Yes yes the new Rhaegar x Lyanna x Arthur x Ashara art piece is not official art, it is just commissioned art by Elio and Linda, who qualified it as a "headcanon" so technically speaking yes, the scene depicted is nothing more than a "fan theory"! Congratulations and thank you for reminding us, it is always important to have our facts straight. However, if Elio and Linda had commissionned art about your irrelevant dead ladies knitting together/dancing at the club you would be losing your shit like that's sO canon u guyz, what about the artistic visionn, the vibes, we!stay!winning! Even better, if the commissioned art portrayed Rhaegar as you guys headcanon him, you would be rubbing your hands with glee right now as we speak. Alas, that was not what the commissioned art was about so you now suddenly remembered the existence of the "fan theory" concept, which is hilarious considering some of y'all have been implicitly or explicitly presenting your fan theories as canon for years, with tremendous success, I will admit. I guess it is a harsh realization that outside this small tumblr bubble nobody really gives a fuck about those theories because HEADcanon or not, this commissioned UNofficial art still has infinitely more textual basis in canon and more probability to become actual canon than literally 99,9% of the stuff you guys say 24/7 :/ But do your thing ig

tags by @la-pheacienne

So I was watching this nice review of Wuthering Heights and the reviewer doesn’t believe that Cathy loved Heathcliff. According to her she only loved that he loved her.

And on Twitter people comment how Süleyman and Hürrem didn’t actually love each other under every Sürrem edit.

What are we doing here?

I really am trying to prove that Ibrahim loved Nigar (in his own way) in a universe where people doubt that Cathy loved Heathcliff (she literally died due to being separated from him) or that Süleyman and Hürrem loved each other (just… the whole show). I am in a losing battle.

People have such a narrow definition of “love”.

rambling under the cut

I love Rhaenyra. And i think she is the rightful heir to the throne. But there’s definitely an issue in how people reads the whole story.

In the books Rhaenyra ends up being totally unfit to rule, the people and even the throne rejects her - i hope they stay loyal with that in the series - because the whole meaning of the civil war is to show how Targaryens’ sense of immortality is their ultimate ruin. The obsession with dragons, prophecies, the lust for power and the concept of being more gods than humans has devoured them. That’s why “the only thing that could destroy the House of the Dragon was itself”. That’s the same thing that happened in Europe around 1700: monarchies who ruled for centuries were teared down because king after king they became more and more arrogant, self-centered, subjects gained consciousness and the whole theory of being divine born wasn’t that solid anymore. To be this blinded by power it’s not something inside Targaryens’ blood or bones since there’s plenty of ambitious characters in HOTD, but if you take a look at the whole dynasty of the dragon you’ll see how most of them kings or pretenders to the throne take for granted their right so bad they stop caring being good rulers. Yeah, I know that since she’s the rightful heir she doesn’t have to do shit to prove her right, but it’s the Game of Thrones. It’s the ladder. The Dance is the ultimate proof that in a world where everyone is scraping their way to the top nobody is safe - and nobody should be.

I’m not team Green nor team Black i’m team sophisticated metaphor which investigates the natural tension of the human being to always strive upwards and desire more than one already possesses while partecipating in the construction of a society based on selfishly abusing the other to fulfill personal goals

Helaena Targaryen was so right when she said that “It is our fate, I think, to crave always what is given to another. If one possesses a thing, the other will take it away” and i swear this is a prophecy as well.

I would like to answer to this, because I disagree, but with zero intention to start a fight. It's just that certain points you raise in this post seemed interesting to me and I want to examine them a little.

So first of all, your main point is that Rhaenyra does not deserve to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the fact that she's the rightful heir doesn't legitimise her by itself, since she became a tyrant. Ok, I can entertain this argument. You say (along with many other fans, that's not exactly directed to you because it is a very popular opinion) that the point of the story is to show the inherent pathology of House Targaryen. So according to that idea, GRRM intended, both in Fire and Blood and in ASOIAF, to show the House Targaryen as a Shakespearean (Macbeth style) bloodthirsty, immoral, ruthless family, obsessed with power and murder and the supremacy of their blood, and it is precisely that element that destroyed it. You also add that this ressembles the fall of big european monarchies in Europe of 1700's, a fall that you attribute to the growing selfishness of the European Kings. Then you imply that people who chose a team are simplistic and cannot catch "a sophisticated metaphor which investigates the natural tension of the human being to always strive upwards and desire more than one already possesses while partecipating in the construction of a society based on selfishly abusing the other to fulfill personal goals", which is a lot of words for simply saying that everybody is bad in the story because all the characters are basically aristocrats so they are basically bad by definition.

