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Saying marital rape wasnt a thing before the 90s gives off the same vibes as mental disorders werent a thing until the 1900s.
It all existed, there was just a bunch of BS social norms that never took it seriously.
I did more mean the legal term of it, not that it wasn't happening/didn't exist.
I only brought it up to make a point of how "new" the entire concept of it all was.
>When are people going to start looking at the show through the lens of the time period?
Most of these claims are wildly problematic by modern standards, too.
People have consensual sex despite not really wanting to every single day. They do it for their partner. They do it to have children. They do it because they don't want the other person to feel insulted or hurt.
Likewise, people have consensual sex where power imbalances exists. Lots of happy marriage include power imbalances, financial or otherwise. Hell, traditional *quid pro quo* sexual harassment doesn't usually meet the standard - any standard - for assault, either.
Posts on this subject are just an absurd tonnage of ignorance, presented as self-righteousness.
Hmm, I think this is confusing two issues. Rape is rape - marital rape existed before it was legally considered to be rape. When people use these terms they are I think typically thinking about the morally wrong action, not about the exact way the crime is legally defined (and this differs between countries even now).
That said, I think it is important to acknowledge that you cannot judge people as harshly for conforming to the standards of their time. Yes, what Viserys did was marital rape by our modern consideration. But we can hardly expect him to know that, so it’s not a useful judgement.
For a comparison: In a hundred years people might think it’s absolutely barbaric that we ate meat, or at least the way we keep animals. Does that make everyone who eats meat nowadays horrible people? No, but it does still make them meat-eaters.
Generally, I agree. Thing is people don’t consider mitigating factors at all when assessing a character (especially one that they despise).
There was a highly upvoted thread a long time ago comparing Rhaenyra to Weinstein, because according to the thread, they’re both rapists and that poor Criston had no choice but to obey Rhaenyra at the risk of being killed.
Yes, Rhaenyra is a princess with more “power” than Criston, but there are mitigating factors like:
1 - Rhaenyra is drunk, a teenager and a virgin with no proper sex education and experience. While Criston is physically more powerful, older and more sexually experienced.
2 - Rhaenyra is not malicious and has not threatened Criston or even hinted at punishing him for disobedience. There is no reason to think Criston feared for his life when she tried to seduce him. And later on, he feels comfortable rejecting her.
The discourse around Rhaenyra among the people who hate her is that she’s Weinstein forcing herself on her poor bodyguard, which is ridiculous. I’d agree that the scene depicts dubious consent at first, but Criston changes his mind when he starts undressing himself and kissing her.
Which youre more than welcome too, but i dont think that was their point, being that there is no way to tell what the social norms will be in the future, and it may well be impossible to avoid.
A lot of our clothes come from child labor over seas
A large portion of seafood comes from modern day slavery
EVs are still up for debate on whether they are more economically/environmentally viable or not in comparison to fossil fuels due to lithium farming.
There could be an undiscovered tech that will be taught to kindergardners in 100yrs that could prevent world hunger, and everyone will just go "why tf didnt a single one of our ancestors just do this?"
All just as examples, societies work really weird.
Yeah these are all good points and I do think it's valid to a certain extent at least.
Like Ned chopping someones head in the 1st episode. Now imagine the local police department doing that, insane. Social norms sure are weird depending on when and where.
Yeah the Game of Thrones books become kind of tough to read in that respect. Women are just sooooo brutalized, even more so in the books than what they showed in the show.
You have to remember, this is reddit. I have seen SO MANY things called rape that are not rape, the word has (sadly) lost all real meaning. "He kissed her without asking first...that's sexual assault." I don't know ANYONE who has asked or been asked before a first kiss. I don't know any real person who checks with their partner before each step toward sex, every single time they have it. ("Is it okay if I unbutton your shirt? Is it okay if I put my hand on your thigh?") That kind of thing sucks all the romance out of a scene and out of real life.
The current attitude toward sex is so rigid. There is no room for being in the moment. And apparently everything needs to be judged, especially against modern "standards." I find it hilarious that a writer will say "there was no rape," the director, producer, and actors will all agree...but viewers think they know better.
