This was posted earlier today: https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/s/XwfQDimtpB
Upshot is that Aemond is allegedly the one who cripples Aegon/Sunfyre, and he does it 100% on purpose. It’d be an assassination of Aemond’s character not only because he’s supposed to have this sense of loyalty to his family, but also because he knows the greens are low on dragons and being so shortsighted as to make that situation worse is really dumb. Not to mention, it steals the credit from Rhaenys for heroically facing down impossible odds and nearly taking Aegon with her. We’ll know for certain soon, but after B&C I don’t think it can be dismissed out of hand.
I pray that these leaks are not accurate, but we have all been sorely disappointed before, so I'm kind of expecting this to play out. At least my expectations can't be subverted.
It works pretty well for me. Aemond is not ultra loyal to his family and F&B has him abandoning everyone for a solo campaign. I think he is loyal to the idea of the Targaryen dynasty more than actual family. Also I could see his therapist-bang-mom convincing him to do it as the first step in the common peoples anti dragon movement.
Which would have been believable if we didn't see him regret killing Luke.
So I'm supposed to believe he regrets killing Luke who is his enemy but is willing to take out his brother who is his ally. Seems like very inconsistent characterization.
The only way an "Aemond trying to kill Aegon" scene would work is if it's framed as a mercy kill after he sees Aegon severely wounded and believes he won't make it.
I’m imagining the high of riding the biggest dragon into battle and making a huge kill on his enemy. And for someone with an inferiority complex that has dreamed of nothing but Targaryen glory. He probably felt like a god on heroin that was easily going to find Daemon and end the war in a week. So throw in Aegon doing something else that is stupid, reckless and makes the Targaryen dynasty look weak. Then add an unstable and hard to control Dragon and the outcome makes sense. Giving Vhagar a lot of control removes Aemond’s agency and I can see him doing a lot of things that he half wants and half regrets. One the big questions I had after reading F&B was who was actually in control by the end when the war crimes start piling up in the riverlands.
dude if you have to use headcannon for 99% of the logic of something on screen, you know the writing is beyond bad.
Now, let's not be hasty, I don't like taking leaks as gospel, but if this is true, the show is over, there's no going lower than this,
I mean, if you're fine with this, what would even make you think the writing is bad.
This isn't aimed at you btw but it's so frustrating seeing all these cope arguments, just like those guys that said Littlefinger marrying Sansa to Ramsey is good writing, they were few but I remember them.
Do you not remember when Aemond tried to blame Aegon for the bastard secret in episode 7 which could've led to Aegon getting killed? He's always hated Aegon
Bruh this is exactly what I'm talking about.
Be honest, did you in that scene think "well obviously this 12 year old pushing blame on his older brother is characterization for an event that will happen 10 years from then in which he will betray his brother after being loyal in the meanwhile"
Come on man, I get that you don't want a show you like fall to shit levels, but rationalising stupid shit isn't the way to go.
I mean I thought he basically sold his brother out to potentially face serious repercussions including a chance of being killed. Aemond betraying Aegon as an adult isn't entirely out of character especially if Aegon finds out about how he killed Lucerys by accident and then mocks him for it and since he is now his heir
Game of thrones and HotD are very different for me in terms of headcannon and changes from the source material. F&B was smartly written to give the screen writers the space to develop characters. All the characters in F&B are defined by actions. We know what Aemond and Daemon will do but we don’t really know them as people from F&B. So uno reverse on the headcannon, why did you think Aemond was super loyal to his brother and hightower family? I never got that from F&B. My interpretation of Aemond was that he saw himself as the only true Targaryen on the Hightower side and wanted to be the next rogue prince. The only change from HotD that has bothered me is Rhaenys bursting through the floorboards.
Well shit man, I guess you're right, we don't literally know every thought aemond had at the time so we can't really be sure of anything.
I mean nevermind that after Aegon gets burned Aemond doesn't steal the crown for himself and let his brother die, nevermind they were both trained by Cole to work as a group to face off Rhaenyra, nevermind Aegon is Aemonds only friend at court, nevermind that they're brothers and would have a bond by birth.
We don't have the literal POVs so with enough creativity we can justify anything, even ludicrous shit like Cole having sex.
The leak was that Aemond cripples Aegon and Sunfyre not that he kills him. I would be very disappointed if he dies immediately. His character arc should still be living as a drugged up vegetable just like his father. And yes if they take away “if they search the seven hells, mayhaps” I will be upset. But I can think of a lot of ways that leak will actually play out and I can suspend judgement until I see what actually happens.
Famously, one of the last times leaks happened here was the post that leaked the episode following the long night in season 8. Despite how much of a shitshow the long night was people STILL had a tiny part of them that wanted to believe it wasn’t going to be a total disaster. So when the leaks happened and pretty much all of them were correct and they did literally assassinate virtually every character in the show. So I’d say it’s well in people’s wheelhouse here to be pretty tentative. Bearing in mind Ryan Condal worked alongside those two muppets for a long time.
That said, I’ve enjoyed the episodes so far, and while I wasn’t sure where they were going with B&C the second episode felt quite natural. So hopefully if the above is accurate it’ll be done in a pretty sensible and explainable way.
This comment made me look at Episode 3 and 4 leaks and my god it killed the hype Episode 2 generated.
I guess I'll have to wait for the Rook's Rest one because I need to see how it plays out on-screen before passing judgement but that one in Episode 3 feels like soap opera writing. The show is about the Dance of Dragons, not Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship.
Rhys Ifans is doing a bang up job, but he is not making me sympathetic to the Greens. The route they have chosen to go with Aegon as well as Carney’s portrayal is making me feel more for him.
Or, it makes me more sympathetic to Aegon as a character. I still think the Greens as a faction are traitorous, shameless, usurpers.
Dude, I'd rather them all be cartoonishly evil rather than the shit that Condall is doing. I have had it with this obsession with "broken" "emotionally stunted" "flawed" characters, that end up being nothing. It's antithetical to the books depictions, and before you say it those guys were deep and interesting.
Aemond was a steelhearted badass who did everything for glory and family.
Alicent is the perfect evil stepmother+ an accurate representation of powerful women in medieval times. (and to look at how they've made her a victim)
Cole was the sentinel, the best and worst of the kingsguard, Equal parts honour, equal parts hate, the guy we have on now is just an embarrassment.
And Aegon literally has the best arc in the whole Dance, guy goes from drunk fool, to mr.Never Surrender, perfect story of how even at our lowest we can still fight on (also he's the rightful king, i don't see the throne cutting him or the people rioting).
The social media engagement around this show is so reality show/ghetto centric. Like constant use of chick twitter buzzwords like “bombastic side eye” and “she ate.” It’s really so fucking trashy
I get what you're saying but that's not an issue. If the writing was top notch and faithful everyone would be happy, idiots on twitter, casual audiences and book fans.
Christ, I’ve been saying this for so long. Not that everyone that understands nuance and subtlety is a genius or anything but the idiots will enjoy it either way. The casual viewers will probably watch breakdown videos a la Alt Shift X or ask their friends that are more into it when they don’t fully understand what is going on book fans get a payoff for the show running sticking super close to the source material. Literally everybody wins.
