btw, Daemon actually planned to trick at least one of the green brothers (Aegon or Aemond) by depending on their eagerness to win and prove themselves in battle...as he once did.
("The Blacks and the Greens") / ("Rhaenyra Triumphant")
horizon-verizon reblogged
Anonymous asked:
In the book, Aemond seems to have quite an obsession with Daemon. Where do you think it comes from, and how would you interpret/characterize it ?
I’m still thinking about it in ways that aren’t already know or talked about in the current fandom and here on Tumblr. So bear with me here. I might do many edits on this post in the immediate and far futures.
*Update* I was right.
In all and of the two, Daemon acts more out of love than Aemond does, even with him being as violent and brutal as he is. Daemon is flawed and cruel, while Aemond is evil and cruel, though both are ambitious. They both acted out of a lack of love or attentions or recognition at some point.
By and large, Aemond is a character who finds his personhood only through disenfranchising others. He is the potently evil shadow of Daemon. Aemond is a character who lacks love or a true understanding of respect and considers Daemon the beast to slay to solidify and validate his own existence, worthiness, and masculinity.
A)
Aemond is Daemon’s narrative and literary foil.
A foil is:
a literary device designed to illustrate or reveal information, traits, values, or motivations of one character through the comparison and contrast of another character. A literary foil character serves the purpose of drawing attention to the qualities of another character, frequently the protagonist. This is effective as a means of developing a deeper understanding of a character by emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, a literary foil allows writers to create a counterpart for the protagonist that puts their actions and choices in context.
B)
Both
They are both fighters with skill. Both are brutal and willing to get violent (but in different ways and reasons). Both are Targaryens and proud of it. Both want the throne or a strong claim to it. Both are second sons tasked with the role of supporting their older, not-very-competent or completely incompetent brother to keep or gain the throne and are passionate about it (for different reasons). Both squirm with the thought that their existence and purpose is to support such brothers but for different reasons.
And as @theblackqveen says, they even both have a connection to Visenya the Conqueror through her dragon and her sword.
Daemon
1)
Daemon is uncaring of not-family people. Not hateful, just uncaring and thus willing to spill their blood if that will bring him results (Jaime Lannister). Canonically (not HotD), he is a charismatic, violent, and ambitious man. He creates the gold cloaks and inspires the preexisting city guardsmen into believing in their own validity and strengths by revamping their looks, etc.
His mother died when he was 3 from labor complications. Unlike Viserys who seemed to have responded to this by being too much a people pleaser, Daemon sought to completely look out for a small set of people he would think of as his family or “close ones”.
Baelon’s grief would have inspired such reactions from his sons--Viserys to be eager and affectionate, obviously caring. He wants to believe that hospitality and following a sense of duty to those around him will bring him love or contentment. He may have found it difficult not to judge Daemon for taking a “misguided” approach or path, so when Daemon disagrees with him or disobeys his order or does something that is conventionally upsetting, he may have found it difficult to relate to Daemon or see things from his persepctive. While Daemon would, in my mind, is outwardly or superficially crotchety and unwilling to seek/initiate obvious intimacy but needing to be validated through his family and loved ones. However, he doesn’t think words or hugs brings comfort or favorable outcomes--he depends on action.
So he develops his own moral compass that is just adjusted to “do these people act like I matter to them and do they matter to me” all the fucking time because he comes from a dwindled, fraught lineage (Rhaenys' death in Dorne; Aenys' conflicts and stress with the Faith; the Faith; the conflict with Maegor and threat towards Jaehaerys/Alysanne; the internal issues in Jaehaerys' early reign and Rogar Baratheon; Aemond, Baelon, Alyssa, Viserra, Daella, Daenerys-- nearly all Jaehaerys and Alysanne's children die & Jaehaerys' political focus on the Targ's dominance-survival). That plus he wants to, in some way, bring glory, prosperity, and more power to his house.
Daemon and Viserys would have still received the genuine love of their father, Baelon, and would have grown up together as caring brothers, enough that they would know they loved each other. We have reason to believe that his upbringing was still loving and that he maybe thought himself his brother and father’s caretakers. If not in traditional sense, in that he is the one who will do “what it takes” to keep them afloat. In his mind. Especially after his father passes form a “burst belly”, leaving him and Viserys alone. Seeing how Viserys is so eager for validation and willing to have others have a say in what he does, it makes sense that he falls into this protector role even deeper.
2)
He also wanted to be an example of excellence and make a name for himself, especially with being a second son and without a clear, solid inheritance of authority. Second sons in this feudal society are thought of as “spares” in one sense, since if their older brothers die they can take their place and inherit the family resources and the authority over the house. so he’d have felt more pressure to prove himself in the shadow of his brother (while he wasn’t much of a warrior or inclined to develop physical prowess, Viserys was also considered quite attractive before he gained weight).
3)
He supports Viserys in that he was wiling to use a group of fighters to go against Corlys and his group for Viserys’ claim before Jaehaerys I called for the Great Council of 101 A.C:
Reports had reached the court that Corlys Velaryon was massing ships and men on Driftmark to “defend the rights” of his son, Laenor, whilst Daemon Targaryen, a hot-tempered and quarrelsome young man of twenty, had gathered his own band of sworn swords in support of his brother, Viserys. A violent struggle for succession was likely no matter who the Old King named to succeed him.
(Fire and Blood; A Question of Succession)
Yet, at 16 Alysanne marries him to Rhea Royce (the Runestone heir), and while this was a good practical marriage for creating more ties to the Vale and setting up Daemon with some money through his wife’s properties, etc., Daemon did not like the atmosphere, look, anything of the Vale, probably how far away it was from King’s Landing/Viserys--thus the emotional and physical isolation. That he was basically sidelined by his family, kept apart.
He likely thought that since Viserys already had Aemma Arryn (the person who even was the scion of the Lord of the Vale, he himself didn't need to also marry another Vale woman not of his choosing). [headcanon]
Viserys did not let him annul his marriage to Rhea despite its failure. Viserys is directly involved with Mysaria losing her child with Daemon when he forced Daemon to bring back the dragon egg and send her off to Lys:
When he learned that his concubine was pregnant, Prince Daemon presented her with a dragon’s egg, but in this he again went too far and woke his brother’s wroth. King Viserys commanded him to return the egg, send his whore away, and return to his lawful wife, or else be attainted as a traitor. The prince obeyed, though with ill grace, dispatching Mysaria (eggless) back to Lys, whilst he himself flew to Runestone in the Vale and the unwelcome company of his “bronze bitch.” But Mysaria lost her child during a storm on the narrow sea. When word reached Prince Daemon he spoke no syllable of grief, but his heart hardened against the king, his brother. Thereafter he spoke of King Viserys only with disdain, and began to brood day and night on the succession.
(Fire and Blood; A Question of Succession)
4)
He was also not at all attracted to his new wife. So now he knows what it’s like to be a political tool, or he feels like more of a device than a person part of something “great”? (I say somewhat facetiously, he still is a feudal man who is very proud of his aristocratic lineage throughout all 3 of his marriages)
And so their marriage becomes barren (no kids). She comes to hates him too for not loving her home, for openly showing his disdain for it and for her, and perhaps she feels he is unwilling to do his duty like her and she feels resentment towards him and his ability to just fuck off while also being happier with him gone [headcanon].
Daemon doesn’t and never has considered her “family”, is the point nor ever to be in the same league as him, not just because she wasn't royal. Partially because Targs are and have been considered unique and nation-movers right from the Conquest in broader Westerosi culture. She is not a Targ or someone he can think of as his match or someone he thinks could do as much a a Targ can, which presents very interesting questions as to whether or not his pride can be equated to Lannister exceptionalism...I'd say that, eh. The Targs have put their money where their mouth was in most of their generations (and we the readers know that like the Starks but more apparent, the Targs are the closest to being magical beings or have the closest access to real magic) while the Lannisters are more famous and powerful in the main storyline bc of Tywin's reputation gained from the Rains of Castamere/friendship with Aerys II (a Targ) and Steffon Baratheon [the allegiance gives power trio for a while that reflected back on Tywin]. So there's a level of him not believing that they could ever relate to each other. He might have thought it was like trying to get an elephant to mate with a zebra.
I don't think that we should tell people they shouldn't dislike him for that bc yes his person can read as arrogant and he's still a prince/male who has a lot of benefits over a woman like Rhea (but not the authority she has over her own men as a female ruler in her own right, which some might argue grinds his gears more as a second son and this is actually a very interesting and valid thought...but I also doesn't think it bothered him for long to have a wife who has more practical power over others than him since his marriage to Rhaenyra saw no attempts of him barrowing over her, so that would support the idea that Rhea having this wasn't really the issue). But considering how
Still, it's not because of anything she did to him, but because she was someone who enables him to be in a position that he really does not want to be in and he believes it’s unlikely that he’d ever get any sort of glory or power all the way in the Vale, away from King’s Landing, away from the throne. It’s also probable that she also had a very different--sort of "duty is everything, sacrifice your pleasure and making compromises aside"--personality than his, thus convincing him even less to actually try to forge some sort of bond with her. Stern, but too serious, punctilious, and [for him] overly tradition-bound and scrupulous. But who knows?! [headcanon]
Laena and Rhaneyra, though? They both obviously had a lot more in common with him other than being dragonriders than he ever did with Rhea. Laena has her adventurous-ness and some daring, and Rhaenyra has pride and that “restlessness” that Viserys of HotD mentions, that unwillingness to accept a lot or assignment. They are also both his closer blood relatives, real family (remember that he grew up alone with his brother and father, a small set emotionally dependent on each other but also probably not that expressive). Those marriages were better for him, both personally and politically.
Daemon also named his kids after loved people in his life or people who will give love to his daughters.
“Baela” -- “Baelon”. “Rhaena” -- “Rhaenys”.
Viserys (II) after Daemon's own brother, Rhaenyra after her father, and both to spite/oppose Alicent & give their son the cloak of Targ-ness and kingliness: out of pride/love, the latter the stranger reason while the former the icing on the cake.
Aegon (III) after Aegon the Conqueror (king-liness and house pride) & to spite/oppose Alicent.
