editorialized torpedo

I didn't add this part, assuming people would find it, but here is one post about Daemon & Alys. Where I included a quote Abt nothing being said Abt Alys while Daemon had Harrenhal and the narrator telling us that if she had any powers ("Whatever"), they did not have the same effect on Daemon as they did (if they existed) on Aemond. Once again, more proof how Aemond is Daemon's foil character.

So while we shouldn't speculate too wildly when it comes to trailers, those who read the book enough might not be able to help but spy the possible turns this season might take. And they had him say alone that Mushroom says AFTER the Dance happens (episode 5, to Laena). It seems to me that the show will make Alys a magical seductress who will try to Daemon insults and dismisses. Maybe she will try to get pay back and/or to assure her safety from him & his soldiers, she will use her somehow complex and strong magic--that's she couldn't use to just...run away and live on later when Aemond seizes the castle?--to humiliate him/get a better position than the other inhabitants of Harrenhal.

A leading question and mystery surrounding Alys Rivers has always been how much power--social and magical--did she really have, or what type and quality of acumen did she have as a woman in the midst of a seizure between 2 battle-focused and reputedly impatient men with dragons. This question--indirectly asked in the book because of her survival of these two men and the war when most of the Targs died (despite her closeness to them, her class, parentage, & her gender)--is one that Mushroom, Eustace, and Gyldayn all try to answer and all tend to fallback on old sexist tropes or the thinking that she had to have used some sort of magic and her unexpectedly younger looks to make Aemond think she was attractive enough to become his bedmate and war prize in spite of her age. For him to be so devoted to her as he seems to be, esp when he did not even manage to get properly betrothed to a Baratheon girl he had the choice to marry before he killed Luke.

Munkun says that he and Borros were haggling over dates and dowries before Luke arrived. So Aemond was also risking displeasing one of his own side's allies. Yeah noble and royal men have mistresses, but this early on and with a bastard woman who was much much older than the bride to be can still easily get accused as him snubbing the "better" "woman" with the "better" lineage. So that Aemond and not Daemon choosing Alys AND Daemon seemingly choosing Nettles and not Alys (Nettles is brown skinned, Alys isn't) is perplexing and can only be explained as Alys having strong magic to take away a man's will, this foreshadowing Rhaenyra's own assessment of Nettles.

They may or may not be taking Nettles completely out and I highly doubt that her skin color will be a factor in any possible accusations show!Rhaenyra makes against her since Rhaenyra never showed any distaste towards the Velaryons--again, the show cannot make skin color a part of the accusative narrative Rhaenyra makes against Nettles as it would really confuse people and they are really trying to make her more palatable in the show. Some fans have stated that they don't even think Rhaenyra sent that letter to Mooton to kill Nettles because of this tendency of outside entities' biased interpretations or agendas against these two perhaps messing with their correspondence AND it looking to them like a cool parallel to how they write about Alys. 🤷🏿 I don't know about that, but IDK.

Gyldayn especially credits Aemond a bit too much in my opinion. Or, in being of when and how he speculates why Nettles might have appealed to Daemon, Gyladyn does not credit or properly acknowledge and internalize the phenomenon of men choosing to make their own needs first and go against the grain when they have the leeway that a lord has over the domain he has "conquered". The "grain" here is the idea of males preferring young maidens. Gyladyn doesn't really account or conceive of how thrilling or validating it would be for some men to think that "claiming' an older women also works, in their mind, to "distinguish" and elevate them above other men, since the woman, with her experience, is herself a "prize" distinguishable and perhaps more emotionally even-keel to in turn give assurances to someone as repressed as Aemond that he would not see youngel girls capable of doing. Aemond likely thinks of himself as the exception, so he needs an "exceptional" woman as his "mate" that distinguishes him as "exceptionally" powerful. It's similar to that mythological principle of the King conquering that "Beast" or nature and thus proving his martial and-thus-political prowess. Aemond could have been put into this protector role of his side of the family's interests without experiencing gentler moments from any of his family members (except maybe Helaena...maybe) so he'd grasp at any form of intimacy that he thinks he can also still be direct and be the dominant of. Gyldayn is still in the mind of strategy and tactics, which is a field where BK!Aemond never showed much care to engage in. Show!Aemond shows nothing like that either, despite the "philosophies" comment. And I mean he displays no sort of wisdom, nor cleverness in his actions nor his words to anyone, and no his "Strong" comments of episode 8 are not clever.

It doesn't take much brain power to call someone already suspected as a bastard a bastard using a pun of their accused father's surname. Some might find it funny, but you finding humor in a thing doesn't define the thing you find humorous as "clever", just how you feel about that comment, the context, and the perception behind such comment.