Annara Snow

I wasn't discussing Aemond's qualities or the lack of them as a leader or strategist. I was just baffled by you now claiming he didn't pose any serious danger to the Blacks. So Aemomd was not at all a real danger to Rhaenyra and the Blacks, and she just sent two dragons and dragonriders, including her husband who was also her most experienced dragonrider, after him just for sh**s and giggles (leaving just herself, her preteen son and Addam in KL after she also sent Hugh and Ulf to the Reach. I guess Rhaenyra must have valued Daemon very little if she sends him and another dragonrider to take Aemond alone, while sending two orher dragons/ Dragonseeds to fight an army plus Daeron..And then Daemon goes and throws his and his dragon's lives away just to take out Aemond / Vhagar, although they were totally not a real danger to the Blacks! Such strange behavior! Why would they keep acting like Aemond is a big danger they need to take out, when he was so inconsequential? I feel like the answer is so close, but keeps eluding me! Till then, it's a mystery, just like it's a mystery why Rhaenyra kept acting like she was extremely bothered by people saying her sons were bastards, to the point of having people killed for it, or asking for her 10 year old half brother to be tortured into telling where he had heard the rumors - when, according to you, she was completely unbothered by those rumors and they could never hurt her standing... Seems like there are only three possible explanations: either GRRM is a terrible writer who writes characters acting in bizarre and unmotivated ways; he deliberately wrote Rhaenyra and Daemon as weird insane stupid people who do things for absolutely no reason; or - your readings are completely off and not based on anything in the actual text. Re: Nettles- there is zero indication that she had any Valyrian blood. Rhaenyra even wrote that "one look at her" made it obvious she had no Valyrian blood. Therefore she sure as hell won't have silver hair in the show. And if the HotD casting director has any sense, she will cast a dark skinned black actress.

On a less light topic, this discussion again proves that many people don't know what grooming means. So a reminder: grooming, in a child abuse scenario, neans an adult befriending / trying to win the trust of a minor with the intention of eventual sexual abuse. It may involve things like gifts, attention, trying to portray themselves as the minors friend who undersrands them and values them etc. and it can last a long time, even years, before anything sexual takes place, but it was the end goal. That's exactly what Littlefinger is trying to do with Sansa, and what Daemon did with his niece. The show scenario is less creepy and messed up than Mushroom's version, but the show also made sure to have Daemon flirting with Rhaenyra and giving her a gift in episode 1 when she was 14 (when she,incidentally, wasn't heir yet. Even after being named heir, she was shown to be very insecure throughout episode 2 and 3 and feeling like she would be replaced). Of course Daemon has known Rhaenyra since she was a baby and been her uncle she looked up to. I don't know if any of the lones from the leaked Alys Rivers audition will be in the show, but I really hope the "a child you used to bounce on your knee" makes it. I'm glad some people acknowledge that Aenond was a victim of sexual abuse when Aegon took him to a brothel on his 13th birthday. Finally something @Lord Varyssays that I agree with. However, that didn't involve any grooming.

Olivia has dyed her hair auburn, not bright redy again because they're about the start filmingy so she needs to have Alicent's auburn hair as she did in season 1. I'm not sure what's notable about that.

If not killing or physically abusing her makes a good husband. I'm not sure what particularly good qualities of him as a husband we saw there, rather than simply an absense of outright negatives. (So, good by Daemon standards?) Mostly it was just both of them bekng bored in Pentos and Laena unsuccessfully trying to convince him to go back home, Laena saying she was his second choice as wife, and we didn't see any enrhusiastic displays of love or happiness by either of them.

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not a body part 7 Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 8. Not made of metal 9. Not made of cloth 10. Not a gemstone 11. Not made of stone 12. Not made of glass 13. Cannot be used to write letters, at least not in the way you mean (but this is very close...) 14. Not a carving tool of any sort 15. Words (sort of) - or rather, consists of words

No. You're now getting colder on the trail than you were with your last question.