Except that, you say all that for Rhaenyra. You don't say that for the Greens. You apply that specifically to Rhaenyra. You don't choose a team, you admit that Rhaenyra is the rightful heir, and then you say that she shouln't be Queen and that her greed for power destroyed the realm. Her greed, because this post is talking about her. This is interesting. I don't doubt that you recognize that the Greens share similar flaws, but still, you didn't choose to write a long meta to delegitimize their claim. You chose Rhaenyra, because Rhaenyra and her fans claim the moral superiority in this war, and because Rhaenyra's line survives, and because Rhaenyra represents the House Targaryen in this story, and House Targaryen is the favourite house of the vast majority of the fanbase.

So two points, one general and one specific for Fire and Blood. If you believe GRRM wants to present the House Targaryen as an analogy for Macbeth, it is natural that you see them as a bunch of blood thirsty amoral ambitious tyrans obsessed with magic. The problem is that this is not how GRRM wants to present the house, this is not how he presents the house, this is not at all the general message of his stories. The Targaryens are the greatest dynasty in ASOIAF. They disappeared with Aerys, and that was a very low point for them, but they were reborn with Daenerys, who is, in all sorts and purposes, kind of the protagonist of the story along with Jon Snow. The entire point of her character is that she's supposed to use this magic to save the world from the eternal Winter. So magic is an essential element in this story. It's not that the Targaryens are "obsessed with their magic", their magic is an essential, central and extremely useful element that is painted in a positive light. Their magic is pretty much the only hope people have to survive. So, this interpretation of Targaryen magic as this sinister analogy for power, despite its popularity, is fundamentally mistaken. This goes directly against what GRRM wrote in the first sentences of his first book, that's how fundamental this point is. It is literally the basis of the story.

Second point, specific for Fire and Blood. Fire and Blood is more of a tragedy, ASOIAF has more heroic and epic aspects to it. Daenerys is destined to save the world from the Long Night, while Rhaenyra is destined to become a tyrant, so there are not many analogies to be made here. So let's talk about Rhaenyra. She became a tyrant yes. But why? Who made her that way? Was she born a tyrant? Was she born a blood thirsty monster? Was that her goal since the beginning to just murder everyone, execute her people and steal their money? Or she became that way, as a reaction to very specific incidents, provoked by very specific people for very specific reasons? Any "sophisticated" analysis that does not examine the core reason for the Dance, (Westeros' misogyny and the green's treason followed by the greens kinslaying) is incomplete. It is also extremely biased, whether that was intended or not. No Rhaenyra wasn't born a blood thirsty monster because she's a Targ. Rhaenyra got dragged into a war because the Greens decided, in an ultimate display of greed, ambition, selfishness and misogyny, that she is not fit to rule, since the very moment she was named heir. They also murdered her child. So, attributing the war to the "Targaryen superiority complex" (which Targaryen?) is all nice and very convenient, but it is not what happened. Helaena's quote is also nice, except that it refers to the greens, not Rhaenyra. So it does not really apply here.

Last observation. You mention the European Kings and how their growing "selfishness" led to their doom in the 1700's, except that's not what happened either. First of all, not all European authoritarian rulers fell in the 1700's. Actually, the majority didn't, or they fell and later they were reestablished, even more gloriously. Catherine the Great (I consider Russia Europe but ok) ruled in the 1700s and it was the greatest period of the Russian Empire, both for Russia's place in international politics and for the people. Also, it is quite simplistic and also not accurate to attribute the fall of monarchies to the growing selfishness of the Kings. The reasons are much more complicated. Monarchs were not inherently bad because they are monarchs. There were great and inspiring monarchs in history.

First. This post is directed specifically to Rhaenyra because people are so much more biased towards the Greens (the Blacks are perceived as good and the greens as villains, and I can accept it, but it’s really poor, as I said before) and this applies to Alicent and her children as well - in my original idea, I added that even non Targaryens like the Hightowers get sucked in this vicious circle, since it’s inherently the human nature, or at least the human nature in a “homo homini lupus” setting, where the strongest, smartest and more capable at the game wins. All the Targaryens and non-Targaryen at the court had a role in the Dance, from the incapacity of Viserys to keep his family together, being a terrible father to the children from Alicent and forcing Rhaenyra to marry with someone she didn’t love and couldn’t give her heirs, to Alicent herself, who destroyed by her anguish finds the meaning of her existence in puttin her son - an Hightower - in the throne, but also Rhaenyra and her poor choices, from bearing three bastards (they get a very different treatment than Cersei’s) and making poor strategic choices. Expect for maybe Jaehaerys I and Aegon the Conqueror himself, Targaryen have almost always proved to be incompetent.