"Visenya", after the woman who loved her siblings and son and put them first over herself or the realm.
5)
He strategizes more logically than Aemond does and is less prone to act on his anger. Contrast this QUOTE with THIS and THIS.
6)
He specifically distrusts other houses and nonfamily bc the Targs are the pinnacle of power with their dragons, conqueror past, and prestige. He knows other lords--like Otto and pretty much all the mentioned Hightowers (think Maegor, Ceryse Hightower, and the High Septon at the time)--will always have their own agendas.
The reason why Valyrian dragonslords literally kept it in the family was to keep their control of the dragons within their respective families so people like the Lannisters (Queen Dowager Rhaena, Jaehaerys' and Alysanne's older sister) or some nondragonlord Vlayrian family couldn't then acquire dragons to use them against them.
Again, bc he and his brother and father became their own unit--and then it was just him and Viserys--that sense of needing to stick together against others would and did only strengthen.
Aemond
1)
Aemond, by contrast, has little justified reason to hate Rhaenyra like Daemon hated or grew emotionally distant from Viserys.
While Alicent taught him to hate her, he still grew up with the assumption that he could and should destroy/rape people because his male, trueborness allows him to. His preoccupation with his maleness makes him think that he should usurp the heir, even though the law and precedent of “King’s word is law” (Viserys naming Rhaenyra as his heir and never straying) justifies his & the Greens’ treasonous actions.
Daemon, though he hated that Viserys named Rhaenyra as heir and not him, never actively tried to depose her or his own brother. Does Daemon have his own classist entitlement and ambitions, of course! He's a very proud prince in a feudal system with a family/house with a relatively short but twisted past as monarchs. He is also the person who walked around with non-nobles like a smallfolk in KL, like those in the City's Watch and inspired people to want to follow him.
2)
While Aemond grew up dragonless for 10 years, he was surrounded by family and Hightower supporters since birth who show no sign of mistreating him, at all -- unlike in the show. He does claim Vhagar he at 10, which is impressive (while cradle-bonding is not as impressive, nor did he surpass Rhaenyra, who claimed Syrax at 7. Just saying).
He has a history where his mother teaches him and his siblings to see Rhaenyra as unfit because she has extramarital/maybe premarital sex with unassigned men and gave birth to illegitimate children. The V boys, in Alicent’s eyes, don’t deserve to live or inherit the throne because of what the Faith says about bastards and because they are in the way of her own hous, herown, and her children’s power. Bastards are socially stigmatized and unfavorable because they are believed to be inherently untrustworthy and evil (Faith of the Seven).
By having bastards, Rhaenyra acts “unwomanly” and against the standards set for her gender–how can she be a good ruler?!
To him, Rhaenyra is a whore and an inferior person, her sons lesser than himself because their bio parents weren’t married (rumored but we know who the daddy is, not that it matters), and duty and custom goes above everything else, as Alicent teaches him.
3)
So it is Aemond’s duty to make sure that Aegon gets the throne, and for that to happen, Rhaenyra needs to go. Preferably violently. Alicent and Otto both emphasized this to him and Aegon practically since birth, and he would have grown up with this being understood as his main and single purpose. Daemon is what he sees as the obstacle to that goal.
However, Daemon supported more out of love and regard for what he believes would maintain his family's lives and power than duty and to prove his own male privilege. But Aemond sees in Daemon a competitor and his only worthy rival because of those similarities I just listed under “Both” as well as being the person who supports the enemy of the Greens (maybe not the Visenya bit...I doubt Aemond ever seriously thought about how they share a piece of her or her beyond the idea that she was a “witch”, even though he rode her dragon and they both have a strong hand in usurping a rightful heir [Maegor vs Aegon the Uncrowned]).
And with Aemond, perhaps following duty and acting out his role, like Daemon, is a way for him to claim some sort of love from his family, but as @hamliet says, I think love is a transaction for the Hightowers and reinforced that lack in Aemond, creating a cycle of dependency and focus on gaining power through his privilege.
EDIT #1 (inspired by mononijikayu's reblog HERE):
Daemon grew up knowing Alysanne was a huge part of making policies and supporting Jaehaerys' rule; his mother, Alyssa, was a Targ woman known for her actively practicing agency, and his father Baelon never married again after her, preferring to keep the memory of her close and continue to make sure she lived on; and he grew around Rhaenys since they were both children.
Part of his deal with Rhea Royce, therefore, was that he disliked that she was totally emotionally incompatible with him (his own parents were Dragonriders and we as people/humans can and often try to find partners that match the arrangement our *healthy* parents had...if he wants to marry in the traditional Targ way [we remember that Westerosi lords are allowed and did marry first cousins], it is not discriminatory as much as it is almost typical of a nobleman to want to marry within traditions...there is no real indication that he hated Rhea's entire person just because of her looks in the book and after inspecting the context but it certainly was his excuse).
I just want to make sure that people also know that Daemon is not a good person, a pretty bad one on the whole actually. He does manipulate young!Rhaenyra
(whether it's the sort of grooming we know where an adult tries to make the other emotionally dependent on them, isolate them from family, friends, etc., for the purpose of sexually assaulting them or inducing them to commit an illegal/illicit act, OR the sort of "grooming" that one does to make one their "perfect" partner or get them to be on their "side" of a sort [reminder, Viserys was ridiculous towards them both])
in some fashion. However, he also serves as Rhaenyra's partner in a way Aemond can't to any woman seeking power for herself. There lies the difference I am describing and which is the core of his characterization.
horizon-verizon reblogged
Anonymous asked:
The theory of Alys raping Daemon by deceit dates back to 2023.
It remind me of Merlin transforming Uther Pendragon to look like Gorlois so that Uther could have sex with Ygraine, the wife of Gorlois, leading to the conception of Arthur. But in Alys’ case, the theory is that she somehow fucks up Daemon’s mind, make him hallucinating he has sex with Rhaenyra when in fact he’s being raped by Alys.
One of the most disgusting thing about this being true is that they basically turn a rape victim into a rapist, Alys was taken as a SPOIL OF WAR by Aemond, and in Tumbleton, F&B explain what this mean for women. And if they keep Alys’ pregnancy, the baby’s father is going to be Daemon ?? 💀
Yes, I commented about this back in 2023, too. ["alys rivers' characterization" tag]. It's funny, I was just contemplating Uther and Morgana, but didn't go into how he sires Arthur yet.
I guess for now, we'll just have to wait and see if it has just been people hating on HotD in lieu of its other writing & messed-up characterizations/flaws.
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.
Anonymous asked:
Girl, Daemon chose death over returning to Rhaenyra bfr. Disobeyed her orders by giving her a huge fuck you, going literally against everything in her letter, knowing full well she would loose the war if he didn’t return. Daemon abandoned Rhaenyra. Which is why she rages in betrayal when she finds out. Because that’s what he did.
The following are the two parts of the moments pre-battle 7 the battle/aftermath between Daemon and Aemond: part 1 and part 2.
And this is a post about Daemon's fight with Aemond where I basically already answer and refute your thoughts, so you can go check that out or not. Up to you.
horizon-verizon reblogged
Let's talk about this scene from the show:
I have touched upon previously how I believe Aemond is basically a semi-well written self-insert of Condal. There is no other explanation, that how his character, out of all the children (even the literal supposed main antagonist, Rhaenyra's rival to the throne, Aegon!), is the only one properly fleshed out and given actual character depth. You might not agree, and think that what they did to Aemond was actually a good choice, but I dare anyone try to deny that Aemond ( especially compared to his book counterpart) doesn't get the spa treatment of characters.
By exploring his bullied childhood ( there is no mention of that in the book), the trauma of the only one not having a dragon (again, not really an implication in og canon of this), his neglectful father (again, not implicated in og canon), the writers managed to turn one of the most one-dimensional characters from the book to basically one of the most well-developed and the infamous words, most ‘complex and nuanced' characters in the show. After all, there is no denying that he became a huge fan favourite, indicating that Condal&Co did make an excellent choice rewriting his whole character.
I disagree. Not with him being extremely popular, that is quite evident, but that the changes they made with was a good choice in the matter of the whole story.
Making Aemond into his show version, this 'nuanced and complex' character is not only just being untruthful to the source material
(Which is fine, they are ought to do that. Fire&Blood is an ambiguous source material to begin with, which can be interpreted in so many other ways. This is just Condal&Co’s version, would it be someone else in charge, the show could be totally different), but it actually actively hurts other characters, even the ones on the same side with him.
Every scene featuring Aemond is about Aemond. And not only is it about Aemond, it's about highlighting Aemond. Making numerous lines or even monologues, visible or suggestive statements how he is better, smarter, stronger, braver, cooler, a better swordsman, more educated, hard-working, dutiful,more suited for the throne, morally superior and just a poor, bullied child, treated unfairly and deserving of better.
Yet despite all of this, Aemond, as every self insert, manages to beat the odds, and claims the biggest dragon in their world, becomes the best swordsman, and even stands up to his childhood bullies, absolutely humiliating them in every possible way.
After all of this, there is no soul able to convince me that he is not one of the most obvious self-inserts of recent television. The peak of this is definitely the dinner scene in episode eight of season one, which I will go in depth in.
A part of me is going to be biased, because Jace was (and still is) my favourite character in the Dance of the Dragons, and while he didn’t have that much time in the book (and let's not even talk about the show...) the text written about him, in my opinion, makes him a very interesting, compelling character, with much (sadly wasted) potential.
Even the mostly pro-green narrators (besides Mushroom, but then again, he was a literal fool), have nothing but praise to say about him during the whole book. Out of all the Targaryens & Velaryons, who were active during the war, Jace remains the only one, who was never presented in a negative light. The two, debatably, more ‘reliable’ sources (aka, not a court jester, like Mushroom) have these things to say about Jace in the books:
“Though his fifteenth nameday was still half a year away, Prince Jacaerys had proved himself a man a worthy heir to the Iron Throne.”
or about his death:
“Thousands died. Yet none of these losses were felt so deeply as that of Jacaerys Velaryon, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne.”
There are no such quotes about Aemond.