...No. At least not in the way you're asking. You're on the right track though.

I'm not entirely sure if these animated features are canon for the show universe, but even if they are, they're narrated by characters from GoT, so technically all that is canon is that this is the history these characters know, or how they interpret it. In this case, it would be canon that this is what Oberyn Martell believes happened 170 years earlier, not necessarily that this is what happened. So, the show should be free to interpret the source material in any way regardless of what was said in the featurettes.

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not a body part 7 Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 8. Not made of metal 9. Not made of cloth 10. Not a gemstone 11. Not made of stone 12. Not made of glass Think about what isn't a weapon, but it's said may be more powerful than a weapon...

Or another drama based on the Biblical story of Noah.

The writers, above all the showrunner, are the ones deciding how the characters and story are portrayed. They're certainly not cutting Daemon's relationship with Nettles. The issue we're discussing is how they might portray it.

Not if they have them sleeping together. I don't see how that would be framed in a positive light, and the writers and Emma D'Arcy certainly haven't framed the Daemon and Rhaenyra's relationship positively in their interviews: Ryan Condal: "What Daemon does to young Rhaenyra is, in modern terminology, an act of abuse. And, as a traumatic event would, it shapes who Rhaenyra becomes." Emma D'Arcy: "“This is essentially a grooming scenario. The idea that a teenage girl is in any way able to consent to that sexual interaction is a mess. There is no way that power can be equally distributed in that relationship.”

It's implied Jon Arryn knew, because I think it's mentioned he probably resented Lysa for having to marry a 'soiiled' girl. However, Jon Arryn was practically blackmailed by Hoster Tully because he wouldn't give him military support in the war unless he married Lysa. And for that to happen, Hoster needed to trick Lysa into miscarring her child - because Jon would obviously not want to acknowledge another man's child as his own, nor would be have married a girl who had a bastard, and neither Hoster nor Jon would've tolerated their reputations being smeared and Jon Arryn would never agree if it meant people would laugh at him. So it was incredibly important no one else knew. There is no doubt that public knowledge of a woman having had a bastard and generally having been "soiled" significantly reduces her chances in that society, both for a good marriage, and, which is crucial in this case, of inheriting - especially when it's the throne. It certainly contributed to reducing Daena's chances of taking the throne. And both the book and show imply that at least Daemon believed that ruining Rhaenyra's reputation would be enough for him to blackmail Viserys to marry her to him, because "no one else would want her now".

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not a body part 7 Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 8. Not made of metal 9. Not made of cloth 10. Not a gemstone 11. Not made of stone

@GZ Bloodraven Something seems to have gone wrong with the multi quote feature - the first post you quoted was by @The Bard of Banefort but if ended as quoted as mine. The second one was mine.

@Lord Varys I knew your post would deliver more elaboration abour Valyrian superiority (unless it's the Targaryens on the Green side) and specifically about how Rhaenyra and Daemon are all powerful godlike people who can do anything*, and you didn't disappoint. In fact, you overdid yourself this time with the line about how Daemon didn't need to kill himself to kill his "irrelevant failure of a nephew"! Indeed, it doesn't make sense, if he was so "irrelevant", why was killing him so important? I'll let you struggle with that baffling issue. But I I'm afraid the whole Dance will never make sense to you, with your belief that Rhaenyra could do anything and never be challenged by anyone in the realm, and yet the Dance somehow still happened. * I guess Rhaenyra is only all powerful in relation to the rest of the realm minus Daemon, but Daemon's power goes even further since he can just "bend her [Rhaenyra] to his will".

