#f&b meta

[thesilverlady]

Were Alicent and Helaena loved by the Smallfolk?

they weren't hated by all means but loved is an exaggeration and new readers love nothing more than gasping straws. Here's my reasoning:

First and only mention of Alicent being "loved" by the smallfolk as far as I recall was when when she crowned her daughter

"Queen Alicent, beloved of the smallfolk, placed her own crown upon the head of her daughter, Helaena, Aegon’s wife and sister. After kissing her cheeks, the mother knelt before the daughter, bowed her head, and said, “My Queen.”

f&b claim characters like Baelon the Brave, Alicent, Helaena, etc to have been “beloved by the smallfolk” then never explain WHY they were beloved by the smallfolk. This is why I think the only person in f&b that was truly loved by the smallfolk was Alysanne because she actually did shit and and the maesters who were fond of her in later years (as she embraced the faith) wrote for her kindly.

For Alicent, the whole "beloved by the smallfolk" was really just a passing compliment. Had she done a single thing to have evoke worship for them the maesters wouldn't have missed the chance to mention it. In my opinion she was probably passive, so they had nothing to add about it, plus a new queen was to be crowned and attention was shifted on building up Helaena's image for the history books.

Now onto Helaena:

“Though plumper and less striking than most Targaryens, Helaena was a pleasant, happy girl, and all agreed she would make a fine mother.”

^ this is all we know about her. I can buy that she was probably in higher opinion of common born because of the pleasant attitude but to say she was loved by them is again a stretch. The claim only comes because of how the events of the war are narrated - which brings me to the next important thing; how you view the maesters affects how you read every single event from the story.

I've mentioned in the past than I'm very much a maester conspiracy truther for the whole asoiaf verse, and while I don't think everything the maesters mention in f&b is a straight up lie it's obvious to me their wording is carefully chosen to paint a favoring narrative.

I'm in humanities studies; so examining philosophical, religious, political texts and catching propaganda is something I've been very used to hence my attitude towards the maesters in asoiaf/f&b - they're a manipulative organization that seeks power and control. They've been on top for many years once upon a time and they want to go back to those golden days.

Back to Helaena though, since I didn't finish, it's important tor remind that the smallfolk never saw Helaena after b&c, it's once again the maesters who simply tells us about their supposed feelings:

"That it was so quickly believed shows how utterly the city had turned against their once-beloved queen. Rhaenyra was hated; Helaena had been loved. Nor had the common folk of the city forgotten the cruel murder of Prince Jaehaerys by Blood and Cheese, and the terrible death of Prince Maelor at Bitterbridge."

here's few contradictory to this statement:

"Rhaenyra was hated" Yet the maesters earlier confirmed the people in King's Landing cheered when she took over the city.

"Helaena was loved" again makes no mention as to why she loved; what good deeds did she do for them? Why not mention them? simply because they don't exist. Anyone the maesters like is 'beloved' by the smallfolk

"Common folk hadn't forgotten the terrible death of Prince Maelor" Guess who did the terrible death of Prince Maelor? ding ding the common folk.

To highlight the obvious biased, let me include Rhaenyra's reaction to Prince Maelor:

To highlight Mushroom, who loved the queen well, tells us that Rhaenyra wept when Maelor’s small head was placed before her as she sat the Iron Throne. Septon Eustace, who loved her little, says rather that she smiled, and commanded that the head be burned, “for he was the blood of the dragon.”

Do i really need to say it? It's clearly stated: one loved her well and the other little. So what's the truth of this scene?

and you may wonder what this gotta do with the original question? why do the maesters even matter over whether Alicent or Helaena possibly being loved by the common people?

It matters because the first hand accounts one (a septon) favors aegon and the second (a court fool) favors rhaenyra and the two others (orwyle and munkun) are both maesters of the citadel based where? oh right in oldtown, the seat of house hightower

to close this off, the common people change their attitude as fast as the wind changes direction.

jorah said it best:

The common people pray for rain, health and a summer that never ends. They don't care what games the high Lords play

#ask reply #book helaena #book rhaenyra #book alicent #f&b meta #the people who I think were genuinely loved by common folk (pre asoiaf) were alysanne and rhaegar #^also this is not an anti post. all characters are interesting. I think the hole 'who was loved by the common ppl' argument is quite stupid

[iheartbookbran]

Why are Rhaenyra's "strong" boys are presented as something she alone is doing to the Velaryon's family and disrespecting them. Laenor is a part of this, he's expecting his sons to inherit after him. If Rhaenyra is guilty of disrespecting the Velaryon family, doesn't Laenor share some of that guilt? I get why most don't, but you'd think Rhaenys would know that this was her sons decision too.

