every time someone says “““dany was just handed her dragons”” another bunch of my brain cells die

dany was handed three fucking rocks.

she got her dragons through fire and blood and ritual sacrifice and by walking into a blazing funeral pyre which could have burnt her into a crisp, but didn’t because she got the secret that her family’s tried to figure out for decades to no avail but tragedy

#you know who was handed their beasts the starks were handed their direwolves #but it’s not used to devalue their achievements because it is a stupid argument

I think the reason why the dire wolves aren’t mentioned is because the achievements of the Starks aren’t completely predicated on their ownership of dire wolves. Robb could’ve won the Battle of the Whispering Wood without Grey Wind being there, but without the dragons… Dany’s entire ACoK story after she leaves the Red Waste is off the table, she can’t steal the Unsullied army (and thus, no conquering, and thus her ADWD story is off the table), and it’d be basically unreworkable in a way the Stark story without dire wolves would not be. The direwolves are important to the Starks’ stories, but dragons are indispensable to Dany’s story.

While I agree with you that the dragons are an integral part of Dany’s story, I still disagree with the claim by the anti part of the fandom that Daenerys is nothing without them.

Would her story have been different without them? Most definitely, yes. But I still think she would have been able to get herself into a position of power without them.

Back in AGOT, Dany and Viserys didn’t have dragons and yet, Viserys was able to make a loose agreement with Drogo about exchanging Daenerys’ hand in marriage for an army. Dany still had her Targaryen name and that means something to people.

She could have wed again - not another Khal, obviously, but some powerful magister or other in Essos or a lordling in Westeros…or even fAegon. There was still the pact signed by Darry in exchange for Dorne’s allegiance… Dany had options and lots of them. She just didn’t need to use them because she had the dragons.

Would Robb have been named KITN had he not been Ned Stark’s son? Or Jon? No, absolutely not. Would anyone want to wed or offer help to Sansa if her last name was not Stark? Most definitely, NO.

Also, Dany’s story isn’t just about fighting wars and taking lands, like Robb’s is. Yes, yes, his war is “noble” because he’s fighting for his country’s independence and to get revenge on the Lannisters for what they did to Ned, whatever whatever.

But Dany’s path has always been about helping others along with trying to get back home. It’s a much bigger and frankly, more important narrative. She’s not just trying to take back her family’s throne. She’s trying to save hundreds of thousands of people from slavery. It takes more than a name and some cool moves with a sword to do that.

Also, we’re still leaving out the fact that, even without the dragons, Dany is magic. Yes, in the books her “fireproofness” works in a different way… but it still works at key moments - when she was hatching the dragons AND in the fighting pit in Meereen - Dany’s hair burns off again and she burns her hands but she is otherwise unharmed by the flames. When she gets to Vaes Dothrak, I’m willing to bet the book scene will go relatively the same as it went in the show - Dany burning all the Khals and emerging from the flames unharmed with the rest of the Dothraki bowing for her - a crucial Dany moment done without a single dragon present.

And aside from the magic and the name, Dany is a fucking amazing military commander and she’s cunning. Robb won the battle at the Whispering Wood yes, but Dany took a whole fucking city with only a dozen men lost on her end. THAT’S FUCKING IMPRESSIVE. And that absolutely wouldn’t have been possible had Dany not been clever enough to come up with the plan that got Yunkai to surrender. She did that. By herself. Without her counselors and commanders helping her plan it. She’s a badass.

So this whole argument that Dany’s story would be nothing without her dragons…is still…utter bullshit. The dragons just make everything way cooler.

Without the dragons, she probably would’ve died in the Red Waste. Without those dragons, she wouldn’t have gotten into Qarth, let alone stealing an army in Astapor.  All the military skill isn’t worth a damn if you don’t have an army, which Dany got by… offering a dragon.

Yes, if she had managed to get back to Pentos… she might’ve been able to scrounge something else up. But that’s a pretty big if, and whatever it was, it definitely wouldn’t be carving out a huge kingdom for herself. It’d be as a pawn of Illyrio’s, which is specifically why she doesn’t go back as soon as the option presented itself in the first place.

@citadelofoldtown please see @winelover1989‘s comments about GRRM originally not planning to include dragons in the story at all…and back then was when he had his five key characters, of which Dany was one. He would have had a plan in place for her without the dragons.

Also, if you remember, Dany only went through the red waste because she had dragons. She wouldn’t have gone through it if she didn’t. She was afraid they would run into a people who would try to kill them for the dragons…their existence presented a threat to Dany. Without the dragons, Dany could easily have disguised herself so she wouldn’t have been such a target and to travel more easily.

Again, Dany still has her name and her own wits without the dragons. Viserys obtained an army of 40k with nothing more than the promise of Dany’s hand (he just wasn’t patient enough). Dany could have easily accomplished the same feat because Illyrio, regardless of his trustworthiness, still favored putting a Targaryen on the Iron Throne and Dany was the last of them. fAegon would have come along, she could have married him and had the allegiance of the Golden Company, which, with the 7K still torn up over the War of the Five Kings, would have been enough for her to take the throne.

Again, to reduce Dany’s accomplishments to “it’s because she has dragons” is ridiculous. No one ever reduces Robb or Jon’s accomplishments to “He’s Ned Stark’s son” or “it’s only because Jon has a Valyrian steel sword”.

I don’t understand what’s this constant need to diminish Dany’s accomplishments, it’s become almost pathological in certain sectors of the fandom. 

As others, have already mentioned, while the dragons are certainly an important part of Dany’s narrative they aren’t driving the narrative. The dragons are there, first, as a symbolic representation of Daenerys heritage and her inner-self, and second, as a tool to assist Dany, at times, to accomplish her goals.

The driving force in Dany’s story is Dany herself. Her ability to accomplish her goals using the tools she has at hand is what makes her such a successful character. I forgot who mentions it but someone notes that had Viserys had the dragon eggs, he could never have accomplished what Dany has been able to accomplish.

It is with her intelligence that she is able to decipher her prophetic dreams and create the magic necessary to hatch the dragon eggs. It is her bravery that gives her the strength to walk into the pyre. It is her fortitude that keeps her small khalasar together as they cross the Red Waste and might I remind everyone that she was only 14 years old at the time and grown men were depending on her for guidance.

It is her cunning that allows her to hatch the plan in Astapor to trick Kraznys and free the slaves of Astapor, Drogon was just a tool, she could have used another.

