Im Going To Say This As An Alicent Anti: Wtf Are They Doing To Her???

I’m going to say this as an Alicent anti: wtf are they doing to her??? 😂

The whole argument for Team Green is that Alicent usurped Rhaenyra because she feared for her children’s safety but now she’s going to turn on them after FORCING Aegon to crown himself king when he didn’t want to?!

I don't even know what the show runners are on. I do think that their laughable attempts to make TG look better are actually proving my point though. The obsession with making "both sides bad" has rendered their characters inconsistent and completely unbelievable. Their storyline is jumbled and makes no sense. The entire show is a complete mess.

The idea of both sides being equally bad destroys everything in the story. GRRM wrote a story about how sexism and hunger for power damage the world. Rhaenyra being usurped marked a dramatic drop of the power women held in Westeros. Otto and Alicent's greed and misogyny caused the deaths of thousands and the dragons. The loss of the dragons led to the Others gaining strength.

Obviously, the blacks aren't perfect, or even heroes. Daemon is as morally gray as it gets, Rhaenyra is classist and kills to get her way, many of the blacks' allies committed atrocities. However, the fact is the greens are the villains of the Dance and the blacks are the protagonists.

The greens are all irredeemable and awful people, that's the whole point. Just like the slavers are monsters, Euron is basically a demon, and Ramsay is completely evil. Certain characters of ASOIAF are meant to be completely evil, it part to show how the ideas they champion are also completely evil.

The show runners have completely missed the idea and themes of the Dance. Because of that, their story and characters are destroyed and just incomprehensible.

Please help us escape death from Rafah .. my friend posted here and I'm forever indebted to all of you for your generosity.. we started to lose hope. please help and share .

gofundme.com

Donate to Saving My Family from the Horrors of War in Gaza, organized by Firas Salem

Saving My Family from The Hell Of War In Gaza! A Father's Plea for Safet… Firas Salem needs your support for Saving My Family from the Horr

The Demonizing of Change

A trend I've noticed in modern media is that many stories have the message of "protect the status quo". Whether it's a Marvel movie or a fantasy book, the fact that so often the villains are the only ones who fight to change society remains the same.

We all know the story: they were hurt by the system's flaw(s) and so they rose up to destroy that harmful system and in the process destroyed themselves. I'm not saying that this character type is wrong or bad (definitely overused imo), but the framing of the narrative and the protagonists is the issue.

The narrative typically shows the villain's first wrong doing to be the act of rebelling against the system. From the moment the person chose to reject the harmful system, they were in the wrong, or so the narrative frames it. Meanwhile, the protagonist may question and see injustice but they never fight it; it's just accepted and blindly defended. What's worse is the audience chooses to completely accept this telling and sides with the harmful regime the protagonist defends.

I find that some of the most drastic examples of these issues are Daenerys in GOT and the Darkling in the Grishaverse/SaB.

Daenerys Targaryen

One thing I want to specify before I go into this is that Dany's GOT ending is purely bad writing. It's not foreshadowed or justified in any way, so I'll be addressing how D&D tried to frame her past after S8e6 aired and how her antis interpret her.

According to D&D, we should see the beginning of Dany's "madness arc" from the very first season. Namely how she reacted to Viserys' death. While this isn't Dany rejecting a harmful system, her choosing to not defend Viserys (why would she??) is also her choosing to leave behind the cycle of abuse of her early life. It also sets the precedent of Dany killing/allowing the deaths of evil men.

Speaking of evil men, D&D also tried to paint Dany's campaign against slavery as a sign of her "megalomania and madness". This is where we get to the actual fighting against the system. Dany is leading a slave revolt and forcefully overthrowing the masters and the oppressive governments.

The way D&D tried to spin it was that Dany was wrong for using violence, and Tyrion's peaceful method was more successful. Except Dany did try peace in Meereen, it didn't work. She made concessions, she made agreements, she locked up her dragons and they weren't working. That's the whole point of her last chapter in ADWD.

