MORNING NATION WE LOST

MORNING NATION WE LOST

Is it just me or does TG's argument that Criston Cole is a victim of Rhaenyra seem like really demeaning? Like the fact that their argument hinges on the fact that Cole is played by a poc/is Dornish. Pretty much everything I've seen from them about that scene is how Rhaenyra, who is white, took advantage of a defenseless poc. It's just infantilizing him purely due to his race. I might be reading too much into it, after all every TG argument is them grasping at straws, but this one just really rubs me the wrong way.

@pessimisticpigeonsworld

"Infantilization":

over-simplifying explanations, using demeaning nicknames (e.g., "sweetheart" or "honey"), or suggesting that the infantilized person would not understand a topic without reason to treat a person as if they were a prepubescent child with no experience whatsoever in worldly matters treat (someone) as a child or in a way which denies their maturity in age or experience

Yes, it should be demeaning, but it is away of them applying victimhood where there was none in either show or book. Its more uwuing him bec he's a man than PoC, as he's not PoC (the Dornish are "spicy" "whites" in-universe, "olive" skin is a trait many Mediterranean Europeans have). Even if he was, it'd still be more bc he's a man then bc he's PoC. to them.

They make as if Criston was totally helpless when he is both Kingsguard and a man where the girl approaching him is a girl in a court that some think she should never be heir on account of her gender, and women/girls both already have to fear their entire reputation being ruined by mere well placed rumors (and have less chance of marriage, bc marriage was the way they most likely could stay economically secure for their futures). Criston could threaten Rhaenyra quite easily to make some gains on her. Or get into an affair with her, sleep with her while she's inebriated, and threaten her and she'd be the one blamed by both her father ad larger society! She'd be labeled the seductress largely, and Viserys would, like he did abt Daemon, that Rhaenyra's "desires" or "allowing" to have her virtue ruined even just by name and repute hurts herself & the monarchy. Viserys explicitly tells her the truth doesn't matter, only the image in epi 4. Really, the only good thing that we can draw from his image-loving self is how he decides to protect her and her kids…but even then a lot of it is also so he retains his chosen heir…and yet it's is true that he genuinely loves her and his grandkids [bk and show]. (What a mess)

So it's not really the same sort of infantilization people commit against grown women to make them seem weak and thus "need" a man to "guide" them, but closer to the sort of "infantilization" that is designed to give white women the "privilege" of being seen as the eternal victims who can do no wrong as well as masters of others' bodies (Cole can demand Rhaenyra to run off with him & abandon eveything bc she "owes" him; she can't request him to sleep with her when she teased him). And I mean that it mirrors this by the green stans' intent, not necessarily the nature of the infantilization that is not infantilization--green stans intend to make Cole seem helpless and cutely dumb in order to make Rhaenyra seem a predator and that become the lynchpin of her being bad for rulership. Bec she somehow reinforces all that classism, instead of Alicent/the greens reinforcing all that classist-sexism for personal, baselsss "revenge" and order-keeping.

It's the green stans doing something that I learned concerning peoples switching between ideas or phrases in bad faith to support another contradictory thing--something integral to bigoted talking points.

i hate it how like... the show made rhaenyra look fairly innocent other than having bastards (despite doing a lot of cruel things in the book) but the one bad thing that aegon does to dyana was actually by word of mushroom who was team black despite aegon consistently being considered like a decent fucking person

i’m not going to freak out just yet about that new still, all i’ll say is adding in MORE unnecessary gendered violence to a show that ends in femicide is… quite the choice, especially when you claim you’re writing a feminist adaptation.

I am convinced that Alicent Hightower either has multiple personality disorder or a colossal hypocrite or she is just badly written. It's either "Aegon is king " or "no it's Rhaenyra" by the next episode. "Now let's usurp Rhaenyra's throne and cause a war because my drugged dying husband told me" ." Oh no war is bad and people die in it, I had no idea".

I personally think it's bad writing. Condal and Hess can't seem to decide what direction they want her character to go, as you pointed out. Alicent makes no sense as a character with how she's been written in the show.

It literally feels like there's a new writer every episode, and that writer doesn't know what happened in the story before. It definitely seems like the writers might have finally settled on a personality for Alicent in season two. However, that personality just happens to be the dumbest and most hypocritical one.

sara hess:

daemon:

crowns rhaenyra, hold her hand when she sees Alicent for the first time since she cut her, touching her tummy while she’s pregnant with visenya, holding laena’s hands when she’s pregnant with their son, deleted scene of him hugging Baela and Rhaena after laena’s death, deleted scene of him grieving visenya, him getting kiss on the cheek from Baela while she’s teaching her high valyrian, him helping Viserys to the throne and putting on his crown

also sara hess:

oh and

NEITHER DID SHE