You can argue me all you want how book!Jace or show!Jace, no matter, he didn’t deserve the Iron Throne, because he was a bastard. Even the men writing the book about the victory of the greens, clearly biased towards them, have nothing, but praises to Jacaerys. Aemond was this so very important trueborn Valyrian looking Targaryen Prince, yet not even his own people liked him. That should be very telling.
But then of course, there is the show, and its interesting adaption of fire&blood and these characters. And of course, the (in)famous dinner scene.
I have listed many personality traits up before, which the show gave (or at least implicated to the point that fanon somehow became canon) Aemond. So far in the show, Jace’s whole personality is basically just being a bastard, sprinkled with some anger issues. That’s it.
Oh, yeah, and he is loyal to his mother, but even Aemond does that better lol. My bad, I forgot, they also made him a bully. To Aemond. Of course.
Despite, my clear love and bias towards Jace, I don’t want him to be this Gary Sue type of character. As I said, there is so much potential to his character. Show me his flaws, show him acting out, being insecure, doubting himself, working towards his goal, but then also represent his situation, why is he like that, what is he going trough, what does he think. I mean just who is he, besides a dirty, dark haired bastard son of Rhaenyra, who bullied, then attacked Aemond? Nothing.
Jace is not once shown in a positive light during the show.
He is being tormented as a child, just because of his looks, something which he becomes clearly aware of, the different treatment of certain adults around him. It makes him unsure, insecure, angry. Yet the show does nothing with that?
All that storyline is just about Rhaenyra having bastards, and people complaining about her having bastards.This could have been the foundation of such an interesting plotline, yet despite spending nearly two episodes with just this whole bastardy issue, all it causes is to strengthen the idea in the viewer, that yeah, that dark-haired little kid should not be around the throne. With the casting of the Velaryons, the whole matter is basically made into a joke, all in favor of the Greens.
Then, there is a whole scene dedicated Jace struggling with High Valyrian (the Targaryens’ mother tongue), despite him growing up in a household, where the only two characters, who were previously shown speaking fluent high valyrian, are his parents! In comparison, we have Aemond’s whole MONOLOGUE of how smart and studious he is. ( Which I get that it’s supposed to be taken with a great pinch of salt, but barely anyone does. Instead people take it seriously and they use it to further their headcanons of Aemond being this hard-working genius, who should be king,).
In the books, both Jace (“Jacaerys was fourteen, Lucerys thirteen; bold and handsome lads, skilled in arms, who had long served as squires”) and Aemond (“Prince Aemond, despite the loss of his eye, had become a proficient and dangerous swordsman under the tutelage of Ser Criston Cole”) are described as good warriors.
Mind you, there is an age difference between the two of them, Jace is fourteen, while Aemond is nineteen at the time when the dinner takes place. To put this into a modern perspective (which the green often love to do, especially with Alicent), Jace is a freshman in high school, while Aemond is a freshman in college.
Yet, it is only Aemond who is actually shown on screen to be a great warrior, while Jace…
Yeah. Dinner scene. The whole thing is just a mess.
For context, this is how F&B describes the scene:
From now on, I will be more focused on what happened in the show, and how it changes in comparison the original text, with the purpose of once again, making Aemond better and nerfing Jace (and other characters as well).
Obviously, this description is quite vague and the show did well in regards to filling in those holes, making the whole scene just much more emotionally impactful.
I think Luke mocking Aemond (even tho it feels out of space, because Lucerys is written as docile and weak and cowardly, who wants nothing, no Dritftmark, no anything in the show) actually gave us a glimpse of the dynamic they had in the book, so I liked that bit. Aemond getting pissed at that, was also a great move and in character for him, and the speech he gives is the same (with additions) as in the book.
However, this is the point where things change, and for the all the worse.
In the book, Jace ignores this clear provocation. In fact it’s him, who tries to wind up his other uncle by dancing with his wife, which works, and this incident is what leads to a near fight.
In the show, instead we are presented with a nasty tempered Jace, who gets immediately angry. ( Rightfully so! If Aemond can get angry at the pig, bringing him back bad memories, why can’t Jace, who has been called names and insults all his life? And the situation is not even on the same level. Aemond was a victim of a cruel prank, and years later on, Luke laughs at the memory of that, meanwhile Jace’s entire existence, and not just his, but his mother’s and brothers’ are threatened by those words!).
Things escalate quickly, but once again, all because Jace just cannot keep control of his temper, while Aemond remains cool and collected, it’s Jace who can' help himself, and throws the first punch. But oh, would you look at that, his punch doesn’t even have an affect on Aemond. In fact, he doesn’t even spill the drink in hands, it was that weak and pathetic. He laughs at the pathetic attempt of his not so strong nephew, then with one push, Jace is on his ass, completely humiliated. The SI writing shines bright: look at big, strong, cool Aemond, and then look at the bastard, who starts the fight then can't even finish it.
As I said, how SI-y Aemond is written does not only hurt the characters on the opposing team, but even the one who is supposed to be on the same side as he is: Aegon.
In og canon, despite his speech, Aemond is never involved in any of the fighting. The beef is between Aegon and Jace, over Helaena (who is probably just being used as a plot device, but with book!Helaena, that’s nothing new).
Yet, in the show, instead of Aegon, you know who is bothered by this whole thing? Aemond! Make no mistake, I’m not trying to say book!Aegon was this saint of a dude, who was madly in love with his wife and got angry to protect her honor of whatever, but with the clear animosity between the two fractions, this should be something that bothers Aegon. She is his wife, dancing with the enemy at this point. But no, Aegon doesn’t care, because you know, he is personality is just being a POS, unlike Aemond, who is the fierce protector of his beloved sister (or at least that’s what has being implied for months now by those who seemingly only watched the show. Just this scene made hundreds of Heleamond shippers, two characters, who by the way, never shared a conversation.)
And it doesn’t end there. In og canon, we have the near fight between Jace and Aegon separated by the kingsguards. Here, it is only Daemon’s presence which can stop big bad warrior Aemond. The message is clear. There is no other equal to Aemond, only Daemon. I understand that they are trying to build up the Battle of God’s Eye, so in that sense, it was a great moment, but if you think about it just a bit deeper, the whole comparison is kind of laughable.
I touched up on this a bit in this post, how HOTD are trying so hard to build this whole Daemon vs Aemond face-off up, but the truth is, no matter how much more Gary Suefication we will see with Aemond, if they are not willing to rewrite the majority of the Dance’s events, Aemond will never be on the same level as Daemon.
Somehow, based on the tumblr, tiktok and especially twitter content I saw regarding this topic, some greenstans, more especially, aemondswives, are convinced that Aemond was this fantastic, one of a kind, brilliant warrior, commander, etc, but no, he wasn’t.
So far in the show, we had one scene where he beats Criston Cole (love it or hate that man, but boy, did they do the Kingmaker dirty in that scene) a monologue about basically studying the blade and that’s it. And it's not like he is about to face worthy opponents in the future either. He duels with an old man, kills him, than executes his entire family, even the children. I’m convinced they will rewrite his death as well, and instead of Daemon killing Aemond, it will be a more balanced out fight, both dying in the process.
With all that said, this one only just the first season, the real deal is yet to come, and Condal&Co might surprise us.
I will be honest, I think they will continue to redeem and tone done Aemond in every chance they get, but at the end, who knows. Honestly, Aemond could have been such a great and complex ( yes, I dared to say!) villain, if they would have let go of the constant victimization, and instead focused more of his envious and jealous nature and narcissistic tendencies.
Astute Post about the Green and Black Boys
Parts to Esp Note:
Every scene featuring Aemond is about Aemond. And not only is it about Aemond, it's about highlighting Aemond. Making numerous lines or even monologues, visible or suggestive statements how he is better, smarter, stronger, braver, cooler, a better swordsman, more educated, hard-working, dutiful,more suited for the throne, morally superior and just a poor, bullied child, treated unfairly and deserving of better.
---
Jace is not once shown in a positive light during the show. He is being tormented as a child, just because of his looks, something which he becomes clearly aware of, the different treatment of certain adults around him. It makes him unsure, insecure, angry. Yet the show does nothing with that? All that storyline is just about Rhaenyra having bastards, and people complaining about her having bastards.This could have been the foundation of such an interesting plotline, yet despite spending nearly two episodes with just this whole bastardy issue, all it causes is to strengthen the idea in the viewer, that yeah, that dark-haired little kid should not be around the throne. With the casting of the Velaryons, the whole matter is basically made into a joke, all in favor of the Greens.
---
In og canon, despite his speech, Aemond is never involved in any of the fighting. The beef is between Aegon and Jace, over Helaena (who is probably just being used as a plot device, but with book!Helaena, that’s nothing new). Yet, in the show, instead of Aegon, you know who is bothered by this whole thing? Aemond! Make no mistake, I’m not trying to say book!Aegon was this saint of a dude, who was madly in love with his wife and got angry to protect her honor of whatever, but with the clear animosity between the two fractions, this should be something that bothers Aegon. She is his wife, dancing with the enemy at this point. But no, Aegon doesn’t care, because you know, he is personality is just being a POS, unlike Aemond, who is the fierce protector of his beloved sister (or at least that’s what has being implied for months now by those who seemingly only watched the show. Just this scene made hundreds of Heleamond shippers, two characters, who by the way, never shared a conversation.)
OP and the people hyping them up are one of the stupiest people I have ever seen. This level of delusion is laughable. Just cope guys. In the end Aemond kills anime character Daemon and it is Aegon who sits on the Throne as rightful King
PS: OP, learn some better english
This is going to be a long one.
I find it strange that you decided to follow me for the main purpose of putting people's analyses down with no counterarguments and ad hominems and shooting some xenophobia for shits and giggles (OP uses fine English, while you only wrote a paragraph and a sentence of English so it's very convenient how you yourself have not displayed your mastery of the language in a counter, long analysis...as if that would even prove you are also intelligent enough to matter in this discussion or any. As if English was THAT grand).
I mean, you (a clear green/anti-Targ [even though the greens are Targs....]) even followed me, a known Rhaenyra/Dany/Targ lover and defender, just to keep track of any future posts to shut down. It's as if you saw a random person in the street wearing a t-shirt with a message that offended you somehow and you decided to stalk them, shouting to everyone else how dumb and ugly they are. Do you understand how pathetic this is?
