Four New Cast Members Announced

[BlackLightning]

On 4/28/2023 at 10:18 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

I don’t think the show is going to depict Rhaenyra as a tyrant in any way, to be honest. I think they’re going to portray her fall from grace entirely as the product of the patriarchy working against her. That’s basically what the writers have been saying out loud since before the first episode premiered.

I'd go even so far as to say that they can't depict Rhaenyra as a tyrant in any way

D&D ruined that. They basically spoiled the ending of the Dance because the ending of GoT was basically the bastardized, chopped 'n screwed ending of the Dance

I think a lot of the ASOIAF fandom really underestimated the outcry at the way that Daenerys was depicted in the last few episodes.

They gave Rhaenyra's ending to Daenerys. So, unless they want to communicate the idea that women in power is a bad idea because they will become mentally unstable, mass-murdering, power-hungry tyrants, they're going to have to change Rhaenyra's story.

On 4/28/2023 at 11:15 AM, Annara Snow said:

Alyn has to marry Baela and to become Lord of the Tides after Corlys's death, otherwise why is he even on the show? 

Agreed

This can be part of the final episodes of the show

On 4/28/2023 at 11:15 AM, Annara Snow said:

Alys is important during the Dance, but her story is extremely incomplete if she just disappears from the show after Aemond's death, or if we see her giving birth, that's a nice payoff but not as good as her becoming the Witch Queen of Harrenhal and defying the crow with a bunch of Broken Men loyal to her  They have to film the scene where Ser Regis dies (however they portray his death) after saying that "baseborn whelp of a kinslayer and a milk cow" line. 

And those things happen in the early years of the Regency, together with Alicent's deat, which has to be in the finale. Olivia is going to kill that. They could even bring back Emma to have Alicent have an imaginary conversation with Rhaenyra. 

On 4/28/2023 at 11:15 AM, Annara Snow said:

We need to see all Nettles as the Fire Witch in the Vale, and the Widow Fairs, etc.

Also agreed 100%

On 4/28/2023 at 10:09 AM, Lord Varys said:

Well, the KG was down to four knights at the time, and they were apparently all assigned to Aegon II himself. But, yes, it is kind of odd that the queen and the king's heirs don't have any bodyguards of their own. Or at least not all that many.

It is not kind of odd. It's inexcusable.

The Greens started a succession war but they refuse to adequately protect the heirs of the King that they are puppeteering. Forget about the queen consort and the queen mother. It's all about the heirs.

Why does Aegon II need four knights to protect him?

[BlackLightning]

On 4/28/2023 at 4:36 PM, Lord Varys said:

There is no narrative reason to have a Dance show deal with post-Dance stuff. The logical endpoint for this show is the wedding-coronation of King Aegon III and Queen Jaehaera.

I STRONGLY disagree with you here

On 4/28/2023 at 1:08 PM, Annara Snow said:

We'll see her ruling against the Rosby snd Stockworth women (though she may be sad about it), and this backfiring later

I'm sorry but I don't see how the situation with the Rosby and Stokeworth women is the same as Rhaenyra's. Am I forgetting some details?

[The Bard of Banefort]

I think the smartest thing they could do is condense the post-war period. Most people aren’t going to want to watch the show after every main character aside from Alicent and Corlys is dead. Have Cregan Stark come down to clean things up for an episode or two, then end the show with a reunion between Aegon and Viserys. This is sacrilege for some book fans, but I think they could easily cut everything concerning Unwin Peake, and they should have Jaehaera live as the last green survivor. Maybe also skip Rhaena’s wedding to Corwyn and show her marrying the Hightower guy instead. They could also close the circle by showing Aegon crippled by his grief and Viserys being “strong for the both of them”—only unlike Daemon, Viserys actually does have the makings of a true ruler.

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I'd go even so far as to say that they can't depict Rhaenyra as a tyrant in any way

D&D ruined that. They basically spoiled the ending of the Dance because the ending of GoT was basically the bastardized, chopped 'n screwed ending of the Dance

I think a lot of the ASOIAF fandom really underestimated the outcry at the way that Daenerys was depicted in the last few episodes.

They gave Rhaenyra's ending to Daenerys. So, unless they want to communicate the idea that women in power is a bad idea because they will become mentally unstable, mass-murdering, power-hungry tyrants, they're going to have to change Rhaenyra's story.

Agreed

This can be part of the final episodes of the show

Also agreed 100%

It is not kind of odd. It's inexcusable.

The Greens started a succession war but they refuse to adequately protect the heirs of the King that they are puppeteering. Forget about the queen consort and the queen mother. It's all about the heirs.

Why does Aegon II need four knights to protect him?

I fully expect them to portray Rhaenyra’s death as her desperately trying to warn Aegon of the White Walkers while he shouts “dracarys!” over her.

I can live with them having Larys manipulating the smallfolk to revolt against Rhaenyra, but I’ve also seen some people theorize that the showrunners will try to be deep and make the Dragonpit an analog for the capitol riot and. . . just. . . no. No. That would be the biggest hack move they could possibly come up with. Hell to the no.

