U Can Butchify Rhaenyra All U Like (tho The Truly Goated Option Is 2 Butchify Alicent, Or Both Of Them)

The writers deliberately setting up Rhaenyra as a religious, cult-like figure willing to sacrifice all the dragonseeds was disgusting, not just for the way they are paralleling her to S8 Daenerys, but also because they are deliberately justifying the violence and betrayal Rhaenyra faces before she dies.

In Fire & Blood, the dragonseeds are completely willing participants. The dragons had their own caves, and every dragonseed would have to find the dragon on their own, decide if they wanted to actually try anything, and could easily have left if they lost their courage. Every moment was willing.

So when the book introduces the families of the dragonseeds when Aegon takes Dragonstone - those who had lost someone to the dragons - it’s introduced with the expectation for the reader to understand that the families were unjustly taking out their anger and misogyny on Rhaenyra. She was not at fault for anyone’s actions, yet they turned against her all the same the moment Aegon showed up. They kept him hidden, they helped him take the castle, they took Rhaenyra straight to her death, all because they were bitter. Slights “real or imagined.”

“Even in Dragonstone, long Queen Rhaenyra’s seat and stronghold, they found many who misliked the queen for both reasons good and ill. Some grieved for brothers, sons, and fathers slain during the Sowing or during the Battle of the Gullet, some hoped for plunder or advancement, whilst others believed a son must come before a daughter, giving Aegon a better claim.” - F&B 542

Rhaenyra did nothing. She was betrayed anyway.

Now in House of the Dragon, when that scene will be set up, the anger and misogyny WILL be justified. The whole section is supposed to be about unjustified violence towards women (and their supporters), and it will all now be erased. Rhaenyra will not even die simply because she made a mistake of going to Dragonstone. No, she will bring her own death upon herself for her actions. She will deserve her fate.

Here, Rhaenyra did something. The betrayal is justified. The story is ruined, and HotD will get away with the idea that they gave an amazing feminist retelling, when in truth they erased every bit of it.

Big cousin Lu Ten helping the kids on a hard level

I like to think that he was a lot like his dad, spending time with them and showering 'em with affection.

this is very unsympathetic of me maybe, but sometimes I see posts that make me go "I think you guys are just making up problems"

"Daeron represents alicent's untampered kindness"

Tumbleton and Bitterbridge:

Just so we’re clear

live hannibal and mads reactions

Walk with me here, but I think a big part of this fandom's problem is idpol. It's why you have braindead takes like "Yes Mirri was right to kill the child of another enslaved child." "justice for the brown woman" but they never mention that Mirri's argument for the forced abortion of Rhaego is racially essentialist in nature. "The brown baby boy will grow up to be a huge brown rapist" was Mirri's argument and this fandom eats it up uncritically because they hate the "white slave owner".

Their arguments for mad kween Dany are also essentialist in nature. You can never escape the cycle of generational trauma and violence. She will eventually become like her rapist father because his evil is literally written into her genes. No matter how far you come or how high you go, you will never escape your genetics.

I wouldn't mind criticism of Dany's actions if they dug deeper than just "white girl bad, brown woman good" but the arguments are never that, they want to analyse Dany's actions under the world's largest microscope but never ask the hard questions about Mirri's actions.

They don't care about canonically brown/black characters that have been harmed by white characters in the text. They want to talk about how Tywin has Alayaya whipped and thrown out of the Red Keep or how Cersei has her abducted and beaten to punish Tyrion and how all Tyrion can think is "thank god it wasn't Shae."

How Oberyn purchases sex from the 16-year-old Alayaya. How George has written the Summer Islanders and how that in itself is racist. How Oberyn beat Obara's mother and took Obara from her. Illyrio Mopatis and his horde of enslaved people despite the fact that slavery is outlawed in Pentos.

The fandom would be better if more people bring their metas down to earth. Because we should not be having these conversations all these years later. The first book is older than me, you'd think the fandom would have gotten all this out of their system.

N.B. Until we as a fandom are ready and willing to have a serious conversation about how often a large majority of the fandom slips into fascist talking points to justify their hatred for the teenage girl, we will never have meaningful discourse about these characters or this universe.

empty idpol idiots 🤝🏾 fascists for some reason.

Ultimately I agree with your points about people not analyzing the text for what it presents and how it's written for the sake of taking superifical details and running with them for advocating for whatever identity they are advocating for. I don't think Mirri was necessarily using essentialist arguments for hurting Dany, though and I am confused as to the some of the writing here, and I don't feel I can make any deeper comments otherwise.

