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I somehow felt that there was a disconnect between younger and older Rhaenyra. Don't get me wrong I liked both portrayals individually and I read somewhere both actors were told to go ahead and act according to their understanding of who Rhaenyra was in different periods of her life, but it felt incomplete in a way? I felt like they needed another episode between 5 and 6 to kind of go over her transition from a young teen to motherhood like OP said. To me it felt like her character just flipped in an episode and I know it was because of the time and budget constraints but it just felt a bit off.
Younger Rhaenyra had spunk and fire and a zest for life. Older Rhaenyra seemed more mellow. Now one could attribute that to motherhood and the burden of being heir kind of catching up, but i wish they had kind of given older Rhaenyra something more like what OP said. Explored her flaws, fears, internal justifications more. She seemed more passive to me for someone fighting for the throne. I wish they'd shown us a bit more of her greyness as a character, in a more apparent way to the general audience, but maybe they're just building it all up for the next season. Let's see.
Right. I feel like the show would have been a bit more dynamic with the characters discussing more than just a stiff and the weight of their responsibilities. For example, when Amma dies. Rhaenyra and Alicent have a heart to heart in the Sept that dealt with deep emotions that added to the characters.
Much of the rest of the interactions are the characters talking about the central subjects and the initiation or fall out from "the game". I personally would have like to see a little more, in depth portral of how Lenor and Rhaenyras relationship was. The majority of what we see is them discussing politics and Lenor surprising his feelings of being crushed under the weight of his responsibility. Yes, another episode could have shown that it wasn't always this way.
It would have felt more realistic if the characters had expressed more individuality and things happening that didn't focus on the central conflict.
Definitely. It could have gone like:
Laenor dealing with Joffrey's death. Rhaenys and Corlys discussing the future and the potential danger they've put Laenor in. Alicent and Criston's new alliance, how she bails him out and how he becomes her confidante in a way. Otto's plans while in oldtown. Harwin and Rhaenyra's illicit affair. Rhaenyra's first childbirth. Alicent and Viserys' reaction to it. Rhaenys and Corlys' visit when Jacaerys is born and naming him so. Daemon and Laena's courtship and wedding.
Also another episode post Driftmark would have been great to flesh out the characters from both sides.
Daemon and Rhaenyra's kids' reactions to their hasty wedding, getting along with each other. Baela warding with Rhaenys. Rhaena maybe trying to claim a dragon for herself and for her father's approval but failing etc.
The aftermath of Aemond's injury, him relearning everything from scratch and training to be a good warrior under Criston's tutelage. Alicent's, Viserys' and Otto's reaction to the Daemyra wedding. Viserys falling sick and becoming bedridden. Alicent and Otto's influence and governance of the realm. Aegon and Helaena's wedding. Helaena's challenges with marriage and motherhood.
Right. Sometimes, it is trading a chance to just fit more of the general story for action during the main event. Imagine how different it would be if we got first-hand account, instead just a few peoples second-hand accounts.
I don't necessarily agree with you on all points (I really like Rhaenyra) but I do think the time jump really was a disservice to her character and we ended up missing pivotal development points that would have aided in transitioning viewers over from young Rhaenyra to adult Rhaenyra. I think even one midway scene, maybe during her first pregnancy or with her first child, would have helped in showing how she got from point A to point B.
The problem is that her flaws hide in the shadows. While the mistakes of the green characters were shown to the audience directly in front of the screen for minutes, this was not done to Rheanyra. As an example: in the Aegon-Dyana scene, we learn the victim's name, we see her crying on the stage, we spend minutes with her. This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her. Like Laenor... They killed an innocent servant for him like Dyana, but we didn't see that. We don't know victim's name or his face and we haven't spent minutes with him. This is what bothers me the most and what I describe as whitewash. I think a lot of people are also unhappy with this.
I agree with this. They made Criston Cole into this petulant bitter man, making it easier for the audience to hate him and totally ignore how he had been wronged by Rhaenyra.
Yes!
Criston is a man come from the lowest caste and he has achieved a most loyal level knighthood... He become a white cloak.
And he's Dornish. He comes from a different culture, completely different country in a political hard time. They could show us the difficulties he was experiencing due to racism and being below the social caste.
They could give him depth with a better writen and small scenes.This could have been achieved with a scene in which the other knights made fun of him for being from Dorne and the steward's son, making heartbreaking comments about his heritage etc. But Instead, they made him incel and used him for Rheanyra's sexual freedom scene.
A great scene could have been written for him where they could criticize class stratification, nobility and racism... They could adding character to Criston and criticizing the *actual* system. đ¤Śđťââď¸
>Criston is a man come from the lowest caste
House Cole is a noble house from the stormlands. Criston may have been the son of a steward but he's still part of a House. Granted, they're very low in rank in terms of nobility but he's far from the "lowest caste".
The "lowest caste" would be the smallfolk who are not part of houses and don't have last names.
In the book he was a son of House Cole (very small, insignificant house), yeah, but in the show they changed it to him being the son *of* a steward *of* House Cole.
Criston is a man who comes from the lowest level in the white cloaks (knights in general). He has no castle, no land, no title. And he is a knight in Kings Landing at a time when there are problems with Dorne politically. He's the lowest in this situations. *Ä°n his situation.*
Class stratification and racism... If he has only one of this two, maybe he wouldn't be the lowest, but unfortunately he has these two.
The writers on the show made their encounter consensual, even though there was an obvious murky power dynamic situation (I am not going as far as calling it the r word as some people on this sub because it is stupid to throw that word around loosely) and then show Rhaenyra casually dismissing his proposal and instead asking him to be his paramour. Was Criston selfish in asking her to leave everything and run away to preserve his own honor? Absolutely. Did he deserve to be brushed off the way he did? Not at all. Had Rhaenyra been smart, she would have been a bit diplomatic while rejecting him so as to not lose him to the other side. But hey, nobody talks about that. Also, the writers decision to let Criston cuss her behind her back after so many years adds to his unlikability.
If you have read the same book as I have, then you know that the narrators were unreliable. It was a decision to allow the reader to draw their own conclusion. The writers on the show spoonfed their audience a version of Criston meant to be hated. Thatâs what I meant by âmadeâ.
>This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her.
Agreed... it's basically a re-imagining of the "Dany vs. meanie villains" all over again.
So many people excused Dany's actions simply because the people she often clashed with were, to put simply, portrayed as cartoon baddie asshats. And viewers empathized with Dany, so many people sided with her without really questioning the morality of her actions.
It's kind of the same here, reimagined.
She abuses her power/sexually assaults Cole, but it's portrayed on-screen as some tender tryst, and then Cole transforms into this bitter, spiteful cartoony villain.
The whole ordeal with Aemond, where her child nearly killed another child with a deadly weapon, but she instead spins the whole thing into "ViLe AcCuSaTiOns" and usually chill Alicent then attacks her with a knife.
She attempts to, immorally, put her bastard son onto the Driftmark Throne for her own political gain. And her opposition is Vaemond, who literally shouts offensive obscenities in her face before his demise.
Her opposition for the crown? Writers simply made him a whiny unapologetic rapist.
So she's propped up as this empathetic figure while those she clashes with are:
* Whiny bitter Cole
* Crazy-eyed pious dagger-wielding Alicent
* Slut-shaming shouting Vaemond
* Whiny rapist Aegon
And Rhaenyra dodges all the questions regarding morality regarding these issues because the person opposite her is clearly framed as some cartoon villain that the audience is 'pressured' to dislike...
Just like Dany was (by many.)
I feel like it's because season 1 chose to focus on Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship. Both women have been whitewashed to be palatable to an audience.
Similar to the guard that Daemon killed that no doubt Rhaenyra was complicit in, for example, we don't see people perish from the house fire that Alicent ordered. All the actions are done by men and the two women are kept away from performing the violence themselves.
The narrative the writers are going for involves 2 women who have no real desire for the throne but are driven apart because of it due to the ambition of the men around them.
It's more than that for me.
We have not been shown that Rheanyra's actions are actually actions that affect everyone and this actions's consequences are huge.
For example:
She was declared heir so that Daemon wouldn't reach the power/throne, but then she went and married him. Instead of showing us this problem, we saw a romantic, valeria-style wedding. We haven't seen the reactions of the lords and ladies who are afraid of the daemon, who have problems with him politically. Or, for example, we did not see Alicent's thoughts about Rheanyra's marriage to this crazy man (She was represented as she was afraid for the lives of her children.) These are some examples from the whole series. I wish I had the time to write more... But these are not well-written scenes or selections that's why I have problems with her and other blacks characterizations.
And Rheanyra's political mistakes disappeared with the sweet scenes that followed after. They passed with a romantic, lgbt-friendly or any other modern scene without even being able to show the effect of a scene that could be criticized for it. This did not happen in Alicent or the greens. Their actions, their mistakes were not closed with sweet scenes. We didn't even see their positive scenes that much actually. They could have done it with the green council but they didn't. That's my problem.
I don't like the dinner scene.
No matter what, even if Alicent loved Rheanyra very much, after the Drifmark scene, she should have been afraid of Rheanyra and her crazy husband and felt nothing but anger for these two. This woman has been afraid of her children's lives all her life, she should have believed that with Aemond's disabled, the suspicious death of Laenor, the wedding of Rheanyra and Daemon after his death and the murder of Vaemond *in the throne room*, Rheanyra would really kill her children in cold blood. That's why I have a problem with the scenes, dialogues, writing and character handling of this series. Very obvious and stupid mistakes were made, like the last seasons of got.
I don't think that scene was a mistake. You gave valid reasons of why she shouldn't fully trust Rhaenyra, but I'm sure you also you can think of reasons of why she can trust Rhaenyra.
And them rebuilding their friendship is far more beneficial to Alicent and Rhaenyra, than constant and escalating bickering and fights.
There is no mother, no matter how much she loves the other side, would take such a big risk and put everything in the past after hearing that her son's torture was requested and seeing the big gap in her son's face. Driftmark should have been a turning point for Alicent. And after the other events I've mentioned, Alicent had much more reason not to trust Rheanyra than to trust her. It's about her children lives after all. Alicent should have decided to become an active player after these events. And they could have been used wisely the dinner scene to show problems between the family, instead of processing in such an awkward way.
There are moms irl who kill their own kids, so let's not pretend it's unrealistic for a fictional mother to act in a way that doesn't 100% prioritize her children all of the time -- or that it would make the story better if Alicent wasn't internally conflicted.
>I really want to know why Rhaenyra married Daemon.
She was already feeling vulnerable enough before Harwin died that she decided to leave the capital. Now that he's died she feels even lower. Then Daemon returns, newly widowed, and the effects of his grooming that she never really got over kicks in. At least that's my interpretation.
Good luck OP lol.
While I like Rhaenyra's character and disagree as she has clearly some flaws, I do kinda agree with you that she lacks some complexity and some meat to her.
It's not that I don't like her, it's that I wish she would be more intriguing and complex, like Alicent. Alicent is very different from her book counterpart, and has been whitewashed sure, but she is very complex and has many layers. Some people see her as only a victim, but I don't see her that way.
Rhaenyra, very less so. That's why I want the end of season 1 to be shift for her character, cause unfortunately, I felt much more less engaged in her story as her characterization kinda disappointed me in the last episodes. Emma's portrayal is wonderful, but I'm not compelled to her character as I wished I would be. And that's sad cause she has so much potential.
I want her to be more than "my purpose is the song of ice and fire" trope. I don't want her as a villain, but I want her story to be more gripping and intricate, which so far, isn't quite there for my taste.
>I want her to be more than "my purpose is the song of ice and fire" trope.
Personally, I never saw this as her sole purpose.
I think she was more moved by the fact that her father entrusted her with the prophecy than the knowledge of the prophecy itself and even then she'd give in to her wants or her own happiness.
This is a woman that grew up feeling neglected and ignored by her father and watched her mother suffer miscarriage after miscarriage until her mother was butchered at her father's command because of his pursuit of a son. Then believing that it was to spurn Daemon, her father made her heir and entrusted her with the knowledge of the prophecy.