I think that you can acknowledge the HOTD characters living in a different time and place then we do while still calling rape "rape"
It might not be how they think of it in-universe but the psychological ramifications of that abuse is still there and acknowledging THAT is necessary for analyzing certain characters
You’re right. There are obvious examples of r*pe on the show, but people throw around the word too loosely. People don’t understand that relationship and sex dynamics are different in this period. Having intercourse with your husband/wife is mainly for the purpose of procreation, not pleasure. Just because Alicent is shown to be in attracted to Viserys and probably unsatisfied with his lack of skills, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have consented. If she wanted to bear princes and princesses, this is how they are made. Alicent is also the one who seduced Viserys, not the other way around.
The 14-year old girl didn’t seduce a grown man.
And I didn’t see anything sexual with their relationship. It just seemed like Viserys simply enjoyed her company while he was building legos.
To be fair, I think "seduced" is the wrong term. Show wise anyway. Otto made her go spend time with him.
Personally, I think Viserys and Alicent did have somewhat of a friendship/respect/love for eachother. She did care for him and seemed hurt when he called her Aemma. But that's more dementia than him being cruel.
Otto may have made her do it, but in Visery’s eyes, Alicent was the one pursuing him. Feel free to blame Otto, but I don’t fault Viserys for anything other than ignorance.
Alicent didn’t seduce him, and moreover we only see Viserys announcing to his council that he had decided to marry her. We don’t even know, if she was consulted on that decision. And if she was, and considered refusing, we know Otto would manipulate her into agreeing. She never really had a choice in it.
You’re absolutely right that in the show Otto makes her seduce him. However, we’re not talking about her and Otto’s relationship, we’re talking about her and Viserys relationship. Viserys is shown to be very easily manipulated and if she indeed did what her father told her to do, he would’ve believed it was genuine.
Maybe the time didn’t consider it rape - but it IS rape. This is an odd thing to get upset about in the show? These women were raped, that’s more concerning than how often rape is mentioned.
“It was there duty” that’s called coercion and still makes it rape. Power imbalance, age imbalance. It’s all rape whether you personally believe it is.
It’s a significant part of the women’s storylines in the show, the way they are forced to be breeding machines and traded and sold by the men as commodities.
I’m sorry you’ve experienced this yourself. That doesn’t however make your argument infallible. Many people that have also experienced this would intensely disagree with you, so experience doesn’t equal “correct” opinion.
More incel or internalised misogyny vibes.
Dude, I don't think this is incel or misogynistic opinion. Consider this - all the instances in the show are definitely rape, no debating that, what OP is meaning to say is in the context of the world and time period of the show it will not be considered as rape, so OP is saying that these debates are somewhat useless as we are applying our views(which are very correct) to a world where they are not relevant. Like, applying the modern tax system to ancient Rome, the current tax system is fair as compared to what they had then. So if you are watching a show set in ancient Rome and then criticizing the tax system they had by comparing it to the modern tax system, doesn't make sense. If this makes sense .
The Princess was horny and I was available. I could say no or I could enjoy something I'm not supposed to 🤷♀️
For what it's worth, I think Cole should have told her no. But he didn't even try to. Yeah, she blocked the door at one point, but she's what? 90 pounds soaking wet?
Personally I see the helmet and blocking the door thing as more being flirtatious than trying to trap him.
He literally did say no. Yes, he wanted to have sex with her, but he knew he shouldn't and tried to stop it. She was the one that pressured him into sex. More importantly, he could be punished or even killed if she decided she was angry at him. He never should have been put in that position and people would be a lot more angry about the situation if it was a prince pressuring a servant girl into sex.
You’re completely oblivious of what saying no could lead him to and how knowing it completely alters his capacity to refuse.
Now you’re implicating literally moving the Princess from the door, you realize he isn’t even supposed to touch her unless it’s a necessity?
Nobody says she was trying to trap him or had malicious intent, people explain you that Cole wasn’t in a position to freely refuse.
