It is as already a problem to see that this user doesn't think that the child fighting pita nor the raping happen in the book or in the original story.
i also really don’t see enough discussion of how aegon is a victim of rape within his marriage to helaena. obviously helaena isn’t given a choice in marrying aegon and having children with him, but neither is aegon. and we see aegon explicitly express that he doesn’t want this, which we haven’t actually seen from helaena.
there’s a reason helaena says aegon only ever touches her when he’s drunk. he cannot bring himself to endure rape when he is sober. there’s a reason he ignores his children. they are the product of his own rape, by his own hand.
he feels that he has been forced into the position of perpetrator of assault against helaena, his baby sister. he is the rapist and yet he is also the victim and how is he meant to reconcile the two? how is he meant to look helaena in the eye when the sight of her makes his skin crawl with the memory of having to walk willingly to his own assault? of being forced to be the active party, unable to even lay there and dissociate the way alicent always did with viserys?
and not once does anyone acknowledge what has happened to him. even alicent, who should empathize with him the most, has no sympathy for him in this regard. why would she? she’s the one who did this to him.
First of all anon, you either have to be this user whose post you're asking me about, or someone who hates this user with a passion. This must be the 4th post linking me to one of this user's posts. I find this very ironic.
Secondly, hypersexuality means "An obsession with sexual thoughts, urges, or behaviors that may cause distress or that negatively affects health, job, or relationships" and one of its symptoms, I'd we want to get all medical, are feeling a of remorse or guilt after a long with the satisfaction of having fulfill the urge. Where are the sign aid Aegon feeling remorseful or guilty for any of his raping, anyway?
This user uses the scenario of a rape victim having lots of sex (which can look like "too much" according to the bias-level of the perspective) to reclaim their own sense of control to say that Aegon the Elder's constant raping is the same. It also draws from the scenario of an abused turning into an abuser themselves.
Forced marriage =/= rape or sexual abuse from parent to child. At least not always. For show!Alicent and show!Aegon, yes it is the case. The problem is that the central raping that carries over from the original story is being justified with the show's change of making Alicent forced into her marriage with Viserys and much younger than her canon self. Which ushered justifications like this for anything that followed episode 2 and every single change that whitewashed a green.
The definition of rape is getting lost in the sauce here. Helaena is raped not because she is forced to marry, but because Aegon forces himself onto her ONLY when he is drunk and most definitely would not take "No" for an answer.
Aegon could have taken the time to not be drunk, ask his sister questions for her comfort, talk, acted according to her wishes, and then it wouldn't be rape. He doesn't do that. She says that he only touches her when there is good, or socially-express as such, excuse for him to not have the self control to do any of these things AND excuse to not pay attention to her expressions before, after, and during.
That "No" or silent refusal from Helaena is extant because Helaena seems like she was supposed to be the authentic, true to herself type (her visions and the lack of food development doesn't allow for anything less), and apart from her, who would invite or consent to sex with a drink person who ignores you and thinks you are a "freak"? She doesn't need special intuition to observe that Aegon dislikes her md has for a long time (not just having sex w/her, but her herself). We remember Aegon in episode 7, looking at her with disgust and calling her a freak. Similar actually to Daemon hating Rhea Royce, even with him disliking her because she is the means by which he is "trapped". Even if neurodivergent, Helaena is not stupid, they lived together for years, and Aegon is obvious.
Aegon has also rapes women long before he arranged to Helaena in the book. In the show, it's less clear if he did before the arrangement, but it's still very probable with how Aemond reacts to his epi 7 attentions on a serving girl.
While I think that it's true that he rapes because he feels out of control and has been pressured to be whatever Otto and Alicent wanted him to be and act like, that he never felt "enough", I say that rape is his means to overcompensate and reestablish his control and authority by taking it out on women through rape. That's pretty much the MO of rapists. To argue that this rapist is different because his mother forced him to marry someone he didn't like is to try and take away or reduce his rapist status. HotD whitewashed him, the difference more subtle between him and Aemond since the line between a pathetic rapist and a person who was abused and thus abuses can get easily lost within the trauma plotting of today, where the trauma=personality instead of being a beginning or thing-to-beat/contextualize for some sort of progression. Because Aegon never progresses or does anything worth noting that properly makes up for his raping, his fans seem to feel forced to excusing his actions and making him a victim needing their testimonial, their limelight. Their reduction into a symptom-basket.
Now for his kids, the reason why he's so distant is that, yes he was forced into the marriage and forced to have kids that remind him of his trapped state. Once again, people like Helaena still try to have care or pay attention to their kids, despite being forced into their marriages. Being forced into marriage is not a guarantee of hating or neglecting ones children, there are other layers unexplored because we want to lay down the trauma plot (undeserved even) to justify his being.
In this reading, what else is Aegon the Elder but his supposed symptoms, his trauma? Because he does nothing else besides rape, have sex with sex workers, and entertain himself with fighting pits before the Dance. Nothing leader-worthy. And he will do nothing of the sort later.