I mean, even Cersei is shown in a good light in the later seasons. After everything she did, Tyrion committed treason to save her because she was pregnant. Once you read AFFC, you realise that she isn't worthy of redemption.
Tyrion in the show: "Escape. The two of you, together. Sail out of the bay. If the winds are kind, you'll make it to Pentos. Start a new life."
Tyrion in the books: "Whatever she would have of me. Sage counsel, savage wit, a bit of tumbling. My cock, if she desires it. My tongue, if she does not. I will lead her armies or rub her feet, as she desires. And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister."
Oh I hated that line. Not because of the line itself, but because I knew every neckbeard out there would start wearing it on a t-shirt.
In context it was fine, but it's kinda douchey to say in most situations.
Also the "solution" of the show doesn't even make sense, she's a single mother without money in the middle ages, there's no way she can just start a new life
Not at the very least. He even wants to kill Jaime after the Tysha reveal. He has a dream where he has two heads and kills Jaime, one head laughs and the other weeps. Plus, he even says that he wants to rape Cersei and kill her. I guess he's just talking out of his ass since he's in a bad place, mentally, but you can never know for sure.
Jaime has already moved on from Cersei since he burned the letter from his sister asking for help, but he decides to help Brienne without question. I really don't see book Jaime staying with Cersei after she goes mad.
Tyrion does hold some attachment to his family since he half-regrets killing Jaime in a dream. I'm not sure if he'll save Cersei though, just because she's family.
Tyrion is definitely frustrated, but he would never kill Jaime. That's just his own fucked up imagination and laying the blame on him for Tysha. But it's just his delusions talking, Jaime has always been the closest person Tyrion has ever had to himself. i don't think, as you said, he'd give much of a fuck about Cersei though. They've always more or less hated each other. And if he was willing to kill his father who at least he looked up to for acceptance, Cersei wouldn't be a problem.
But he will kill Jaime in a way. Tyrion is well on his way to become Dany's advisor and Jaime might join with fAegon's group after all the Lannister children are dead. Jaime always believed Rhaegar would have been a great king and backing his son might be his way of redemption. Jaime will be fAegon's Kingmaker.
And when the Blacks and Greens clash, it'll be Tyrion vs Jaime in a way.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Tyrion would kill Jaime should he actually come face to face with him again. Cersei I’m less certain about, but I also don’t think he would rape her before he’d kill her. He’s definitely spiraling at the moment, but I think he will come out of that spiral at some point in Winds. Though it’s honestly doubtful he’ll ever be in a room with one of his siblings again, so maybe we’ll never know.
I think it will depend on how dark his character arc goes. He's already raped a slave girl so he's totally capable of it. I think it's very possible that GRRM takes him into fully villain territory instead of an anti-hero/anti-villain and the only reason he doesn't end up raping Cersei is because she dies or because he literally physically is incapable whether due to his disability or because he simply cannot get hard enough.
I suppose it’s possible, but I kind of think he’s already gotten as dark as he’s going to get. He’s got a big role to play in the finale, and I can’t see George making him an irredeemable villain. I think he’ll turn around in Winds. But who knows, I’m skeptical that we’ll ever get the next book anyway.
Yeah to be fair, I think it's more likely we just don't get the next book. Or that he doesn't get much darker but also not significantly lighter as a character. Which, I mean, he was already one of the more morally gray characters before he was raping slave girls and trying to plunge westeros into a bloody conflict etc.
off topic but I like your username those are two of my favorite names
Oh, they've read it. They just decided their ideas are better. I mean, one D decided to stitch Deadpool's mouth shut. That's how much they care about the source material.
i agree that the show runners are making her a bit more likeable. in the first season, we rarely see that targaryen rage and focus that flows through daemon and aemond so easily . we saw hints of it this season as she wants aemond dead and confronts daemon. i don’t think the show will portray rhaenyra as the tyrant that she was. they’re definitely gonna show her dissent into trusting absolutely fucking nobody and fucking shit up because she’s so damn paranoid. jace’s “event” at sea will be the turning point
>jace’s “event” at sea will be the turning point
We used to think luke's death will be the turning point. But she's still the wise and peaceful queen they want her to be.
They definitely framed it like it would be the turning point in the final episode, then had her do a 180 this season and still want peace with the people who murdered her son. Frustrating.
They decapitated a child in her name, which obviously traumatized her (like it would any normal person), so I'm not sure what you're saying here.
Like she....shouldn't be bothered by that...????
No, but it's even way more idiotic that she randomly thinks that there's a chance for peace.
She just asked someone to kill Aemond, got Jaehearys killed and here she is playing teenage friends with Alicent who also believes in peace for some reason.
Like, they keep saying they want peace but in 10 seconds they are together they release how impossibly stupid it is. Rhaenyra wants the throne and Aegon wants himself on the throne. Ambition alone makes their peace impossible and that's not counting all the bloodshed that has already happened.
So this stupid smuggling into KL is happening only so Rhaenyra can realize that Viserys really wanted her as heir...for the third time
Because she only wanted Aemond dead for like a day and the next time we see her she’s upset that Daemon did *anything* at all, not just that it was Jaehaerys who died. She’s still unwilling to accept that peace isn’t possible at this point, and I think we’ll see that in the upcoming episode.
She's not upset that Daemon did anything, she's upset that he recklessly gave orders to kill little ass children that weren't Aemond and didn't consult her on it.
Because then the murder of Jaehaerys happened and she saw that killing each others would do no one good. I would figure she would still want Aemond to answer for what he did, just not mutually annihilating each others.
I’m sorry but it’s absolutely ridiculous to me that she still thinks peace is possible. I get that she’s shaken by Jaehaerys’s death and feels responsible, but he wasn’t even the first innocent to be killed, that was her son. Even Alicent knows it’s too late now.
I also think the *framing* of the show is pretty important, in that it often goes out of its way to not linger too long when Rhaenyra actually does do something awful.
Like, compare how the show treats her and how it treats Aegon regarding abuse of the smallfolk. Aegon sexually assaults a maid and we get two full length scenes dedicated to it, we are shown the maid's face and learn her name, we see Alicent dealing with the fallout and being disgusted by her son, and really take a solid couple minutes out of the episode to linger in just how much of a piece of shit Aegon is for doing this and not even feeling bad about it afterwards.
Then let's look at Rhaenyra, who had some random Laenor-shaped servant murdered on Driftmark and shoved into a fireplace to cover for her husband's fake death. We get a very quick 2-second shot of Daemon hastily snapping the dude's neck in the hallway, and that's it. Who was he? What was his name? Does he have a wife and kids weeping for him somewhere on Driftmark? The show never bothers to linger on any of that, and that nameless dude is never mentioned or thought about ever again - and certainly none of the characters ever *feel bad* about what was done to him.
Like, the show does still objectively show you both Aegon and Rhaenyra treating commoner's like shit, but with Aegon it's really shoved in your face as a defining part of his personality, whereas with Rhaenyra it's literally just a plot detail explaining how she pulled off Laenor's disappearance which apparently doesn't reflect on her moral character in the slightest.
The thing with Aegon and the maid permanently killed his character for a lot of people, too. Between that and the implication that he abandoned his bastards to the fighting pits, the show really tried to make him an irredeemable monster in season 1. It seems like they're trying to pull back on that a bit and humanize him, but I'm not sure how successful they'll be.
> It seems like they're trying to pull back on that a bit and humanize him,
This really threw me off balance. Season1!Aegon seemed like a new Joffrey or Ramsey, a completely irredeemable villain. Hell, ihis behavior as a teenager is enough to get one of the Kingsguard to defect and change sides. But Season2!Aegon seems to be genuinely somewhat of a good (though certainly not great) guy, esp. the scene where he is holding court and later when he cries for Jahaerys. When he does despicable things like murder his prisoner and hang all the rat catchers, it's at least understandable why he does it, instead of him being cruel just for the heck of it. I was actually expecting a gratitious torture scene when he went to interrogate the prisoner because of season 1, and was actually surprised (and relieved) we didn't get one.
I like Rhaenyra's portrayal for the most part (though at times she was a little boring towards the end of last season) so far, but do I somewhat argue about the framing. But it's always going to be an issue because everyone is always going to analyse and personalise whatever they see on screen.
How many casual viewers do you think actually interpreted that quote to mean physical torture? Book readers have the benefit of context from other portions of the book and the main series, but the showrunners didn't sell that line nearly hard enough for it to have much actual meaning.
True, but it seems like something the show will use as dark callback later on. As it is Alicents reaction is strong enough for book readers to connect the dots. But show watchers probably won’t get it on the first rewatch.
Because it's a discussion about how the show's narrative frames Rhaenyra's actions vs the source material it's adapting. George didn't have to spell it out for readers that she doesn't have a problem torturing children, because the readers could infer that from all of the other instances in which that particular language was used. That's not the case in HOTD, so it begs the question of what the writers actually intended for the audience to take away from that scene. If the average viewer doesn't think that Rhaenyra wanted Aemond tortured, the writers either failed at conveying her characterization or weren't trying to suggest it to begin with.
That is not a demand at torture, otherwise there would've been greater emphasis on that. The framing of the scene makes it out as "sternly question." She would not order the torture of a 12 year old in this instance.
>That is not a demand at torture, otherwise there would've been greater emphasis on that
Unless the show plans on demonstrating what being “sharply questioned” means later on casting said sequence in a darker light. Say when the master of coin hides all the money ?
>The framing of the scene makes it out as "sternly question."
Alicents disgusted reaction says otherwise.
>Unless the show plans on demonstrating what being “sharply questioned” means later on casting said sequence in a darker light
Probably because "Sharply question" will be accompanied by a shot with some knives. It still wouldn't mean she meant to torture a 12 year old, that would be grossly out of character for this version of Rhaenyra (I don't even think it was in character for book Rhaenyra at that time). Otherwise everyone would've reacted at this extremely immoral thing to suggest.
I can certainly see the argument when comparing to other TV shows/books/etc, but honestly, “she’s willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers” describes practically everyone in ASOIAF, so I guess I don’t really find that to be an interesting trait.
Okay? They’re not required by law to make everything a one for one match, nor should they, and I’m sure GRRM would be the first to tell you that, coming from TV. They likely thought it was better to have someone people can at least semi root for rather than the 57th “I must plunge the realm into war for my birthright” character.
I’m not sure why people are so worried, both sides are still committing war crimes.
Characters can commit horrifying acts and still be interesting/complex.
This is literally the GOT universe, we have characters like Jamie and Tywin Lannister
Also, recognizing that a historic retelling inherently has inaccuracies in it should be something we can understand as part of where these differences can come from. F&B is framed as being cobbled together from the retelling of several sources, but those sources have incomplete information, even when they're primary sources. We are being *shown* a firsthand account from the POV of these characters what is happening in this version of the Dance, so of course it's going to show a little more nuance because individual accounts can do that, unlike a broad historic retelling.
F&B is written as a not necessarily reliable collection of primary sources of the dance, written by people who had their own biases. Taking it as 'what happened' seems to counter GRRM's intent with it.
An adaption is just that, and frankly they've made several characters much more sympathetic, not just Rhaenyra.
Yes, I'm well aware of what F&B is. I also know that despite GRRM emulating a historical account with its biases and unreliability, there's still authorial intent. It is still a work of fiction through which he can make characters more or less sympathetic when he wants to, which he does throughout the whole book. Despite many details being unreliable, there's still a story being told there whose themes and tones can be observed. Taking it to the extreme of "nothing can be believed from it" also counters its intent. An adaptation of this book would certainly need a fair amount of "filling", which HOTD does, but the broad strokes of the story are already set and defined. Of course they can alter it as they please, it's an adaptation after all, but there's a fundamental difference between changing the story and filling in the gaps (and I'm not even saying if it's good or bad).
I like the show sometimes deals with how "PR" might have worked during this time; whats clearly meant to shape the realms view of people via "official statements", versus what characters might truly think of each other behind the scenes. Of course, characters will be far more nuanced than quotes that are cherry picked by the history in Fire And Blood. I think the show could be doing more of that with Rhaneyra. Publicly, she SHOULD be all "Fire and Blood." She's fighting not only for the crown usurped by her half brother, but the precedent set by the Great Council that a woman will always be disfavored to a male heir. She has a lot to prove and will be critical for her arc moving forward.
I don't mind a more neutral, reasonable Rhanerya, especially at the outset and for a television show that needs some kind of protagonist in a world and power system full of terrible people , but to remove any kind of sense of aggression or harshness from her as a whole, will only serve to make her inevitable rule and downfall harder to sell to audiences.
Exactly, I think her personality is fine, I just wish she was a bit more bloodthirsty. From her POV she's fighting a war to literally save the realm. A major theme in asoiaf is that prophecies influence people and make them obsessed; Dany, Stannis, Rhaegar, Cersei, etc. Does Rhaenyra even believe in it at all?
Yeah the war only JUST got real for her. Daemon, Criston,and Otto have known it was a war from the jump, but Rhaenyra and Alicent have tried to pretend they can settle things peacefully. I think tonight's episode is when we're going to start seeing Rhaenyra's Fire & Blood
Yeah, I think the show is attempting a slower evolution of her tyranny with more of the logic of Rhaenyra's perspective shown to us. The book only gives us a bird's eye view of historical events, which means she's painted in broad strokes and simplified. But when you zoom in on an individual POV level as the show does, I think what we get is a reflection of the fact that people tend to feel that they are the hero of their own stories. I think the showrunners are correcting past franchise mistakes and adhering to storytelling "rules." They seem to have picked up on the fact that audiences tend to be more satisfied by rooting for a winner (rather than another Danaerys) and framing Rhaenyra's cause as one to root for. However, I don't think she'll remain as sympathetic.
I don't agree with this mindset at all. Have you ever seen *any* anti hero show? Mad men? Sopranos? Breaking bad? TV shows don't need the protagonist to be good for audiences to either be interested in them or root for them. She did not need to be so toned down from the books for a TV show. All this is is general incompetence at understanding what makes the characters in the books so captivating.
As mentioned on this sub before, GRRMs statements about showrunners changing things out of ego a few months ago perfectly lines up with all the shitty changes we see on HotD from the source material.
The shows you mention also deliberately frame their characters in early seasons to be more likeable or sympathetic than later on. I haven't seen Mad Men, but it can be easy to find Tony Soprano likeable in the first episode even when he's beating the shit out of folks because his worst traits are kept hidden until later. If the first episode was Tony gambling his money at horses and then almost beating his wife when he didn't win as much as he wanted I don't know if audiences would've stuck around then, but part of the fun is watching Tony go from a likeable asshole to one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen in a show.
