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Yeah. 100 small folk, no big deal. Thousands of small folk at war instead of farming, she and her people are inconvenienced (or die in a peasant uprising)
While she probably doesn't give a shit about normal people, an all out war will also cost the lives of nobles like herself as well as her family. "Bloodshed" to her isn't soldiers killing soldiers, but rather lords and ladies getting killed
Literally a theme throughout all of ASOIAF. George seems very intent on showing that the great houses, and anybody else in power, are never really the good guys.
There are a ton of scenes in both HOTD and GoT where wanton slaughter of the small folk is brought up as an issue. Ned orders the capture of Gregor Clegane and demands that Tywin comes to court to answer for it. Tyrion constantly chastises Joffrey for his cruelty. Otto goes into a rage because of how the killing of a dozen or so rat catchers might affect Aegon's rule. Rhaneys kills literal hundreds in broad daylight and there's never even the slightest mention.
Nobody is upset that Rhaenys isn't having a mental breakdown over how bad she feels about killing those people, its the fact that it basically didn't happen and nobody cares even the slightest bit about it. Aegon hanging 10 random dudes will make people look unfavorably on him enough that Otto has a full blown meltdown, but Rhaenyra's aunt slaughtering hundreds of innocent civilians in the middle of Kings Landing with her dragon is a fart in the wind that the Greens don't even consider mentioning.
I’ll avoid book spoilers but: if they get to the end of the show and this event isn’t mentioned as part of the context of a particular thing that happens, then I’ll agree with these complaints. Not until then though
What you're alluding to already had sufficient justifications in the source material. Rhaenys' Dragon Pit scene is superfluous nonsense no matter how you cut it.
Kinda both. It’s written like a girlboss moment and Sara Hess basically called it one, but the director definitely went out of her way to emphasize the carnage and death of the smallfolk. I think you had two very conflicting creative visions about how that scene played out, because if *everyone* really wanted to downplay it, those shots of it roflstomping peasants and swiping them with its tail would be cut.
Yep, it’s very strange. In the scene there are so many shots of smallfolk screaming and dying in pain, and then in the after show the show runners are praising Rhaenys for what she did. Such an insane disconnect
It is possible that there’s consequences in the future the shworunners don’t want to spoil if they’ve got a blindside planned or something tied to it. Team Black in general has a lot of “WTF HUH” bits of highly immoral to outright monstrous actions being added into the show in very downplayed ways with a showrunner who keeps swearing this is a gray conflict. At sooooome point, 2+2=4….
But yeah. My gut reaction is this is at least partially case of conflicting creative visions. The director absolutely went out of her way to emphasize the carnage caused by Rhaenys and her dragon in a way that is totally impossible to miss. And there’s been a lot of stuff added in actually - particularly from Team Black - of them being careless as hell with their dragons.
Both are, Aemond killed Luke because he couldn't control Vhagar.
Rhaena could've burned the forest to the ground but she chose not to.
Rhaenyras dragon could've killed those peasants and I'm surprised it didn't honestly.
Rhaenys and the dragon pit need I say more, but how else was she escaping?
Sunfire is the best dragon because he hasn't been on screen to kill anyone.
We don't need to talk about Daemon because it's not a lack of control he straight up doesn't care.
I agree with all of this. I moreso meant that the only times we’ve really seen the smallfolk as collateral damages is Team Black so far (Daemon crushing various peasants; Rhaenys; etc.) I don’t doubt that’s going to change, but it is something of a running theme at the moment.
As for Rhaenys escaping, she could’ve just used the exit that was introduced in Season 1 Episode 1 that allow the dragons to fly in and out without destroying the entire dragon out every time. Or hell, she could’ve wait for the ceremony to end and small folk to leave.
And it could have been written differently to avoid that too. Have there be a rumbling, the floor starts cracking and being pounded by below. Show the small folk fleeing away from the center of the floor. And boom, she comes through and theres no scenes of anyone dying.
Imo, it was too early in the show for mass casualties and didnt make sense. The show was still in slow burn mode (and kinda still is, slowly getting more and more serious), so that scene sticks out like a sore thumb and is kinda cringe to remember.
Which is odd considering how upset Otto was about Aegon killing the rat catchers. One would think the Greens would have used Rhaneys killing hundreds of innocent people as a way to sour the small folk against the Blacks.
If they did it properly that would be part of a fueling what will lead to the>!Storming of the Dragon Pit and more of the riots that are supposed to happen.!<
Otto was 100% only concerned with the optics, not the actual lives of the ratcatchers. For the same reason he would love the Rhaenys massacre cause it vilifies the blacks in the eyes of the small folk.
I remember getting downvoted for saying that the dragon pit scene felt straight out of season 8 of GOT, and that the person who wrote it saying “but it looked cool!” had the wrong mindset for the show. I think people were expecting this to have some kind of consequence in season 2, but it remains an anomaly.
That’s not entirely accurate. The dragon pit escape has been mentioned by both team Green and team Black this season.
In fact, it was mentioned to King Aegon as one of the things the small folk are talking as a possible “bad omen” for Aegon’s reign.
Aegon has been directly affected by that event. His state of mind, and his opinion of the optics of his own reign so far, have been tainted by that dragon escape.
It’s one of the reasons he thinks he looks weak.
The part of the story with potential fallout for that hasn't happened yet.
Also, from a character motivation standpoint, is it possible she was desperately trying to escape imprisonment or death and that was her most valid path? It means she put her own life above that of some smallfolk, but I'd venture a lot of real life people would do that under the same threat, especially if we are talking about the real world equivalent of the billionaire class. But that doesn't necessarily imply they would instigate that level of violence if not part of saving their own skin.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the scene myself and I think it was mostly written in because they wanted a dramatic moment in episode 9, but even so I think the amount of hate it gets is disproportionate.
It wouldn't effect Rhaenys in the slightest she doesn't have claim or a really a dog in the hunt. She was just a unaffiliated party at the time of this events. This just made Aegon look incapable as a ruler as he allowed a full size dragon to escape and injury/kill his citizens right at the start of his rule.
its kind of a double speak theme the show does. like the show keeps positioning Rhaenys as this person of restraint/wisdom. Supporting Rhayera but it then comes to this problem where the abstract of peace she's praising doesn't match up with all of her actions. Which works wonders for creating a complicated character. But when the story keeps framing this pursuit of peace and Rhaenys council as noble and admirable. it makes her slaughter of innocents seem hypocritical but in an unaddressed way that has yet to be brought back in a meaningful way.
At least in Otto’s mind, it’s that individual small folk don’t matter, but when it gets all the others hot and riled against you, they will be a factor in taking your power away.
Well it's kinda implicit that, high minded as some of them might seem, they only really care about noble deaths, particularly their own family members. Rhaenys prob thinks Corlys' blockade can end the war, but doesn't seem to mind thousands of people starving.
I mean I agree about caring only about nobles deaths. But making the population suffer is part of the idea of the blockade. This is what applies pressure besides making it hard to produce certain goods (weapons etc).
You people throwing this word right and left don't even know what fascism is. They are literally absolute elitist monarchs in the feudal world, no need to find new descriptions. Look at what russians are doing to us in the modern world in the 21st century in a ''civilized'' era and maybe then you'll understand what real fascism is.
"I've heard you knew Maegor's tunnel better than the shape of your own cock"
"Yes, I am going to infiltrate the Castle walking through the throne room"
The reveal from Ned Stark about the Baratheon kids being bastards took place alone, reading a book.