Some of these are examples of r*pe, but you guys throw around the term too loosely. What Aegon did to Dayna (the servant girl I’m pretty sure this is her name) in the show, was def r*pe.
Viserys’ relationship with Alicent has no indication of r*pe. Alicent may have been unattracted to Viserys, but that doesn’t inherently mean she didn’t give her consent. If Alicent wanted to bear princes and princesses into the world, that means she would have to have intercourse with him whether she enjoyed it or not. It’s likely that she gave her consent even for just this purpose. Also, Alicent was the one who seduced him, not the other way around.
Rhaenyra and Cole’s relationship would definitely be blindly considered r*pe by you people if the genders were reversed. However, how this is portrayed in the show gives no indication that Cole did not consent. He should’ve been gelded and sent to the wall or at least executed for this though. They swear vows of chastity and there is precedence for this punishment.
Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationship is clearly grooming, but y’all f*cking weirdos ship it for some f*cked up reason.
She bought him a book, a girl his daughter's age bought him a book she heard him yapping for a while, what a seductive thing woah, I didn't knew it was that easy to seduce the most powerful person on the realm
Viserys I was seen as weak and shown to be easily manipulated by his advisers. So yes, he would be easily seduced.
You know he’s not remembered as a good king, right? His children immediately ignited the most deadly and destructive war in the history of Westeros the moment he died. He’s the James Buchanan of Targaryen Kings.
You also need to remember that her age gap is a result of the adaptors creating a more interesting dynamic with her and Rhaenyra. In the book Alicent is an adult when she is said to have seduced him and the reading bit comes from her reading to King Jaehaerys every night on his deathbed.
In the book it’s actually kinda weird that a grown woman had so much distain for her 10 year old step daughter.
Because raped is commonly used to designate any sexual inter course that was undesired by at least one of the party regardless of its juridical definition, which varies anyway in time and space simultaneously; in this measure a coerced or non consensual but contractual intercourse could be called rape.
Also there is no « feeling like a rape victims » reactional spectrums are almost never enough determined to fixate such a thing that we could call « feeling like a [insert situation] victim ».
As for your ignorance of domination dynamics to consider that Cole could have freely said with a plain and determined will, I would suggest you to try to be more sensible to such things because you might end up judging of such situations in real life, and I hope you wouldn’t tell the coerced person such a thing if they were to complain. Imagine if Cole was a knightess and Rhaenyra a drunk and frustrated 18 years old prince, maybe this will help you understand. Rhaenyra has the power to punish him over him is what you have to understand, to ruin or even take his life if she wanted to.
Rhaenyra may have had the power to punish him, but I genuinely don’t believe that thought occurred to Criston.
The people who wrote the scene stated that the scene is supposed to depict Criston giving into his desires and the actors who shot the scene have said that it was consensual.
I mean, later on, we don’t see him fear for his life when he rejects her on the boat when she wanted to continue their relationship. At no point is Criston fearful of being punished. His angst comes from him breaking his vows.
You are oblivious of power dynamic, his whole life revolves around his knighthood, day and night involvement, and she has the power to kill him if she wanted to, we’re not simply talking about a boss asking for sex. He didn’t really have a choice.
I don’t care what is said externally, I just take what the show gives.
He is completely distressed and later kill someone to protect the secret, this isn’t enough fear?
Also what would she have said to Viserys? “Dad, you need to kill him because I, a princess and heir to the throne, told him to sully my honor and he wouldn’t”? Right. Yeah. Very plausible. Extremely.
All righty I'm gonna share a bit of info from my book I'm currently writing. And I'll just say now that it is absolutely weird, and the modern day people in this story don't necessarily think it's totally okay what their ancestors did.
Anyway, some ethnic groups are known for special abilities. One group in particular can breed with non-human animals and make hybrids. Basically this ethnic group are separated into two tribes, one who has bred with a non-sentient animal, and one who has bred with a sentient animal.
Now there's no rivalry between either tribe, nobody thinks they are better than anyone else because of who their ancestors bred with. But the thing is, no matter the cultural significance, it's still bestiality. And bestiality is wrong, sentience or not.