It tends to be the mark of a person who refuses to analyze, and thus eventually cannot analyze anything themselves. I'd say you should work on that, but then I'd have faith you'd understand the words I'm typing out right now as anything other than an insult in a useless battle. Which I don't, seeing as you don't even feel that it's worthy to think about OP's willingness to dissect how even Aemond's character could be even better in the show when they are a clear Jacaerys stan (maybe a black, Targ, Stan, I haven't checked).
Though you seem to think this is just a fandom thing, the problem you have is beyond the show or the original story. This is now fandom nonsense coming from personhood. Contrariness for the sake of feeling important and powerful. How terrible for the people who know you in real life.
A Long P.S.: You realize that there are no descendants of the greens on power or probably just alive and cognizant of themselves, to this present day of the ASoIaF timeline? That Aegon was basically symbolically rejected when he was poisoned by those who worked for him for a time due to Aegon's own rageful stupidity? People like you tend to support or cry out the image of Rhaenyra being symbolically rejected by the throne in her being (supposedly) cut, but a) she was wearing armor b) as I mentioned, Aegon was actually rejected by living, breathing people who wanted to protect themselves once he essentially showed himself to be an actual threat.
Aegon and the greens pushed for boys-only inheritance and primogeniture, whilst Rhaenyra ruling would go for "neutral" primogeniture. Ironic, isn't it, that by the greens doing that, they made it impossible for their only living (for a time) female scion to become a Queen in her own right after they themselves all die and lose. Then Jaehaera herself is killed by Unwin Peake (again, a past Green supporter) to make room for his own daughter... that sound familiar?
Aside from that last part, isn't it weird that under the blacks--or Rhaenyra's rule's effect on Westerosi society and politics--that Jaehaera has a stronger claim than under her own side of the family? That doesn't bother you or spark something of whatever little genius is in you?
While Rhaenyra's paranoia was a slow-built thing developed first from lifelong misogyny and then the unjustified, uneccesary deaths of her kids. What exactly was Aegon's excuse for turning on his people? He didn't even wish for this throne (and no that is not the best qualification of a leader) until he suddenly wanted it and would kill anyone, even in his council, to keep it BEFORE the war began! Rhaenyra died by an enemy who never pretended otherwise at least. And since she did nothing horribly wrong before being betrayed again and again AND losing kids, the sympathies are more (or should be, as written and intended) with her than with Aegon getting poisoned.
Finally, it seems you don't know how to read. Aemond was fully expecting to win that last fight and not die, esp because he had what he thought was Alys Rivers' visions back apart from having the bigger, older, and more experienced dragon. He was fully confident to triumph. He was not like Daemon, who knew that he would die and went ahead anyway, to destroy a person who he knew would be his person's worst military problem. The language itself follows Daemon's emotions and actions before the actual battle, so we are meant/guided to feel it through him and thus empathize and sympathize with DAEMON, not Aemond.
Aemond's emotions are very simple and one note while Daemon's were complex. Despite this being a history book, they were narrated from his finding out Rhaenyra didn't trust him anymore to his vigil at Harrenhal to his final thrust of Dark Sister into Aemon's remaining eye (adding insult to injury).
All of these are meant to illustrate Aemond's ironic and foolish overconfidence. Especially in light of how Alys herself was his sex slave/war prize and there is a good possibility she pushed him to his death if we can prove she did have visions or hypersensitivity or just knew Daemon well enough to bet on him from the time they were around one another at Harrenhal.
This is my post explaining (ranting a bit, but useful I think) in retracing Aemond's (original & show) persona. Take a gander, or don't. Up to you. I would assume since you followed me, you'd take the opportunity to try to dress me down. Good luck, I remain unimpressed.
Anonymous asked:
The comparisons between Daemon and Aemond are so hilarious because it’s “six men or sixty, he’s still Daemon Targaryen” and an angst teen homelander-esque incompetent loser who only ever won battles against the smallfolk of the Riverlands, an old man, and his grandchildren.
I understand the quote “Daemon was a hero to some and the blackest of villains to others”, the people of the Riverlands must have loved Daemon so much when the news from the battle above Gods Eye reached them, they thought “oh GREAT no more terrorism”.
"Love" is not that accurate, but they would feel happy that the threat against them was gone, yeah.
Daemon was admired by more people in or around King's Landing than anywhere else, where he has a less than illustrious reputation and has many people fear him the farther you go, because they wouldn't have actually seen or met him before then. At the same time, I also think many young boys out of the Crownlands also wanted to be Daemon from that same reputation of military prowess and ruthlessness, to have that fame and nortierity.
So "love" must be defined.
horizon-verizon reblogged
The show gives Rhaenyra's characteristic nervous habit of playing with her rings to Alicent in having Alicent shows her nerves through picking her fingers' skin, sans rings. But Rhaenyra/Emma D'Arcy, has no obvious outward expression of anxiety, whilst Young Alicent/Emilia Carey does (but not Olivia Cooke? where is the consistency?).
They gave Rhaenyra's canonical black/red dress reveal-and-entry to Alicent in her green-dress moment of episode 5. Rhaenyra's entry in canon is: her declaring political opposition to the already formed green faction; autonomous monarchial claim against Alicent and Otto's attempts to lessen the legitimacy of that; where she draws that claim from (the colors representing her house, her blood connection, and Viserys choosing her); AND her defying Alicent's domestic attempts at ruining her self esteem or disconnect her from her roots. It was her first real moment of triumph. Whereas canonically Alicent is one of Rhaenyra's antagonists; Alicent was the one who independently and intentionally used female chastity (a principle of sexual repression for women) against Rhaenyra to tarnish her reputation and public image in order to raise dissent against her and her prospective reign. And make her son seem even more desirable...which didn't work, as she continues and eventually has to imprison people to make way for herself and Aegon the Elder.
Second, not only does what HotD did steal most of Rhaenyra's agency and boldness to give to their diluted version of Alicent and incorrectly center her as if she were the protagonist of this story, it makes Alicent, of all people, the one who experiences the a central problem of this story: societal misogyny. It removes Alicent's accountability and suggests that Rhaenyra is the problem. That whatever Show!Alicent perceives Rhaenyra to have done (lied to her, didn't stay "chaste" like her by sleeping with a person outside of marriage, didn't recognize her queenly authority how she thinks she should...when all that actually matters is Viserys' word AND it is actually Otto who put her in the position she is in to fear absolutely knowing what that portion entails [as he thinks]), that is the wrong being done here....when it is really Show!Otto's ambition.
Some may say, after watching this show, that Rhaenyra should have observed her friend's anxiety as she was "talking" with Viserys...but Rhaenyra 1) lost her mother just a few months (presumably) earlier 2) is just coming into her heir duties and activities, one of which was her choosing her personal guard in the various candidates Otto tries to present to her, and we see in that particular point that she also had to come up against people doubting her, questioning her...why? because she is both young and female. It does not require much imagination to figure out that Rhaenyra was going through her own stuff that justifiably draws her attention away from Alicent, who could have also told her what was going on but didn't. 3) By principle, Rhaenyra was also developing her own life and growing into her own adulthood -- making a life for herself.
Where would she have the emotional bandwidth to catch everything going on with her friend in the face of all mentioned?! In relationships, we take turns to support the other. Rhaenyra is the one with less room to do something since her fears, duties, grief, loneliness, and prerogative to live all are present and probably emotionally overwhelming, understandably making her less aware of others when the are not either the focus or means to accomplishing those ends of monarchial duties or alleviating misery. Alicent is fully aware of what's happening and knows that it would hurt Rhaenyra' emotional and political position even worse to follow through without resistance...yet chooses not to tell her and maybe thinks of ways to resist, even with Rhaenyra.
And again, even that ambition is being denied to Alicent herself, who canonically drives much of the green cause by attacking Rhaenyra since the latter was 10 before the war begins until her grand moment of calling the green council.
Thirdly, all of these changes...just to ultimately create confusion in narrative direction and switch/reduce the philosophical and political priorities (are we against misogyny or against others having what we want but deny ourselves because we actually like the patriarchy that has actually victimized us?). We have fallen from criticizing how women with internalized misogyny target other women to gain whatever power a patriarchy seems to bestow them to what HotD gives us -- a woman not being rewarded by being "good" and compliant with the patriarchy, as if compliance is the answer to escape the suffering caused by the oppressve forces one is told to comply with and obey! So the message is that we should always follow and conform with unjust social hierarchies?!
The fourth problem with what HotD did is that in the writers' probable justification of not giving Rhaenyra her dress moment because viewers should already know that red and black are her families colors and that they will deduce that the blacks' name come from that, they reduced all of what I point out the moment meant in canon to it being "obvious" why the blacks are called the blacks.
Fifthly, the Hightowers' colors are not even green. If anything it would be silver or grey! And the firelight the Hightower tower basis the usual red, orange, and yellow in real life and in their sigil. So not only did they remove Rhaenyra's agency-practicing moment, they moved away from the fact that Alicent chose green independently as her own faction and cause' color. She was staking a claim herself, for herself! And as @mononijikayu says in the linked reblogs, green-as-the-color-Alicent-chooses thematically works to show how her own envy, greed, ambition, and tyranny subsequently has her lose all of her children and die alone and delirious. Similar to how Jaehaerys I's tyranny and misogyny against his own family causes him to be completely alone the day he died, as Saera was his only living relative aside from Viserys, Daemon, and Aemma Arryn, who all did not seem to care about the man one way or another nor were raised close to him.
This user/anonymous asker told me how some green stans give Daemon's narrative of self sacrifice for family and faction to Aemond.
The show refused to give Mysaria and Daemon his and Mysaria's grief over their baby's loss and a justification of anger against Viserys other than not being made his Hand, but it will very likely give Aemond an arc of passion with Alys Rivers and a pregnancy partially to mimic the "children having children" arc they gave to Alicent and partially to facilitate the idea of him making mistake after mistake from him maybe choosing "fuck duty", or just running from it (Ryan Condal's "theory of reactions and accidents") as this other user contemplates. Meanwhile Mysaria and Daemon were always in a consensual relationship....and Alys was Aemond's war prize and sex slave, so there was no consent there. (And if she did have visions, and she told Aemond that he should meet Daemon and where to find him....it is also very possible that she saw Aemond die....such a situation leads me to believe that this was not the sunshine and roses relationship many green stans like to think.)