The dragons were not used in Yunkai and they were not used in Meereen. Here we see Dany’s military and strategic mind flourish.

It’s ridiculous to ascribe the successes Dany has accomplished merely to the fact that she has dragons.

A reminder that also; at that time the Dragons were Catsized, unable to feed themselves and bareley able to fly.

Not useful to take any city, in the purest practical sense they were rather a liability for a long time.

When she was marching to Astapor and Yunkai the dragons were indeed scary but bareley bigger than a golden retriever; again useless to a degree. The unsullied, taking Mereen, Yunkai, Astapor…it was all her, her wit, her strategy, her persuasiveness.

The Dragons didn’t become an advantage until A Dance of Dragons or season 5 of the Show, when they became large enough that she could ride them.

That time in the pit when Drogon rescued her became the first time the Dragons were useful, it was the first time the Dragons pulled her out of a situation like the antis claimed they did all the time.

The battle of mereen was the first time they prooved useful in battle.

Before they were simply too small.

The same can’t be said about the Direwolves thought.

And Drogon saving Dany in Daznak’s Pit is a show only scene. In the books, it’s Dany that saves everyone by taming Drogon.

And the thing is that everyone has some kind of advantage. Like, this argument that “Daenerys wouldn’t have gotten an army if she didn’t have a dragon to offer and therefore that makes her nothing” is a bullshit argument. Because literally every person has something that if you took away from them, they wouldn’t have what they have. Would Robb have an army if he didn’t have his family name? Would Jon be the commander of the Night’s Watch if he wasn’t Ned’s son? Would Sansa have anything if it weren’t for her beauty and Stark name? No, the Starks wouldn’t be where they are if you took those things away from them. And yet, I don’t see people calling them “nothing” without them. And why not? Because people still recognize that the Starks have their talents. But they refuse to recognize the same for Dany.

Because when you call someone “nothing”, what you actually mean is that this person has no talents, is worth nothing and that everything this person has in life is due to that one thing. This is what people are saying when they say Dany is nothing without her dragons. They mean that Dany has not merit in anything she has accomplished, that it was everything she has is solely because she has dragons.

And this is wrong. Having dragons alone isn’t what made Dany accomplish what she has now. Without Dany’s intelligence, without Dany’s brilliant battle plans, without Dany’s competent leadership, without Dany’s courage and wisdom, she wouldn’t be where she is. The dragons wouldn’t have made her accomplish anything if she didn’t have all of those other talents. Daenerys is much more than her dragons.

Also, funny how nobody talks about all the times the direwolves helped the Starks accomplish things. Bran would be dead without Summer. Jon would have been killed by the wildlings if Summer hadn’t saved his life. Jon was feared by the wildlings because of Ghost. Nymeria protected Arya from Joffrey. Grey Wind found a goat track that was responsible for one of Robb’s military victories (and that isn’t even counting the advantage that a direwolf’s protection during all of your battles gives you, and also the boost of morale that is to have such an animal at your side). The direwolves are also indispensable to the Stark’s stories. Without the direwolves, many of them would be dead. And yet, I don’t see people using this to dismiss the accomplishments of the Starks the way I see people trying to dismiss Dany’s accomplishments, even though Dany almost never uses her dragons. They didn’t help her in the Red Waste, they were only a bargaining chip in Astapor, and Dany didn’t use them at all to conquer Yunkai and Meereen. In ADWD, Dany also doesn’t use her dragons. The only time she is saved by them is in ACOK, in the House of the Undying, but Jon and Bran are also saved by their direwolves and people don’t call them “nothing” because of this.

In the end, people just want to dismiss Dany’s accomplishments, dismiss her strength and intelligence, and reduce her to just some dumb girl who got lucky to have dragons, which is completely incorrect.

Bran would probably be dead after the fall from tower , both Jon & Robb have been helped by their direwolves countless times . Literally there are only 2 Starks that accomplish things without direwolves and those are Sansa and Arya . And even Sansa had she not been a Stark she would probably end up like Jeyne Pool and Arya wouldn’t be able to escape if she wasn’t trained by Sirio ( and she only got trained by him BECAUSE she was a nobleman’s daughter and her father could afford that ) Stannis on books won at least two times without battle - and had it been a battle both of the times he probably wouldn’t have enough armies to attack king’s landing - using Melisadra’s magic but no one say’s he’s nothing without Melisadra . Obviously that doesn’t dismiss anyone’s accomplishments but that’s the thing : all characters have been helped in some way because of their name or magic ( or magic animals ) And dragons ( just like characters last names ) are a double edge sword : they do cause Danny plenty of troubles too , they aren’t some magical deus ex machina whatever fans like it or not . They had cause Daenerys as many problems as they’ve been help

#this x character would be nothing without their powers / money / status / privilege#also a lot of you cream your panties at the thought of Jon or Tyrion or anyone else getting dragons#and yet you hate Daenerys for having them#also I’ve been seen the argument#be done for male characters#like Batman or superman#but surprisingly it is made for female characters#so yeah mysogyny much ? (tags by @gothamsharls)

As at the end of ADWD, the dragons have not meant much, in military terms, in any case.

Dany defenders: point out that Dany’s story could have continued without dragons because she still had her Targaryen name and could have leveraged that to make an alliance by marriage

Dany antis: Totally forget that Robb never would have been able to get to the Battle at Whispering Wood/the rest of the war had he not made a marriage alliance with Walder Frey for passage through the Twins.

Antis like to make this whole thing about “the dragons” but the truth is, all of the characters mentioned have something of value that’s not just a plucky personality. 

And Dany wouldn’t have been “just a pawn” had she made an alliance and gained an army through marriage. After Viserys died, she was the fucking HEIR. Anyone she would have married would have been her consort. Hell, she had a betrothal all lined up with Quentyn that would have gained her the Dornish army. THAT’S power. And it’s the same kind of power all the Starks have/are capable of as well. She wouldn’t have had the same saving slaves storyline, but she would have eventually made it back to Westeros to fight for the throne. 

Which is one of the reasons why I think the dragons are in her story, because Dany was destined for more than fighting for an ugly old chair. She needed that extra bit of magic to try and rid her world of its most vile injustice. And she would have had that extra bit of magic with or without the dragons because George was originally just going to give the Targaryens some sort of firepower. Dany would have been like, a fire bender or something. But a friend of his convinced him dragons would be cooler. 

“Dragons in Asshai, dragons in Qarth, dragons in Meereen, Dothraki dragons, dragons freeing slaves…” -AFFC. The dragons have become a symbol of freedom.   