Also I never said that Targaryens’ magic makes them evil, or was not useful and not essential of whatever. It’s pretty much what makes them fascinating, and it’s the core of the story along with the prophecy of the song (literally the book’s title), but also their attachment to it and to the dragons played a huge part in their downfall. Daemon doesn’t care for Rhaena because she is dragonless, and Viserys is obsessed with Aegon’s dream to the point he neglects the children who aren’t Rhaenyra, Aemond is so mad he doesn’t have a dragon like his siblings that he’s okay with losing an eye to gain one, and this somehow leads to Lucerys’ death. And definitely isn’t a individual matter, but a clear pattern of education the Targaryen children have.

Second. We couldn’t know if Rhaenyra would have been a good ruler without the coup. Maybe yes, maybe no. The story tells us that whatever happened, she didn’t. She was a tyrant. And with some premises and an husband like Daemon, i don’t know if could’ve been any different. But reducing the whole war to “misogyny and treason and kinslaying” is almost as biased as the greens supporter and also a poor conclusion. It’s much more and has deeper roots - and a huge part is played by the fact that Targaryens drowned in the idea they were godsent because they had dragons. That’s why I talked about ‘700 monarchies.

To be honest, I shoul’ve been more specific: of course i know that not all of them fell in 1700, i was talking especially of France and the 1789 Revolution, which is a good example of a terrible monarchy who was overthrow because its latest rulers were terrible, and yet it ended badly, because Robespierre and other revolutionaries, after feeling a touch of that power, became tyrants as well and they were beheaded just like the kings. France and other countries who had the so called “enlighted monarchies” weren’t that good and Russia’s one ended pretty badly too, so i don’t know what is the point. By the way yes, monarchy s inherently bad, because has the premise that one family (chosen by who?) and its members have to rule a kingdom just because they are casually born in it. I don’t even know why they still exists, and I’m glad that in my country we overthrew it. Anyway I never said that the king themselves were the reason people started the revolutions, i said that they gained consciousness - it’s not enough anymore to claim to be chosen by a divinity - then by trying to overcome a tyrant they fell into another oppression, aka the bourgeoisie (the French Revolution is, by definition, a bourgeois revolution). Karl Marx explains that concept very well. It’s a wheel, to use a Game of Thrones vocabulary, and until someone breaks it there’s no chance for redemption to all of them, and this applies to Targaryens because throughout the history of Westeros are pretty much the only rulers. So yeah, I still think that is a good metaphor both for explaining the human nature and the natural greed of someone who reach power and the rise and fall of a standard european monarchy (after all, it’s a medieval setting). Ah and, i used the Helaena quote because to me sums up very well the point, and because that’s clearly a prophecy of what happens next, the greens and blacks alternating each other on the throne in a little time span, at the cost of the peasants and the peasants only.

Appreciate the answer tho. Sorry for the mistakes because english isn’t my first language.

No worries for the mistakes, English isn't my first language either!

So what is the point of investing in a story where 99% of characters are aristocrats and then criticising them for being aristocrats? I'm afraid that's not a relevant criticism. The wheel cannot and will never break in the context of this particular story. The point of the story isn't to show that war is bad and monarchy is evil. All of the characters are part of a feudal system and are leaders to battle.

All monarchies ended badly, but not all periods under Monarchy were "bad" periods. Actually, European history is not a straight black line that goes through monarchy and then suddenly when monarchy stops existing anymore, it goes up and we suddenly have progress. A lot of progress was made under monarchical regimes. It depends, as always, it depends on what you're talking about, and it depends on the POV you have. Monarchy bad democracy good is a good mentality to have for discussing current politics, it is not a good mentality to have when you want to seriously study history. I've written about this here if you're interested.

"Lyanna is a hypocrite for calling out chronic cheaters like robert and then running away with Rhaegar" this is truly funny, the fact that you associate a man who chronically visits brothels, fucks child prostitutes and leaves bastards all around, with a man who left his one (1) arranged marriage for another girl he fell in love with. Especially when Ned already makes this exact comparison in the very first book, first between Robert and Rhaegar and then between Robert and himself, just to showcase how fucked up in the head his BFF Robert was compared to both Rhaegar and himself.

