lot in that time, he thinks he's so grown up now, going to fulfil his duty as he sees it.

I don't think Rhaenys would be honest about her fears for Laenor prior to his marriage. She wouldn't reveal that to him because she's so used to NOT, and she doesn't want to worry him and she's persuading herself as much as anything else. So I think a lot would go unsaid at that point.

Then you have the physical distance, which, despite the closeness of KL to Driftmark IS still an obstacle. That reduces a lot of conversation to letter, which cannot be wholly honest. It means Laenor doesn't view his mother as a confidante, especially if he wants to pretend all is fine and make his parents proud.

Then Laenor will feel ashamed. Rhaenys will be fearful. Neither can confront the issues that are causing the feelings. Laenor sinks into a depression, Rhaenys feels helpless... both find it hard to confront and both can do little to rectify what has happened. The damage is done, so to speak.

Laenor cannot talk to his mother about his sexuality, his vices, his shame, his loss, his sons. Rhaenys cannot cross the threshold and speak of it either, doesn't know how to reach him, what's best for him. She can't speak of the boys or his happiness or his wants because she may fall short of being able to help him.

I think Rhaenys sees Laenor at Laena's funeral and is scared she's losing him. Worried that he's miserable, yearning to take control.

Hello! Okay, so I'm going to keep this brief because that's quite a lot of people and so I'm just going to go with general vibes and first thoughts, and stick with later-in-life stuff rather than childhood, and if you want me to go into more specifics or have any questions, then absolutely follow up. It's based mostly on the show but for some characters, I have used book facts and events.

DAEMON: I think the big thing that I have, as a personal headcanon (or just the way I look at the relationship) with Daemon is that Rhaenys has to make an active choice, probably fairly early on, that she cannot love him. She can't let herself. Eve has spoken before about how Rhaenys keeps Daemon at arms' length and how she has a profound distrust of him and sees him as just this chaotic element, so I think that she makes a decision that there have to be boundaries in place. Just for her own sense of safety and stability. Daemon orbits her family: they're blood but also he goes to war with her husband and son, he marries her daughter, he's the father of her granddaughters. But I think Rhaenys is just far too aware that he hurts. He causes immeasurable pain and, in the end, there's an understanding of him - he will never spite himself to help her: he keeps her daughter from her, he "murders" her son, he has respect for her but little regard.

I think the relationship ebbs and flows from enjoying his company, tolerating him and then wanting nothing to do with him. It alters throughout the years but she will never be caught out by him. I don't think she really likes him. Perhaps for the boy he was, she does - they are definitely still familial. What Daemon gives, he gets in return, I think.

VISERYS: There's love there. It's one of the relationships that I find the most tragic because they're cousins torn apart by the choices of others and the positions they find themselves in. They can never be as close as they want to be. I think Rhaenys's first loyalty is to the home and house she's built with her husband, which directly conflicts with Viserys, on occasion. I think they probably did go three years without speaking to one another (possibly missives to congratulate on births etc but nothing of note) because of the Stepstones War.

I think it does become "us vs them" with Rhaenys on the outside because his family keeps being responsible for the destruction of hers. And then we get to this place where he's having this happy family meal and she's in a crypt. When you think about how close their fathers were and how close they might have been or wanted to be, once upon a time, then that's tragedy.

AEMMA: Poor Aemma. We don't see them ever interact in the show, but it's easy enough to imagine that they were friends from childhood and family in that way. I think they grew apart, in adulthood, given the way their lives went. But we have deleted dialogue where Rhaenyra recounts coming to Driftmark with Aemma and collecting seashells with Laena. I like to imagine that wasn't too infrequent. I think they probably kept in touch via letters: neither woman had many female relations to speak to.

JOCELYN: My opinion is that Jocelyn lives at High Tide after Aemon's death, until her own. So, maintaining that relationship is pretty easy as they live in the same place. We don't know when Jocelyn dies or how. But I sort of take my opinion that Rhaenys isn't too dissimilar to her parents and that Jocelyn and Rhaenys probably relied heavily on one another. I think she would have been a very present and active grandmother: she had no other duties, nowhere else to be, nothing else to do.