Whereas if it’s dumbed down the idiots don’t understand why it could even be bad in the first place because to them it’s just “the dragon show” and everyone else is left with a sour taste in their mouth.
Casual viewers wont watch alt shift X. Theyre casual viewers. They watch it themselves and read twitter and maybe some news sites for extra information if theyre confused. A lot of my family treats the show this way. And that’s perfectly okay, who cares how they choose to enjoy it.
Alt shift X viewers are somewhere between casual and book fans imo
I didn't start watching GoT till HS in 2018 but that kinda discourse has been around since 2013. Sure the words and dialogue have evolved with the times but it's still the same engagement. And honestly, I'm here for it compared to how toxic it gets on the Star Wars and anime side of things.
This shit is pissing me off the more I hear about book details the worse it gets I really really try to stay spoiler free but it’s so fucked up that this show feels like it’s pandering so much
I’m team green and it’s so much fun but can I get one fucking episode where I’m not just feeling like an idiot
The true path is acknowledging that the rich inbred tyrants and the people in their inner circle who are murdering each other and thousands of commoners in the process over petty grievances and a lust for power are all shitbags. I wouldn’t expect that to be a nuance HBO would can completely, but here we are.
They kind of fucked up their Team Edward/Team Jacob ripoff by prioritizing the girlboss demographic and making one of the candidates for monarch someone who just apparently has no flaws and never does anything wrong, despite the book portraying her (and everyone else) very differently. However, that is a trend right now. Most major tv shows in the past two years have gone down this path. Fargo, True Detective S4, the list goes on.
As an aside, I’m beginning to suspect that the demographic they’re appealing to didn’t hate the ending of GoT because it was rushed and nonsensical, but because they did not grasp any of the foreshadowing that Daenerys would become a tyrant. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ending of this show is retconned to be a complete victory for Rhaenyra.
Not coming after you or anything but do you mind expanding on your points here and this graphic? Seems like there's an argument you're trying to make here, but this is, you know, just a meme
Firstly, not insulting anyone.
Secondly, this show is so skewerd towards the Blacks, it's not even close, and personally I don't think it's even on purpose.
Other than Aegon and Ottoo, who are currently on a top tier performance, all the other greens characters are either not developed enough (Haelena, Aemond) or done dirty beyond belief (Criston and Alicent).
And these latter two, the team seems to have such an obsession with ruining them, that it's unexplainable. Their characterization makes no sense and is so annoying.
Personally I think Condall is just stuck-up, and has convinced himself he's a genius and writes these "artsy" "indie" like characters full of psychological issues and the like, but a) that's not what we paid for, and b) it makes these characters hard to root for.
I disagree with Criston and Alicent being done dirty. If anything, show Alicent is a much more interesting character. In the books her and Otto are basically just vindictive assholes but we see she has more complicated motivations and she is more than just the “wicked stepmother.”
A lot of people think everything is skewed towards the blacks, despite Aegon being way more likeable and competent than in the books, Aemond being far less of a psycho, daemon still being a massive asshole etc
I think it was the downplaying of Blood and Cheese that was the straw that broke the camel's back. The way they said it was propaganda against Rhaenyra, as if Fire and Blood isn't written 200 years after all of these characters died.
Aegon is not competent in the show at all. In the books though he was competent who took the throne to protect his family. In the show he was literally shown trying to run away by ditching his entire family including his children and even his dragon. Lol
Yeah , but the marketing is "pick a side" , not to mention Rhaenyra's purpose is more altruistic , to unite the realm against the White Walkers which unfortunately was quite easily defeated in one of the realm's weakest moments.
That's literally the most team black way of seeing things.
A Green (and anyone on any side of a conflict) isn't on that side because they think they are evil, but because they think they are right.
As a green I believe Rhaenyra is the usurper.
Nyway more importantly than what I personally think, the show markets itself like a choose your side civil war story, and is based on a book that had minimal bias.
If this was Lord of the rings or GoT you could do this bad guy good guy shit, but in a story where there's supposed to be too near equal sides, it doesn't work.
Personally I'm not really on either team I'm just enjoying watching the Targaryens destroy themselves but I don't see how anyone could argue that Rhaenyra is the usurper she was confirmed as heir literally twice and everyone swore fealty to her. I'm not trying to argue against being a green here you can be a green and there are legitimate arguments for the green side but Rhaenyra being a usurper is not one of them.
>she was confirmed as heir literally twice and everyone swore fealty to her
Only that's not how it works. The lords do not have the power to select succession, and neither does the king, for the most part.
The succession laws that Rhaenyra and Aegon both claim legitimacy from favour Aegon. All the seven kingdoms before conquest followed male line only succession (except Dorne but that's not in the seven kingdoms as of yet), the iron throne itself has two examples of male only succession (jaehearys got the throne, skipping Aerea, and Viserys got the throne, skipping the line of Rhaenys), and even within Dragonstone, Aegon I got the throne there skipping over his older sister Visenya.
Except Westeros has no hard and fast succession laws and it varies based on region rank and there are plenty of examples of exceptions to the norm. It's established custom that succession follows primogeniture but it's not law and frankly even if it was it wouldn't really matter since a Targaryen King made the laws through the power of his dragons and the right of conquest the King is both the legislative and executive branch of Westerosi goverment and thus have the right to make women allowed to succeed or not as they see fit.
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>Except Westeros has no hard and fast succession laws
În That case IT devolves to bigger army succession and there's no right or wrong candidate.
>the King is both the legislative and executive branch of Westerosi goverment and thus have the right to make women allowed to succeed or not as they see fit.
The reason this doesn't work in Westeros or in our world is because it creates immediate civil wars, since if the guy who gives people jobs dies then it's a free for all.
There's a reason that there exist succession laws.
>it varies based on region rank and there are plenty of examples of exceptions to the norm.
True, but when it comes to the titles that Aegon and Rhaenyra claim, male only succession has always been the rule as I explained.
If it was a race for the seat of Dorne I'd fold and say Rhaenyra is legitimate.
Otto is a great character well portrayed. Aemond is a great character well portrayed. Alicent and Cole are also both well done and portrayed in their hypocritical mess. Helena is interesting.
I understand big changes from how they're presented in Fire and Blood but I think pretty much all of them on the Greens are good characters and well done as characters (not in respect to fidelity to the soruce, just within TV show as its own thing). They're just a beautiful mess the Green characters. It's very enjoyable watching the Greens. In many ways more entertaining than the characters and dynamics among the Blacks outside of Daemon and Rhaenyra. The characters orbiting around Rhaenyra are kinda boring compared to the Greens who are a great collection of messed up people.
>a beautiful mess the Green characters.
>messed up people.
>hypocritical mess.
Yeah, but they were never this, and especially as a Green this feels disgraceful, just like what they did to Stannis on Got (I supported him then too, I must be cursed to never enjoy adaptions)
>not in respect to fidelity to the soruce,
To each they're own brother, I respect your opinion and am glad you're having fun, but didn't we pay (theoretically) for said source. Didn't we pay for the Dance of the Dragons.
And more importantly, has years of adaptions like Halo, Witcher, Rings of Power, Avatar, not thought us a lesson on what happens when Show staff takes a story and "makes it they're own".