And now I'm not saying Ned should be uncritically treated by the reader as this paragon of virtue and feminism. I'm saying, however, that Ned's standards of "decent behavior towards women" are pretty close to the writer's standards of decent behavior towards women, in universe, considering he has one of the healthiest marriages and probably the healthiest relationship with his daughters in the asoiaf universe and his one basic fatal flaw regarding his sister is precisely arranging her marriage with his BFF Robert, a decision that haunts him to this day considering he spends one whole book reflecting on and regretting his friendship with Robert and his decision to marry his sister to Robert. And this regret is now reinforced by every single one of Robert's actions during or prior to AGOT that Ned finds repulsive, aka his murderous obsession with Dany, his violent treatment of Cersei, his mistreatment of all these women/children and their kids, his approval of the murder and rape of Elia and her kids.

Ned now finally realizes what Lyanna already instinctively knew about Robert's nature from the get go (even if she didn't have all the data at the time). He should have known what she already instinctively knew, despite being so young, but he was too far gone into his delululand of sacred bromance with Robert to care. Now he knows precisely why his sister chose Rhaegar and now he reflects on all this and his regret and guilt run so deep but it's too late because Lyanna and Rhaegar are dead and there is nothing he can do about it. And the harrowing recounting of Lyanna's death in Ned's pov is something for sure, but let's not forget the understated yet still discernable regret and sadness in his visual memory of Rhaegar's death which is in sharp contrast with his complete apathy and emotional detachment towards his living breathing friend who is standing right in front of him:

Ned's trajectory from being a victim of the evil targaryen dynasty and Robert's faithful friend to questioning the entire basis of his old allegiance and realizing that actually Rhaegar maybe should have been King and that his sister was right about Robert because he's indeed full of shit, his subsequent guilt, regret and disillusionment over the regime he enabled, and his inability to save his house from collapse are all core elements of his arc and why his character is so fascinating and tragic. Ned's gradual deconstruction of Robert and his friendship with him is the thought process that led to all of the above. Ned remembering Lyanna's quote about Robert is there precisely to reinforce his disillusionment with Robert and highlight his difference with Rhaegar, a recurring theme in his arc. And it is particularly funny that so many people that call themselves Stark Stans TM (!!!) just swipe away all of the subtext and actual text surrounding this quote just to prove a point that is directly antithetical to the quote, its meaning and its function in the narrative, while also framing lyanna as a hypocrite over it lmao.

After the avalanche of bad takes inspired by got and hotd I would just like to say that the point of asoiaf is not "feudal power corrupts" and it is not "no one can save Westeros because feudalism bad". I would like to remind you what the function of feudalism in the story actually is, as stated by GRRM:

Now his notorious statement about Aragorn's tax policy (as much as I vehemently dislike that statement concerning Tolkien, it is still very insightful for GRRM's work) :

Moral relativism right? Nihilism, pessimism, every symbol is doomed to fail, every effort for a better future is doomed to fail because the feudalist structure is inherently rotten. Should we even try then? What is the point in showing a ruler genuinely try? If every leader is doomed to fall victim to external opposing forces and/or corruption or other moral flaw, what is the point in trying? Let's see another statement by GRRM where he explains what asoiaf is actually about:

The combination of these statements speaks for itself to someone who has read GRRM's work: the sword has a romance that pistols lack, the dramatic possibilities of the medieval setting are rich, ruling is hard, we can fight the good fight, we should not give way to despair. From that to "No one can save Westeros" the distance is huge and the endpoint is extremely deceptive and also deeply reactionary. If no one can save Westeros, then there is no point in trying to save Westeros. Characters that try to save Westeros, or Essos, or the Wildlings, or anything bigger than their own ass, are not morally superior to others that just benefit from the current status quo or passively tolerate/enable it, since no one can actually do shit and every effort is doomed to fail. Yet this goes directly against the point of asoiaf that can be summed up in the phrase: "ruling is hard". It is hard alright, but the thing is, someone has to do it. Whether that someone has been chosen by the people, or by the gods, or by destiny, or by circumstances, and regardless of the political system that allowed them to yield that power, the point is that someone has power ad hoc at any given time, and power equals responsibility. What do you do with it? How do you govern? How do you choose between two equally grievous alternatives? Who do you listen to? Who do you trust? How can you learn? What if everything you've been told was a lie? How do you move on from there? What if the promises you made contradict each other? What if you fail? How do you live with the guilt, how do you go on? How do you instigate a structural change? What if you try to do that and people die? What if you try to do that and it kills you? Was it worth it? How do you use the power you have? How do you fight the good fight? What makes a fight good?