I hate, hate with a burning passion how much this kind of argument takes agency away from Laenor, and Corlys for that matter. Y’know, the only two men whose opinion on the subject actually hold any weight. Like, if Laenor really wanted to, he could’ve accused Rhaenyra of adultery and he could’ve taken legal steps against her, if people wanna complain about how much PrIviLegE Rhaenyra has that the patriarchy can’t touch her (narrator: it can) and she can get away with whatever she wants (narrator: she can’t), well then Laenor is the one person who wouldn’t have any problem challenging her because, like Rhaenyra, he’s a dragonrider descended from royalty and his father is the wealthiest man in the realm so I’m sure he was never super intimidated by Rhaenyra’s so called Targaryen Male Privilege. But instead Laenor was 100% on board with Rhaenyra having those children, loved those children like he were their biological father, and claimed them as his own, which means that legally those boys aren’t bastards and no one can prove otherwise. So really, who cares?

The only other person who could potentially care and have any say in the matter is Corlys… but he also didn’t gaf. He like Laenor, fully knowing the truth of those children’ real parentage, claimed them as his grandsons and named Luke as his heir, and as the Lord of Driftmark he had the complete authority to do that which was why Vaemond had no business trying to challenge that decision and why he never had the guts to bring the issue to his brother in person and why he had to wait until he was gravely injured to run to the Hightowers trying to gain support for his usurpation plot (also why he never bothered to name Baela or Rhaena as potential heirs, because he only cared about getting power for himself).

Spoiler alert but when Addam and Alyn eventually appear, and are made heirs to Driftmark, even though they’re very obviously Velaryons if not by name, they’re still gonna face a lot of prejudice and be challenged by their relatives for being “dirty bastards” daring to step “above their stations” in life, it doesn’t matter who they might resemble.

The worst part is that those same awful prejudices against illegitimate-born children that we as audience are supposed to disagree with are then adopted by the fandom as valid talking points. Like it’s just incredible to me how many people in this fandom feel so strongly about children born out the blessed bonds of marriage and unironically feel they should be discriminated against because of their birth. Almost makes me feel like I’m in Catholic School surrounded by stern-looking nuns or something lmfao.

#Anonymous #ask #ask pam #you know rumor has it catholic school nuns were grrm’s no. 1 enemy growing up #and for some reason many of them later became fans of his works #that’s actually super funny #rhaenyra targaryen #laenor velaryon #corlys velaryon #jacaerys velaryon #lucerys velaryon #joffrey velaryon #addam velaryon #alyn velaryon #hotd #fire and blood #house of the dragon #f&b book spoilers #f&b meta #meta #my meta #fandumb

[boylikeanangel]

I'm so serious when I say murray bartlett deserves an emmy simply for how he played the difference in frank's feelings during his first meal with bill compared to his last. in the podcast druckmann and mazin were talking about how the later scenes with bill and frank were a study in the kind of love that only comes about as a product of time and commitment and that is clearer nowhere than in murray's performance here. it's wonderment vs fondness. it's that first spark of infatuation where you can barely believe this is happening evolving into deep, abiding love where you know exactly where you stand. it's romance that becomes belonging. it's saying, "wow, look at everything this guy has here!" becoming, "wow, look at everything we've built together here". and it's one of the absolute most beautiful journeys I've ever seen on screen, and murray bartlett told it without saying a single word.

#crying again. btw. #tlou #the last of us #tlou spoilers #meta tag #b/f tag

[stheresya]

love the parallel between Aegon III and Alicent where they both develop a visceral aversion to the main symbols of their respective houses. after the Dance finally comes to an end Aegon can no longer stand the sight of dragons just like Alicent can no longer stand the color green. his ascension to the iron throne should've been a testament that the blacks prevailed but at what cost? he is just a boy and he is absolutely broken because he lost everyone and his deep traumas render him little more than a shell of a human being. and then there's Alicent who had done everything to ensure her children would stay in power only to spend the rest of her days alone in confinement, childless and on the brink of madness. truly goes to show how this war had no true winners, only mutual destruction.

