Rhaenyra And Aemma

What really angers people about Criston and Alicent is that Criston perceives himself as a protector to Alicent FROM Rhaenyra. A lot of people take what he said about Rhaenyra being a spider as him still being angry and rejected, and given the lack of media literacy among this fandom, I get that.

But Criston said that in response to Aemond shaming Alicent, and implying that she is a liar and a hypocrite. Aemond accused Alicent of having love for the enemy, and indirectly he is calling her a traitor. Criston was not thinking of Rhaenyra nor did he care to mention her until he perceived Aemond's comments as threatening Alicent due to her feelings toward Rhaenyra. He does not mention in depth what happened to him, but he does mention Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship and basically explains to Ameond how Alicent was manipulated by Rhaenyra and lied to.

And that is true. Rhaenyra did lie to Alicent years ago which resulted in her father being dismissed and her being utterly alone at court. Rhaenyra manipulated Viserys into not really giving a fuck about Aemodn losing an eye all those years ago, and that negatively impacted Alicent.

Criston doesn't really care nor think of Rhaenyra in regards to himself -- he thinks of her as a danger and threat to Rhaenyra.

And because so many people dont really care for Alicent outside of Rhaenyra, this idea that someone is protecting Alicent and her honor from Rhaenyra infuriates them because in their eyes, Alicent exists for Rhaenyra. She exists to take abuse, manipulation, and shame from Rhaenyra.

Keep in mind, both Criston and Alicent faced sexual violence at the hands of Targaryen royalty, and that is something no one else can understand. That unique experience to them dictates their connection and how they act with one another. Criston was never actually able to seek justice for what happened to him, but he doesn't want Alicent to be soiled.

Alicent and Criston, through victims of trauma and abuse, and just being subservient to Targaryens, are always going to have a deeper, more meaningful and trauma-related bond than Rhaenyra and Alicent and I think that pisses people off.

Alicent and Criston have every right to be together.

I’ve read a lot of posts regarding their non-existent hypocrisy and I’d like to clear some things up.

First and foremost, stop using Alicent’s “Where is duty, where is sacrifice?” line against her or Nyra’s outrageous “Exhausting, wasn’t it?” speech because you think you’re eating when you’re, in fact, starving. Alicent has done her duty and sacrificed herself. It’s the only thing she’s been doing for the past 20 years. She gave the man she was forced to marry four children and she took care of him despite all the shit he put her through. She has lived all her life based on her principles and now her husband is gone. She mourned him, she buried him, it’s been more than 10 days since his death (confirmed that E1 S2 takes place 10 days after Lucerys’ death) and she is finally fucking free. She deserves a sliver of comfort. Alicent is the only one in this series that’s been faithful and dutiful to a T, yet look where that got her. If someone has the right to break the law a little bit, it’s definitely her.

That being said, I don’t know when it was decided that Alicent is a pious saint that can do no wrong, but I need to remind y’all that following a religion does not magically prevent you from sinning. Is she committing fornication? Obviously. However, you are all under this impression that this is hypocritical on her behalf because she berated Rhaenyra for it when they were younger, without considering that her anger was justified for a myriad of other reasons, such as (but not limited to): 1) the fact that Rhaenyra’s freedom to marry whomever she pleased was a privilege granted to her thanks to Alicent’s efforts, who supported her even if Rhaenyra hated her, yet her friend casually threw that away, 2) the fact that Rhaenyra lied to her by swearing on her morher’s grave and never even mentioned Criston, 3) the fact that Rhaenyra had the guts to call her “sister” while lying to her face, 4) the fact that her lies resulted in Otto getting fired since Rhaenyra misled Alicent so that she speaks to Viserys in favour of her friend and betraying her own father by siding against him (a decision she wouldn’t have made if she knew the truth), leaving her completely alone and friendless at court, even if he was right all along and finally 5) the fact that Rhaenyra is the most sought after bachelorette in the whole world and by having sex she undermines herself (Rhaenyra knows this well, hence why she denies these accusations) and literally endangers herself, because had she been married to any other man but Laenor and had this man found out his wife and future queen is not a virgin, imagine the fucking horrors she could have been subjected to. Like, I hate to break it to you, but a 40-year-old widow, who’s had four kids and has completed her duty to the point where she is actually no longer needed and could leave the palace to go live the rest of her life in peace somewhere else and no one would notice her absence (literally though, she has birthed heirs, her husband is dead, her son is a grown adult king, her job is done there), having sex, is not the same as an 18-year-old princess and future heir in her prime, whose purity is linked to her worth, getting caught drunk in a brothel, hooking up with her uncle and losing her virginity to her guard, all in one night. Viserys himself was outraged. There’s lows and then there’s lows, y’all.