However, the show chose to make it so Dany was failing because she was "too violent" and ultimately made the freedmen hate her. This choice, a clear deviation from the book, is the beginning of them trying to make Dany fall into the trope of "as bad as those you're fighting". In her fight to end slavery, she becomes as oppressive as the masters.

Which is just blatantly wrong. We see in the show that the freedmen are still free, they sit in her councils, they can come to her with their complaints and she listens. Dany is a queen, not a master. The show was already trying to gaslight its audience into believing the opposite of what they wrote. The same goes for her supposed violence. The violence she exerts is almost always towards the slavers, except when she executed Mossador for murder. That was her carrying out justice, why that was portrayed as a bad thing is beyond me.

The implications of the choices D&D made in adapting Dany's Meereen arc are very disturbing. They're basically saying that systematic and centuries old oppression should never be addressed with violence. The people who actively fight oppression are just as bad as the oppressors. If you can't magically fix a system that's been flawed for centuries immediately, you're a tyrant.

The choice to resolve the arc by having Tyrion come in with some great peaceful solution was plain stupid and sexist. We have seen in history that trying to unobtrusively phase out slavery doesn't work. By leaving the elite slave owners in peace, they are allowed to simply find ways to get around or wear down the changes. We see that in ADWD in Meereen by the way. Also the whole idea that a wise man had to come and fix the irrational woman's problem is so gross.

So basically: D&D took an arc about fighting oppression and learning that concessions only continue the cycle of violence and made it into a story about how violence is bad and you can actually just reason with slavers.

The disgusting ideas continue in season eight, where Dany torches KL for no reason and is put down like a rabid dog. Dany is the only character who wants to end oppression in this show. She's the only person to see and experience the suffering of the oppressed and chooses to do something about it. Season seven is full of her talking about leaving the world a better place and breaking the wheel. But in season eight "breaking the wheel" is turned into th deranged battle cry of her desired empire.

Let me restate that: the one character who fought to end systematic oppression is turned into the "true oppressor". Dany's desire to tear down the system that the entire show established as being unjust and awful is made into a sign of madness. Even in season seven, people were rolling their eyes at her talking about breaking the wheel.

Meanwhile, the protagonists of the show end it benefitting from the same system that tortured them the whole time. Westerosi society is shit, but the show ends glorifying the sexist, homophobic, classist, and feudalist kingdoms. They even laugh at Samwell Tarly when he suggests destroying the monarchy. All this sends the message that embracing the system is good, rebellion bad, and shut the fuck up if you're not happy.

Dany was reduced to a cautionary tale against fighting the system. I've seen people frame it as "seeking power is bad", but that doesn't make sense, as characters like Sansa actively seek power and are rewarded by the narrative. Dany's mistake was trying to change the world, rather than supporting it as it is.

The Darkling

The Darkling is a very different character from Dany; he's an actual villain. Aleksander is someone who has already reached the "become what you hate most" part of the trope, so he spends the whole story committing atrocities. The issue with his portrayal is the fact that the narrative and protagonists never address his very real reasons for fighting in the first place.

The grisha as a group are persecuted all throughout Ravka, they have been for centuries. The whole reason Aleksander begins his fight was to protect his people. By the time the series begins, the grisha are more protected, though only because they have become weapons of the state. That was only through Aleksander's mechanisations.

Aleksander became a villain in his attempts to save his people, making him a tragic character. So he has perfectly fallen into the trope, and, unfortunately, so do the protagonists. Alina and her allies all have seen and suffered under the cruelty of the Ravkan monarchy, however, they quickly dismiss just how awful it is. By the end of the story, the Darkling has become, in their eyes, the sole perpetrator of evil in Ravka.

There are no attempts made to rectify the constant damage done by the Apparat, in fact he's left to run free. Alexander Lanstov and Tatiana Grimjer are simply shipped off to a private island where they never are made to pay for the awful things they have done. There are no political reforms done to ensure the safety of grisha in the future; they're basically relying on the goodwill Zoya and Alina have bought with the people.