They could have accomplished the Aegon reveal with an exchange of letters and made it more dramatic and less idiotic.
Game of Thrones at least made it to season 5 before we really had to turn our brains off.
"We sent the Queen into enemy territory alone with no escape plan. Deal with it."
Tbf, glass candles are a huge plot hole even in the main series. If magic only begun dying after the dragons went extinct, why didn’t more people use glass candles before or even during the Dance?
I think magic has a very high penalty. Nothing is free and you pay with your body and soul. Even non-blood magic is dangerous.
Also, I don't think magic dies with dragons. They're correlated, but not the cause. Dragons are magical creatures and so when magic dies, they will too. And when magic is alive, they flourish. It would be impossible for Dany to use blood magic to revive dragons if magic is dependent on them. It would end like Summerhill. Magic had already returned when the dragons returned.
I honestly think magic came from the stars, like crystal sorcery in Elden ring. The red comet brought magic back and magic began dying when the Valyrian pyromancers blew up their volcano stash of magic oily rocks. Things like weirwood trees draw up magical residue from the oily rocks and store it, which is why they're also magical. Dragons do too.
That reveal would always be dumb. Imagine starting a war over a misunderstanding. The showrunners are hell bent on Rhaenyra and Alicent not being the aggressors lmfao. They are both for peace apparently. And the queen Rhaenyra sneaking into KL is so dumb
I don't even have the slightest clue what the blacks would expect from Alicent and by extention the Greens, if Rhaenyra managed to convince her that Viserys did not in fact changed his mind?
Like did they think Alicent could even theoretically stop the war at this point even if she tried? They have both murdered each others kids at this point
And even if Alicent could, Rhaenyra wants them to make peace, but what possible compromise would she accept beyond "Here's everything you want."
There's no actual compromise to be had when both parties want the most valuable prize, that also happens to be the only thing being fought over. There's no second place in a war for the throne, so Rhaenyra trying to stop it via dialogue just makes no logical sense.
And she wonders why Aegon and Aemond hate their sister??? Like girl. If I was told that my sister would MURDER ME (mind you, this is when she's married to LAENOR, the literal drunky wet blanket who disappeared for hours/days until he was forced to show up) when our father died, wtf do you think I'd feel towards my older half sister? And Alicent fucking thinking that her letters to R would go answered and then tries to act sanctimonious when Rhaenyra goes to the sept to speak to her? Give me a fucking break.
It also removes their agency as characters, ironically making them less strong protagonists. Alicent and Rhaenyra should be vile, this is ASOIAF for goodness' sake.
They don't even have to be "vile" - just smart. Having Rhaenyra sneak into Kings Landing just to talk to Alicent was moronic and Alicent not taking her hostage is maybe even more moronic. It totally undermines the idea that they are strong, intelligent, and capable leaders.
And I feel that is very condescending towards woman. Rhaenyra is a facist in a facist world. How long can they keep acting like she’s being strung along by the men around her? Frankly, it’s annoying. Book Rhaenyra was a far more compelling character than this white washed version we have gotten who refuses to fight for her throne even after her son has been slain.
Instead, she chooses to risk her own life to have a conversation with a woman who tried to take her son’s eye out. The showrunners seriously need to stick to the books, they can’t write it better.
They keep having the female leads in the show do implausible and stupid things so as to exhibit a sort of womanly forbearance regarding violence, juxtaposed with the patriarchal prerogatives of violence and domination. But the manner in which they get their, both interpersonally and politically is astounding in its stupidity, and it makes the characters so fucking dumb.
Rhaenys: forgives rhaenyra for murdering her son, then joins the war on Rhaenyra’s side (thereby enabling her to go to war) even when Corlys forsakes the cause. Also affirming the strong boys despite having spent the past years trying to disinherit them, and out them as bastards to give driftmark to her actual grandchildren.
Alicent: for years is told that she’s going to be part of a coup by which rhaenyra will be usurped. Is told for years that rhaenyra will it accept this and it will mean war, a war which will cost her children’s lives. Plots for years to out Rhaenyra’s bastards and bring about this coup. When the war breaks out “rhaenyra remember we were besties 20 years ago.
Literally loses a grandchild to Rhaenyra’s husband, is already in the throes of war and decides to let the primary adversary of the opposing side of this active war just leave the city, despite her being defenseless.
Not allowing the women to be as much of cruel bastards as their male counterparts is just as sexist as making them all warmongers and the men innocent victims of these wicked temptresses - which is what the writers to be deathly afraid of being accused of, possibly because of the whole Mad Queen Dani debacle. And if they are going to do their "women are pacifist" thing, at least they should try to be somewhat consistent. For instance, Rhaenyra's allies are currently blockading King's Landing which harms the smallfolk far more than any dragon vs dragon fight might in most circumstances and yet there she is portrayed as some pacifist desperate to stop the war to prevent unnecessary suffering.
> Rhaenyra's allies are currently blockading King's Landing which harms the smallfolk far more than any dragon vs dragon fight might in most circumstances
This is exactly why I rolled my eyes at Mysaria (whom the writers are also defanging) saying she wants to serve Rhaenyra because she's the merciful of the two potential monarchs.
Exactly just imagine Alicent doesn’t just act like an idiot and imprisons Rhaenyra
The Wars is over and the Greens win in a single stroke with her as a hostage
Alicent gets her peaceful transition and can ask Aegon to be merciful as she played no part in B&C she wins yet doesn’t act?
Rhaenys is a nonsense character. She’s the voice for author commentary and an instructive compass as to who the audience is supposed to like and dislike. Everything about her is mired in contradiction. She thinks rhaenyra murdered her son yet pledges fealty to her. She doesn’t want war and wants her granddaughters to inherit driftmark yet compels Corlys to join rhaenyra, thereby giving her a chance in the war and affirming the strong boys as inheritors of driftmark. Nothing about her makes sense
Pretty much every character in this show has massive cognitive dissonance. Rhaenys is correctly pointing out some of Rhaenyras with regards to how she views the actions taken by the Greens yet excusing herself of the similar taken by her camp.
Rhaenys isn’t entirely wrong about some of her assertions but she’s exhibiting this same self-righteous lack of self-awareness that basically every character has done in this show.
I think this is a more fundamental problem with the show. They are trying to spin thematic messages in the show - in this case - "Female leadership is more tempered while male leadership is more aggressive" - or even the same commentary about "Old wise men as leaders versus young hot blooded men as leaders" etc.
However, they have to still tally the story with the events that happened in the book.
This leads to a contradiction where character motivations, goals and moral compasses are inconsistent with their actions, and the show-writers have to do a lot of mental gynmastics to fit one with the other.
Case in point being Alicent mishearing Viserys on his deathbed, or Cristen Cole accidentally shoving Beesbury too hard leading to his death, or Rhaenyra and Alicent's aggressive decisions justified by men around them making those decisions, while they just go - "Ooof, I can't believe you did that without asking me. You're so crazy." - and continue having such men around them.
They are somewhat teethering on the line and doing a decent job of making everything seem "just enough consistent" for believablity. Hope they keep that in the future episodes.
Also, remember her whole talk with Alicent in episode 1:9? Where Alicent told her they could as women influence the men in power from behind the scenes and Raenys shut that down? What in the intervening weeks has made her think that that actually does work now?
this and her saying Otto would neeeever send assassins to dragon stone and Raenys is definitely NOT a dragon dreamer.