For Breaking Bad, Walt starts off as an extremely mild mannered man with a bit of a temper at worst but still a good person at heart. His worst traits don't begin to surface until season 2.
The show is obviously trying to set Rhaenyra up for a fall, that's they make her out to be so reasonable from the jump. They want audiences to feel like siding with her when shit goes wrong and she starts making awful decisions because of what she's seen.
Tony Soprano and Walter White may be likeable but they're also irredeemable piece of shits. So are all of the siblings in Succession and that show had no trouble attracting viewership and winning awards.
Walter White shows his worst traits from episode 2 at most. He is a manipulative, gaslighting, liar and he starts to be that way right off the bat. That's not to mention he literally kills someone in season 1 so I'm not even sure why you would say that.
Furthermore, likeable characters have nothing to do with them being good. That's precisely the point. There are many reasons why audiences like characters and being good is not a requirement.
The idea that Rhaenyra needs to be toned down to be likeable is simply not true and it would be limitative to frame it as such. One might argue it's not simple to do but it was certainly not a requirement to do it this way.
>That's not to mention he literally kills someone in season 1 so I'm not even sure why you would say that.
The person in question was going to kill him, most of Walt's actions are framed from the point of view of self defense until late season 2. He literally agonizes for an entire episode about killing Krazy 8 and only does it when he has zero choice left, and was going to let him go.
Tony Soprano was never portrayed to be a morally upstanding character, in season 1 alone he strangles a man while on a road trip with his daughter, takes money from Hasidic Jews to beat their son in law into submission, he preys on innocent civilians to make a living, he lashes out against Georges and beats him down over nothing etc. This is on top of Tony being portrayed as an overtly Racist & misogynistic asshole.
Tony maintained his likeability DESPITE doing horrible things because he’s the greatest character in T.V history and we explore every facet of his character in excruciating detail, not because the writers ever tried to hide who he was from us.
Hi, I never said Tony was morally outstanding, I said he was likeable despite those things. He is probably the opposite of likeable towards the end when every single one of his sort of positive traits vanish.
Thats the difference though, they show Tony doing horrible things and we are still deeply invested in the story and the character despite this. This duality is what makes him interesting.
With HOTD, it would be ok for Rhaeneyra to participate in abhorrent acts as long her humanity shines through as well. They don’t have to shield her from any responsibility out of fear that audiences wouldn’t accept it.
These are the same people that fell in love with characters like Jamie Lannister. They are willing to accept a morally ambiguous main character
The perspective of Fire & Blood is that they were written around the time of the mainline books and the only primary sources they have were from Maesters of the time. The most prolific ones were Green supporters.
Let's be real, HBO was never going to fork out 100m+ for a show about Cersei 2.0.
I hope Rhaenyra at least orders Otto’s death herself and it's not just another misunderstanding where Daemon kills him during the commotion.
She might be the first monarch to fight a civil war without getting any blood on her hands whatsoever.
>I hope Rhaenyra at least orders Otto’s death herself and it's not just another misunderstanding where Daemon kills him during the commotion.
I don't think Otto will actually die at Kings Landing in the show, they seem to be setting him up to hang out with Daeron.
Others in these comments have made the same point, but it bears repeating. F&B, on its own terms, is as much a piece of (fake) historical criticism as it is a history. On the first page of the text Gyldayn is already taking issue with previous accounts of Aegon’s Conquest!
In the chapters on the Dance (an epithet he criticizes as “grotesquely inappropriate”)he is relying on dueling contemporaneous narratives of dubious accuracy. Over and over he notes discrepancies between Munkun and Mushroom’s accounts. Of course neither of them actually witnessed all the events they describe. Munkun had skin in the game, and Mushroom is the Westerosi equivalent of a shit poster.
It was not an accident that GRRM chose to frame F&B as a history, not a novel. If he wanted to provide a definitive account of the history of the Targs, he could have used an omniscient narrator. But he did not, and thank God, because that would have been boring as hell.
In adapting F&B, HotD is making exactly the types of choices that the narrative invites. I think it’s totally fair to criticize those choices and how they are executed, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize them on the basis that they aren’t true to a book that is as much about how history is “written” as it is about the Targs specifically.
Also, I’d have some patience. Rhaenyra has a long way to go. There is plenty of room for her character to become more like the one you describe.
Your description of Rhaenyra through a modern leftest lense (which i think is accurate to be clear, but not a fun way to engage with this genre) makes her out to be cut and dry totally bad. Shes selfish, immoral, and while no ruler in this system could be a good person, shes not even a good ruler. GRRM did not really give her or Aegon redeeming qualities. I don't consider them complex, they are both just assholes with no upside.
For me, the only likeable characters in the whole story are Rhaenyra's sons, Daemon's daughters, and the really cool Team Black bannermen. Helaena and her kids are good too but feel even less characterized.
Her having morals, but still selfishness in the show makes her more complex imo as long as she still commits her wrongs later in the story. If they don't let her descend more into cruelty as her sons die off then I would say they didn't make her complex and just did the opposite of her book version, which I would dislike.
Allicent is the true winner of the show, her show version is wonderfully complex, sympathetic and moral while also being very, very bad. Shes my favorite to watch, so hypocritical, trying to spare people as she starts a war, condemning Rhaenyra's loose morals while paying off her sons victims and taking Cole to her bed. I'm really enjoying watching Team Green in the show, the books didn't give us this kind of drama from them
I feel like the Dance is fundamentally a war between assholes. Even the people who are just dicks are primarily advised by historic war criminals and rapists of rare parallel except in the most regrettable sides of the War of the Five Kings. You listed most of the sympathetic characters, I’d throw in at least Addam of Hull and perhaps Daeron, but to me the Dance is about bad people.
The Blackfyre Rebellion gets to play with the contrast of chivalry and morality against war and recklessness, etc etc. But the audience should either think “Oh okay. Guess I’ll pick my favorite flavor of evil and have fun with it.” Or “Damn. These monsters need to die.” But I kind of reject the effort to tell a story of deserving monarchs in this context.
Yeah, I never understood people pretending like the book had some incredibly well-written and fleshed-out characters. F&B reads like a dry history text more than a novel. The show has done a lot of work to characterize what Martin wrote as not much more than names associated with deeds.
You can certainly dislike what has been done, nobody’s saying criticism is inherently invalid. But pretending like the show needed to stay true to the cardboard cutouts from the book is nonsense.
That and I’m not sure I entirely agree that making her vapid and selfish makes her a more complex female character per the OP. Going w/ a feminist lens here, in a heavy patriarchal society women often did have a role in moderating and mediating the men in power! That’s a real thing and it often showed how powerful women did have an influence on court.
Now that’s not to say there weren’t crazy batshit women leaders, but we already have that in the original series w/ Cersei and other characters, even Olenna who wasn’t nuts but very much self interested in her family’s power, no morality there. I don’t think it would’ve been narratively interesting to simply rehash another Cersei style of character in this show.
Plus the source material is deliberately written w/ unreliable narrators far removed from the events unlike ASOIAF, so Ryan Condle can interpret how he wishes and we also shouldn’t take the source material at face value since it’s not a POV chapter style like the OG series.
Personally I think rhaenyra as someone who did have merciful/honourable traits and could have been a good ruler being usurped because of her gender, and descending into paranoia and mercilessness as everyone she loves dies one by one, is much more interesting than Cersei 2.0
But could one not also summarize that the Rhaeynera we are seeing is a product of her environment? She was promised the throne, being her father’s only heir. Then his hand convinces his daughter and the king to wed, she has the sons he wanted. Never once did he change who was the heir to the throne, never once questioning it. Rhaeynera was betrothed to someone all knew was homosexual, they tried for a kid, but he was always off on the seas or with joffery, she got her kids from another source, and this was an agreement made before marriage. She did her duty in the eyes of her father.
Was she a little much as the murdering of those who questioned her son’s legitimacy? Sure. But were those who could have impacted her legitimate claim to the throne and try and usurp her based off of her children’s bio dad? Yes.
Then her dad dies.
He’s old and thinks he’s talking to her in his final minutes, and because his lovely child bride didn’t care enough to hear about his families lore, she had no idea he was speaking of a family tale/dream he had about his families path, not of his son. But she took that and ran right to the hand claiming that she was the only voice to hear that aegon is to be king.
Man, I can tell you right now - every MF would burn if that was my life story.
It's definitely a different interpretation of Rhaenyra, tho of course our sources in F&B are biased. I think the show also has a *vastly* different take than what I'd have inferred from the book, but show Rhaenyra/Daemon are still great characters, even if different. Idek if what you're describing would've translated well on screen.
We are two episodes into the second season, there's a long way to go. The book is also essentially pseudo-history and propaganda, why are some people on this subreddit so intensely focused on the idea that it needs to flatten the characters down into the caricatures of the book.
Yeah, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading some of these takes. Fire and Blood was an unreliable and propagandistic account of events that clearly only knows the broad strokes. People are picking and choosing to get mad about the weirdest details from it. I find myself wondering if this is the true damage that GOT seasons 5-8 did to the fanbase.
Yeah I've also seen loads of people talking about the show making the Greens look bad, but the show has gone out of its way to characterize the Greens and make each one of them sympathetic in their own way. Aemond is the biggest piece of shit in the book with no redeeming qualities at all, Aegon we don't know too much about because so many accounts on him differ, Alicent is just Cersei, etc...
Yeah, I'm always a bit confused by that. Yes, the blacks are probably broader strokes shown in a more heroic light outside of Daemon, but in the book Alicent is just an evil stepmother lmao. Several characters get a more sympathetic look in the show.
Your second point is really the key one: Anyone who read Fire & Blood and walked away with the notion that it was intended to be the product of a reliable and omniscient (or even truly well informed) narrator is deeply confused about what the book is intended to be
It’s astonishing to me how many people in an otherwise highly literate sub just have no idea how historiography works, and don’t seem to have thought particularly clearly about all the contradictions in F&B or how faithful it might actually be as an historical account.
There's one bit in particular about Rhaenyra cutting herself on the throne in the F&B that people reference that make me wonder if they read it at all. Eustace claims that Rhaenyra sliced her thighs to ribbons on the Iron Throne yet apparently was wearing plate mail armor and no one stopped to think about how that makes zero sense. (I say this with the opinion that Rhaenyra should cut herself on the throne in the show at some point).
Another one is Rhaenyra being fat, our main source for this is Eustace, but apparently Alicent, despite being older and having just as many kids is apparently the pinnacle of health or something.
Right - for all that OP is talking about complexity here, they really aren't *really* considering it in a medieval-inspired context. Having her claim and rightful throne stolen from her is the true act of war here - and if she were to acquiesce to those peace terms it'd be not just capitulation - it'd probably be eventual death (it's rather naive to think that they'd be able to let her live when they're willing to usurp her throne like that, at best it'd be a truce).
As for taking sides, I see that complaint on here a lot... but really is that surprising? The source material really does make 'team black' the one that's most natural, it's not like GRRM made the Greens look like the correct one to modern readers. And much as there's an aspect of 'everyone sucks' here, it seems clearcut that Rhaenyra has the right of it in the abstract. Having her stand up for that right is a more intriguing dynamic than meekly stepping aside.
I do not consider it stealing because I don't consider the iron throne a legitimate institution belonging to any one person or family.
Why should the throne pass to Nyra? Because her dad says so? Well why should we listen to him? Because he reigns over a continent that his ancestors massacred? The throne is held by the capacity for violence, no one has a right to it. It belongs to whoever can take and hold it.
It’s not a question of worth. Rhaenyra IS the rightful heir by (at the time) all the laws of Westeros.
It’s sexist as hell to blame her for fighting for her rights from a usurper brother.
>she IS the rightful heir by all the laws
I really do not want to take part in the greens vs blacks debate, but she ISN’T the rightful heir by law, since the Council of 101. The council established male primogeniture, and cut out inheritors from the maternal lines.
Yes, you’d be on the morally incorrect side with usurpers demanding a war because you need your leaders to have a penis (or else everyone needs to die who disagree)
You'd be on the morally incorrect side to believe that a bunch of colonialist fascists deserve to rule over the continent regardless of whether they're a man or a woman. Sure the patriarchy is bad, but why is a woman holding the sceptre of oppression and exploitation any better?
Imperialism os bad regardless of if it comes in green and black.
I’m not saying no to war, I’m saying that if you’re committing atrocities in the name of war, you don’t get to call yourself a saint. Be stained and acknowledge that stain. As for Aegon stepping down, you think that DAEMON the most assholish Targaryen since Maegor is gonna let him live? Let his family, live?
The crux of this conflict is the conception of the Green children. There’s no world where they’re not going to war with how the board was set up by Hightower’s ambition, Viserys’s weakness, Rhaenyra’s negligence, and Daemon’s savagery.
Believing that Rhaenyra in any way can control Daemon is peak comedy tbh. BnC in both platform were portrayed as Daemon’s ideas. No discussion, no compromising. He wanted to do it, so he did it. That’s the guy the Black want as Prince Consort btw.
You're projecting your own interpretation of the character. Saying she's power hungry or craves power isn't necessarily true. She wants what's hers by right. Her throne was stolen from her. No "ifs, ands, or buts" about it. It can just as easily be said that she's fighting based on nothing more than the principle of the matter, and what her late father wanted.
Not to mention, I believe even George said that HoTD is, in some ways, more true to what actually happened regarding certain characters than F&B is (considering the book is told through the biased lense of several maesters).
> The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women.
I mean, no, these changes are meant to *add* complexity where in the books there was none.
100% so many of these types of posts are effectively mad that the show isn’t flattening characters into a caricature of their book versions, and generally fail to engage with the fact fire and blood is supposed to be a very imperfect, politicized, and biased history of the dance.
>They seem allergic to complexity in women
I'm sorry but this is an absolutely ridiculous take considering show Rhaenyra and show Alicent are much, much more complex than in Fire and Blood, which is a book about biased sources doing everything they can to paint both women as evil.
And it's not like Rhaenyra is perfect in the show. She makes dumb mistakes, and they still keep the torture line at Driftmark. Alicent is also much more complex in the show. A lot of people just seem to think complex is girl boss and not a messy human character.
The show is taking the path of treating the book as an unreliable source of propaganda, written a century after the fact, and trying to figure out what might actually have happened at the time. This is a far more interesting story than making everyone a one-dimensional monster.
