I Bring To You A Wee Comic For The Yokai AU I Cooked Up A Bit Ago~~

I don't know if I'll find any supporters, but this has been driving me crazy for three years now, and I have to say it.

The scene from season one with Luke and Rhaenyra where Luke expresses his insecurities as the heir to Driftmark is bullshit, and a litmus test for what's wrong with this show.

It all starts out relatively normal, with Luke again expressing his insecurities as the heir of Driftmark and offering to give the position to someone else, and this personally pisses me off because Luke could have said this at any time, there was a whole trial about it, but it's ok, at least kid gets some kind of personality, cool.

And then fucking Rhaenyra goes on about how she realized that ruling takes work, and she had a duty and must earn her inheritance. Like she's ever done anything unselfish in her life, really.

And then that line. No, not like that. THAT FUCKING LINE. Luke, breathlessly muttering, "I'm not like you. Not so perfect."

OH MY FUCKING GOD I HATE THIS SHIT SO MUCH

That sounds just as fake and useless as half of TB's lines extolling Rhaenyra's greatness, because God forbid we forget for a second that that woman is about to be canonized by Twitter any day now. TB's characters are underdeveloped, they feel fake and hollow, designed to kiss the ass of the one woman the audience is allowed to love, because if you like anyone else, you're obviously sexist and deserve to be publicly humiliated.

Luke is already an unpleasant little shit, he hasn't shown a single redeeming quality. He's selfish, arrogant, spoiled, and privileged even among royalty. And you take away his two miserable minutes of screen time to praise Rhaenyra again, and remind us that it turns out she actually sacrificed and worked for something in her life, and didn't just expect things to go her way because she's daddy's special girl. And she's perfect. Perfest, perfect, perfect. Love her right now, or you will be canceled on every social media.

Those two minutes should have gone to Luke and Rhaena. That's his fiancée, for God's sake! Those two haven't said a single damn thing to each other! Instead of whining about Driftmark again, let Luke comfort Rhaena when she expresses her concerns about the upcoming marriage - at least then I'll know he cares about his betrothed!

But no, that would be too complicated. Instead, we have someone praising Rhaenyra again, because what if not everyone realized that she's *gasping* perfect.

if my hypothetical child was permanently injured and the culprit got off with a slap on the hand, I would rage like wildfire and not calm down until this bastard begged for mercy

Alicenta is a better person than me

alicent regretted her actions after she charged at luke, she apologized to viserys after he ignored her pleas to show some concern after aemond lost an eye, and she rejected larys’ offer to take an eye from luke….honestly she’s a saint because that couldn’t be me.

Questions I would like to ask Rhaenyra, part 3

I don't need sleep or mental health, I need ANSWERS

1) Why, for God’s sake, did you personally and all alone go find out who saddled Seasmoke? If it weren’t Addam, who for some reason was loyal to you (for what reason, by the way? He saw you for the first time in his life, and doesn’t owe you anything), but for example Daemion or Daeron, you know, sons of Vaemond Velaryon, whom your husband viciously beheaded? Do you think they'd gladly bend their knee? Let's be honest, ma'am, Seasmoke would make a kebab out of Syrax in a 1vs1 fight, you risked ending the war in favor of the greens.

2) What would you have done if Laenor hadn't been so loyal and obedient? If he'd seen Jace and asked "Who's white baby is that? Definitely not mine, daddy would skin me alive if I tried to say opposite"? Or if he hadn't agreed to leave his family in their time of need after losing his sister, and hadn't agreed to your fake death plan? What would you have done then, huh?

3) What if Rhaenys had refused to go along with your "perfect" plan to betroth your children to her granddaughters? She doesn't like you, after all, and for good reason. What if she had decided that supporting you had cost the Velaryons too much (which is true), and had said that Corlys had changed his mind and chosen Baela as his heir? Or even announced to everyone that Corlys was disowning your snow-white children?

4) What if Baela had turned out to be as much of a racist ass as her daddy? What if she had decided that sleeping with Strong was beneath her because she was a true Valyrian and he was a filthy half-breed? What if your grandson was born red-haired, or Asian, or looked like Alicent's son Daeron (this one is a joke… or is it?)? Only you are allowed to have consensual sex with the man of your choice, while the rest are supposed to suffer?

5) What was your plan for Aegon and Viserys? Traditionally, the "extra" sons became septons or maesters, do you agree with that? Does Daemon agree? If not, what are their roles in future? They are the most Valyrian-looking of your children, their existence sabotaging Jace's legacy.

