The point of her story was to highlight how no matter how good or evil or morally ambiguous a person you are, if you are female, you are subject to losing a power men are just granted. Or usurped. And this is inherently wrong. Rhaenyra chose to go to war rather than give up. This is valuable. Visenya was not thinking "for the realm" or for the benefit of smallfolk or outside of her family, yet she as so many fans bc she was not passive or restricted by "madness". She has less sexist writing.*
A)
Show!Viserys’s ailment is far worse than it was in the book, so Rhaenyra seeing his death imminent is not canonical. Writers’ fault, no matter what GRRM says.
This alone would require a total rewrite of how things went down as to how the Greens usurped Rhaenyra both in the show and the book. Because unless Viserys were to explicitly tell Canon!Rhaenyra to go back to Dragonstone, I do not think that Book!Rhaenyra would look at Show!Viserys' condition and not stay at the Keep.
That the writers didn’t think of this, intentionally refused to follow through, means that they either wanted to write this show for mere bucks and were too lazy/uncreative to rewrite and follow their own rewritings OR they sincerely think Book!Rhaenyra is inherently unfit for the throne.
B)
You: “Rhaenyra deserves to be usurped in the show because of her stupidity. She shows no political cleverness and easily allows the Greens to increase their influence and control at court, which is why she is so easily usurped.”
What I am about to say is true for BOTH show and book Rhaenyra, bc the the story, her story, is the same:
I don't deny that Rhaenyra's last choices at KL were unstrategic OR self-contradictory (Rosby and Stokeworth [self contradictory in principle, strategic for the practical...in the moment], the Velaryon bastards-turned-lords, & Nettles). That after Nettles, she shouldn't have ruled.
I also think that those decisions are reflections of the already existing Targ-Andal patriarchal, blood-purist paradigm, that Rhaenyra is the example of a character who was FIRST felled down by the people around her (and harassed since childhood--10) and THEN by her own actions that were responding to those harassment and external doubt in her because she is a woman first invested with and then choosing to press for power and a position taken from her.
While it is definitely true that Rhaenyra seems to have always had some Targ-Andal elitism that built some of her confidence in her claim's validity, the personal history, plus the long societal censure, plus her kids dying would have some sort of effect on her. And it did, namely her doubling down and attempting to maintain control at all costs and most "conveniently"--or in the quickest gratification--which means conceding about Rosby and Stokeworth and attacking Nettles to reclaim Daemon (not just sexual partner, but her military and political support who if he had children with another would create competition for her and her kids).
I have a post where I talk about how Book!Alicent was majorly stupid HERE and how Show!Alicent is horribly written AND was never a true friend of Rhaenyra/a nonthinking "person" HERE & HERE. just because I never ever hear how people think ALicent messed up (and she did) espe making her anger lead her there. In fact, many actors did, and they are somehow "better" than Rhaenyra to some people bc they do not characterize Rhaenyra's feelings and responses as either consequential.
And then there is jeynearrynofthevale's post about how HotD failed or what they could have done to make the show better HERE, where they say:
Spend way more time on court politics and the buildup of the dance. Show why the two sides are falling the way they do and establish the core issues at play. Spend some more time establishing the characters before time jumps. Maybe give Rhaenyra motivation for ruling in terms of what she wants to do. Have her and Alicent navigate around each other in court.
Partly, I think that the kind of frustration people feel towards horror movie characters for not doing this and that has been copied just a little bit towards Rhaenyra and not enough on the writing of this show.
Canon!Alicent and Rhaenyra were 9 years apart and Alicent turned on Rhaenyra ever since she birthed Aegon II, so we know she has plotted against rhaenyra since then. And argued with Rhaenyra, openly since she was at least in her early teens.
Why did the writers choose to remove Alicent’s evil stepmother characterization and replace it with a pseudo-best friends relationship? Because they (Migeuls Sapochnik and Sara Hess I think) thought it was too discriminatory towards Alicent...meanwhile this experience of an older woman victimizing her stepchildren or just other children for the sake of her own power or her own children’s safety/prosperity is a very real and common event. And women can just want to benefit from the patriarchal system and freely victimize or fight other women for power within that system.
It is actually feminist to tell such a story, to let people see that cycle of patriarchal abuse and selfishness, how it enlists women to attack each other or attack vulnerable people. To remove that from Alicent and to make Rhaenyra this conciliatory person willing to give up the throne “for the realm” as Viserys told her is to make the general phenomenon of women wanting power into an inherently evil thing.
Canon!Rhaenyra didn’t want power and decided that everyone was now her bitches, anon, she wanted it because she was selected for it, and she feels up to the task so it is within her dignity, and Viserys explicitly named her as his heir. She never doubted her own rights visibly. And she "grew up" and stood up for herself in her black/red dress moment, you know, that moment that the writers gave to Alicent.