"Feudalism bad" and "no one can save Westeros" are not just incredibly uninspired catchphrases, they are something much worse: a very nice way of avoiding to answer the real, hard, uncomfortable questions that are the driving force of asoiaf, and a very neat way to justify those who tolerate, enable or reinforce the status quo. Coincidentally, these questions remain the same in every single political system. They are universal. That's why this is a good, relevant, applicable story, that's why we give a fuck even if the context is foreign to us. So spare us the moralizing bullshit please, and thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results… but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.”

— George R.R. Martin

I wish asoiaf fandom could tell the difference between subverting a trope and subverting expectations because it is not the same thing. While subverting a trope is a valid and very interesting approach, subverting expectations most of the time results in bad, incoherent and actually pretty conventional storytelling because it primarily aims at eliciting emotions of shock/horror/pain instead of constructing a meaningful, original narrative with solid and thought provoking themes. You don't actually need to subvert the readers' expectations in order to subvert a trope. You don't even need plot twists to subvert a trope. These are really not the same thing at all.

Example: Dany being TPTWP instead of Rhaegar is a subverted trope. The fact that the knights actually suck and the only one who actually thinks and behaves like an ideal knight cannot be one and will never be accepted as one is also a subverted trope. fAegon, the Prince Who Surived, being a scam is also a subverted trope. The element of subverting expectations is weak in most of these, nonexistent in some of these.

Dany becoming mad, Rhaegar being revealed as a machiavellian pedophile, Jon becoming one of the Others and being killed by Arya, the prophecy being just a scam of the universe and/or Rhaegar's wet dream instead of, ahm, the only solution in the war for the dawn, all these are not subversions of any trope. These are plot twists. These subvert the reader's very valid expectations and not in a good way. They go directly against themes, characterization and narrative that has been established for the past 30 years.

I saw Sara Hess saying that 1) Daemon and Rhaenyra feel like the same person in different bodies and 2) Daemon is a man so he can do whatever he wants (🥺) while poor Rhaenyra is stuck in a castle giving birth so she feels helpless. This does come across in their fight scene. This is so incredibly stupid it is actually painful.

First of all this "same person different bodies", cognitive dissonance thingy where a woman completely identifies with a man that is her relative but can't live the way he does is a Jaime x Cersei thing. Exclusively. This is their theme and cannot be applied to Daemyra. And that's because:

1) They are twins. The "same person in different bodies" vibe makes sense here. Self-explanatory. Daemon and Rhaenyra are both Targaryens and they have this obvious, visceral connection (in the book anyway lol) but they don't literally feel "the same person" to the point that they are unable to understand their individuality, in the sense Hess uses. At least there is nothing in the source material to suggest this. Fanon territory.

2) Cersei never held the same amount of power and authority Rhaenyra did because Cersei was not a Targaryen heir to the throne of the 7 kingdoms. Cersei was just a noble woman, a queen consort and a mother of a king. Rhaenyra was a Targaryen heir and Queen of the 7 kingdoms. Not gonna open the debate of whether or not a monarch can have more legitimacy than any other monarch. I think we can all agree, by following common sense, that the circumstances under which Cersei and Rhaenyra obtained power are substantially different so the authority of these two women is substantially different.

3) For that very reason, the dynamic that Cersei has with any other male in her life is not comparable to the dynamic Rhaenyra has with her father or husband/uncle. Viserys made Rhaenyra heir to the throne. Daemon is her consort, and he is set to serve her. The situation is entirely different with Cersei and her relationship with her father, brother, husband, and son.

3) Rhaenyra was eventually able to marry the man she wanted. The man she wanted. She was also able to have the family she wanted. Not the same situation with Cersei. This is extremely important lmao. Rhaenyra could have had any man she wanted, anyone, and she chose that man. For some reason the show wants us to forget this.

A lot of words to explain that Rhaenyra feeling "trapped" in her womanhood as opposed to Daemon enjoying his male privileges, and the frustration that causes her since she feels "they are the same person" with different gender roles, is an extremely reductive copy paste from Jaime x Cersei that completely misses the mark by neglecting that 1) Rhaenyra is the Queen and Daemon serves her, 2) Rhaenyra is in a marriage she chose freely against everyone's wishes, 3) Rhaenyra has the family she chose and is perfectly satisfied in her role as mother.