JAEHAERYS: My feeling is, a bit like with Daemon and, to a lesser extent, Viserys, that when it becomes an "us vs them" she cuts the feeling off as much as possible. When Jaehaerys chooses someone else as his heir, when she is discarded, she has to stop treating him in the same way she once did. She has to choose herself, she has to be something different. I think, in the latter years, she'd only go to court if summoned. She'd only act the part in public.

I think she probably understands and sympathisers with her grandfather and the choices he made (to a point) but she doesn't agree, she doesn't find comfort in that, it hurts and she's aware that there is a danger now, to her, because of the choices he makes. I don't know if I'd say she hates him. I think, certainly by the time we get to HOTD, the feelings have been processed somewhat and Rhaenys is someone who doesn't waste time on things that won't accomplish anything.

I think it's also, likely, easier to do so because I don't think she sees him as family from her father's death onwards. The most prevalent thing he is to her is her King. And once Alysanne retires from King's Landing, she has no reason to return until Jaehaerys is on his deathbed. I imagine she'd visit him on his deathbed.

ALYSANNE: She loved Alysanne. So, I'm thinking letters, visits, dragon flights. I think Rhaenys visits her whenever she's on Dragonstone and then writes when she's in King's Landing. I think Alysanne would visit Driftmark, if allowed or it was okay PR-wise. I think that Rhaenys could have become a primary visitor or carer for Alysanne when her body and wits began failing. Alysanne never forsook her, or her children. Alysanne would understand things so many wouldn't: marriage, children, dragons, being a Targaryen. And it's reciprocated.

LAENA: Letters. So many letters. I think mother and daughter were very close. It kills me to know that Rhaenys knew of Laena's desire to not just come back home, but to remain there. To stay and be close to her family, rather than be across the Narrow Sea. For Rhaenys to know this, and to know it was Daemon who was causing the problem, tells me that Laena told her and therefore feels confident in her mother as a confidante. It's also worth keeping in mind that, for at least three years, it was just Rhaenys and Laena together - whilst Corlys and Laenor were in the Stepstones. And then it was Laena almost as an only child again until she was married.

We know how Rhaenys reacted to her death, to her funeral, to her daughters, to her legacy. Moreover, we know that Laena has been raised by her mother with her eyes wide open - it's Rhaenys who informs a 12-year-old Laena that she will not have to bed Viserys until she is 14, it's Rhaenys who overlooks the walk with Viserys and (at least I presume) picks her up at the end of it. I think Rhaenys just loved the bones off of that girl and was so proud of the woman she became.

LAENOR: Similarly, once he's married, I think it's letters. However, I don't believe they are as candid as Laena's. I think Laenor probably retreats into formality - we know that he doesn't even divulge incriminating details in letters to Laena, his sister whom he adored. There are so many things he'd just not want to discuss with his mother: things she'd worry about. I think Rhaenys visits court when she can and when she's invited. Whether that's often, I couldn't say. She does seem to be in tune with the cost the arrangement of his marriage takes on Laenor, however, when she mentions it to Corlys in Episode 07.

I don't think the distance has quite taken root but I think she fears something drastic will happen to the relationship. She sees her son's misery and she fears losing him from an emotional perspective. She fears a precipice or an implosion: a breaking point. I think she wants change, in Episode 07. Maybe she hopes that something can be done and it seems to be on her to do it, whatever it is. Maybe she'd also hope that the move to Dragonstone would help - Dragonstone is closer to Driftmark.

Of course, she does end up losing him in a way she couldn't imagine. And whatever hopes she could have had die with her.

Imagine if we did get a Corlys seeing Rhaenys (he's talking to her whilst locked alone in his cell) and he says something about how, even if everything else is awful, at least living is preferable because, in life, he still sees her. He can still talk to her.

And with death, he feels as if he's bound to be separated from her forever, as he doesn't think he'll end up in the same place her spirit did.