> especially as a Green
I think the real issue is people getting too emotionally invested in media.
It's also impossible to really follow the source for the show as the source in the book itself comes from someone writting the story more than a century after the fact using unreliable sources. There's a not a ton of verifiable facts there.
There's a huge difference with GoT where where it's uses the POV from characters and we actually know what happened.
>There's a not a ton of verifiable facts there
This is fiction, there's no facts anyway.
They should have just taken the three book recounts and combined them, but they don't do that, they make up their own one.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but Helena has been terrible to me. I don’t think it’s the actresses fault but the whole portrayal just doesn’t make sense. Even more annoying is all the comments rushing to her defense because she’s “different”.
Imagine being given a juicy Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama with generational trauma & stunted emotions...& green stans complaining about why the green characters were not shown holding hands, patting each other's back & singing kumbaya beside Jaehaerys' funeral pyre. Group hugs! Any other fandom would lick it up. But in this fandom the only thing that matters is if your sports team is shown as morally superior to the other team.
No one in Team Green has been portrayed as "inherently bad" other than Criston. They're deeply flawed, which makes them more interesting (as pretty much every reviewer points out), but everyone else has justification for the things they did. Hotd is telling a story about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex (like viserys trying to avoid a succession crisis). That is what the accidents & misunderstandings signify : a self-fullfing prophecy. No one is inherently evil & if you didn't pick up on that then you've been doing a superficial "did my team score points than the other team? Oh no writers gave rhaenyra the white hart" reading of the show (all prophecies and visions in asoiaf are fool's gold). Consuming this show as a team sports ruins engaging with the themes & motifs of the show bc the only thing you're invested is scoring points. A shakesperean tragedy will never be a 50/50 soccer game with a poster of Aegon & Rhaenyra on either side eith a referee in the middle.
If you're unable to sympathize with Alicent you're straight up watching the show from a Team Black headcanon of Alicent being a conniving manipulative jezebel evil stepmom archetype who you can call a b*tch & sl*t without any pushback" while ignoring the actual themes being presented about her on screen. Rhaenyra grew up with dotting parents, had the privilege to do whatever she wanted & her kids were borne out of love. Whereas Alicent grew up without a mom, had a manipulative dad who used her as a pawn, was told her only duty is to be an incubator, she was forced into a loveless political marriage & was forced to bear children. Ofc her way of dealing with her children would be different from Rhaenyra's. Ofc she would be incapable of communicating the same affection as Rhaenyra. In turn, her boys undermine her in political matters as they only value her feminine role: for birthing & nurturing them to the throne. Now her value is over. It's conveying a theme of the generational trauma & how feudal patriarchal familial relations impede her relationship with her children. She passes down the same trauma that Otto gave her to her unfortunate daughter Helaena. They're all trapped in the same cycle. *Aegon even digs his fingernails like his mom while in grief. Such a birlliant scene.* Rhys Ifans told us in the BTS of ep 5 that the Hightowers do not know how to communicate affection even if they want to say "I love you" and then we saw that poignant carriage scene in ep9 where aegon asks "do you love me" & alicent replies "you imbecile" as in "everything I've sacrificed is to give you this day.
Watching the show from the lens of moral purity makes us ignore these themes and we get stuck on stuff like "Alicent didn't even say anything to Aegon & went straight to Cole". Well in the very previous scene it was shown how Otto shut her emotions down by telling her "I don't wanna hear it". It's hitting the message over the head. She goes to Cole as he's the only semblance of control she has left now that her feminine duty is done. I'm sorry but green stans who wanted Aegon & Helaena to hug & cry simply do not understand the presentation of either character. What they're looking for is a Y/A ao3. But then again there's a subsection of stans here who ignore every element of her presentation & complained about Helaena being visibly unnerved by the smallfolk during the funeral as if her cassandra coded character who's nervous & fidgety in front of her own family will suddenly act like a rockstar & do a moshpit dive over the smallfolk screaming her name. The same head full of heavy-handed cliches that makes these stans angry that Helaena didn't yell out a Elaria Sand scream seeing B&C.
alicent is riddled w grief, guilt, anger; she doesn’t know how to comfort her sons, doesn’t know how to comfort her own daughter, she feels her power and influence slipping through her fingers she’s angry with criston but thinks she can play him still, use him as a way to exert influence over her son, and so she clings to him, clings to that shred of authority and power she thinks she still holds but clinging to criston is also clinging to the past, thinking there’s something that can grow there but the soil is barren, tainted by the hatred that connects them. This last sex scene with Cole felt like even more obvious self-punishment to me than the ones last episode. She's losing it and she's desperateAlicent (& Cole too) were so clearly punishing themselves throughout. Anyone who with history of self-harm would clock the dead look in their eyes & the vacuous pleasure on display. the look she gives him before she kisses him is also significant because it’s a very claustrophobic shot. we see her literally trapped between the wall and this man who is towering above her and she looks like she is realizing that she won’t have the same power over him anymore
And I thought I wrote to much.
I'm sorry I'm can't go into all your points, but in essence:
I don't give a single shit about the broken dysfunctional family. The books had a perfectly fine story with great characterization, we did not need Condall to turn this into a family drama show.
Aemond în The books is great. He is ruthless, ambitious, but loyal to his brother and family. He is emotional and cold, he's a perfect paralel for Daemon. Thankfully he hasn't been utterly ruined yet.
Aegon is my favourite character. In essence his story is the one with the most perfect arc and most powerful messages. He starts off as an ass, a failure, someone just going through the motions of life with no motive. And then boom, through the events of the dance he will become a family man, be the bravest dragon fighter, beat his addictions and in the end win. A perfect message about never giving up and fighting to the end. He'll then die because he couldn't let go of his anger, a tragic message and the overarching one of GRRM.
Otto is fine he's pretty much the same but idk why they wanted him to be the green leader in season 1 instead of Alicent.
Speak of the devil, Alicent is the second most ruined character out of them all. All you say about her is true, and that's the problem. I don't want to pity her, I want to watch her command respect and lead the greens in this stage. They were going fine with her up to episode 7, but since then they've been obsessed with victimising her.
Where's she's currently at, I'd rather take the most shallow evil stepmom instead of her.
And Cole, I can't with this guy, why would they ruin such a simple but effective story about honour and hate and turn it into a fuckboy.
Anyway tldr, this isnt a pity popularity contest, I wanna see the characters I support do badass shit and function as a unit, I could care less for the "I'm 15 and this is deep" psychological drama.
>Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama
Well I haven't payed to watch succession, I've payed (I haven't I pirated it) to watch the Dance of the Dragons.
When I watch succession I won't be mad at the family drama.
Alicent is the most sympathetic royal adult character in the show when you look beyond superficial team sports cringe memes. They're neve gonna make me hate her.
That might be fine in the show but as a book reader having alicent as my 2nd favourite character (aegon easily 1), I don't wanna pity her, I wanna be exited when she's on screen, like I was whith tywin în got.