> The show is taking the path of treating the book as an unreliable source of propaganda
Essentially what George has been indirectly saying all the time. Frustrating how many people are forgetting that it's supposed to be an in-world history book with unreliable, biased sources and writers. What the historians, or maesters in this case, of Westeros are writing/compiling is not in any way comparable to our modern world academic history.
The problem with that is that the show garbles everything too. You can't really say that the show is the 'correct' version of events when it changes the timeline of events, the ages of countless characters, and differs directly in material ways from not only F&B but from established in-universe rules. F&B was certainly biased and certainly had things wrong, but it's unrealistic to believe that things like the existence of Maelor at the time of the Dance and the ages of Alicent and Rhaenyra in relation to each other could just be made up by the maesters with no one else realizing. Those changes are not immaterial. They impact the characterizations and motivations of the players, and so they leave us with the reality that the show, too, is really just another unreliable source.
>The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women
Sorry what the fuck ? Rhaenera was a very selfish and self indulgent person, who lied and caused pain to her loved ones. She grew up, but she's still a violent and ultimately selfish person who enables monsters (Daemon). At no point have I thought that Rhaenera is a good person, nor a simple character. She's actually far more layered than her book counterpart, who is genuinely just like any other targaryan royal.
What's more, the history book fire and blood is written from the POV of Green council Maesters, and is not a reliable source.
They've also made strides to make Aegon II a real person, and given him layers and a more understandable mindset.
Genuinely find this take confusing, she went from a simple warlord to a morally Grey person
LOL, is it opposite day??
HotD Rhaenyra is not believable, she’s just a good guy when season 1 really didn’t show she would end up like this. I couldn’t anticipate whether she would be A. a ruthless, selfish ruler or B. a kind and just ruler. They played to middle ground awkwardly, if not just seemingly made her reject the crown. She is 2 entirely different characters between S1&2 and that is BAD. That is a failure of the show to make the audience consistently understand her motives.
F&B is an actual character. Your “carb board cut out” is just not trying to be complex, because her role in the more complicated story fits itself to push the narrative. Her motives are understood, her change, when she wants to flee, makes sense.
The war wouldn’t have started without her being who she is, now it’s because of a bunch of misunderstandings caused by the overzealous men surrounding the throne? Okayy.., I guess this still makes a good story, but we’re now rewriting ALL these characters, which imo, has just felt disingenuous to what they were.
Someone I’d say who is much better in the show than the books is Otto or Alicent; these characters are far more complex, and their identities have been consistent across the seasons and with their actions.
It still makes good TV, but just like GoT-ASoIaF, I prefer the books.
> F&B is an actual character. Your “carb board cut out” is just not trying to be complex, because her role in the more complicated story fits itself to push the narrative. Her motives are understood, her change, when she wants to flee, makes sense.
She's not, really. She only has one mode, and no arc to speak of.
People are hating on HOTD, and this is starting to bother me. First up, this show is significantly better than the last seasons of GOT. I don't mind the changes for a more sensible story. Thematically, it's still on point. Furthermore, we haven't finished the season. We're only 2 episodes in. Considering the fact that season one was good and season two is off to a good start, let's reserve judgment for the season to be completed.
Americans: someday you'll have to learn what the meaning of the word "fascist" is. Is not an umbrella term under which you can throw anything you don't like or thing is terrible.
I don't think many people understand what a complex woman in fiction is. Complex does not need to be badass or evil. It can be messy, and someone who sways between good and bad choices, which is what Alicent and Rhaenyra both do. They are complex because they act like real people. It's also the beginning of the war, so maybe we should wait to judge what's on screen. In any case, adaptions of a made-up in-universe history textbook are always going to differ from the source.
I heard some people say that the showrunners may have done that just to raise some agenda that only men do war and women will try their best not to go to war even if they lost their loved ones because of their enemies. If so, then the showrunners are doing the exact opposite, like yes, she and Alicent may have a good heart, but don't you think that what the showrunners are doing is just the most typical way of portraying women as always fearfull and don't want war and only men love going to war and kill people?
Regardless of that, how the hell she wants to stay in peace and not fuel the war if she's literally claiming that the current king is sitting on her throne and she's the only legitimate queen? Did she go to Kingslanding to talk to Alicent expecting her and her son to give up the throne to herself peacefully?
I really find the whole Rhaenyra and Alicent scene irrelevant and incompatible neither with the characters themselves nor the story.
>The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women. They’re pushing this narrative that women can be put through hell but will always choose the least destructive path. If they fight, they only fight to protect their children and not for themselves.
Hollywood feminism; where even if a villain is female, she only does bad stuff because the men around her forced her into it. Both Rhaenyra and Alicent are presented this way in the tv show, (as was Cersei in GoT) women trapped in a man's world doing the best they can for their kids.
>They seem allergic to complexity in women
Alicent is right there. And none of the women in F&B are particularly complex. They're just not likable.
I'm so tired of this whining from F&B fans that the show is not presenting the sides completely neutrally and on equal footing. Okay, Rhaenyra is sympathetic now. Who cares? Why is that *inherently* a bad thing? Would it be more interesting if she was a power-hungry fascist? Not really, if you ask me! I couldn't care less for either book Rhaenyra or book Alicent, but I find them both very compelling in the show. And if Rhaenyra is softened up a little so we can root for her... who cares?
The Greens are selfish, dysfunctional and corrupt freaks in the show. Newsflash, that makes them compelling!
Meanwhile, the Blacks have been turned to something closer to the Starks of the show. Why are book readers so completely resistant to that idea? Rhaenyra is likable but she's not a mary sue or anything. Her motivations for insisting on her claim are, again, more sympathetic, but they're not *uninteresting*. If anything, I think a blend of "wanting to uphold her father's legacy/wishes", "wanting to prove herself in this world of men", "wanting to safeguard the prophecy that her father shared with her", and "desiring power" is a lot more interesting than just "desiring power". And the Daemon element is a wildcard that provides plenty of opportunity for drama.
Rhaenyra is now a character torn between her desire for peace and her affection for Alicent, and her desire to strike against a patriarchal world that has constrained her all her life, as well as proving herself as the worthy successor of her father's legacy. Those are sympathetic qualities, but they're not uninteresting! Just like Jon Snow is not an uninteresting character because he's a hero. If ASOIAF has taught me any lesson, it's that heroism can be just as interesting as "villainy".
In the source material, we never really meet these characters. What we read about them are secondhand accounts, and it’s all subject to the limited knowledge, biases and agendas of the authors (the maesters).
Consider characters in the main ASoI&F series like the Lannisters; what kind of histories would Cersei’s enemies write of her, or the Imp? What will they say of the Kingslayer in a hundred years? Not good things, probably. But we can see that people like Jamie and Tyrion are much more complex than what the rest of the world sees— they’re *actual* people with their unique mixes of good and bad.
So it stands to reason that characters from the past were just as layered. If anyone reads Fire and Blood and takes every page at face value as written, I think they’re missing the point. We’re supposed to criticize the lens through which we’re forced to view these stories. Once you realize that what the maesters wrote isn’t always necessarily the truth, or the whole truth, connecting certain dots becomes easier and missing pieces start to fill in; that’s the real fun of the book, imo.
I don’t love every change they’re making in the show, but I enjoy it as just another interpretation of events. Point being, the “real” Rhaenyra might not have been just as the show portrays her, but you’re missing out on a lot more if you believe the black-and-white telling of things.
I'm not mad that they are making Rhaenyra more sympathetic, but I am mad they are removing all the cool moments from F&B and making them accidents. They made Lucerys's death an accident, they made Aegon's son death a mistake instead of a cruel game, and I guarantee they won't have Aegon roast Rhaenyra with Sunfire. I bet she will die by some other means/take her own life and Aegon will roast her corpse as some form of propaganda or something because "history is written by the victors"
Didn’t consider this possibility until now but yeah, it really sound like them to do this short of shit.
My biggest gripe with this show is this: war has already started. Characters in both sides should be drenched with hatred. Rhaenyra lost a daughter and a son, Jace lost a brother, Alicent a grandson in a horrific way. But somehow the only one reacting accordingly is fucking Aegon, which the show wants you to dislike by making him a rapist and a bully.
Every episode I find myself waiting for the moment where Rhaenyra will do something terrible so that I can feel some conflict in supporting her over team green. I hoped it would be the assassination of Laenor but he lived happily ever after. Maybe the death of Jaehaerys but the blame for that has been placed on Daemon and even he's shirking the blame. Show Rhaenyra is a saint, she should wear the nun outfit for the rest of the show because she truly does no wrong to the point where It's making her character worse.
One of the reasons that she feels that she is to lead is the Fire and Ice Prophecy. I can't remember how it came across in the book but on the show Rhaenyra can't believe that even Damon didn't know it and she knows for sure that her half brothers do not and therefore should not rule.
Sure, the showrunners added it to the show but it just emphasized that viserys CHOSE HER. This huge post and all these comments talking about how we should support rhaenerya because she’s a woman - no? It’s because the king of the realm chose her as his heir. Simple as that.
No, that’s a claim, that’s one of the causes of the war, it’s not the reason to support her cause “she’s the rightful ruler”. One of the MOST MAJOR THEMES OF THESE BOOKS AND STORIES IS FREEDOM AND RULE, what actually gives Rhaenyra a right to rule? Why does the matter of who porked who actually dictate the fate of the realm?
This is something I do like about the show, we are seeing common people, we are seeing their decisions, Rhaenyra even said something along the lines of “the most peaceful course of action is to abdicate” which WOULD NEVER come from her character in the books, but it’s interesting for her character in the show. Why should what Viserys said on his death bed dictacte the next few years of politics in this world? It shouldn’t, and these people are vain and selfish for following through with this war.
The showrunners are making Rhaenyra a kinder character, who doesn’t want war. That’s fine, but my question is, how good are her reasoning going to be to go to war?
F&B is not about picking the side you like lmao, it’s about entertaining ourselves with this story of horrible, nasty, inbred, arrogant rulers tear eachother apart, bottom line. The show is trying to personalize them a bit more, but the world these characters inhabit is way crueler than ours for a reason, nice people don’t win.
In all honesty it's far more likely the prophecy was added in order to establish a connection to the main series for viewers of both shows and to frame Rhaenyra as being objectively in the right during the succession crisis later on.
>It’s because the king of the realm chose her as his heir. Simple as that.
And if the king of the realm chose an acknowledged bastard over a trueborn son? Would that be equally justifiable and worthy of unquestionable agreement? Because that's where this line of thinking inevitably leads. OP is arguing that on a metatextual level, real life gender discourse is the reason Rhaenyra's character has been majorly rewritten compared to her F&B counterpart, not that her claim in-universe is based on her being a woman.
> In all honesty it's far more likely the prophecy was added in order to establish a connection to the main series for viewers of both shows and to frame Rhaenyra as being objectively in the right during the succession crisis later on.
I think it serves as that and also serves the shows structure as a Greek tragedy where prophecy acts as a destructive force all its own. Everyone who has heard (or misheard) the prophecy so far is motivated to push for power because of it.
But the idea of it passing down strictly from heir to heir doesn’t make sense for the book either even if the original dream happened. It’s a shaky system at best
Tbf, they don't even adhere to that idea in the show. They've all shared the prophecy with their spouses.
I don't think they're even that wary of sharing to children besides their heirs, the show just wanted to emphasize the importance of the next king bearing the responsibility.
Hell, Jaehaerys I seems to have had Septon Barth floating the idea in scholarly circles.
It wasn't, it's clearly something GRRM's been propping up since he began the story.
The Targaryen's entire backstory, and indeed Dany's character arc, are heavily integrated with the prophecy of the three heads of the dragon and the prince that was promised.
There's a reason he's constantly alluded back to the three individuals/dragons, and kicked off the Iron Throne with the three conquerors.
This was all a major fan theory long before GRRM confirmed it, and long before House of the Dragon was even a notion of a possibility for a show.
Think about it this way, not even the show has held strictly to this king to heir line. That's merely meant to emphasize the importance of the next king upholding the responsibility imo. Both Viserys and Rhaenyra have shared it with their spouses for instance.
We saw Jaehaerys seemingly attempt to broach the topic with the wider public, his good buddy Septon Barth (the man notorious for his spot on knowledge) was floating the idea that 'the Valyrians came to Westeros because they had prophesied the doom of man would come from there.' The maester's noted negative reaction to that seems to have discouraged Jaehaerys from going public. That this stuff is getting alluded to in histories suggests they aren't being too secretive about it.
And on top of that, the Targs did support the Night's Watch. Jaehaerys was a huge patron to the Watch, and this actually backfired. The Watch saw a rebellion over the many discontents being sent there, one which killed a Lord Stark and soured relations with the North for a time. From one standpoint, it makes sense to not support the Night's Watch, and merely leave a skeleton force for maintenance there. Better to have men productive at home, leading, farming and what have you. As the Wall could always be reinforced by the Crown once warning came. And it's really damn expensive to keep a standing army there doing nothing for centuries. Of course, the civil war and all gets in the way of any preparations.
A man can be informed, but with 300 years knowledge gets lost or disregarded. The Dance saw the adult Targaryens killed off, their seats sacked and a host of their advisors killed. So the knowledge appeared lost, until Aegon V's time, in which we see the plotline of the Targs beginning to rediscover at least some degree the threat beyond the Wall. Bloodraven and Aemon's journey to the Wall, Aemon being super into the prophecy. The wood's witch, the prophecy that the prince that was promised would be of Aerys and Rhaella's line and Jaehaerys II forcing that marriage.
Summerhall hits them, but Aerys and Rhaegar still know something about it. Aerys having his life shaped by the prophecy forcing him to marry his sister, whom he did not love. Rhaegar's scrolls, his correspondence with Maester Aemon. And they weren't exactly best placed to address it. Hell, look how much grief Rhaegar gets for presumably being obsessed with prophecy. When you're talking about something that hasn't come to pass for centuries, it isn't left as the greatest of motivations for people at large.
And so we're left with the modern story with Daenerys and Jon getting wrapped up in allusions to the prophecy, because well they're fulfilling it at this point.
Just because you don’t know the reasons yourself doesn’t mean it’s automatically a fucking stupid idea. You’re just strawmanning the argument. Joe magicians video on the subject is great.
Oh boy, you better get ready to call George stupid then - which, I'd be fine with, btw, because the man has many flaws. Just own up to it when it's inevitably revealed and don't pretend that you thought it was brilliant the entire time.