#aegon iii targaryen #alicent hightower #the dance of the dragons #f&b #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #parallels #meta

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

I have seen too many people describe Baela and Arya as "masculine" but I don't think they are. They are not as traditionally feminine as their sisters, but that's a far cry from being "masculine". The thing is that Baela and Arya are children when described as such.

Baela and Arya are active and adventurous girls who like to wrestle, and ride horses and that don't care about getting dirty. They also seem to dislike things that are the ideal of femininity in Westeros like sewing and singing.

In Westeros gender roles are very rigid and willfulness is considered a masculine trait. Baela and Arya start the story by doing child things that don't fit into the Westeros ideal. I don't think they are "masculine" at all, I think they are just kids that don't fit in.

#baela targaryen #arya stark #asoiaf #f&b #fire and blood #meta #asoiaf meta

[bohemian-nights]

The interpretation that Nettles’ story ends in tragedy instead of triumph is rather odd to me. She’s a lowborn Black girl who came from nothing. Who’s thought of as less than nothing because of her background. Yet despite being on the lowest wrung, of society, she survives the Dance.

She comes away with her life, her dragon, and her independence, and is eventually worshipped and respected by a group of people who are weary of outsiders, yet that is a tragic ending?

She lives where those who sought to destroy her perished yet she's the one who we should look on with pity?

Does she wind up queen, knighted, or the lady of some house great or small? No, but the assumption that her story had to end with her gaining a title within the larger Westerosi society for it to be a triumph and a tragedy is inaccurate and once again missing the point of her arc. Her story is one triumph and not a tragedy.

#she overcame #don’t forget that #nettles #nettles F&B #netty #nettles asoiaf #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #bncommentary

[alicentsgf]

Let's talk in depth about book Alicent. because even though i read the book 3 years ago I didn't engage online about it until the show's release and um. wow. some people have a very different interpretation of her to me. and also... some of those interpretations show a fundamental misunderstanding of the text, a tendency toward indulging the misogyny present in Fire and Blood, or both.

People are saying the writers changed a lot about Alicent's story and 'made her a victim'... they didn't. It was always possible to read the book and perceive that she was in many ways a victim. Honestly the biggest thing they changed was her age, probably to assist the interpretation they'd chosen, but the larger elements all stay the same; in both versions she's worked in service of the crown since she was young (as a type of companion either to Jaehaerys or Rhaenyra) and she and Rhaenyra initially have a good relationship (according to one source in F&B - this supposedly changes when Aegon was born and not named heir). So making it Rhaenyra we see her close with just makes the emotional tethers that might have been there anyway more visible. After all, Rhaenyra Does spare Alicent's life in F&B, and whilst she says it's for Viserys sake, Alicent at that point had been at the very least complicit in the deaths of most of Rhaenyra's children. Rhaenyra having such a strong former bond with Alicent is going to give this event in the show a lot more weight. It's not hard to see why they made this change, because it adds to the tragedy of the story immeasurably.

The fact is everything we see of Alicent in F&B is up for debate to some extent. Like, for example, did she seduce Viserys? of course certain sources tell us yes, but Fire and Blood is brimming with asoiaf-typical misogyny; it all reminds me somewhat of the story of Anne Boleyn, her story molded into something unrecognisable by history in order to make her the instigator. In truth, we have no way of knowing if Alicent wanted Viserys or not, but we do know she probably didn't have to seduce him. She was widely regarded as being the most beautiful woman - it wouldn't have taken a lot for Viserys to notice her. People, characters and readers alike, assume that because she wasn't a good political match he must have been persuaded, but Viserys was a selfish man, (that is indisputable, we see it in many of his provable actions), so it fits with his character to choose a slightly unsuitable wife on the basis of his own lust. The age gap in the show only serves to demonstrate visually the power imbalance that was at least somewhat present in the book anyway. And yes, this like most things in the book is up for interpretation, but I will say this: I seriously do not respect people calling her 'evil'.