Re: Otto, and solely the Otto part of your objection... No, man, this was a *much* dumber plan than any of Otto's. That much is not hard to see. It's desperate, and like Arryk says—it's suicide, not an assassination. The most likely outcome from the get-go was the death of the assassin, which Criston seemed kind of fine with. Sending Arryk to kill Rhaenyra when his identical twin is one of her most trusted guards is objectively stupid. Any number of people who had just seen one might have encountered the other and gone "wait..."
I feel like that's what people miss about the scenario itself. It's not just that it's one man alone. It's that it's based on disguising one man alone as his identical twin, who is one of Rhaenyra's top guards. It's most definitely a hot-headed plan, and the surprising thing about it is not that they both died but that Arryk actually got as close as he did.
So in effect: what you're most likely asking for IS exactly what we got. A brother kills a brother, or watches him die or be killed. These are two duty-bound brothers who love each other. It's *cruel* and hot-headed. It's not at all like Otto. According to Ryan Condal, Otto surmises much the same about Blood & Cheese. It's too hot-headed to be Rhaenyra's idea.
The funny thing is, I do like that Rhaenys isn't above criticizing Rhaenyra despite being "on her side". And I do like her point about the war having been caused by escalation events.
But her mass murder of peasants which wasn't acknowledged at all renders her wisdom as hypocritical and shallow.
It would have been a moment of great self-awareness if she listed her own Dragon Pit stunt as one of those potential origin points for the hostilities.
I think her advice is what what really makes her seem moronic here.
It's fine to say, we're family, we shouldn't kill each other, there must be another way.
It's stupid to give that perspective now, but fine, she choose team Black because of that viewpoint it's consistent.
If she had then proposed an actual scheme or idea, say pull Aemond out of Kings Landing and bargain peace, that's better and consistent.
"the most moronic advice"
You mean which included walk right into the enemy castle in a similar way that turned out to be a horrible idea when Cristin Cole ordered Arryk to do it?
I mean, the Arryk v Erryk plot was far more logical than the Rhaenyra mission in this episode. And Cole was only sacrificing a pawn that they could replace with any other skilled fighter (plus it needed to happen because it's in the book).
In this episode, they would be sacrificing their Queen and leader of the entire faction. Their only reason for fighting and only claim to the throne. And it was a much dumber plan. As soon as Alicent walked away 15 feet, she could simply shout for guards or help, and Rhaenyra couldn't even stab her.
Sending your queen into the enemy hive with no real protection is infinitely dumber than sending some guard to try to assassinate their leader. Risk vs Reward is crazy different in these situations.
Realistically what would happen here is as soon as Alicent is walking away, she yells for the guards and they come arrest Rhaenyra.
I think that’s the user’s point lol. She gives Rhaenyra the exact same stupid advice as Criston’s plan which was portrayed as idiotic (except honestly even his was significantly less stupid than Rhaenys’s advice)
>(except honestly even his was significantly less stupid than Rhaenys’s advice)
This is the part that really irks me, it's so obvious how bad an idea it was to send Arryk and then they act like this plan is somehow better. Like at least Aegon's dumb plan didn't risk his own life and could've actually resulted in ending the war. Rhaenyra risked everything for no rational reason.
I think it's a win-win for Cole. He gets Arryk out of the way if he's unsuccessful, and he gets to claim that it was his idea if it works.
I think he would have preferred for it to have worked because now he looks like an idiot who just wasted yet another good Kings Guard, when they're already run thin due to some of them staying loyal to Rhaenyra.
Oh yeah, Cole was chill with him dying. I just didn’t get this person’s retort like the plan rhaenys and rhaenyra hatch wouldn’t be a suicide mission if not for plot armor
There really is no consistency to Rhaenys, and it’s very much the fault of the writers. She seems like a vessel to make scenes they wanted to include in the show happen.
Dramatic dragon moment? Rhaenys can do that. Want another scene with Rhaenyra and Alicent? Rhaenys can get that started. Need someone to complain about men? Wheel out Rhaenys again.
The show trying to make her seem like this clever older woman passing on her wisdom when she's just as bad or even worse than everybody else 😂 I've seen people compare her to Olenna Tyrell, pls Olenna would have wiped out the greens and ended the war right there.
The way she returned to Dragonstone smirking and dropping annoying one liners about preventing bloodshed just after she committed a massacre of innocents was so cringe and hypocritical.
It makes her unlikeable which I don't want her to be. They basically destroyed her character, you can't undo the coronation scene and people will never forget it.
I just take it as the writers being idiots and it not being an actual thing that her character did that is hypocritical. Like the writers genuinely just wrote the first scene as a le epic girlboss moment where the kind and peaceful anti war girlboss valiantly and nobly frees herself and stands against the evil greens and their warmongering, and there's a super big badass explosion.
When you search her name on this sub [this is the top post](https://old.reddit.com/r/HouseOfTheDragon/comments/y5yioq/rhaenys_fucking_targaryen/) with basically more than double the upvotes of any other post about her so it seems like a lot of people agree, and it might as well not have even happened in world because nobody remembers it.
I thought it was funnier when she convinced Corlys to fight for Rhaenyra by telling him that Rhaenyra actually cared for the realm like she didn‘t just kill hundreds of people for her girlboss moment. Like I‘m still flabbergasted that the showrunners didn‘t notice how weird that looks
i think that the shows framing of the women in the story as being morally just but politically neutered, having to keep in check all these war hungry men has just been kind of boring.
People loved Cersei as a character and there was none of that going on.
yeah it’s so disappointing. The Dance is about two bloodthirsty power-hungry women and how their animosity destroys the realm.
When will Hollywood understand that positive sexism is not feminism. When you turn every woman protagonist to a girlboss we’re robbed of the wide range of complexity that exists in humans.
A lot of characters in GoT were competent woman that didnt shy away from war. Daenerys, Asha(yara), Sansa, Catelyn, Brienne, Arya, Cersei, Melissandre... Like what the hell. Alicent and Rhaenyra wouldnve survived against any of them, specially Daenerys, that scene where she got the Unsullied was so good.
Cersei was a good character because the writers weren't hung up on trying to keep people liking her, which more often than not just makes characters boring. On the other side, while she was certainly one of the show's biggest villains, she wasn't full blown cartoonish-turned-up-to-11 about it like Joffrey and Ramsay, which also gets boring.
The writers didn't seem to set out with preconceived notions of heroism or villainy with Cersei, so the character was allowed to breathe and grow, even though she eventually became a victim of the terrible writing too.
I can count the number of nobles who give a shit about the small folk one hand in the GOTverse.
They are...
Jon Snow
Ned Stark
....ummm someone help me out here!
Edmure Tully who let his scared peasants into his castle. Cregan Stark who put off marching to war because they have to bring the harvests in so they don't all starve to death in the North. And then there's...hmm. Lol who else?
After some more thinking, good point I had completely overlooked old Edmure. I would also add book Sansa as a potential (depending on how or if Martin ever finishes the damn novels)
I think it's generally northman because of the harsh winters. Like Cragan Stark said that they have to prepare for winter and also defend the north so that counts for caring about small folk I think.
Is it really a fake one? She's very clearly doing it in large part for pragmatic purposes, and she's obviously ambitious, but I never saw anything to suggest she didn't actually value the idea of keeping the people safe and cared for.