6) Do you ever regret marrying Daemon? In season 2, you seem constantly unhappy with his presence, he undermines your authority at every turn - he is partly the reason why your Small Council does not respect you. Laenor at least acknowledged your authority. Do you regret this "exchange"?

7) How can you trust Mysaria so easily when she has proclaimed herself the protector of the smallfolks? Rhaenys killed hundreds and wounded thousands at Aegon's coronation, Daemon… is Daemon, you killed dozens of innocent dragonseeds for one dragon rider. You all have no regard for human life. Or is it okay because she's sexy and tells sad stories?

8) What was your script for meeting Alicent at the sept? You went in there with certain expectations, but if this woman hadn't been humiliated by the scriptwriters with every breath she took, Alicent would have called the guards in a heartbeat. You risked everything… for what? What was the original plan?

9) Question for the book and show versions of Rhaenyra - are you happy with each other? Is the show version not irritated by Rhaenyra's femininity and her "weakness" in not trying to fight every possible battle? Is the book version not disgusted by Rhaenyra's hypocritical righteousness and attempt to gain respect by adopting traditional male characteristics?

10) Are you able to admit that your marriage to Laenor was entirely your own fault? Viserys gave you the chance to choose your own husband, but since the suitors weren't Daemon, you rejected them all. And then you disgraced yourself with Daemon in a brothel and with Criston in your chambers. Yes, Viserys was covering up his own political mistakes with this marriage, but if you had decided on the tour that Harwin Strong was the one you wanted, there wouldn't have been a farce of a marriage to a gay. Viserys could have simply chosen him for you, but even he knew that a swordswallower was not the best option for a princess who needed heirs, and this was a last resort after your antics. Do you ever regret how you behaved on that tour?

IT'S SAD AEMOND HEAD CANNON TIME!

After surviving an infection that nearly killed him after the loss of his eye, Aemond is content with just wearing his eyepatch. Helaena made it for him and he's slowly getting used to his new way of life. However when Viserys eye starts to show signs of rot the Maester's aren't convinced that Milk of the Poppy will enough to ensure the safe removal of the Kings eye without causing irreparable damage. So they need a guinea pig and Viserys is quick to agree to their suggestion that it would be best for everyone if his middle son go through the procedure first. The scar and the eyepatch are too distracting and a constant reminder that because of his wife temper tantrum at Driftmark, he never gets to see his beloved daughter or grandsons anymore. Plus it will be good for the boy to look a bit more normal when the time comes to find him a wife.

Aegon is still too young to be taken seriously as King should anything happen to Viserys so Otto starts planting the seeds with Alicent that Aemond having a false eye fitted can only be a good thing for him. Think of how many marriage proposals he'll get with two eyes rather than that big, ugly scar. However Alicent remains unconvinced having almost lost Aemond the first time around and is insistent that any lady worthy of marrying her son would see past his facial scar and missing eye.

Thinking the matter settled, she's the Queen after all, she travels to Old Town to see Daeron only to find an ashen Aegon waiting for her when she gets back. The Maester's came for Aemond the moment her carriage was on the road and in a surprise to nobody, Milk of the Poppy was barely enough to dull the pain and Aegon had to listen to his little brothers screams of agony as they cut through the scar tissue. The only saving grace was that he managed to convince the Maester's to fit Aemond with a bright blue sapphire eye instead of the ugly wooden one they'd made.

In the end Viserys didn't even need to have his eye removed as it shrivelled and rotted out of its socket on it's own and every time Alicent looks at that bright blue gem, she's reminded that she and her children are completely on their own.

THIS

ТHIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT WHOLE DAMN MONTH

how the hell i'm supposed to be tb if those bitches loose so bad against show!tg?

In fact, I find the situation in the show at the moment and its potential development very funny. The screenwriters once again forgot that the antagonist defines the protagonist. I suppose they won't change the ending, and Helaena has already voiced her prophecy, which means what do we get? The green team doesn't exist in fact, all members of this family hate each other, Rhaenyra, apparently, will get the capital almost without a fight, the blacks have more dragons and more allies. And she's going to lose anyway? To Aegon? To this Aegon, who has only Larys on his side? It's pretty...pathetic.

if hotd writers wanted me to hate aemond then why make him the bullied kid who’s also the bravest little mf grown to be sexy eye patched grudgy anime-pirate, mama’s boy with daddy issues, who studies history and philosophy, who trains with the sword and rides the largest dragon in the world? like what am i supposed to do, say no?