The text never presents Alicent as evil. Even in the worst of her actions she is never legitimately shown to revel in the pain and suffering of others. At most you could argue she was ambitious, but I don't even believe that on the basis of one specific thing: it was her, not Otto, who asked Viserys to betroth Aegon to Rhaenyra. This was not a crazy suggestion in the book, as it was presented in the show; they were only a decade apart, and it was the Valyrian custom that the eldest son would marry his eldest sister, as Aegon the conqueror married Visenya. Alicent wanted this without stipulating the expectation that Aegon would rule instead of Rhaenyra. Viserys reportedly dismissed Alicent on the basis of believing she only wanted Aegon a step closer to the throne, and it can be read that way, but personally I don't think so. I think she was exhausting options to try to protect him after she realised Viserys was never going to name him heir.

Ultimately, Alicent would have been stupid to ignore that her children's lives were at stake. Especially in Fire and Blood where she was much less familiar with Rhaenyra. Nothing in Rhaenyra's actions suggested she wouldn't be capable. She reportedly had no affection for her brothers where she doted on Helaena, suggesting she already saw them as threats. She had demonstrated herself willing to accept physical harm to them in favour of her own sons. She was later thought to be at least complicit in the death of her husband Laenor, who had by all accounts been a good, kind husband to her… and then she married Daemon. Even before this he had been an obvious threat to Alicent's children; a violent man who'd always lusted after power, with a known hatred for Hightowers and who'd never been kind to his nephews by Alicent. Even if Alicent didn't believe Rhaenyra capable of murdering her sons, she would have been stupid not to believe Daemon able.

The truth is even in the book this crisis was set in motion by Viserys. Once he'd refused to marry Aegon to Rhaenyra the bomb was built and ticking away, it was only a matter of time. Even if Rhaenyra's heirs had been indisputably trueborn, Aegon and his brothers and any descendants they had would have been symbols for those who wanted to oppose the Crown to rally behind as soon as Rhaenyra or Jacaerys disappointed them, no matter if Alicent's sons had personally bent the knee. The situation only became more dire when it was clear that Rhaenyra's heir was not trueborn.

Fire and Blood isn't even really quiet about Rhaenyra's first three sons being bastards. To me it read like Rhaenys' Baratheon blood allowed those who wanted to believe otherwise to delude themselves, as Viserys does in both versions. After all, in the book Laenor being gay is an open secret. But the thing is… it doesn't even really matter if they were or not. With so many people believing they were bastards, they were pretty much as good as. Eventually, and most definitely after Rhaenyra's death, there would have been some form of conflict. Because if Jace, an assumed bastard, ascended the throne it would throw into question the claims of almost every lord in Westeros, many of whom would have older bastard brothers. and if a bastard who didn't even look targaryen could sit the highest seat in the realm over a trueborn silver-haired son of a king like Aegon, what's to stop the bastard brothers of any lord from laying claim to their seat? Aegon would have become a rallying point for that dispute whether he liked it or not, and Jace would have been forced to dispose of him if he wanted to maintain power.

In light of this, it's really no wonder Alicent repeatedly voices her animosity over Rhaenyra's sons questionable births. It's very telling that in F&B every cruel comment she reportedly makes about or to Rhaenyra references it. and I say "reportedly" because one of the worst of her quotes, her saying 'mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth' about Rhaenyra, people quote as fact… if you do this I will laugh in your face and ask if you read the book. because Alicent did not say that. or rather, if she did, Fire and Blood would not be able to tell us either way because the quote is attributed to her by Mushroom, one of Rhaenyra's supporters who (apart from being a famed liar) was with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone at the time.

The other two quotes used to argue her supposed evilness are from slightly less questionable sources, and honestly, yeah, it does seem likely to me Alicent implied to Rhaenyra her bastard sons' blood was worth less than that of her own trueborn sons'… but at that point, with the horror she'd experienced on account of Viserys upholding Rhaenyra and her sons' questionable claims, her reacting in this way is perhaps cruel and prejudiced, but not evil. And almost justifiably cruel in my opinon; for all she knows the woman she's talking to directly ordered for her six-year-old grandson to be brutally murdered in front of her, her daughter, and her other grandchildren, directly leading to her daughter's madness and later suicide. Was she going to be respectful? Is it fair to expect that from her? This focus on the term 'bastard blood' overshadows the rest of the quote: “Bastard blood shed at war. My son’s sons were innocent boys, cruelly murdered. How many more must die to slake your thirst for vengeance?” Why is Alicent being a bit of a bitch treated as a worse sin than Rhaenyra ordering the brutal murder of a toddler, or at the very least excusing it.

