In "Fire and blood", Rhaenyra is 'good girl who turns bad because of all the injustices that were done to her', but in the show, Alicent is the one in that role.
Yes exactly. Ok big meta coming because I feel inspired, I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense.
Condal got caught up in this whole "this is not a legend, this is a Greek tragedy" kind of thing, he even said so. Greek tragedies are notorious for having multilayered storylines where everybody has kind of a point and a reason to do what they do and miscommunication/misunderstandings and errors of judgement are always a major catalyst in the plot. There are no true villains in Greek tragedies. There are antagonists though, because while everyone has "reasons" and "justifications" for their actions, that doesn't make their actions just. There is only one line of action that is truly just. That's the whole fucking point. You got to have one hero. Everybody is important but there is this one person the story is focused on, this one person the audience should really relate to/fear for/pity. That person in this particular story is Rhaenyra. If you put Alicent at the same place as Rhaenyra, or worse, at the place where Rhaenyra should be, you cause confusion and you fuck everything up. Both characters have reasons behind their actions but there has to be only one character that is in the right, and that is Rhaenyra. Both characters will be punished for their errors, the hero will suffer because of the antagonist first of all, and their own errors of judgement (tragic flaws) and the antagonist will then suffer for their vile deeds in relation to the hero. That's a Greek tragedy. Simple.
All of this is fucked up in HotD because the author of the source material established a clear antagonist (Alicent and her sons) and a clear flawed tragic hero (Rhaenyra). It was really simple in the books, it was really in your face. No matter how hard Condal tries, he cannot make his story (about males being the main antagonists and females being the victims) make sense. Because this directly contradicts the basic facts of the story he chose as a basis for his work. His story is another story, it is definitely not Fire and Blood. The problem is that the story in Fire and Blood is so superior and clear that the locals are completely oblivious to Condal's agenda, don't give a fuck about Alicent or Rhaenicent and obsess over Daemon and Rhaenyra because the facts are there, so is the soul of Martin's work, despite of all the show's efforts to the contrary. This is the right side. The right side will suffer because of fatal flaws, that's why it's a tragedy, but it's still the right side.
The biggest power of Greek tragedies is simplicity, something that is forgotten in modern media. In all of the characters' complexity, reasons, excuses and mistakes, there is one particular "hand" of truth and justice that comes and demolishes everything in its passing, and it's precisely that element that creates the tragedy. You can't avoid the truth, you can't avoid justice, you can't avoid fate even if you try. It's there, and it's so simple for anyone to see. That truth in Fire and Blood is that there is an heir to this throne, and that heir is Rhaenyra, named by her father in front of all the lords that gave an oath. The Hightowers are usurpers and traitors, they are not forced by anyone, they started it all on their own out of greed and they destroyed the tragic hero in the process. They were punished for it. These are the facts, and sorry to break it to Condal, but they make a better story that actually resembles a "Greek tragedy" and not a fanfic written by a 17 yo tumblrina who is obsessed with spiteful and victimised medieval lesbians.
Everything I have to say about this essentially amounts to a keyboard smash of agreement.
Well, I guess I have one thing to say, which is that this post made me think about the role of fate in Greek tragedies—and in a story like FAB, a prequel that readers are intended to know the ultimate end of before they begin—and how that relates to something like HOTD, which is questionable at best as an adaptation.
Part of what makes the Dance work as a story is the tragedy. Tragedy is full of these moments when you want to scream at the characters, “Do this, not that!” Moments where things happen at the exact wrong time, because chance and human will are always on a collision course, and eventually the humans will lose. Moments where the audience is destroyed by events that might be improbable if analyzed with a microscope but that are only so devastating because they’re so true. Fate might be woven by the gods or written in the appendix of A Game of Thrones, but it’s acted out by humans, and it only works because it’s the inevitable result of who these characters are.
What’s the role of ~fate~ in the show? What’s the role of characterization in the show? They’ve made all of these changes, but all of them are ultimately meaningless. Helaena is a dreamer, but can’t do anything to affect change in her life. Alicent is well-meaning and never wanted war and loves Rhaenyra*, but will be swept away in a tide of blood. Rhaenys turned her back on Rhaenyra’s cause, to the point of urging the disinheritance of the child her son claimed as his own, but she’s going to die anyway, after 16 years of disdain and one month of support.
These fates have little to do with who these people are and everything to do with spectacle and marketing. That to me is more depressing than anything the show could actually show on screen.
*yeah, I don’t care how great Olivia Cooke’s doe eyes are (which is very great, I love Olivia Cooke), this erasure of half of S1 is some of the worst writing in the whole GOT franchise and I watched season 8.