By the way, the crazy assumptions that Alicent has been cheating on Viserys with Criston for a while now need to stop. When Olivia Cooke said that they had filmed a messy sex scene with Fabien Frankel in a recent interview, she never said this was for S1 of HOTD. I don’t know where y’all got that from, but even if it was true, that scene has been scrapped so it is not canon. And don’t make me laugh about Daeron, a dragon rider who canonically has Valyrian features, potentially having brown hair. You’re all so blinded by your hatred for Alicent that you want her to be a lying hypocrite in order to make yourselves feel better about Rhaenyra’s mishaps, that you don’t get that the whole point of her and Criston getting physical is that she is a tortured woman who is finally able to break free, not that she has been a hypocrite all along. You’re heavily misunderstanding her arc.

Finally, when it comes to my good man Criston, y’all have lost it completely. No, Alicent is not raping him, unless he tells her to stop and she closes the door behind her like Rhaenyra did that is. No, Criston did not lie about how important his honour is to him. There’s a whole article on how Clare Kilner, the director of E4 S1, decided that Cole removing his armour slowly was necessary because it symbolises his inner conflict and uncertainty over breaking his vow: should he soil his cloak for the sake of the woman he loves? And he does soil it, because he thinks she loves him back. But that honourable man dies the day Rhaenyra tells him that he’ll never be anything more than a side piece to her. This man stops giving a flying fuck about his honour, oath, position and life. He is trying to kill himself. And you know what stops him? Alicent. Alicent is the only thing between him and death, the only person to show him kindness and understanding, to pull him up from the lowest point in his life. I don’t think you heard Alicent in E7 S1: “No, you’re sworn to me!”. Y’all. His life is hers. He doesn’t care about Rhaenyra, his job, Viserys, anyone else at this point. Only Alicent exists in his mind, Fabien himself has said time and time again that his loyalty to her is unwavering. He only exists for Alicent’s sake. He’s who you wish Daemon was. Crying that “Criston is a bad knight and a liar because he broke his chastity oath yet again!” is so pointless because that knight has been dead since Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor. What does an oath mean when you find out the people you swore it to have betrayed you?

The thing is, there is room for a great deal of that and it could be utterly amazing if - if you gave it to an excellent writing team.

As an example the Roman Emperor Domitianus is often regarded as one of Rome’s bad tyrannical emperors. Tacitus in particular paints him as an incompetent man, jealous of his servants great successes. He is accused of fabricating triumphs and wasting roman lives in unsuccessful wars. Thing is, he was extremely popular with the army and when Trajan began his Dacian Wars a lot of the necessary infrastructure was in place, put there in large part by Domitianus who also campaigned in the area, even though less successfully. Regarding his tyrannicsl nature, none of his reforms that were seen as tyrannical were ever reversed by his successors but only Domitianus ever caught any flac for it. Pliny remarks on his the ascension of Trajan to the imperial throne that he is so happy too never again have a princeps that he has to call dominus. Guess what he called Trajan in all his letters.

You could absolutely make a show about how Maegor and Jaehaerys ultimately shared many of the same ideas and values but one was very good at making them palatable to the Westeros-edition of the patriarchy and the other was murdered and labeled the worst Tyrant in history.

But again, you‘d need goid writers and the track record thus far does not inspire much confidence

HOTD and the future shows

Wanna know what I am fearing, in light of how the second season of HOTD have proved to be?

The future series based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg... if a show based on the Dance of Dragons-era/generations in Fire and Blood, can become so changed from the source material, how will things go for Egg aka future Aegon V in his boyhood, and Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, in how their plotline will be handed?

In fact, one worry of mine, when thinking about all of this, is how a TV show based on the reign of Maegor the Cruel would end like, based on what HOTD have done as "supposed" changes to the plot and characters.

I know that Classical Disney Movies may sound odd as a way to describe Maglor the Cruel, but I am thinking of the hand-drawn Original Disney Classics and the ongoing trend of making them into Live-Action versions:

Say that Maegor the Cruel as he is written in Fire and Blood, as well the other published books so far, is akin to a such Classic Disney movie, and how not all the Live-Action movies based on the Classics have proved to be....let's say well received, by fans.

If the second season of HOTD have proved to not be well received by fans for various reasons, then how well would a TV show based on Maegor do? Would the tv team try and paint his cruelity as "propaganda written by the Maesters/his enemies" to make Jaehaerys come off as a much better King? Would they rewrite his personality to 180 degrees, akin to how Season 2-Alicent is NOTHING compared to her book self? Would they try and make up something "tragic" about his relationships to his six wives, going for the far too common "All girls want bad boys" idea and that Maegor only "need" someone to see his "supposed real" self akin to Beauty and the Beast?

I am sorry for babbling, but if this mess of a second season is the result of trying to make a tv show out of Fire and Blood so far....

Then I am in honest doubt that the 2025 tv show about Dunk and Egg is not gonna live up to the original written tales of them.

And I can see Maegor's character in a possible TV show be haunted by cries from fans in style of "he is not like that in Fire and Blood!" "When did someone called the "Cruel" in-story suddenly become a "misunderstood" character like this?" "He is called the Cruel, not the "poor, second son" of Aegon the Conqueror!"