So take that antis. 

GRRM posted this on his blog Not A Blog

“On the ADWD cover for Brazil, I put Daenerys at the top of the stairs of the meereenese pyramid. I had undoubtedly been, unconsciously, influenced by the series. And George told me that Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people, so I had her climb down to keep it consistent” - Marc Simonetti

Here you can see the original one and other asoiaf art he drew

“George told me that Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people.”

Louder please for the idiot antis in the back!!!!

Such a villain.

Just to clarify:

And there is a reason why this is important, because the thrones and what they symbolize is a running theme with Dany in the books. Even when it “does not befit a queen”, Dany prefers a simple bench over an fantastic throne. She doesn’t act based on what is proper and improper according to society; rather she strives for equality and simplicity. She genuinely wants equality or everyone, even when it reduces her own grandeur. Even when others think that as a queen, she should place herself above her subjects, she does NOT.

There is a reason why her thrones are brought up repeatedly in the books:

Can I also add that it’s interesting to note the size of her profile has also reduced with GRRM’s input. Previously, she appears as a large yet distant imposing figure from high on above. And with the revision, she’s brought closer to the ground and appears smaller in stature, more human and therefore more approachable.

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.

re that post I reblogged around people’s heartbreaking experience of GOT season 8 with a mental health perspective: if I thought for a moment that that was GRRM’s intention for the book series I’d probably stop reading.

I think Dany will be accused of being ‘mad’ in-world - she’s vying for a position of political power (and is female!!!) and so enemies or political rivals will sling shit. They will misconstrue her actions or outright lie (the slavers are already spreading lies about her). They will undermine the claims (not originating from her) that she’s any kind of holy or prophesied savior and question her sanity that she can believe that she is (of course it’s also not a religion most Westerosi follow anyway).

But the thing is, she won’t be ‘mad’, not like that. I’m sure she’ll make mistakes, but she won’t be evil or insane, there will be some degree of logic as there always is. 

Somebody I’m actually really curious about as a potential precursor is ‘Mad’ Danelle Lothston from the time of the Dunk & Egg stories. All we know so far is she wore armour and led her own army in the Mystery Knight, she apparently used black magic (very vague…) and tales are told of her that are similar to the kind of bullshit being spread about Dany by the slavers. It could literally just be that she’s an unconventional woman with political power (and an interest in magic) and the establishment Does Not Like That, so of course she’s ~mad~. Or maybe there’s more to it? I’m very curious and potentially suspicious.  

So I guess my point is… D&D are fucking hacks and I refuse to let this ruin my enjoyment of the books until proven otherwise.

Interesting what you say about Danelle. You know what’s funny? I have actually seen Dany antis use Danelle as “foreshadowing” that Dany will go mad. Because, according to them, Daenerys and Danelle are similar names, they both have animals that are similar in appearance as their sigil (because dragons are said to have wings like a bat), both are called mad by other people, and therefore this is a hint that GRRM is giving us that Dany will go mad. I’m not sure how likely it is that GRRM was thinking about this when he named Danelle or created the Lothston sigil. But if he indeed thought about this and decided to make Danelle a parallel to Dany, then I think saying that it was to foreshadow Dany’s madness is entirely missing the point. If Dany and Danelle are indeed intentional parallels, then their parallel is not to foreshadow Dany’s madness, but to show how women in power and that defy gender roles are vilified and slandered. 

What a good addition!

Actually another example, though I’m not sure she’s called mad so much as insinuated to be evil, is Rohanne Webber. Ooooh, she murdered all her husbands! Er, no, she didn’t, but Eustace Osgrey hates her (initially) and wants her castle so is happy to say/believe anything. But, as Rohanne points out, women have to ‘piss twice as hard’ in the lords’ pissing contests, so it’s not necessarily in a woman’s interests to undermine the fearsome reputations they’ve been given even if they’re untrue and unfair. I wonder if that’s true about Danelle Lothston with the rumours about her, and I wonder if it will ever serve Dany for her opponents to believe she’s mad/evil.

Though also, I think the thing about 'madness’ being applied as a label is it often just means the labeller cannot understand that person’s beliefs/actions, whether for good reasons or bad. And the latter will apply to Dany from the slavers because it will seem crazy to them to try to end slavery, to put these people on a level with even the blood of Old Valyria, to undermine a whole economic system and society. Madness! But it’s not, it’s madness to us to think it’s alright to propagate such a cruel and inhumane system or to even think it can last.

Actual mental health conditions come in exceedingly rarely. Dany has had strange dreams and visions, but it’s established that 'dragon dreams’ in her family are literally prophetic, she’s being targeted by people with strange powers (Quaithe) and towards the end of ADWD she may be suffering the effects of dehydration when she’s hearing Jorah and Viserys. And I don’t think there’s anything else about her that’s hard to relate to or understand unless you’re trying real hard to sell your crappy rushed ending by claiming it’s crazy to not be immediately and obviously devastated when your abusive brother who has literally just threatened your unborn child is killed for doing so, fuck you D&D

In the 1960′s Legally a woman couldn’t

This is why we needed feminism - this is why we know that feminism works

I just want to reiterate this stuff, because I legit get the feeling there are a lot of younger women for whom it hasn’t really sunk in what it is today’s GOP is actively trying to return to.

Did you go to a good college? Shame on you, you took a college placement that could have gone to a man who deserves and needs it to support or prepare for his wife & children. But if you really must attend college, well, some men like that, you can still get married if you focus on finding the right man.

Got a job? Why? A man could be doing that job. You should be at home caring for a family. You shouldn’t be taking that job away from a man who needs it (see college, above). You definitely don’t have a career – you’ll be pregnant and raising children soon, so no need to worry about promoting you.

This shit was within living memory.  I’M A MILLENIAL and my mother was in the second class that allowed women at an Ivy League school. Men who are alive today either personally remember shit like this or have parents/family who have raised them into thinking this was the way America functioned back in the blissful Good Old Days. There are literally dudes in the GOP old enough to remember when it was like this and yearn for those days to return.

When people talk about resisting conservativism and the GOP, we’re not just talking about whether the wage gap is a myth or not. We’re talking about whether women even have the fundamental right to exist as individuals, to run their own households and compete for jobs and be considered on an equal footing with men in any arena at all in the first place.