My only hope is that, since we know the writers are reading reviews (Ryan Condal has already said there’ll be more humor going forward), that enough people have written about how they miss female characters like Cersei for them to take notice.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I'd go even so far as to say that they can't depict Rhaenyra as a tyrant in any way

D&D ruined that. They basically spoiled the ending of the Dance because the ending of GoT was basically the bastardized, chopped 'n screwed ending of the Dance.

I'd not completely agree with the assessment. GoT has another Targaryen queen being betrayed and murdered by a close relative ... but Rhaenyra isn't really portrayed as a tyrant in the book. First she is absent weakling whose campaign is completely in the hands of the men around her ... and then she is the weakling in charge who fails to actually take charge when her enemies close in around her.

But of course the way Dany was treated makes it effectively impossible that Rhaenyra's end will be depicted in a way that makes the audience think of Daenerys. So she can most definitely not appear as if she is losing it. And I'd say she can also not be fed to Sunfyre by Aegon II. I'd be very surprised if that actually happened. They already proved they are willing to throw the source material out the window with Laenor not dying.

My best guess for Rhaenyra's end would be that her death is going to be faked again - and by Alicent of all people who will not allow that her old friend is going to be murdered. There would be two ways to do this - either by having Alicent being there with Rhaenyra when Aegon II captures her on Dragonstone ... or by Aegon II taking both Rhaenyra and Aegon the Younger prisoner, dragging both their asses back to KL and executing Rhaenyra there, say, as part of the festivities of his formal restoration to the Iron Throne. Alicent would then have another woman being executed in Rhaenyra's place, perhaps with the show somehow using the Mance glamor plot which was never used in GoT.

Rhaenyra would then entrusted to friends of Alicent's who ship her to Essos so she is unable to do anything when Aegon II falls and Aegon III is crowned and then Rhaenyra decides to not interfere in things. Kind of like Edward II allegedly survived his own death and then retired somewhere in Italy as to not mess up the reign of his son, Edward III.

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

The Greens started a succession war but they refuse to adequately protect the heirs of the King that they are puppeteering. Forget about the queen consort and the queen mother. It's all about the heirs.

Why does Aegon II need four knights to protect him?

I don't know. Could be that he assigned some KG to Aemond instead of Helaena and the children - could have been a wise move in the wake of Luke's murder. But it could also be that Aegon II, being an asshole, was one of the kings who - originally, at least - reserved KG protection only for his person. And we should not forget that Helaena did enter her mother's apartments with one guardsman accompanying her who was then slain by Blood. They were not completely defenseless. It would make sense for King Aegon II to eventually name a sworn shield to his heir ... but Tommen has no sworn shield until he is sent away by Cersei, I think. And Myrcella only gains Arys Oakheart when Tyrion sends her to Dorne.

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I STRONGLY disagree with you here

To make myself clear here - the end of the Dance as such is anticlimactic as hell. The real story effectively ends with Rhaenyra being driven out of the city and her eventual death. Everything afterwards is a boring and kind of weird epilogue where broken and stupid characters allow themselves to be led to the slaughter by an insidious cripple.

The show would be well advised to condense all that material. The Hour of the Wolf can work as the ending of the show, one episode, say, ending with Aegon III's wedding-coronation. Then we can fade into black.

The Regency is a new story ... and one lacking a proper ending. If they want to do that, they need another 3-4 seasons or so. And even that they should, perhaps, do with a new show with a new title ... because the Regency clearly will focus on new main characters aside from Aegon III, Baela, and Rhaena.

They need to deal with the issue of Viserys' return somehow, of course. But that can be managed.

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I'm sorry but I don't see how the situation with the Rosby and Stokeworth women is the same as Rhaenyra's. Am I forgetting some details?

Pretty sure that kind of thing will be reversed in the show - if they include it. In the show Rhaenyra will favor the women ... and then that might come back to haunt her.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think the smartest thing they could do is condense the post-war period. Most people aren’t going to want to watch the show after every main character aside from Alicent and Corlys is dead. Have Cregan Stark come down to clean things up for an episode or two, then end the show with a reunion between Aegon and Viserys. This is sacrilege for some book fans, but I think they could easily cut everything concerning Unwin Peake, and they should have Jaehaera live as the last green survivor. Maybe also skip Rhaena’s wedding to Corwyn and show her marrying the Hightower guy instead. They could also close the circle by showing Aegon crippled by his grief and Viserys being “strong for the both of them”—only unlike Daemon, Viserys actually does have the makings of a true ruler.

If they end things with the wedding-coronation then Jaehaera definitely will survive the show. But that doesn't mean she will be the mother of the children of Aegon III.

Baela and Rhaena are visibly older than their book counterparts and they will need stuff to do - so there should be romances and stuff for them during the Dance. If they have Corwyn Corbray he could marry Rhaena during the show ... and Baela could properly married to Alyn soon after Jace's death as to smooth over the Velaryon succession.

I also think there is room for the introduction of Daenaera Velaryon even if they don't include her eventual marriage to Aegon III (although they could allude or foreshadow that by her being close companion of Aegon III later during the war). Rather than some obscure Velaryon cousin (Vaemond doesn't seem to have children in the show), Daenaera could be a posthumous daughter of either Jace and Baela or Jace and Sara Snow. In that capacity she would be a child Rhaenyra's family would care very much from the day of her birth.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I fully expect them to portray Rhaenyra’s death as her desperately trying to warn Aegon of the White Walkers while he shouts “dracarys!” over her.