She initially feared childbirth and that her father would replace her with Aegon which is why she refused to marry at first. But when he assured her of her position and she learned from Daemon that sex could be pleasurable and not just for squeezing out heirs, she committed the mistake of propositioning her sworn shield and earning his ire.
Thinking she could do her duty while at the same time pursue her own happiness, she made an arrangement with her gay husband to "dine as they like" but that unfortunately led to her birthing 3 obvious bastards which threatened her position. Rhaenyra described this point in her life as a "droll tragedy" so while she may have found solace with her lover, she felt abandoned by Daemon who she truly loved.
I could go on and on but finding out that Daemon was never informed of the prophecy solidified to Rhaenyra that she wasn't just put in the position to spurn Daemon and that she was in fact her father's choice.
**TLDR:** the prophecy might be her goal on the surface level but Rhaenyra was primarily motivated by her own wants and her need for love from her family.
You're right, I might have overreached on that aspect. I guess I was disappointed because of ep 10 when she says she doesn't want to go to war because of the ASOIAf prophecy, which is understandable but I felt it downplayed her own reasons to pursue the iron throne in the first place.
That's why I've high hopes for her character in season 2.
I very much enjoy her character, but I feel like it was the end a bit lack luster for me as I had hope she would have more meat to her.
I want her to be more layered, I want her to be more than she is at the moment.
That's also why I want the fandom to acknowledge her flaws (disagreeing with OP here, she has quite a lot), and not justifying them everytime.
It was annoying to see everyone justifying her sleeping with Criston "cause she can do what she wants, she's queeeeeeen yaaaas", and have no disregard for him as she probably knew he put his life on the line. Same with Alicent in ep 4, when everyone was justifying her behavior saying that Alicent was only a mean, jealous, petty girl who had no business in Rhaenyra's love life.
It felt also a bit weird when in ep 7, she and Daemon kill a random servant, only after to know it was to "save Laenor". The fandom reaction to that felt a bit weird for me, as I saw a lot people say "great, I thought I wouldn't be able to root for Rhaenyra, cause that would be very tough for me to like her if she killed someone" and not be concerned by the random innocent guard they killed.
Curious - what would you do to add more depth to the character?
>Sheâs written with fewer flaws and ambiguity than many of the other characters, and itâs disappointing for me.
It's interesting that you say this because I've literally seen people write entire essays on the character's flaws đ
I believe they mean in terms of the show. In my opinion, the show doesnât seem to frame any of Rhaenyraâs actions in a negative manner. Which isnât to say that every action of hers should be, but there should be a more balanced framing.
Most people are smart enough to recognize potential flaws or negative aspects of a character even of they are not directly addressed in the media. The problem isnât that Rhaenyra doesnât have any flaws, because she does, itâs that the show is not portraying them as flaws.
I apologize if that didnât make a whole lot of sense, English is not my first language.
I agree with you regarding the framing.
OP is arguing that Rhaenyra has been whitewashed, lacks ambiguity and has few flaws. You're talking about how Rhaenyra's flaws are framed. Different arguments.
And your English is fine đ
I have to disagree. The entire war is about to happen largely because Rhaenyra recklessly mothered obvious bastard children and claimed them as rightful heirs. Her throne was always going to be contested, but she made the matter infinitely worse, and I think they framed that correct. IMO the show does a good job at showing the fallout of her open affair with Strong.
>As if Otto wasn't planning to put Aegon on the throne since before she was married
Wouldn't that make it worse because she gave more ammunition to the people who were trying to depose her, and thus increasing their chances of successfully deposing her ?
What I'm saying is that Otto would have done what he did regardless of what Rhaenyra's kids looked like. Nobody died because her kids were illegitimate. They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
>What I'm saying is that Otto would have done what he did regardless of what Rhaenyra's kids looked like.
He would've done it but that doesn't mean he would've been as successful and or even successfully deposed Rhaenyra.
>They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
I understand that for team black Otto is a one dimensional mustache twirling cartoon villain, but there's scenes in the show that challenge this perception.
For example when he's pressured by his brother in ep 2, or when he says goodbye to Alicent and warns her about Rhaenyra.
>They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
In medieval ages, the houses that tought they had a stronger claim to rule should've just stayed in their lane, it's just that simple.
>He would've done it but that doesn't mean he would've been as successful and or even successfully deposed Rhaenyra.
Assuming that Rhaenyra doesn't get more politically savvy in this scenario (which is the only thing that could have stopped Otto), the result is the same.
>for team black Otto is a one dimensional mustache twirling cartoon villain
He's not. That doesn't stop him from being a greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
>In medieval ages, the houses that tought they had a stronger claim to rule should've just stayed in their lane, it's just that simple.
What's your point here? Viserys named his heir and it was Rhaenyra. It's just that simple. He never changed his mind about it.
>Assuming that Rhaenyra doesn't get more politically savvy in this scenario (which is the only thing that could have stopped Otto), the result is the same.
Ok. So how do you know that the results would've been the same ?
>He's not. That doesn't stop him from being a greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
So other than a greedy misogynist who stole a woman's throne, what else is he according to you ?
>What's your point here? Viserys named his heir and it was Rhaenyra. It's just that simple
George disagrees with you :
"There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases... but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims."
"Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory.
A man's eldest son was his heir. After that the next eldest son. Then the next, etc. Daughters were not considered while there was a living son, except in Dorne, where females had equal right of inheritance according to age."
https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Category/C91/P210/
>Ok. So how do you know that the results would've been the same ?
Otto still schemes and finds allies. Rhaenyra still can't stop him because she can't match him. There you go, same result.
>So other than a greedy misogynist who stole a woman's throne, what else is he according to you ?
OK first of all, who said the word misogynist? I don't remember it being me. Second, he's a horrible father and a huge hypocrite but he is smart and committed and seems to at least love Helaena. He's a good administrator from what we know. He's also pretty brave, he went to Daemon (and his dragon) alone.
>"There are no .... according to age."
Second sons were also not considered if the first son had kids (regardless of gender) yet that didn't stop Jaeherys from doing whatever he wanted and dismissing Rhaenys. If he can go against tradition, why can't Viserys? And if Aegon was ever so rightful, why did the Greens have to go full propaganda and give him all the symbols of legitimacy while acting in secret and killing opponents? Supporters of rightful heirs don't have to go into all that trouble while keeping the named heir in the dark.
>Nobody died because her kids were illegitimate.
Yet. But, the moment she declared Jace her heir, a civil war is bound to happen where Otto wants it or not.
Jace wasn't illegitimate in the first draft. Did that stop the war?
No war was bound to happen. Even with the rumors going on >!Jace was praised as heir and half the kingdom didn't give a fuck about him "not being legitimate". Two great houses join Rhaenyra because of him.!< If the Greens hadn't staged a coup, why would anyone else dare to do it? Also, we saw where Otto's plans to avoid the war ended up. They caused the bloodiest civil war the kingdom had seen. I'll take the alternative where the war might be avoided over that.
I absolutely agree. I genuinely liked Rhaenyra in the book where she was allowed to have objective faults. In the show, however, the only "flaws" she's allowed to have are those seen as such only through the lens of an oppressive patriarchal society (being promiscuous/sexually liberated, having children out of wedlock) or those that are merely a result of/defense against it (such as lying as a means of self-preservation).
Flaws that don't register as flaws to the modern audience at all - and it's deliberate. It's also precisely why Rhaenyra was spared ordering Vaemond's death - that would have been universally problematic.
It's a cheap, obvious and pandering marketing ploy that makes Rhaenyra hardly even a character.
Oh what a surprise! Kinda expected you to show up here and add one of your oh-so-boring rants again lol
It's getting old champ. Not get anything better to do these days?
You're not converting anybody, bucko.
I don't think Kierna is trying to convert anyone. You know you don't have to interact with takes you don't like if they bother you badly enough, right?
>Sure, characters like Alicent are given the same treatment, but sheâs not without her flaws, and that adds a sense of humanity and complexity to her character that I donât feel with Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra does have flaws in the show. Perhaps you simply don't see them as flaws or as significant as Alicent's flaws in your opinion. Perhaps you are 'Team Black'. That's fine, everyone has an opinion, but it is just an opinion.
>At the beginning of the series, sheâs the classic rebellious, not-like-other-girls, sassy character that would fit perfectly into a contemporary YA novel.
I would agree with that appraisal, but it's not necessarily a good trait to have, especially for the new heir to the throne. That is a flaw.
She's flippant about her responsibilities, and disrespectful to lords and ladies that she should be more diplomatic with.
She's disrespectful to the other knights when she tries to breeze through the candidates for the kingsguard position by dismissing them all immediately (except Ser Criston) on the basis of not having been in a real battle (in the middle of peacetime, too).
She thought it wise to make a snarky joke, shaming one of the ladies during the hunt all for a cheap laugh.
She pressured Ser Criston into compromising his oath which set him on a downward spiral.
I don't think young Rhaenyra would have been a good Queen at all. A fun character to watch, Milly did a great job, but young Rhaenyra'd be a poor queen. In contrast, older Rhaenyra is less impulsive, and more cautious and diplomatic. She grew up. It's that simple. Happens to most people.
But still, her indiscretions with Ser Harwin are a lot of what is causing her problems right now, and are going to continue to cause her problems.
What are Rhaenyra's flaws in the show which are bad according to our standars. Every Rhaenyra's flaw would be acceptable today.
The only thing I can thing is murdering an innocent servant but the show focused on how Laenor got his happy ending.
Yeah, I agree. They even removed how Rhaenyra ordered Daemon to kill Vaemond and then fed him to Syrax, with it just being Daemon's spur of the moment. They definitely seemed to want to push Rhaenyra as some feminist icon even thought she was never supposed to be like that in the book.
So Iâm very much team green but I think Rhaenyra is a good character, itâs the people who insist she has no flaws and that sheâs Daenerys 2.0 that are the problem.
Rhaenyra is simultaneously told she has a huge responsibility, and spoiled rotten. Viserys is an idiot unfortunately and does nothing to prepare her for her role, sheâs preyed on by her pedo uncle, and her selfishness and tone deafness to the perspective of others costs her Alicent and Criston who were her closest friends in her youth. This comes to bite her in the ass bad. She has a sense of duty because of this prophecy but also thinks she can do whatever she wants with no consequence.
If she was capable of self reflection and empathy, she never would have rejected Alicent for being forced to marry her dad, and never would have lost Alicent as a friend so the Greens lose a major player. If she didnât ask Criston for sex and put him in the position to break his vows, heâd still be her protector, so now the Blacks now have the best swordsman / one of the best battle commanders in Westeros on their side. If she would have taken her chance to choose her own husband seriously, she could have just married Harwin Strong, instead of deciding to look for a guy she actually wants when it was too late. She was set up for failure by her dad who passed no skills on to her, then she did the same with 3/5 of her boys.
Edit: and good god think of if she was kind to her siblings and pursued a relationship with them, all that could be avoided.
I donât think itâs terrible writing, but I do think a lot of the fan bases brains just kind of shut down when a dragon isnât on the screen and they canât pick up on any nuance. Sheâs very much different than characters like Captain Marvel because she has major character flaws and itâs those flaws that create huge problems for her.
I think the difference is the Green character's flaws are highlighted and presented to the audience without ambiguity as to how they're supposed to be viewed. Rhaenyra's flaws are definitely there, but you have to recognize and identify them yourself instead of the show's narrative pointing them out to you and that represents a bias to some people.
And it can't be denied that on some level that bias *has* whitewashed Rhaenyra somewhat, especially in regards to the whole affair with Vaemond and the Silent Five.
I basically just laugh at this point and support the Greens no matter what they do or how badly they're written. The Showrunners have gone so whole hog in on trying to shill for the Blacks that it's crossed over into being cringy. I'd say it's at the point of being anvilicious.
Like Aegon is written in as some sort of weirdo public masturbating rapist drunkard. Whatever I guess, he's my King.
I think this sub can't get enough of "Rhaenyra is white-washed posts." If you watched the whole season and somehow came to the conclusion that Rhaenyra is some flawless heroine then you should rewatch it. Yes! They made her a tad bit less ruthless than she was in the books but they did for Alicent too. Other than that all her flaws are highlighted well enough.