I was a child in the 1960s, a teenager in the 1970s, a young adult in the 1980s. This is what it was like: When I was growing up, it was considered unfortunate if a girl was good at sports. Girls were not allowed in Little League. Girls’ teams didn’t exist in high school, except at all-girls’ high schools. Boys played sports, and girls were the cheerleaders. People used to ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a brain surgeon or the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Everyone told me it was impossible–those just weren’t realistic goals for a girl–the latter, especially, because you couldn’t trust women to judge fairly and rationally, after all. In the 1960s and 1970s, all women were identified by their marital status, even in arrest reports and obituaries. In elementary school, my science teacher referred to Pierre Curie as DOCTOR Curie and Marie Curie as MRS. Curie…because, as he put it, “she was just his wife.” (Both had doctorates and both were Nobel prize winners, so you would think that both would be accorded respect.) Companies could and did require women to wear dresses and skirts. Failure to do could and did get women fired. And it was legal. It was also legal to fire women for getting married or getting pregnant. The rationale was that a woman who was married or who had a child had no business working; that was what her husband was for. Aetna Insurance, the biggest insurance company in America, fired women for all of the above. A man could rape his wife. Legally. I can remember being twelve years old and reading about legal experts actually debating whether or not a man could actually be said to coerce his wife into having sex. This was a serious debate in 1974. The debate about marital rape came up in my law school, too, in 1984. Could a woman be raped by her husband? The guys all said no–a woman got married, so she was consenting to sex at all times. So I turned it around. I asked them if, since a man had gotten married, that meant that his wife could shove a dildo or a stick or something up his ass any time she wanted to for HER sexual pleasure. (Hey, I thought it was reasonable. If one gender was legally entitled to force sex on the other, then obviously the reverse should also be true.) The male law students didn’t like the idea. Interestingly, they commented that being treated like that would make them feel like a woman. My reaction was, “Thank you for proving my point…” The concept of date rape, when first proposed, was considered laughable. If a woman went out on a date, the argument of legal experts ran, sexual consent was implied. Even more sickening was the fact that in some states–even in the early 1980s–a man could rape his daughter…and it was no worse than a misdemeanor. Women taking self-defense classes in the 1970s and 1980s were frequently described in books and on TV as “cute.” The implication was that it was absurd for a woman to attempt to defend herself, but wasn’t it just adorable for her to try? I was expressly forbidden to take computer classes in junior and senior years of high school–1978-79 and 1979-80–because, as the principal told me, “Only boys have to know that kind of thing. You girls are going to get married, and you won’t use it.” When I was in college–from 1980 to 1984–there were no womens’ studies. The idea hadn’t occurred in many places because the presumption was that there was nothing TO study. My history professor–a man who had a doctorate in history–informed me quite seriously that women had never produced a noted painter, sculptor, composer, architect or scientist because…wait for it…womens’ brains were too small. (He was very surprised when I came up with a list of fifty women gifted in the arts and science, most of whom he had never heard of before.) When Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate in 1984, the press hailed it as a disaster. What would happen, they asked fearfully, if Mondale died and Ferraro became president? What if an international crisis arose and she was menstruating? She could push the nuclear button in a fit of PMS! It would be the end of the WORLD!! …No, they WEREN’T kidding. On the surface, things are very different now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young adult. But I’m afraid that people now do not realize what it was like then. I’ve read a lot of posts from young women who say that they are not feminists. If the only exposure to feminism they have is the work of extremists, I cannot blame them overmuch. I wish that I could tell them what feminism was like when it was new–when the dream of legal equality was just a dream, and hadn’t even begun to come true. When “woman’s work” was a sneer–and an overt putdown. When people tut-tutted over bright and athletic girls with the words, “Really, it’s a shame she’s not a boy.” That lack of feminism wasn’t all men opening doors and picking up checks. A lot of it was an attitude of patronizing contempt that hasn’t entirely died out, but which has become less publicly acceptable. I wish I could make them feel what it was like…when grown men were called “men” and grown women were “girls.”

Know your history.

So this, too, is what they mean saying “make America great again” and/or the good old days.

REBLOG FOREVER.

I am 70. I remember all those things. I was a student nurse from 64 to 67 and we were not permitted to “finish” a bed bath on a male or insert a catheter in a male. Seeing male genitals might cause us “harm” or upset our delicate sensibilities. Imagine when we graduated and were “thrown” to the wolves. Imagine if you were a male patient who had to be the first to be “practiced” on by a graduate nurse. (Ha!) At the school I attended no student nurse could be married. Only one school in my city (Atlanta) would even admit married women and Male Nurses weren’t even thought of. What man would want to be a nurse when he could be a Doctor. In all my training I only remember 3 or 4 Women who were Doctor’s and a very few, (less than 5 or 6) female interns or residents (and this was a teaching hospital) and most of those were OB/Gyns and one was a pediatrician.

When I graduated and was going to get married I wanted to go on birth control pills. You needed to be on them for a least one cycle before they were effective. I won’t go into what hoops I had to jump through to get a prescription from my Dr. (a man, natch) but when i went to the drug store to get the prescription filled I ended up having to get my future husband to “accompany” me so the pharmacist “interview” him and see if it was okay with him for me to be on the pill.

Even when we went to get a marriage license I had to get my Father’s signature and we had to go before a Judge because I was not yet 21 (I was 20 and 9 months).

I could go on and on, getting a credit card in MY name, etc., but I will tell you that WE MUST RESIST.

The number of people I know who romanticize gender inequality is frankly terrifying. A world never existed in which the lives of women were simplified by benevolent men who saw to her every want and need. That was not a thing. A world never existed in which women were all ladies, men were all gentlemen, & everything was some great big cishet fairytale. Feminists aren’t a bunch of upstarts who want to destroy a perfectly wholesome and non-harmful system. Just…look at history. Look at the posts above. We. Must. Resist..

About 8: The State of New York only added No-Fault Divorce as an option in 2010 (!!!)

I want to repeat here. 

This is what they mean, when they say “Old-fashioned values”

When conservatives start waxing lyrical about the ‘good old days’, this is what they mean. They are fully aware how much things blew for women, and they would like to return to that. 

#We have already lost abortion rights #we are on the verge of losing gay marriage #We are losing our rights because we got careless #we believed it couldn’t happen #Fuck Trump #Fuck SCOTUS

#feminism #Misogyny #I wrote this post years ago and it is more relevant today

Griswold v Connecticut. That Thomas specifically named in his agreement to striking down Roe v Wade as another case that should be revisited?Was decided in 1965. Less than 60 years that MARRIED women were permitted to access birth control. The case for unmarried women’s birth control was nine years later.