Book!Rhaenyra does not feel "trapped in a castle making babies while Daemon is out there fighting". Book!Rhaenyra is overjoyed with the fact that she can rule in Dragonstone, be a Queen, be a mother, raise her children, and on top of that have a man like Daemon at her service, as her sword and an extension of her will and power. Not only that's not causing her frustration, that's precisely what she likes about him and their relationship lmao. Yes they have a final fatal conflict, but not at that stage in the narrative. I'm sorry if this doesn't seem "progressive" enough to Hess or to you guys.

Also even in the context of the show Daemon's arguments are actually solid. Rhaenyra accuses him of not letting her consider the terms of their foes... girl, what terms? That her sons will become cupbearers? Lmao. Also, who is raising an army for her? Who crowned her? How did we go from show!Daemon fucking up with BxC to questioning whether or not he even recognizes her as his Queen? How did that happen? This fight feels so entirely detached not only from book canon but also from show canon.

For all these reasons their fight scene was incredibly stupid despite the good performance of the actors, and their bond, that should be at the core of the narrative, is hollow and flimsy. It's also incredibly boring and unsexy, sorry. It would have been better if they had at least established a firm, passionate relationship beforehand but they didn't even do that. Now I don't even know why she married him in the first place. It's not clear. I never saw genuine passion between them. Y'all love can yap about the gEnDeR rOLeS all you want but the truth is that the writers can't write romance to save their lives.

Oh so D x D were right in depicting Jaime x Cersei sex scene in the book as a clear cut rape scene. No, you say? What I remember of that scene in the book is that it was dub-con AT BEST, and this AFTER taking into account the author's own very obvious misogynistic bias (Watsonian vs Doylist perspective) and JC's specific dynamic of being the same person in two bodies and their lack of autonomy in the face of one another and their fucked up sick relationship in general. After taking into account all of these quite important factors, this book scene is still technically a dub-con sex scene, under a lenient reading which I'm willing to give to Jaime because again, I'm taking into account all these factors. If someone chooses to see this scene in the book as a clear cut rape scene, it is understandable to me.

D x D took a dub-con sex scene with a shit ton of underlying complexities underneath and turned it to a clear cut rape scene. Okay! Not The Best in my personal opinion! But still, Not So Atrocious! After all, how are you gonna depict on TV with absolute accuracy with the limited time you have something that is pretty complicated in the book and already kind of still comes across as dub-con or at even dangerously close to rape? Oh but I vaguely remember seeing posts in the lannister crowd about the show!scene being a depiction of "gratuitous violence" and "oversimplifying the dynamic". Am I wrong? I also agreed with the lannister crowd on this. I don't think GRRM intended to write Jaime as a rapist and Jaime comes across as a rapist in the GoT scene. I consider this to be a distortion of canon, despite the fact that in the book we had a real dub-con scene.

But suddently introducing out of the blue actual, very real physical domestic violence in a relationship that had NONE in the book is canonically plausible or even an improvement of canon, for the same crowd? And why is that? Because the couple has a huge age difference whereas JC were twins? So an abusive relationship or even rape is less plausible if the perpetrator is the same age as the victim? Who told you this? Daemyra is abusive because the uncle gave gifts to his underage niece? Because the couple is incestuous? In GRRM's work? You are seriously, unironically arguing that the above factors (age difference + incest) are meant to hint at a non consensual, abusive relationship in GRRM's universe? Are you for real?

Where is the acknowledgement of the author's problematic standards and worldview here? Where is the distinction between the Watsonian and the Doylist perspective here? Where is your indignation at the show runners turning up the gendered violence in ways that are not book canon? At least the JC scene was based on a real, already highly problematic sex scene. Now that the show runners came up with a brand new form of violence that did not exist in the book, what do you say? That it's fine because it's not as gratuitous as Sansa's rape arc? What about Alicent's rape arc? That's not gratuitous? Do you seriously believe that a rape arc is a necessary tool for adding complexity to a female antagonist? Really? What about Laena being burned alive? What about Aemma? I haven't seen a lot of talk about those. Are these not "gratuitous violence" in your book? Or you just don't really care right?

To sum it up. It is Problematic™ gratuitous violence hashtag male gaze only when 1) my perfect angelic fave (Sansa) is the victim or 2) when my fave is the perpetrator.

It is not gratuitous violence when 1) the narrative turns my fave from an antagonist to an underdog via rape or 2) when it makes characters I hate look worse than their book counterpart.