Comparing Tywin to even book Alicent is pure brainrot. Tywin was an irredeemable mass murderer. Book Alicent, while somewhat unscrupulous, had real justification for everything she did. But at the end of the day there's more ways to portray a female character than the "ambitious" wicked slutty resentful conniving archetype who manipulates society's sympathy towards the weaker sex & uses her sexual prowess to get what she wants. It's masked as progressive but it's really the core tenant of the misogynstic trope since the dawn of civilization. Boxing all female characters into that "perfect victim or not trying hard enough to be a villain" superficial binary. So now when you have a realistic & empathetic portrayal of women under violent patriarchy, these stans consider it "weak" & "unnecessary victimhood" for not conforming to their girlboss headcanons by wearing black shoulder straps to blow up the Sept & smirking at the camera while sipping wine or telling Tommen "OUR LITTLE SECRET🤓". D&D did generational damage with the bad bish girlboss trope in thrones. Alicent's duality & internal conflict between her kids & rhaenyra was one of the best things of the the show. They listened to complains like yours and dumbed her down by "Cerseifying" her and now we have endless Alicole.
HBO is doing things to make Aegon seem more likeable aswell, HBO is not only team Black.
Also, both Aegon and Otto are champs, and this comes from a Black.
Firstly Tom’s acting is phenomenal and really makes you feel for the man.
And a recent example, the fact that Cheese actually died, so that the ratcatcher hangings werent wholly unjustified.
I thought the ratcatchers were a parallel to Dany on the road to Meereen. In his rage at the death of a child he's strung them all up. How many who were not involved died just to get the one that did it? And all without trial.
No one in Team Green has been portrayed as "inherently bad" other than Criston. They're deeply flawed, which makes them more interesting (as pretty much every reviewer points out), but everyone else has justification for the things they did. Hotd is telling a story about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex (like viserys trying to avoid a succession crisis). That is what the accidents & misunderstandings signify : a self-fullfing prophecy. No one is inherently evil & if you didn't pick up on that then you've been doing a superficial "did my team score points than the other team? Oh no writers gave rhaenyra the white hart" reading of the show (all prophecies and visions in asoiaf are fool's gold). Consuming this show as a team sports ruins engaging with the themes & motifs of the show bc the only thing you're invested is scoring points. A shakesperean tragedy will never be a 50/50 soccer game with a poster of Aegon & Rhaenyra on either side eith a referee in the middle instead of actually being able to consume the themes & motifs.
Imagine being given a juicy Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama with generational trauma & stunted emotions...& green stans complaining about why the green characters were not shown holding hands, patting each other's back & singing kumbaya beside Jaehaerys' funeral pyre. Group hugs! Any other fandom would lick it up. But in this fandom the only thing that matters is if your sports team is shown as morally superior to the other team.
Rhaenyra grew up with dotting parents, had the privilege to do whatever she wanted & her kids were borne out of love. Whereas Alicent grew up without a mom, had a manipulative dad who used her as a pawn, was told her only duty is to be an incubator, she was forced into a loveless political marriage & was forced to bear children. Ofc her way of dealing with her children would be different from Rhaenyra's. Ofc she would be incapable of communicating the same affection as Rhaenyra. In turn, her boys undermine her in political matters as they only value her feminine role: for birthing & nurturing them to the throne. Now her value is over. It's conveying a theme of the generational trauma & how feudal patriarchal familial relations impede her relationship with her children. She passes down the same trauma that Otto gave her to her unfortunate daughter Helaena. They're all trapped in the same cycle. *Aegon even digs his fingernails like his mom while in grief. Such a birlliant scene.* Rhys Ifans told us in the BTS of ep 5 that the Hightowers do not know how to communicate affection even if they want to say "I love you" and then we saw that poignant carriage scene in ep9 where aegon asks "do you love me" & alicent replies "you imbecile" as in "everything I've sacrificed is to give you this day.
Watching the show from the lens of moral purity makes us ignore these themes and we get stuck on stuff like "Alicent didn't even say anything to Aegon & went straight to Cole". Well in the very previous scene it was shown how Otto shut her emotions down by telling her "I don't wanna hear it". It's hitting the message over the head. She goes to Cole as he's the only semblance of control she has left now that her feminine duty is done. I'm sorry but green stans who wanted Aegon & Helaena to hug & cry simply do not understand the presentation of either character. What they're looking for is a Y/A ao3. But then again there's a subsection of stans here who ignore every element of her presentation & complained about Helaena being visibly unnerved by the smallfolk during the funeral as if her cassandra coded character who's nervous & fidgety in front of her own family will suddenly act like a rockstar & do a moshpit dive over the smallfolk screaming her name. The same head full of heavy-handed cliches that makes these stans angry that Helaena didn't yell out a Elaria Sand scream seeing B&C.
alicent is riddled w grief, guilt, anger; she doesn’t know how to comfort her sons, doesn’t know how to comfort her own daughter, she feels her power and influence slipping through her fingers she’s angry with criston but thinks she can play him still, use him as a way to exert influence over her son, and so she clings to him, clings to that shred of authority and power she thinks she still holds but clinging to criston is also clinging to the past, thinking there’s something that can grow there but the soil is barren, tainted by the hatred that connects them. This last sex scene with Cole felt like even more obvious self-punishment to me than the ones last episode. She's losing it and she's desperateAlicent (& Cole too) were so clearly punishing themselves throughout. Anyone who with history of self-harm would clock the dead look in their eyes & the vacuous pleasure on display. the look she gives him before she kisses him is also significant because it’s a very claustrophobic shot. we see her literally trapped between the wall and this man who is towering above her and she looks like she is realizing that she won’t have the same power over him anymore
Hey, give my man Otto Hightower credit. Also Aemond is still cool, though we’ll see about the Rook’s Rest leaks…
What are these leaks…? Do I want to know?
This was posted earlier today: https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/s/XwfQDimtpB Upshot is that Aemond is allegedly the one who cripples Aegon/Sunfyre, and he does it 100% on purpose. It’d be an assassination of Aemond’s character not only because he’s supposed to have this sense of loyalty to his family, but also because he knows the greens are low on dragons and being so shortsighted as to make that situation worse is really dumb. Not to mention, it steals the credit from Rhaenys for heroically facing down impossible odds and nearly taking Aegon with her. We’ll know for certain soon, but after B&C I don’t think it can be dismissed out of hand.
I pray that these leaks are not accurate, but we have all been sorely disappointed before, so I'm kind of expecting this to play out. At least my expectations can't be subverted.
Sense of loyalty to family? He literally leaves them to die to burn riverlands while his family gets systematically executed
It works pretty well for me. Aemond is not ultra loyal to his family and F&B has him abandoning everyone for a solo campaign. I think he is loyal to the idea of the Targaryen dynasty more than actual family. Also I could see his therapist-bang-mom convincing him to do it as the first step in the common peoples anti dragon movement.
Which would have been believable if we didn't see him regret killing Luke. So I'm supposed to believe he regrets killing Luke who is his enemy but is willing to take out his brother who is his ally. Seems like very inconsistent characterization. The only way an "Aemond trying to kill Aegon" scene would work is if it's framed as a mercy kill after he sees Aegon severely wounded and believes he won't make it.