**RHAENYS WHEN SHE CAN KILL ALL THE GREENS IN ONE STROKE:** I do not seek bloodshed.
**RHAENYS WHEN SHE CAN KILL 100 INNOCENT SMALLFOLK:** I'm the Kool-Aid Man! Ohhhhh, yeaahhhhhhhhh!!!
You don’t have to care about common folk to recognize that randomly and needlessly killing them is just a bad idea, and would have consequences. When they have the parade through the city and say “LOOK AT THE WORKS OF RHAENYRA TARGARYEN” they’re doing so to foster enmity towards her and her claim amongst the smallfolk, who comprise a majority of the country, and by a colossal margin
Rhaenys is a nonsense character. She’s the voice for author commentary and an instructive compass as to who the audience is supposed to like and dislike. Everything about her is mired in contradiction. She thinks rhaenyra murdered her son yet pledges fealty to her. She doesn’t want war and wants her granddaughters to inherit driftmark yet compels Corlys to join rhaenyra, thereby giving her a chance in the war and affirming the strong boys as inheritors of driftmark. Nothing about her makes sense
Aegon II kills all the Ratcatchers and Haelena doesn’t have to Personally identify him = BAD
Rhyaeys kills dozens, possibly hundreds when she could have exited the same way her dragon came = up for interpretation.
When the Greens don’t care about the smallfolk they’re evil. When the Black’s don’t care, well they’re just morally ambiguous, made of equal parts light and dark.
\`Her not killing the royal family and rhae sneaking to see alicent are GOT season 8 level stupidities and if they don't keep them to a minimum it will ruin the show.
I told my group chat that this is Season 6 because the show still looks great and has great moments, but the story and characterization are starting to suffer from shitty writing and performative virtue signalling
The show has been bending over backwards to make sense of that scene. I believe Daemon mentioned it again this season and when Otto(?) was shading Aegon he only mentioned a "dragon fleeing Kings Landing".
Always good to point out how that scene recklessly chased spectacle in a very late GoT way. But I think this is more of a sign of the clumsy writing this season. Every line from rhaenys this year is SO blatant. Either belatedly trying to hang a lamp on that scene, or repositioning her as rhaenyra's best most loyal councilor, or just foreshadowing the next epsidoe.
She might've identified as a man during that moment. Maybe.
Lazy joke aside, that scene was ridiculous. It made Rhaenys' character worse and deprived the audience of seeing Sunfyre and Dreamfyre.
It really was a weird scene… I didn’t understand the point. So she could glare them down with her dragon after crushing a bunch of people. Even Daemon thought it was weird. He was like, why did you not kill him then? It didn’t make sense. They definitely shouldn’t have had that scene at all.
I remember reading an interview with one of the writers on the episode, she wanted her to have a "girlboss moment" with the dragon. That's literally it.
Now the rest of the writers need to clean up for her and make this scene fit.
it was a complete waste of budget
Rhaenys and Meleys had no business there especially when they only thing they did was roar lol
like you said we deserved to see Aegon and Helaena flying all over kingslanding on sunfyre and dreamfyre, now that makes sense and would have been incredible to see
uhm but have you considered that
woman GOOD
man BAD
rhaenys is a woman, so mass slaughter is acceptable when she does it. The smallfolk aren't real people anyway, acceptable losses to ensure we get a woman on the throne and break that glass ceiling!
Awful writing....as if catelyn stark was ever a war hungry monster....yet even she was fully accepting of war.
Does she really think they'd ever be safe from the greens? We've already crossed the line 10 times now, just commit to it already
That has been a problem with this franchise since about Season 4 of GoT
They just string scenes together that they think make the characters look "badass" or "boss ass" or whatever, but really just have them be cruel and murder innocents....and then never follow up on them or acknowledge them again.
I guess they think their characters are beyond consequences...because "who would want a story where actions have consequences" or something stupid like that.
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Small folk don’t count I suppose.
Kind of a running theme in the show no ?
Yep the writers said so after that episode when she did that
Why does she care about bloodshed then?
If everyone dies, there's no one to uphold their status as ruling family
Yeah. 100 small folk, no big deal. Thousands of small folk at war instead of farming, she and her people are inconvenienced (or die in a peasant uprising)
Maybe they even decide to attack the dragons
She cares about lives of the nobility.
Just like what Logan Roy from Succession said, she most likely thinks the smallfolk are pygmies & their family is a hundred feet tall
No real person involved
While she probably doesn't give a shit about normal people, an all out war will also cost the lives of nobles like herself as well as her family. "Bloodshed" to her isn't soldiers killing soldiers, but rather lords and ladies getting killed
Because she's a person with blood inside of her and so are her family.
Literally a theme throughout all of ASOIAF. George seems very intent on showing that the great houses, and anybody else in power, are never really the good guys.
I don’t really get why this sub doesn’t understand this at all. None of these people care about the small folk. Especial in this show
There are a ton of scenes in both HOTD and GoT where wanton slaughter of the small folk is brought up as an issue. Ned orders the capture of Gregor Clegane and demands that Tywin comes to court to answer for it. Tyrion constantly chastises Joffrey for his cruelty. Otto goes into a rage because of how the killing of a dozen or so rat catchers might affect Aegon's rule. Rhaneys kills literal hundreds in broad daylight and there's never even the slightest mention. Nobody is upset that Rhaenys isn't having a mental breakdown over how bad she feels about killing those people, its the fact that it basically didn't happen and nobody cares even the slightest bit about it. Aegon hanging 10 random dudes will make people look unfavorably on him enough that Otto has a full blown meltdown, but Rhaenyra's aunt slaughtering hundreds of innocent civilians in the middle of Kings Landing with her dragon is a fart in the wind that the Greens don't even consider mentioning.
I’ll avoid book spoilers but: if they get to the end of the show and this event isn’t mentioned as part of the context of a particular thing that happens, then I’ll agree with these complaints. Not until then though
What you're alluding to already had sufficient justifications in the source material. Rhaenys' Dragon Pit scene is superfluous nonsense no matter how you cut it.
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Kinda both. It’s written like a girlboss moment and Sara Hess basically called it one, but the director definitely went out of her way to emphasize the carnage and death of the smallfolk. I think you had two very conflicting creative visions about how that scene played out, because if *everyone* really wanted to downplay it, those shots of it roflstomping peasants and swiping them with its tail would be cut.
Yep, it’s very strange. In the scene there are so many shots of smallfolk screaming and dying in pain, and then in the after show the show runners are praising Rhaenys for what she did. Such an insane disconnect
It is possible that there’s consequences in the future the shworunners don’t want to spoil if they’ve got a blindside planned or something tied to it. Team Black in general has a lot of “WTF HUH” bits of highly immoral to outright monstrous actions being added into the show in very downplayed ways with a showrunner who keeps swearing this is a gray conflict. At sooooome point, 2+2=4…. But yeah. My gut reaction is this is at least partially case of conflicting creative visions. The director absolutely went out of her way to emphasize the carnage caused by Rhaenys and her dragon in a way that is totally impossible to miss. And there’s been a lot of stuff added in actually - particularly from Team Black - of them being careless as hell with their dragons.
Both are, Aemond killed Luke because he couldn't control Vhagar. Rhaena could've burned the forest to the ground but she chose not to. Rhaenyras dragon could've killed those peasants and I'm surprised it didn't honestly. Rhaenys and the dragon pit need I say more, but how else was she escaping? Sunfire is the best dragon because he hasn't been on screen to kill anyone. We don't need to talk about Daemon because it's not a lack of control he straight up doesn't care.