Hate to break this to you, this is not exactly a solid construction. The general criteria you use to identify gratuitous, non canonical violence need to be applied to all cases alike, not according to your own bias. The bias in this fandom is so shocking that it borders on gaslighting and I am looking specifically at book fans who have dragged GoT to hell and back for years and are now applauding this shitfest that is House of the Dragon for the same reasons they used to trash GoT.

I genuinely want nothing to do with that show anymore.

The idea is that because F&B is made of sources that are unreliable and are biased reports, that we can't prove that there wasn't AND that it is inevitable that there would be DV with Daemon being a groomer of Rhaenyra as well as her uncle (incest). So it's "truthful" to the sort of relationship that one in real life would have. It's fine if Rhaenrya goes through DV as well as all other forms of violence from her family, why not include her reputedly violent uncle, even though we have seen GRRM give us blatant sign s of abuse when they occur (Cersei-Robert; Aegon and that 12 year old "paramour", this latter one reported by none other than Septon Eustace, one of his supporters). And when you say the latter part, they still default back to "unreliable sources" OR they say, in lieu of such, that "it's inevitable that they make changes".

UGH.

There is something that has always rubbed the wrong way about the terms of the hotd/fire and blood discourse and particularly how political it always is. Misogyny accusations are super popular and they are being thrown by both sides because they are faster, they are catchy and it's a lot easier to do that than sit down and talk about themes, narrative and consistency under a neutral light. The problem is they often get in the way of a more in depth analysis of media and I say that to myself first and foremost because I do it too. When I say misogyny accusations, I am not only talking about literal accusations (aka if you support team green/black you are a misogynist), I also include all the takes that resemble the following: "my take is better/more accurate than yours because it is more politically progressive/radical/revolutionary/healthy/enlightened/yadayada than yours". Both sides use this, and they use this A LOT. It is almost impossible to take part in discourse over fire and blood/hotd/asoiaf without including this perspective. I'm not saying we should abolish this perspective and never talk about it again, it is always interesting to take this into account. But let's pause for a second and just try to put this on the side just for a little bit. What are we left with? Oh yeah. We are left with the raw materials of the story. Let's talk about that, and only that, just for a little while.

Yes, fire and blood includes a dichotomy between a good woman and a bad woman (although it doesn't exactly do that and this is a very simplistic way of looking at the story). Yes this dichotomy is an old concept. Yes the wicked stepmother is an old concept as well, rooted in ancient patriarcal societal norms and dynamics we are all more or less familiar with, some less than others.

Is this dynamic, which is at the core of fire and blood, politically progressive/radical/subversive? Probably not (huge objection there but I said I will not talk about politics in this post).

Is it a better story than hotd? Yes. It is.

Does it make more sense than hotd? Yes. It does.

I am sorry. There is absolutely no way hotd has more sense than fire and blood. Even if one qualifies it as a more inspired, progressive, unexpected, intresting retelling/revisiting of the original, this will never, ever make it a good story in an organic way.

There is absolutely no way to seriously, unironically argue that going from "we play an ugly game. i see you have the determination to win it" to Alicent usurping Rhaenyra because of a misunderstanding in the span of one episode is a better narrative and makes more sense than whatever happened in fire and blood. It makes Alicent a victim of circumstances, it breaks the dichotomy or the wicked stepmother trope or whatever you want it to break, and all that is cool, but it doesn't make a better story than the one we got in fire and blood.

There is absolutely no way to seriously claim that Alicent being sexually harassed by her servant makes a better story than her controlling her servant. It is not something that would actually happen in real life under any circumstances whatsoever. It is extremely forced, weird and overall nonsensical (not to mention politically problematic for 100 reasons because again, I will not talk politics in this post). The average viewer that does not wish to write essays about how politically enlightened it is to "break the dichotomy" will look at this scene and say "what the fuck is that". Would showing Alicent owning her role as QUEEN and playing the game be reminiscent of Cersei and thus "repetitive"? Yes. Would it make a better story? Yes. I'm sorry, but it is the truth.

There is absolutely no fucking way to make the page scene make sense. It will never make sense. A ruler that has just been usurped has the chance to execute the traitor and doesn't do it because the traitor shows her a page of a book. Right. She has just lost her baby because of them, she has lost her father, she has lost her throne, she has lost everything that was important to the life she has been sharing for ages with a man and their 20 children but a page would matter to her more than all of these things put together. Right. You can call this an uber sophisticated/inspired lesbian drama/women being caught in the crossfire of mens' wars or whatever you want it to call it but it will never, ever be a better moment than "Tell my half-brother I'll have my throne or I'll have his head". It will never be a better story, not because it is more or less politically conservative/progessive, but for the simple reason than it is nonsensical. Whether a story makes sense or not has absolutely nothing to do with ideology. This particular moment does not resonate with basic human experience, it does not resonate with how female rulers behaved in history. It is bad, very bad writing. Daemon's "the fuck is this" is the only logical reaction to this and it is the reaction shared by the average viewer. Indeed, the fuck is this.