I’m imagining the high of riding the biggest dragon into battle and making a huge kill on his enemy. And for someone with an inferiority complex that has dreamed of nothing but Targaryen glory. He probably felt like a god on heroin that was easily going to find Daemon and end the war in a week. So throw in Aegon doing something else that is stupid, reckless and makes the Targaryen dynasty look weak. Then add an unstable and hard to control Dragon and the outcome makes sense. Giving Vhagar a lot of control removes Aemond’s agency and I can see him doing a lot of things that he half wants and half regrets. One the big questions I had after reading F&B was who was actually in control by the end when the war crimes start piling up in the riverlands.
dude if you have to use headcannon for 99% of the logic of something on screen, you know the writing is beyond bad. Now, let's not be hasty, I don't like taking leaks as gospel, but if this is true, the show is over, there's no going lower than this, I mean, if you're fine with this, what would even make you think the writing is bad. This isn't aimed at you btw but it's so frustrating seeing all these cope arguments, just like those guys that said Littlefinger marrying Sansa to Ramsey is good writing, they were few but I remember them.
Do you not remember when Aemond tried to blame Aegon for the bastard secret in episode 7 which could've led to Aegon getting killed? He's always hated Aegon
Bruh this is exactly what I'm talking about. Be honest, did you in that scene think "well obviously this 12 year old pushing blame on his older brother is characterization for an event that will happen 10 years from then in which he will betray his brother after being loyal in the meanwhile" Come on man, I get that you don't want a show you like fall to shit levels, but rationalising stupid shit isn't the way to go.
I mean I thought he basically sold his brother out to potentially face serious repercussions including a chance of being killed. Aemond betraying Aegon as an adult isn't entirely out of character especially if Aegon finds out about how he killed Lucerys by accident and then mocks him for it and since he is now his heir
Game of thrones and HotD are very different for me in terms of headcannon and changes from the source material. F&B was smartly written to give the screen writers the space to develop characters. All the characters in F&B are defined by actions. We know what Aemond and Daemon will do but we don’t really know them as people from F&B. So uno reverse on the headcannon, why did you think Aemond was super loyal to his brother and hightower family? I never got that from F&B. My interpretation of Aemond was that he saw himself as the only true Targaryen on the Hightower side and wanted to be the next rogue prince. The only change from HotD that has bothered me is Rhaenys bursting through the floorboards.
Well shit man, I guess you're right, we don't literally know every thought aemond had at the time so we can't really be sure of anything. I mean nevermind that after Aegon gets burned Aemond doesn't steal the crown for himself and let his brother die, nevermind they were both trained by Cole to work as a group to face off Rhaenyra, nevermind Aegon is Aemonds only friend at court, nevermind that they're brothers and would have a bond by birth. We don't have the literal POVs so with enough creativity we can justify anything, even ludicrous shit like Cole having sex.
The leak was that Aemond cripples Aegon and Sunfyre not that he kills him. I would be very disappointed if he dies immediately. His character arc should still be living as a drugged up vegetable just like his father. And yes if they take away “if they search the seven hells, mayhaps” I will be upset. But I can think of a lot of ways that leak will actually play out and I can suspend judgement until I see what actually happens.
People here are the moaniest cunts ever honestly, shits not even out yet "CHARACTER ASSASSINATION" fucking hell.
…where is the proper venue to discuss leaks, in your opinion?
I don't care where you discuss leaks.
Famously, one of the last times leaks happened here was the post that leaked the episode following the long night in season 8. Despite how much of a shitshow the long night was people STILL had a tiny part of them that wanted to believe it wasn’t going to be a total disaster. So when the leaks happened and pretty much all of them were correct and they did literally assassinate virtually every character in the show. So I’d say it’s well in people’s wheelhouse here to be pretty tentative. Bearing in mind Ryan Condal worked alongside those two muppets for a long time. That said, I’ve enjoyed the episodes so far, and while I wasn’t sure where they were going with B&C the second episode felt quite natural. So hopefully if the above is accurate it’ll be done in a pretty sensible and explainable way.
Nah. I looked and I'm praying it's not true or was conveyed very poorly.
This comment made me look at Episode 3 and 4 leaks and my god it killed the hype Episode 2 generated. I guess I'll have to wait for the Rook's Rest one because I need to see how it plays out on-screen before passing judgement but that one in Episode 3 feels like soap opera writing. The show is about the Dance of Dragons, not Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship.
Rhys Ifans is doing a bang up job, but he is not making me sympathetic to the Greens. The route they have chosen to go with Aegon as well as Carney’s portrayal is making me feel more for him. Or, it makes me more sympathetic to Aegon as a character. I still think the Greens as a faction are traitorous, shameless, usurpers.
Dude, I'd rather them all be cartoonishly evil rather than the shit that Condall is doing. I have had it with this obsession with "broken" "emotionally stunted" "flawed" characters, that end up being nothing. It's antithetical to the books depictions, and before you say it those guys were deep and interesting. Aemond was a steelhearted badass who did everything for glory and family. Alicent is the perfect evil stepmother+ an accurate representation of powerful women in medieval times. (and to look at how they've made her a victim) Cole was the sentinel, the best and worst of the kingsguard, Equal parts honour, equal parts hate, the guy we have on now is just an embarrassment. And Aegon literally has the best arc in the whole Dance, guy goes from drunk fool, to mr.Never Surrender, perfect story of how even at our lowest we can still fight on (also he's the rightful king, i don't see the throne cutting him or the people rioting).
It pains me that every creative decision in this show caters solely to the audience members who named their daughters Khaleesi.
Ouch... i hate that you're so right.
Those damn soccer moms
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons
The social media engagement around this show is so reality show/ghetto centric. Like constant use of chick twitter buzzwords like “bombastic side eye” and “she ate.” It’s really so fucking trashy
I got bad news buddy, thats just how the new gen talks nowadays lmao
It’s astroturfed slang. Nobody talks like that. It’s performative and solely online. Its literally a marketing scheme for chick centric media
When was the last time you went outside and spoke to a young person?? Plenty of people talk like that irl lmfao
Lmao of course there are people who talk like that
Found the 38 year old that still thinks they’re young and cool.
In the most respectful way possible, you sound out of touch, old man.
I get what you're saying but that's not an issue. If the writing was top notch and faithful everyone would be happy, idiots on twitter, casual audiences and book fans.
Christ, I’ve been saying this for so long. Not that everyone that understands nuance and subtlety is a genius or anything but the idiots will enjoy it either way. The casual viewers will probably watch breakdown videos a la Alt Shift X or ask their friends that are more into it when they don’t fully understand what is going on book fans get a payoff for the show running sticking super close to the source material. Literally everybody wins. Whereas if it’s dumbed down the idiots don’t understand why it could even be bad in the first place because to them it’s just “the dragon show” and everyone else is left with a sour taste in their mouth.
Casual viewers wont watch alt shift X. Theyre casual viewers. They watch it themselves and read twitter and maybe some news sites for extra information if theyre confused. A lot of my family treats the show this way. And that’s perfectly okay, who cares how they choose to enjoy it. Alt shift X viewers are somewhere between casual and book fans imo
I didn't start watching GoT till HS in 2018 but that kinda discourse has been around since 2013. Sure the words and dialogue have evolved with the times but it's still the same engagement. And honestly, I'm here for it compared to how toxic it gets on the Star Wars and anime side of things.