The last quote mentioned to back up claims of alicent's 'evilness' is her telling her granddaughter Jaehaera she should slit the throat of her husband Aegon III in his sleep. By this point it seemed to me Alicent was no doubt consumed by bitterness and would have attacked Aegon herself given the chance, but even without condoning her words or actions we can see how she became like that; all of Alicent's sons are dead and she wants all of Rhaenyra's gone too. Wasn't it "an eye for an eye, a son for a son"? - Rhaenyra's side set the precedent, the idea that it is justifiable to take one innocent life in exchange for another, no matter if its the life of a child who just happens to have been born on the other side of a war.

Alicent by the end of her life had certainly been driven to cruelty in her grief, twisted into something ugly by the world and locked away to rot.

And yet her final words weren't steeped in bitterness or violence. When the fever sets in she accepts death, even welcomes it. She speaks of seeing her children again, and King Jaehaerys. So doesn't that say she was never driven by hatred at all? That there was never any kind of innate evil nature? At least that's my interpretation. This is the same girl who spent her youth reading to a dying king for no clear reward, and felt such affection for him that she mentioned him at the end of her own life, perhaps pining for the time before her marriage. (No doubt in the show she will mention Rhaenyra instead). This is the woman whose daughter and grandchildren visited her with such reliable frequency her grandson's killers knew to wait in her rooms for them.

So what was so evil about her? That she quite understandably saw Rhaenyra and her sons as a threat, and preemptively acted to protect her own? As much as people like to project ideologies onto these characters, neither Alicent nor Rhaenyra's motivations were ideological, that much as clear.

I may have many reservations about House of the Dragon's execution of it, but the decision to present Alicent as a victim of the world she inhabits was not only the right choice, but also kind of the only choice. HotD is presented as objective truth, where F&B is a collection of biased accounts dripping in the misogyny of the men relating them, and so HotD had to be a critique of its own source material. I admit to having my own bias, and my analysis is at least slightly skewed in Alicent's favour because I'm responding to the most negative interpretations of her. And they are all just interpretations. But in my opinion, those adapting the text looked at Alicent and saw her, where clearly many readers didn't. They asked "what if this woman is misunderstood?", "what if this woman had no real choice?", "what if the men of this world just chose to ignore her complexity, because she was a woman?" and those were absoutely the questions to ask.

#alicent hightower #book alicent #house targaryen #house hightower #fire and blood #f&b spoilers #pro alicent hightower #hotd #house of the dragon #hotd meta #anti viserys i targaryen #fire and blood meta #alicent apologist til death #yes even book alicent

[musclesandhammering]

There’s zero chance Loki and Hela having so many similarities is just a coincidence. And even though we’re most definitely never getting a full explanation for it, I’m so curious as to what you guys believe the reason is. Do you think:

a.) Loki’s a shapeshifter who can see people’s memories when he touches them. So when Odin picked him up as a baby, he saw Hela in Odin’s mind and shifted himself to resemble her.

b.) Loki and Hela have the same biological mother.

c.) Hela is Loki’s biological mother.

d.) Odin changed Loki to look like Hela when he first held him, because he missed her.

e.) Hela’s biological mother is jotun, and she and Loki both have black hair/pale skin/green aesthetic/etc because that’s just what frost giants look like when they take an asgardian form.

f.) Hela and Loki are both adopted, both children of Laufey. Odin took Hela centuries earlier, then when he realised Laufey’d had another child, he took Loki too.

**I’ve listed these in order from the ones I find most likely to least likely, if you’re curious. Tell me which headcanon you prefer, I wanna see.

#e & f are just sorta crack theories to me I don’t think they would ever actually be canon #and c is a cool theory that’s been circulating around fandom that I love #but I don’t think the mechanics actually work #like hela seemed to be gone before loki was born so I don’t think those timelines would match up #if I had to pick one of these to be true I would confidently say b #I’m like 85% sure loki and hela are half siblings with the same bio mom #and the fact that Odin and Laufey had kids by the same woman would also add to their feud probably idk #hela #loki #Odin #thor ragnarok #loki meta #hela meta #hela odinsdottir #what if season 2 #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #mcu #thor movies

[stavosmissionary]

targs + The Cycle

on how targaryen incest is an endless cycle of grooming which entails the fuckening of the sexual and the familial