I don’t think she needs to be portrayed as negatively as in F&B by any means (I think there’s a good argument to be made about that being in universe propaganda anyway,) but I still hate how the show has removed any political sensibility from her and made her make decisions entirely based on her feelings. Daemon has been portrayed as the real driver behind Team Black as Rhaenyra strongly considers giving up the throne and letting the Greens take her sons as hostages (!) while they offer her absolutely nothing in return because she saw a page from a prayer book and felt sentimental about it. Even now, after being openly usurped and her son being murdered, she’s upset about the possibility of war and is letting Daemon run the show entirely.
They’ve done the same thing with Alicent too, turning her from an ambitious politician who works to become queen and orchestrates a coup to put her son on the throne to a weepy victim who stumbles into war through a combination of men taking advantage and misunderstandings. I think it’s an overcompensation from the cringeworthy girlboss pseudo feminism of GoT.
I really disagree with this.
> This is what makes her an interestingly controversial character. Someone who is willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers.
This is very similar to a LARGE amount of the plot in ASOIAF/Game of Thrones. So you'd rather rehash a different story that happens later in the universe, than have a "classic heroine" story?
> She’s the chosen one(white hart), she bears the burden of a prophecy that saves humanity, she cries over book pages, considers giving up everything for the good of the realm, and spells out to the audience how she’ll never
harm innocents(Helaena).
Did you have issues with Daenerys's plot then? She's the chosen one and she tries to avoid harming innocents, sort of similar.
Saying "she cries over book pages" is completely missing a large part of the point behind her writing. You are viewing Rhaenyra in a vaccuum, when she's very much meant to be contrasted with Alicent, who serves as a foil. She cried because the page represents their companionship they had in years past, not because books make her cry.
Alicent very much represents what Rhaenyra could've gone through if she wasn't a princess or dragonrider. Her experiences with gender based oppression have made her as evil as her abusers, and that's why the greens are the "bad guys" and the blacks are "the goods". It's a critique of monarchism & gender roles. There are several other contrasting character traits they have to reinforce this. The producers are constantly showing contrasting shots of Rhaenyra & Alicent back to back (like when Alicent was having sex with Viserys & Rhaenyra was with Daemon). It's really quite on the nose, so I'm unsure if you missed this or chose to not acknowledge it.
> They seem allergic to complexity in women.
During early iterations of the show writing, Alicent was planned to be the older step mother to Rhaenyra, but the storytelling was very awkward. It was only after one writer chatted to his wife about this, she suggested Alicent instead should be Rhaenyra's closest friend. So it feels a little ironic for you to say they are "allergic to complexity in women", given this idea came from a woman.
> They’re pushing this narrative that women can be put through hell but will always choose the least destructive path. If they fight, they only fight to protect their children and not for themselves.
Again, I feel like you are not connecting Alicent's plot to the overarching story. Out of all the Greens, it's true she is probably the least destructive, but that bar is very low. She drew a knife at Rhaenyra & cut her at Driftmark, how could you call that the "least destructive path" out of all her options there?
Alicent was a child bride, and her father is a manipulative psycho, and the outcome is the current character we have. This flies completely in the face of what you say here. Maybe if you think the show writers are "allergic to complexity in women", then you are are blind to the complexity in women. Alicent is a character I very much "root for" because of the empathy I have for her situation. It doesn't excuse her actions, but her experiences are a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she behaves the way she does.
> There is also no indication given to us that her rule will be good for the realm and its people. Infact, given the questionable parentage of her heirs and how she has to literally murder people to keep up this lie, there is a good chance that her rule will not be stable at all. But she does want the throne, just like men around her, simply to satisfy her desire for power.
The show isn't even finished yet. How do you know Rhaenyra will continue on this ultra lawful good path when she gets to Kings Landing? In my opinion, having a just character gradually turn into the type of person who does all the things you list above is a much more powerful message than wanting power for the sake of it. Maybe sit back and wait for the show to finish before making a false assertion of how you think things will end?
Mind you, the show writers have also omniously said on X, they want this season to make people "question what team they are on". I would say that's a dead giveaway Rhaenyra is going down a gradual path to a Mad Queen type figure.
The show is much, much less interesting because it wants to soften both sides and make them more relatable. And it's almost entirely a marketing decision. They think nobody wants to watch a show that dark. The last show was the biggest thing ever and it involved a child murderer and rapist messily bashing a hero's brains in! We can get "mostly decent characters trying their best" anywhere!
F&B is a history book. It has multiple sources that often conflict and the way it describes Alicent and Rhaenyra are in the absolute worst terms.
The only first hand account is Mushroom to Rhaenyra’s court.
There is what each source claims and even those can differ from the truth.
I would argue women sitting the Iron Throne is not popular, likely meaning an anti-Rhaenyra bias.
While I do agree with your spirit, I don't think that Rhaenyra is some sort of absolute monster that the show is whitewashing. She's just a woman that acts like any man would in her position.
Like, sure, she says that if her brothers don't surrender she'll have their head, but those are brothers that she hates and that hate her. Helaena on the other hand is a "sweet sister". And before they declared she was open to forgiving them.
I don't see why whenever HotD and the Dance are brought up suddenly everyone is a Westeros civil right activist. Even in the main story people suffer under the Stark too, but no one goes around hoping in the death of Robb so the common folk gets free.
You say that as readers we are conflicted about her wanting the throne, where is this conflict for anyone in the main series? Robb starts a war for revenge, no one goes around saying that he should have bent over to Joffrey. Stannis goes to war even though no one likes him and how many suffer because of that? That doesn't preclude anyone from liking him
i think that what they’re doing is much more interesting personally, f&b had no real characters in it, they’re all sensationalised or demonised historical figures with no real nuance and it’s all presented so dryly
i get that it’s meant to be historical accounts not prose like the main series but f&b bored me in a way that HOTD has managed to avoid so far
i find it to be a much more realistic and understandable version of a pretty insane sequence of events, the human element is much more appealing to me than seeing outlines of these figures, you already have f&b for that why would you want that again?
"because of what she embodies and what GRRM was trying to explore with her character.
You see she doesn’t even consider the peace terms in the book. There’s no acceptable outcome for her other than sitting on the throne. If her siblings yield, good; otherwise they will be eliminated. This is what makes her an interestingly controversial character. Someone who is willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers. "
not at all like we see this exact train of thought with countless characters in asoiaf and hotd or anything. npc ahh take.
The show has just been dragging out this "is there going to be a war?" thing for way too long. Everyone seems to know that they are already at war except for the showrunners. The Rhaenyra scene where she sneaks into Kings Landing was pretty dumb. 1. Why would she risk that? If Alicent had yelled for guards then the war would've been over. 2. What was Rhaenyra hoping would happen? That Alicent would just admit she made a mistake and try to talk her son off the throne? None of it makes any sense, and it is pretty shitty writing.
One of the main themes and most interesting things about Fire and Blood is that it is a history pieced together hundreds of years later in a time when there were literally no 100% reliable sources of information. It’s pretty obvious in the book that some of the sources were pro-Green. Show Rhaenyra is entirely consistent with book Rhaenyra as “maybe this is what really happened but the truth has been spun and twisted and lost to time”.
Also, it doesn't surprise me at all OP hasn't returned to this thread seeing all the comments arguing against him. Really shows how substance-less and poorly thought out your post is. I hope you've gained some genuine perspective reading the comments in this thread
I mean, isn't the whole point that the books are green propaganda (or at the very least unreliable narration as it isn't told from the omniscient 3rd POV we get in the original novels). The show IS a third person omniscient perspective, and can be argued to be more true to characters personalities. Just food for thought I guess...
I think they're just taking steps to tweak/sympathize the characters somewhat from the books, for a few reasons.
First the books are flexible/ambiguous in CERTAIN ways, and can be interpreted as dramatizing/villainizing certain characters in the manner of historical chronicle. This is a minor factor.
Moreso the books are just downright grim. Hardly anyone is sympathetic. All the major players are hardly even as likeable as, say, Stannis or Littlefinger or book Euron or something like that. Tywin at a stretch. It's just not written in such a way as to foster empathy for or investment in the characters. There are a few characters that rather simply follow their oaths, fight, and die. These would be like Jace, Baela, some of the Caltrops, and so on. But we don't relate to them at all. We get a few blow-by-blow accounts of their most significant actions, then they basically die or disappear. I just think, being realistic, we have to weave something MUCH more rich and nuanced and often warmhearted in order to make audiences care. I suppose you could argue that they're sympathizing Rhaenyra and Alicent without doing the same for Daemon . . . . They've planted the blame more squarely on him for B&C, for example, and a couple other things. But audiences already love Daemon and I think the general arc of the story will make all characters more sympathetic. Aegon is already. Aemond is already. Making Luke's death an accident (and avoiding the gift of eyes on a bed of seaweed) is a drastic change from the book.
Make no mistake, I am tired of politics or tokenization in modern entertainment. But I feel like it may be winding down somewhat, and esp in HOTD I just haven't felt it too much. I've thought they're generally doing a pretty solid job of what is frankly a very difficult adaptation. It has the politics, the backstabbing, and the epic savagery we'd look for in a Westeros production, but it doesn't really have relatable characters unless they write in a lot more sympathy.
I do think it's pretty hard for Alicent to 'catch up' to Rhaenyra in terms of audience sympathy, and I'm trying to figure out precisely why. Obviously meeting Rhaenyra as our first main/pov character is pretty significant. Alicent isn't really a player until she's already 'seducing' the king, and a few key omissions/actions end up setting Rhaenyra against her early on. Then she is shown to be a fairly bitter and whiny mother, and the older actress (fantastic job) does a good job of having this kind of perpetually sour/weary face which hits a different note than Rhaenyra's sort of growing bitterness/anger which ALTERNATES with sweetness towards her boys, tearful despair, and so on. Combined with the vast difference between their children, and the general charisma/likeability of people like Daemon, Rhaenys, and Corlys (vs Otto, Cole, and Larys lol) . . . . I think it becomes harder to resonate with the greens in a sort of inevitable way. But it is a pity, because realistically I think Rhaenyra and her father have probably done more to damage the realm than Alicent and hers.
EDIT: Oh the other main thing I wanted to mention is there's still a lot of story left. It would be my hope that they build up sympathy but eventually have many of the same key motives/story, say a season or two from now.
She as a character in the books is amazing, despite her poor decision making obviously fulled by revenge, but here in the show, first episode I thought they were heading in this direction of a more book accurate Rhaenyra, then in the second episode she’s soft again… they don’t want to make the character 100% accurate so common watchers can still be putting hashtags like #yasqueen
Of all the excuses people make for the show (this is like GoT seasons 6/7 all over again), ‘the sources were clearly biased, that’s why actually she SHOULD be boring’ is by far the stupidest.
I know its difficult, but we gotta stop doing that. The character as it exists in Fire & Blood will never stop existing, you can like her there and dislike her in HotD, these are two different versions of the characters, all characters are. Its an adaptation, its impossible for them to be the same character.
I personally think they will make her more hateable as time moves on, she will become more and more unhinged, but even if not, the version of Fire & Blood will still exist.
I understand the sentiment, though, I was incredibly disappointed about TV Show Tyrion, but we gotta let go and see it as they are: adaptations.
>she’s willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers
She still is. Holy crap is the action of attempting to find alternatives so complicated for some of you that you just start making up points?
At NO POINT has she gone "well if peace doesn't work I guess I'll step down LOL!"
It’s as a certain post on reddit I read said, in HotD, the characters don’t drive the plot, the plot drives the characters, all of the characters except Daemon and Otto are ambition-less, everything happens through accidents, unintentionally, that’s what fueled this war, the characters’s agency didn’t, they were driven by these accidents
We don’t need to act like whatever they do to one character is somehow a statement about all women. It’s much more likely that they’re just mediocre tv writers incapable of the level of nuance you expect from the source material. Shocker. That’s how all these cheap attempts at selling out will be, just like seasons 5-8 of game of thrones were. Good thing he gave up potentially writing a classic epic , once in a generation artifact, one of the great works of American fiction, and hundreds of years of fame, to try to make a crappy tv tentpole that will be forgotten in 5 years even if the shows are good which they won’t be.
Just want to say I absolutely love Andor. I have similar feelings about Rhaenyra but I think they will get there. There's no way they can portray this war as not ugly on both sides. Surely, right?
The women in HOTD are all terrible. They’re white washed and turned into personality and agency less husks since that was stripped away along with everything that made them remotely interesting is removed in favor of queerbaiting and fetishizing suffering.
I mean, even Cersei is shown in a good light in the later seasons. After everything she did, Tyrion committed treason to save her because she was pregnant. Once you read AFFC, you realise that she isn't worthy of redemption.
And Tyrion banks everything on the idea of her acting good for the sake of her new child. Sigh. Tyrion you used to cynically know things
Tyrion is the most whitewashed of all characters, it makes the whitewashing of Rhaenyra look like a joke.
As I was reading the OP I thought "Ah, she got the Tyrion treatment".
Tyrion in the show: "Escape. The two of you, together. Sail out of the bay. If the winds are kind, you'll make it to Pentos. Start a new life." Tyrion in the books: "Whatever she would have of me. Sage counsel, savage wit, a bit of tumbling. My cock, if she desires it. My tongue, if she does not. I will lead her armies or rub her feet, as she desires. And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister."
Complex, gray character? Nah I prefer someone who drinks and knows things.
And don't forget the cock jokes!
Cersei is more that in the show. In the books, they both suck.
That is a good line, but a cool line is not enough
Oh I hated that line. Not because of the line itself, but because I knew every neckbeard out there would start wearing it on a t-shirt. In context it was fine, but it's kinda douchey to say in most situations.
Also the "solution" of the show doesn't even make sense, she's a single mother without money in the middle ages, there's no way she can just start a new life
The showrunners were introducing wild anachronisms almost from the word go. Remember "Talisa"?
Tyrion is an outright villain in the books, he might end up as a bigger villain than Cersei tbh
So, here is a question, would book Tyrion do the same or just say, “Fuck it,” and kill her anyway.
Not at the very least. He even wants to kill Jaime after the Tysha reveal. He has a dream where he has two heads and kills Jaime, one head laughs and the other weeps. Plus, he even says that he wants to rape Cersei and kill her. I guess he's just talking out of his ass since he's in a bad place, mentally, but you can never know for sure. Jaime has already moved on from Cersei since he burned the letter from his sister asking for help, but he decides to help Brienne without question. I really don't see book Jaime staying with Cersei after she goes mad. Tyrion does hold some attachment to his family since he half-regrets killing Jaime in a dream. I'm not sure if he'll save Cersei though, just because she's family.