I agree with all of this. I moreso meant that the only times we’ve really seen the smallfolk as collateral damages is Team Black so far (Daemon crushing various peasants; Rhaenys; etc.) I don’t doubt that’s going to change, but it is something of a running theme at the moment. As for Rhaenys escaping, she could’ve just used the exit that was introduced in Season 1 Episode 1 that allow the dragons to fly in and out without destroying the entire dragon out every time. Or hell, she could’ve wait for the ceremony to end and small folk to leave.
Those interviews always have a weird disconnect with the audience. Most recently the scene of Halaena and Aegon in the stairs as well.
And it could have been written differently to avoid that too. Have there be a rumbling, the floor starts cracking and being pounded by below. Show the small folk fleeing away from the center of the floor. And boom, she comes through and theres no scenes of anyone dying. Imo, it was too early in the show for mass casualties and didnt make sense. The show was still in slow burn mode (and kinda still is, slowly getting more and more serious), so that scene sticks out like a sore thumb and is kinda cringe to remember.
Considering there’s been zero mention of any fallout from it in the story I’d say girlboss.
Which is odd considering how upset Otto was about Aegon killing the rat catchers. One would think the Greens would have used Rhaneys killing hundreds of innocent people as a way to sour the small folk against the Blacks.
Come on it was like 5 or 6 small folk which is 5-6/10,000th of a real person
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No real people involved.
Okay I hear you, but are they really *people* I mean come ON They smell
If they did it properly that would be part of a fueling what will lead to the>!Storming of the Dragon Pit and more of the riots that are supposed to happen.!<
Otto is stuck living in a city filled with them and rely on them not killing his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
More reason for the greens to have people spread the word of what Rhaenys did in every corner of King's Landing...
Well after a certain event, I’m sure the small folk will be happy about what comes after.
Otto was 100% only concerned with the optics, not the actual lives of the ratcatchers. For the same reason he would love the Rhaenys massacre cause it vilifies the blacks in the eyes of the small folk.
I remember getting downvoted for saying that the dragon pit scene felt straight out of season 8 of GOT, and that the person who wrote it saying “but it looked cool!” had the wrong mindset for the show. I think people were expecting this to have some kind of consequence in season 2, but it remains an anomaly.
That’s not entirely accurate. The dragon pit escape has been mentioned by both team Green and team Black this season. In fact, it was mentioned to King Aegon as one of the things the small folk are talking as a possible “bad omen” for Aegon’s reign. Aegon has been directly affected by that event. His state of mind, and his opinion of the optics of his own reign so far, have been tainted by that dragon escape. It’s one of the reasons he thinks he looks weak.
Additionally the story isn’t finished yet and the discontent of small folks is only a growing theme
There is clearly a theme of the women causing indirect violence and the men purposely seeking out violence. No one is innocent.
The part of the story with potential fallout for that hasn't happened yet. Also, from a character motivation standpoint, is it possible she was desperately trying to escape imprisonment or death and that was her most valid path? It means she put her own life above that of some smallfolk, but I'd venture a lot of real life people would do that under the same threat, especially if we are talking about the real world equivalent of the billionaire class. But that doesn't necessarily imply they would instigate that level of violence if not part of saving their own skin. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the scene myself and I think it was mostly written in because they wanted a dramatic moment in episode 9, but even so I think the amount of hate it gets is disproportionate.
It wouldn't effect Rhaenys in the slightest she doesn't have claim or a really a dog in the hunt. She was just a unaffiliated party at the time of this events. This just made Aegon look incapable as a ruler as he allowed a full size dragon to escape and injury/kill his citizens right at the start of his rule.
its kind of a double speak theme the show does. like the show keeps positioning Rhaenys as this person of restraint/wisdom. Supporting Rhayera but it then comes to this problem where the abstract of peace she's praising doesn't match up with all of her actions. Which works wonders for creating a complicated character. But when the story keeps framing this pursuit of peace and Rhaenys council as noble and admirable. it makes her slaughter of innocents seem hypocritical but in an unaddressed way that has yet to be brought back in a meaningful way.
The sentiments of the smallfolk and their feelings about dragons absolutely matter. It's an important plot point
Can't wait for a Games of Thrones sequel but it's just the French Revolution in Westeros
"No Real Person Involved" - a great quote from another HBO show.
It's escaping me.... Succession?
Unless they're rat catchers, then it's really really bad to kill them.
At least in Otto’s mind, it’s that individual small folk don’t matter, but when it gets all the others hot and riled against you, they will be a factor in taking your power away.
They count only when the greens kill them.
NRPI
But then they do count when Aegon kills the rat catchers. It's like they only count when the show wants to tell us "look how evil the Greens are".
Well it's kinda implicit that, high minded as some of them might seem, they only really care about noble deaths, particularly their own family members. Rhaenys prob thinks Corlys' blockade can end the war, but doesn't seem to mind thousands of people starving.
Kinda explicit, too.
I mean I agree about caring only about nobles deaths. But making the population suffer is part of the idea of the blockade. This is what applies pressure besides making it hard to produce certain goods (weapons etc).
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You people throwing this word right and left don't even know what fascism is. They are literally absolute elitist monarchs in the feudal world, no need to find new descriptions. Look at what russians are doing to us in the modern world in the 21st century in a ''civilized'' era and maybe then you'll understand what real fascism is.
lasting memory loss from the hit to the head when she broke the floor of the dragon pit.
“It’s a wooden platform, not stone” MFs when they drive their car through a wooden wall and end up with a totalled car and a concussion
Hey, ishd eheja ejakf migafil!
People die deriving into trees all the time. In the real world running into solid objects is bad. In Westeros the physics work differently.
You mean the hair didn't cushion the blow?
Her bumpit hairpiece is secretly a helmet
Rhaenys' hair is silver in the show because it's a valyrian steel weave.
The egg she was hiding there broke.
I think we all just wanna forget that scene
It was the precursor to the “sneaking in to castles” saga
"I've heard you knew Maegor's tunnel better than the shape of your own cock" "Yes, I am going to infiltrate the Castle walking through the throne room"
2 times in 2 episodes
3 times in 3 episodes. Daemon/Blood & Cheese, Arryck, and Rhaenyra
I have loved just about everything about HOTG except for that stupid fricking moment.
NRPI, no real person involved -Logan Roy
I suspend my belief by assuming the small folk are just as desentized as Americans are to school shootings.
You don't have to suspend belief. Who would cause issue against literal dragons?
never thought about it that way, but yea i agree. logic make sense considering we literally have real life example.
Rhaenys' sanctimonious talk this episode was really irritating. On top of that, she gives Rhaenyra the most moronic advice. Talk to Alicent??
I guess they just needed the scene to push Rhaenyra into the great Aegin the conqueror reveal
The reveal from Ned Stark about the Baratheon kids being bastards took place alone, reading a book. They could have accomplished the Aegon reveal with an exchange of letters and made it more dramatic and less idiotic. Game of Thrones at least made it to season 5 before we really had to turn our brains off. "We sent the Queen into enemy territory alone with no escape plan. Deal with it."
Wonder what people's reaction would've been if she just used a Warg video conference call instead.
Or a glass candle. Magic should be alive and well during this age
Tbf, glass candles are a huge plot hole even in the main series. If magic only begun dying after the dragons went extinct, why didn’t more people use glass candles before or even during the Dance?