I think that would be a little bit too much.

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I can live with them having Larys manipulating the smallfolk to revolt against Rhaenyra, but I’ve also seen some people theorize that the showrunners will try to be deep and make the Dragonpit an analog for the capitol riot and. . . just. . . no. No. That would be the biggest hack move they could possibly come up with. Hell to the no.

We have to wait and see what they will do with the Larys character. So far his creepiness towards Alicent strongly indicates he couldn't care less about the Green cause ... so once we reach the riot he might not really do what he does to help Aegon II's cause. I'd not be surprised if Mysaria is going to play a role there, depending how they depict the Nettles and Addam situation. I mean, if Mysaria, say, fucks with Rhaenyra and forges a letter demanding Nettles execution then Rhaenyra could eventually figure that out ... causing Mysaria to go underground and using her assets to cause a riot.

But in general even the book makes it clear Green agents and Green supporters are part of riot movement. Even the Shepherd could have been propped up by Green agents ... but he quickly developed a mind of his own, jumping on the chance to get rid of all the dragons and House Targaryen as a whole. Wat the Tanner and his guys seem the only rioting faction that were driven mostly by genuine anger/fear with no hidden agenda behind their outward actions.

[The Bard of Banefort]

8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I'd not completely agree with the assessment. GoT has another Targaryen queen being betrayed and murdered by a close relative ... but Rhaenyra isn't really portrayed as a tyrant in the book. First she is absent weakling whose campaign is completely in the hands of the men around her ... and then she is the weakling in charge who fails to actually take charge when her enemies close in around her.

But of course the way Dany was treated makes it effectively impossible that Rhaenyra's end will be depicted in a way that makes the audience think of Daenerys. So she can most definitely not appear as if she is losing it. And I'd say she can also not be fed to Sunfyre by Aegon II. I'd be very surprised if that actually happened. They already proved they are willing to throw the source material out the window with Laenor not dying.

My best guess for Rhaenyra's end would be that her death is going to be faked again - and by Alicent of all people who will not allow that her old friend is going to be murdered. There would be two ways to do this - either by having Alicent being there with Rhaenyra when Aegon II captures her on Dragonstone ... or by Aegon II taking both Rhaenyra and Aegon the Younger prisoner, dragging both their asses back to KL and executing Rhaenyra there, say, as part of the festivities of his formal restoration to the Iron Throne. Alicent would then have another woman being executed in Rhaenyra's place, perhaps with the show somehow using the Mance glamor plot which was never used in GoT.

Rhaenyra would then entrusted to friends of Alicent's who ship her to Essos so she is unable to do anything when Aegon II falls and Aegon III is crowned and then Rhaenyra decides to not interfere in things. Kind of like Edward II allegedly survived his own death and then retired somewhere in Italy as to not mess up the reign of his son, Edward III.

I don't know. Could be that he assigned some KG to Aemond instead of Helaena and the children - could have been a wise move in the wake of Luke's murder. But it could also be that Aegon II, being an asshole, was one of the kings who - originally, at least - reserved KG protection only for his person. And we should not forget that Helaena did enter her mother's apartments with one guardsman accompanying her who was then slain by Blood. They were not completely defenseless. It would make sense for King Aegon II to eventually name a sworn shield to his heir ... but Tommen has no sworn shield until he is sent away by Cersei, I think. And Myrcella only gains Arys Oakheart when Tyrion sends her to Dorne.

To make myself clear here - the end of the Dance as such is anticlimactic as hell. The real story effectively ends with Rhaenyra being driven out of the city and her eventual death. Everything afterwards is a boring and kind of weird epilogue where broken and stupid characters allow themselves to be led to the slaughter by an insidious cripple.

The show would be well advised to condense all that material. The Hour of the Wolf can work as the ending of the show, one episode, say, ending with Aegon III's wedding-coronation. Then we can fade into black.

The Regency is a new story ... and one lacking a proper ending. If they want to do that, they need another 3-4 seasons or so. And even that they should, perhaps, do with a new show with a new title ... because the Regency clearly will focus on new main characters aside from Aegon III, Baela, and Rhaena.

They need to deal with the issue of Viserys' return somehow, of course. But that can be managed.

Pretty sure that kind of thing will be reversed in the show - if they include it. In the show Rhaenyra will favor the women ... and then that might come back to haunt her.

If they end things with the wedding-coronation then Jaehaera definitely will survive the show. But that doesn't mean she will be the mother of the children of Aegon III.

Baela and Rhaena are visibly older than their book counterparts and they will need stuff to do - so there should be romances and stuff for them during the Dance. If they have Corwyn Corbray he could marry Rhaena during the show ... and Baela could properly married to Alyn soon after Jace's death as to smooth over the Velaryon succession.