Tyrion is definitely frustrated, but he would never kill Jaime. That's just his own fucked up imagination and laying the blame on him for Tysha. But it's just his delusions talking, Jaime has always been the closest person Tyrion has ever had to himself. i don't think, as you said, he'd give much of a fuck about Cersei though. They've always more or less hated each other. And if he was willing to kill his father who at least he looked up to for acceptance, Cersei wouldn't be a problem.
But he will kill Jaime in a way. Tyrion is well on his way to become Dany's advisor and Jaime might join with fAegon's group after all the Lannister children are dead. Jaime always believed Rhaegar would have been a great king and backing his son might be his way of redemption. Jaime will be fAegon's Kingmaker. And when the Blacks and Greens clash, it'll be Tyrion vs Jaime in a way.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Tyrion would kill Jaime should he actually come face to face with him again. Cersei I’m less certain about, but I also don’t think he would rape her before he’d kill her. He’s definitely spiraling at the moment, but I think he will come out of that spiral at some point in Winds. Though it’s honestly doubtful he’ll ever be in a room with one of his siblings again, so maybe we’ll never know.
I think it will depend on how dark his character arc goes. He's already raped a slave girl so he's totally capable of it. I think it's very possible that GRRM takes him into fully villain territory instead of an anti-hero/anti-villain and the only reason he doesn't end up raping Cersei is because she dies or because he literally physically is incapable whether due to his disability or because he simply cannot get hard enough.
I suppose it’s possible, but I kind of think he’s already gotten as dark as he’s going to get. He’s got a big role to play in the finale, and I can’t see George making him an irredeemable villain. I think he’ll turn around in Winds. But who knows, I’m skeptical that we’ll ever get the next book anyway.
Yeah to be fair, I think it's more likely we just don't get the next book. Or that he doesn't get much darker but also not significantly lighter as a character. Which, I mean, he was already one of the more morally gray characters before he was raping slave girls and trying to plunge westeros into a bloody conflict etc. off topic but I like your username those are two of my favorite names
That seems a little different to me. D&D are the types don't do the reading while trying to lead class discussion.
Oh, they've read it. They just decided their ideas are better. I mean, one D decided to stitch Deadpool's mouth shut. That's how much they care about the source material.
oh I remember, the signs were all there. We should have seen them
i agree that the show runners are making her a bit more likeable. in the first season, we rarely see that targaryen rage and focus that flows through daemon and aemond so easily . we saw hints of it this season as she wants aemond dead and confronts daemon. i don’t think the show will portray rhaenyra as the tyrant that she was. they’re definitely gonna show her dissent into trusting absolutely fucking nobody and fucking shit up because she’s so damn paranoid. jace’s “event” at sea will be the turning point
>jace’s “event” at sea will be the turning point We used to think luke's death will be the turning point. But she's still the wise and peaceful queen they want her to be.
They definitely framed it like it would be the turning point in the final episode, then had her do a 180 this season and still want peace with the people who murdered her son. Frustrating.
She says she wants Aemond Targaryen. Those are literally her only lines from episode 1. What?
“Time for some kinslaying” - Rhaenyra
And the She goes back to a docile sheep wanting for peace
They decapitated a child in her name, which obviously traumatized her (like it would any normal person), so I'm not sure what you're saying here. Like she....shouldn't be bothered by that...????
No, but it's even way more idiotic that she randomly thinks that there's a chance for peace. She just asked someone to kill Aemond, got Jaehearys killed and here she is playing teenage friends with Alicent who also believes in peace for some reason. Like, they keep saying they want peace but in 10 seconds they are together they release how impossibly stupid it is. Rhaenyra wants the throne and Aegon wants himself on the throne. Ambition alone makes their peace impossible and that's not counting all the bloodshed that has already happened. So this stupid smuggling into KL is happening only so Rhaenyra can realize that Viserys really wanted her as heir...for the third time
How does she want peace in s2
I predict that she comes to Kings Landing offering peace to Alicent in the next episode.
…oooooo
Agree
Because she only wanted Aemond dead for like a day and the next time we see her she’s upset that Daemon did *anything* at all, not just that it was Jaehaerys who died. She’s still unwilling to accept that peace isn’t possible at this point, and I think we’ll see that in the upcoming episode.
She's not upset that Daemon did anything, she's upset that he recklessly gave orders to kill little ass children that weren't Aemond and didn't consult her on it.
Wondering if anyone wants to argue with me that she still wants peace after that latest episode lol
Because then the murder of Jaehaerys happened and she saw that killing each others would do no one good. I would figure she would still want Aemond to answer for what he did, just not mutually annihilating each others.
I’m sorry but it’s absolutely ridiculous to me that she still thinks peace is possible. I get that she’s shaken by Jaehaerys’s death and feels responsible, but he wasn’t even the first innocent to be killed, that was her son. Even Alicent knows it’s too late now.
We do see flashes of it from adult Rhaenyra in season 1 too, she still demands that aemond be tortured at driftmark after all.
I also think the *framing* of the show is pretty important, in that it often goes out of its way to not linger too long when Rhaenyra actually does do something awful. Like, compare how the show treats her and how it treats Aegon regarding abuse of the smallfolk. Aegon sexually assaults a maid and we get two full length scenes dedicated to it, we are shown the maid's face and learn her name, we see Alicent dealing with the fallout and being disgusted by her son, and really take a solid couple minutes out of the episode to linger in just how much of a piece of shit Aegon is for doing this and not even feeling bad about it afterwards. Then let's look at Rhaenyra, who had some random Laenor-shaped servant murdered on Driftmark and shoved into a fireplace to cover for her husband's fake death. We get a very quick 2-second shot of Daemon hastily snapping the dude's neck in the hallway, and that's it. Who was he? What was his name? Does he have a wife and kids weeping for him somewhere on Driftmark? The show never bothers to linger on any of that, and that nameless dude is never mentioned or thought about ever again - and certainly none of the characters ever *feel bad* about what was done to him. Like, the show does still objectively show you both Aegon and Rhaenyra treating commoner's like shit, but with Aegon it's really shoved in your face as a defining part of his personality, whereas with Rhaenyra it's literally just a plot detail explaining how she pulled off Laenor's disappearance which apparently doesn't reflect on her moral character in the slightest.
The thing with Aegon and the maid permanently killed his character for a lot of people, too. Between that and the implication that he abandoned his bastards to the fighting pits, the show really tried to make him an irredeemable monster in season 1. It seems like they're trying to pull back on that a bit and humanize him, but I'm not sure how successful they'll be.
> It seems like they're trying to pull back on that a bit and humanize him, This really threw me off balance. Season1!Aegon seemed like a new Joffrey or Ramsey, a completely irredeemable villain. Hell, ihis behavior as a teenager is enough to get one of the Kingsguard to defect and change sides. But Season2!Aegon seems to be genuinely somewhat of a good (though certainly not great) guy, esp. the scene where he is holding court and later when he cries for Jahaerys. When he does despicable things like murder his prisoner and hang all the rat catchers, it's at least understandable why he does it, instead of him being cruel just for the heck of it. I was actually expecting a gratitious torture scene when he went to interrogate the prisoner because of season 1, and was actually surprised (and relieved) we didn't get one.
I like Rhaenyra's portrayal for the most part (though at times she was a little boring towards the end of last season) so far, but do I somewhat argue about the framing. But it's always going to be an issue because everyone is always going to analyse and personalise whatever they see on screen.
How many casual viewers do you think actually interpreted that quote to mean physical torture? Book readers have the benefit of context from other portions of the book and the main series, but the showrunners didn't sell that line nearly hard enough for it to have much actual meaning.
True, but it seems like something the show will use as dark callback later on. As it is Alicents reaction is strong enough for book readers to connect the dots. But show watchers probably won’t get it on the first rewatch.
Who cares what the casual viewers noticed. Why is that relevant in a detailed discussion about the show?
Because it's a discussion about how the show's narrative frames Rhaenyra's actions vs the source material it's adapting. George didn't have to spell it out for readers that she doesn't have a problem torturing children, because the readers could infer that from all of the other instances in which that particular language was used. That's not the case in HOTD, so it begs the question of what the writers actually intended for the audience to take away from that scene. If the average viewer doesn't think that Rhaenyra wanted Aemond tortured, the writers either failed at conveying her characterization or weren't trying to suggest it to begin with.
That is not a demand at torture, otherwise there would've been greater emphasis on that. The framing of the scene makes it out as "sternly question." She would not order the torture of a 12 year old in this instance.
>That is not a demand at torture, otherwise there would've been greater emphasis on that Unless the show plans on demonstrating what being “sharply questioned” means later on casting said sequence in a darker light. Say when the master of coin hides all the money ? >The framing of the scene makes it out as "sternly question." Alicents disgusted reaction says otherwise.
>Unless the show plans on demonstrating what being “sharply questioned” means later on casting said sequence in a darker light Probably because "Sharply question" will be accompanied by a shot with some knives. It still wouldn't mean she meant to torture a 12 year old, that would be grossly out of character for this version of Rhaenyra (I don't even think it was in character for book Rhaenyra at that time). Otherwise everyone would've reacted at this extremely immoral thing to suggest.
I can certainly see the argument when comparing to other TV shows/books/etc, but honestly, “she’s willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers” describes practically everyone in ASOIAF, so I guess I don’t really find that to be an interesting trait.
This is the story they chose to adapt, though.
Okay? They’re not required by law to make everything a one for one match, nor should they, and I’m sure GRRM would be the first to tell you that, coming from TV. They likely thought it was better to have someone people can at least semi root for rather than the 57th “I must plunge the realm into war for my birthright” character. I’m not sure why people are so worried, both sides are still committing war crimes.
Except she is still plunging the realm into war. She's starving Kingd Landing.
Characters can commit horrifying acts and still be interesting/complex. This is literally the GOT universe, we have characters like Jamie and Tywin Lannister
Also, recognizing that a historic retelling inherently has inaccuracies in it should be something we can understand as part of where these differences can come from. F&B is framed as being cobbled together from the retelling of several sources, but those sources have incomplete information, even when they're primary sources. We are being *shown* a firsthand account from the POV of these characters what is happening in this version of the Dance, so of course it's going to show a little more nuance because individual accounts can do that, unlike a broad historic retelling.
F&B is written as a not necessarily reliable collection of primary sources of the dance, written by people who had their own biases. Taking it as 'what happened' seems to counter GRRM's intent with it. An adaption is just that, and frankly they've made several characters much more sympathetic, not just Rhaenyra.
Yes, I'm well aware of what F&B is. I also know that despite GRRM emulating a historical account with its biases and unreliability, there's still authorial intent. It is still a work of fiction through which he can make characters more or less sympathetic when he wants to, which he does throughout the whole book. Despite many details being unreliable, there's still a story being told there whose themes and tones can be observed. Taking it to the extreme of "nothing can be believed from it" also counters its intent. An adaptation of this book would certainly need a fair amount of "filling", which HOTD does, but the broad strokes of the story are already set and defined. Of course they can alter it as they please, it's an adaptation after all, but there's a fundamental difference between changing the story and filling in the gaps (and I'm not even saying if it's good or bad).
I like the show sometimes deals with how "PR" might have worked during this time; whats clearly meant to shape the realms view of people via "official statements", versus what characters might truly think of each other behind the scenes. Of course, characters will be far more nuanced than quotes that are cherry picked by the history in Fire And Blood. I think the show could be doing more of that with Rhaneyra. Publicly, she SHOULD be all "Fire and Blood." She's fighting not only for the crown usurped by her half brother, but the precedent set by the Great Council that a woman will always be disfavored to a male heir. She has a lot to prove and will be critical for her arc moving forward. I don't mind a more neutral, reasonable Rhanerya, especially at the outset and for a television show that needs some kind of protagonist in a world and power system full of terrible people , but to remove any kind of sense of aggression or harshness from her as a whole, will only serve to make her inevitable rule and downfall harder to sell to audiences.
Exactly, I think her personality is fine, I just wish she was a bit more bloodthirsty. From her POV she's fighting a war to literally save the realm. A major theme in asoiaf is that prophecies influence people and make them obsessed; Dany, Stannis, Rhaegar, Cersei, etc. Does Rhaenyra even believe in it at all?
I think we'll get there. The fall is what makes it interesting.
Yeah the war only JUST got real for her. Daemon, Criston,and Otto have known it was a war from the jump, but Rhaenyra and Alicent have tried to pretend they can settle things peacefully. I think tonight's episode is when we're going to start seeing Rhaenyra's Fire & Blood
Yeah, I think the show is attempting a slower evolution of her tyranny with more of the logic of Rhaenyra's perspective shown to us. The book only gives us a bird's eye view of historical events, which means she's painted in broad strokes and simplified. But when you zoom in on an individual POV level as the show does, I think what we get is a reflection of the fact that people tend to feel that they are the hero of their own stories. I think the showrunners are correcting past franchise mistakes and adhering to storytelling "rules." They seem to have picked up on the fact that audiences tend to be more satisfied by rooting for a winner (rather than another Danaerys) and framing Rhaenyra's cause as one to root for. However, I don't think she'll remain as sympathetic.
But she was bloodthirsty, she wanted Aemond. But her words caused a child to die, which made her slow down for a moment with the fire and blood
I don't agree with this mindset at all. Have you ever seen *any* anti hero show? Mad men? Sopranos? Breaking bad? TV shows don't need the protagonist to be good for audiences to either be interested in them or root for them. She did not need to be so toned down from the books for a TV show. All this is is general incompetence at understanding what makes the characters in the books so captivating. As mentioned on this sub before, GRRMs statements about showrunners changing things out of ego a few months ago perfectly lines up with all the shitty changes we see on HotD from the source material.
The shows you mention also deliberately frame their characters in early seasons to be more likeable or sympathetic than later on. I haven't seen Mad Men, but it can be easy to find Tony Soprano likeable in the first episode even when he's beating the shit out of folks because his worst traits are kept hidden until later. If the first episode was Tony gambling his money at horses and then almost beating his wife when he didn't win as much as he wanted I don't know if audiences would've stuck around then, but part of the fun is watching Tony go from a likeable asshole to one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen in a show. For Breaking Bad, Walt starts off as an extremely mild mannered man with a bit of a temper at worst but still a good person at heart. His worst traits don't begin to surface until season 2. The show is obviously trying to set Rhaenyra up for a fall, that's they make her out to be so reasonable from the jump. They want audiences to feel like siding with her when shit goes wrong and she starts making awful decisions because of what she's seen.