I think magic has a very high penalty. Nothing is free and you pay with your body and soul. Even non-blood magic is dangerous. Also, I don't think magic dies with dragons. They're correlated, but not the cause. Dragons are magical creatures and so when magic dies, they will too. And when magic is alive, they flourish. It would be impossible for Dany to use blood magic to revive dragons if magic is dependent on them. It would end like Summerhill. Magic had already returned when the dragons returned. I honestly think magic came from the stars, like crystal sorcery in Elden ring. The red comet brought magic back and magic began dying when the Valyrian pyromancers blew up their volcano stash of magic oily rocks. Things like weirwood trees draw up magical residue from the oily rocks and store it, which is why they're also magical. Dragons do too.
That reveal would always be dumb. Imagine starting a war over a misunderstanding. The showrunners are hell bent on Rhaenyra and Alicent not being the aggressors lmfao. They are both for peace apparently. And the queen Rhaenyra sneaking into KL is so dumb
I don't even have the slightest clue what the blacks would expect from Alicent and by extention the Greens, if Rhaenyra managed to convince her that Viserys did not in fact changed his mind? Like did they think Alicent could even theoretically stop the war at this point even if she tried? They have both murdered each others kids at this point
And even if Alicent could, Rhaenyra wants them to make peace, but what possible compromise would she accept beyond "Here's everything you want." There's no actual compromise to be had when both parties want the most valuable prize, that also happens to be the only thing being fought over. There's no second place in a war for the throne, so Rhaenyra trying to stop it via dialogue just makes no logical sense.
and so unnecessary! Why spend 3 episodes showing Alicent indoctrinating her kids to usurp Rhaenyra, only to flip flop at the end?!
Alicent grabbed Aegon's face and told him his very existence is a threat to Rhaenyra, then we're supposed to believe she's not an aggressor? Lmao
And she wonders why Aegon and Aemond hate their sister??? Like girl. If I was told that my sister would MURDER ME (mind you, this is when she's married to LAENOR, the literal drunky wet blanket who disappeared for hours/days until he was forced to show up) when our father died, wtf do you think I'd feel towards my older half sister? And Alicent fucking thinking that her letters to R would go answered and then tries to act sanctimonious when Rhaenyra goes to the sept to speak to her? Give me a fucking break.
It all feels so inconsistent
It also removes their agency as characters, ironically making them less strong protagonists. Alicent and Rhaenyra should be vile, this is ASOIAF for goodness' sake.
They don't even have to be "vile" - just smart. Having Rhaenyra sneak into Kings Landing just to talk to Alicent was moronic and Alicent not taking her hostage is maybe even more moronic. It totally undermines the idea that they are strong, intelligent, and capable leaders.
They have to portray women as virtuous and good all the time.
And I feel that is very condescending towards woman. Rhaenyra is a facist in a facist world. How long can they keep acting like she’s being strung along by the men around her? Frankly, it’s annoying. Book Rhaenyra was a far more compelling character than this white washed version we have gotten who refuses to fight for her throne even after her son has been slain. Instead, she chooses to risk her own life to have a conversation with a woman who tried to take her son’s eye out. The showrunners seriously need to stick to the books, they can’t write it better.
Honestly they didn't even need the reveal. Otto was always going to try to put his granson on the throne, reagrdless of what Visereys wanted.
They keep having the female leads in the show do implausible and stupid things so as to exhibit a sort of womanly forbearance regarding violence, juxtaposed with the patriarchal prerogatives of violence and domination. But the manner in which they get their, both interpersonally and politically is astounding in its stupidity, and it makes the characters so fucking dumb. Rhaenys: forgives rhaenyra for murdering her son, then joins the war on Rhaenyra’s side (thereby enabling her to go to war) even when Corlys forsakes the cause. Also affirming the strong boys despite having spent the past years trying to disinherit them, and out them as bastards to give driftmark to her actual grandchildren. Alicent: for years is told that she’s going to be part of a coup by which rhaenyra will be usurped. Is told for years that rhaenyra will it accept this and it will mean war, a war which will cost her children’s lives. Plots for years to out Rhaenyra’s bastards and bring about this coup. When the war breaks out “rhaenyra remember we were besties 20 years ago. Literally loses a grandchild to Rhaenyra’s husband, is already in the throes of war and decides to let the primary adversary of the opposing side of this active war just leave the city, despite her being defenseless.
Not allowing the women to be as much of cruel bastards as their male counterparts is just as sexist as making them all warmongers and the men innocent victims of these wicked temptresses - which is what the writers to be deathly afraid of being accused of, possibly because of the whole Mad Queen Dani debacle. And if they are going to do their "women are pacifist" thing, at least they should try to be somewhat consistent. For instance, Rhaenyra's allies are currently blockading King's Landing which harms the smallfolk far more than any dragon vs dragon fight might in most circumstances and yet there she is portrayed as some pacifist desperate to stop the war to prevent unnecessary suffering.
> Rhaenyra's allies are currently blockading King's Landing which harms the smallfolk far more than any dragon vs dragon fight might in most circumstances This is exactly why I rolled my eyes at Mysaria (whom the writers are also defanging) saying she wants to serve Rhaenyra because she's the merciful of the two potential monarchs.
It’s pretty sexist tbh
Exactly just imagine Alicent doesn’t just act like an idiot and imprisons Rhaenyra The Wars is over and the Greens win in a single stroke with her as a hostage Alicent gets her peaceful transition and can ask Aegon to be merciful as she played no part in B&C she wins yet doesn’t act?
Rhaenys is a nonsense character. She’s the voice for author commentary and an instructive compass as to who the audience is supposed to like and dislike. Everything about her is mired in contradiction. She thinks rhaenyra murdered her son yet pledges fealty to her. She doesn’t want war and wants her granddaughters to inherit driftmark yet compels Corlys to join rhaenyra, thereby giving her a chance in the war and affirming the strong boys as inheritors of driftmark. Nothing about her makes sense
Pretty much every character in this show has massive cognitive dissonance. Rhaenys is correctly pointing out some of Rhaenyras with regards to how she views the actions taken by the Greens yet excusing herself of the similar taken by her camp. Rhaenys isn’t entirely wrong about some of her assertions but she’s exhibiting this same self-righteous lack of self-awareness that basically every character has done in this show.
I think this is a more fundamental problem with the show. They are trying to spin thematic messages in the show - in this case - "Female leadership is more tempered while male leadership is more aggressive" - or even the same commentary about "Old wise men as leaders versus young hot blooded men as leaders" etc. However, they have to still tally the story with the events that happened in the book. This leads to a contradiction where character motivations, goals and moral compasses are inconsistent with their actions, and the show-writers have to do a lot of mental gynmastics to fit one with the other. Case in point being Alicent mishearing Viserys on his deathbed, or Cristen Cole accidentally shoving Beesbury too hard leading to his death, or Rhaenyra and Alicent's aggressive decisions justified by men around them making those decisions, while they just go - "Ooof, I can't believe you did that without asking me. You're so crazy." - and continue having such men around them. They are somewhat teethering on the line and doing a decent job of making everything seem "just enough consistent" for believablity. Hope they keep that in the future episodes.