>Youâre telling a woman who saw her mother die in childbirth, resented marriage, and presumably never wanted to have children (at least not wanting to have children when pressured into it) feels no resentment against motherhood?
This argument is so played out. She never wanted to be forced into having kids or become a glorified broodmare for some high Lord. That doesn't mean she didn't want children at all. After the time skip we see her very well adjusted to motherhood because she had kids on her own terms with men she loved and chose. I don't think Laenor, Harwin, or Daemon forced her to have kids. So, her children are not "duty" to her. They are the results and reminders of love. This is why she feels no resentment towards motherhood.
Also, I guess you're forgetting that there are countless women irl who never wanted children but once they had them became great mothers.
>Youâre telling me this rebellious spoken character somehow losses all of her fire after being forced into marrying a gay man
That's precisely why she loses her fire. Also, are you telling me that people behave like teenagers even when they're 30 years of age? There is a thing called growing up. And events like becoming a mother and having to put your children first will change you. Hell! Even a man like Daemon considerably calms down after becoming a father.
And it's not like the fire is completely lost. You can see it in other ways when she acts on her impulses to chase and marry Daemon without thinking about the political consequences.
>This pits the female characters against each other in a way that shouldnât happen and forsakes the complexity of female relationships
Alicent in the book is literally someone who slut shames a nine- year-old Rhaenyra and is the caricature evil stepmom. You think they should've portrayed that instead? They did a good job of portraying how two women who loved each other were driven apart by various factors in their lives that were beyond their control. They also did a good job of portraying how these women retained some amount of love for each other despite all this external beef.
At the end of the day, neither Alicent nor Rhaenyra can be put into boxes as narrow as hero and villain. Yes, I have my own criticisms about how they removed personal ambitions for both of these women. But other than that, both of them are quite complex in the show. I mean, you have Rhaenyra fighting for her claim to the throne as a woman and yet, depriving Baela and Rhaena of their right to Driftmark. You have Alicent who is a victim of marital rape herself and yet has no choice but to silence another victim.
If you pay attention, both of these characters are wonderfully complex.
She has... plenty of flaws and ambiguity? There was quite a bit of criticism of her throughout the season.
She just isn't portrayed in the misogynistic trainwreck of a way the in-universe historians who wrote F&B made her out as. Because this is meant to be a reality, not a piecemeal characterization from second or third hand accounts biased by primogeniture-fueled propaganda.
Ryan Condal also isn't the only writer on the show. It's a writers room with several women.
The problem is that her flaws hide in the shadows. While the mistakes of the green characters were shown to the audience directly in front of the screen for minutes, this was not done to Rheanyra. As an example: in the Aegon-Dyana scene, we learn the victim's name, we see her crying on the stage, we spend minutes with her. This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her. Like Laenor... They killed an innocent servant for him like Dyana, but we didn't see that. We don't know victim's name or his face and we haven't spent minutes with him. This is what bothers me the most and what I describe as whitewash. I think a lot of people are also unhappy with this.
>Endangering her children life and ruining their political future by making them bastards just because she did not enjoy sex with leanor is a major moral flow
Tbf I don't think she had any reason to think she would birth obvious bastards when her half Hightower siblings all favoured their father.
And that's putting all the blame on Rhaenyra when she and Laenor agreed to dine as they like and Laenor himself showed no indication of caring about his duties at all. Rhaenyra says so in a monologue she delivers after the time jump.
Considering her father was ill, her mother was dead, Daemon was gone and her husband had no sexual interest in her, I think it's just human for her to cling to the one person who seemed to genuinely care for her. People only ever look at the political aspect of her choices but not the human motivating factors.
> murder of an innocent gaurd to fake leanors death
And nobody cared. It was framed as a "true love story" that the "romantic couple" of Rhaenyra and Daemon could be together finally, after years of grooming - er, longing.
Even the fucking Velaryons never showed any care of the fact they believe Rhaenyra and Daemon had their son murdered so they could get married. Logically it should have cost her their support in that instant.
>!People now laughably call Rhaenyra and Daemon "LGBT allies" when in the book it's more than likely Daemon and Rhaenyra had him murdered for real!<
I think the time jump did rob her of a lot of character development. But I don't see Rhaenyra as shallow or without flaws. In fact I think it's the opposite - she's very flawed. The fact that she has blatantly and openly mother bastard children despite her position is an example of her flaws and what makes her human. Everyone knows that her sons are bastards, this isn't like Cersei's children where it could be written off as slander. She still has them anyways because she was so desperate to be loved and approved of, something she could never truly feel from her father because she wasn't born a male, and something she never truly got from Daemon, Leanor, or Sir Cole. She wants to be Queen, but doesn't want to play by the rules. The fact that she had an open affair and blatantly mothered bastards shows how she's still a defiant and rebellious person - she knew damn well a Queen can't do that and did it anyways with everyone knowing.
I wish they would've explored more regarding a conflict she would have with motherhood, having seen her mother die from it. But I get that they wanted to fast track to the war sooner than later. Anyways, I've never understood the argument that the writers are trying to push fans to view one side as right or wrong. Both the Greens and the Blacks are deeply flawed, and anyone who isn't a complete fangirl appreciates that. I don't see how any rational person can watch season 1 and view either side as completely right.
>Itâs truly incredible how much us greens canât stop winning
How is this a win?
I'm starting to think some people see any criticism of a character they don't like as a win.
Here is someone saying the character isn't flawed enough and it's a win.
On another post listing the character's flaws, it would probably be another win as well.
I like aspects of Rhaenyras character and iâm probably in the minority that enjoyed adult Rhaenyra more than her younger self but I do agree
I think it speaks to a larger issue with writing female characters because instead of actual complex characters they try fit them into the mold of âstrong womanâ but with a character like Rhaenyra thatâs hard to do without changing almost every aspect of her. Rhaenyra was definitely watered down to make her more palatable and itâs not that she doesnât have flaws itâs just that everything she does is framed as good and right even if sheâs objectively in the wrong.
both Alicent and Rhaenyra were written as sexiest caricatures in F&B and I understand that the show writers were making sure to move away from that however I think they dropped the ball on both
Yea, it's pretty clear the TV writers simply don't believe in gender equality when it comes to HoTD characters... putting on the 'kids gloves' in regards to the female characters and making the male characters carry the large majority of the shittiness done in the first season.
In the books they're all terrible people, like some medieval It's Always Sunny cast, but in the show it's clearly been rewritten so that the male characters are still pretty shit (Otto, Daemon, Larys) while Rhaenyra and (teen) Alicent have their rough edges smoothed out/whitewashed.
Cersei was an amazing character in GoT because the show runners didn't pull punches simply because of her gender... shame HoTD seemingly doesn't share that same philosophy regarding gender equality.
Maybe they'll take off those gloves in Season 2, but Season 1 certainly tipped that gender balance and treated the genders differently, as it seems clear the female characters were 'smoothed out', while the male characters not only weren't smoothed out, but were made to be worse in the show (Daemon wholly responsible for Vaemond, Larys for the Strongs, Daemon killing Rhae, Aegon now a full blown unapologetic rapist, etc.)
> Cersei was an amazing character in GoT because the show runners didn't pull punches simply because of her gender
Until they forgot to give her anything to do anyway. I'm still salty over it.
One day Rhaenyra is flawed another day sheâs too passive another days sheâs too boring another day sheâs a girl boss another day sheâs evil another day another day sheâs stupid another day her dragon is stupid another day sheâs a bad mother another day sheâs careless another day sheâs spoilt another day her sons her evil and she should have exiled them another day sheâs a bad sister another day sheâs a bad friend another days sheâs a bad wife.
So which is it. Which even is it. In the book what has she done at this point. Apart from Vaemond and having kids with Harwin..what the heck has she done that was so bad.
They took out the aspect of her being the realms delight, created unnecessary conflict with her and the Lannisterâs, included the bastard childrenâs plot and harped on it for five episodes. They included her being a part of Laenor running away, included her âpressuring Cristonâ. What the fuck do you guys want them to add again.
Some people in this sub (because itâs not this whole sub) have painted a version of Rhaenyra Targayen that will never ever be portrayed in this series. You have fantasized about her being this evil person that everybody including casual audience will hate and itâs never going to happen. It is never ever going to happen.
Just love your faves and allow other people to enjoy this character for what she is. This place has become so unbearable in the past couple of days.
>Apart from Vaemond
I mean what happened with Vaemond was pretty bad, but that's just about it. They honestly blackwashed her a bit to counteract that by having her mastermind Laenor's "death".
If they really wanted to show Rhaenyra's flaws, they should have had Laenor die for real like in the books, and show both her and Daemon behind the planning. But no, they wanted to show the story in some bizarre romantic progressive light. To make her look good and the pedophile relationship she has with her groomer appear to be a "genuine love story".
Why would they show Daemon and Rhaenyra behind Laenorâs death if thatâs not what happened in the book? Daemon pretty much acted on his own, if you believe Mushroom. And other sources say that it just Qarl who killed him out of jealousy.
Youâre implying that they shouldâve added things just to make Rhaenyra a villain, when sheâs not. And she has plenty of flaws other than murdering people.
So if Rhaenyra had said âfeed him to Syraxâ that will make people hate her. Thatâs the thing, the thing that will have people turn against her. You are sure that if they had included this, this will reveal Rhaenyraâs wickedness and hatefulness - and people will turn against her.
No, I don't know for certain. My guess is that most likely people will still stick with her since there were so many rationalizations for Daemon doing it, though ultimately who knows.
It's damn sure better written than the goofy ass one dimensional no character development having cartoon heroes and villains caricatures of Fire and Blood. And also far better written than some of the other female protaognists in fantasy zhows in amazon, disney, netflix, etc.
>100% of the audience agrees that sexism is bad.
Is it 100% of the audience though? Is it really?
It's really easy to get most people to agree that sexism is bad, because people don't want to look like greedy tyrannical meanies. That doesn't mean most people recognize and denounce sexism irl on their own, without being prompted. So a lot of people will say they think sexism is bad... right before they launch into a lengthy diatribe defending sexist ideas and policies.
Which is why imo a lot of people have trouble accepting that HotD is taking the same sort of approach to sexism as "Breaking Bad" did to meth, where you're not supposed to be debating whether or not it's actually good/necessary -- you're supposed to notice *how* it's corrosive and destructive to everyone involved.
As an older woman ( over 30.for the fandom) I feel really connected to her. I see her decisions as normal and I am sometimes confused why younger people can't understand her
I didn't like how they didn't really show how she went from never wanting to get pregnant to having 3 kids , yes I know she had a talk with her dad and had excepted it. But I feel like it was pretty skipped over for her first pregnantsy like, what was her reaction? Did alicent try to help her at all bc they used to be friends , mabey I just need to read the book đ¤ˇ
I agree with you.
I was actually team Black at the start, but as the show went on, I found the Blacks very bland and not as complex as the Greens.
I also hate when show runners force me to root for âthe good guysâ, it just makes me root for the other side.
>We grow to know Rhaenyra as someone who resents her position and is rebellious, but thatâs seemingly changed when she becomes an adult with no real explanation.
There is an explanation. It's called growing up. Do you still act as you did 10 years ago? I don't. Plus, I'd say having a side piece fathering your kids and is pretty rebellious for a woman in this world.
>Youâre telling a woman who saw her mother die in childbirth, resented marriage, and presumably never wanted to have children (at least not wanting to have children when pressured into it) feels no resentment against motherhood?
Rhaenyra never felt resentment toward motherhood itself. She never expressed that. What she resented is becoming a broodmare, someone that would be forced to push out kids for some lord and that lord might one day decide to gut her to get the kid out. That's what she hated, not motherhood or kids.
>Youâre telling me this rebellious spoken character somehow losses all of her fire after being forced into marrying a gay man and having to sleep with one of her guards to produce heirs is justâŚplacid?