So basically, the minor villains who all had no reason to be completely atrocious receive basically no punishment from the narrative. Meanwhile, Aleksander, who had very valid reasons for wanting to overthrow the government, is ultimately given a fate worse than death. All his reasons for hating the Ravkan government and the power it has are ignored, even though the story set up that he's not wrong. The resolution of the story leaves the grisha just as, if not more, vulnerable to the prejudice and hatred of the world than they were before.

The narrative is communicating that Aleksander rising up for his people is worse than the centuries of corrupt Lanstovs. Aleksander is worse than the man who stirs up religious fanaticism and exploits the people through it. Yes, Aleksander did horrible things, but so did every other antagonist in the series, but he's somehow the worst because...well, he's grisha.

That's the only other difference between him and the others, aside from his motives. So either Bardugo is supporting the in-universe prejudice against grisha or she's saying rising up against an oppressive system is wrong. I don't expect her or any other author to have complex political and social commentaries in her story. However, she chose to create a world containing those elements and a main character who suffers from them. She chose to make the issues with the system have a prominent place in the story. And she chose to ignore them in the end.

Aleksander did awful things in the name of a just cause, this creates a complex moral issue that the story just never addresses. The established injustices and sanctioned atrocities by the Lanstovs are all ignored in favor of bringing down the dangerous rebel. That kind of message is pretty fucked up. Yes, Nikolai is a better man than his father, but what about his descendants? The propaganda of the Apparat and his church are extremely strong, it's only a matter of time before that propaganda once again starts turning people against grisha. The hatred of grisha is still embedded into Ravkan society.

Aleksander was the only character who was actually set on protecting and bettering the lives of the grisha. His original mission was still extremely important, no matter what he devolved to. The fact that the protagonists just blatantly dismissed just how dangerous Ravka still is for grisha is frustrating.

The treatment of both Dany and Aleksander by their writers and narratives show a hatred/mistrust of rebellion against the status quo, no matter how atrocious it is. The message of the trope is that people who fight against a system are worse than the system itself. I'm not saying that was Bardugo's intention (D&D I'm much less sure about though), but the way both the Darkling and Dany were written combined with the endings of the stories support that idea.

There is an enduring sense in the fandom that if you cannot structurally change the entire or major parts of an oppressive status quo, it's somehow better that one does absolutely nothing. Bc you're "messing up the stability of an already stable social order, which proved itself to be the best or most reliable bc it's endured for so long".

And I despise it. Because it essentially means that any effort except a huge, topsy-turvy one where the whole system gets upended or severely so doesn't matter. (At the very least those that don't seem like it.)

It's a perfect partner to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. & people use it not just against Rhaenyra but Dany, Rhaenys, & Alysanne!!! Any Targ woman, really. Aegon V, if one mentions his laws. Ironic, bc Jaehaerys had progressive laws for peasants ONLY bc of Alysanne, but it's obvious why they prefer the female-heir denying Jaehaerys over Aegon V!!!

Coupled with this sense, some say that these women are totally complicit in those systems bc use they happen to be born into royalty or aristocracy, actively use their privileges at times for their own ends instead of ALWAYS to create or influence others for groundbreaking policies & laws, or manage to just escape certain abuses other women face bc they were reserved for the specific task of having children for their male spouses.

Daenerys was a bridal slave, for example. She doesn't face SA from random men every other night, but that doesn't stop the risk of her facing that fate if she were to ever fall out of her husband-owner, Drogo, favor. That doesn't stop her haters from arguing that she should have done more for Mirri & those Lhazareen women, that she even profits from slave labor when she clearly is allocating and directing funds from taxes to the city of Meereen! From ignoring how all those she freed are not still slaves, that the slave masters time and time again have said, point blank, that she is a danger to their enterprise CONTINENT-WIDE!!! She makes mistakes and the biggest one compromising too much with the slave owners of Meereen, yeah, bc she is in the beginning of her leadership journey, and still she manages to inspire loyalty, faith, and hope in many of her followers and she also still manages to keep most people alive w/o actually giving all the way in and that terrifies the slaveowners! For good reason. Read the last few pages of the last book and tell me that she won't come for their necks, either literally or figuratively idc. She's obviously not fucking up so bad or has totally failed in her role as a protector, and she will make mistakes as other leaders before her and after her will! Why this level of negative & bad faith scrutiny?!