The show made it much easier to see Rhaenyra as the aggressor against Criston....meanwhile it's too arguable that even as young as Rhaenyra was at the time (15), she'd ever go for Criston when you read the account (in order: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). That it was most likely Criston who wanted Rhaenyra and she rejected him while he tried something. It is especially important to note this part of the text I didn't include that is between the last two quotes I do give:
However it happened, whether the princess scorned the knight or he her, from that day forward the love that Ser Criston Cole had formerly borne for Rhaenyra Targaryen turned to loathing and disdain, and the man who had hitherto been the princess’s constant companion and champion became the most bitter of her foes.
Thus relying more on Mushroom's (the arguably most unreliable narrator and source for the events pre and during and post-Dance -- those who will try to make anything sexual and exaggerate just to self-aggrandize and attention) account of how Rhaenyra and Criston fell out......sure.
It refused to insert or to imagine any of Aegon and Aemond's pre-Dance misogyny towards Rhaenyra (an example) that would have existed following Alicent teaching them all how to view her. Or any of his pre-Dance viciousness: "Two years later, she produced a daughter for the king, Helaena; in 110 AC, she bore him a second son, Aemond, who was said to be half the size of his elder brother, but twice as fierce ("A Question of Succession"). Aemond's probable bullying of the V boys made into Aegon, his own brother, being one of his bullies despite this quote and its emphasis that no matter what Viserys tried, all five boys couldn't get along and that the green boys resented the V boys for taking what they thought was theirs.
But sure, we get Show!Daemon obviously kill his wife with a rock -- not even an assassin -- despite the fact that he was at the Stepstones, still fighting and preoccupied, when Rhea died and it took a few more days after the nine it took for her to die for him to even be notified of her death and travel to the Vale. The same woman who would have, if she had been able to sit up and talk, immediately name foul play with her canon dislike of Daemon.
As I mentioned before above, this show even removes Alicent's biggest and game-changing, plot-driving, self-determined act to convene the green council while purposefully leaving Viserys' body to rot over to the council members acting under Otto and ignoring her until she has to yell at them, and even that is ignored as we see her wrestle against Otto to bring Aegon in. Instead of them working together to do so, illustrating further how a woman can work with patriarchal authorities and use the power the system allows her to block another woman. The most memorable thing adult Show!Alicent did was to gives her feet over to Larys to drool over in a very disturbing voyeuristic scene, just so she gets information...this show is even more misogynist and unrealistic towards Alicent than the book/the maesters could ever be, for the sake of making Alicent a victim instead of a woman who decided to use power for power's sake. Because apparently that's an anomaly or a sexist take...that women could hurt themselves, their children, the children of others, and other women who arguably are in similar sociopolitical positions for power.
And because they aged Alicent down, her kids are all supposed to be aged down, so that in itself can and has drawn more sympathy (whether intentional or not) for the greens for what will happen in the next season to them. While we get no other scenes of how Alicent and Rhaenyra even interacted and how their relationship became nothing (ignore Alicent of episodes 8-9, this is such a terrible switch up because it makes no psychological sense) during the time between the 6th and 7th episode, how Alicent would have a isolated, victimized, antagonized, and pressured Rhaenyra as we saw her do at the 6th episode's council. Because, apparently, these women can still theoretically become friends again even after all of this AND Lucerys' death?
But then you can't tell a good or fair story about a feudal family, about "generational conflict"...without showing how two of those generations....fought each other at home AND then at war.
So Twitter made me realize another thing about HotD's writing, about a thing that may or may not be taken from one character and given to another, this time between Daemon and Aemond:
In the show, Daemon is the one to have a weird psychosexual relationship with Viserys through Rhaenyra (as Condal and others write it). He pursues Viserys through her.
Meanwhile the prime or closest relationship to be called psychosexual in the book and in canon lore is between Aemond and Daemon, with Aemond symbolically pursuing Daemon through Rhaenyra, but more subtly.
That he dismisses Rhaenyra one moment ("The whore on Dragonstone is not the threat, "he said. “No more than Rowan and these traitors in the Reach. The danger is my uncle. Once Daemon is dead, all these fools flying our sister’s banners will run back to their castles and trouble us no more.”) and then goes back to insult her as if she truly were the threat is telling.
A)
I don't think Aemond wanted to have sex with Rhaenyra, but I do think we can make an adaptation where it's clear he wishes to embody Daemon through violence (verbal, promised physical, or otherwise) against Rhaenyra. It's already canon.
Condal said many times that Daemon loves Viserys through Rhaenyra, that he devotes himself to his brother through his wife as if Rhaenyra were a tool to connect again with Viserys. Which is part of their justification for why they made him choke her in episode 10. Meanwhile, though book!Daemon could have still loved Viserys after he sent Mysaria away and caused Mysaria and Daemon to lose their child (what would have been Daemon's first), it is made very clear that Daemon regarded Viserys less. Plus he spent 10 years or so with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone without visiting Viserys much. If there were any progress as to their relationship, Gyldayn and the others who lived at the time would have mentioned it, as Gyldayn bothers to when he says that Daemon "grumbled" more after Mysaria lost the child.
Much of incel culture stems from not the "reality" of not having any options of female sex partners available to them because of anything that women do, but from the desire to impress and avoid rejection from their male peers. Men grow up valuing emotional connections with other men/boys (but not feminized emotional expressive connections except for very specific ones), while devaluing those with women/girl. So they become unwilling and unable to emotionally connect with women or believing that they could have platonic relationships with women. Even in their formative years, they are taught that women and girls are devices to be used for male respect and male intimacy.
A lot of the time people witness men participating in conversations between men/boys about how many women/girls they can attract without care to if they actually like the women/girls. Because the point is to show other men that you are sexually virile and therefore have power/worthy of respect.
While some women and girls do compare and talk to each other about how attractive they are to men/boys, femininity is not itself dependent on "active" sexuality so much as "passive" sexuality. Going out and convincing someone to sleep with you versus looking "good" to be worthy of sleeping with. We give more passes, as a society, to ungroomed or unhygienic men than we do women of the same conditions.
Male respect is dependent on active sexuality. I once heard a male acquaintance that the reason why there's more respect given to a guy when he's had a woman or declares that he has had what's thought of as a lot of sexual female partners is because it is "harder" for a man to get a woman to sleep with them than it is for a woman to convince a man to sleep with her.
However, this assessment ignores what I already pointed out with men needing male validation, rejecting female friendship, BUT also how women and girls are expected and socialized to not be assertive or confrontational by institutions apart from parents (as well as some parents and cultures), as well as the woman/girl's protecting themselves from male aggression, men's insistence past the women's reluctance and their word "No".
So it is actually very hetero for men/boys to reject emotional intimacy with women for male intimacy, sexual or not.
B)
If Aemond wants to be as feared and respected, make a name for him myself and glory, his rival/model is Daemon. The respect he wants is from the hetero, patriarchal, feudalist, monarchist society then it is from Daemon the man -- Aemond wants Daemon's status, but better.
And who is the person who gets to enjoy intimacy from him as well as the woman who "doesn't know her place"? Rhaenyra, who he sees as standing in his path towards his rival and said glory in every way.
Which is why he hates her so much and emphasizes her gender and her vagina almost every chance he can get in the book. He can't take it out on Aegon, his brother, the person who receives eminence just by being firstborn, his elder brother, the one Alicent is fighting Rhaenyra for and pressing all of them to consider as the one to support, and being his King.
And he couldn't for a long time against Daemon, because Daemon reasonably has much more of a physical and mental edge--by virtue of his experience, older age (not old, I mean by him being older than Aemond and having more years to have his skills, etc.) and Daemon--unlike being a person who their society would allow the grace of siding with, since Rhaenyra is already going against the patriarchal more of male exclusionary power by insisting on pursue the throne.
Anonymous asked:
I feel like i am in the minority in team black spaces who liked that Aemond lost control of Vhaegar and killed luke because to me this provides a good explanation how Aemond despite having the largest dragon still lose against his 50yr uncle with a much smaller dragon. Because he is that incompetent in controlling a dragon lmao
*EDITED POST* 4/11/24
I know that this was a very simple ask, but it really got me thinking, so here is a longer post than you may have not wanted or expected.
I personally still don't care for Aemond trying to rein Vhagar in, but I subscribe more to the idea that it's primarily his control over his own emotions--not just his skills as a dragonrider--that made his HotD!self "lose control" over Vhagar. We already see that in HotD, the rider and dragon are psychologically & emotionally connected, and Vhagar thus would have felt Aemond's gleeful rage and bloodlust...therefore she felt that call for blood herself and didn't hold back.
A)
The book/GRRM is making clear, from the get-go, that we should not rely so much on "bigger". Something else is at work here, and we can't ignore Aemond's personality as to how he would have lost to Daemon. And then ignore how Daemon won (despite killing himself to do it) to just mock and continue to underestimate the adage of bigger =/= better.
Even still, some people will try to minimize this moment's point and mock how small Caraxes is, and how ridiculous it looks for him/her/they to have beat Vhagar...meanwhile it is not only canon, it is a repeated event in fiction and real life.
So one just sounds like a sore loser. Because one is a sore loser. They have to mock Caraxes to feel better about Caraxes/Daemon winning. Like folks, I show below.
There is this post on Twitter with a picture of Caraxes biting Vhagar behind the eyes right at the juncture between skull and back, and I think this picture's Caraxes having a mouth that is large enough to get enough neck shows us how smaller dragons can do that to a bigger dragon because that is a weak spot for dragons apart from their bellies and eyes. In a dragon v dragon fight. (Scorpions are more for eyes, even if you hit a dragon in the belly with a scorpion, they can heal enough and fly if they are big enough.)
But especially if the rider is up to sacrificing themselves or taking that huge risk for that win, as Daemon shows.