…And guilty of conspiracy to commit murder … and a sexual predator …and incompetent …and married to a serial rapist, pedophile, murderer (thrice over by now) …and sheltering a terrorist.

it's always both sides are bad :( when one of them is a rapist incompetent usurper and the other is... a woman

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

the way i liked the thought of alicole as a ship but now that it's an alleged reality i could throw up. alicent and criston both are pledged to duty and care for each other in a platonic but intimate way, where they were there for each other at the other's worst and still supported each other. there is nothing they could write or add into the show that would make them having sex make any sense. and if that does happen, i fear for both characters but especially alicent bc of how the general audience already views her--but i feel like if this happens the show is just trying to make criston and alicent both huge jokes?? bc they already face so much scrutiny online and them having sex would just make it all so much worse.

i'm literally praying that these leaks aren't true because wtf. and then olivia described s2 in 5 words and one of them was "sexuality." i'm so afraid rn guys...

Actually, you know what? This just pisses me off a bit too much to let slide. I know intelligence, integrity and antisemitism don‘t usually go together but you might remember how after a „valiant group of arabic freedom fighters“ by the name Al-Qaeda „targeted infrastructure and military targets“ on US soil, America alongside NATO allies invaded two seperate countries, one of which demonstrably had nothing to do with any of the previously mentioned „liberation effort“ and murdered approximately six times the number of civilians Israel has killed combatants and civilianscombined.

Also Gaza prior to October 7th had a very rapidly growing population, which usually is not an indication of a genocide going on. I can assure you Jewish population did not increase during the Holocaust.

It’s so funny seeing pro-israelis try to defend Israel with the excuse of ‘Israel protecting themselves’. or that it’s ‘Not Israel’s fault because Hamas is hiding with civilians’ etc etc.

Like please. The USA has managed to kill !THREE! leaders of terrorist groups without killing tens of thousands of innocent people. Turkey has killed ISIS militants and hit targets without killing tens of thousands of people.

They also prove how they’re completely ignorant how violent Israel has been towards Palestine before. This has been going on for way longer than October 7th 2023. There is absolutely NO justification for what Israel is doing. If you support genocide simply say so.

Now I know this is purely a headcanon, but Alicent‘s rage at Aegon would make a lot mire sense if he and Aemond shared a room. We see Baela and Rhaena share one so it isn‘t completely unreasonable.

If that were the case Aegon _should_ have noticed Aegon sneaking out and either prevented it or gone with him. But he didn‘t because he was pass-out-drunk.

people on tiktok and twitter are the most purposely obtuse people that i have ever seen.

and with the things people keep saying about blood & cheese, it has only gotten worse. now if what people are saying is true i am going to be unhappy, but people are still using it to misconstrue the past events of driftmark when aemond lost his eye.

people have started placing blame on alicent and criston for not being there and while i do agree that the adults have a lot of blame in this incident it is not there. alicent was not there because she was in bed. where the kids were SUPPOSED TO BE. just because she is their mother does not mean that she needs to be awake 24/7 watching them. notice how viserys is not getting any of the blame there?

people are saying that since criston’s a kingsguard he should’ve been there since he is supposed to protect the whole family, and that is partially true. he is supposed to protect the whole family, but he is sworn to ALICENT, which means that when she is asleep he is supposed to keep watch over her. he cannot possibly watch every single member of the family at once, which is why there are multiple members of the kingsguard. this means that there should have been another member of the kingsguard assigned to the kids unless viserys never bothered, which i would not be surprised by.

now onto alicent asking aegon where he was. i do not agree with her here, but people are not understanding why she did this.

1. all of the children besides aegon and helaena (and joffrey) were there, so why wasn’t aegon? because he was drunk and passed out. now that doesn’t mean that he should be punished for being asleep like he was supposed to be, but when your younger son lost an eye when he got 4 v 1’d it might be a little irritating that the reason your oldest wasn’t there is because he was passed out drunk. still not his fault.

2. alicent has been trying to make aegon see the danger that he and his siblings are in and trying to make him take responsibility to protect them as the oldest and he has resisted and now he has “failed” and aemond lost an eye. agree with her actions or not, but she is trying to save her children’s lives even if it backfires.

now rhaenyra and daemon. people get upset that rhaenrya gets blame when alicent doesn’t. and while i get that since they both shouldn’t have to watch their children sleep to make sure they don’t get up to anything after they’ve been sent to bed, i do think people need to remember that their situations are a little different.

alicent sent her children to bed and wasn’t there because she also went to bed. rhaenrya sent her children to bed and wasn’t there because she went to sleep with her uncle at his wife’s funeral. let me repeat that. SHE AND DAEMON FUCKED AT HIS WIFE’S FUNERAL. THAT IS THE PROBLEM, at least for me. maybe i would be more sympathetic there if laena was cold in her damn grave before they did the horizontal tango.

now all in all i hope you all realize that this situation is a little more complicated than people act like and that if you’re going to blame anyone blame, viserys because really this is all his fault.

BAN ON CONVERSION PRACTICES IN THE EU. GO SIGN IT. DEADLINE IS FUCKING MAY 17. WE'RE STILL MISSING 800.000 signatures. FUCKING DO IT.

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