And let's go to Rhaenys the Conqueror. She created the rule of thumb & the rule of six, where no man could legally beat their wives to death when she decreed that the rod could not be thicker than the husband's thumb and he could not whack her more than 7 times. Some argue why didn't she outlaw wife-beating entirely if she and her siblings conquered Westeros. First of all, these are the very same people who bleat abt how the Targaryens destroyed and colonized Andal culture without bothering to offer material evidence of such. If Rhaenys & her siblings actually have "colonized" the Andal-FM lords, & it was Andal custom for men to beat their wives indiscriminately…then the Targs couldn't have actually destroyed any part of Andal "culture" and replaced it entirely with Valyrian ones where seemingly men could not beat their wives at all! If you can even consider this "destroying culture", as I'm sure a few would argue. If anything, this was a cultural compromise, and it obviously functioned and was intended as a form of protection for women when before there was absolutely none! Aside from male relatives, but that's not system-wide, makes such cases seem not serious enough or that people across communities shouldn't care too much about others when you personalize it, AND that just reinforces the idea that only men have a property claim over women, be they biologically family or by marriage. Secondly, if you argue that Viserys should have obeyed the "laws" of male primogeniture bc he is a feudal king--the "Protector" of their customs and interests--that is only supported by the swords & loyalty of lords, that the GC of 101 proves that (as if Jaehaerys also didn't use that to enact his own will passively for a male heir), then why is it that Rhaenys seems to do something along those lines and WORK with the current Andal customs, her efforts--which actually are protective to those who needed protecting!!! Rhaenys & her siblings were new monarchs of a newly unified-ish realm, & as unifying conquerors tend to do, they opted for the strategy that would keep them seated bc it made "the lords" comfortable that they would not force them to change the bulk of their religious and cultural practices. Not only did Visenya & Rhaenys arrange strategic marriages that both benefited them and those married (their families), but Aegon made it a point to go on progresses and hear various lords and peasants' issues to arbitrate. Which made it so that these lords felt they would not be led by a leader who'd enforce his laws willy-nilly without considering his subject's conditions or desires. It is in this context that Rhaenys, we could see and assume, was taking a bit of a risk with not one but 2 new laws against men's "rights" over their wives' bodies!

There's Alysanne, who took it a step further in her women's courts, and the right of first nigh abolishment, her attempts at the Citadel, & the Widow's Law. Again, if not for her, Westeros and KL would be 3 steps behind in infrastructure and women's protection. Alysanne was a Queen Consort who had even less power on her own than Rhaenys & Visenya and we see that she had to convince Jaehaerys to implement his laws; it took Septon Barth's interference/support for Jaehaerys to even go along with the abolishment of the right of first night! Later with Viserra, I believe that she arranged the much older Theomore to Viserra bc it coincided with Jaehaerys' plans for that marriage alliance between the Manderlys and the royal house. And to please or to go along with some of her husband's plans was to also add onto her own power…bc a royal Consort only has power by their monarch spouse gives them license to influence and status! Was it clumsy writing? Of course, it was pretty bizarre and partly due to how F&B is written as a historical document despite how this portion of history is better documented than others. Did Alysanne indirectly cause Viserra's death in her refusal to relent from her suspicion that Viserra was trying to become queen, as she interpreted it? Arguably. and I think that GRRM was telling us that over time and over the disappointments w/Jaehaerys, she slowly got more determined to retain any sense control…and where does her control end up coming from? Yeah, GRRM is showing that tightrope, I think.