I don't care what GRRM may or may not have been thinking and I don't see that would even matter. It would only confirm that he never changed and remained a creep with a fixation on extremely young girls that he was in position of power over (especially knowing that he liked to deflower the youngest abd "most inmocent" of the girls in brothels, those who had just flowered - so arounc 13, 12 or even younger. You can't even say GRRM didn't know he was writing him as a pedophile). That's nof character development, that's remaining awful. It's almost dark comedy - exchanging your much younger wife, who's his niece and that he knew since childhood and groomed, but who now inconveniently was in a position of power over him and was not a wide eyed young girl who looked up to him, for an even younger girl that he was playing mentor to. "But he cared about a lower class teenage girl he was sleeping with" - so he is not completely without feeling, cool, but protecting your new grooming victim from your earlier grooming victim isn't the stuff of heroic legend. (And I doubt any show in the 2020s would try to do present if that way, let alone HotD, whose writing staff fortunately don't strike me as people who'd see if that way ) And he didn't "sacrifice" himself to kill Aemond. He was suicidal after everything that went down with Rhaenyra and Nettles and wanted to go down in a blaze of glory. A sacrifice is when you have something to lose and you give up your life for the greater good. If he had wanted to sacrifice himself, he would have done it earlier, rather than only trying to find Aemond with Nettles so they would have an advantage in a dragon fight.

I don't see how Daemon would be 'redeemed' through his relationship with Nettles, whatever it is. Especially if she's his lover- that would just make him an even bigger creep. A 49 year old man cheating on his much younger wife (his niece, whom he groomed) with a 16 year old (and he was described acting like a father to her and teaching her hor to behave) is definitely not something I can imagine people calling redemption. A less creepy version would be if she's his daughter or he thinks she is/might be, but that also doesn't equal redemption. Many (most?) people care about their children, so what? (Also more importantly, Nettles' origins should remain a mystery.) The version that makes Daemon look best is if it is platonic and maybe Daemon thinks she's his daughter or wants to think, but then realizes she can't be and still cares about her and helps her. But even in that version, caring about/saving one person isn't redemption. Almost every character in the story has at least one person they really love/care about. That doesn't redeem them for the awful things they do it just shows they have layers

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not a body part 7 Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 8. Not made of metal 9. Not made of cloth 10. Not a gemstone

Have you been to HotD Twitter in the last 5 months?! It's nothing but 1) arguing with each other and 2) incessant whining about the show and how "terrible" it is, and trying to act like "book purists" (which is hilarious when the book is Fire and Blood). Team Black/"Targ nation" stans are constanly whining about how the show "whitewashed" the Greens, hating on Alicent and ranting that the show made her a victim and that she should be an evil power hungry stepmother, claiming that Olivia Cooke was miscast, hating on Miguel's wife because of the rumor that she suggested Alicent and Rhaenyra start off as friends, and complaining that the showrunners hate Daemon and demonize him, claiming he's not that bad in the book (which is funny because I'd say he's even worse in the book). Some have even called the show "Green propaganda". Meanwhile Team Green whine that the Blacks, specifically Rhaenyra, have been "whitewashed", that the show is aggressively pro-Black, complain because Aegon wasn’t seen with Sunfyre in season 1 and claim he isn't a rapist or thar bad in the book (also not true). There's also legitimate complaints about some scenes and writing choices or the cinematography, but the ones ranring aren't coming from a place of legitimate criticism of the show quality A Rant and Rave thread about HotD is the last thing we need. You can just gp to Twitter for that.

You never watched Buffy, I assume.

If Dorne is supposed to have warm Mediterranean climate, how and why would King's Landing, with its geographical placement and on top of it being on the sea coast, have London's climate? What's the climate of the Riverlands then? The Vale?! I don't see how a cold climate would make any sense. Modelled after London in some respects doesn't mean it is London.

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not a body part 7 Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 8. Not made of metal 9. Not made of cloth

1. Not a character 2. Object 3. Can be held 4. Not a weapon. (Although it proved to be very powerful anyway!) 5. Seen in Westeros 6. Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point. 7. Not made of metal 6. Not a body part

Not in possession of the Ironborn at any point.