I also think there is room for the introduction of Daenaera Velaryon even if they don't include her eventual marriage to Aegon III (although they could allude or foreshadow that by her being close companion of Aegon III later during the war). Rather than some obscure Velaryon cousin (Vaemond doesn't seem to have children in the show), Daenaera could be a posthumous daughter of either Jace and Baela or Jace and Sara Snow. In that capacity she would be a child Rhaenyra's family would care very much from the day of her birth.

I think that would be a little bit too much.

We have to wait and see what they will do with the Larys character. So far his creepiness towards Alicent strongly indicates he couldn't care less about the Green cause ... so once we reach the riot he might not really do what he does to help Aegon II's cause. I'd not be surprised if Mysaria is going to play a role there, depending how they depict the Nettles and Addam situation. I mean, if Mysaria, say, fucks with Rhaenyra and forges a letter demanding Nettles execution then Rhaenyra could eventually figure that out ... causing Mysaria to go underground and using her assets to cause a riot.

But in general even the book makes it clear Green agents and Green supporters are part of riot movement. Even the Shepherd could have been propped up by Green agents ... but he quickly developed a mind of his own, jumping on the chance to get rid of all the dragons and House Targaryen as a whole. Wat the Tanner and his guys seem the only rioting faction that were driven mostly by genuine anger/fear with no hidden agenda behind their outward actions.

They can show her being fed to Sunfyre because this time she isn’t being put down like a rabid dog by the pure-hearted male protagonist, but shamefully murdered by the deformed, degenerate usurper. She will literally be killed by the patriarchy. 

As for being a weakling, she has been very passive since the time jump (since the third episode, really), so that might stay the same.

The irony is, the Dance does have a feminist ending of sorts. The war ends because of the efforts made by the widows who were now in power. But GOT did that too, with Sansa, Brienne, and Yara all ending up in positions of power at the end, and people still hated it.

[Annara Snow]

11 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I STRONGLY disagree with you here

I'm sorry but I don't see how the situation with the Rosby and Stokeworth women is the same as Rhaenyra's. Am I forgetting some details?

It's the same because it's about absolute primogeniture and older sisters inheriting over their younger brothers.

They hoped Rhaenyra would support them, but, advised by Corlys, who said the lords would be against it, she ruled in the favor of the rights of younger brothers over their older sisters, comfirming that she considers herself an exception (because her father, the king, said so).

Which should dispell the silly notion - promoted by a huge part of Team Black fans - that Rhaenyra is some kind of feminist or that her being the ruling queen would help other women. It was just about her, of course. Not that this is wrong, in itself, but people should stop making Rhaenyra into something she is not. (She's already made that clear when she said "Baela's sons" would inherit the throne.)

And one of the women she ruled against certainly didn't take it well  since she refused to give her shelter later when she fled KL.

[Annara Snow]

10 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think the smartest thing they could do is condense the post-war period. Most people aren’t going to want to watch the show after every main character aside from Alicent and Corlys is dead. Have Cregan Stark come down to clean things up for an episode or two, then end the show with a reunion between Aegon and Viserys. This is sacrilege for some book fans, but I think they could easily cut everything concerning Unwin Peake, and they should have Jaehaera live as the last green survivor. Maybe also skip Rhaena’s wedding to Corwyn and show her marrying the Hightower guy instead. They could also close the circle by showing Aegon crippled by his grief and Viserys being “strong for the both of them”—only unlike Daemon, Viserys actually does have the makings of a true ruler.

I fully expect them to portray Rhaenyra’s death as her desperately trying to warn Aegon of the White Walkers while he shouts “dracarys!” over her.

I can live with them having Larys manipulating the smallfolk to revolt against Rhaenyra, but I’ve also seen some people theorize that the showrunners will try to be deep and make the Dragonpit an analog for the capitol riot and. . . just. . . no. No. That would be the biggest hack move they could possibly come up with. Hell to the no.

My only hope is that, since we know the writers are reading reviews (Ryan Condal has already said there’ll be more humor going forward), that enough people have written about how they miss female characters like Cersei for them to take notice.

Quite a few people in the fandom think Jaehaera's death and Aegon marrying Daenaera (especially the way it's described*) is the worst thing GRRM wrote re: the Dance and should be changed. (I think he only wrote it because he realized he had written himself into a corner with Daena naming her son Daemon, which makes no sense if she's Jaehaera's daughter, but didn't want to change the Blackfyre backstory) I think they could just skip that, show the immediate aftermath the couple of years after the Dance, minus that, cut Unwin Peake altogether, and do a flashforward to Aegon and Viserys reuniting. 

 

*13 year old Aegon being smitten by the "beauty" of a 6 year old is something that only makes sense in F&B if it's a romanticized legend of what was really Aegon agreeing to what his cousins were arguing for, because they're his cousins and because he doesn't really care anyway. The F&B narrators sound like pedophiles at least half of time, but that doesn't mean otherwise sympathetic Aegon III should be made one.

[Annara Snow]

12 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I'd go even so far as to say that they can't depict Rhaenyra as a tyrant in any way

D&D ruined that. They basically spoiled the ending of the Dance because the ending of GoT was basically the bastardized, chopped 'n screwed ending of the Dance

I think a lot of the ASOIAF fandom really underestimated the outcry at the way that Daenerys was depicted in the last few episodes.