Don’t ever believe that just because something has been a certain way for a few decades it can’t go back. And take a long hard look before you decide that it’s something you can live with going back to - cause chances are? Even if you personally can, someone you care about won’t.

my mother (born 1953) wanted to be an archaeologist as a child. she was told that Girls Didn’t Do That. which is wryly hilarious because female archaeologists have existed pretty much as long as the field itself, albeit often remembered as Wife of Male Archaeologist rather than professionals in their own right. but still.

it’s also interesting as a catch-22 because like. MANY women have had to work outside the home for all of human history. but see above- they used to be paid about half of what a man was (and I assume that’s specifically white women, to boot). so you have to work, but you’re a Bad Wife And Mother for working, and you make far less than a man in the same position

(also note that not all of these have been strict linear progressions of Worse to Better throughout western history- it was easier to get a legal abortion in 1750s English-colonized North America than the 1950s United States)

yeah your life could have been fulfilling and happy back then. many women’s lives were, in spite of all this systemic oppression. humans are happiness-seeking missiles in any circumstances. but are you really willing to take that chance, for you and other women around you?

I sure as hell am not

i blame the show for the glorification of incest house because💀

the blonde haired blue eyes who came from a society that exploited valyria so much to the point of annihilation

the people who got their dragons by sacrifing innocents(those huge weapons of mass destruction)

the blood purity closer to god than men family?

they are a critique to eurocentrism?

or daenerys who is a great example of whyte saviorism

also the concept of seeing someone as other is not something that exists solely on european societies(islamic colonialism,persian colonialism,mongolian colonialism,japanese colonialism,chinese colonialism)

it also exists in countries that didn’t colonize(eastern europe for example)

the targaryens are not some opressed group,they have conquered the seven kingdoms using their weapons of mass destruction,they also never done anything for the poor or the smallfolks(considering that it was the smallfolks who k*lled the dragons)

house targaryen is a noble house from feudalism(a privileged class)who exactly like the starks only cares for themselves and their interests

First, Westeros is a fictionalized version of England and most Northwestern European medieval societies that uses mostly English history (War of the Roses, the Anarchy, William the Conqueror, the English Anglo Saxon kingdoms before the Norman Conquest). You didn't know this? It's literally what it's being modelled after...dude?!! Yes, this is Euro-centered!!! Also, "blood purity" and "closer to god than men" has always been not really believed in the way or level you seem to imply. Jaehaerys created the Doctrine for propaganda sake and get the Faith off the Targs' back. And, as you yourself stated, as one of the feudal houses of Westeros, the Targs reflect a common aristocratic trend of using godlikeness (the Gardners are son, so are the ironborn) of legtimizing their places in society, but with Jaehaerys we see less actual belief in that origin and more pragmatic use of ideological phenomena of the land he is ruling. Thereby, we can say that through the Targs, we are studying Westerosi feudalism and seeing how truly "backwards" the Westerosi customs are when we especially realize that the more the Targs assimiliate through the years so that their women lose power and agency, the weaker the house itself gets--even after they lose their dragons. In andal/Seven patriarchy, the Targs lost their way towards power, yes. So it is through the Targs' change into the fabric they bought that we measure and see in stark relief how backwards and oppressive the fedualist system Westeros and a lot of the ASoIaF world has. And the Targs aren't imperialists of Westeros, you are suing that word hella wrong. They are ordinary conquerors. If they weren't the lords would not be able to practice their customs as freely as they do.

Secondly, out of the thousands of years of non-Targ-unified rule where every singer Westerosi kingdoms were in constant warfare, there was been actual peace in "Westeros" for 210 or so years. Again, they ruled for 283 years. And after they are gone, what happens? Another civil war, the War of the Five Kings, from an era barely held together by people other than Robert, the king, himself who wanted to just fuck and fight his way to his own death.

In those 1000s of pre-Targ years of war mongering, the lords of Westeros have actually been much more of a menace to the smallfolk than the Targs have...have you ever actually heard a Stark, a Barathon, a Martell, a Arryn make declarations banning certain predatory practices at least in their own lands the way Alysanne and Rhaenys did (rule of thumb, right of first night, rule of six)? And it was a Andal-descent Westerosi, Tywin, who rolled back Aegon V's sincerely pro-peasant laws once he got to become Hand. It was Jaehaerys that built roads to connect different major areas, which indutibly helped travel for everyone, not just the nobles. It was Alysanne who got him to clean up the sewer sysytem a bit more for the smallfolk of KL. All either with selfless intentions OR with another self serving intent, but still by contrast, what did the other lords and ladies do for the smallfolk? Of any sort of intent?

So, no, the Targs are not exactly the same as the Starks. They're more similar to the Martells, really, in terms of how othered they are. And no, the Dornish, sociologically and politically, the Dornish are not "Other", but they are seen as "foreign". There si no system of oppression against them, either.

You also have a very narrow view of dragons, very similar to how the Seven see dragons as just evil. GRRM symobolically sees fire & very cleansing and purifying...as does many cultures. It's not all ""destruction". You ironically prove the point when you think this way, since in Cristian, esp Protestant--based soceities, fire tends to be invoked or thought of negatively. So do dragons. Very Eurocentric.

Thirdly, I love how you try to argue Dany is a white savior. She is not, you've been watching too much Game of Thrones. Not only is Essosi and larger ASoIaF slavery based on class instead of a the sort of "race" that exists in a modern era and slaves in Essos can be of any color, Dany is not disengnuous in her desire and passion to free all the slaves of Essos and become a true compassionate leader. And if you read the books, you will need to revisit them and stop listening to stupid videos on Youtbe that refuse to use book evidence or really just plain old logic to explain away their misogyny against Dany. Dany does use the history of her ancestors as her strength as well as to teach her what not to do.

Definition of a white savior:

Therefore, even if she wanted to, Dany can never be a white savior.

---Interlude---

Maybe you got confused, because how could the valyrians exploit the valyrians (unless we're talking the class divide, but then we'd be talking about class, not race, and no there was no slavery based on race in Essos. ever.)? 🤨

---End---

Fourthly, and yes, within the context of Westeros, the Targaryens are an cognitive if not a social Other. An eternal foreigner of sorts.