#incest cw #grooming mention cw #lmk if other warnings are required #asoiaf #the targ cycle #jaehaerys targaryen #alysanne targaryen #baelon targaryen #alyssa targaryen #viserys i #do i tag daemon. no i shant #just picked up some quotes from f&b which imo best explain what i am trying to convey #so they mayy seem a bit insufficient #since f&b doesnt address this matter with the extensiveness and gravitas it deserves #the topic would be better explained in meta form #justice for alyssa :( #also this is supposed to depict how horrific the cycle of incest and these dynamics was not romanticisation

[atopvisenyashill]

the idea that aegon the conqueror’s line actually descends from his wives and not him makes my brain go brrrrrrrr damn george for not delving into that topic in depth during fire & blood and only vaguely hinting at it.

#he never focuses on the stuff I LIKE in the supplementals it's so unfair!!!! #this goes in my 'f&b was written to annoy me personally' meta folder aljsfkjds #getting on my soap box

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

I wish to clear up a very common misconception in this fandom:

The final decision of who will succeed Jaehaerys I wasn't between Viserys and Rhaenys.

It was between Viserys and Laenor.

Rhaenys and Laena were already ruled out because of their gender. By the end, Rhaenys had given up her own claim in favor of her seven-year-old son's because she knew his claim would be considered more favorably than hers.

Knowing this, the scene between Alicent and Rhaenys looks even more ridiculous. Because Rhaenys, unamused by Alicent pressing her son's claim, asks Alicent (who is not a member of the ruling dynasty and has no claim to the throne whatsoever) whether she has ever imagined herself on the Iron Throne.

But unlike Alicent, Rhaenys herself did actually have a claim. And despite that she gave up on advancing it, so she could put her own son on the throne. For her to come up to Alicent and say that to her knowing this makes Rhaenys look stupid. Which she clearly isn't meant to be.

Viserys wasn't chosen over Rhaenys, he was chosen over Laenor. Because Rhaenys, as a woman had never been a serious contender to the throne the way her cousin or son was. The misconception that she was erases the emphasis on just how much male-preference is engrained in the DNA of this society. Rhaenys could never just be accepted as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and neither could Rhaenyra. Opposition was always inevitable.

#hotd #house of the dragon #f&b #fire and blood #rhaenys targaryen #alicent hightower #laenor velaryon #laena velaryon #viserys i targaryen #rhaenyra targeryan #westeros #asoiaf #hotd meta

[thesilverlady]

daemyra | fav kids & fav parents

controversial take but I see ppl catfighting about this a lot so I thought to throw my own coin here with my headcanons/interpretation:

I think Daemon's favorite child is 100% Aegon III. The man wanted a son for so very long. it makes sense that the favoritism would go there. Aegon is everything he had wanted. He lost the potential son Mysaria could give him, lost another son along with his second wife Laena, and finally got his wish with his final wife, Rhaenyra. I know there's the argument that "baela is his mini me so she'd be the apple of his eye" but eh, i never viewed baela as a female version of daemon. She's wild and passionate and has a fire similar to her parents but that's it and it's okay. A child being a favourite doesn't mean he doesn't love the rest

Rhaenyra's favorite child is Jacaerys. He's the firstborn son, her heir, her pride and joy. I know there's the alternative belief that Aegon III could also be suited for the role of the favorite, but I think he and rhaneyra are simply more emotional attached.

I think Laena would probably lean more towards Baela 'cause hot take but baela is more similar to Laena (in my mind at least). Obviously she loves Rhaena too but Baela is definitely her favorite.

Now, onto the children:

Jacaerys/Lucerys/Joffreys favorite parent is Daemon. He's the one they identity and remember as a father and he's someone they look up to. Of course they adore their mother but Daemon is the fun parent and they can get away with anything as long as they have him by their side.

Aegon's iii favorite parent is Rhaenyra. He can be needy sometimes and his mother is all the more willing to be affectionate with her son. She loves that she finally has a boy who isn't in too much rush to grow up fast.

Viserys's II favorite parent is also Rhaenyra. Vivi prefers the quiet company of hid older brother Aegon above all but he's not fond of the training his other elder siblings and Daemon are obsessed with. He loves sitting with Aegon as his mother tells them one of the stories of old valyria.