They gave Rhaenyra's ending to Daenerys. So, unless they want to communicate the idea that women in power is a bad idea because they will become mentally unstable, mass-murdering, power-hungry tyrants, they're going to have to change Rhaenyra's story.

Agreed

This can be part of the final episodes of the show

Also agreed 100%

It is not kind of odd. It's inexcusable.

The Greens started a succession war but they refuse to adequately protect the heirs of the King that they are puppeteering. Forget about the queen consort and the queen mother. It's all about the heirs.

Why does Aegon II need four knights to protect him?

They gave Dany CERSEI's ending.

Rhaenyra's ending is not GoT Dany's ending. Nor is Rhaenyra's arc at any point Dany's arc.

Dany is a self-made liberator of slaves, girl who grew up in exile, poverty and helplessness, was abused by her brother, sold and raped, before managing to attain power by herself, hatching dragons in a miracle magic ritual she risked her life for, and then going on to use that power to topple slavery and free slaves, gaining undying loyalty of thousands, who called her "Mother", and emnity of the slaving nobility and others whose profit depended on that system.

And then the show had her go suddenly crazy, obliterate an entire city for no reason, become uber-evil, and then had her put down by her lover, the heroic protagonist.

 

Rhaenyra is a princess who grew up in privilege  and was given everything on a silver platter by her father, including to be his heir (not because he believed women should rule in general, but because he wanted her to rule specifically, as an exception) before he died and her rivals usurped her throne. She's not fighting for anyone other than herself and her immediate family. And there's nothing wrong with a royal fighting for their throne. But the only thing she has in common with Dany is that they're both silver haired Targaryen princesses with dragons who are trying to become ruling queens. Rhaenyra is more like a mix of Stannis and Arianne than she's Dany.

And Rhaenyra doesn't actually go mad, nor does she start killing and burning masses of people - if anything, she's too passive as a dragonrider, compared to many other dragonriding Targs. She encounters big obstacles, makes mistakes and acts short-sighted. She overtaxes the smallfolk to make up for the lack of treasury and doesn't think about how they will feel about her lavish feast in honor of her son. She gets bad reputation as a cruel woman partially because of what happens to Helaena's children - Blood & Cheese, which was mostly likely her husband's doing she might not have known nothing beforehand, and what happens to Maelor, which is partially her fault because she put a bounty on a toddler, but she probably never expected the outcome. She makes mistakes, shows that she doesn't particularly care for smallfolk (duh!) or the rights of other women (duh!), shows that she's a hypocrite when it comes to bastards, orders torture and executions (which is tyrannical but just as much as monarchs tend to be while fighting a civil war), and gets increasingly paranoid so she starts alienating her allies; she turns against Nettles and says some very racist and sexist things against her, then also against Addam, at which point she really alienates her main allies and shoots herself in the foot.

Basically, she shows herself to be an incompetent ruler under pressure*, and her flaws that were there all along grow to stare you in the face, and she becomes increasingly unlikable to both the people in-universe (with Helaena's death as an inciting incident that will probably get compared by the media to Princess Diana's death) and to the audience, and, in modern parlance, problematic (#RhaenyraCancelled, #NettlesDeservedBetter, #AddamDeservedBetter). She doesn't go from heroic revolutionary beloved by the people (which she never was) to a raving madwoman cackling evilly while she burns cities (which she never becomes). And she's not put down by a hero protagonist, she's captured and cruelly killed by her rival for the throne, who's very far from being heroic or noble, and who then goes on to be murdered himself later.

*Could Rhaenyra have been a good ruler under different circumstances? I expect the show to play with that question. Would things have been completely different if Rhaenyra and Alicent were able to remain friends and support each other? I think we'll see the show asking that question. The story is a tragedy, so it works best when the protagonists have their fatal flaws, but you also have a sense that things might have turned out better if only...

[Ran]

52 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

(I think he only wrote it because he realized he had written himself into a corner with Daena naming her son Daemon, which makes no sense if she's Jaehaera's daughter, but didn't want to change the Blackfyre backstory)

There's no reason that Daemon Targaryen had to be named Daemon Targaryen. He didn't even exist in George's first Targaryen family tree, the one that introduced Daemon Blackfyre. Neither did Jaehaera or Daenaera for that matter.

OTOH, that Aegon III had more than one wife was always there in that earliest tree from 1999, and that one was a Velaryon was always there as well.

The age difference between Daenaera and Aegon was dictated by the canonical details he had established regarding the ages of various Targaryen rulers, I think. He had the general shape of the Dance in his head for awhile, that it was ended with Rhaenyra and Aegon II both dead, and Rhaenyra's son Aegon marrying a Targaryen bride, who would be followed by a Velaryon bride. However, he was constrained by the age ranges he had established for characters, and so he concluded that the only way for Aegon to have a string of kids beginning in 143 is if his wife was not of childbearing age until that point. Which necessitated making her very young at her marriage, especially as he seems to have decided that the first wife died quite quickly and the second wife followed hard on that.