This is the definition of the "Other"ing:

No one is saying that they are a systematically oppressed group, but they aren't treated as entirely human all the time either by fans nor those in Westeros AND fans tend to treat the Andal-FM ideological system as the default human one. Precisely bc of their strong heritage and present connection to magic. Westeros is dominantly Seven of the Faith, or the fictional version of Catholicsm. The Faith (of the Seven) is largely anti-magic and is the only religon in the known world that claims to not use or depend on magic. Magic is considered unnatural and evil. There is also no proof or indication that any of the Seven gods are real. Let that sink in. The religions of Rholor, the old gods, etc, all have traces of magic use AND people have wielded magic of a kind proven to actually work and shape the world around them.

Though the Targs have ruled for 283 years, they have had to abandon most of their past Valyrian customs--all except sibling marriage--bc they decided to assimilate as closely as they could to Andal culture and adopt the Seven religion to appease those they ruled. Still, because they have access to mysterious beings who they cannot control, their family is the most recent to come out of Essos, they are markedly different-looking to the point that they look almost inhumane to many Westerosi (no matter how pale, purple eyed, and white-gold-haired reminiscent of blonde-blue-eyes), AND the memory of Visenya and Rhaenys being competent and powerful women in their own right, the Seven of the Faith largely has always considered the Targs as "strange", then "mad".

Yes, even before Daenerys exited the Targs, mainly the women, were seen as a different alien group. The Targs of F&B and before that AWoIaF are not "better" than Dany--that wasn't even the damn question or the point in the first place!--they are there to contextualize her personal development and narrative importance. She makes them matter, of course, but she had to come from somewhere and draw her meaning of self somewhere. She does not, in the text, too, ignore or completely divest herself of her family legacy, she has favorites and is very proud to be a Targ. Her dragons, which are necessary for the Long Night, come from her blood connection to this house...and no there has been very little proof that a non-Valyiran-descent could ride or bond with dragons, so for the Targs, yes blood actually matters a great deal.

Look, the Targs shaped Westeros and even created a few of its current institutions for better or worse. It's not "glorification" if you're just describing what is written in the actual text. The series is not built for any house, nor is as haunted by any house but the Targs. The Starks are a second.

honestly after the daenerys is not a whyte savior argument(when that’s obvious that her story will go there esp after she profited off slavery)it was obvious that regardless of what i say you will still support this house and find justification for them

and there was a war of five kings after the literal mad targaryen king died?we know that the war was started by the fact that joffrey was a bastard(we also know that baelish was involved)because to be honest when the targaryen ruled they never had civil wars or tyrants(aegon the unworth,rhaenyra and aegon,the mad king,maegor the cruel,daemon)

i don’t love the stark and i do believe they are also glorifed(for no reason)just like the other houses they represent why feudalism and monarchy is f*ckef up

and to your statement about finding dragons dangerous eurocentric is wrong

unsurprisingly not everyone liked dragons

A)

babe, i am not the one who refuses to read books💀.

You sound like a person who'd benefit from reading these two posts showing how Dany never profits or uses slavery...from brideoffires:

POST #1

POST #2 they go into why you're just wrong about Dany somehow making slavery her new cashcow.

But since you seem to be satisfied with being very intellectually challenged, you probs won't. Doesn't matter, I am very satisfied this will be out for posterity.

B)

So this post on the erroneous take about ASoIaF just about "feudalism bad!" [by dragonseeds] will also help.

"War of the Five Kings" and "Robert's Rebellion" are two different wars...friend, you good? You need some saline? No, not all wars are the same.

Bro is making as if the Dance were two separate events by separating Daemon from Rhaenyra in their list💀. that's one war, bro. Aegon the Unworthy (IV) didn't actually go to war, he failed utterly before anything could happen, so no war there. BFR. But if you're talking the Blackfyre Rebellion, sure. You still refused to check out my link, si I'll just have to post it as pic here, it's critical to flout your stupid argument:

Once again, much different and much less war than when the 7 kingdoms existed as autonomous kingdoms.

The second war after the Targs were gone (Robert's Rebellion) was supposed to end the evil Targ rule...yet only a 1 decade or so later, Robert dies and neither he nor Tywin prevented a war, all w/o an Targ help. Again, you may want to refer to the years of peacetime and the calculations for that I linked before.

I also find it funny who you completely ignored my stuff about the Targs shaping and benefiting Westereos outside of the blanket statement you tried to make for them...perhaps bc you can't defend yourself bc you never read the books? and you thought going by the sexist-writtenly show Dumb & Dumbee wrote for you small pea-brain meant your brain grew three sizes the day season 8 premiered.

C)

You also could have clarified what you mean by them "not liking" dragons, bc that is vague enough to be a catch all. The Faith didn't like dragons bc they were magic and out of their control. And the lords were wary precisely bc they didn't have control over them themselves. You realize that some wanted to intermarry with the Targs to have access to their power, dragons and ordinary political. Have you read of Rhaena and the Lannisters? Doesn't seem like it.

Also, the Seven people "don't" like the old gods for the same reasons above as well as being generally xenophobic towards anythign that is not Seven-based. You really seek to undermine a lot of the themes of ASoIaF, don't you? It's a good thing I already provided links to other posts where I explained why to think the Targs uniquely evil or amoral when the Westerosi lords themselves are peachy-keen or morally superior to the Targs, otherwise we'd be having a stupid-off.

bro, we're talking dragons...as in their fire...as in their fire will be used in the "song" (war) between "ice" (the Others) and "fire" (Dany and the dragons).....you're being obtuse and you think dragons are not going to important to the REAL war that's coming, I feel very bad for you. your pro-Westerosi flaw is showing.

Learn to have some nuance, life will be more fun for you.

finally, this is what GRRM says:

Source (May 1, 2001)

Also, the Doctrine was not blood purist bc it never FORBADE Targs from marrying non Targs...nor even actively nor passively discouraged Targs from marrying "out". There was never any legal restriction or clause that said that Targs could not marry certain peoples AND there was no clause forbidding a Targ to marry a non-Targ due to an idea that non-Targs were "impure" or had "unclean" blood. The Targs married out more often than the Starks!

Many Targs married outside of their families (arranged or elsewise--and in some arranged ones, still came to value and or genuinely love their non-Targ partners) or had sex with/were attracted to them:

Blood purity constricts marriage and relationships...not opens them!

The Doctrine was for the Targs to safely practice their custom of incest marriage similar to how the Andal-FM Westerosi practiced their own incest marriages, which all existed--marriage I mean--to consolidate resources, titles, and wealth to specific families. And under the excuse, as I mention, under the already present Andal-FM practice of using the gods' intervention as their reason.