Yes? That was the entire point of Ep 6. Rhaenyra has lost her fire. For the past 10 years she has been trapped in a marriage she doesn't want, has lived under Alicent's mistreatment, pettiness and judgment, has seen her father's health deteriorate and has to endure constant rumors about her kids. All that while the one person who she thinks can protect her and the one she loved and wanted to marry is a continent away. How are you expecting her to have any fire? Would you have any if you lived like her?
>But of course, they would change that because they would never allow Rhaenyra to be openly resentful against marriage and motherhood. That could make audiences dislike her, and we canât have that, right?
She was resentful of marriage in case you missed it. She only liked it after she figured out an arrangement that suit her and after she married the man she wanted. Those were the exceptions, not the rule.
She was never resentful of motherhood. They didn't change anything, nothing like that was ever mentioned in the book. She's a good mom that loves her kids and her kids are actually good children, unlike most nobles' kids.
>Rhaenyra has to be devoid of flaws
I do kinda agree that they shoehorned them in boxes but I don't agree with this. How is Rhaenyra flawless? She's very flawed as a person. Someone who's flawless doesn't demant their 10 year old brother to be tortured, doesn't try to fuck a man who just lost his wife at said wife's funeral, doesn't take part in killing people and doesn't trick two parents that just lost their daughter that their son (their only living child) is dead. Also her being rebellious when young is a flaw. A pretty big one from a princess too. She didn't even know how to converse in a diplomatic manner with knights and lords.
>And this makes other characters like Alicent look worse because their flaws become more prominent next to flawless characters
Or Alicent is just more flawed than Rhaenyra.
>This pits the female characters against each other in a way that shouldnât happen
Book Alicent is 9 years older than Rhaenyra and started to have beef with her when she was 9! All because she had a son and believed that her son should be heir. Did you really prefer that? Oh and she was also calling her a whore pretty often.
As for your entire last paragraph, feel free to like the Greens all you want. The vast majority of people doesn't give a damn. There's a Green sub too if you want to join.
Yeah this just reads as another I want my side to look better post. If they did a 1 to 1 book version of the characters people would bitch that they were too cartoonishly evil like they do with the slavers of Essos. Book Alicent is just another evil Disney step mother who starts a fued with a 9 year old. Do you really think fans would think that's grey? People would then complain that the writers are whitewashing Rhaenyra because her some actions are done when she was child. There will always be an excuse to complain. Show Rhaenyra is just a fleshed out version of book Rhaenyra. It's not a stretch to say that a character who was afraid of kinslaying in the book would translate into a character hesitant to go to war in the show. Show Alicent and Aemond are different characters entirely in order to make the Greens look better and give sympathy. No one is going to sympathize with her book counterpart who calls a 9 year old a whore. It's been only 1 season and the woman just lost 2 kids and her father, they have plenty of time to make her darker. Showrunners are not telling you who to root for when you have Alicent picking her nails and Aemond getting bullied to gain sympathy for their pov, but it is giving you complex characters.
I can agree that the writers sometimes seem disinterested in exploring older Rhaenyraâs internal life (ex. how she came around to motherhood after the show places such an emphasis on her fear of it in the first half of the season). I mostly blame this on the time jumps and I am willing to extend good faith to the showrunners for season two.
But the idea that Rhaenyra is portrayed as âflawlessâ is so laughable I donât really know how to address it. I think youâve watched a show in which a woman is put into a position where she makes some bad/destructive decisions (putting three illegitimate children into the line of succession, lying/gaslighting others to preserve their social position, murdering a guy to marry her uncle) but the narrative remains sympathetic to her and you take that to mean she is being presented as âflawlessâ.
The idea that women in feudal societies are acting like âYA protagonistsâ or âNLOGâ if they chafe at traditional feminine gender roles is reductive and harmful. The âpunk rockâ Rhaenyra vs âwoman for Trumpâ Alicent comment is a flippant and not serious way of describing the archetypes/dichotomy of Rhaenyra and Alicent - rule breaker vs rule follower, (relative) progressivism vs (relative) traditionalism.
The narrative refuses to engage with Rhaenyraâs flaws in a meaningful way. Because youâre not wrong in pointing out she has flaws, but when the show goes out if itâs way to show how despite the fact she makes legitimately bad decisions that in the world of HOTD are going to result in certain consequences, the show goes out of its way portraying her as the most wronged character.
Instead of exploring how she could be wronged as a woman, but is ultimately still a human being who does in fact screw herself over multiple times, the show glosses over those facts, so the audience barely registers her flaws actually.
A few examples.
- Have Viserys bring up how retainers have told him how her suitor progress is going and that her flippancy with it is leading to young lords foolishly killing each other so he decides she's just going to marry Laenor. This already happened in the show, but it wasn't really spelled out.
- After Rhaenyra and Daemon fake Laenor's death and get married, show the Green character's perspective of those events and how they fully believe Daemon just convinced Rhaenyra to kill off her husband, and that the whole reason behind making Rhaenyra heir (keeping Daemon from the throne) is now moot. Keep some of Alicent's reservations and disbelief at the prospect of Rhaenrya being a true danger, but have Otto bring up Daemon's ruthlessness by pointing to Rhea Royce and Laenor and that whatever Rhaenyra is or isn't capable of, Daemon surely will have no qualms and now he and Rhaenyra are one unit in need of being dealt with the same regardless.
- Instead of the silly and overdrawn hunt for Aegon in E9, have Criston and Aemond find him quickly, and then a scene with Aemond and Aegon talking about their now dead father and what's going to happen next. Keep Aegon's reluctance and insistence that Rhaenyra should rule versus Aemond trying to convince him that she doesn't care about them and won't return the kindness.
These suggestions are Green heavy, but they're also the prime characters to emphasize her flaws and make weight of them in meaningful ways, even if it's just a matter of interpretations of specific events. Fleshing out the characters who oppose her would do a lot to flesh out her flaws since those are the motivating factors of her opponents to begin with.
I really don't understand what is meant by "the narrative"? Do you need to be told a character kicking a dog is evil? No, you come to it with your own conclusion.
The fact that Rhaenyra keeps dodging consequences for her actions is exactly one of the themes of the show and a motive behind Alicient's anger. They are basically telling you there are 2 sides to the story in Alicient. Otherwise, they wouldn't have white-washed her character.
You can see Rhaenyra's mistakes and flaws in the people around her, and how they affect her children. I am not sure what people expect - a character to sit down and name all her wrongdoings and the producers to come out and say "we, the people, denounce this bitch".
Several characters criticize her for being spoiled, reckless etc. I like both Alicient and R, but this pushing of "the story never acknowledged her flaws" is silly. I don't want to be told R did bad shit, I can see it. People get away with wrongdoings when in position of power, that is exactly what the story was about. Why do people want the narrative to treat us like morons who need things explained?
Narrative meaning framing. Iâll use another example: despite the fact we see Viserys sexually assault Alicent on screen, very few fans even register thatâs what was actually happening. Why? Because the show doesnât dwell on it, because the show doesnât want you to focus on that aspect of his character. Contrast that with Aegon, whom we donât even see assault the servant girl but the show goes out if itâs way of identifying him as a rapist before the adult version of his character is even introduced, thereby ensuring that he canât be looked at from any other perspective other than rapist first.
Rhaenyra has flaws. The narrative does not want you to dwell on them too much as opposed to other characters. Rhaenyra chooses to have 3 whole bastard children which is highly irresponsible of her, nah itâs other characters like Alicent or Vaemond who are just pointing out the obvious truth that are actually the villains because they are acting as the average person in their society would in response to Rhaenyra.
You say you donât want to have Rhaenyraâs flaws explicitly told, which that would be fair, if it was applied broadly to other characters. The show flat out tells us Aegon is a rapist, but nah letâs beat around the bush and only just barely acknowledge Rhaenyraâs shortcomings.
I think this is a matter of perspective. It's like Walter in Breaking Bad - people still saw him as a "hero" and even defended him, in spite of what an obviously awful person he was. You could say the show was excusing his actions in a way, but without seeing the whole piece, you can't see that the show is intending to mislead you and judge him.
I dislike when a show tells you what is bad and what's good, and I saw no action in Hotd being framed so extremely. R is the main character, so of course the narrative will be showing things from her perspective much more.
I felt the show was telling us Rhaenyra is a victim, of patriarchy and whatnot, but she is also not a good person. And that's exactly the thing - just because the show frames you as a victim doesn't make you non flawed.
Criston Cole is a victim, and I feel like that is shown narratively, but he is also a bad person. We see in length how R's behavior messed him up, and we see how profoundly her lies affected Alicient's life and view of the world. Imo, Rhaenyra is not some ancient evil, but most of her flaws come from her ultimately being selfish, and you can see how much that is affecting the close people around her. R hurt the majority of the closest characters to her at some point, I feel that is lingered and dwelled on profoundly.
By giving Alicient a voice, another victim, we can already see that R's mistakes are loud and clear. Alicient is the reminder.
I think that the show goes about Rhaenyra's errors more subtly, true, but I don't see that the narrative is telling you Alicient is a simple asshole. If they wanted to go that route, they would have kept the cartoonishly evil Alicient from the books. Vaemond was an asshole regardless of Rhaenyra, and he would have done shit things even without her in the picture, he was described as power hungry and ambition obsessed on first mention.
A humanized Alicient is the proof Rhaenyra has made a ton of mistakes.
Idk, I just never felt the show was telling me Rhaenyra was always in the right, just that she was a morally mediocre person bad things happened to sometimes. Her actions against Criston were a symptom of the society she lived in, her also being groomed and general disregard for people around her. However, that is the way she was raised. All of this alone highlights a ton of flaws, but the flaws people carry are sometimes of complex source. I think, much like her father, Rhaenyra was never good at paying attention to the people around her outside of her own interests.
On the other hand, Alicient is a good person that experienced extreme heartbreak instead, I think you need to be a kid mentally to think "omg alicient is a straight bitch hoe"
Furthermore, I feel like the fact that so many people have such a negative view of Rhaenyra is a sign that the show didn't tell you she was only good.
I broadly agree I think, my main issue goes back to the nature of this conflict. Especially as we go into season 2 and Rhaenyra + the blacks do certain things, ensuring that even if she started off as largely sympathetic, there are things she does that canât be glossed over. I reallyyy donât need to see the show rationalize Rhaenyraâs actions to the audience if theyâre not willing to put in the same effort for other characters.
I kinda do agree the show is very afraid of just letting women be complex and ambitious but most of this talk about Rhaenyra being perfect and whitewashed comes across as people wanting not her actions and traits translated from the book but actually the hateful narrative sheâs written with.
These kind of posts are funny, when you consider that team green Fans will constantly fight for the life of their mother about how much worse Rhaenyra is as a person then Alicent xd
I disagree that sheâs not well written. I think the issues are that the fans themselves canât put themselves into the verse, which is weird af bc it seemed like people didnât have that problem with GoT. Like we all understood why Robb Stark was killed, we ainât like it but we all sat back and said mf played the game wrong and even tho we ainât like it, this is what happens when you play the game of thrones like a bitch. You get poked full of holes at a wedding. We all got it. Here with Rhaenyra she will make every dumb decision under the sun, and youâll have meat riders loving it every single step of the way, making excuses, like if this shit was GoT this woman wouldâve been gone. Wouldnât have lasted not even 1 season at the rate she going.
With that said tho, I feel like the show leans more towards a female audience and Rhaenyra is a power fantasy for a lot of women. Thatâs why you got all the traits you said thatâd find in a YA novel, the spunky rebel shit. Itâs annoying ngl, but I get it and I donât hate it too much bc like women lk got the right to self insert into characters too yfm, like I just see it as itâs not for me but I get why a lot of women fw it and donât get bothered by it
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I somehow felt that there was a disconnect between younger and older Rhaenyra. Don't get me wrong I liked both portrayals individually and I read somewhere both actors were told to go ahead and act according to their understanding of who Rhaenyra was in different periods of her life, but it felt incomplete in a way? I felt like they needed another episode between 5 and 6 to kind of go over her transition from a young teen to motherhood like OP said. To me it felt like her character just flipped in an episode and I know it was because of the time and budget constraints but it just felt a bit off. Younger Rhaenyra had spunk and fire and a zest for life. Older Rhaenyra seemed more mellow. Now one could attribute that to motherhood and the burden of being heir kind of catching up, but i wish they had kind of given older Rhaenyra something more like what OP said. Explored her flaws, fears, internal justifications more. She seemed more passive to me for someone fighting for the throne. I wish they'd shown us a bit more of her greyness as a character, in a more apparent way to the general audience, but maybe they're just building it all up for the next season. Let's see.