Rhaenyra was not actively progressive in policy nor direct action as all the prior 3, but to argue that she should be feminist so that the usurpation and the femicide done against her becomes unjustified is absurd! Oh, she wasn't a feminist at all or progressive, she didn't implement any sort of law at all for women or smallfolk [did Aegon?! or Alicent?! or Aemond? Daeron, Otto?! so why are they better?!!!], so that's why she shouldn't be queen even though by the very "law of the land", she is by right the heir to this throne that never actually was about who would make a good, consummate ruler in the first place. 🙄.

So there is a vague & un-discernable, forever shifting, & impossible goal-post-level of feminist activity or "being" that these nihilistic or conservative naysayers use against women being leaders or even passively having positions of power that may still benefit the women of Westeros through setting a precedent &/or actions of necessary intervals that build on the past ones under conditions that are already limiting how much they can do or say in order to be able to put forth those feminist (really proto feminist), anti-slavery, etc., progressive steps--on a damn psychological and psychosocial level that:

diminishes how much brain power and time a woman can put to policy or things outside of the "house" because their power depends on the husband's regard towards them

makes it much harder for women to really commit themselves or fully expect to implement their goals & dreams for any sort of change (or even dream of any) when there's such subtle and unsubtle obstacles in their way: Rhaenyra, her stepmother an siblings plotting against her and then the usurpation, that we see in the microcosm of how the treasury stolen from her and the crown led to the smallfolk turning against her at KL AND the ongoing war, thus preventing her from really establishing herself as Queen/ruling at all; Alysanne, I described with Jaehaerys; Rhaenys, Andal patriarchy; much less, in Rhaena the Black Bride's case, find just actual happiness and plain old security against male aggression!

provides a setting where women become more compelled to compromise with some patriarchal ideas/practices to maintain a certain level of power or defense (there's a thing line to measure and transgress the "right way" and without other's judgement and impatience or lack of faith adds an additional pressure of, outside of fiction but applicable)

leads up to Daenerys having to have the strength to pursue her goals on with her own instincts and compassion and wit, work harder than most men would face in her position...not that any could since men cannot and have not largely had the bridal slave’s experience!

Anyway, all of it ignores or tries to hide the fact that it is exactly that undisrupted male authority over female (of any class or wealth) & under-classed people that is the true destabilizer and destroyer of lives. That there is still so much meaning and real impact in what people like Alysanne and Rhaenys did/do and huge upheavals or entire sweeps of structural change like Dany does takes measured steps!

That through multiple Targ women dying form childbirth, raped, murdered, or sidelined and critically limited in political authority or agency, this becomes so obvious! you cannot oppress half of your population, reduce them to sex-giving broodmares who you can kill if you think they have a male heir on the way or have cheated on you and call yourself progressive! You're actually 10 steps behind where you're supposed to be because half of you is not involved enough in the development of your society!

We wanna be all "feudalism is bad", "blood purity is bad", "the Targs didn't end feudalism so they are the most evil and responsible for all evil in Westeros" but when they see someone either passively or actively seem to make any progress to mitigate the pressures and power of patriarchal boundaries or concepts or whatever....they go screaming "not feminist enough" or "they're actually just like everyone else"! And some of us will also try to say that Daenerys is either entirely too much like her colonist ancestors or she will end up that way as D&D published because she is Targaryen (a bio-essentialist argument) to argue about why SLAVEOWNERS should stay in power!

And it all is very anti-intellectualism, anti-critical thought or introspection and examination...because on closer look and investigation, you will see how F&B is a text that was always anti-misogyny on GRRM's part (attemptively) even as it is misogynist as an-in world text! And it's on purpose--both the writing and how people wax "it's a dragon show, nothing at all to do with misogyny or wokeness!"

Because then you are not challenging the status quo...because you can't reason through it or against it and when it happens in seemingly harmless manifestations people will think it innocuous.

MORNING NATION WE LOST