Another example of (creative) assimilation, rather than colonization or oppression of a people from the Targs!

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:

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.

A great Twitter thread of how Aemond wishes to socially dominate and reaffirm his masculinity through sexual domination over Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alys Rivers:

Pics:

Dragons going extinct because of misogyny is actually crazy when you think about it and then hundreds of years later a little girl being the one to bring it back is so poetic like Dany really is the one.

The dragons went extinct because tha Targs generally were horrible and the smallfolk had enough of them. Can you people read?

Dragons went extinct because of the dance and the dance happened because of misogyny. I never said misogyny was the only reason they went extinct. Can you anti targ people learn to read instead of being offended at the truth?

Also, was it not Robert's Rebellion (an aristocrat's war, not a smallfolk rebellion, Robert didn't rebel for the sake of the smallfolk but for his own survival and he never cared to even be part of most council meetings) that got the Targs kicked out? And they keep forgetting & ignoring that:

I don’t understand when people try to argue that Team Black isn’t the feminist option because Rhaenyra upholds the patriarchy in some ways, i.e. not trying to end male progeniture.

Like sorry that the woman living in a ragingly misogynistic medieval society isn’t trying to install 21st century feminism. Rhaenyra was usurped and her loved ones killed for the baby step progress of “kings can declare female heirs if they want”, and y’all expected her to push for MORE??? That’d have lost her the support that she had from those who sided with her because they agreed Viserys’ word was law. Her being queen is still an advancement for women in Westeros, it’s called setting a PRECEDENT and taking an important step towards equality you absolute dumbasses.

It is because to people like them, only Rhaenyra and Daenerys have to live up to values of the 21st Century while the other characters they like can be excused for the bad things they do because of the fact that they live in a society based on Medieval Europe. Daenerys and Rhaenyra must live up to really high standards that they don’t hold others to and if they don’t turn Westeros into a Utopia based on 21st Century values then they are irredeemable monsters.

You are so right, and HEAVY on Daenerys because it’s not just annoying fans that do this, but the show itself. Dany is turning into the Mad Queen because she burned the Lannister army that just murdered and sacked her allies, but when Tyrion blew up an entire fleet with wildfire it was totally fine and held up as an example of why he’s a good leader.

Exactly, they hold up Daenerys and Rhaenyra to standards that they hold their favorite characters to. Daenerys can only end slavery only if she doesn’t kill the monstrous slavers who profited off of it and hurt their slaves according to them. They lay all the blame on Daenerys for Mereen for the hit taken to the economy when that was done by vengeful slavers who hated her for getting rid of slavery. Daenerys was supposedly going mad because she had Lord Tarly and his son executed for not following her, but Jon Snow was learning hard lessons about being a leader when he executed him for not following his orders. Now they see Rhaenyra is evil because she was unable to turn Westeros into a feminist Utopia in the short amount of time she had on the Iron Throne. No, for them it must mean she hates other women like Cersei and saw herself as the exception to the rule.

I don’t understand when people try to argue that Team Black isn’t the feminist option because Rhaenyra upholds the patriarchy in some ways, i.e. not trying to end male progeniture.

Like sorry that the woman living in a ragingly misogynistic medieval society isn’t trying to install 21st century feminism. Rhaenyra was usurped and her loved ones killed for the baby step progress of “kings can declare female heirs if they want”, and y’all expected her to push for MORE??? That’d have lost her the support that she had from those who sided with her because they agreed Viserys’ word was law. Her being queen is still an advancement for women in Westeros, it’s called setting a PRECEDENT and taking an important step towards equality you absolute dumbasses.

It just rings so familiar to real-world politics and conversations.

How many people with reactionary/conservative politics have we all encountered who, instead of arguing about why their stance is better, start to nit-pick inconsistencies and hypocrisy in liberal and leftist stances, even though what they offer is far worse?

Because they're not saying their side does not have the same problems. They're saying those problems are natural, those problems cannot be resisted, that anyone who tries and does so imperfectly is a hypocrite, so you're a bad person for trying at all.

part of the reason why the whole "men/boys are taught not to cry!!!! its so sad for them!!!!" thing bothers me is because so many women i know went through childhood and young adult life staring into the middle distance in order to be taken seriously as people. its devastating to learn as a child that crying is associated with "femininity" weakness and hysteria and to witness all around you how these farcical patriarchal claims are used to dismiss women's distress. different human emotions being assigned specific genders and "feminine emotions" specifically being belittled and degraded can actually make women recoil from them in order to be treated like a person, isn't that funny

like the notion that men/boys grow up learning to be repulsed by their own emotional vulnerability (i.e. "femininity") actually also extends to women and girls and everyone else too. the rest of us don't just go through life happily and comfortably emoting and have those emotions received with open arms

love and light to everyone but if i see one more post that’s like “the point of asoiaf is that feudalism is BAD” i’m going to rip out my hair and start eating dirt and worms. like yes, it is bad. yes, monarchies are bad. yes so true it’s annoying when people ignore all of that and focus on who they think deserves the throne more. but that’s not the point—that is the premise? it’s the beginning of the exploration and deconstruction. functionally this system is rigid (specifically in terms of gender and class) and horrifically violent: so what it’s really like to live in it? to try to be a hero, a knight, to be a lady in a world where your body belongs to your family, your lord, your order? is it possible to be a good person in a hierarchal world like this, with such vast power imbalances woven throughout it and every relationship and interaction that you have informed by that? how do you navigate that imbalance in order to have meaningful relationships—can you every truly do it? and who decides what is good? how do you know if it’s truly right or it just felt right because it’s what you wanted to do? what about the people who have no name, no family, no order: what happens to them? don’t they matter? what if in a lifetime of looking the other way or actively causing others harm, you do a few things—maybe one thing—that’s objectively good: does it mean anything? does it matter, even if no one ever knows? what if the best thing you ever did broke every vow you made, every law that governs your society? how do you live with that dissonance?

what’s it like to be a ruler, to be a king or queen—is it possible to be a good one in such an unequal system? to wield power justly? who decides what is just? who decides who should rule? at which point does the amount of power someone can have cross the line into too much? is it when you stop trying to figure out how to use it correctly and worry only about how to keep it? if holding onto it costs you everything, your family and all your relationships, is it still worth it? what if having that much power available is necessary to the survival of your people, maybe even your world, but when it’s misused the carnage left behind is beyond articulation—is it still worth it? are the lives it saves worth the lives it took? how do you measure that? who carries the weight of that choice and how? how do you live with it? how do you go on living in a world that can be harsh and cruel and unfair, a world where your good intentions and your personhood seem to matter very little in the face of someone else’s greed or when compared to the yoke of your duty? and the questions never stop and the answers when and if they come are rarely easy, but the point is that you keep asking and keep trying because that’s what it means to be alive lol

