Listen, Do I Agree With Nmo And The Other Valar About Some Things? No. Do I Sympathize With Him Wayyy

Listen, do I agree with Námo and the other Valar about some things? No. Do I sympathize with him wayyy more than the others? Fuck yeah. Dude deserves a break and to sic his problem on the others (especially Manwe).

— as good a reason; paris paloma

So I saw someone talking about how weird it must have been for the women married into House Targaryen to raise their children to marry each other. Like how difficult it must have been to go against what they personally were raised with and any preexisting instict. And yk, I totally agree with that, and was about to like the post, BUT then I looked at the tags, and you'll never guess who was one of the wome they were talking was. Alicent fucking Hightower. See my issue with Alicent being seen through op's lens is that Alicent, unlike Elia (who was also tagged), she is not the mother to the heir of the throne. Alicent's children are the spare heirs, and Rhaenyra has married a Valyrian lord and had three heirs (by the time of episode 6). Therefore there is no need for Alicent to marry her children to each other, something she did express discomfort with in episode 5, and Viserys has allowed her an unusual amount of say over the marriages. And yet, she forced Helaena to marry Aegon at ages 13 and 15 respectively. Now why would poor Alicent do this? Because she wants to strengthen Aegon's claim in preparation for the greens' coup. Alicent does not deserve pity for what she put her children through, she was shown as having so much power over their lives, yet she did nothing to help them. Is she a victim? In the show, yes, but that doesn't mean she gets to hurt everyone else, including her own fucking kids. I'm not blaming her solely for how her sons turned out, they have free will, they should be held accountable for their own actions. But let's not pretend Alicent is some helpless victim with no say in her life and the lives of her children, especially their marriages.

Everyone blames Duncan and Jenny, Lyanna and Rhaegar for causing wars and bloodshed over their love, but why no one blames the Baratheons for twice starting wars over their own selfishness and hurt ego?

Young Griff: Not a King

So, theories about Young Griff, aka (F)Aegon VI, abound. After all, we as a fandom have had a lot of time to stew in our thoughts, and it can be fun engaging in conversations about said thoughts. However, these conditions lead misconceptions to run wild, especially about a character like YG and his future.

I've seen a lot of people talking about the Targaryen Restoration, the second conquerors, and the three heads of the dragon in the context of Dany, Jon, and YG. A lot of the time, at least from what I've seen, these people accept that YG is not the Son of Rhaegar and Elia. I, personally, agree with that, there is a lot of textual evidence pointing to that conclusion. BUT I don't agree with him being the third head of the dragon. Now there's a lot to be said about when he was introduced and his prevalence in the story, but I'm not going to focus on that. I'm going to talk about YG's character.

GRRM clearly has a lot of opinions about what makes a good leader: Dany, Jon, Arya, and Bran are all great examples of characters who embody these. Each of those four are of the key five, are similar to YG in some way, and are being set up for or are already in leadership roles. These things all make the differences between them and YG all the more striking. The four are all wise for their age, intelligent, compassionate, and are invested in the lives of their people. YG does not have any of these characteristics.

He wants to rule not for the good of the people or to help the oppressed but because he was taught it was his birthright. A very entitled reason he shares with characters like Stannis, Joffrey, and ACOK Theon, men who the audience isn't supposed to root for (this is excluding the "Stannis the Mannis" crowd, who are stupid). YG also is only interested in carrying on the status quo of Westeros, something GRRM repeatedly points out is BAD. The sexism, homophobia, racism, and feudalism are not things the audience should support. So why should we root for someone who is supporting these things and whose arc isn't setting up a radical change of heart?

Am I saying I hate YG? No, I think he's a tragic character who is a victim of the greed of the men around him. But, he is not going to be a good king and would not get along with Dany and Jon at all. Jon hated Joffrey when he came North, why would he like and support a boy who reminds Tyrion of the little shit? YG has no respect for Dany and even for women in general, that is not setting up a healthy working relationship. And YG is so obviously a subversion of the "exiled king" trope (not the only one), him being successfully crowned, even alongside Dany and Jon, is wayyy too easy, especially for GRRM.

All this to say: no, I don't think Young Griff is going to be king of Westeros precisely because he does not have any leadership or even personal qualities GRRM believes should be in a leader.

Wowwwwww ok then. First of all, you're really not defending your self by posting this. If you disagree with me, then maybe actually debate me, or just don't respond. After all, if I'm a whiny brat, why do you care so much about what I said? Also I think you mean "tag" not "take", and why wouldn't I tag them if I'm talking about them, that's how tags fucking work. If you feel so threatened by what I said, just block me and move on.

You know one thing that really pisses me off? When people take attributes, plot points, and arcs of one character and giving them to another. This applies to adaptations, but what I really hate is when the fandom does it.

Like when stansas take things from Dany and Arya, like dragons and Needle, and give them to Sansa. It really shows how they don't actually like her character since they're so invested in her becoming something she never could be. Also they never have good things to say about Arya and especially Daenerys, yet apparently their characters and talents are just fine since they're good enough for Sansa.

I also see this happen a lot with Alicent. I've already talked about her and Aemma, so I won't rehash that. But, I just saw a post of someone coming up with a headcanon that Alicent chose Baelon's egg instead of Rhaenyra. That with people calling her "Mother of Dragons" and drawing her in Valyrian clothing just again shows that apparently Rhaenyra, Daenerys, and Valyrian traditions are totally evil unless their fav is doing those things. I've even seen people giving her Jaehaerys' crown, like a woman ruling is bad, unless it's Alicent. Because apparently her life and titles aren't interesting enough.

These are just examples in the asoiaf fandom. Another fandom that is obsessed with doing this is the Batfamily fandom. The biggest instance that I can think of is in reverse robin aus, where it seems impossible to keep the characters true to their personalities. For example, whenever Tim Drake is the second robin, he becomes Red Hood and does everything the way Jason did. This makes no sense, as Jason’s ties to Crime Alley and his decisions in utrh are not things Tim shares. Unless writers swap around their back stories too, literally nothing that happens in utrh makes sense. But even then, Tim and Jason are fundamentally different people, even if they swap backgrounds, so you'd still have to come up with a new story. What I'm getting at is that giving Tim Jason’s personality, or any other batkid, makes no sense and is just so fucking frustrating.

If you want to write aus where someone swaps situations with someone or if you want to theorize about a character, don't just steal from another character. Especially if you spend so much time and energy disparaging that other character. If you truly love a character, you wouldn't just slap someone else's life onto their's, you'd embrace them for who they are, not try to make them into something they aren't.