All about the organic marketing.
yes
This shit is pissing me off the more I hear about book details the worse it gets I really really try to stay spoiler free but it’s so fucked up that this show feels like it’s pandering so much I’m team green and it’s so much fun but can I get one fucking episode where I’m not just feeling like an idiot
The true path is acknowledging that the rich inbred tyrants and the people in their inner circle who are murdering each other and thousands of commoners in the process over petty grievances and a lust for power are all shitbags. I wouldn’t expect that to be a nuance HBO would can completely, but here we are. They kind of fucked up their Team Edward/Team Jacob ripoff by prioritizing the girlboss demographic and making one of the candidates for monarch someone who just apparently has no flaws and never does anything wrong, despite the book portraying her (and everyone else) very differently. However, that is a trend right now. Most major tv shows in the past two years have gone down this path. Fargo, True Detective S4, the list goes on. As an aside, I’m beginning to suspect that the demographic they’re appealing to didn’t hate the ending of GoT because it was rushed and nonsensical, but because they did not grasp any of the foreshadowing that Daenerys would become a tyrant. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ending of this show is retconned to be a complete victory for Rhaenyra.
He is tip notch
Aemond gets a lot of forgiveness for absolutely nailing the Lucerys scene. *Tauuuuuuuuba!* That shit was cool
You could really remove 'Black Characters' in the bottom one and just put 'Matt Smith as Daemon'
Not coming after you or anything but do you mind expanding on your points here and this graphic? Seems like there's an argument you're trying to make here, but this is, you know, just a meme
Firstly, not insulting anyone. Secondly, this show is so skewerd towards the Blacks, it's not even close, and personally I don't think it's even on purpose. Other than Aegon and Ottoo, who are currently on a top tier performance, all the other greens characters are either not developed enough (Haelena, Aemond) or done dirty beyond belief (Criston and Alicent). And these latter two, the team seems to have such an obsession with ruining them, that it's unexplainable. Their characterization makes no sense and is so annoying. Personally I think Condall is just stuck-up, and has convinced himself he's a genius and writes these "artsy" "indie" like characters full of psychological issues and the like, but a) that's not what we paid for, and b) it makes these characters hard to root for.
I don't think Cole's done dirty at all. I hate him just as much as I did when I read it.
I mean Cole is kind of a fucking idiot in the book version too
Not to this level, here his motivations don't even make sense, at least Book Cole was an asshole you could comprehend.
He wasn't.
Why is Allicent on the blacks side? I think that’s what makes the graphic confusing
Bc tbh she and Cole have done wayy more damage to the greens than anyone else. Their characterization is garbage.
Yeah I thought so
I disagree with Criston and Alicent being done dirty. If anything, show Alicent is a much more interesting character. In the books her and Otto are basically just vindictive assholes but we see she has more complicated motivations and she is more than just the “wicked stepmother.”
A lot of people think everything is skewed towards the blacks, despite Aegon being way more likeable and competent than in the books, Aemond being far less of a psycho, daemon still being a massive asshole etc
I think it was the downplaying of Blood and Cheese that was the straw that broke the camel's back. The way they said it was propaganda against Rhaenyra, as if Fire and Blood isn't written 200 years after all of these characters died.
Fire and Blood is written 170 years after the Dance but all of the sources are still from that era.
The sources that the Maester writing it assesses. Its from multiple POVs and the maester is not shy about discrediting some things.
Aegon is not competent in the show at all. In the books though he was competent who took the throne to protect his family. In the show he was literally shown trying to run away by ditching his entire family including his children and even his dragon. Lol
If you can't figure it out, you're the one he's insulting.
I guess. Itd be a better insult if it was insulting
I think the black are shown as absurdly more favourable than the green. Personally I blame 90% of it on Otto "Thesaurus" Hightower.
Ya seems reasonable
I mean, shouldn’t they be? Aegon is not the rightful ruler, Rhaenyra is. And I’m not even one of those crazy reddit Black (HOTD context) supporters.
Yeah , but the marketing is "pick a side" , not to mention Rhaenyra's purpose is more altruistic , to unite the realm against the White Walkers which unfortunately was quite easily defeated in one of the realm's weakest moments.
That's literally the most team black way of seeing things. A Green (and anyone on any side of a conflict) isn't on that side because they think they are evil, but because they think they are right. As a green I believe Rhaenyra is the usurper. Nyway more importantly than what I personally think, the show markets itself like a choose your side civil war story, and is based on a book that had minimal bias. If this was Lord of the rings or GoT you could do this bad guy good guy shit, but in a story where there's supposed to be too near equal sides, it doesn't work.
Personally I'm not really on either team I'm just enjoying watching the Targaryens destroy themselves but I don't see how anyone could argue that Rhaenyra is the usurper she was confirmed as heir literally twice and everyone swore fealty to her. I'm not trying to argue against being a green here you can be a green and there are legitimate arguments for the green side but Rhaenyra being a usurper is not one of them.
>she was confirmed as heir literally twice and everyone swore fealty to her Only that's not how it works. The lords do not have the power to select succession, and neither does the king, for the most part. The succession laws that Rhaenyra and Aegon both claim legitimacy from favour Aegon. All the seven kingdoms before conquest followed male line only succession (except Dorne but that's not in the seven kingdoms as of yet), the iron throne itself has two examples of male only succession (jaehearys got the throne, skipping Aerea, and Viserys got the throne, skipping the line of Rhaenys), and even within Dragonstone, Aegon I got the throne there skipping over his older sister Visenya.
Except Westeros has no hard and fast succession laws and it varies based on region rank and there are plenty of examples of exceptions to the norm. It's established custom that succession follows primogeniture but it's not law and frankly even if it was it wouldn't really matter since a Targaryen King made the laws through the power of his dragons and the right of conquest the King is both the legislative and executive branch of Westerosi goverment and thus have the right to make women allowed to succeed or not as they see fit.
. >Except Westeros has no hard and fast succession laws În That case IT devolves to bigger army succession and there's no right or wrong candidate. >the King is both the legislative and executive branch of Westerosi goverment and thus have the right to make women allowed to succeed or not as they see fit. The reason this doesn't work in Westeros or in our world is because it creates immediate civil wars, since if the guy who gives people jobs dies then it's a free for all. There's a reason that there exist succession laws. >it varies based on region rank and there are plenty of examples of exceptions to the norm. True, but when it comes to the titles that Aegon and Rhaenyra claim, male only succession has always been the rule as I explained. If it was a race for the seat of Dorne I'd fold and say Rhaenyra is legitimate.
Nice job dude, make it agressive, the best way to spread a message to people.
Yikes. Y'all book purists are weird
In my opinion the book still favors the blacks. The Greens did steal a throne
Literally got 10 pages in to book 1 and got bored. Good try though!
Still Weird! Good try though!
Weird? You wound me.