“I think all literature has ideas. […] Ideas about the human condition, and love, and God, and sex, and all of these things are ideas. But the truth is, fiction is not a good vehicle for presenting abstract ideas. I mean, non-fiction, journalism, my profession, in which I had my professional degrees, is actually a better way to explicate if you have an idea about some political or scientific method. That’s why scientific journals are full of research reports, they're not full of science fiction stories. What fiction is good about is presenting emotion. Fiction is good about replicating the human experience, and the human heart in conflict is central to all of that. If the story you're telling me doesn't have characters in it that I care about in a situation that's going to engage my emotions, I'm not gonna find it very interesting.”

via

Me sittin’ here, seriously concerned for all the young kids who are gonna’ grow up in this fandom environment thinking they’re secretly evil monsters because their sex fantasies aren’t strictly pure or vanilla or because they ship something with an unhealthy dynamic. Soooooo many people must hate/be terrified of themselves.

Hey…….hey kids…….

You’re fuckin’ fine.

The human brain is weird. Sex fantasies ≠ actual desires. If you ask yourself, “would I want to act out this thing in real life” and the answer is “fuck no,” then you’re fine. Shipping is also not an indicator of what you would condone in real life. You are not secretly a monster. You are a human being. Human beings are complicated. Please calm down and treat yourself to a smoothie or something.

“What you want to read about” is not the same as “what you want to happen in your real life.” 

The murder mystery industry has no problem understanding this. 

The entire “horror” genre is built on this.  Ditto “thrillers”, and indeed most other genres.  In fact, possibly the only genre which isn’t inherently built on this assumption is “romance”, and even there… well, there’s a lot of romance stories which are basically about “I want to experience catharsis” rather than “I want this to happen to me” (consider Wuthering Heights, for example - Heathcliff and Catherine are great to read about, but they would each be hell to live with). 

This also means if you’re asexual but you still like reading stories where people fuck?  You’re still asexual.  If you’re aromantic and enjoy reading romances, you’re still aromantic.  If you’re non-heterosexual and enjoy reading heterosexual porn (because hey, there’s more of it and it’s easier to find than anything else, right?) then you’re still not heterosexual. 

The only thing your taste in reading says anything about is your taste in reading. 

Being into gothic horror is wild, because you’ll look up the reviews/public opinion on a book and all the posts will be like “ugh, this was insufferable. The main character was the most melodramatic whiny narcissist cunt who’s perspective I’ve ever had the displeasure of following. When the main character wasn’t whining, it was just pages and pages of the most useless boring shit describing stupid landscapes over and over again. Boring and insufferable to read.”

And then you’ll get the book and read it and it’ll be like “Hi, I’m gothic protagonist. My entire family got brutally murdered by an unknown person and I also got horrifically abused as a child and struggle with severe mental illness, and now there’s unholy paranormal forces at work all against me, but at least I have the love of my life and my closest friends who I’d kill and die for and they’d do the same for me. Even though I’m cripplingly psychologically unwell and severely burdened with the mass of terrible things in my past, I’m going to figure out and track down the thing that killed my family and seek to destroy it, whilst poetically mirroring my suffering with the most beautiful and profound descriptions of the nature around me that you’ve ever read, contrasting the horror of nature with the beauty and goodness of it and giving you an existential crisis. This book is going to make you so ridiculously attached to these characters and change your whole perception of the life you lead.”

That attitude is, annoyingly, very prevalent among reading spaces. And aside from sounding very much like hollow criticism — I mean, most of them barely even discuss the plot and it’s apparent shortcomings, focusing instead on things that bothered them personally with no regard for how said things serve the characters and narrative — there is also a certain laziness (for the lack of a better word) in their complaints. It often feels like they refuse to even engage the work for what it actually is, instead of the more digestible version they imagined in their heads. I don’t even mean that in the cultural sense, of readers being outraged at the bigoted values the author had no remorse in adding to the book’s philosophy; I mean that it feels like they don’t really want to read anything that isn’t “significant” character interactions or passages directly related to the main conflict. As in, the description of scenery and subtle character details, all those things that contribute to the atmosphere, themes, and psychology behind the premise, are woefully disregarded by people who have no patience for such, that don’t want to do the work of interpretation as much as they’d rather take every word at face value.,

(Also, don’t even get me started on how some readers commit to engaging with Gothic Horror specifically and then somehow come out of it baffled — baffled, I say! — about the presence of disturbing imagery, dark themes, and the truly incomprehensible concept of a villain/unsympathetic protagonist.)

i love that one of book rhaenys’s consistent character traits is that she just really wants to go to war all the time. like she wants to get on Meleys and burn someone sooooo bad. she was really having the time of her life at rook’s rest.

i know this woman was just skipping down the hallways of dragonstone when Rhaenyra handed her command over. “With a glad cry and a crack of her whip she turned Meleys towards the foe.” RIP Rhaenys, you died doing what you loved.

just saw the new trailer. RIP Book Rhaenys once again. they turned your show version into a LIBERAL.

Y'all. Probably the most UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED criticism against grrm is the abundance of gratuitous extreme sexual violence against women in asoiaf. GoT doubled down on that and is endlessly criticized for that. On the ONE (1) INSTANCE where sexual violence was NOT part of a female character's arc in grrm's work, HotD decided to introduce it as a means of giving "nuance" to a story and making a character more sympathetic. And now not only is this not considered a sexist narrative but on top of that you call this an inspired twist ffs I'm gonna eat my hair

Like I was never actually opposed to a more "nuanced" Alicent. All I said was that HotD's particular brand of nuance that you consider more inspired than Fire and Blood is entirely based on her being a child bride and victim of marital rape. That is the very essence of her arc.

This!is!not!how!you!give!nuance!to!a!female!antagonist!

And Rhaenyra???? Rhaenyra ffs. Rhaenyra HAPPILY MARRIED to her husband in a HAPPY marriage I repeat, is now a victim of domestic abuse. The happy violence-free relationships in asoiaf can be counted with the palm of ONE hand, and hotd turned this particular happy relationship to a domestic abuse NIGHTMARE but sure it is more InSPiREd than the source material i'm gonna commit a crime for real