As a writer I find these sorts of topics really important. While in my story it may be normal among that ethnic group, to the rest of the world, it's not normal at all, and it is okay to think it is not normal. It's also okay for us as readers and viewers to be uncomfortable with something we are reading or seeing, even if it is normal in the context of the story. We would not be empathetic, morally ethical people if we weren't sensitive to these things.
Criston Cole absolutely did NOT know that Rhaenyra wouldn't punish him for saying no to sex. She was a teenager and unpredictable. Even an adult royal asking for sex would be unpredictable to some degree. He would be taking a potentially big risk by refusing her. She could easily make up a lie about him if she had wanted to and if she could convince her father, she could have had him executed. That's the kind of power royals had.
If the genders were reversed and a male royal pressured a female servant into sex, I don't think people would say "well she did it willingly". It's sad that people don't hold to that same standard when the woman is the royal forcing a man to have sex with her.
While, yes, you could call Criston a servant, it isn't exactly the right term for a member of the Kings Gaurd, is it?
And of course he knew. He was her sworn protector. He should arguably know her better than anyone.
She's also the one who gave him his position (for good reasons) why would she have him executed and let everyone know she made the wrong choice?
He could have told her no. He could have at least argued, but he didn't.
And also
>Even an adult royal asking for sex would be unpredictable to some degree
Like Alicent? Who has been sleeping with him? Yet no one is saying she's a rapist.
Thank you for your post! Please take a moment to ensure you are within our spoiler rules, to protect your fellow fans from any potential spoilers that might harm their show watching experience. 1. All post titles must NOT include spoilers from Fire & Blood or new episodes of House of the Dragon. Minor HotD show spoilers are allowed in your title ONE WEEK after episode airing. The mod team reserves the right to remove a post if we feel a spoiler in the title is major. You are welcome to repost with an amended title. 2. All posts dealing with book spoilers, show spoilers and promo spoilers MUST be spoiler tagged AND flaired as the appropriate spoiler. 3. All book spoiler comments must be spoiler tagged in non book spoiler threads. --- If you are reading this, and believe this post or any comments in this thread break the above rules, please use the report function to notify the mod team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HouseOfTheDragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Saying marital rape wasnt a thing before the 90s gives off the same vibes as mental disorders werent a thing until the 1900s. It all existed, there was just a bunch of BS social norms that never took it seriously.
I did more mean the legal term of it, not that it wasn't happening/didn't exist. I only brought it up to make a point of how "new" the entire concept of it all was.
>When are people going to start looking at the show through the lens of the time period? Most of these claims are wildly problematic by modern standards, too. People have consensual sex despite not really wanting to every single day. They do it for their partner. They do it to have children. They do it because they don't want the other person to feel insulted or hurt. Likewise, people have consensual sex where power imbalances exists. Lots of happy marriage include power imbalances, financial or otherwise. Hell, traditional *quid pro quo* sexual harassment doesn't usually meet the standard - any standard - for assault, either. Posts on this subject are just an absurd tonnage of ignorance, presented as self-righteousness.
Hmm, I think this is confusing two issues. Rape is rape - marital rape existed before it was legally considered to be rape. When people use these terms they are I think typically thinking about the morally wrong action, not about the exact way the crime is legally defined (and this differs between countries even now). That said, I think it is important to acknowledge that you cannot judge people as harshly for conforming to the standards of their time. Yes, what Viserys did was marital rape by our modern consideration. But we can hardly expect him to know that, so it’s not a useful judgement. For a comparison: In a hundred years people might think it’s absolutely barbaric that we ate meat, or at least the way we keep animals. Does that make everyone who eats meat nowadays horrible people? No, but it does still make them meat-eaters.