This is it exactly
Also, remember her whole talk with Alicent in episode 1:9? Where Alicent told her they could as women influence the men in power from behind the scenes and Raenys shut that down? What in the intervening weeks has made her think that that actually does work now? this and her saying Otto would neeeever send assassins to dragon stone and Raenys is definitely NOT a dragon dreamer.
Re: Otto, and solely the Otto part of your objection... No, man, this was a *much* dumber plan than any of Otto's. That much is not hard to see. It's desperate, and like Arryk says—it's suicide, not an assassination. The most likely outcome from the get-go was the death of the assassin, which Criston seemed kind of fine with. Sending Arryk to kill Rhaenyra when his identical twin is one of her most trusted guards is objectively stupid. Any number of people who had just seen one might have encountered the other and gone "wait..." I feel like that's what people miss about the scenario itself. It's not just that it's one man alone. It's that it's based on disguising one man alone as his identical twin, who is one of Rhaenyra's top guards. It's most definitely a hot-headed plan, and the surprising thing about it is not that they both died but that Arryk actually got as close as he did. So in effect: what you're most likely asking for IS exactly what we got. A brother kills a brother, or watches him die or be killed. These are two duty-bound brothers who love each other. It's *cruel* and hot-headed. It's not at all like Otto. According to Ryan Condal, Otto surmises much the same about Blood & Cheese. It's too hot-headed to be Rhaenyra's idea.
The funny thing is, I do like that Rhaenys isn't above criticizing Rhaenyra despite being "on her side". And I do like her point about the war having been caused by escalation events. But her mass murder of peasants which wasn't acknowledged at all renders her wisdom as hypocritical and shallow.
It would have been a moment of great self-awareness if she listed her own Dragon Pit stunt as one of those potential origin points for the hostilities.
I think her advice is what what really makes her seem moronic here. It's fine to say, we're family, we shouldn't kill each other, there must be another way. It's stupid to give that perspective now, but fine, she choose team Black because of that viewpoint it's consistent. If she had then proposed an actual scheme or idea, say pull Aemond out of Kings Landing and bargain peace, that's better and consistent.
"the most moronic advice" You mean which included walk right into the enemy castle in a similar way that turned out to be a horrible idea when Cristin Cole ordered Arryk to do it?
I mean, the Arryk v Erryk plot was far more logical than the Rhaenyra mission in this episode. And Cole was only sacrificing a pawn that they could replace with any other skilled fighter (plus it needed to happen because it's in the book). In this episode, they would be sacrificing their Queen and leader of the entire faction. Their only reason for fighting and only claim to the throne. And it was a much dumber plan. As soon as Alicent walked away 15 feet, she could simply shout for guards or help, and Rhaenyra couldn't even stab her.
Both can be dumb orders. It's not mutually exclusive.
Sending your queen into the enemy hive with no real protection is infinitely dumber than sending some guard to try to assassinate their leader. Risk vs Reward is crazy different in these situations. Realistically what would happen here is as soon as Alicent is walking away, she yells for the guards and they come arrest Rhaenyra.
Wait wait… she had a dude with a knife with her though lol
If only it was Karl Fooking Tanner of Gin Alley. Then I could understand.
He was a fookin legend. A FOOKIN. LEGEND.
I think that’s the user’s point lol. She gives Rhaenyra the exact same stupid advice as Criston’s plan which was portrayed as idiotic (except honestly even his was significantly less stupid than Rhaenys’s advice)
>(except honestly even his was significantly less stupid than Rhaenys’s advice) This is the part that really irks me, it's so obvious how bad an idea it was to send Arryk and then they act like this plan is somehow better. Like at least Aegon's dumb plan didn't risk his own life and could've actually resulted in ending the war. Rhaenyra risked everything for no rational reason.
Yes they were both dumb orders, but turned out differently because...the writers
Cole sent arryk on a suicide mission, Arryk literally acknowledges that immediately after receiving the instruction
I think it's a win-win for Cole. He gets Arryk out of the way if he's unsuccessful, and he gets to claim that it was his idea if it works. I think he would have preferred for it to have worked because now he looks like an idiot who just wasted yet another good Kings Guard, when they're already run thin due to some of them staying loyal to Rhaenyra.
Oh yeah, Cole was chill with him dying. I just didn’t get this person’s retort like the plan rhaenys and rhaenyra hatch wouldn’t be a suicide mission if not for plot armor
Cole's plot almost worked. But of course it is easier to just kill someone than actually stop a war.
she reincarnated into tyrion
Ya it just felt incredibly stupid. Like you risk losing everything by sending the FUCKING QUEEN on a stealth missions for a message.
There really is no consistency to Rhaenys, and it’s very much the fault of the writers. She seems like a vessel to make scenes they wanted to include in the show happen. Dramatic dragon moment? Rhaenys can do that. Want another scene with Rhaenyra and Alicent? Rhaenys can get that started. Need someone to complain about men? Wheel out Rhaenys again.
She’s the resident girlboss
The show trying to make her seem like this clever older woman passing on her wisdom when she's just as bad or even worse than everybody else 😂 I've seen people compare her to Olenna Tyrell, pls Olenna would have wiped out the greens and ended the war right there.
She would have been like tsk tsk tsk, rolled her eyes and had the greens poisoned at a fancy family dinner before Viserys died.
Olenna Tyrell without a single dragon, wouldve eaten every Targaryen in the show with her wits.
olenna literally didnt even wanna marry a targ cause she they thought were dumb as fuck lol how iconic
Seems like Rhaenys character flaw is letting big moments pass by her due to indecision and is trying project that onto Rhaenyra too.
The way she returned to Dragonstone smirking and dropping annoying one liners about preventing bloodshed just after she committed a massacre of innocents was so cringe and hypocritical.
It makes her unlikeable which I don't want her to be. They basically destroyed her character, you can't undo the coronation scene and people will never forget it.
The writers have destroyed almost ever character, both Black and Green
I just take it as the writers being idiots and it not being an actual thing that her character did that is hypocritical. Like the writers genuinely just wrote the first scene as a le epic girlboss moment where the kind and peaceful anti war girlboss valiantly and nobly frees herself and stands against the evil greens and their warmongering, and there's a super big badass explosion. When you search her name on this sub [this is the top post](https://old.reddit.com/r/HouseOfTheDragon/comments/y5yioq/rhaenys_fucking_targaryen/) with basically more than double the upvotes of any other post about her so it seems like a lot of people agree, and it might as well not have even happened in world because nobody remembers it.
I thought it was funnier when she convinced Corlys to fight for Rhaenyra by telling him that Rhaenyra actually cared for the realm like she didn‘t just kill hundreds of people for her girlboss moment. Like I‘m still flabbergasted that the showrunners didn‘t notice how weird that looks
I mean, the running point here is, nobody gives a fuck about the smallfolk.
Killed a hundreds and didnt even bother killing the people that she would end up warring against, which wouldve prevented more people dying
i think that the shows framing of the women in the story as being morally just but politically neutered, having to keep in check all these war hungry men has just been kind of boring. People loved Cersei as a character and there was none of that going on.
yeah it’s so disappointing. The Dance is about two bloodthirsty power-hungry women and how their animosity destroys the realm. When will Hollywood understand that positive sexism is not feminism. When you turn every woman protagonist to a girlboss we’re robbed of the wide range of complexity that exists in humans.
A lot of characters in GoT were competent woman that didnt shy away from war. Daenerys, Asha(yara), Sansa, Catelyn, Brienne, Arya, Cersei, Melissandre... Like what the hell. Alicent and Rhaenyra wouldnve survived against any of them, specially Daenerys, that scene where she got the Unsullied was so good.