 

 

 

[Annara Snow]

45 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's no reason that Daemon Targaryen had to be named Daemon Targaryen. He didn't even exist in George's first Targaryen family tree, the one that introduced Daemon Blackfyre. Neither did Jaehaera or Daenaera for that matter.

OTOH, that Aegon III had more than one wife was always there in that earliest tree from 1999, and that one was a Velaryon was always there as well.

The age difference between Daenaera and Aegon was dictated by the canonical details he had established regarding the ages of various Targaryen rulers, I think. He had the general shape of the Dance in his head for awhile, that it was ended with Rhaenyra and Aegon II both dead, and Rhaenyra's son Aegon marrying a Targaryen bride, who would be followed by a Velaryon bride. However, he was constrained by the age ranges he had established for characters, and so he concluded that the only way for Aegon to have a string of kids beginning in 143 is if his wife was not of childbearing age until that point. Which necessitated making her very young at her marriage, especially as he seems to have decided that the first wife died quite quickly and the second wife followed hard on that.

 

 

 

Thank you.

Now my opinion of GRRM is much worse.

Because apparently it's perfectly fine to have 13 year old mothers (or fathers), but completely out of question to have royals start having children in their 20s. There was no reason why this is how his Westeros had to be like that. "Historical accuracy" it's not. In real life European Middle Ages, 13 year old mothers were very rare (Margaret Beaufort was a very specific and unusual case; there was a rumor that king John - someone with a very bad reputation, especially regarding his sexual behavior- consummated his marriage with his second wife when she was 13, but she only became a mother at 19), and it was normal to wait till the bride is older for consummation, even if the church allowed it after first period. And there were also nobles who only started having children in their 20s, even if they married younger (Richard Duke of York and Cecily Neville, who went on to have 12).

It's also no excuse as he could have easily said they had older children who died in infancy.

Nothing was forcing him to include so much normalised pedophilia and hebephilia in F&B and the resr of pseudo-histories, and this is a writing choice that's hard to defend. At some point depiction does start looking like endorsement.

Edited May 2 by Annara Snow

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

but completely out of question to have royals start having children in their 20s.

The idea that a fertile adult woman would be married for nearly a decade and then have a string of five kids in a row was the issue.  

Certainly, he had already established that in Westeros it was understood that 15 is a perfectly fine age at which to have children for women, so she needs to be substantially younger than that when she marries.

 

5 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

othing was forcing him to include so much normalised pedophilia and ephebophilia in F&B and the resr of pseudo-histories, and this is a writing choice that's hard to defend. At some point depiction does start looking like endorsement.

This sounds like Tumblr brain rot syndrome to me, and a you problem, not a GRRM problem.

[Annara Snow]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

The idea that a fertile adult woman would be married for nearly a decade and then have a string of five kids in a row was the issue.  

Certainly, he had already established that in Westeros it was understood that 15 is a perfectly fine age at which to have children for women, so she needs to be substantially younger than that when she marries.

 

This sounds like Tumblr brain rot syndrome to me, and a you problem, not a GRRM problem.

1) Aegon and Jaehaera were nowhere near adulthood when they married, so that phrasing is odd. But anyway:

Cecily Neville was married to Richard Duke of York when she was 14, and had her first child at the age of 24. She went on to give birth to 12 children in total, 7 of whom survived infancy.

2) No, that's definitely a GRRM problem, and a you problem. Trust me, the "brain rot" of disliking the normalisation of pedophilia and hebephilia is, fortunately, not confined to Tumblr.

Edited May 2 by Annara Snow

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

) Cecily Neville was married to Richard Duke of York when she was 14, and had her first child at the age of 24. She went on to give birth to 12 children in total, 7 of whom survived infancy.

Again, GRRM has already established that 16 is the age seen as appropriate. Not 25. Different cultures, different standards, reality vs. fiction.

5 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

disliking the normalisation of pedophilia and hebephilia

It's fiction about a fictional world. It normalizes nothing about the real world. The "brain rot" is the belief that what a writer creates is intended to have an effect on the material world rather than just being, you know, fiction.

I would suggest moving on to some other topic to browbeat people about.

Edited May 2 by Ran

[Annara Snow]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

Again, GRRM has already established that 16 is the age seen as appropriate. Not 25. Different cultures, different standards.

It's fiction about a fictional world. It normalizes nothing about the real world. The "brain rot" is the belief that what a writer creates is intended to have an effect on the material world. 

I would suggest moving on to some other topic to browbeat people about.

1) It was normal to start having kids before the age of 24 in real world too. This is an example that exceptions happen.

2) So he created the fictional world like that for no reason whatsoever, just because it's fun like that? Not to say anything at all? All those descriptions of war crimes and war devastation in ASOIAF had nothing to do with anti-war stance?

If all the extremely young mothers (and sometimes fathers) are meant as a criticism of such practices, that gets lost if you exaggerate it so everyone does it and portray it as something with no bad consequences.

 

(ETA: and motherhood at young age still portrayed as bad in F&B in some cases like Daella Targaryen, but with Daenaera, not really and I don't see why Aegon III's wife had to be that young, there's no point to it)

Edited May 2 by Annara Snow

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

They can show her being fed to Sunfyre because this time she isn’t being put down like a rabid dog by the pure-hearted male protagonist, but shamefully murdered by the deformed, degenerate usurper. She will literally be killed by the patriarchy. 