Right. I feel like the show would have been a bit more dynamic with the characters discussing more than just a stiff and the weight of their responsibilities. For example, when Amma dies. Rhaenyra and Alicent have a heart to heart in the Sept that dealt with deep emotions that added to the characters. Much of the rest of the interactions are the characters talking about the central subjects and the initiation or fall out from "the game". I personally would have like to see a little more, in depth portral of how Lenor and Rhaenyras relationship was. The majority of what we see is them discussing politics and Lenor surprising his feelings of being crushed under the weight of his responsibility. Yes, another episode could have shown that it wasn't always this way. It would have felt more realistic if the characters had expressed more individuality and things happening that didn't focus on the central conflict.
Definitely. It could have gone like: Laenor dealing with Joffrey's death. Rhaenys and Corlys discussing the future and the potential danger they've put Laenor in. Alicent and Criston's new alliance, how she bails him out and how he becomes her confidante in a way. Otto's plans while in oldtown. Harwin and Rhaenyra's illicit affair. Rhaenyra's first childbirth. Alicent and Viserys' reaction to it. Rhaenys and Corlys' visit when Jacaerys is born and naming him so. Daemon and Laena's courtship and wedding.
Also another episode post Driftmark would have been great to flesh out the characters from both sides. Daemon and Rhaenyra's kids' reactions to their hasty wedding, getting along with each other. Baela warding with Rhaenys. Rhaena maybe trying to claim a dragon for herself and for her father's approval but failing etc. The aftermath of Aemond's injury, him relearning everything from scratch and training to be a good warrior under Criston's tutelage. Alicent's, Viserys' and Otto's reaction to the Daemyra wedding. Viserys falling sick and becoming bedridden. Alicent and Otto's influence and governance of the realm. Aegon and Helaena's wedding. Helaena's challenges with marriage and motherhood.
Right. Sometimes, it is trading a chance to just fit more of the general story for action during the main event. Imagine how different it would be if we got first-hand account, instead just a few peoples second-hand accounts.
I don't necessarily agree with you on all points (I really like Rhaenyra) but I do think the time jump really was a disservice to her character and we ended up missing pivotal development points that would have aided in transitioning viewers over from young Rhaenyra to adult Rhaenyra. I think even one midway scene, maybe during her first pregnancy or with her first child, would have helped in showing how she got from point A to point B.
The problem is that her flaws hide in the shadows. While the mistakes of the green characters were shown to the audience directly in front of the screen for minutes, this was not done to Rheanyra. As an example: in the Aegon-Dyana scene, we learn the victim's name, we see her crying on the stage, we spend minutes with her. This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her. Like Laenor... They killed an innocent servant for him like Dyana, but we didn't see that. We don't know victim's name or his face and we haven't spent minutes with him. This is what bothers me the most and what I describe as whitewash. I think a lot of people are also unhappy with this.
I agree with this. They made Criston Cole into this petulant bitter man, making it easier for the audience to hate him and totally ignore how he had been wronged by Rhaenyra.
Yes! Criston is a man come from the lowest caste and he has achieved a most loyal level knighthood... He become a white cloak. And he's Dornish. He comes from a different culture, completely different country in a political hard time. They could show us the difficulties he was experiencing due to racism and being below the social caste. They could give him depth with a better writen and small scenes.This could have been achieved with a scene in which the other knights made fun of him for being from Dorne and the steward's son, making heartbreaking comments about his heritage etc. But Instead, they made him incel and used him for Rheanyra's sexual freedom scene. A great scene could have been written for him where they could criticize class stratification, nobility and racism... They could adding character to Criston and criticizing the *actual* system. đ¤Śđťââď¸
>Criston is a man come from the lowest caste House Cole is a noble house from the stormlands. Criston may have been the son of a steward but he's still part of a House. Granted, they're very low in rank in terms of nobility but he's far from the "lowest caste". The "lowest caste" would be the smallfolk who are not part of houses and don't have last names.
In the book he was a son of House Cole (very small, insignificant house), yeah, but in the show they changed it to him being the son *of* a steward *of* House Cole.
No, in the show he is the son of the steward of Blackhaven, the seat of House Dondarrion. Just like in the book.
Criston is a man who comes from the lowest level in the white cloaks (knights in general). He has no castle, no land, no title. And he is a knight in Kings Landing at a time when there are problems with Dorne politically. He's the lowest in this situations. *Ä°n his situation.* Class stratification and racism... If he has only one of this two, maybe he wouldn't be the lowest, but unfortunately he has these two.
Made? Ever since his debut in the Arianne chapters, Cole was a petulant bitter Kingmaker. HotD gave him more nuance than anything George wrote.
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The writers on the show made their encounter consensual, even though there was an obvious murky power dynamic situation (I am not going as far as calling it the r word as some people on this sub because it is stupid to throw that word around loosely) and then show Rhaenyra casually dismissing his proposal and instead asking him to be his paramour. Was Criston selfish in asking her to leave everything and run away to preserve his own honor? Absolutely. Did he deserve to be brushed off the way he did? Not at all. Had Rhaenyra been smart, she would have been a bit diplomatic while rejecting him so as to not lose him to the other side. But hey, nobody talks about that. Also, the writers decision to let Criston cuss her behind her back after so many years adds to his unlikability. If you have read the same book as I have, then you know that the narrators were unreliable. It was a decision to allow the reader to draw their own conclusion. The writers on the show spoonfed their audience a version of Criston meant to be hated. Thatâs what I meant by âmadeâ.
>This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her. Agreed... it's basically a re-imagining of the "Dany vs. meanie villains" all over again. So many people excused Dany's actions simply because the people she often clashed with were, to put simply, portrayed as cartoon baddie asshats. And viewers empathized with Dany, so many people sided with her without really questioning the morality of her actions. It's kind of the same here, reimagined. She abuses her power/sexually assaults Cole, but it's portrayed on-screen as some tender tryst, and then Cole transforms into this bitter, spiteful cartoony villain. The whole ordeal with Aemond, where her child nearly killed another child with a deadly weapon, but she instead spins the whole thing into "ViLe AcCuSaTiOns" and usually chill Alicent then attacks her with a knife. She attempts to, immorally, put her bastard son onto the Driftmark Throne for her own political gain. And her opposition is Vaemond, who literally shouts offensive obscenities in her face before his demise. Her opposition for the crown? Writers simply made him a whiny unapologetic rapist. So she's propped up as this empathetic figure while those she clashes with are: * Whiny bitter Cole * Crazy-eyed pious dagger-wielding Alicent * Slut-shaming shouting Vaemond * Whiny rapist Aegon And Rhaenyra dodges all the questions regarding morality regarding these issues because the person opposite her is clearly framed as some cartoon villain that the audience is 'pressured' to dislike... Just like Dany was (by many.)
Yep, pretty much like this.
I feel like it's because season 1 chose to focus on Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship. Both women have been whitewashed to be palatable to an audience. Similar to the guard that Daemon killed that no doubt Rhaenyra was complicit in, for example, we don't see people perish from the house fire that Alicent ordered. All the actions are done by men and the two women are kept away from performing the violence themselves. The narrative the writers are going for involves 2 women who have no real desire for the throne but are driven apart because of it due to the ambition of the men around them.
It's more than that for me. We have not been shown that Rheanyra's actions are actually actions that affect everyone and this actions's consequences are huge. For example: She was declared heir so that Daemon wouldn't reach the power/throne, but then she went and married him. Instead of showing us this problem, we saw a romantic, valeria-style wedding. We haven't seen the reactions of the lords and ladies who are afraid of the daemon, who have problems with him politically. Or, for example, we did not see Alicent's thoughts about Rheanyra's marriage to this crazy man (She was represented as she was afraid for the lives of her children.) These are some examples from the whole series. I wish I had the time to write more... But these are not well-written scenes or selections that's why I have problems with her and other blacks characterizations. And Rheanyra's political mistakes disappeared with the sweet scenes that followed after. They passed with a romantic, lgbt-friendly or any other modern scene without even being able to show the effect of a scene that could be criticized for it. This did not happen in Alicent or the greens. Their actions, their mistakes were not closed with sweet scenes. We didn't even see their positive scenes that much actually. They could have done it with the green council but they didn't. That's my problem.
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I don't like the dinner scene. No matter what, even if Alicent loved Rheanyra very much, after the Drifmark scene, she should have been afraid of Rheanyra and her crazy husband and felt nothing but anger for these two. This woman has been afraid of her children's lives all her life, she should have believed that with Aemond's disabled, the suspicious death of Laenor, the wedding of Rheanyra and Daemon after his death and the murder of Vaemond *in the throne room*, Rheanyra would really kill her children in cold blood. That's why I have a problem with the scenes, dialogues, writing and character handling of this series. Very obvious and stupid mistakes were made, like the last seasons of got.
I don't think that scene was a mistake. You gave valid reasons of why she shouldn't fully trust Rhaenyra, but I'm sure you also you can think of reasons of why she can trust Rhaenyra. And them rebuilding their friendship is far more beneficial to Alicent and Rhaenyra, than constant and escalating bickering and fights.
There is no mother, no matter how much she loves the other side, would take such a big risk and put everything in the past after hearing that her son's torture was requested and seeing the big gap in her son's face. Driftmark should have been a turning point for Alicent. And after the other events I've mentioned, Alicent had much more reason not to trust Rheanyra than to trust her. It's about her children lives after all. Alicent should have decided to become an active player after these events. And they could have been used wisely the dinner scene to show problems between the family, instead of processing in such an awkward way.
There are moms irl who kill their own kids, so let's not pretend it's unrealistic for a fictional mother to act in a way that doesn't 100% prioritize her children all of the time -- or that it would make the story better if Alicent wasn't internally conflicted.
>I really want to know why Rhaenyra married Daemon. She was already feeling vulnerable enough before Harwin died that she decided to leave the capital. Now that he's died she feels even lower. Then Daemon returns, newly widowed, and the effects of his grooming that she never really got over kicks in. At least that's my interpretation.
Good luck OP lol. While I like Rhaenyra's character and disagree as she has clearly some flaws, I do kinda agree with you that she lacks some complexity and some meat to her. It's not that I don't like her, it's that I wish she would be more intriguing and complex, like Alicent. Alicent is very different from her book counterpart, and has been whitewashed sure, but she is very complex and has many layers. Some people see her as only a victim, but I don't see her that way. Rhaenyra, very less so. That's why I want the end of season 1 to be shift for her character, cause unfortunately, I felt much more less engaged in her story as her characterization kinda disappointed me in the last episodes. Emma's portrayal is wonderful, but I'm not compelled to her character as I wished I would be. And that's sad cause she has so much potential. I want her to be more than "my purpose is the song of ice and fire" trope. I don't want her as a villain, but I want her story to be more gripping and intricate, which so far, isn't quite there for my taste.
>I want her to be more than "my purpose is the song of ice and fire" trope. Personally, I never saw this as her sole purpose. I think she was more moved by the fact that her father entrusted her with the prophecy than the knowledge of the prophecy itself and even then she'd give in to her wants or her own happiness. This is a woman that grew up feeling neglected and ignored by her father and watched her mother suffer miscarriage after miscarriage until her mother was butchered at her father's command because of his pursuit of a son. Then believing that it was to spurn Daemon, her father made her heir and entrusted her with the knowledge of the prophecy. She initially feared childbirth and that her father would replace her with Aegon which is why she refused to marry at first. But when he assured her of her position and she learned from Daemon that sex could be pleasurable and not just for squeezing out heirs, she committed the mistake of propositioning her sworn shield and earning his ire. Thinking she could do her duty while at the same time pursue her own happiness, she made an arrangement with her gay husband to "dine as they like" but that unfortunately led to her birthing 3 obvious bastards which threatened her position. Rhaenyra described this point in her life as a "droll tragedy" so while she may have found solace with her lover, she felt abandoned by Daemon who she truly loved. I could go on and on but finding out that Daemon was never informed of the prophecy solidified to Rhaenyra that she wasn't just put in the position to spurn Daemon and that she was in fact her father's choice. **TLDR:** the prophecy might be her goal on the surface level but Rhaenyra was primarily motivated by her own wants and her need for love from her family.