Nevertheless, these are the comments to a that tweet:
The person who says "they have to make Caraxes look bigger for it to look realistic", just doesn't get it. One, dragons aren't real and all we know about Caraxes is that like Meleys (due to age) he was one fo the biggest dragins that existed at the time. Just because Vhagar was the oldest and biggest of all the Targaryens' dragons, doesn't mean other dragons weren't themselves huge. Even Cannibal and Grey ghost were rumored to be gigantic, even thought they were smaller than Vhagar.
Or, again, they forgot or are desperate to redeem Aemond's awesomeness...even though they likely hate Visenya, the woman who brought in this dragon to conquer Westeros and allowed people like these two to live and use/battle this dragon in the first place. Why would they hate her? Green stans are usually either Targ haters and/or think they are colonizers, OR they just think of Visenya as the one entirely responsible for Maegor. She partially was, but Maegor's personality seemed just as patriarchally and selfishly entitled as Aemond's.
Whoops, did I just notice a parallel? That can't be important and tell us anything about what kind of character and situation we're dealing with here, oh no....
B)
I think you are still looking at this moment both the canon and the show too cursorily. This moment is more than just how big dragons are and I don't think that we can pull it down to even how well the two battlers (because Lucerys didn't even try to fight) were good at fighting.
The Aemond killing Luke scene in the show is not just about who had the better dragon or even skillset or even Aemond's attitude throughout those two scenes and his own family context. The scene--if we take the producer/writer at face value--is telling us that Aemond never wanted to kill Luke, just psychologically torture him. To ignore that is to ignore the themes and change to what the writers are pulling over you.
Not taking them at face value because they constantly contradict themselves, with the repeated attempts at reducing Aemond's accountability into a pattern of whitewashing AND making him much less bold than he is in the book I disagree with you.
And I don't mean "bold" in a 100% positive way, only that he is too contained in the show. (Also explained by Seth Abramson HERE.) Again, there was a purpose to that change. So while that may be convincing if you hadn't read the book, think bigger is always better, and haven't gotten to know the lore, again, I can't agree with you.
Of course, having or being bigger gives you a great advantage, and of course, skills matter to even the playing field if you are the one smaller or have the smaller weapon. But did you read the book, anon, at least the account of the Dance? Because this is the description of how Caraxes downed Vhagar, despite being smaller:
The attack came sudden as a thunderbolt. Caraxes dove down upon Vhagar with a piercing shriek that was heard a dozen miles away, cloaked by the glare of the setting sun on Prince Aemond’s blind side. The Blood Wyrm slammed into the older dragon with terrible force. Their roars echoed across the Gods Eye as the two grappled and tore at one another, dark against a blood-red sky. So bright did their flames burn that fisherfolk below feared the clouds themselves had caught fire. Locked together, the dragons tumbled toward the lake. The Blood Wyrm’s jaws closed about Vhagar’s neck, her black teeth sinking deep into the flesh of the larger dragon. Even as Vhagar’s claws raked her belly open and Vhagar’s own teeth ripped away a wing, Caraxes bit deeper, worrying at the wound as the lake rushed up below them with terrible speed.
AND how this allows Daemon to go in for his own kill:
And it was then, the tales tell us, that Prince Daemon Targaryen swung a leg over his saddle and leapt from one dragon to the other. In his hand was Dark Sister, the sword of Queen Visenya. As Aemond One-Eye looked up in terror, fumbling with the chains that bound him to his saddle, Daemon ripped off his nephew’s helm and drove the sword down into his blind eye, so hard the point came out the back of the young prince’s throat. Half a heartbeat later, the dragons struck the lake, sending up a gout of water that was said to have been as tall as Kingspyre Tower. ("Rhaenyra Triumphant")
Now some people will say that this couldn't be how things went down. Yes, GRRM certainly indulges, and it's partially because how else can we have access to one of the most important battles of this war?
However, there, later, when they find the bodies at the bottom (except Daemon's), they find Aemond with Dark Sister through his skull just as written: "When she [Vhagar] was found some years later, after the end of the Dance of the Dragons, Prince Aemond’s armored bones remained chained to her saddle, with Dark Sister thrust hilt-deep through his eye socket."
And Caraxes made it long enough to die moments later on the shores of this lake, while Vhagar had sunk to the bottom of a lake. Why? Because of that very bite that he/she/they tore from Vhagar to bleed her: "Caraxes lived long enough to crawl back onto the land" vs "Vhagar’s carcass plunged to the lake floor, the hot blood from the gaping wound in her neck bringing the water to a boil over her last resting place".
C) *an replacement*
Jaehaerys and Braxton Beesbury also fought each other in a trial by combat after Jaehaerys gave him the "choice" between that and mutilating/castrating him, as punishment for "disporting" with Saera at the brotherl the Blue Pearl ("Policy, Progeny, & Pain"):
Aemond was 20, Braxton was 19; Jaehaerys, like Daemon, was 49. Jaehaerys beat Braxton by essentially tiring him out and using his rashness of youth against him. Plus his own rage at Braxton "despoiling" Saera. By contrast, Daemon fought to protect all his remaining family members form Aemond and Vhagar being the biggest threat to Rhaenyra (besides Aegon's fewer followers/Larys Storng's manipulations/the KLers' fear).
Yes, in ASoIaF, "old" men & "smaller" or presumably weaker dragons can disable or kill an opponent whose strengths might be their weakness simultaneously.
So, really, I think that it is you who either forgot or doesn't know that a high fantasy series often uses smaller or well-known storylines, tropes, and subverts expectations to reveal truths. That not recognizing that the HotD writers are making their own themes that flout the ones present in canon all to just justify and whitewash this character for the sake of generating new interest for this franchise.
Anonymous asked:
I hate it when people compare Aemond to Visenya and Daemon to Maegor the cruel ?! It's supposed to be the other way around ! Daemon is Visenya and Aemond is Maegor ! Fucking hell ! (At least if we want to compare I mean. Book or series)
Also, this delirium of saying that Aemond is an anti-hero... So these people certainly haven't read the books, but even in the series, Aemond does not tick any of the anti-hero boxes.
Aemond is a villain. That's all. Having him kill Lucerys by accident on the show doesn't change that fact, it just makes him look like a jerk.
In episode 8, we see him literally enjoying the decapitation of Vaemond, when we have never seen such an expression (of pleasure, let's not lie) on Daemon's face when he was killing people. Simply because Daemon doesn't find it funny to kill people, nor does he kill them for fun.
Also, Aemond remains, series or book, a misogine and blood purist. What Daemon, book or series is not.
So, I'd like to know how people's brains work to call Aemond an anti-hero...
This post is EDITED.
There's nothing really "good" about this guy except his mother (so arguable and only if you stan or approve of her) and the fact that he rides Vhagar. And before others crow about how this is supposed to make him thematically paralleled to Visenya, may I point out that it is Daemon who has Visenya's sword, Dark Sister. Given to him when he became a knight at 16 by Jaehaerys I (yes, that misogynist prick of a King). You know....the sword that is more symbolic of familial protection than a dragon that only owes its allegiance to whoever rides it (not a bad or inferior thing, just need to point out how swords have the symbolism of political and emotional loyalty that accentuate familial love and bonds when we note their signifier of royalty and feudal protections, whilst dragons have a broader, more varied character).
And Dark Sister has a long history of loyal, loving supporters of Targ heirs and rulers: Daemon, Brynden Rivers, Baelon (after Aemond dies, in revenge mission), Visenya....come on now! Jaehaerys I even wields it when he is reclaiming his birthright. Plus, swords culturally carry so much history
Aemond is like Visenya in that he enables the wrong candidate to be/maintain being the King, but Daemon is like Visenya in that he has done and will do whatever it takes to support their person above all, through extreme violence. Daemon takes after most of the best or admirable of Visenya. (The brutality unfortunately is also inherited and shared with Aemond)
Do we remember how Visenya told Aenys I to burn down the Holy Sept? How she definitely reveled in burning Dorne after Rhaenys' death? What sort of passion for a relative/lives does Aemond canonically display? How she made a point to Aegon I about him needing a personal guard by being quick with her sword and cutting his cheek after he wouldn't listen? The same guy who didn't go to King's Landing to rescue his mother and sister after Rhaenyra took it despite saying he would?
But by being raised by Alicent (who would have despised Visenya and her "witchery" and just by being a confident, proactive woman) how the hell would Aemond care for Visenya, the figure, at all?
As for Daemon being Maegor....Maegor openly killed people who did not deserve it.
Vaemond? Deserved.
The "criminals" of KL? Dicier, admittedly. It's not like Daemon would care to take a breath to discern who is merely accused and who actually did those crimes. Mirrors how Visenya was willing to murder anyone in the Sept along with that High Septon.
Rhea Royce's death? He def would have done it, but as for did he do it? Plausible deniability (but for me, it didn't happen at all): she took 9 days to die (not his MO of quick deaths) and he was at the Stepstones for all of it. Horse riding is dangerous as hell, Rhea would be surrounded by people in her hunting retinue, servants, etc so there were witnesses, Daemon could've had her killed long ago when they were still married and even had it done through an assassin when Rhaenyra had her first period and was marriageable but didn't (instead marrying Laena, too), and if he did send an assassin why did this person leave Rhea to linger at all? Why would a good assassin just let Rhea longer for 9 days (why would Daemon not hire a good one if he were going down that route? Even if he didn't have the funds to hire a VERY good killer, if he was dedicated to having her killed, it'd have to be a proper job or he'd be accused easily, so again, he'd like to find one of the better skilled assassins, which is expensive)? And why wouldn't Daemon hire a good killer?!
Laenor? If not Corlys (and why not, but that's a separate discussion), then Rhaenys, who has known Daemon and lived close to him for years, thinks he didn't do it he didn't. Neither stupid nor unobservant, this one. Passionate about her family as well. She would have never let Daemon get away with it.