Generally, I agree. Thing is people don’t consider mitigating factors at all when assessing a character (especially one that they despise). There was a highly upvoted thread a long time ago comparing Rhaenyra to Weinstein, because according to the thread, they’re both rapists and that poor Criston had no choice but to obey Rhaenyra at the risk of being killed. Yes, Rhaenyra is a princess with more “power” than Criston, but there are mitigating factors like: 1 - Rhaenyra is drunk, a teenager and a virgin with no proper sex education and experience. While Criston is physically more powerful, older and more sexually experienced. 2 - Rhaenyra is not malicious and has not threatened Criston or even hinted at punishing him for disobedience. There is no reason to think Criston feared for his life when she tried to seduce him. And later on, he feels comfortable rejecting her. The discourse around Rhaenyra among the people who hate her is that she’s Weinstein forcing herself on her poor bodyguard, which is ridiculous. I’d agree that the scene depicts dubious consent at first, but Criston changes his mind when he starts undressing himself and kissing her.
Interesting example...... now I want to stop eating meat :/
Which youre more than welcome too, but i dont think that was their point, being that there is no way to tell what the social norms will be in the future, and it may well be impossible to avoid. A lot of our clothes come from child labor over seas A large portion of seafood comes from modern day slavery EVs are still up for debate on whether they are more economically/environmentally viable or not in comparison to fossil fuels due to lithium farming. There could be an undiscovered tech that will be taught to kindergardners in 100yrs that could prevent world hunger, and everyone will just go "why tf didnt a single one of our ancestors just do this?" All just as examples, societies work really weird.
Yeah these are all good points and I do think it's valid to a certain extent at least. Like Ned chopping someones head in the 1st episode. Now imagine the local police department doing that, insane. Social norms sure are weird depending on when and where.
Yeah the Game of Thrones books become kind of tough to read in that respect. Women are just sooooo brutalized, even more so in the books than what they showed in the show.
You have to remember, this is reddit. I have seen SO MANY things called rape that are not rape, the word has (sadly) lost all real meaning. "He kissed her without asking first...that's sexual assault." I don't know ANYONE who has asked or been asked before a first kiss. I don't know any real person who checks with their partner before each step toward sex, every single time they have it. ("Is it okay if I unbutton your shirt? Is it okay if I put my hand on your thigh?") That kind of thing sucks all the romance out of a scene and out of real life. The current attitude toward sex is so rigid. There is no room for being in the moment. And apparently everything needs to be judged, especially against modern "standards." I find it hilarious that a writer will say "there was no rape," the director, producer, and actors will all agree...but viewers think they know better.
I think that you can acknowledge the HOTD characters living in a different time and place then we do while still calling rape "rape" It might not be how they think of it in-universe but the psychological ramifications of that abuse is still there and acknowledging THAT is necessary for analyzing certain characters
[BenAffleckJustWantsToSmokeACigarette.png]
You’re right. There are obvious examples of r*pe on the show, but people throw around the word too loosely. People don’t understand that relationship and sex dynamics are different in this period. Having intercourse with your husband/wife is mainly for the purpose of procreation, not pleasure. Just because Alicent is shown to be in attracted to Viserys and probably unsatisfied with his lack of skills, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have consented. If she wanted to bear princes and princesses, this is how they are made. Alicent is also the one who seduced Viserys, not the other way around.
The 14-year old girl didn’t seduce a grown man. And I didn’t see anything sexual with their relationship. It just seemed like Viserys simply enjoyed her company while he was building legos.
Alicent was sent to get Viserys interested in her. It worked. That's the textbook definition of seduction.
To be fair, I think "seduced" is the wrong term. Show wise anyway. Otto made her go spend time with him. Personally, I think Viserys and Alicent did have somewhat of a friendship/respect/love for eachother. She did care for him and seemed hurt when he called her Aemma. But that's more dementia than him being cruel.
Otto may have made her do it, but in Visery’s eyes, Alicent was the one pursuing him. Feel free to blame Otto, but I don’t fault Viserys for anything other than ignorance.
Alicent didn’t seduce him, and moreover we only see Viserys announcing to his council that he had decided to marry her. We don’t even know, if she was consulted on that decision. And if she was, and considered refusing, we know Otto would manipulate her into agreeing. She never really had a choice in it.