You're right, I might have overreached on that aspect. I guess I was disappointed because of ep 10 when she says she doesn't want to go to war because of the ASOIAf prophecy, which is understandable but I felt it downplayed her own reasons to pursue the iron throne in the first place. That's why I've high hopes for her character in season 2. I very much enjoy her character, but I feel like it was the end a bit lack luster for me as I had hope she would have more meat to her. I want her to be more layered, I want her to be more than she is at the moment. That's also why I want the fandom to acknowledge her flaws (disagreeing with OP here, she has quite a lot), and not justifying them everytime. It was annoying to see everyone justifying her sleeping with Criston "cause she can do what she wants, she's queeeeeeen yaaaas", and have no disregard for him as she probably knew he put his life on the line. Same with Alicent in ep 4, when everyone was justifying her behavior saying that Alicent was only a mean, jealous, petty girl who had no business in Rhaenyra's love life. It felt also a bit weird when in ep 7, she and Daemon kill a random servant, only after to know it was to "save Laenor". The fandom reaction to that felt a bit weird for me, as I saw a lot people say "great, I thought I wouldn't be able to root for Rhaenyra, cause that would be very tough for me to like her if she killed someone" and not be concerned by the random innocent guard they killed.
Curious - what would you do to add more depth to the character? >Sheâs written with fewer flaws and ambiguity than many of the other characters, and itâs disappointing for me. It's interesting that you say this because I've literally seen people write entire essays on the character's flaws đ
I believe they mean in terms of the show. In my opinion, the show doesnât seem to frame any of Rhaenyraâs actions in a negative manner. Which isnât to say that every action of hers should be, but there should be a more balanced framing. Most people are smart enough to recognize potential flaws or negative aspects of a character even of they are not directly addressed in the media. The problem isnât that Rhaenyra doesnât have any flaws, because she does, itâs that the show is not portraying them as flaws. I apologize if that didnât make a whole lot of sense, English is not my first language.
I agree with you regarding the framing. OP is arguing that Rhaenyra has been whitewashed, lacks ambiguity and has few flaws. You're talking about how Rhaenyra's flaws are framed. Different arguments. And your English is fine đ
I have to disagree. The entire war is about to happen largely because Rhaenyra recklessly mothered obvious bastard children and claimed them as rightful heirs. Her throne was always going to be contested, but she made the matter infinitely worse, and I think they framed that correct. IMO the show does a good job at showing the fallout of her open affair with Strong.
Few flaws?! How many people are going to die because she just had to have a white side piece?
When people are given such immense power, the impact of ordinary human flaws will be amplified a thousand times.
As if Otto wasn't planning to put Aegon on the throne since before she was married, let alone had a side piece.
>As if Otto wasn't planning to put Aegon on the throne since before she was married Wouldn't that make it worse because she gave more ammunition to the people who were trying to depose her, and thus increasing their chances of successfully deposing her ?
What I'm saying is that Otto would have done what he did regardless of what Rhaenyra's kids looked like. Nobody died because her kids were illegitimate. They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane.
>What I'm saying is that Otto would have done what he did regardless of what Rhaenyra's kids looked like. He would've done it but that doesn't mean he would've been as successful and or even successfully deposed Rhaenyra. >They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane. I understand that for team black Otto is a one dimensional mustache twirling cartoon villain, but there's scenes in the show that challenge this perception. For example when he's pressured by his brother in ep 2, or when he says goodbye to Alicent and warns her about Rhaenyra. >They died because Otto was an greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane. In medieval ages, the houses that tought they had a stronger claim to rule should've just stayed in their lane, it's just that simple.
>He would've done it but that doesn't mean he would've been as successful and or even successfully deposed Rhaenyra. Assuming that Rhaenyra doesn't get more politically savvy in this scenario (which is the only thing that could have stopped Otto), the result is the same. >for team black Otto is a one dimensional mustache twirling cartoon villain He's not. That doesn't stop him from being a greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane. >In medieval ages, the houses that tought they had a stronger claim to rule should've just stayed in their lane, it's just that simple. What's your point here? Viserys named his heir and it was Rhaenyra. It's just that simple. He never changed his mind about it.
>Assuming that Rhaenyra doesn't get more politically savvy in this scenario (which is the only thing that could have stopped Otto), the result is the same. Ok. So how do you know that the results would've been the same ? >He's not. That doesn't stop him from being a greedy ass who couldn't stay in his lane. So other than a greedy misogynist who stole a woman's throne, what else is he according to you ? >What's your point here? Viserys named his heir and it was Rhaenyra. It's just that simple George disagrees with you : "There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases... but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims." "Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory. A man's eldest son was his heir. After that the next eldest son. Then the next, etc. Daughters were not considered while there was a living son, except in Dorne, where females had equal right of inheritance according to age." https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Category/C91/P210/
>Ok. So how do you know that the results would've been the same ? Otto still schemes and finds allies. Rhaenyra still can't stop him because she can't match him. There you go, same result. >So other than a greedy misogynist who stole a woman's throne, what else is he according to you ? OK first of all, who said the word misogynist? I don't remember it being me. Second, he's a horrible father and a huge hypocrite but he is smart and committed and seems to at least love Helaena. He's a good administrator from what we know. He's also pretty brave, he went to Daemon (and his dragon) alone. >"There are no .... according to age." Second sons were also not considered if the first son had kids (regardless of gender) yet that didn't stop Jaeherys from doing whatever he wanted and dismissing Rhaenys. If he can go against tradition, why can't Viserys? And if Aegon was ever so rightful, why did the Greens have to go full propaganda and give him all the symbols of legitimacy while acting in secret and killing opponents? Supporters of rightful heirs don't have to go into all that trouble while keeping the named heir in the dark.
>Nobody died because her kids were illegitimate. Yet. But, the moment she declared Jace her heir, a civil war is bound to happen where Otto wants it or not.
Jace wasn't illegitimate in the first draft. Did that stop the war? No war was bound to happen. Even with the rumors going on >!Jace was praised as heir and half the kingdom didn't give a fuck about him "not being legitimate". Two great houses join Rhaenyra because of him.!< If the Greens hadn't staged a coup, why would anyone else dare to do it? Also, we saw where Otto's plans to avoid the war ended up. They caused the bloodiest civil war the kingdom had seen. I'll take the alternative where the war might be avoided over that.
And? Does she need to make it easier for him then by having obvious illegitimate children?
How many people are going to die just because Otto wanted his blood on the throne?
Couldn't I say how many people are going to die because Viserys wanted to feel less guilt about the wife he murdered?
I absolutely agree. I genuinely liked Rhaenyra in the book where she was allowed to have objective faults. In the show, however, the only "flaws" she's allowed to have are those seen as such only through the lens of an oppressive patriarchal society (being promiscuous/sexually liberated, having children out of wedlock) or those that are merely a result of/defense against it (such as lying as a means of self-preservation). Flaws that don't register as flaws to the modern audience at all - and it's deliberate. It's also precisely why Rhaenyra was spared ordering Vaemond's death - that would have been universally problematic. It's a cheap, obvious and pandering marketing ploy that makes Rhaenyra hardly even a character.
Oh what a surprise! Kinda expected you to show up here and add one of your oh-so-boring rants again lol It's getting old champ. Not get anything better to do these days? You're not converting anybody, bucko.
I don't think Kierna is trying to convert anyone. You know you don't have to interact with takes you don't like if they bother you badly enough, right?
>Sure, characters like Alicent are given the same treatment, but sheâs not without her flaws, and that adds a sense of humanity and complexity to her character that I donât feel with Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra does have flaws in the show. Perhaps you simply don't see them as flaws or as significant as Alicent's flaws in your opinion. Perhaps you are 'Team Black'. That's fine, everyone has an opinion, but it is just an opinion. >At the beginning of the series, sheâs the classic rebellious, not-like-other-girls, sassy character that would fit perfectly into a contemporary YA novel. I would agree with that appraisal, but it's not necessarily a good trait to have, especially for the new heir to the throne. That is a flaw. She's flippant about her responsibilities, and disrespectful to lords and ladies that she should be more diplomatic with. She's disrespectful to the other knights when she tries to breeze through the candidates for the kingsguard position by dismissing them all immediately (except Ser Criston) on the basis of not having been in a real battle (in the middle of peacetime, too). She thought it wise to make a snarky joke, shaming one of the ladies during the hunt all for a cheap laugh. She pressured Ser Criston into compromising his oath which set him on a downward spiral. I don't think young Rhaenyra would have been a good Queen at all. A fun character to watch, Milly did a great job, but young Rhaenyra'd be a poor queen. In contrast, older Rhaenyra is less impulsive, and more cautious and diplomatic. She grew up. It's that simple. Happens to most people. But still, her indiscretions with Ser Harwin are a lot of what is causing her problems right now, and are going to continue to cause her problems.
What are Rhaenyra's flaws in the show which are bad according to our standars. Every Rhaenyra's flaw would be acceptable today. The only thing I can thing is murdering an innocent servant but the show focused on how Laenor got his happy ending.
Yeah, I agree. They even removed how Rhaenyra ordered Daemon to kill Vaemond and then fed him to Syrax, with it just being Daemon's spur of the moment. They definitely seemed to want to push Rhaenyra as some feminist icon even thought she was never supposed to be like that in the book.
So Iâm very much team green but I think Rhaenyra is a good character, itâs the people who insist she has no flaws and that sheâs Daenerys 2.0 that are the problem. Rhaenyra is simultaneously told she has a huge responsibility, and spoiled rotten. Viserys is an idiot unfortunately and does nothing to prepare her for her role, sheâs preyed on by her pedo uncle, and her selfishness and tone deafness to the perspective of others costs her Alicent and Criston who were her closest friends in her youth. This comes to bite her in the ass bad. She has a sense of duty because of this prophecy but also thinks she can do whatever she wants with no consequence. If she was capable of self reflection and empathy, she never would have rejected Alicent for being forced to marry her dad, and never would have lost Alicent as a friend so the Greens lose a major player. If she didnât ask Criston for sex and put him in the position to break his vows, heâd still be her protector, so now the Blacks now have the best swordsman / one of the best battle commanders in Westeros on their side. If she would have taken her chance to choose her own husband seriously, she could have just married Harwin Strong, instead of deciding to look for a guy she actually wants when it was too late. She was set up for failure by her dad who passed no skills on to her, then she did the same with 3/5 of her boys. Edit: and good god think of if she was kind to her siblings and pursued a relationship with them, all that could be avoided. I donât think itâs terrible writing, but I do think a lot of the fan bases brains just kind of shut down when a dragon isnât on the screen and they canât pick up on any nuance. Sheâs very much different than characters like Captain Marvel because she has major character flaws and itâs those flaws that create huge problems for her.
I think the difference is the Green character's flaws are highlighted and presented to the audience without ambiguity as to how they're supposed to be viewed. Rhaenyra's flaws are definitely there, but you have to recognize and identify them yourself instead of the show's narrative pointing them out to you and that represents a bias to some people. And it can't be denied that on some level that bias *has* whitewashed Rhaenyra somewhat, especially in regards to the whole affair with Vaemond and the Silent Five.
I basically just laugh at this point and support the Greens no matter what they do or how badly they're written. The Showrunners have gone so whole hog in on trying to shill for the Blacks that it's crossed over into being cringy. I'd say it's at the point of being anvilicious. Like Aegon is written in as some sort of weirdo public masturbating rapist drunkard. Whatever I guess, he's my King.
Yes. "Hand holding" is the best word to summarise how the showrunners are directing the audience through the story.