Baela's favorite is Daemon. While she admires her mother, her father's Rogue prince personality is more appealing, and while her mother doesn't preasure her about being a "proper lady" according to westerosi standards her father still let's her get away with more things

Rhaenas' favorite parent is Laena. She admires her mother's spirit and hopes to become like her one day. When her mother passes away Rhaena latches onto Rhaenyra who makes it clear to her and her twin that she'll never try to replace their mother's memory. Her beauty and playful side definitely help Rhaena grow out of her shy self.

Also, had Visenya survived she definitely would have joined Aegon and Viserys to team Rhaenyra. She's mama's girl

#daemyra #canon daemyra #I'M TALKING ABOUT BOOK CANON YALL #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #joffrey velaryon #baela targaryen #lucerys velaryon #aegon iii targaryen #viserys ii targaryen #I know it's popular for every single fandom to assign a man to be a girldad but sorry yall but nothing gets between daemon and his sons #if he could make a football team with his sons he would #and it's okay because Rhaneyra is ready to give all the love to the girls #egg and vivi are exceptions because they're soft boys and can see beyond the vision 🫶 #anyways this was for fun. if you disagree kindly make your own post #my headcanons #f&b #f&b meta

[iheartbookbran]

yeah ita with everything you said! imo the major difference between a show like breaking bad is that the writers were always fully aware of how horrible walt was, and his actions were never excused or whitewashed by the narrative. whereas on hotd the writers are determined to find every excuse in the book to whitewash the greens and make them look like victims of circumstance. and i completely agree with you that the both-sidesing of the greens and the blacks is incredibly fucking annoying! like i’m sorry but the notion that the greens and the blacks are equally bad is ridiculous! i’m not saying that the blacks are perfect or that they’ve never done anything wrong, but the greens are the ones who START THE WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! like the greens literally START A CIVIL WAR DUE TO MISOGYNY and and we’re supposed to think these two sides are equally in the wrong??? i mean i could go into all of the ways that the team green is worse than team black, but i feel like the fact that the greens initiated this due to their opposition to a woman on the throne is the most crucial thing. the “both sides are equally bad” take is apologism for misogyny and it pisses me off to no end.

Like I get the need to flesh out the greens and not making them as outright villains as they are in the book. I get it. But I also think there’s ways to do that without taking away their bite? I mean in asoiaf the Lannisters are very obviously the villains, they are presented to us from the very beginning as the bad guys but they’re still allowed to be sympathetic and fleshed out and even, dare I say, characters the readers can find themselves rooting for.

And yeah, the Dance is a conflict in which everyone does bad things at the end but the greens still end up coming off as worse because at least the blacks get to have characters on their side who are always portrayed as wholly heroic, like Jace, Baela, Addam, and of course the rest of the squad that includes Good Guy Houses such as the Starks, the Tullys and the Blackwoods—no seriously the biggest indicator we get that the blacks are supposed to be the heroes is the fact that the Blackwoods are supporting them, that’s GRRM’s default Manic Pixie Cool House lmfao.

Even Daemon, who orchestrated what’s arguably the worst thing that happens in the Dance (B&C), is still presented as heroic during his lasts moments, maybe he’s undeserving of that heroism but that’s the direction the story takes.

Funnily enough, f&b as a source is heavily biased against Rhaenyra, and I think that’s a deliberate choice on GRRM’s part because he still manages to make Rhaenyra come off as sympathetic and likable at times, even if she does her fair share of war crimes. She, of course, gets the brunt of the criticism out of all the characters on her side, mainly because she doesn’t behave as a “good woman” ought to lbr. People love to bring up the fact that she’s called Maegor with teats in universe as a gotcha for how terrible she was as a ruler without realizing that A) they’re falling into the same misogynistic propaganda that was used against Rhaenyra to hurt her reputation and B) how fucking disrespectful that is towards Maegor. I mean he didn’t kill and torture his own teenaged nephews, kidnaped and forcibly married several women, almost single-handedly annihilated a religion, and brutally murdered anyone who opposed him, only for y’all to claim Rhaenyra was just as bad as him? She fed one (1) guy to her dragon, ordered the execution of a few people and failed to carry it through, and raised some taxes on KL. Being like Maegor? PLEASE, she doesn’t have the flair nor the commitment to be Maegor.