In the same canon moment, she was also silently saying to Alicent that she wasn't putting up with her domestic bullshit. So even Show!Rhaenyra is lacking and a reflection of sexist writing.
Here are a few posts as to why this show is sexist despite it claiming it is feminist:
- Male Gaze, Female Vicitmization, and Visual Eroticism in HotD (a reblog of my post written by xenonwitch)
- The essentialist argument of "Women-pacisift-and-weak vs Men” (written by rhaenyragendereuphoria)
- Evil Women and Patriarchy (by ainomica)
- Evil Stepmothers ARE Compelling (by minetteskvareninova )
C)
Rhaenyra is Princess/Lady of Dragonstone. She inherits a lord’s authority over it at the age of sixteen in the book, as is royal custom. Dragonstone:
- is her family’s original Targ seat of power in Westeros (Aegon I and the Targs pre-Conquest)
- the one place where her authority goes uncontested, so it is here where she can bunker her children and has already accumulated resources against the Greens
Basically, this requires more of a Doylist reading of HotD and a look at how the writers chose to write this season and how Rhaenyra/Alicent grew up while at court after both marry.
And in canon, Rhaenyra dragged Maester Gerardys with her to Dragonstone to heal Viserys when Mellos wasn't helping at all, but Alicent wanted her to leave afterward, saying Rhaenyra was an interloper:
but Alicent was the one to try to send Rhaenyra away, saying she "meddled" into affairs that she mean to mean were not Rhaenyra's problem... despite Viserys being her father...:
This, again, indicates that Alicent has been working to isolate and exclude Rhaenyra for years before and after Daemon came back in 111 A.C.
Alicent used to try to welcome Rhaenyra as a daughter, or at least be well-meaning sometime before her son was born:
Rhaenyra was born 97 A.C. Aegon was born 107 A.C. Rhaenyra was 9-10 years old when he was born, which means Alicent started to resent and plot against her at that time:
Alicent very clearly was building a faction and garnering support against Rhaenyra, and couple that with what happened to Otto, plus how hateful they became of each other, what Alicent thought she and her son were owed...I think it's very safe to say that she put Rhaenyra down a lot in the Red Keep with innuendoes, implicit insults, remarks, etc. also remarks meant to make her look bad or sluttish, like this one:
Why this change? Or really, the suppression of the heat between them, the lack of backfire against Alicent?
D)
You: “Aegon II isn’t a better ruler in any way, but his council certainly is, and if he behaves like Robert Baratheon who was always drunk, his council would just rule the realm for him.”
You obviously never read the book. From the beginning, Aegon wanted and took control. while Criston lied to him that Rhaenyra would kill him otherwise, Aegon--I as I argue--likely always felt at least entitled to the throne and jealous of Rhaenyra's state if only because he feels entitled to a lot of things as a prince (his gluttonous and assaultive behavior). Only Alicent and his sister-wife being able to hold him back so he could be persuaded into not killing Rhaenyra. Twice. (Posts HERE, HERE, QUOTE #1, QUOTE #2, and what he would have done to Rhaenyra’s son, Aegon the Younger).
Aegon II and Robert Baratheon are still two different people, with different circumstances. Aegon II was born a prince and rode a dragon, inheriting the magical ability to ride dragons. He has his pride and because Alicent directly taught him to consider his own sister lesser, he was very eager to become king no matter what Septon Eustace has to say about it.
He argued with Otto directly for not bringing about things the way he wanted to. Robert never argued or felt powerful/able enough to argue against Tywin.
But he never allowed others to rule for him until he shattered and burned his body while fighting Rhaenys. and even after he does what he does at Dragonstone...I already alluded to it above in the parentheses where I give links to posts and quotes.
*EDIT* And then what happens AFTER Otto and Alicent dies?
E)
You: “I’m not against Rhae Rhae because she’s a woman, I’m against her because she’s just stupid and reckless. I’d be equally as against her if she was a man. [...] So I believe that Aegon’s council would rule the realm way better than Rhaenyra would.”
And yet, you think that Otto Hightower, the man who pushed Rhaenyra into the heir position by convincing Viserys to do so just so he can prevent Daemon being named heir -- thus he and Viserys started this whole debacle (if we were to argue about who was politically stupid here and set up this civil war) -- is a good candidate for ruling of any kind?
The same Show!man who forced his own daughter to marry a rotting, much older man just so he can seat her/Viserys’ sons by her on the throne for his own selfish benefit?
The same man who enabled Vaemond to go against Corlys’ wishes for Lucerys to get the Driftmark seat?
We can go back to how people expressed how the lords of Westeros and their kids looked at Rhaenyra askance because they were anxious that bastards in their own families would have an easier time contending with them....but:
All this shows misogyny on your part, anon. Sorry about it.
