#and visenya telling maegor to burn the sept of remembrance.....supposedly cuz faith militant but like

[navree]

What do you think about Maegor and Visenya?

As separate characters, I don't necessarily have a lot of thoughts on Maegor. I'm generally not the biggest fan of assholes, and there's not a lot that we know about Maegor other than that he was an asshole, so I don't have much to say about him as a character. But Visenya on the other hand..........Listen there's a reason why I wanted HOTD to start with the Conquest, and Visenya was a part of that (beyond my desire to see a lesbian with a sword riding a dragon fucking shit up).

There's a lot about Visenya that fascinates me. She's the eldest sister out of all her siblings, and I like to think she felt very overprotective over both of them. Doing something like the Conquest just wasn't anything Targaryens had done before, and now her baby brother and baby sister are flying off to war and they could get hurt, they could be kileld (and one of them was aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh). And while I definitely think they all loved each other and were close as siblings, did she ever feel like the odd one out? Visenya was married out of duty, before Aegon then went outside the box to make sure he can marry the sister he actually loved too, Visenya had the smallest and least imposing dragon between the three of them, Aegon and Rhaenys are the ones who had a family when they had Aenys, and there's a wealth of drama in whether or not Visenya sometimes felt like a third wheel despite being the Older Sister. I also imagine that she too had a tendency to chafe at gender roles, since between her and Rhaenys she was the one who wanted most to be a warrior-woman, and I think she definitely enjoyed governance, but her's was more interested in how to make the realm run, while Rhaenys was focused on diplomacy and improving relations. And honestly don't get me started on her relationship with Rhaenys, the way she was just as willing to set Dorne on fire for her, the way that she was more eager to continue it when Nymor sued for peace, how it felt when Aenys presented Rhaena to court which made even Aegon weep, Hell how it felt to actively work to displace and threaten Rhaenys's grandchildren, the girl named after her beloved sister. I like to think Visenya didn't regret anything she did, but she might have had some moments of sadness about it, especially towards the end of her life when Maegor started getting more Maegor™ and she had more time to think about life when it was just her and her siblings on Dragonstone. But she was still welcome at Aenys's court, and still counseled him on decisions, because even with everything, even with her own son in exile, this was Aegon's son, this was Rhaenys's son. Because over everything, I think Visenya adored her siblings, missed them when they were gone from this world, and if she was asked who she loved the most, it would be Aegon and Rhaenys.

Visenya and Maegor's relationship I think is interesting. Neither of them seem to have been very affectionate or caring people, certainly to each other, Maegor because he's Maegor™ and Visenya because I think any softness she had in her likely dried up around the time Rhaenys died, given my personal headcanon that it was also when her relationship with Aegon fell apart due to the grief and Aegon's decisions around ending the war (if I'm right, then the hurt Visenya must have felt about being denied a chance to say goodbye to Rhaenys, to be made to capitulate and have peace without even having been given the full information cuz Aegon made a unilateral decision, God I wanna die). But it's clear that Visenya cared about her son, that she felt angered when he was disrespected and actively worked for his advancement, and also she was the one primarily responsible for raising him, since she was with him on Dragonstone while Aenys was in King's Landing with their father. I don't think Visenya had a Cersei towards Joffrey attitude about Maegor, she knew exactly what he was and the potential for monstrosity he had, but she saw it as a positive and a way for him to advance in life, given the fact that this was still a bit of a turbulent, with the Wars of Conquest and the First Dornish War not far behind. I certainly think Maegor felt close to his mother, and that if he ever loved anyone, if he was even capable, it was her, the only parent he really knew, the only member of his family he was close to, given the physical distance between his father and him, the age difference between him and Aenys, and just the emotional distance he had with everyone due to his issues. I think the relationship was both bound tightly by the fact that neither of them had other people they were intimate with save each other, but also sundered at the same time by their own coldness and lack of capability towards forging open relationships with others. And I think that, similar to that Henry VIII thing where it was clear that his ideal model for a wife was just Elizabeth of York, what Maegor was searching for in all his wives, above just being a fucking creep, was someone like Visenya, and it's probably why he held on to Tyana as long as he did.

I think it's an interesting relationship between interesting characters, and I think it's a shame that HOTD started so late in the game when we could have seen all of this unfold in real time if we'd started with the Conquest Era.

#personal #answered #anonymous #me vibrating at an alarmingly high frequency: yeah guys i love the conquerors a normal amount i swear #god rhaenys and her relationships with her siblings...... #and visenya telling maegor to burn the sept of remembrance.....supposedly cuz faith militant but like #the sept of REMEMBRANCE on RHAENYS'S hill the one built to remember RHAENYS #did visenya have a bout of jealousy? did she want to stop thinking about her lost sister? #was it too painful to remember how loved rhaenys had been and how it had torn the family apart when she was gone #i'm gonna lose my mind