This is what Mirri-Dany's exchange (A Game of Thrones -- Daenerys IX):

Dany gestured at Ser Jorah and the others. "Leave us. I would speak with this maegi alone." Mormont and the Dothraki withdrew. "You knew," Dany said when they were gone. She ached, inside and out, but her fury gave her strength. "You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it." "It was wrong of them to burn my temple," the heavy, flat-nosed woman said placidly. "That angered the Great Shepherd." "This was no god's work," Dany said coldly. If I look back I am lost. "You cheated me. You murdered my child within me." "The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust." "I spoke for you," she said, anguished. "I saved you." "Saved me?" The Lhazareen woman spat. "Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god's house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved." "Your life." Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. "Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone." Dany called out for the men of her khas and bid them take Mirri Maz Duur and bind her hand and foot, but the maegi smiled at her as they carried her off, as if they shared a secret. A word, and Dany could have her head off … yet then what would she have? A head? If life was worthless, what was death?

A)

I could be reading this ask incorrectly. Did you mean "they don't want" when you said: "They don't care about canonically brown/black characters that have been harmed by white characters in the text. They want to talk about how Tywin has Alayaya whipped and thrown out of the Red Keep or how Cersei has her abducted and beaten to punish Tyrion and how all Tyrion can think is "thank god it wasn't Shae."? Because with you saying "They don't care about canonically...in the text", it seems like it, but Idk.

B)

You: "but they never mention that Mirri's argument for the forced abortion of Rhaego is racially essentialist in nature. "The brown baby boy will grow up to be a huge brown rapist" was Mirri's argument and this fandom eats it up uncritically because they hate the "white slave owner"."

Mirri is Lhazareene/Essosi herself, so she is technically a brown person. Her seeming "Dothraki vs Lhazareene"-ism is not white-on-brown crime or violence. Dothraki do perform extreme violence--sexual or otherwise--on other groups and obliterate their ways of life to absorb them as free labor into their own communities for power. So--we're just thinking from her perspective here, not fans--when she is saying that Dany's son will grow up into someone like Drogo and lead more destructive/raping campaigns for "culture" and power, In her perspective, I think it wasn't really about genetics so much as what social environment the boy would grow up in and him being more influenced by the men/bad actors around him than a single girl/woman who saved her. Bc Mirri didn't expect Dany to be able or want to migrate out of a typical Dothraki community.

She's looking at the prospect of a child growing up into the sort of man who would rape and pillage and more than that, she's looking for personal vengeance against Drogo through that child and Dany. Because she cannot get to Drogo through a more direct means, she uses and targets Dany.

This does not mean that Mirri was morally correct and justified, she still targets & harms a child bride/rape victim for her own aims. I'm saying the opposite.

You: "Their arguments for mad kween Dany are also essentialist in nature. You can never escape the cycle of generational trauma and violence. She will eventually become like her rapist father because his evil is literally written into her genes. No matter how far you come or how high you go, you will never escape your genetics."

Yeah, I agree with this--the arguments against Dany are essentialist.

However, whether or not Dany is or is not going to lose her mind (she isn't), the very argument for her becoming that from those essentialist arguments is not equal/same as the idea of Rhaego becoming the worst kind of leader bc there isn't even an "understandable" base reason for them to believe a girl who didn't even grown up as a "typical" Targ--she was born while her brother and mother were fleeing, never to return to Westeros-- would become the worst of them or become exactly like the image of a Targ that is in their heads. Whereas Rhaego would have grown up in a khalasar, it makes sense for someone to assume Rhaego would become that versus Dany becoming a version of an evil queen.

Still, once again, Mirri targeted a child bride/rape victim for personal revenge and refused to accept the fact that Dany's influence might be enough to raise a better child. After the girl actually risked herself and went out of her way to save Mirri.

Daemon went to his death absolutely willingly.

After getting a letter from Rhaenyra stating she no longer trusted him. And then he went to prove his loyalty to her. A letter that took the joy from his eyes. A letter that Rhaenyra sends in response to paranoia driven by Mysaria that also leads to Addam Velaryon choosing to prove his loyalty too. I mean seriously do people even read that part of the book ?

So much of the pushback against Daemon’s love for Rhaenyra — and like I’m talking before the show; from the book — is people who just don’t want Rhaenyra to be loved in that way. They don’t want her to have a husband that put his loyalty to her above everything.

The “he didn’t want her” or “he cheated” narrative is never really about Daemon at least from what I’ve seen. It’s always about what that says about Rhaenyra and her “undesirability”.

Everything, even the whole 'Daemon loved Laena more' is about Rhaenyra. It's about Rhaenyra not being good enough for them, it's about Rhaenyra having flaws, it's about them hating her and not wanting her to be loved. They hate that Daemon loved her. They hate her because she is a woman with ambition and flaws and for that they want everyone to not put her first. It's all about misogyny.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON - 2x08 - The Queen Who Ever Was

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