Rhaenyra Winning King’s Landing (Excluding Some Events in B/T)
Meanwhile, Prince Daemon Targaryen himself hastened south on the wings of his dragon, Caraxes. Flying above the western shore of the Gods Eye, well away from Ser Criston’s line of march, he evaded the enemy host, crossed the Blackwater, then turned east, following the river downstream to King’s Landing. And on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra Targaryen donned a suit of gleaming black scale, mounted Syrax, and took flight as a rainstorm lashed the waters of Blackwater Bay. High above the city the queen and her prince consort came together, circling over Aegon’s High Hill.
The sight of them incited terror in the streets of the city below, for the smallfolk were not slow to realize that the attack they had dreaded was at last at hand. Prince Aemond and Ser Criston had denuded King’s Landing of defenders when they set forth to retake Harrenhal... and the Kinslayer had taken Vhagar, that fearsome beast, leaving only Dreamfyre and a handful of half-grown hatchlings to oppose the queen’s dragons. The young dragons had never been ridden, and Dreamfyre’s rider, Queen Helaena, was a broken woman; the city had as well been dragonless.
Thousands of smallfolk streamed out the city gates, carrying their children and worldly possessions on their backs, to seek safety in the countryside. Others dug pits and tunnels under their hovels, dark dank holes where they hoped to hide whilst the city burned (Grand Maester Munkun tells us that many of the hidden passageways and secret subcellars under King’s Landing date from this time). Rioting broke out in Flea Bottom. When the sails of the Sea Snake’s ships were seen to the east in Blackwater Bay, making for the river, the bells of every sept in the city began to ring, and mobs surged through the streets, looting as they went. Dozens died before the gold cloaks could restore the peace.
With both the Lord Protector and the King’s Hand absent, and King Aegon himself burned, bedridden, and lost in poppy dreams, it fell to his mother, the Queen Dowager, to see to the city’s defenses. Queen Alicent rose to the challenge, closing the gates of castle and city, sending the gold cloaks to the walls, and dispatching riders on swift horses to find Prince Aemond and fetch him back.
As well, she commanded Grand Maester Orwyle to send ravens to “all our leal lords,” summoning them to the defense of their true king. When Orwyle hastened back to his chambers, however, he found four gold cloaks waiting for him. One man muffled his cries as the others beat and bound him. With a bag pulled over his head, the Grand Maester was escorted down to the black cells.
Queen Alicent’s riders got no farther than the gates, where more gold cloaks took them into custody. Unbeknownst to Her Grace, the seven captains commanding the gates, chosen for their loyalty to King Aegon, had been imprisoned or murdered the moment Caraxes appeared in the sky above the Red Keep...for the rank and file of the City Watch still loved Daemon Targaryen, the Prince of the City who had commanded them of old.
Queen Alicent’s brother Ser Gwayne Hightower, second in command of the gold cloaks, rushed to the stables, intending to sound the warning; he was seized, disarmed, and dragged before his commander, Luthor Largent. When Hightower denounced him as a turncloak, Ser Luthor laughed. “Daemon gave us these cloaks,” he said, “and they’re gold no matter how you turn them.” Then he drove his sword through Ser Gwayne’s belly and ordered the city gates opened to the men pouring off the Sea Snake’s ships.
Fire and Blood, by GRRM, pg 452-454
[How Rhaenyra Won King’s Landing PT1]
The show gives Rhaenyra's characteristic nervous habit of playing with her rings to Alicent in having Alicent shows her nerves through picking her fingers' skin, sans rings. But Rhaenyra/Emma D'Arcy, has no obvious outward expression of anxiety, whilst Young Alicent/Emilia Carey does (but not Olivia Cooke? where is the consistency?).
They gave Rhaenyra's canonical black/red dress reveal-and-entry to Alicent in her green-dress moment of episode 5. Rhaenyra's entry in canon is: her declaring political opposition to the already formed green faction; autonomous monarchial claim against Alicent and Otto's attempts to lessen the legitimacy of that; where she draws that claim from (the colors representing her house, her blood connection, and Viserys choosing her); AND her defying Alicent's domestic attempts at ruining her self esteem or disconnect her from her roots. It was her first real moment of triumph. Whereas canonically Alicent is one of Rhaenyra's antagonists; Alicent was the one who independently and intentionally used female chastity (a principle of sexual repression for women) against Rhaenyra to tarnish her reputation and public image in order to raise dissent against her and her prospective reign. And make her son seem even more desirable...which didn't work, as she continues and eventually has to imprison people to make way for herself and Aegon the Elder.
Second, not only does what HotD did steal most of Rhaenyra's agency and boldness to give to their diluted version of Alicent and incorrectly center her as if she were the protagonist of this story, it makes Alicent, of all people, the one who experiences the a central problem of this story: societal misogyny. It removes Alicent's accountability and suggests that Rhaenyra is the problem. That whatever Show!Alicent perceives Rhaenyra to have done (lied to her, didn't stay "chaste" like her by sleeping with a person outside of marriage, didn't recognize her queenly authority how she thinks she should...when all that actually matters is Viserys' word AND it is actually Otto who put her in the position she is in to fear absolutely knowing what that portion entails [as he thinks]), that is the wrong being done here....when it is really Show!Otto's ambition.
Some may say, after watching this show, that Rhaenyra should have observed her friend's anxiety as she was "talking" with Viserys...but Rhaenyra 1) lost her mother just a few months (presumably) earlier 2) is just coming into her heir duties and activities, one of which was her choosing her personal guard in the various candidates Otto tries to present to her, and we see in that particular point that she also had to come up against people doubting her, questioning her...why? because she is both young and female. It does not require much imagination to figure out that Rhaenyra was going through her own stuff that justifiably draws her attention away from Alicent, who could have also told her what was going on but didn't. 3) By principle, Rhaenyra was also developing her own life and growing into her own adulthood -- making a life for herself.
Where would she have the emotional bandwidth to catch everything going on with her friend in the face of all mentioned?! In relationships, we take turns to support the other. Rhaenyra is the one with less room to do something since her fears, duties, grief, loneliness, and prerogative to live all are present and probably emotionally overwhelming, understandably making her less aware of others when the are not either the focus or means to accomplishing those ends of monarchial duties or alleviating misery. Alicent is fully aware of what's happening and knows that it would hurt Rhaenyra' emotional and political position even worse to follow through without resistance...yet chooses not to tell her and maybe thinks of ways to resist, even with Rhaenyra.
And again, even that ambition is being denied to Alicent herself, who canonically drives much of the green cause by attacking Rhaenyra since the latter was 10 before the war begins until her grand moment of calling the green council.
Thirdly, all of these changes...just to ultimately create confusion in narrative direction and switch/reduce the philosophical and political priorities (are we against misogyny or against others having what we want but deny ourselves because we actually like the patriarchy that has actually victimized us?). We have fallen from criticizing how women with internalized misogyny target other women to gain whatever power a patriarchy seems to bestow them to what HotD gives us -- a woman not being rewarded by being "good" and compliant with the patriarchy, as if compliance is the answer to escape the suffering caused by the oppressve forces one is told to comply with and obey! So the message is that we should always follow and conform with unjust social hierarchies?!
The fourth problem with what HotD did is that in the writers' probable justification of not giving Rhaenyra her dress moment because viewers should already know that red and black are her families colors and that they will deduce that the blacks' name come from that, they reduced all of what I point out the moment meant in canon to it being "obvious" why the blacks are called the blacks.
Fifthly, the Hightowers' colors are not even green. If anything it would be silver or grey! And the firelight the Hightower tower basis the usual red, orange, and yellow in real life and in their sigil. So not only did they remove Rhaenyra's agency-practicing moment, they moved away from the fact that Alicent chose green independently as her own faction and cause' color. She was staking a claim herself, for herself! And as @mononijikayu says in the linked reblogs, green-as-the-color-Alicent-chooses thematically works to show how her own envy, greed, ambition, and tyranny subsequently has her lose all of her children and die alone and delirious. Similar to how Jaehaerys I's tyranny and misogyny against his own family causes him to be completely alone the day he died, as Saera was his only living relative aside from Viserys, Daemon, and Aemma Arryn, who all did not seem to care about the man one way or another nor were raised close to him.
This user/anonymous asker told me how some green stans give Daemon's narrative of self sacrifice for family and faction to Aemond.
The show refused to give Mysaria and Daemon his and Mysaria's grief over their baby's loss and a justification of anger against Viserys other than not being made his Hand, but it will very likely give Aemond an arc of passion with Alys Rivers and a pregnancy partially to mimic the "children having children" arc they gave to Alicent and partially to facilitate the idea of him making mistake after mistake from him maybe choosing "fuck duty", or just running from it (Ryan Condal's "theory of reactions and accidents") as this other user contemplates. Meanwhile, Mysaria and Daemon were always in a consensual relationship even if he was definitely exploiting her being in SW....and Alys was Aemond's war prize and sex slave, so there was no consent there--to all the shippers of the latter. (And if she did have visions, and she told Aemond that he should meet Daemon and where to find him....it is also very possible that she saw Aemond die....such a situation leads me to believe that this was not the sunshine and roses relationship many green stans like to think.) [8/30/23] AND the show cheapens Daemon's contention with Viserys after his habitation in Dragonstone to his just fucking around to fuck around, as this Twitter user named Branwyn the Half-witch says:
Mysaria’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage (which hardened Daemon’s heart against his brother) to Daemon just messing around for no reason. It removes any sympathetic or human motive Daemon has for his rebelliousness, and ditto for Mysaria.
Yes, Daemon loves his chaos to a degree…but that is to a degree and circumstantial. Viserys definitely committed wrongs against Dameon, which motivates Daemon to "act out" or ignore/defy him. Plus, as hamliet explains, there is a pattern of Mysaria being concerned or affected by the loss of children from her own loss of a child by Viserys forcing Daemon to abandon her. As a sex worker, she's not "allowed" to grow a family or obtain some sort of self-sustenance outside of the exploitative sex industry embedded within this patriarchal system. Thus, it is likely she targeted Nettles, arranged for Blood & Cheese to kill either Aegon or one of his kids, & gave away the information about Maelor to Heleana (triggering Helaena to kill herself) to strike back against any Targ...perhaps. [check out hamliet's breakdown of Mysaria's motivations for doing all she did after being exiled HERE] NUANCE!