I've fucking had enough

Tiktok PISSES ME OFF. It's unbearable. The number of media-illiterate people per square meter has exceeded my tolerance. At some point, I won't be able to stand it and will break my vow not to explain to idiots on the Internet why they are idiots - this will make me an idiot, because I will waste my strength, time, energy and nerves on useless attempts to hand over grains of common sense to empty-headed consumers who have never opened a book in their lives, and therefore are not capable of analyzing more complex moral dilemmas than My Little Pony.

HOWEVER

Stop driving me crazy with the "poor show!Luke was only five years old in Driftmark, an innocent baby, this is the worst death in the entire Dance of the Dragons" bullshit comments and tiktoks BECAUSE IT'S NOT

Yes, in the book, Lucerys Velaryon was five years old when he gouged out the eye of Aemond, who was ten. He died at fourteen, while Aemond was nineteen. This was not an adult killing a child, these were two teenagers with a five-year age difference. Still bad, I agree.

However, in their wisdom, unavailable to us mere mortals, the writers of HOTD stuck the chronology in a blender along with their fetishes, poorly executed agenda, sexism, racism, nepotism and a dozen other problems, turned it up to maximum and fed us the most vomit-inducing smoothie ever.

For some reason unknown to me, Aemond is officially sixteen in episodes 8-10 of season one. God knows why, but he left us and so we can't ask him. Lucerys is officially fourteen, so there's a two-year age difference between him and Aemond.

So in Driftmark, which takes place in 124 AC (again, unlike the book, which took place in 120 AC, but there's no point in complaining, believe me, I tried), Aemond is ten, Lucerys is eight. That's not a big age difference, right?

Moreover, since Jacaerys, Baela, and Rhaena are also sixteen at the end of season one, we get the following picture - Aemond is not fighting little kids, but his peers. He's 10, the twins and Jace are about 9-10, Luke is 8.

Yes, it was different in the book, but you know what else was in the book? A sound timeline, sound logic, complex characters, moral dilemmas, need I go on?

Lucerys was fourteen, making conscious decisions like mocking the man he had mutilated, knowing there would be no consequences, and running away like a coward when he was alone with the man. He was wrong about that. He still didn't deserve to die, but calling him an innocent angel wasn't right.

Aemond was sixteen, making conscious decisions like threatening his nephew to remind him that his ass couldn't be covered forever. He couldn't expect Luke to fail to discipline Arrax, who would provoke Vhagar. He could assume that an angry Vhagar would retaliate despite her orders. He was wrong about that. He still deserves blame for his actions, but if the fandom is so vocal about how a fourteen year old boy is not responsible for his actions, shouldn't a sixteen year old boy get the same innocence card?

But if we go back a little earlier, say six years, shouldn't a ten-year-old child receive the same treatment as an eight-year-old? Why is one boy, who had to fight off four peers, considered a monster, since he took a stone and insulted the offenders, and the second is a little defender, since he took a dagger to hit his neutralized enemy with it?

This wasn't the "hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby" situation the book portrayed. This was two teenagers, one with a bigger stick than the other.

This is not just another whining, I say, you know, like a liar

This isn't really a new essay where I hysterically ask what's going on in the writers' heads, but a legitimate question.

Why was Joffrey Velaryon never considered for the role of heir to Driftmark in the show?

I even googled the answer, and there were many interpretations, the most popular being that after Rhaenys's death, Corlys's relationship with Rhaenyra deteriorated so much that he refused to support her farce, and demanded that true Velaryon's blood be on the throne of Driftmark (with Lucerys there would have been no such problem, his bride was Rhaena, but Joffrey was betrothed to Manderly girl), and Rhaenyra couldn't refuse him, considering that he was her strongest ally at the time.

But this is a book, you know, a thing with letters on paper, written by a person who tried to at least make ends meet a little, even in the format of a medieval historical chronicle.

But in the show, Corlys from Season 2 is the same tasteless cardboard cutout as the rest. He barely mourns the death of his wife, and rushes around with his inheritance like it's a hot potato, not knowing who to throw it to.

And for a man whose character traits were declared to be ambition, loyalty to his House and heritage, a desire to put his blood on the Iron Throne - Corlys seems to not try at all. There was a lazy attempt to marry Laena to the rotten Vizzy, then Rhaenyra's marriage to Laenor, but after that, nothing.

