01.05 // We Light The Way (dir. Clare Kilner)
Rhaenyra changing into a boy and sneaking out, and alicent drinking pregnancy-preventing tea while looking out of the window. The naked gymnasts in the brothel and the pornographic tapestries in viserys’ and alicent’s bedrooms. Daemon holding rhaenyra’s hand throughout their walk, and viserys holding alicent’s hand as he maritally rapes her. “Fucking is a pleasure, you see…” cut to alicent staring blankly at the ceiling under viserys. Rats and the dirty kid reporting to otto.
This specific scene. This fucking scene. Man, this scene. Larys is obviously a creep but this is such a… universal experience for women. Not as in ‘every woman has had a man jerk off to her bare feet two feet away from her’ but as in “men only befriend women to get in bed with them”. As in the constant objectification. The constant question at the back of the mind of any woman who watches the world carefully. The question, is what this man says sincere? Or is it but an attempt to acquire something I would not give from me? As in the men who jerked off to Marilyn Monroe and then advocated for the version of her murder instead of suicide because the fact that she might have hated it all enough to kill herself was unbearable. As in the millions of male porn addicts who joke about it as if they aren’t jerking off to videos of women being hurt and raped. As in men describing women’s bosoms more than their emotions in books. As in your colleagues and teachers staring at your chest, joking about your ass, touching you. As in men catcalling you on the streets. As in men seeing you as a pair of nice feet, not as a grieving, feeling, conflicted human being with longing and sadness and joy in your heart.
Some of my favourite shots from this episode