The show made it much easier to see Rhaenyra as the aggressor against Criston....meanwhile it's too arguable that even as young as Rhaenyra was at the time (15), she'd ever go for Criston when you read the account (in order: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). That it was most likely Criston who wanted Rhaenyra and she rejected him while he tried something. It is especially important to note this part of the text I didn't include that is between the last two quotes I do give:
However it happened, whether the princess scorned the knight or he her, from that day forward the love that Ser Criston Cole had formerly borne for Rhaenyra Targaryen turned to loathing and disdain, and the man who had hitherto been the princess’s constant companion and champion became the most bitter of her foes.
Thus relying more on Mushroom's (the arguably most unreliable narrator and source for the events pre and during and post-Dance -- those who will try to make anything sexual and exaggerate just to self-aggrandize and attention) account of how Rhaenyra and Criston fell out......sure.
It refused to insert or to imagine any of Aegon and Aemond's pre-Dance misogyny towards Rhaenyra (an example) that would have existed following Alicent teaching them all how to view her. Or any of his pre-Dance viciousness: "Two years later, she produced a daughter for the king, Helaena; in 110 AC, she bore him a second son, Aemond, who was said to be half the size of his elder brother, but twice as fierce ("A Question of Succession"). Aemond's probable bullying of the V boys made into Aegon, his own brother, being one of his bullies despite this quote and its emphasis that no matter what Viserys tried, all five boys couldn't get along and that the green boys resented the V boys for taking what they thought was theirs.
But sure, we get Show!Daemon obviously kill his wife with a rock -- not even an assassin -- despite the fact that he was at the Stepstones, still fighting and preoccupied, when Rhea died and it took a few more days after the nine it took for her to die for him to even be notified of her death and travel to the Vale AND what we know about horses (reblogs of @the-king-andthe-lionheart's post....forgot to credit and tag). The same woman who would have, if she had been able to sit up and talk, immediately name foul play with her canon dislike of Daemon.
As I mentioned before above, this show even removes Alicent's biggest and game-changing, plot-driving, self-determined act to convene the green council while purposefully leaving Viserys' body to rot over to the council members acting under Otto and ignoring her until she has to yell at them, and even that is ignored as we see her wrestle against Otto to bring Aegon in. Instead of them working together to do so, illustrating further how a woman can work with patriarchal authorities and use the power the system allows her to block another woman. The most memorable thing adult Show!Alicent did was to gives her feet over to Larys to drool over in a very disturbing voyeuristic scene, just so she gets information...this show is even more misogynist and unrealistic towards Alicent than the book/the maesters could ever be, for the sake of making Alicent a victim instead of a woman who decided to use power for power's sake. Because apparently that's an anomaly or a sexist take...that women could hurt themselves, their children, the children of others, and other women who arguably are in similar sociopolitical positions for power.
And because they aged Alicent down, her kids are all supposed to be aged down, so that in itself can and has drawn more sympathy (whether intentional or not) for the greens for what will happen in the next season to them. And I mean for locals who've never read the book or just its account of the Dance.
While we get no other scenes of how Alicent and Rhaenyra even interacted and how their relationship became nothing (ignore Alicent of episodes 8-9, this is such a terrible switch up because it makes no psychological sense) during the time between the 6th and 7th episode, how Alicent would have a isolated, victimized, antagonized, and pressured Rhaenyra as we saw her do at the 6th episode's council. Because, apparently, these women can still theoretically become friends again even after all of this AND Lucerys' and Visenya's deaths?
But then you can't tell a good or fair story about a feudal family, about "generational conflict"...without showing how two of those generations....fought each other at home AND then at war.
#rhaenyra targaryen#alicent hightower#hotd characterization#aemond targaryen#daemon targaryen#daemon vs aemond#hotd critical#hotd season 1#hotd male gaze#hotd misogyny#rhaenyra and feminism#rhea royce#team black thoughts#daemon and rhea royce#hotd comment#male gaze#hotd green-washing#hotd rant#Rhaenyra's characterization#hotd changes#asoiaf#hotd
Anonymous asked:
Are you looking for a misogine? It's Aemond. Not Daemon.
Looking for someone who cares about his family? It's Aemond. Not Daemon.
Looking for a mass killer? It's Aemond. Not Daemon.
Looking for a killer on a member of his own family? It's Aemond. Not Daemon. (at least until he kills Aemond at the end)
Are you looking for a rapist? It's Aemond. Not Daemon.
Are you looking for a dance manager? It's Aemond. Not Daemon.
Is it crazy that people are so blind? All this hatred of Daemon, to accuse him of the things that Aemond did, without proof, and to deny Aemond's actions by saying that the text is unreliable... This is probably one of the biggest jokes of all time. I will never understand.
"All this hatred of Daemon, to accuse him of the things that Aemond did, without proof, and to deny Aemond's actions by saying that the text is unreliable..."
That's the craziest part. Then how the hell do they know that the worst parts told about Daemon were all true, not misinterpreted, or not twisted into something else?!
Anonymous asked:
Do you know who is truly becoming "the internet boyfriend" ? It's Aemond not Daemon , Daemon is nothing but a gr***** and a ped* to these people. Aemond is actually the Gary stu of Hotd , the man who studied blade and philosophy, the rider of the largest dragon (can't even control her) long blonde soft hair (literally got the best wig) , cool anime clothes. I mean they literally created their internet boyfriend by themselves then start attacking anyone who loves Daemon because we don't know any better.
Anon is talking about Sara Hess' words in this Hollywood Reporter article. And a Gary Stu is the masculinized form of the original moniker for a character that is an author-insert used for wish-fulfillment and/or an idealized character talented at everything and with no real flaws but could have a tragic backstory, aka, the Mary Sue.
Oh, anon....if any green saw this, they’d tell you that you’re discriminating against the image that “many” woman and girls swoon over. Pleas, anon, I can’t afford another attack.
JK, I don’t care.
And I agree with you. Aemond is very dolled up, let’s say. The hair,
Credit: woistmeinavocado
the stoicness, the smooth flair as he’s fighting, the straight posture and arrogance...without the canonical misogyny and dismissals of women. A recipe for attraction.
I think because the writers feel that Aemond and Daemon are supposed to be different versions of each other that they made Aemond his own hearthrob. He is supposed to match (actually oppose) Daemon in every way. I remember seeing a meme of Aemond and Daemon where Aemond is saying he’s the upgraded version of Daemon.
Prince Daemon took Caraxes up swiftly, lashing him with a steel tipped whip until they disappeared into a bank of clouds. Vhagar, older and much the larger, was also slower, made ponderous by her very size, and ascended more gradually, in ever widening circles that took her and her rider out over the waters of the Gods Eye. The hour was late, the sun was close to setting, and the lake was calm, its surface glimmering like a sheet of beaten copper. Up and up she soared, searching for Caraxes as Alys Rivers watched from atop Kingspyre Tower in Harrenhal below.
The attack came sudden as a thunderbolt. Caraxes dove down upon Vhagar with a piercing shriek that was heard a dozen miles away, cloaked by the glare of the setting sun on Prince Aemond’s blind side. The Blood Wyrm slammed into the older dragon with terrible force. Their roars echoed across the Gods Eye as the two grappled and tore at one another, dark against a blood-red sky. So bright did their flames burn that fisherfolk below feared the clouds themselves had caught fire. Locked together, the dragons tumbled toward the lake. The Blood Wyrm’s jaws closed about Vhagar’s neck, her black teeth sinking deep into the flesh of the larger dragon. Even as Vhagar’s claws raked her belly open and Vhagar’s own teeth ripped away a wing, Caraxes bit deeper, worrying at the wound as the lake rushed up below them with terrible speed.
And it was then, the tales tell us, that Prince Daemon Targaryen swung a leg over his saddle and leapt from one dragon to the other. In his hand was Dark Sister, the sword of Queen Visenya. As Aemond One-Eye looked up in terror, fumbling with the chains that bound him to his saddle, Daemon ripped off his nephew’s helm and drove the sword down into his blind eye, so hard the point came out the back of the young prince’s throat. Half a heartbeat later, the dragons struck the lake, sending up a gout of water that was said to have been as tall as Kingspyre Tower.
Neither man nor dragon could have survived such an impact, the fisherfolk who saw it said. Nor did they. Caraxes lived long enough to crawl back onto the land. Gutted, with one wing torn from his body and the waters of the lake smoking about him, the Blood Wyrm found the strength to drag himself onto the lakeshore, expiring beneath the walls of Harrenhal. Vhagar’s carcass plunged to the lake floor, the hot blood from the gaping wound in her neck bringing the water to a boil over her last resting place. When she was found some years later, after the end of the Dance of the Dragons, Prince Aemond’s armored bones remained chained to her saddle, with Dark Sister thrust hilt-deep through his eye socket.
That Prince Daemon died as well we cannot doubt. His remains were never found, but there are queer currents in that lake, and hungry fish as well. The singers tell us that the old prince survived the fall and afterward made his way back to the girl Nettles, to spend the remainder of his days at her side. Such stories make for charming songs, but poor history. Even Mushroom gives the tale no credence, nor shall we.
It was upon the twenty-second day of the fifth moon of the year 130 AC when the dragons danced and died above the Gods Eye. Daemon Targaryen was nine-and-forty at his death; Prince Aemond had only turned twenty. Vhagar, the greatest of the Targaryen dragons since the passing of Balerion the Black Dread, had counted one hundred eighty one years upon the earth. Thus passed the last living creature from the days of Aegon’s Conquest, as dusk and darkness swallowed Black Harren’s accursed seat. Yet so few were on hand to bear witness that it would be some time before word of Prince Daemon’s last battle became widely known.
Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin, pg 500-503 [Daemon vs Aemond Pt2; Boss Battle]
#harrenhal#daemon targaryen#aemond targaryen#daemon vs aemond#characterization#daemon's death#aemond's death#fire and blood quotes#asoiaf quotes#alys rivers#Fire and Blood#asoiaf#a song of ice and fire#rhaenyra triumphant#dying of the dragons#dance of the dragons#daemon's characterization#aemond's characterization
Anonymous asked:
What are the Byronic heroes exactly? Why is Daemon an archetype?