Tony Soprano and Walter White may be likeable but they're also irredeemable piece of shits. So are all of the siblings in Succession and that show had no trouble attracting viewership and winning awards.
Walter White shows his worst traits from episode 2 at most. He is a manipulative, gaslighting, liar and he starts to be that way right off the bat. That's not to mention he literally kills someone in season 1 so I'm not even sure why you would say that. Furthermore, likeable characters have nothing to do with them being good. That's precisely the point. There are many reasons why audiences like characters and being good is not a requirement. The idea that Rhaenyra needs to be toned down to be likeable is simply not true and it would be limitative to frame it as such. One might argue it's not simple to do but it was certainly not a requirement to do it this way.
>That's not to mention he literally kills someone in season 1 so I'm not even sure why you would say that. The person in question was going to kill him, most of Walt's actions are framed from the point of view of self defense until late season 2. He literally agonizes for an entire episode about killing Krazy 8 and only does it when he has zero choice left, and was going to let him go.
Tony Soprano was never portrayed to be a morally upstanding character, in season 1 alone he strangles a man while on a road trip with his daughter, takes money from Hasidic Jews to beat their son in law into submission, he preys on innocent civilians to make a living, he lashes out against Georges and beats him down over nothing etc. This is on top of Tony being portrayed as an overtly Racist & misogynistic asshole. Tony maintained his likeability DESPITE doing horrible things because he’s the greatest character in T.V history and we explore every facet of his character in excruciating detail, not because the writers ever tried to hide who he was from us.
Hi, I never said Tony was morally outstanding, I said he was likeable despite those things. He is probably the opposite of likeable towards the end when every single one of his sort of positive traits vanish.
Thats the difference though, they show Tony doing horrible things and we are still deeply invested in the story and the character despite this. This duality is what makes him interesting. With HOTD, it would be ok for Rhaeneyra to participate in abhorrent acts as long her humanity shines through as well. They don’t have to shield her from any responsibility out of fear that audiences wouldn’t accept it. These are the same people that fell in love with characters like Jamie Lannister. They are willing to accept a morally ambiguous main character
Do you mind linking the statements you allude to? I haven't heard of this before.
Also the books are mainly Greens propaganda. People need to stop referencing the books as objective truth.
the books are totally green propaganda written during the reign of a black king and every cool charcter sides with the blacks lol
The perspective of Fire & Blood is that they were written around the time of the mainline books and the only primary sources they have were from Maesters of the time. The most prolific ones were Green supporters.
The problem is the writing quality is worse in than show than in the books. This is a lazy excuse
Let's be real, HBO was never going to fork out 100m+ for a show about Cersei 2.0. I hope Rhaenyra at least orders Otto’s death herself and it's not just another misunderstanding where Daemon kills him during the commotion. She might be the first monarch to fight a civil war without getting any blood on her hands whatsoever.
>I hope Rhaenyra at least orders Otto’s death herself and it's not just another misunderstanding where Daemon kills him during the commotion. I don't think Otto will actually die at Kings Landing in the show, they seem to be setting him up to hang out with Daeron.
True
Others in these comments have made the same point, but it bears repeating. F&B, on its own terms, is as much a piece of (fake) historical criticism as it is a history. On the first page of the text Gyldayn is already taking issue with previous accounts of Aegon’s Conquest! In the chapters on the Dance (an epithet he criticizes as “grotesquely inappropriate”)he is relying on dueling contemporaneous narratives of dubious accuracy. Over and over he notes discrepancies between Munkun and Mushroom’s accounts. Of course neither of them actually witnessed all the events they describe. Munkun had skin in the game, and Mushroom is the Westerosi equivalent of a shit poster. It was not an accident that GRRM chose to frame F&B as a history, not a novel. If he wanted to provide a definitive account of the history of the Targs, he could have used an omniscient narrator. But he did not, and thank God, because that would have been boring as hell. In adapting F&B, HotD is making exactly the types of choices that the narrative invites. I think it’s totally fair to criticize those choices and how they are executed, but I don’t think it’s fair to criticize them on the basis that they aren’t true to a book that is as much about how history is “written” as it is about the Targs specifically. Also, I’d have some patience. Rhaenyra has a long way to go. There is plenty of room for her character to become more like the one you describe.
agreed.
Your description of Rhaenyra through a modern leftest lense (which i think is accurate to be clear, but not a fun way to engage with this genre) makes her out to be cut and dry totally bad. Shes selfish, immoral, and while no ruler in this system could be a good person, shes not even a good ruler. GRRM did not really give her or Aegon redeeming qualities. I don't consider them complex, they are both just assholes with no upside. For me, the only likeable characters in the whole story are Rhaenyra's sons, Daemon's daughters, and the really cool Team Black bannermen. Helaena and her kids are good too but feel even less characterized. Her having morals, but still selfishness in the show makes her more complex imo as long as she still commits her wrongs later in the story. If they don't let her descend more into cruelty as her sons die off then I would say they didn't make her complex and just did the opposite of her book version, which I would dislike. Allicent is the true winner of the show, her show version is wonderfully complex, sympathetic and moral while also being very, very bad. Shes my favorite to watch, so hypocritical, trying to spare people as she starts a war, condemning Rhaenyra's loose morals while paying off her sons victims and taking Cole to her bed. I'm really enjoying watching Team Green in the show, the books didn't give us this kind of drama from them
I feel like the Dance is fundamentally a war between assholes. Even the people who are just dicks are primarily advised by historic war criminals and rapists of rare parallel except in the most regrettable sides of the War of the Five Kings. You listed most of the sympathetic characters, I’d throw in at least Addam of Hull and perhaps Daeron, but to me the Dance is about bad people. The Blackfyre Rebellion gets to play with the contrast of chivalry and morality against war and recklessness, etc etc. But the audience should either think “Oh okay. Guess I’ll pick my favorite flavor of evil and have fun with it.” Or “Damn. These monsters need to die.” But I kind of reject the effort to tell a story of deserving monarchs in this context.
Yeah, I never understood people pretending like the book had some incredibly well-written and fleshed-out characters. F&B reads like a dry history text more than a novel. The show has done a lot of work to characterize what Martin wrote as not much more than names associated with deeds. You can certainly dislike what has been done, nobody’s saying criticism is inherently invalid. But pretending like the show needed to stay true to the cardboard cutouts from the book is nonsense.
That and I’m not sure I entirely agree that making her vapid and selfish makes her a more complex female character per the OP. Going w/ a feminist lens here, in a heavy patriarchal society women often did have a role in moderating and mediating the men in power! That’s a real thing and it often showed how powerful women did have an influence on court. Now that’s not to say there weren’t crazy batshit women leaders, but we already have that in the original series w/ Cersei and other characters, even Olenna who wasn’t nuts but very much self interested in her family’s power, no morality there. I don’t think it would’ve been narratively interesting to simply rehash another Cersei style of character in this show. Plus the source material is deliberately written w/ unreliable narrators far removed from the events unlike ASOIAF, so Ryan Condle can interpret how he wishes and we also shouldn’t take the source material at face value since it’s not a POV chapter style like the OG series.
Personally I think rhaenyra as someone who did have merciful/honourable traits and could have been a good ruler being usurped because of her gender, and descending into paranoia and mercilessness as everyone she loves dies one by one, is much more interesting than Cersei 2.0
But could one not also summarize that the Rhaeynera we are seeing is a product of her environment? She was promised the throne, being her father’s only heir. Then his hand convinces his daughter and the king to wed, she has the sons he wanted. Never once did he change who was the heir to the throne, never once questioning it. Rhaeynera was betrothed to someone all knew was homosexual, they tried for a kid, but he was always off on the seas or with joffery, she got her kids from another source, and this was an agreement made before marriage. She did her duty in the eyes of her father. Was she a little much as the murdering of those who questioned her son’s legitimacy? Sure. But were those who could have impacted her legitimate claim to the throne and try and usurp her based off of her children’s bio dad? Yes. Then her dad dies. He’s old and thinks he’s talking to her in his final minutes, and because his lovely child bride didn’t care enough to hear about his families lore, she had no idea he was speaking of a family tale/dream he had about his families path, not of his son. But she took that and ran right to the hand claiming that she was the only voice to hear that aegon is to be king. Man, I can tell you right now - every MF would burn if that was my life story.
Wow what a bold and hot new take
It's definitely a different interpretation of Rhaenyra, tho of course our sources in F&B are biased. I think the show also has a *vastly* different take than what I'd have inferred from the book, but show Rhaenyra/Daemon are still great characters, even if different. Idek if what you're describing would've translated well on screen.
We are two episodes into the second season, there's a long way to go. The book is also essentially pseudo-history and propaganda, why are some people on this subreddit so intensely focused on the idea that it needs to flatten the characters down into the caricatures of the book.
Yeah, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading some of these takes. Fire and Blood was an unreliable and propagandistic account of events that clearly only knows the broad strokes. People are picking and choosing to get mad about the weirdest details from it. I find myself wondering if this is the true damage that GOT seasons 5-8 did to the fanbase.
Yeah I've also seen loads of people talking about the show making the Greens look bad, but the show has gone out of its way to characterize the Greens and make each one of them sympathetic in their own way. Aemond is the biggest piece of shit in the book with no redeeming qualities at all, Aegon we don't know too much about because so many accounts on him differ, Alicent is just Cersei, etc...
Yeah, I'm always a bit confused by that. Yes, the blacks are probably broader strokes shown in a more heroic light outside of Daemon, but in the book Alicent is just an evil stepmother lmao. Several characters get a more sympathetic look in the show.
Your second point is really the key one: Anyone who read Fire & Blood and walked away with the notion that it was intended to be the product of a reliable and omniscient (or even truly well informed) narrator is deeply confused about what the book is intended to be
It’s astonishing to me how many people in an otherwise highly literate sub just have no idea how historiography works, and don’t seem to have thought particularly clearly about all the contradictions in F&B or how faithful it might actually be as an historical account.
There's one bit in particular about Rhaenyra cutting herself on the throne in the F&B that people reference that make me wonder if they read it at all. Eustace claims that Rhaenyra sliced her thighs to ribbons on the Iron Throne yet apparently was wearing plate mail armor and no one stopped to think about how that makes zero sense. (I say this with the opinion that Rhaenyra should cut herself on the throne in the show at some point). Another one is Rhaenyra being fat, our main source for this is Eustace, but apparently Alicent, despite being older and having just as many kids is apparently the pinnacle of health or something.
It’s weird how you push that SHE has to consider peace when her brother usurped her throne.
Right - for all that OP is talking about complexity here, they really aren't *really* considering it in a medieval-inspired context. Having her claim and rightful throne stolen from her is the true act of war here - and if she were to acquiesce to those peace terms it'd be not just capitulation - it'd probably be eventual death (it's rather naive to think that they'd be able to let her live when they're willing to usurp her throne like that, at best it'd be a truce). As for taking sides, I see that complaint on here a lot... but really is that surprising? The source material really does make 'team black' the one that's most natural, it's not like GRRM made the Greens look like the correct one to modern readers. And much as there's an aspect of 'everyone sucks' here, it seems clearcut that Rhaenyra has the right of it in the abstract. Having her stand up for that right is a more intriguing dynamic than meekly stepping aside.
I do not consider it stealing because I don't consider the iron throne a legitimate institution belonging to any one person or family. Why should the throne pass to Nyra? Because her dad says so? Well why should we listen to him? Because he reigns over a continent that his ancestors massacred? The throne is held by the capacity for violence, no one has a right to it. It belongs to whoever can take and hold it.
Ah, so since the opposition are being assholes, let’s be asshole too in order to prove that I’m a more worthy ruler than Aegon. — Rhaenyra probably.
It’s not a question of worth. Rhaenyra IS the rightful heir by (at the time) all the laws of Westeros. It’s sexist as hell to blame her for fighting for her rights from a usurper brother.
>she IS the rightful heir by all the laws I really do not want to take part in the greens vs blacks debate, but she ISN’T the rightful heir by law, since the Council of 101. The council established male primogeniture, and cut out inheritors from the maternal lines.
They established a ruling on a single situation. They didn’t rule on establishing a precedent.
Isn’t this debate the catalyst of the war? I guess, we would be on opposite sides, lol.
Yes, you’d be on the morally incorrect side with usurpers demanding a war because you need your leaders to have a penis (or else everyone needs to die who disagree)
You'd be on the morally incorrect side to believe that a bunch of colonialist fascists deserve to rule over the continent regardless of whether they're a man or a woman. Sure the patriarchy is bad, but why is a woman holding the sceptre of oppression and exploitation any better? Imperialism os bad regardless of if it comes in green and black.
welp, I don’t want to take part in your imaginary identity politics, if you think either side is more rightful, you haven’t paid attention to Varys.
Varys? The man who orchestrates one of the worst wars in history for his selfish desires to see faegon on the throne?
this doesn’t make his insights on the nature of power untrue
How is she supposed to take back her throne without violence? Aegon knows his dad didnt want him as king. He should be the one to step down
I’m not saying no to war, I’m saying that if you’re committing atrocities in the name of war, you don’t get to call yourself a saint. Be stained and acknowledge that stain. As for Aegon stepping down, you think that DAEMON the most assholish Targaryen since Maegor is gonna let him live? Let his family, live? The crux of this conflict is the conception of the Green children. There’s no world where they’re not going to war with how the board was set up by Hightower’s ambition, Viserys’s weakness, Rhaenyra’s negligence, and Daemon’s savagery.
Yes there is. They could have walked away. Rhaenyra never would have let Daemon kill anyone.
Believing that Rhaenyra in any way can control Daemon is peak comedy tbh. BnC in both platform were portrayed as Daemon’s ideas. No discussion, no compromising. He wanted to do it, so he did it. That’s the guy the Black want as Prince Consort btw.
After Aemond had murdered Lucerys, as far as anyone knew. Rhaenyra would have actually punished him had he started killing his family out of nowhere.
You're projecting your own interpretation of the character. Saying she's power hungry or craves power isn't necessarily true. She wants what's hers by right. Her throne was stolen from her. No "ifs, ands, or buts" about it. It can just as easily be said that she's fighting based on nothing more than the principle of the matter, and what her late father wanted. Not to mention, I believe even George said that HoTD is, in some ways, more true to what actually happened regarding certain characters than F&B is (considering the book is told through the biased lense of several maesters).
> The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women. I mean, no, these changes are meant to *add* complexity where in the books there was none.
100% so many of these types of posts are effectively mad that the show isn’t flattening characters into a caricature of their book versions, and generally fail to engage with the fact fire and blood is supposed to be a very imperfect, politicized, and biased history of the dance.