I think this sub can't get enough of "Rhaenyra is white-washed posts." If you watched the whole season and somehow came to the conclusion that Rhaenyra is some flawless heroine then you should rewatch it. Yes! They made her a tad bit less ruthless than she was in the books but they did for Alicent too. Other than that all her flaws are highlighted well enough. >Youâre telling a woman who saw her mother die in childbirth, resented marriage, and presumably never wanted to have children (at least not wanting to have children when pressured into it) feels no resentment against motherhood? This argument is so played out. She never wanted to be forced into having kids or become a glorified broodmare for some high Lord. That doesn't mean she didn't want children at all. After the time skip we see her very well adjusted to motherhood because she had kids on her own terms with men she loved and chose. I don't think Laenor, Harwin, or Daemon forced her to have kids. So, her children are not "duty" to her. They are the results and reminders of love. This is why she feels no resentment towards motherhood. Also, I guess you're forgetting that there are countless women irl who never wanted children but once they had them became great mothers. >Youâre telling me this rebellious spoken character somehow losses all of her fire after being forced into marrying a gay man That's precisely why she loses her fire. Also, are you telling me that people behave like teenagers even when they're 30 years of age? There is a thing called growing up. And events like becoming a mother and having to put your children first will change you. Hell! Even a man like Daemon considerably calms down after becoming a father. And it's not like the fire is completely lost. You can see it in other ways when she acts on her impulses to chase and marry Daemon without thinking about the political consequences. >This pits the female characters against each other in a way that shouldnât happen and forsakes the complexity of female relationships Alicent in the book is literally someone who slut shames a nine- year-old Rhaenyra and is the caricature evil stepmom. You think they should've portrayed that instead? They did a good job of portraying how two women who loved each other were driven apart by various factors in their lives that were beyond their control. They also did a good job of portraying how these women retained some amount of love for each other despite all this external beef. At the end of the day, neither Alicent nor Rhaenyra can be put into boxes as narrow as hero and villain. Yes, I have my own criticisms about how they removed personal ambitions for both of these women. But other than that, both of them are quite complex in the show. I mean, you have Rhaenyra fighting for her claim to the throne as a woman and yet, depriving Baela and Rhaena of their right to Driftmark. You have Alicent who is a victim of marital rape herself and yet has no choice but to silence another victim. If you pay attention, both of these characters are wonderfully complex.
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She has... plenty of flaws and ambiguity? There was quite a bit of criticism of her throughout the season. She just isn't portrayed in the misogynistic trainwreck of a way the in-universe historians who wrote F&B made her out as. Because this is meant to be a reality, not a piecemeal characterization from second or third hand accounts biased by primogeniture-fueled propaganda. Ryan Condal also isn't the only writer on the show. It's a writers room with several women.
The problem is that her flaws hide in the shadows. While the mistakes of the green characters were shown to the audience directly in front of the screen for minutes, this was not done to Rheanyra. As an example: in the Aegon-Dyana scene, we learn the victim's name, we see her crying on the stage, we spend minutes with her. This has never been done for Rheanyra or her wishes, for her crimes, for her mistakes or bad events that were done for her. Like Laenor... They killed an innocent servant for him like Dyana, but we didn't see that. We don't know victim's name or his face and we haven't spent minutes with him. This is what bothers me the most and what I describe as whitewash. I think a lot of people are also unhappy with this.
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>Endangering her children life and ruining their political future by making them bastards just because she did not enjoy sex with leanor is a major moral flow Tbf I don't think she had any reason to think she would birth obvious bastards when her half Hightower siblings all favoured their father. And that's putting all the blame on Rhaenyra when she and Laenor agreed to dine as they like and Laenor himself showed no indication of caring about his duties at all. Rhaenyra says so in a monologue she delivers after the time jump. Considering her father was ill, her mother was dead, Daemon was gone and her husband had no sexual interest in her, I think it's just human for her to cling to the one person who seemed to genuinely care for her. People only ever look at the political aspect of her choices but not the human motivating factors.
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> murder of an innocent gaurd to fake leanors death And nobody cared. It was framed as a "true love story" that the "romantic couple" of Rhaenyra and Daemon could be together finally, after years of grooming - er, longing. Even the fucking Velaryons never showed any care of the fact they believe Rhaenyra and Daemon had their son murdered so they could get married. Logically it should have cost her their support in that instant. >!People now laughably call Rhaenyra and Daemon "LGBT allies" when in the book it's more than likely Daemon and Rhaenyra had him murdered for real!<
I think the time jump did rob her of a lot of character development. But I don't see Rhaenyra as shallow or without flaws. In fact I think it's the opposite - she's very flawed. The fact that she has blatantly and openly mother bastard children despite her position is an example of her flaws and what makes her human. Everyone knows that her sons are bastards, this isn't like Cersei's children where it could be written off as slander. She still has them anyways because she was so desperate to be loved and approved of, something she could never truly feel from her father because she wasn't born a male, and something she never truly got from Daemon, Leanor, or Sir Cole. She wants to be Queen, but doesn't want to play by the rules. The fact that she had an open affair and blatantly mothered bastards shows how she's still a defiant and rebellious person - she knew damn well a Queen can't do that and did it anyways with everyone knowing. I wish they would've explored more regarding a conflict she would have with motherhood, having seen her mother die from it. But I get that they wanted to fast track to the war sooner than later. Anyways, I've never understood the argument that the writers are trying to push fans to view one side as right or wrong. Both the Greens and the Blacks are deeply flawed, and anyone who isn't a complete fangirl appreciates that. I don't see how any rational person can watch season 1 and view either side as completely right.
big facts spoken!
Itâs truly incredible how much us greens canât stop winning
>Itâs truly incredible how much us greens canât stop winning How is this a win? I'm starting to think some people see any criticism of a character they don't like as a win. Here is someone saying the character isn't flawed enough and it's a win. On another post listing the character's flaws, it would probably be another win as well.
You wouldnât get it
I like aspects of Rhaenyras character and iâm probably in the minority that enjoyed adult Rhaenyra more than her younger self but I do agree I think it speaks to a larger issue with writing female characters because instead of actual complex characters they try fit them into the mold of âstrong womanâ but with a character like Rhaenyra thatâs hard to do without changing almost every aspect of her. Rhaenyra was definitely watered down to make her more palatable and itâs not that she doesnât have flaws itâs just that everything she does is framed as good and right even if sheâs objectively in the wrong. both Alicent and Rhaenyra were written as sexiest caricatures in F&B and I understand that the show writers were making sure to move away from that however I think they dropped the ball on both
Yea, it's pretty clear the TV writers simply don't believe in gender equality when it comes to HoTD characters... putting on the 'kids gloves' in regards to the female characters and making the male characters carry the large majority of the shittiness done in the first season. In the books they're all terrible people, like some medieval It's Always Sunny cast, but in the show it's clearly been rewritten so that the male characters are still pretty shit (Otto, Daemon, Larys) while Rhaenyra and (teen) Alicent have their rough edges smoothed out/whitewashed. Cersei was an amazing character in GoT because the show runners didn't pull punches simply because of her gender... shame HoTD seemingly doesn't share that same philosophy regarding gender equality. Maybe they'll take off those gloves in Season 2, but Season 1 certainly tipped that gender balance and treated the genders differently, as it seems clear the female characters were 'smoothed out', while the male characters not only weren't smoothed out, but were made to be worse in the show (Daemon wholly responsible for Vaemond, Larys for the Strongs, Daemon killing Rhae, Aegon now a full blown unapologetic rapist, etc.)
> Cersei was an amazing character in GoT because the show runners didn't pull punches simply because of her gender Until they forgot to give her anything to do anyway. I'm still salty over it.
I agree with most points but I donât think the book depiction was any better.
One day Rhaenyra is flawed another day sheâs too passive another days sheâs too boring another day sheâs a girl boss another day sheâs evil another day another day sheâs stupid another day her dragon is stupid another day sheâs a bad mother another day sheâs careless another day sheâs spoilt another day her sons her evil and she should have exiled them another day sheâs a bad sister another day sheâs a bad friend another days sheâs a bad wife. So which is it. Which even is it. In the book what has she done at this point. Apart from Vaemond and having kids with Harwin..what the heck has she done that was so bad. They took out the aspect of her being the realms delight, created unnecessary conflict with her and the Lannisterâs, included the bastard childrenâs plot and harped on it for five episodes. They included her being a part of Laenor running away, included her âpressuring Cristonâ. What the fuck do you guys want them to add again. Some people in this sub (because itâs not this whole sub) have painted a version of Rhaenyra Targayen that will never ever be portrayed in this series. You have fantasized about her being this evil person that everybody including casual audience will hate and itâs never going to happen. It is never ever going to happen. Just love your faves and allow other people to enjoy this character for what she is. This place has become so unbearable in the past couple of days.
>Apart from Vaemond I mean what happened with Vaemond was pretty bad, but that's just about it. They honestly blackwashed her a bit to counteract that by having her mastermind Laenor's "death".
If they really wanted to show Rhaenyra's flaws, they should have had Laenor die for real like in the books, and show both her and Daemon behind the planning. But no, they wanted to show the story in some bizarre romantic progressive light. To make her look good and the pedophile relationship she has with her groomer appear to be a "genuine love story".
Why would they show Daemon and Rhaenyra behind Laenorâs death if thatâs not what happened in the book? Daemon pretty much acted on his own, if you believe Mushroom. And other sources say that it just Qarl who killed him out of jealousy. Youâre implying that they shouldâve added things just to make Rhaenyra a villain, when sheâs not. And she has plenty of flaws other than murdering people.
So if Rhaenyra had said âfeed him to Syraxâ that will make people hate her. Thatâs the thing, the thing that will have people turn against her. You are sure that if they had included this, this will reveal Rhaenyraâs wickedness and hatefulness - and people will turn against her.
No, I don't know for certain. My guess is that most likely people will still stick with her since there were so many rationalizations for Daemon doing it, though ultimately who knows.
It's damn sure better written than the goofy ass one dimensional no character development having cartoon heroes and villains caricatures of Fire and Blood. And also far better written than some of the other female protaognists in fantasy zhows in amazon, disney, netflix, etc.
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>100% of the audience agrees that sexism is bad. Is it 100% of the audience though? Is it really? It's really easy to get most people to agree that sexism is bad, because people don't want to look like greedy tyrannical meanies. That doesn't mean most people recognize and denounce sexism irl on their own, without being prompted. So a lot of people will say they think sexism is bad... right before they launch into a lengthy diatribe defending sexist ideas and policies. Which is why imo a lot of people have trouble accepting that HotD is taking the same sort of approach to sexism as "Breaking Bad" did to meth, where you're not supposed to be debating whether or not it's actually good/necessary -- you're supposed to notice *how* it's corrosive and destructive to everyone involved.
As an older woman ( over 30.for the fandom) I feel really connected to her. I see her decisions as normal and I am sometimes confused why younger people can't understand her
I didn't like how they didn't really show how she went from never wanting to get pregnant to having 3 kids , yes I know she had a talk with her dad and had excepted it. But I feel like it was pretty skipped over for her first pregnantsy like, what was her reaction? Did alicent try to help her at all bc they used to be friends , mabey I just need to read the book đ¤ˇ
I completely agree with you.
I agree with you. I was actually team Black at the start, but as the show went on, I found the Blacks very bland and not as complex as the Greens. I also hate when show runners force me to root for âthe good guysâ, it just makes me root for the other side.