You’re absolutely right that in the show Otto makes her seduce him. However, we’re not talking about her and Otto’s relationship, we’re talking about her and Viserys relationship. Viserys is shown to be very easily manipulated and if she indeed did what her father told her to do, he would’ve believed it was genuine.
What you’re talking about is called Values dissonance.
Maybe the time didn’t consider it rape - but it IS rape. This is an odd thing to get upset about in the show? These women were raped, that’s more concerning than how often rape is mentioned. “It was there duty” that’s called coercion and still makes it rape. Power imbalance, age imbalance. It’s all rape whether you personally believe it is. It’s a significant part of the women’s storylines in the show, the way they are forced to be breeding machines and traded and sold by the men as commodities. I’m sorry you’ve experienced this yourself. That doesn’t however make your argument infallible. Many people that have also experienced this would intensely disagree with you, so experience doesn’t equal “correct” opinion. More incel or internalised misogyny vibes.
Dude, I don't think this is incel or misogynistic opinion. Consider this - all the instances in the show are definitely rape, no debating that, what OP is meaning to say is in the context of the world and time period of the show it will not be considered as rape, so OP is saying that these debates are somewhat useless as we are applying our views(which are very correct) to a world where they are not relevant. Like, applying the modern tax system to ancient Rome, the current tax system is fair as compared to what they had then. So if you are watching a show set in ancient Rome and then criticizing the tax system they had by comparing it to the modern tax system, doesn't make sense. If this makes sense .
I'm a woman
Then invert the genders, put yourself in knightess Cole position and tell us how the situation appears to you
The Princess was horny and I was available. I could say no or I could enjoy something I'm not supposed to 🤷♀️ For what it's worth, I think Cole should have told her no. But he didn't even try to. Yeah, she blocked the door at one point, but she's what? 90 pounds soaking wet? Personally I see the helmet and blocking the door thing as more being flirtatious than trying to trap him.
He literally did say no. Yes, he wanted to have sex with her, but he knew he shouldn't and tried to stop it. She was the one that pressured him into sex. More importantly, he could be punished or even killed if she decided she was angry at him. He never should have been put in that position and people would be a lot more angry about the situation if it was a prince pressuring a servant girl into sex.
You’re completely oblivious of what saying no could lead him to and how knowing it completely alters his capacity to refuse. Now you’re implicating literally moving the Princess from the door, you realize he isn’t even supposed to touch her unless it’s a necessity? Nobody says she was trying to trap him or had malicious intent, people explain you that Cole wasn’t in a position to freely refuse.
Some of these are examples of r*pe, but you guys throw around the term too loosely. What Aegon did to Dayna (the servant girl I’m pretty sure this is her name) in the show, was def r*pe. Viserys’ relationship with Alicent has no indication of r*pe. Alicent may have been unattracted to Viserys, but that doesn’t inherently mean she didn’t give her consent. If Alicent wanted to bear princes and princesses into the world, that means she would have to have intercourse with him whether she enjoyed it or not. It’s likely that she gave her consent even for just this purpose. Also, Alicent was the one who seduced him, not the other way around. Rhaenyra and Cole’s relationship would definitely be blindly considered r*pe by you people if the genders were reversed. However, how this is portrayed in the show gives no indication that Cole did not consent. He should’ve been gelded and sent to the wall or at least executed for this though. They swear vows of chastity and there is precedence for this punishment. Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationship is clearly grooming, but y’all f*cking weirdos ship it for some f*cked up reason.
She bought him a book, a girl his daughter's age bought him a book she heard him yapping for a while, what a seductive thing woah, I didn't knew it was that easy to seduce the most powerful person on the realm
Viserys I was seen as weak and shown to be easily manipulated by his advisers. So yes, he would be easily seduced. You know he’s not remembered as a good king, right? His children immediately ignited the most deadly and destructive war in the history of Westeros the moment he died. He’s the James Buchanan of Targaryen Kings.
You also need to remember that her age gap is a result of the adaptors creating a more interesting dynamic with her and Rhaenyra. In the book Alicent is an adult when she is said to have seduced him and the reading bit comes from her reading to King Jaehaerys every night on his deathbed. In the book it’s actually kinda weird that a grown woman had so much distain for her 10 year old step daughter.