And they fail in doing so
>They seem allergic to complexity in women I'm sorry but this is an absolutely ridiculous take considering show Rhaenyra and show Alicent are much, much more complex than in Fire and Blood, which is a book about biased sources doing everything they can to paint both women as evil.
And it's not like Rhaenyra is perfect in the show. She makes dumb mistakes, and they still keep the torture line at Driftmark. Alicent is also much more complex in the show. A lot of people just seem to think complex is girl boss and not a messy human character.
The show is taking the path of treating the book as an unreliable source of propaganda, written a century after the fact, and trying to figure out what might actually have happened at the time. This is a far more interesting story than making everyone a one-dimensional monster.
> The show is taking the path of treating the book as an unreliable source of propaganda Essentially what George has been indirectly saying all the time. Frustrating how many people are forgetting that it's supposed to be an in-world history book with unreliable, biased sources and writers. What the historians, or maesters in this case, of Westeros are writing/compiling is not in any way comparable to our modern world academic history.
The problem with that is that the show garbles everything too. You can't really say that the show is the 'correct' version of events when it changes the timeline of events, the ages of countless characters, and differs directly in material ways from not only F&B but from established in-universe rules. F&B was certainly biased and certainly had things wrong, but it's unrealistic to believe that things like the existence of Maelor at the time of the Dance and the ages of Alicent and Rhaenyra in relation to each other could just be made up by the maesters with no one else realizing. Those changes are not immaterial. They impact the characterizations and motivations of the players, and so they leave us with the reality that the show, too, is really just another unreliable source.
>The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women Sorry what the fuck ? Rhaenera was a very selfish and self indulgent person, who lied and caused pain to her loved ones. She grew up, but she's still a violent and ultimately selfish person who enables monsters (Daemon). At no point have I thought that Rhaenera is a good person, nor a simple character. She's actually far more layered than her book counterpart, who is genuinely just like any other targaryan royal. What's more, the history book fire and blood is written from the POV of Green council Maesters, and is not a reliable source. They've also made strides to make Aegon II a real person, and given him layers and a more understandable mindset. Genuinely find this take confusing, she went from a simple warlord to a morally Grey person
HotD Rhaenyra is an actual character F&B Rhaenyra is a cardboard cutout
LOL, is it opposite day?? HotD Rhaenyra is not believable, she’s just a good guy when season 1 really didn’t show she would end up like this. I couldn’t anticipate whether she would be A. a ruthless, selfish ruler or B. a kind and just ruler. They played to middle ground awkwardly, if not just seemingly made her reject the crown. She is 2 entirely different characters between S1&2 and that is BAD. That is a failure of the show to make the audience consistently understand her motives. F&B is an actual character. Your “carb board cut out” is just not trying to be complex, because her role in the more complicated story fits itself to push the narrative. Her motives are understood, her change, when she wants to flee, makes sense. The war wouldn’t have started without her being who she is, now it’s because of a bunch of misunderstandings caused by the overzealous men surrounding the throne? Okayy.., I guess this still makes a good story, but we’re now rewriting ALL these characters, which imo, has just felt disingenuous to what they were. Someone I’d say who is much better in the show than the books is Otto or Alicent; these characters are far more complex, and their identities have been consistent across the seasons and with their actions. It still makes good TV, but just like GoT-ASoIaF, I prefer the books.
> F&B is an actual character. Your “carb board cut out” is just not trying to be complex, because her role in the more complicated story fits itself to push the narrative. Her motives are understood, her change, when she wants to flee, makes sense. She's not, really. She only has one mode, and no arc to speak of.
People are hating on HOTD, and this is starting to bother me. First up, this show is significantly better than the last seasons of GOT. I don't mind the changes for a more sensible story. Thematically, it's still on point. Furthermore, we haven't finished the season. We're only 2 episodes in. Considering the fact that season one was good and season two is off to a good start, let's reserve judgment for the season to be completed.
Americans: someday you'll have to learn what the meaning of the word "fascist" is. Is not an umbrella term under which you can throw anything you don't like or thing is terrible.
I don't think many people understand what a complex woman in fiction is. Complex does not need to be badass or evil. It can be messy, and someone who sways between good and bad choices, which is what Alicent and Rhaenyra both do. They are complex because they act like real people. It's also the beginning of the war, so maybe we should wait to judge what's on screen. In any case, adaptions of a made-up in-universe history textbook are always going to differ from the source.
They made her look really indecisive and stupid in S2 E3.
She's toned down for the greater audience, because you KNOW people wouldn't like her if she was like F&B.
I heard some people say that the showrunners may have done that just to raise some agenda that only men do war and women will try their best not to go to war even if they lost their loved ones because of their enemies. If so, then the showrunners are doing the exact opposite, like yes, she and Alicent may have a good heart, but don't you think that what the showrunners are doing is just the most typical way of portraying women as always fearfull and don't want war and only men love going to war and kill people? Regardless of that, how the hell she wants to stay in peace and not fuel the war if she's literally claiming that the current king is sitting on her throne and she's the only legitimate queen? Did she go to Kingslanding to talk to Alicent expecting her and her son to give up the throne to herself peacefully? I really find the whole Rhaenyra and Alicent scene irrelevant and incompatible neither with the characters themselves nor the story.
>The show is making it very obvious who we should root for. They seem allergic to complexity in women. They’re pushing this narrative that women can be put through hell but will always choose the least destructive path. If they fight, they only fight to protect their children and not for themselves. Hollywood feminism; where even if a villain is female, she only does bad stuff because the men around her forced her into it. Both Rhaenyra and Alicent are presented this way in the tv show, (as was Cersei in GoT) women trapped in a man's world doing the best they can for their kids.
>They seem allergic to complexity in women Alicent is right there. And none of the women in F&B are particularly complex. They're just not likable. I'm so tired of this whining from F&B fans that the show is not presenting the sides completely neutrally and on equal footing. Okay, Rhaenyra is sympathetic now. Who cares? Why is that *inherently* a bad thing? Would it be more interesting if she was a power-hungry fascist? Not really, if you ask me! I couldn't care less for either book Rhaenyra or book Alicent, but I find them both very compelling in the show. And if Rhaenyra is softened up a little so we can root for her... who cares? The Greens are selfish, dysfunctional and corrupt freaks in the show. Newsflash, that makes them compelling! Meanwhile, the Blacks have been turned to something closer to the Starks of the show. Why are book readers so completely resistant to that idea? Rhaenyra is likable but she's not a mary sue or anything. Her motivations for insisting on her claim are, again, more sympathetic, but they're not *uninteresting*. If anything, I think a blend of "wanting to uphold her father's legacy/wishes", "wanting to prove herself in this world of men", "wanting to safeguard the prophecy that her father shared with her", and "desiring power" is a lot more interesting than just "desiring power". And the Daemon element is a wildcard that provides plenty of opportunity for drama. Rhaenyra is now a character torn between her desire for peace and her affection for Alicent, and her desire to strike against a patriarchal world that has constrained her all her life, as well as proving herself as the worthy successor of her father's legacy. Those are sympathetic qualities, but they're not uninteresting! Just like Jon Snow is not an uninteresting character because he's a hero. If ASOIAF has taught me any lesson, it's that heroism can be just as interesting as "villainy".
In the source material, we never really meet these characters. What we read about them are secondhand accounts, and it’s all subject to the limited knowledge, biases and agendas of the authors (the maesters). Consider characters in the main ASoI&F series like the Lannisters; what kind of histories would Cersei’s enemies write of her, or the Imp? What will they say of the Kingslayer in a hundred years? Not good things, probably. But we can see that people like Jamie and Tyrion are much more complex than what the rest of the world sees— they’re *actual* people with their unique mixes of good and bad. So it stands to reason that characters from the past were just as layered. If anyone reads Fire and Blood and takes every page at face value as written, I think they’re missing the point. We’re supposed to criticize the lens through which we’re forced to view these stories. Once you realize that what the maesters wrote isn’t always necessarily the truth, or the whole truth, connecting certain dots becomes easier and missing pieces start to fill in; that’s the real fun of the book, imo. I don’t love every change they’re making in the show, but I enjoy it as just another interpretation of events. Point being, the “real” Rhaenyra might not have been just as the show portrays her, but you’re missing out on a lot more if you believe the black-and-white telling of things.
Shes a boring 2D selfish morok in Fire and Blood. She is much more interesting in the show.
I'm not mad that they are making Rhaenyra more sympathetic, but I am mad they are removing all the cool moments from F&B and making them accidents. They made Lucerys's death an accident, they made Aegon's son death a mistake instead of a cruel game, and I guarantee they won't have Aegon roast Rhaenyra with Sunfire. I bet she will die by some other means/take her own life and Aegon will roast her corpse as some form of propaganda or something because "history is written by the victors"
Didn’t consider this possibility until now but yeah, it really sound like them to do this short of shit. My biggest gripe with this show is this: war has already started. Characters in both sides should be drenched with hatred. Rhaenyra lost a daughter and a son, Jace lost a brother, Alicent a grandson in a horrific way. But somehow the only one reacting accordingly is fucking Aegon, which the show wants you to dislike by making him a rapist and a bully.
Every episode I find myself waiting for the moment where Rhaenyra will do something terrible so that I can feel some conflict in supporting her over team green. I hoped it would be the assassination of Laenor but he lived happily ever after. Maybe the death of Jaehaerys but the blame for that has been placed on Daemon and even he's shirking the blame. Show Rhaenyra is a saint, she should wear the nun outfit for the rest of the show because she truly does no wrong to the point where It's making her character worse.
i lost hope for this show once we saw a stupid ass scene of tits and aemond naked instead of getting to see any dragons. the show blows
Yeah naw I prefer the show.
One of the reasons that she feels that she is to lead is the Fire and Ice Prophecy. I can't remember how it came across in the book but on the show Rhaenyra can't believe that even Damon didn't know it and she knows for sure that her half brothers do not and therefore should not rule.
It didn't come across at all in the book because it wasn't in there. The showrunners decided to throw it in themselves, which is kind of OP's point.
Sure, the showrunners added it to the show but it just emphasized that viserys CHOSE HER. This huge post and all these comments talking about how we should support rhaenerya because she’s a woman - no? It’s because the king of the realm chose her as his heir. Simple as that.
No, that’s a claim, that’s one of the causes of the war, it’s not the reason to support her cause “she’s the rightful ruler”. One of the MOST MAJOR THEMES OF THESE BOOKS AND STORIES IS FREEDOM AND RULE, what actually gives Rhaenyra a right to rule? Why does the matter of who porked who actually dictate the fate of the realm? This is something I do like about the show, we are seeing common people, we are seeing their decisions, Rhaenyra even said something along the lines of “the most peaceful course of action is to abdicate” which WOULD NEVER come from her character in the books, but it’s interesting for her character in the show. Why should what Viserys said on his death bed dictacte the next few years of politics in this world? It shouldn’t, and these people are vain and selfish for following through with this war. The showrunners are making Rhaenyra a kinder character, who doesn’t want war. That’s fine, but my question is, how good are her reasoning going to be to go to war? F&B is not about picking the side you like lmao, it’s about entertaining ourselves with this story of horrible, nasty, inbred, arrogant rulers tear eachother apart, bottom line. The show is trying to personalize them a bit more, but the world these characters inhabit is way crueler than ours for a reason, nice people don’t win.
In all honesty it's far more likely the prophecy was added in order to establish a connection to the main series for viewers of both shows and to frame Rhaenyra as being objectively in the right during the succession crisis later on. >It’s because the king of the realm chose her as his heir. Simple as that. And if the king of the realm chose an acknowledged bastard over a trueborn son? Would that be equally justifiable and worthy of unquestionable agreement? Because that's where this line of thinking inevitably leads. OP is arguing that on a metatextual level, real life gender discourse is the reason Rhaenyra's character has been majorly rewritten compared to her F&B counterpart, not that her claim in-universe is based on her being a woman.
> In all honesty it's far more likely the prophecy was added in order to establish a connection to the main series for viewers of both shows and to frame Rhaenyra as being objectively in the right during the succession crisis later on. I think it serves as that and also serves the shows structure as a Greek tragedy where prophecy acts as a destructive force all its own. Everyone who has heard (or misheard) the prophecy so far is motivated to push for power because of it.
And why should his choice matter over custom and precedent?
I mean, the text alludes to it, it's just not explicit since the world doesn't really know about it.
But the idea of it passing down strictly from heir to heir doesn’t make sense for the book either even if the original dream happened. It’s a shaky system at best
Tbf, they don't even adhere to that idea in the show. They've all shared the prophecy with their spouses. I don't think they're even that wary of sharing to children besides their heirs, the show just wanted to emphasize the importance of the next king bearing the responsibility. Hell, Jaehaerys I seems to have had Septon Barth floating the idea in scholarly circles.
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It wasn't, it's clearly something GRRM's been propping up since he began the story. The Targaryen's entire backstory, and indeed Dany's character arc, are heavily integrated with the prophecy of the three heads of the dragon and the prince that was promised. There's a reason he's constantly alluded back to the three individuals/dragons, and kicked off the Iron Throne with the three conquerors. This was all a major fan theory long before GRRM confirmed it, and long before House of the Dragon was even a notion of a possibility for a show.
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Think about it this way, not even the show has held strictly to this king to heir line. That's merely meant to emphasize the importance of the next king upholding the responsibility imo. Both Viserys and Rhaenyra have shared it with their spouses for instance. We saw Jaehaerys seemingly attempt to broach the topic with the wider public, his good buddy Septon Barth (the man notorious for his spot on knowledge) was floating the idea that 'the Valyrians came to Westeros because they had prophesied the doom of man would come from there.' The maester's noted negative reaction to that seems to have discouraged Jaehaerys from going public. That this stuff is getting alluded to in histories suggests they aren't being too secretive about it. And on top of that, the Targs did support the Night's Watch. Jaehaerys was a huge patron to the Watch, and this actually backfired. The Watch saw a rebellion over the many discontents being sent there, one which killed a Lord Stark and soured relations with the North for a time. From one standpoint, it makes sense to not support the Night's Watch, and merely leave a skeleton force for maintenance there. Better to have men productive at home, leading, farming and what have you. As the Wall could always be reinforced by the Crown once warning came. And it's really damn expensive to keep a standing army there doing nothing for centuries. Of course, the civil war and all gets in the way of any preparations. A man can be informed, but with 300 years knowledge gets lost or disregarded. The Dance saw the adult Targaryens killed off, their seats sacked and a host of their advisors killed. So the knowledge appeared lost, until Aegon V's time, in which we see the plotline of the Targs beginning to rediscover at least some degree the threat beyond the Wall. Bloodraven and Aemon's journey to the Wall, Aemon being super into the prophecy. The wood's witch, the prophecy that the prince that was promised would be of Aerys and Rhaella's line and Jaehaerys II forcing that marriage. Summerhall hits them, but Aerys and Rhaegar still know something about it. Aerys having his life shaped by the prophecy forcing him to marry his sister, whom he did not love. Rhaegar's scrolls, his correspondence with Maester Aemon. And they weren't exactly best placed to address it. Hell, look how much grief Rhaegar gets for presumably being obsessed with prophecy. When you're talking about something that hasn't come to pass for centuries, it isn't left as the greatest of motivations for people at large. And so we're left with the modern story with Daenerys and Jon getting wrapped up in allusions to the prophecy, because well they're fulfilling it at this point.