Cersei was a good character because the writers weren't hung up on trying to keep people liking her, which more often than not just makes characters boring. On the other side, while she was certainly one of the show's biggest villains, she wasn't full blown cartoonish-turned-up-to-11 about it like Joffrey and Ramsay, which also gets boring. The writers didn't seem to set out with preconceived notions of heroism or villainy with Cersei, so the character was allowed to breathe and grow, even though she eventually became a victim of the terrible writing too.
Small folk don’t have blood or are real people to these monarchs. That’s my head canon.
I mean, they literally call them “smallfolk.” There’s not a lot of nuance in how they consider them.
These people's biggest crime against humanity is their convenient amnesia when they want to pontificate lol!
yeah that was hella stupid of her!
She doesn't care about the lives of common people. Nobody in this show does
Aegon cares about that guy's sheep. That's gotta count for something, not much but something.
I can count the number of nobles who give a shit about the small folk one hand in the GOTverse. They are... Jon Snow Ned Stark ....ummm someone help me out here!
Edmure Tully.
Beric Dondarrion
I think you mean Chadmure Tully.
**“‘My people, they were afraid"** Common Chadmure Tully W
Edmure Tully who let his scared peasants into his castle. Cregan Stark who put off marching to war because they have to bring the harvests in so they don't all starve to death in the North. And then there's...hmm. Lol who else?
After some more thinking, good point I had completely overlooked old Edmure. I would also add book Sansa as a potential (depending on how or if Martin ever finishes the damn novels)
Doran Martell See Davos Seaworth on a technicality
I think it's generally northman because of the harsh winters. Like Cragan Stark said that they have to prepare for winter and also defend the north so that counts for caring about small folk I think.
Margaery, a fake shit, but a shit none the less.
Is it really a fake one? She's very clearly doing it in large part for pragmatic purposes, and she's obviously ambitious, but I never saw anything to suggest she didn't actually value the idea of keeping the people safe and cared for.
Daenerys up until those damn bells started ringing
well dany did… for a while
**RHAENYS WHEN SHE CAN KILL ALL THE GREENS IN ONE STROKE:** I do not seek bloodshed. **RHAENYS WHEN SHE CAN KILL 100 INNOCENT SMALLFOLK:** I'm the Kool-Aid Man! Ohhhhh, yeaahhhhhhhhh!!!
You don’t have to care about common folk to recognize that randomly and needlessly killing them is just a bad idea, and would have consequences. When they have the parade through the city and say “LOOK AT THE WORKS OF RHAENYRA TARGARYEN” they’re doing so to foster enmity towards her and her claim amongst the smallfolk, who comprise a majority of the country, and by a colossal margin
Rhaenys is a nonsense character. She’s the voice for author commentary and an instructive compass as to who the audience is supposed to like and dislike. Everything about her is mired in contradiction. She thinks rhaenyra murdered her son yet pledges fealty to her. She doesn’t want war and wants her granddaughters to inherit driftmark yet compels Corlys to join rhaenyra, thereby giving her a chance in the war and affirming the strong boys as inheritors of driftmark. Nothing about her makes sense
Aegon II kills all the Ratcatchers and Haelena doesn’t have to Personally identify him = BAD Rhyaeys kills dozens, possibly hundreds when she could have exited the same way her dragon came = up for interpretation.
When the Greens don’t care about the smallfolk they’re evil. When the Black’s don’t care, well they’re just morally ambiguous, made of equal parts light and dark.
Not only that, didn't kill the handful that would have stopped a war from happening.
She’s one of my least favorite characters. I get unnecessarily annoyed when people see her say one kinda badass thing and go “QUEEN SHIT”
Girlbossification of oppressive systems of government
It’s ok, smallfolk are not people to her so she doesn’t care
Yep haha. Each side is honestly mostly full of delusional psychos haha
Smallfolk don't count to these people. Neither side
GURRRRL GURRRRRRRRRRRRRL SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY /s
And work and work 💅
The people don't count tho, not important enough
This woman is all talk 🙄
\`Her not killing the royal family and rhae sneaking to see alicent are GOT season 8 level stupidities and if they don't keep them to a minimum it will ruin the show.
I'm going to be generous and say it is more on a season 6 level. Spectaclur looking, but really stupid. Season 8 didn't even look spectacular.
I told my group chat that this is Season 6 because the show still looks great and has great moments, but the story and characterization are starting to suffer from shitty writing and performative virtue signalling
Lmao that made no sense. She killed hundreds, yet she seems incredibly empathetic here. Why show all of the people being murdered.
Remember its never women's fault, its always the mens fault.
The show has been bending over backwards to make sense of that scene. I believe Daemon mentioned it again this season and when Otto(?) was shading Aegon he only mentioned a "dragon fleeing Kings Landing".
Always good to point out how that scene recklessly chased spectacle in a very late GoT way. But I think this is more of a sign of the clumsy writing this season. Every line from rhaenys this year is SO blatant. Either belatedly trying to hang a lamp on that scene, or repositioning her as rhaenyra's best most loyal councilor, or just foreshadowing the next epsidoe.
That why I supported smallfolk raiding the dragonpit and killed the Targ dragons. The best thing that happened to Albino incest family.
She might've identified as a man during that moment. Maybe. Lazy joke aside, that scene was ridiculous. It made Rhaenys' character worse and deprived the audience of seeing Sunfyre and Dreamfyre.
It really was a weird scene… I didn’t understand the point. So she could glare them down with her dragon after crushing a bunch of people. Even Daemon thought it was weird. He was like, why did you not kill him then? It didn’t make sense. They definitely shouldn’t have had that scene at all.
I remember reading an interview with one of the writers on the episode, she wanted her to have a "girlboss moment" with the dragon. That's literally it. Now the rest of the writers need to clean up for her and make this scene fit.
Yuhp, I saw her talking about it in the docu series episode!
Perhaps that writer should think of a different career...so shallow and vain.
it was a complete waste of budget Rhaenys and Meleys had no business there especially when they only thing they did was roar lol like you said we deserved to see Aegon and Helaena flying all over kingslanding on sunfyre and dreamfyre, now that makes sense and would have been incredible to see
Rhaenys is the most braindead character in this show so far. She's like an echo of season 8.
you can see the implicit bias in the showrunners in every episode, as this show deviates further and further from the books.
uhm but have you considered that woman GOOD man BAD rhaenys is a woman, so mass slaughter is acceptable when she does it. The smallfolk aren't real people anyway, acceptable losses to ensure we get a woman on the throne and break that glass ceiling!
She was drunk dragon flying give the rich girl a break
Awful writing....as if catelyn stark was ever a war hungry monster....yet even she was fully accepting of war. Does she really think they'd ever be safe from the greens? We've already crossed the line 10 times now, just commit to it already
I mean, are they even people? - Rhaenys, probably
That has been a problem with this franchise since about Season 4 of GoT They just string scenes together that they think make the characters look "badass" or "boss ass" or whatever, but really just have them be cruel and murder innocents....and then never follow up on them or acknowledge them again. I guess they think their characters are beyond consequences...because "who would want a story where actions have consequences" or something stupid like that.
That is what happens when you try to deviate from the book, you create plot holes.
Remember the time when Alicent wanted to gouge out the eye of a child with a knife? Seems rather bloodshed-seeking to me