The point about Rhaenyra is that we simply don’t know how she would be as ruler, without the war and the trauma she underwent and affected every single decision she took as queen. Maybe she wouldn’t have been great at the job, but we can summarize Aegon wouldn’t have been any better. It doesn’t matter because that was never the point, and I’m aware I sound like a broken record but idgaf: the Dance was never a conflict in which both sides were equally in the wrong, even if both sides do terrible things, merely because the circumstances that lead to it were a woman being usurped and betrayed on account of simply being a woman. Rhaenyra may not be a perfect victim to some but that doesn’t mean she isn’t one, she doesn’t need to be an enlightened third wave feminist for us to understand that the patriarchy was weaponized against her in order to undermine her, that she was shamed for her sexual liberation and attacked at every turn and made to feel as if she was the irrational one for not peacefully giving up her power to her shitty little brother.

Honestly it’s self-parody at this point because the Venn diagram between people who claim that slaver lives matter and Dany is a monster for wanting to end the practice while not being nice about it, and the people who try to justify the greens’ every action because Rhaenyra started it all by having sex outside of marriage, is almost a complete circle. And they will bend over backwards to try to poor mew mewify Aegon, who in the show is a child r*pist who enjoys watching kids fight to the death, and say that Rhaenyra is just as bad for having children outside the sanctity of marriage with the blessing of her own gay husband who loves and claims those children as his own anyways. Ok.

#Anonymous #ask #ask pam #sorry i had a couple of busy days but i’m trying to make my way through my inbox #rhaenyra targaryen #is justified in everything she’s ever done or will do because she wasn’t the one who started this damn conflict. fight me #hotd #fire and blood #f&b book spoilers #house of the dragon #f&b meta #hotd meta #meta #my meta #fandumb

[boylikeanangel]

ok more tlou episode 3 thoughts. yknow what I loved about bill's final letter to joel? the way he said that he was wrong about his original outlook on life because one person mattered to him. frank didn't make bill start loving the rest of the world or particularly care about anything happening outside of his town. he's still a deeply mistrusting person and that's something I don't think any amount of convincing from frank could have changed. but he found an exception. one person proved him wrong. he didn't need to suddenly start caring about EVERYONE. just one person was enough. just getting to spend the rest of his life with one person who loves him and whom he loves and protecting them gave his life meaning. and if you know about what joel does at the end of this story for the one person he decides he needs to protect, even at the cost of the rest of the world, you can really see why that's such a powerful thing to be established so early on in the show. these small love stories that don't factor much into the goings on of the rest of the world but ultimately tell us there is hope and humanity is not doomed, even if there will never be a cure. this is not a story about the universal goodness of humanity or even about a world that deserves to be saved, there are no characters whose actions have far-reaching consequences that will alter the course of history. this is a story about the lengths one person will go to to hold onto the one thing that makes living more bearable, these small flickers of candlelight in an endless night. neither joel nor bill are heroes, will ever be heroes. but no matter what, they can be relied upon to protect the one person they love above all else. and god help anyone who stands in their way.

#i watched the episode again and it was so much worse the second time cuz there was CLARITY #i picked up on so much stuff I wish i didnt have a brain #tlou #the last of us #tlou spoilers #meta tag #b/f tag

[myimaginationplain]

I'm absolutely loving this song

#dragons are a necessary part of keeping nature & magic in the world of asoiaf in balance → dragon riders are inexorably tied to dragons → #the targaryens are the last dragon riders left → daenerys is (almost) the last targaryen & is the last dragon rider → #daenerys is a necessary part of returning nature & magic in the world of asoiaf to balance. #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #f&b #fire & blood #got #game of thrones #hotd #house of the dragon #daenerys targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #the bloodstone emperor #the amethyst empress #pro daenerys #pro dany #meta

[mononijikayu]

i just cant help think about how saddeningly aegon iii really had to live. for a long time, this boy blamed himself for his brother viserys being left behind in danger and thinking he had died. the fact that aegon iii never wanted to be touched for YEARS. he was held by guards, forced to watch as his mother die so horribly, mutilated and burnt and eaten whole. like the pain it must have been to have both parents leave no body to bury. he loses almost all his family save his sisters. he loses a a friend in gaemon when the greens kill him to prove their loyalty to his uncle. to grow up a boy king, afraid of what the rest of the world will do to you after what you suffered. like him refusing to even go continue the tradition of royal processions because he knows he'll get killed. like its so damn tragic. and he was just a boy.

#hotd #house of the dragon #fire and blood #fire and blood meta #f&b #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #house targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #targaryen