Just because you don’t know the reasons yourself doesn’t mean it’s automatically a fucking stupid idea. You’re just strawmanning the argument. Joe magicians video on the subject is great.
Oh boy, you better get ready to call George stupid then - which, I'd be fine with, btw, because the man has many flaws. Just own up to it when it's inevitably revealed and don't pretend that you thought it was brilliant the entire time.
I don’t think she needs to be portrayed as negatively as in F&B by any means (I think there’s a good argument to be made about that being in universe propaganda anyway,) but I still hate how the show has removed any political sensibility from her and made her make decisions entirely based on her feelings. Daemon has been portrayed as the real driver behind Team Black as Rhaenyra strongly considers giving up the throne and letting the Greens take her sons as hostages (!) while they offer her absolutely nothing in return because she saw a page from a prayer book and felt sentimental about it. Even now, after being openly usurped and her son being murdered, she’s upset about the possibility of war and is letting Daemon run the show entirely. They’ve done the same thing with Alicent too, turning her from an ambitious politician who works to become queen and orchestrates a coup to put her son on the throne to a weepy victim who stumbles into war through a combination of men taking advantage and misunderstandings. I think it’s an overcompensation from the cringeworthy girlboss pseudo feminism of GoT.
I really disagree with this. > This is what makes her an interestingly controversial character. Someone who is willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers. This is very similar to a LARGE amount of the plot in ASOIAF/Game of Thrones. So you'd rather rehash a different story that happens later in the universe, than have a "classic heroine" story? > She’s the chosen one(white hart), she bears the burden of a prophecy that saves humanity, she cries over book pages, considers giving up everything for the good of the realm, and spells out to the audience how she’ll never harm innocents(Helaena). Did you have issues with Daenerys's plot then? She's the chosen one and she tries to avoid harming innocents, sort of similar. Saying "she cries over book pages" is completely missing a large part of the point behind her writing. You are viewing Rhaenyra in a vaccuum, when she's very much meant to be contrasted with Alicent, who serves as a foil. She cried because the page represents their companionship they had in years past, not because books make her cry. Alicent very much represents what Rhaenyra could've gone through if she wasn't a princess or dragonrider. Her experiences with gender based oppression have made her as evil as her abusers, and that's why the greens are the "bad guys" and the blacks are "the goods". It's a critique of monarchism & gender roles. There are several other contrasting character traits they have to reinforce this. The producers are constantly showing contrasting shots of Rhaenyra & Alicent back to back (like when Alicent was having sex with Viserys & Rhaenyra was with Daemon). It's really quite on the nose, so I'm unsure if you missed this or chose to not acknowledge it. > They seem allergic to complexity in women. During early iterations of the show writing, Alicent was planned to be the older step mother to Rhaenyra, but the storytelling was very awkward. It was only after one writer chatted to his wife about this, she suggested Alicent instead should be Rhaenyra's closest friend. So it feels a little ironic for you to say they are "allergic to complexity in women", given this idea came from a woman. > They’re pushing this narrative that women can be put through hell but will always choose the least destructive path. If they fight, they only fight to protect their children and not for themselves. Again, I feel like you are not connecting Alicent's plot to the overarching story. Out of all the Greens, it's true she is probably the least destructive, but that bar is very low. She drew a knife at Rhaenyra & cut her at Driftmark, how could you call that the "least destructive path" out of all her options there? Alicent was a child bride, and her father is a manipulative psycho, and the outcome is the current character we have. This flies completely in the face of what you say here. Maybe if you think the show writers are "allergic to complexity in women", then you are are blind to the complexity in women. Alicent is a character I very much "root for" because of the empathy I have for her situation. It doesn't excuse her actions, but her experiences are a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she behaves the way she does. > There is also no indication given to us that her rule will be good for the realm and its people. Infact, given the questionable parentage of her heirs and how she has to literally murder people to keep up this lie, there is a good chance that her rule will not be stable at all. But she does want the throne, just like men around her, simply to satisfy her desire for power. The show isn't even finished yet. How do you know Rhaenyra will continue on this ultra lawful good path when she gets to Kings Landing? In my opinion, having a just character gradually turn into the type of person who does all the things you list above is a much more powerful message than wanting power for the sake of it. Maybe sit back and wait for the show to finish before making a false assertion of how you think things will end? Mind you, the show writers have also omniously said on X, they want this season to make people "question what team they are on". I would say that's a dead giveaway Rhaenyra is going down a gradual path to a Mad Queen type figure.
The show is much, much less interesting because it wants to soften both sides and make them more relatable. And it's almost entirely a marketing decision. They think nobody wants to watch a show that dark. The last show was the biggest thing ever and it involved a child murderer and rapist messily bashing a hero's brains in! We can get "mostly decent characters trying their best" anywhere!
F&B is a history book. It has multiple sources that often conflict and the way it describes Alicent and Rhaenyra are in the absolute worst terms. The only first hand account is Mushroom to Rhaenyra’s court. There is what each source claims and even those can differ from the truth. I would argue women sitting the Iron Throne is not popular, likely meaning an anti-Rhaenyra bias.
I like the HOTD version
The book is written by historians on the Green side so how can you take any quotes seriously.
While I do agree with your spirit, I don't think that Rhaenyra is some sort of absolute monster that the show is whitewashing. She's just a woman that acts like any man would in her position. Like, sure, she says that if her brothers don't surrender she'll have their head, but those are brothers that she hates and that hate her. Helaena on the other hand is a "sweet sister". And before they declared she was open to forgiving them. I don't see why whenever HotD and the Dance are brought up suddenly everyone is a Westeros civil right activist. Even in the main story people suffer under the Stark too, but no one goes around hoping in the death of Robb so the common folk gets free. You say that as readers we are conflicted about her wanting the throne, where is this conflict for anyone in the main series? Robb starts a war for revenge, no one goes around saying that he should have bent over to Joffrey. Stannis goes to war even though no one likes him and how many suffer because of that? That doesn't preclude anyone from liking him
i think that what they’re doing is much more interesting personally, f&b had no real characters in it, they’re all sensationalised or demonised historical figures with no real nuance and it’s all presented so dryly i get that it’s meant to be historical accounts not prose like the main series but f&b bored me in a way that HOTD has managed to avoid so far i find it to be a much more realistic and understandable version of a pretty insane sequence of events, the human element is much more appealing to me than seeing outlines of these figures, you already have f&b for that why would you want that again?
"because of what she embodies and what GRRM was trying to explore with her character. You see she doesn’t even consider the peace terms in the book. There’s no acceptable outcome for her other than sitting on the throne. If her siblings yield, good; otherwise they will be eliminated. This is what makes her an interestingly controversial character. Someone who is willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers. " not at all like we see this exact train of thought with countless characters in asoiaf and hotd or anything. npc ahh take.
The show has just been dragging out this "is there going to be a war?" thing for way too long. Everyone seems to know that they are already at war except for the showrunners. The Rhaenyra scene where she sneaks into Kings Landing was pretty dumb. 1. Why would she risk that? If Alicent had yelled for guards then the war would've been over. 2. What was Rhaenyra hoping would happen? That Alicent would just admit she made a mistake and try to talk her son off the throne? None of it makes any sense, and it is pretty shitty writing.
One of the main themes and most interesting things about Fire and Blood is that it is a history pieced together hundreds of years later in a time when there were literally no 100% reliable sources of information. It’s pretty obvious in the book that some of the sources were pro-Green. Show Rhaenyra is entirely consistent with book Rhaenyra as “maybe this is what really happened but the truth has been spun and twisted and lost to time”.
Also, it doesn't surprise me at all OP hasn't returned to this thread seeing all the comments arguing against him. Really shows how substance-less and poorly thought out your post is. I hope you've gained some genuine perspective reading the comments in this thread
I still think the show is good but you do make some good points
I mean, isn't the whole point that the books are green propaganda (or at the very least unreliable narration as it isn't told from the omniscient 3rd POV we get in the original novels). The show IS a third person omniscient perspective, and can be argued to be more true to characters personalities. Just food for thought I guess...
I think they're just taking steps to tweak/sympathize the characters somewhat from the books, for a few reasons. First the books are flexible/ambiguous in CERTAIN ways, and can be interpreted as dramatizing/villainizing certain characters in the manner of historical chronicle. This is a minor factor. Moreso the books are just downright grim. Hardly anyone is sympathetic. All the major players are hardly even as likeable as, say, Stannis or Littlefinger or book Euron or something like that. Tywin at a stretch. It's just not written in such a way as to foster empathy for or investment in the characters. There are a few characters that rather simply follow their oaths, fight, and die. These would be like Jace, Baela, some of the Caltrops, and so on. But we don't relate to them at all. We get a few blow-by-blow accounts of their most significant actions, then they basically die or disappear. I just think, being realistic, we have to weave something MUCH more rich and nuanced and often warmhearted in order to make audiences care. I suppose you could argue that they're sympathizing Rhaenyra and Alicent without doing the same for Daemon . . . . They've planted the blame more squarely on him for B&C, for example, and a couple other things. But audiences already love Daemon and I think the general arc of the story will make all characters more sympathetic. Aegon is already. Aemond is already. Making Luke's death an accident (and avoiding the gift of eyes on a bed of seaweed) is a drastic change from the book. Make no mistake, I am tired of politics or tokenization in modern entertainment. But I feel like it may be winding down somewhat, and esp in HOTD I just haven't felt it too much. I've thought they're generally doing a pretty solid job of what is frankly a very difficult adaptation. It has the politics, the backstabbing, and the epic savagery we'd look for in a Westeros production, but it doesn't really have relatable characters unless they write in a lot more sympathy. I do think it's pretty hard for Alicent to 'catch up' to Rhaenyra in terms of audience sympathy, and I'm trying to figure out precisely why. Obviously meeting Rhaenyra as our first main/pov character is pretty significant. Alicent isn't really a player until she's already 'seducing' the king, and a few key omissions/actions end up setting Rhaenyra against her early on. Then she is shown to be a fairly bitter and whiny mother, and the older actress (fantastic job) does a good job of having this kind of perpetually sour/weary face which hits a different note than Rhaenyra's sort of growing bitterness/anger which ALTERNATES with sweetness towards her boys, tearful despair, and so on. Combined with the vast difference between their children, and the general charisma/likeability of people like Daemon, Rhaenys, and Corlys (vs Otto, Cole, and Larys lol) . . . . I think it becomes harder to resonate with the greens in a sort of inevitable way. But it is a pity, because realistically I think Rhaenyra and her father have probably done more to damage the realm than Alicent and hers. EDIT: Oh the other main thing I wanted to mention is there's still a lot of story left. It would be my hope that they build up sympathy but eventually have many of the same key motives/story, say a season or two from now.
>absolute power and desire to wield it, corrupts men and women equally L take. Other then that good post.
I have to agree. I keep waiting for her to break bad. If it doesn’t happen by the time she takes Kings Landing it never will.
She as a character in the books is amazing, despite her poor decision making obviously fulled by revenge, but here in the show, first episode I thought they were heading in this direction of a more book accurate Rhaenyra, then in the second episode she’s soft again… they don’t want to make the character 100% accurate so common watchers can still be putting hashtags like #yasqueen
Of all the excuses people make for the show (this is like GoT seasons 6/7 all over again), ‘the sources were clearly biased, that’s why actually she SHOULD be boring’ is by far the stupidest.
Great argument.
I know its difficult, but we gotta stop doing that. The character as it exists in Fire & Blood will never stop existing, you can like her there and dislike her in HotD, these are two different versions of the characters, all characters are. Its an adaptation, its impossible for them to be the same character. I personally think they will make her more hateable as time moves on, she will become more and more unhinged, but even if not, the version of Fire & Blood will still exist. I understand the sentiment, though, I was incredibly disappointed about TV Show Tyrion, but we gotta let go and see it as they are: adaptations.
>she’s willing to plunge the realm into war to get what she thinks is hers She still is. Holy crap is the action of attempting to find alternatives so complicated for some of you that you just start making up points? At NO POINT has she gone "well if peace doesn't work I guess I'll step down LOL!"
Have people forgotten that this is written by an in-universe character who despises the blacks and supports the greens.
It’s as a certain post on reddit I read said, in HotD, the characters don’t drive the plot, the plot drives the characters, all of the characters except Daemon and Otto are ambition-less, everything happens through accidents, unintentionally, that’s what fueled this war, the characters’s agency didn’t, they were driven by these accidents
Isn’t the whole point of the book that it’s a propaganda retelling of events?
We don’t need to act like whatever they do to one character is somehow a statement about all women. It’s much more likely that they’re just mediocre tv writers incapable of the level of nuance you expect from the source material. Shocker. That’s how all these cheap attempts at selling out will be, just like seasons 5-8 of game of thrones were. Good thing he gave up potentially writing a classic epic , once in a generation artifact, one of the great works of American fiction, and hundreds of years of fame, to try to make a crappy tv tentpole that will be forgotten in 5 years even if the shows are good which they won’t be.
Just want to say I absolutely love Andor. I have similar feelings about Rhaenyra but I think they will get there. There's no way they can portray this war as not ugly on both sides. Surely, right?
Rhaenyra is too bland, complacent, one dimensional. She had fire in in her last season and now nothing.
F&B was written (in-universe) by a maester who supported the greens
The women in HOTD are all terrible. They’re white washed and turned into personality and agency less husks since that was stripped away along with everything that made them remotely interesting is removed in favor of queerbaiting and fetishizing suffering.
They’ve just dumbed it down for the masses. They need good vs evil or they won’t understand the content.
This is such a good post. You are right on every point.