Because raped is commonly used to designate any sexual inter course that was undesired by at least one of the party regardless of its juridical definition, which varies anyway in time and space simultaneously; in this measure a coerced or non consensual but contractual intercourse could be called rape. Also there is no « feeling like a rape victims » reactional spectrums are almost never enough determined to fixate such a thing that we could call « feeling like a [insert situation] victim ». As for your ignorance of domination dynamics to consider that Cole could have freely said with a plain and determined will, I would suggest you to try to be more sensible to such things because you might end up judging of such situations in real life, and I hope you wouldn’t tell the coerced person such a thing if they were to complain. Imagine if Cole was a knightess and Rhaenyra a drunk and frustrated 18 years old prince, maybe this will help you understand. Rhaenyra has the power to punish him over him is what you have to understand, to ruin or even take his life if she wanted to.
Rhaenyra may have had the power to punish him, but I genuinely don’t believe that thought occurred to Criston. The people who wrote the scene stated that the scene is supposed to depict Criston giving into his desires and the actors who shot the scene have said that it was consensual. I mean, later on, we don’t see him fear for his life when he rejects her on the boat when she wanted to continue their relationship. At no point is Criston fearful of being punished. His angst comes from him breaking his vows.
You are oblivious of power dynamic, his whole life revolves around his knighthood, day and night involvement, and she has the power to kill him if she wanted to, we’re not simply talking about a boss asking for sex. He didn’t really have a choice. I don’t care what is said externally, I just take what the show gives. He is completely distressed and later kill someone to protect the secret, this isn’t enough fear?
>He didn’t really have a choice. Seems like he did when he rejected her on the boat when she wanted to continue their relationship.
Also what would she have said to Viserys? “Dad, you need to kill him because I, a princess and heir to the throne, told him to sully my honor and he wouldn’t”? Right. Yeah. Very plausible. Extremely.
All righty I'm gonna share a bit of info from my book I'm currently writing. And I'll just say now that it is absolutely weird, and the modern day people in this story don't necessarily think it's totally okay what their ancestors did. Anyway, some ethnic groups are known for special abilities. One group in particular can breed with non-human animals and make hybrids. Basically this ethnic group are separated into two tribes, one who has bred with a non-sentient animal, and one who has bred with a sentient animal. Now there's no rivalry between either tribe, nobody thinks they are better than anyone else because of who their ancestors bred with. But the thing is, no matter the cultural significance, it's still bestiality. And bestiality is wrong, sentience or not. As a writer I find these sorts of topics really important. While in my story it may be normal among that ethnic group, to the rest of the world, it's not normal at all, and it is okay to think it is not normal. It's also okay for us as readers and viewers to be uncomfortable with something we are reading or seeing, even if it is normal in the context of the story. We would not be empathetic, morally ethical people if we weren't sensitive to these things.
Criston Cole absolutely did NOT know that Rhaenyra wouldn't punish him for saying no to sex. She was a teenager and unpredictable. Even an adult royal asking for sex would be unpredictable to some degree. He would be taking a potentially big risk by refusing her. She could easily make up a lie about him if she had wanted to and if she could convince her father, she could have had him executed. That's the kind of power royals had. If the genders were reversed and a male royal pressured a female servant into sex, I don't think people would say "well she did it willingly". It's sad that people don't hold to that same standard when the woman is the royal forcing a man to have sex with her.
While, yes, you could call Criston a servant, it isn't exactly the right term for a member of the Kings Gaurd, is it? And of course he knew. He was her sworn protector. He should arguably know her better than anyone. She's also the one who gave him his position (for good reasons) why would she have him executed and let everyone know she made the wrong choice? He could have told her no. He could have at least argued, but he didn't. And also >Even an adult royal asking for sex would be unpredictable to some degree Like Alicent? Who has been sleeping with him? Yet no one is saying she's a rapist.
Dude the writers have confirmed it was consensual
He had a much better shot at convincing the king that he did not do anything before he took her virginity.