Thing is, you might wanna twist the raw materials of a story you consider boring/conservative/repetitive but that will never make for a better story, because there is no truth in it. """Wicked stepmothers""" existed and still exist. Good women vs bad women exist because good people vs bad people exist and women are people. Their honest confrontation rings true to the viewer in a way hotd's narrative never will. Because it makes sense. It is organic. It has a truth hotd doesn't have. And again I use this supposed dichotomy of fire and blood with a huge asterisk because Rhaenyra is not that pure perfect unfallible character. Alicent being Alicent would perhaps be a repetitive Cersei copy but she would still make a better character than whatever we got. She would perhaps have less importance in the narrative but it's okay because the story doesn't need Alicent to have that much of an importance. It is a good story regardless.

You can preach about how inspired/progressive it is to have women be forcefully carried in the middle of a men's war that they never wanted but that will never make it a better story than a Targaryen woman fighting with her half-brothers for her throne, her life and the life of her children and her husband she has spent a lifetime with.

I got this from David Mamet, On directing film, p. 60 and I think it applies well.

That part of the interview is interpreted by some people in the fandom (myself included) as the possibility that Arthur Dayne was already conspiring against Aerys at the time. This is, however pure theory and not canon, it's just fun to speculate.

I agree with what you say here, my only objection would be that it is kind of tricky to say "they are all the same". Nobody can deny that standing by as your king rapes his wife makes you a horrible person. But there are degrees to how much accountability someone can take for another man's actions especially when that man is the King. Arthur Dayne and the Kingsguard are definitely not just a heroic Galahad figure as you say (same for Rhaegar), nobody was innocent in that turn of events, except Jaime who actually was the least responsible for whatever happened there, before and during the Rebellion. Not only were they not innocent, they were something worse, they were incompetent. They could have done something but didn't, or in my personal headcanon, they wanted to do something but didn't get to, because of bad timing, incompetence, and the enemy being both quicker and more cunning.

So yeah Arthur Dayne was not another Galahad, but that doesn't make him equal to Aerys or the pyromancers. To each their own. While someone's intentions or generally someone's interior world doesn't matter all that much in an actual court of law where you only think of the results, it does matter in assessing individuals and assessing individuals matters in literature in general. If it didn't, Jaime would be the same with Tywin for example, since he's directly enabling Tywin's twisted ways during his adult life (in many cases not only enabling them but also comitting atrocious crimes on his own). He's not the same though. As far as enabling Tywin one could legitimately wonder, well what could Jaime possibly do, it's his father, his family, his house and his name that's at stake here. Yeah, that's my point.

This is such an interesting topic to me and i would probably be much more chill with it had it not been for the extremely polarizing way the fandom treats these events, with an exceptionally huge focus on how rhaegar and his men being losers is responsible for the entirety of the asoiaf unfortunate events. This was meant to be a more nuanced take of who's to blame, at least in the beginning, but ended up oversimplifying the situation.

Exactly what I wanted to express with Alysanne to Jaehaerys in this post

There is this thin line between, on one hand, denouncing systemic oppression of women and on the other hand, reducing women to their gender identity while blatantly ignoring everything else that makes them who they are as people, beyond their gender. I don't believe there are many people who are actually aware of that line, both in real life and in fiction. In fiction, things are far less complicated for a simple reason : the main difference between fiction and reality is the fact that fiction is entirely made up by a person to serve a message. Fiction is never an end in itself, it is a vehicle. It serves a purpose. In one work of fiction, x female character serves x purpose. In another work of fiction, z female character serves z purpose. You need to be able to identify the different arcs, contexts, and characterization that can be resumed in the question "what does the writer of this story want to say with that character?". When you ignore all that and identify two fictional characters solely on the grounds of their shared gender identity and gendered victimization, you're not only discarding the vision of the author. You're doing something much worse. You think you are denouncing this oppression, but what you are really doing is shedding every single aspect of their quality of a person until all that's left is precisely, their gender. The intentions may be good, but the results are jarring.

What happened to "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"?