It's Kind Of Funny That GRRM Spent Half His Blog Post Explaining The Butterfly Effect, And Conceded That

It's kind of funny that GRRM spent half his blog post explaining the butterfly effect, and conceded that Maelor isn't really a huge character but that his death was a catalyst for larger things happening with Helaena and Rhaenyra that were important to the story, only for a lot of fans to end up saying stuff like "why does george care about baby targ one million that doesn't do anything before dying"

the writers seriously had viserys choose a girl younger than his daughter as his bride. they had him and his brother humiliate her. they had her conceive all her children through him martially raping her. they had him berate alicent right after his bastard grandson permanently disabled his son, who he interrogated instead of comfort. they had him neglect all his children. they had alicent, who was once a young girl he raped and humiliated, told aegon (who viserys also neglected) that she’d hope he’d be “half the king his father was”. they had her tell rhaenyra she loved viserys.

meanwhile book!alicent literally let her husband’s corpse rot and swell.

if you can’t see that the writers are making their female characters passive and removing any ambitions and aspirations they had in the books (except for rhaenyra, who is the only woman in house of the dragon who is allowed to flaunt her privilege or have ambitions), then idk dude.

there was never any hope for Rhaenyra to have a good relationship with the green kids regardless of what Alicent did because the green kids lived with Viserys and saw and felt the favouritism of Rhaenyra which was always bound to bleed resentment, more importantly Rhaenyra knew and never did anything about it she liked that her father blatantly loved her more over his other children, the only way she felt like she was enough for him was if he was choosing her over his other kids. the “thank you father” on Driftmark was her rubbing it in Alicent and her siblings faces that Viserys would always choose her.

Rhaenyra had a traumatic miscarriage like 2 minutes ago and now she's riding around on a dragon to look tough in front of Otto Hightower.

GIRL YOU HAD A MISCARRIAGE WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU'D BE IN AGONY RIDING THAT THING YOU ARE NOT HOPPING OFF AND RUNNING AROUND ON TWO FEET AFTER THAT

They erased Helaena’s gentleness, her belovednesd and her life-ending despair to give to Rhaenyra, they aged down Alicent and made her betray everything she loved for Rhaenyra, they made Cole sleep with Rhaenyra when he never did in the books because he held to his vows, they erased Mysaria’s flaws to make her a side piece for Rhaenyra, they erased Baela’s wildness and tomboyishness to have her be subservient to Rhaenyra, they erased Nettles to make sure Daemon never had a serious committment with anyone but Rhaenyra, they had the Velaryons ignore that Rhaenyra had caused the deaths of two of their members to be subservient to Rhaenyra, they had Laenor just fuck off and abandon everything so Rhaenyra wouldn’t get her hands dirty, they erased the Silent Five so Rhaenyra wouldn’t get her hands dirty, they made Vaemond’s death completely different so Rhaenyra wouldn’t get her hands dirty, they erased Rhaenyra’s racism and calling for a child’s death so Rhaenyra wouldn’t get her hands dirty, they erased Rhaenyra’s own opulence because sTrong InDePeNdAnT wOmEn cAnNot bE gIrLy, they erased Rhaenyra’s own desire for the throne

And I’m expected to believe this show favours Team Green.

Interesting.

🗣️ every word that came out of alicent's mouth in s2 in regards to aemond and aegon is bad writing. she condemns aegon to public death and aemond to death in battle because she believes - and the writers believe - and we are meant to believe - that they deserve to die, that they are both so irredeemable and fundamentally worthless as human beings because of their crimes (many of which they committed by c&h's own creative choice) that their continued existence is a shameful thorn in alicent's side. the only one she cares about now is helaena because of her "innocence." to have them wiped from existence would be a sort of cleansing for alicent and a reasonable price to pay for her freedom and the end of the war.

like.... in what world??? how am i supposed to buy that aegon and aemond are any worse than daemon?? than viserys? but only the men who support rhaenyra get redemption arcs, even when those redemption arcs do nothing to address the rot in their characters. daemon's most problematic trait isn't that he coveted his wife's throne. it's that he's a misogynist who was physically violent with said wife after he groomed her as a child in retaliation for a conflict with his brother (and i happen to like the guy!!!). it's that he's dismissive of women in general, including laena and his daughters, and was downright nasty to rhea for the entirety of their marriage until he onscreen!murdered her. and okay, some of these, like aemond and aegon's, are fanon crimes, but none of this is ever brought up, none of this is addressed in any meaningful way, it's okay because he bends the knee to rhaenyra and builds her an army and swears to never leave her. redemption. he is a man cleansed of his sins and we must accept him as such.

but aegon and aemond? who are much younger than him? were written off by the narrative long ago. it doesn't matter that aegon got a few sympathetic scenes this season; the fact that they made his mother offer up his life to rhaenyra (and that the scene approves of her decision by framing her as finally free underneath an open sky, with the belief that it's just her and helaena now) tells us everything we need to know.