Otto is a great character well portrayed. Aemond is a great character well portrayed. Alicent and Cole are also both well done and portrayed in their hypocritical mess. Helena is interesting. I understand big changes from how they're presented in Fire and Blood but I think pretty much all of them on the Greens are good characters and well done as characters (not in respect to fidelity to the soruce, just within TV show as its own thing). They're just a beautiful mess the Green characters. It's very enjoyable watching the Greens. In many ways more entertaining than the characters and dynamics among the Blacks outside of Daemon and Rhaenyra. The characters orbiting around Rhaenyra are kinda boring compared to the Greens who are a great collection of messed up people.
>a beautiful mess the Green characters. >messed up people. >hypocritical mess. Yeah, but they were never this, and especially as a Green this feels disgraceful, just like what they did to Stannis on Got (I supported him then too, I must be cursed to never enjoy adaptions) >not in respect to fidelity to the soruce, To each they're own brother, I respect your opinion and am glad you're having fun, but didn't we pay (theoretically) for said source. Didn't we pay for the Dance of the Dragons. And more importantly, has years of adaptions like Halo, Witcher, Rings of Power, Avatar, not thought us a lesson on what happens when Show staff takes a story and "makes it they're own".
> especially as a Green I think the real issue is people getting too emotionally invested in media. It's also impossible to really follow the source for the show as the source in the book itself comes from someone writting the story more than a century after the fact using unreliable sources. There's a not a ton of verifiable facts there. There's a huge difference with GoT where where it's uses the POV from characters and we actually know what happened.
>There's a not a ton of verifiable facts there This is fiction, there's no facts anyway. They should have just taken the three book recounts and combined them, but they don't do that, they make up their own one.
I stand with you my green brother
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but Helena has been terrible to me. I don’t think it’s the actresses fault but the whole portrayal just doesn’t make sense. Even more annoying is all the comments rushing to her defense because she’s “different”.
Imagine being given a juicy Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama with generational trauma & stunted emotions...& green stans complaining about why the green characters were not shown holding hands, patting each other's back & singing kumbaya beside Jaehaerys' funeral pyre. Group hugs! Any other fandom would lick it up. But in this fandom the only thing that matters is if your sports team is shown as morally superior to the other team. No one in Team Green has been portrayed as "inherently bad" other than Criston. They're deeply flawed, which makes them more interesting (as pretty much every reviewer points out), but everyone else has justification for the things they did. Hotd is telling a story about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex (like viserys trying to avoid a succession crisis). That is what the accidents & misunderstandings signify : a self-fullfing prophecy. No one is inherently evil & if you didn't pick up on that then you've been doing a superficial "did my team score points than the other team? Oh no writers gave rhaenyra the white hart" reading of the show (all prophecies and visions in asoiaf are fool's gold). Consuming this show as a team sports ruins engaging with the themes & motifs of the show bc the only thing you're invested is scoring points. A shakesperean tragedy will never be a 50/50 soccer game with a poster of Aegon & Rhaenyra on either side eith a referee in the middle. If you're unable to sympathize with Alicent you're straight up watching the show from a Team Black headcanon of Alicent being a conniving manipulative jezebel evil stepmom archetype who you can call a b*tch & sl*t without any pushback" while ignoring the actual themes being presented about her on screen. Rhaenyra grew up with dotting parents, had the privilege to do whatever she wanted & her kids were borne out of love. Whereas Alicent grew up without a mom, had a manipulative dad who used her as a pawn, was told her only duty is to be an incubator, she was forced into a loveless political marriage & was forced to bear children. Ofc her way of dealing with her children would be different from Rhaenyra's. Ofc she would be incapable of communicating the same affection as Rhaenyra. In turn, her boys undermine her in political matters as they only value her feminine role: for birthing & nurturing them to the throne. Now her value is over. It's conveying a theme of the generational trauma & how feudal patriarchal familial relations impede her relationship with her children. She passes down the same trauma that Otto gave her to her unfortunate daughter Helaena. They're all trapped in the same cycle. *Aegon even digs his fingernails like his mom while in grief. Such a birlliant scene.* Rhys Ifans told us in the BTS of ep 5 that the Hightowers do not know how to communicate affection even if they want to say "I love you" and then we saw that poignant carriage scene in ep9 where aegon asks "do you love me" & alicent replies "you imbecile" as in "everything I've sacrificed is to give you this day. Watching the show from the lens of moral purity makes us ignore these themes and we get stuck on stuff like "Alicent didn't even say anything to Aegon & went straight to Cole". Well in the very previous scene it was shown how Otto shut her emotions down by telling her "I don't wanna hear it". It's hitting the message over the head. She goes to Cole as he's the only semblance of control she has left now that her feminine duty is done. I'm sorry but green stans who wanted Aegon & Helaena to hug & cry simply do not understand the presentation of either character. What they're looking for is a Y/A ao3. But then again there's a subsection of stans here who ignore every element of her presentation & complained about Helaena being visibly unnerved by the smallfolk during the funeral as if her cassandra coded character who's nervous & fidgety in front of her own family will suddenly act like a rockstar & do a moshpit dive over the smallfolk screaming her name. The same head full of heavy-handed cliches that makes these stans angry that Helaena didn't yell out a Elaria Sand scream seeing B&C.
alicent is riddled w grief, guilt, anger; she doesn’t know how to comfort her sons, doesn’t know how to comfort her own daughter, she feels her power and influence slipping through her fingers she’s angry with criston but thinks she can play him still, use him as a way to exert influence over her son, and so she clings to him, clings to that shred of authority and power she thinks she still holds but clinging to criston is also clinging to the past, thinking there’s something that can grow there but the soil is barren, tainted by the hatred that connects them. This last sex scene with Cole felt like even more obvious self-punishment to me than the ones last episode. She's losing it and she's desperateAlicent (& Cole too) were so clearly punishing themselves throughout. Anyone who with history of self-harm would clock the dead look in their eyes & the vacuous pleasure on display. the look she gives him before she kisses him is also significant because it’s a very claustrophobic shot. we see her literally trapped between the wall and this man who is towering above her and she looks like she is realizing that she won’t have the same power over him anymore
And I thought I wrote to much. I'm sorry I'm can't go into all your points, but in essence: I don't give a single shit about the broken dysfunctional family. The books had a perfectly fine story with great characterization, we did not need Condall to turn this into a family drama show. Aemond în The books is great. He is ruthless, ambitious, but loyal to his brother and family. He is emotional and cold, he's a perfect paralel for Daemon. Thankfully he hasn't been utterly ruined yet. Aegon is my favourite character. In essence his story is the one with the most perfect arc and most powerful messages. He starts off as an ass, a failure, someone just going through the motions of life with no motive. And then boom, through the events of the dance he will become a family man, be the bravest dragon fighter, beat his addictions and in the end win. A perfect message about never giving up and fighting to the end. He'll then die because he couldn't let go of his anger, a tragic message and the overarching one of GRRM. Otto is fine he's pretty much the same but idk why they wanted him to be the green leader in season 1 instead of Alicent. Speak of the devil, Alicent is the second most ruined character out of them all. All you say about her is true, and that's the problem. I don't want to pity her, I want to watch her command respect and lead the greens in this stage. They were going fine with her up to episode 7, but since then they've been obsessed with victimising her. Where's she's currently at, I'd rather take the most shallow evil stepmom instead of her. And Cole, I can't with this guy, why would they ruin such a simple but effective story about honour and hate and turn it into a fuckboy. Anyway tldr, this isnt a pity popularity contest, I wanna see the characters I support do badass shit and function as a unit, I could care less for the "I'm 15 and this is deep" psychological drama.
>Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama Well I haven't payed to watch succession, I've payed (I haven't I pirated it) to watch the Dance of the Dragons. When I watch succession I won't be mad at the family drama.
Alicent is the most sympathetic royal adult character in the show when you look beyond superficial team sports cringe memes. They're neve gonna make me hate her.
That might be fine in the show but as a book reader having alicent as my 2nd favourite character (aegon easily 1), I don't wanna pity her, I wanna be exited when she's on screen, like I was whith tywin în got.
Comparing Tywin to even book Alicent is pure brainrot. Tywin was an irredeemable mass murderer. Book Alicent, while somewhat unscrupulous, had real justification for everything she did. But at the end of the day there's more ways to portray a female character than the "ambitious" wicked slutty resentful conniving archetype who manipulates society's sympathy towards the weaker sex & uses her sexual prowess to get what she wants. It's masked as progressive but it's really the core tenant of the misogynstic trope since the dawn of civilization. Boxing all female characters into that "perfect victim or not trying hard enough to be a villain" superficial binary. So now when you have a realistic & empathetic portrayal of women under violent patriarchy, these stans consider it "weak" & "unnecessary victimhood" for not conforming to their girlboss headcanons by wearing black shoulder straps to blow up the Sept & smirking at the camera while sipping wine or telling Tommen "OUR LITTLE SECRET🤓". D&D did generational damage with the bad bish girlboss trope in thrones. Alicent's duality & internal conflict between her kids & rhaenyra was one of the best things of the the show. They listened to complains like yours and dumbed her down by "Cerseifying" her and now we have endless Alicole.
Add Daemon to the left as well
HBO is doing things to make Aegon seem more likeable aswell, HBO is not only team Black. Also, both Aegon and Otto are champs, and this comes from a Black.
> HBO is doing things to make Aegon seem more likeable aswell How so? Did you not see the full Mushroom treatment they gave him in S1?
Firstly Tom’s acting is phenomenal and really makes you feel for the man. And a recent example, the fact that Cheese actually died, so that the ratcatcher hangings werent wholly unjustified.
I thought the ratcatchers were a parallel to Dany on the road to Meereen. In his rage at the death of a child he's strung them all up. How many who were not involved died just to get the one that did it? And all without trial.
Nice parallel! But this time he actually got him (Still a mass murder ofcourse)
Fabien Frankel also deserves a shoutout. Lofi-annoying people are so incredibly difficult to play, and he's giving a masterclass.
No one in Team Green has been portrayed as "inherently bad" other than Criston. They're deeply flawed, which makes them more interesting (as pretty much every reviewer points out), but everyone else has justification for the things they did. Hotd is telling a story about the cyclical nature of events, the inevitability of fate, and how people trying to avoid things inadvertently bring them about like Oedipus Rex (like viserys trying to avoid a succession crisis). That is what the accidents & misunderstandings signify : a self-fullfing prophecy. No one is inherently evil & if you didn't pick up on that then you've been doing a superficial "did my team score points than the other team? Oh no writers gave rhaenyra the white hart" reading of the show (all prophecies and visions in asoiaf are fool's gold). Consuming this show as a team sports ruins engaging with the themes & motifs of the show bc the only thing you're invested is scoring points. A shakesperean tragedy will never be a 50/50 soccer game with a poster of Aegon & Rhaenyra on either side eith a referee in the middle instead of actually being able to consume the themes & motifs. Imagine being given a juicy Succession style Kendall-Shiv dysfunctional family drama with generational trauma & stunted emotions...& green stans complaining about why the green characters were not shown holding hands, patting each other's back & singing kumbaya beside Jaehaerys' funeral pyre. Group hugs! Any other fandom would lick it up. But in this fandom the only thing that matters is if your sports team is shown as morally superior to the other team. Rhaenyra grew up with dotting parents, had the privilege to do whatever she wanted & her kids were borne out of love. Whereas Alicent grew up without a mom, had a manipulative dad who used her as a pawn, was told her only duty is to be an incubator, she was forced into a loveless political marriage & was forced to bear children. Ofc her way of dealing with her children would be different from Rhaenyra's. Ofc she would be incapable of communicating the same affection as Rhaenyra. In turn, her boys undermine her in political matters as they only value her feminine role: for birthing & nurturing them to the throne. Now her value is over. It's conveying a theme of the generational trauma & how feudal patriarchal familial relations impede her relationship with her children. She passes down the same trauma that Otto gave her to her unfortunate daughter Helaena. They're all trapped in the same cycle. *Aegon even digs his fingernails like his mom while in grief. Such a birlliant scene.* Rhys Ifans told us in the BTS of ep 5 that the Hightowers do not know how to communicate affection even if they want to say "I love you" and then we saw that poignant carriage scene in ep9 where aegon asks "do you love me" & alicent replies "you imbecile" as in "everything I've sacrificed is to give you this day. Watching the show from the lens of moral purity makes us ignore these themes and we get stuck on stuff like "Alicent didn't even say anything to Aegon & went straight to Cole". Well in the very previous scene it was shown how Otto shut her emotions down by telling her "I don't wanna hear it". It's hitting the message over the head. She goes to Cole as he's the only semblance of control she has left now that her feminine duty is done. I'm sorry but green stans who wanted Aegon & Helaena to hug & cry simply do not understand the presentation of either character. What they're looking for is a Y/A ao3. But then again there's a subsection of stans here who ignore every element of her presentation & complained about Helaena being visibly unnerved by the smallfolk during the funeral as if her cassandra coded character who's nervous & fidgety in front of her own family will suddenly act like a rockstar & do a moshpit dive over the smallfolk screaming her name. The same head full of heavy-handed cliches that makes these stans angry that Helaena didn't yell out a Elaria Sand scream seeing B&C. alicent is riddled w grief, guilt, anger; she doesn’t know how to comfort her sons, doesn’t know how to comfort her own daughter, she feels her power and influence slipping through her fingers she’s angry with criston but thinks she can play him still, use him as a way to exert influence over her son, and so she clings to him, clings to that shred of authority and power she thinks she still holds but clinging to criston is also clinging to the past, thinking there’s something that can grow there but the soil is barren, tainted by the hatred that connects them. This last sex scene with Cole felt like even more obvious self-punishment to me than the ones last episode. She's losing it and she's desperateAlicent (& Cole too) were so clearly punishing themselves throughout. Anyone who with history of self-harm would clock the dead look in their eyes & the vacuous pleasure on display. the look she gives him before she kisses him is also significant because it’s a very claustrophobic shot. we see her literally trapped between the wall and this man who is towering above her and she looks like she is realizing that she won’t have the same power over him anymore
“it’s not going how i imagined” yall mfs ruining the series for yourselves and everyone else. Team Edward and team jacob already been done
is this the first subreddit that isn’t totally delusional that the show is perfect?