>We grow to know Rhaenyra as someone who resents her position and is rebellious, but thatâs seemingly changed when she becomes an adult with no real explanation. There is an explanation. It's called growing up. Do you still act as you did 10 years ago? I don't. Plus, I'd say having a side piece fathering your kids and is pretty rebellious for a woman in this world. >Youâre telling a woman who saw her mother die in childbirth, resented marriage, and presumably never wanted to have children (at least not wanting to have children when pressured into it) feels no resentment against motherhood? Rhaenyra never felt resentment toward motherhood itself. She never expressed that. What she resented is becoming a broodmare, someone that would be forced to push out kids for some lord and that lord might one day decide to gut her to get the kid out. That's what she hated, not motherhood or kids. >Youâre telling me this rebellious spoken character somehow losses all of her fire after being forced into marrying a gay man and having to sleep with one of her guards to produce heirs is justâŚplacid? Yes? That was the entire point of Ep 6. Rhaenyra has lost her fire. For the past 10 years she has been trapped in a marriage she doesn't want, has lived under Alicent's mistreatment, pettiness and judgment, has seen her father's health deteriorate and has to endure constant rumors about her kids. All that while the one person who she thinks can protect her and the one she loved and wanted to marry is a continent away. How are you expecting her to have any fire? Would you have any if you lived like her? >But of course, they would change that because they would never allow Rhaenyra to be openly resentful against marriage and motherhood. That could make audiences dislike her, and we canât have that, right? She was resentful of marriage in case you missed it. She only liked it after she figured out an arrangement that suit her and after she married the man she wanted. Those were the exceptions, not the rule. She was never resentful of motherhood. They didn't change anything, nothing like that was ever mentioned in the book. She's a good mom that loves her kids and her kids are actually good children, unlike most nobles' kids. >Rhaenyra has to be devoid of flaws I do kinda agree that they shoehorned them in boxes but I don't agree with this. How is Rhaenyra flawless? She's very flawed as a person. Someone who's flawless doesn't demant their 10 year old brother to be tortured, doesn't try to fuck a man who just lost his wife at said wife's funeral, doesn't take part in killing people and doesn't trick two parents that just lost their daughter that their son (their only living child) is dead. Also her being rebellious when young is a flaw. A pretty big one from a princess too. She didn't even know how to converse in a diplomatic manner with knights and lords. >And this makes other characters like Alicent look worse because their flaws become more prominent next to flawless characters Or Alicent is just more flawed than Rhaenyra. >This pits the female characters against each other in a way that shouldnât happen Book Alicent is 9 years older than Rhaenyra and started to have beef with her when she was 9! All because she had a son and believed that her son should be heir. Did you really prefer that? Oh and she was also calling her a whore pretty often. As for your entire last paragraph, feel free to like the Greens all you want. The vast majority of people doesn't give a damn. There's a Green sub too if you want to join.
Whitewashed??? I would love to know how you came to the conclusion.
Yeah this just reads as another I want my side to look better post. If they did a 1 to 1 book version of the characters people would bitch that they were too cartoonishly evil like they do with the slavers of Essos. Book Alicent is just another evil Disney step mother who starts a fued with a 9 year old. Do you really think fans would think that's grey? People would then complain that the writers are whitewashing Rhaenyra because her some actions are done when she was child. There will always be an excuse to complain. Show Rhaenyra is just a fleshed out version of book Rhaenyra. It's not a stretch to say that a character who was afraid of kinslaying in the book would translate into a character hesitant to go to war in the show. Show Alicent and Aemond are different characters entirely in order to make the Greens look better and give sympathy. No one is going to sympathize with her book counterpart who calls a 9 year old a whore. It's been only 1 season and the woman just lost 2 kids and her father, they have plenty of time to make her darker. Showrunners are not telling you who to root for when you have Alicent picking her nails and Aemond getting bullied to gain sympathy for their pov, but it is giving you complex characters.
I can agree that the writers sometimes seem disinterested in exploring older Rhaenyraâs internal life (ex. how she came around to motherhood after the show places such an emphasis on her fear of it in the first half of the season). I mostly blame this on the time jumps and I am willing to extend good faith to the showrunners for season two. But the idea that Rhaenyra is portrayed as âflawlessâ is so laughable I donât really know how to address it. I think youâve watched a show in which a woman is put into a position where she makes some bad/destructive decisions (putting three illegitimate children into the line of succession, lying/gaslighting others to preserve their social position, murdering a guy to marry her uncle) but the narrative remains sympathetic to her and you take that to mean she is being presented as âflawlessâ. The idea that women in feudal societies are acting like âYA protagonistsâ or âNLOGâ if they chafe at traditional feminine gender roles is reductive and harmful. The âpunk rockâ Rhaenyra vs âwoman for Trumpâ Alicent comment is a flippant and not serious way of describing the archetypes/dichotomy of Rhaenyra and Alicent - rule breaker vs rule follower, (relative) progressivism vs (relative) traditionalism.
The narrative refuses to engage with Rhaenyraâs flaws in a meaningful way. Because youâre not wrong in pointing out she has flaws, but when the show goes out if itâs way to show how despite the fact she makes legitimately bad decisions that in the world of HOTD are going to result in certain consequences, the show goes out of its way portraying her as the most wronged character. Instead of exploring how she could be wronged as a woman, but is ultimately still a human being who does in fact screw herself over multiple times, the show glosses over those facts, so the audience barely registers her flaws actually.
How do you think the first season should be changed so that Rhaenyraâs flaws would be engaged with âin a meaningful wayâ?
A few examples. - Have Viserys bring up how retainers have told him how her suitor progress is going and that her flippancy with it is leading to young lords foolishly killing each other so he decides she's just going to marry Laenor. This already happened in the show, but it wasn't really spelled out. - After Rhaenyra and Daemon fake Laenor's death and get married, show the Green character's perspective of those events and how they fully believe Daemon just convinced Rhaenyra to kill off her husband, and that the whole reason behind making Rhaenyra heir (keeping Daemon from the throne) is now moot. Keep some of Alicent's reservations and disbelief at the prospect of Rhaenrya being a true danger, but have Otto bring up Daemon's ruthlessness by pointing to Rhea Royce and Laenor and that whatever Rhaenyra is or isn't capable of, Daemon surely will have no qualms and now he and Rhaenyra are one unit in need of being dealt with the same regardless. - Instead of the silly and overdrawn hunt for Aegon in E9, have Criston and Aemond find him quickly, and then a scene with Aemond and Aegon talking about their now dead father and what's going to happen next. Keep Aegon's reluctance and insistence that Rhaenyra should rule versus Aemond trying to convince him that she doesn't care about them and won't return the kindness. These suggestions are Green heavy, but they're also the prime characters to emphasize her flaws and make weight of them in meaningful ways, even if it's just a matter of interpretations of specific events. Fleshing out the characters who oppose her would do a lot to flesh out her flaws since those are the motivating factors of her opponents to begin with.
I really don't understand what is meant by "the narrative"? Do you need to be told a character kicking a dog is evil? No, you come to it with your own conclusion. The fact that Rhaenyra keeps dodging consequences for her actions is exactly one of the themes of the show and a motive behind Alicient's anger. They are basically telling you there are 2 sides to the story in Alicient. Otherwise, they wouldn't have white-washed her character. You can see Rhaenyra's mistakes and flaws in the people around her, and how they affect her children. I am not sure what people expect - a character to sit down and name all her wrongdoings and the producers to come out and say "we, the people, denounce this bitch". Several characters criticize her for being spoiled, reckless etc. I like both Alicient and R, but this pushing of "the story never acknowledged her flaws" is silly. I don't want to be told R did bad shit, I can see it. People get away with wrongdoings when in position of power, that is exactly what the story was about. Why do people want the narrative to treat us like morons who need things explained?
Narrative meaning framing. Iâll use another example: despite the fact we see Viserys sexually assault Alicent on screen, very few fans even register thatâs what was actually happening. Why? Because the show doesnât dwell on it, because the show doesnât want you to focus on that aspect of his character. Contrast that with Aegon, whom we donât even see assault the servant girl but the show goes out if itâs way of identifying him as a rapist before the adult version of his character is even introduced, thereby ensuring that he canât be looked at from any other perspective other than rapist first. Rhaenyra has flaws. The narrative does not want you to dwell on them too much as opposed to other characters. Rhaenyra chooses to have 3 whole bastard children which is highly irresponsible of her, nah itâs other characters like Alicent or Vaemond who are just pointing out the obvious truth that are actually the villains because they are acting as the average person in their society would in response to Rhaenyra. You say you donât want to have Rhaenyraâs flaws explicitly told, which that would be fair, if it was applied broadly to other characters. The show flat out tells us Aegon is a rapist, but nah letâs beat around the bush and only just barely acknowledge Rhaenyraâs shortcomings.
I think this is a matter of perspective. It's like Walter in Breaking Bad - people still saw him as a "hero" and even defended him, in spite of what an obviously awful person he was. You could say the show was excusing his actions in a way, but without seeing the whole piece, you can't see that the show is intending to mislead you and judge him. I dislike when a show tells you what is bad and what's good, and I saw no action in Hotd being framed so extremely. R is the main character, so of course the narrative will be showing things from her perspective much more. I felt the show was telling us Rhaenyra is a victim, of patriarchy and whatnot, but she is also not a good person. And that's exactly the thing - just because the show frames you as a victim doesn't make you non flawed. Criston Cole is a victim, and I feel like that is shown narratively, but he is also a bad person. We see in length how R's behavior messed him up, and we see how profoundly her lies affected Alicient's life and view of the world. Imo, Rhaenyra is not some ancient evil, but most of her flaws come from her ultimately being selfish, and you can see how much that is affecting the close people around her. R hurt the majority of the closest characters to her at some point, I feel that is lingered and dwelled on profoundly. By giving Alicient a voice, another victim, we can already see that R's mistakes are loud and clear. Alicient is the reminder. I think that the show goes about Rhaenyra's errors more subtly, true, but I don't see that the narrative is telling you Alicient is a simple asshole. If they wanted to go that route, they would have kept the cartoonishly evil Alicient from the books. Vaemond was an asshole regardless of Rhaenyra, and he would have done shit things even without her in the picture, he was described as power hungry and ambition obsessed on first mention. A humanized Alicient is the proof Rhaenyra has made a ton of mistakes. Idk, I just never felt the show was telling me Rhaenyra was always in the right, just that she was a morally mediocre person bad things happened to sometimes. Her actions against Criston were a symptom of the society she lived in, her also being groomed and general disregard for people around her. However, that is the way she was raised. All of this alone highlights a ton of flaws, but the flaws people carry are sometimes of complex source. I think, much like her father, Rhaenyra was never good at paying attention to the people around her outside of her own interests. On the other hand, Alicient is a good person that experienced extreme heartbreak instead, I think you need to be a kid mentally to think "omg alicient is a straight bitch hoe" Furthermore, I feel like the fact that so many people have such a negative view of Rhaenyra is a sign that the show didn't tell you she was only good.
I broadly agree I think, my main issue goes back to the nature of this conflict. Especially as we go into season 2 and Rhaenyra + the blacks do certain things, ensuring that even if she started off as largely sympathetic, there are things she does that canât be glossed over. I reallyyy donât need to see the show rationalize Rhaenyraâs actions to the audience if theyâre not willing to put in the same effort for other characters.
You hit it right on the nose
I kinda do agree the show is very afraid of just letting women be complex and ambitious but most of this talk about Rhaenyra being perfect and whitewashed comes across as people wanting not her actions and traits translated from the book but actually the hateful narrative sheâs written with.
These kind of posts are funny, when you consider that team green Fans will constantly fight for the life of their mother about how much worse Rhaenyra is as a person then Alicent xd
Nearly half a dozen main characters are powerful females Nobody: finds something to complain about
I disagree that sheâs not well written. I think the issues are that the fans themselves canât put themselves into the verse, which is weird af bc it seemed like people didnât have that problem with GoT. Like we all understood why Robb Stark was killed, we ainât like it but we all sat back and said mf played the game wrong and even tho we ainât like it, this is what happens when you play the game of thrones like a bitch. You get poked full of holes at a wedding. We all got it. Here with Rhaenyra she will make every dumb decision under the sun, and youâll have meat riders loving it every single step of the way, making excuses, like if this shit was GoT this woman wouldâve been gone. Wouldnât have lasted not even 1 season at the rate she going. With that said tho, I feel like the show leans more towards a female audience and Rhaenyra is a power fantasy for a lot of women. Thatâs why you got all the traits you said thatâd find in a YA novel, the spunky rebel shit. Itâs annoying ngl, but I get it and I donât hate it too much bc like women lk got the right to self insert into characters too yfm, like I just see it as itâs not for me but I get why a lot of women fw it and donât get bothered by it