I've trouble viewing Aegon II as depicted as an agent of the patriarchy. But we'll have to wait and see.

11 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

As for being a weakling, she has been very passive since the time jump (since the third episode, really), so that might stay the same.

Oh, she seduced her uncle and declared she would marry him, she was in charge of her marriage to Laenor, she argued forcefully at the council table ... and her final scene doesn't indicate she is going to be depressed now. In a sense I think she is very much holding herself together when she learns about the coup. She is more controlled than Daemon and knows she has to control herself because with him at her side somebody has to keep her cool. But deep down she fully capable to unleash her fire.

Emma's version, that is, not George's version.

11 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

The irony is, the Dance does have a feminist ending of sorts. The war ends because of the efforts made by the widows who were now in power. But GOT did that too, with Sansa, Brienne, and Yara all ending up in positions of power at the end, and people still hated it.

The widows just agree to terms, they don't come up with the idea. Lady Sam plays a more active part, but Lady Johanna and Lady Elenda basically have no other choice.

3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Which should dispell the silly notion - promoted by a huge part of Team Black fans - that Rhaenyra is some kind of feminist or that her being the ruling queen would help other women. It was just about her, of course. Not that this is wrong, in itself, but people should stop making Rhaenyra into something she is not. (She's already made that clear when she said "Baela's sons" would inherit the throne.)

That is something you seem to be desperately wishing for. Pretty much all women in the show are feminist, and Rhaenyra most of all. Viserys I and Corlys are feminists, too, with their agreement to use Dornish-style succession customs for the Iron Throne in the Rhaenyra-Laenor deal. And Corlys is, too, to a point, by pushing Rhaenys' claim.

Even Alicent is feminist in her supporting Rhaenyra's claim, her being concerned for her that a brother would push her out of her position, her defending her as a good queen in talks with her father, etc. Not to mention the feminist talk she has with Rhaenys in episode 9.

Rhaenyra is clearly the most radical feminist there, demanding a man's freedom for herself ... and her talk about her creating a new order once she is queen is likely something the show will depict. We can be sure that she doesn't do the shit book Rhaenyra did with the Rosbys and Stokeworths, we can expect Rhaenyra to have women and men on her council, etc.

And it would make sense if her decreeing that henceforth all lordships in Westeros will follow equal primogeniture is going to be one of the reasons why she might face a lot of opposition later in her reign in the show.

2 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

*13 year old Aegon being smitten by the "beauty" of a 6 year old is something that only makes sense in F&B if it's a romanticized legend of what was really Aegon agreeing to what his cousins were arguing for, because they're his cousins and because he doesn't really care anyway. The F&B narrators sound like pedophiles at least half of time, but that doesn't mean otherwise sympathetic Aegon III should be made one.

I think you are obviously thinking in very, ah, interesting terms if you think Aegon III was actually 'smitten' by Daenaera. Yes, she would have been a very beautiful young girl ... but still a young girl, so whatever this was it wouldn't have been sexual. Daenaera is described as a sweet and nice and very beautiful girl who quickly wins the hearts of others ... but not by means of seduction or becuse she is attractive in a sexual way. She is only six years old at the time. And about 8-9 at the end of the book. And there is also no indication Gyldayn interpreted it that way. But, more importantly, it strikes one as very likely that Baela and Rhaena instructed Aegon that they would eventually bring in his future queen ... and that's just what then happened. It would have been a very private conversation between the royal siblings and a way to thwart Unwin Peake. Something nobody ever talked about later, though, so Gyldayn was stuck with the 'the girl presented by the king's sisters won his heart' narrative all the reports from the ball would have spread.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

The age difference between Daenaera and Aegon was dictated by the canonical details he had established regarding the ages of various Targaryen rulers, I think. He had the general shape of the Dance in his head for awhile, that it was ended with Rhaenyra and Aegon II both dead, and Rhaenyra's son Aegon marrying a Targaryen bride, who would be followed by a Velaryon bride. However, he was constrained by the age ranges he had established for characters, and so he concluded that the only way for Aegon to have a string of kids beginning in 143 is if his wife was not of childbearing age until that point. Which necessitated making her very young at her marriage, especially as he seems to have decided that the first wife died quite quickly and the second wife followed hard on that.

While George may have thought along those lines ... that is not really a good reason for that. They could have just had trouble conceiving children for a longer time. Or Aegon III being who and what he was may have simply not consummated his marriage to either bride for years after the wedding. Especially with Jaehaera who could have easily lived longer, the marriage being childless because neither spouse were willing to actually consummate it because of all the Dance baggage. Their age gap already was enough for this only becoming something Aegon could try to do once he himself came of age ... and then nobody could actually try to force the king to bed his wife.

And it is not that he thinks much about those things in the case of, say, Aemon-Jocelyn where we have no clue why they have only one child.

There was, of course, also no narrative reason to have all of Aegon III's children be children of the second wife. He could have added older children, sons and daughters by Jaehaera, who either died early or played little to no role in politics since they were female and Daeron and Baelor were the male heirs.

15 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

If all the extremely young mothers (and sometimes fathers) are meant as a criticism of such practices, that gets lost if you exaggerate it so everyone does it and portray it as something with no bad consequences.

You do have to differentiate between depicting men lusting after young/teenage girls (which is a thing in the actual book series with Tyrion and Sandor and others) and child marriage as an institution. Arranged marriage is neither about love nor (necessarily) about consensual sex, so Tommen being married to Margaery or Jaehaera or Daenaera being married to Aegon III (or Aegon III to Jaehaera) has literally nothing to do with a depiction of pedophilia, etc. ... but is simply a depiction of a kind of child abuse that happens to noble and royal children if adult people (not even their parents in those circumstances) force them into marriages for reasons of state.

The depiction of that fits very well with both medieval and modern nobility and royalty did (and still kind of do) such things.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Annara Snow said:

1) It was normal to start having kids before the age of 24 in real world too. This is an example that exceptions happen.

The whys and wherefors of it are all quite unknown, but regardless, George's lack of imagination to come up with some reason to have the mother be 25 instead of 16 seems like a weird thing to complain about when it doesn't actually matter what age she was outside of the logic of needing to fit together the ages of characters who had already been established. The number of people who read these books and decide, hey, they're going to get married to a 6-year-old is nil.

1 hour ago, Annara Snow said:

2) So he created the fictional world like that for no reason whatsoever, just because it's fun like that?

I assume the first principles of the setting was that a number of very young characters were going to be central protagonists, and the world was built towards that fact. In this, he was as much influenced by his understanding of the Middle Ages through works such as Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror which emphasized the extreme youth of many of the notable figures of the 14th century (the central focal character, Enguerrand VII of Coucy, was fighting in battles at the age of 15 and was a leader against the Jacquerie at 18), as I suspect by his personal interest in the colorful Julio-Claudian era of the Roman Empire as dramatized by Robert Graves and others, as we see in his depiction of characters like Stannis. Brides were regularly married and conceiving by the age of 15 in that era, yet I don't recall anyone feeling a need to call Graves or any other writer as someone who is "normalizing pedophilia" because they wrote about that culture.

1 hour ago, Annara Snow said:

Not to say anything at all?

The age of characters at marriage and birth is a world building detail for the most part It is not there to critique anything, it's just there.

1 hour ago, Annara Snow said:

All those descriptions of war crimes and war devastation in ASOIAF had nothing to do with anti-war stance?

That's obviously thematic, and George says as much. But he writes about wars and fighting and battles in part because he admits they are exciting things for readers to read.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Sometimes I think George’s problem is that he watches too much TV. It used to be very common (and still is, to a degree) for 20- and 30-somethings to play teenagers on TV. If you don’t spend a lot of time around kids, it’s probably pretty easy to forget that that isn’t what teens look like in real life. It would explain why, rather than puberty kicking off the awkward hormonal years, in ASOIAF kids immediately spring into adults with gorgeous bodies the day they turn twelve.

All this serves as a reminder for other reasons why not finishing the books has hurt the series overall. People have very different opinions on what is and isn’t permissible in fiction now than they did in 1996.

Daenara’s grand entrance didn’t bother me so much for her age (although realistically, a 13-year-old boy would likely be much more interested in girls his own age or a bit older than him than he would a 6-year-old) but because it was one of the few times where the Valyrian “blood purity” really went overboard for me. Despite the room being filled with beautiful women, somehow everyone is stunned into silence by the mere sight of her. Only this lily white dragon girl is worthy of the kind and can bring a smile to his lips. It’s so gross.

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

It’s so gross.

Kind of the point. These are people who created an entire new religious doctrine to justify themselves as ubermenschen, after all.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Just now, Ran said:

Kind of the point. These are people who created an entire new religious doctrine to justify themselves as ubermenschen, after all.

Yeah, but this is one of the times I think the books themselves seem to be endorsing the idea of Valyrian blood supremacy. Maybe that wasn’t the intention, but I know I’m not the only one who got the same vibe from that scene. It could have been done better.

[Annara Snow]

29 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Yeah, but this is one of the times I think the books themselves seem to be endorsing the idea of Valyrian blood supremacy. Maybe that wasn’t the intention, but I know I’m not the only one who got the same vibe from that scene. It could have been done better.

The only way I can justify that scene is to assume that it never happened, and it's another instance of Gyldayn writing propaganda during the reign of Aerys II.

However, there's a ton of people in the fandom who take everything the narrator says im Fire & Blood as gospel truth, even wheh it's obviously not written to be taken that way (e.g. Gyldayn calling a Northern bastard girl he never met and claims might not have existed as "half-wild and unwashed", which some seriously quote on Twitter), and who are really invested in the idea of Valyrian blood supremacy, I see them on Twitter all the time getting hundreds of likes...so it probably doesn't help when the book is not obviously challenging those ideas.

At least to me, reading about how everyone was supposedly stunned by the beauty of a 6 year old just because she was Valyrian with silver hair and purple eyes is obviously absurd and my reaction is "lol sure, that happened", but I don't know how many had the same reaction.

Edited May 2 by Annara Snow