In canon, the marriage of the twins and Rhaenyra's children was arranged in infancy, so Corlys quickly received assurance that his legacy would continue. In the show? No one gives a shit, if Rhaenyra hadn't begged Rhaenys for support during the disputes over the Velaryon inheritance with Vaemond, no one would have thought about the marriage of these four.

With that attitude, where history doesn't remember blood, only names, the Corlys of the show would have shrugged and said "oh well" to Joffrey being named heir to Driftmark.

But instead he tries to hand the inheritance over to Baela first, who decides it's the perfect moment to gaslight gatekeep girlboss, and refuses the title of heir to the richest House at the time (why? It wouldn't have affected the engagement to Jace, Laenor was Corlys's heir AND the future King Regent, she could have a couple of children, and named the second one as Velaryon heir).

Why did everyone forget about Joffrey? Why should I care about him if the show doesn't? I'll be sad to see him die, because children's deaths are always sad, but otherwise - I don't give a shit.

PS. All grammatical errors are intentional, I refuse to correct my gaps in English

The way TB stans talk about Syrax and Rhaenyra is worthy of a page on the TV tropes. Because it borders on animal abuse, but somehow she's considered the Mother of Dragons 0.5???

The way Rhaenyra treated Syrax suppressed her predatory instincts and led to a sad but expected fate. A dragon that refuses to hunt on its own, only flies in good weather, wears a cute collar, and completely incapable of living on its own? That's a dead dragon. It's expired like a store-bought blueberry, that start molding the second you put it in the fridge.

It's like those ungodly fat cats on TikTok who roll around their apartment from bowl to litter box while their owners film them giggling and the comments are full of "OH LAWD HE COMIN". Yeah, the silly cat eats 24/7 and happy about it, but his joints and heart are about to give out, and his existence is limited by the floor, because only a bodybuilder can lift him onto the couch.

It's like that Reddit post with the girl who talked about how snakes are actually loving and sociable, because her dead pet snuggled up to her all the time, until someone responded that the snake wasn't showing affection, but was simply trying to keep warm, and died early because op froze her pet to death. Snakes are just not the type of animals that you can carry around in your pocket like monkey noodles, no matter how much you want to.

So Syrax's death was predictable. If it were not for her missing survival instincts, because of which she went down to the rioting crowd, attracted by the smell of blood, she would have died later, because the fugitive queen would not have been able to buy her favorite goat meat, and Syrax lacked the hunting instinct. Or this mighty dragoness would have died from the teeth of the half-dead Sunfire upon arrival at Dragonstone, because her fighting instincts had also atrophied.

Dragons are a reflection of their riders. And Syrax was not a warrior, no matter how much you wanted the opposite.

Sometimes I hate this show, and then I come to my senses and just despise it

I'm a feminist because I'm a woman and deserve all rights and opportunities. But this show, I swear to God, does everything it can to make me feel like a terrible person.

The show's adult Rhaenyra is just…ugh. There were a thousand ways to transfer her personality, actions, and decisions from page to screen, and the writers chose the worst possible one. Somehow, they managed to strip her of her personal qualities while simultaneously filling her to the brim with other people's accomplishments.

Young Rhaenyra was practically perfect, given the changes the writers made to the book plot. She was a young, capricious, selfish girl whose world collapsed in an instant, and she had to find her way on her own. She was unpleasant, nasty, mocking, charismatic, charming, sweet - and very real. Her actions could be condemned or supported, she was interesting to watch, and I loved her. Not everything Rhaenyra did was to my liking, but when she was on screen, I watched her without taking my eyes off.

Adult Rhaenyra is literally Frankenstein's monster, assembled from incomprehensible junk from the attic of Condall and Hess. She does not have a drop of the charm that young Rhaenyra had, as if they were written by completely different people. Every questionable action of hers is whitewashed, 90% of her decisions and achievements are recycled and reused plots of other characters from the books, any actions are extolled to the skies. It's like eating cold unsalted French fries, you feel punished for some unknown sins by tasteless crap.

I want to love Rhaenyra, I really tried the entire half of the first season and whole second to feel at least a little love for this homunculus, but it is simply impossible. Just when I'm starting to sympathize with Rhaenyra grieving so heartbreakingly for her son and wanting justice, and getting involved in show, the writers decide to indulge their nun fetish and have Rhaenyra dress up as a septa and go talk to Alicent about some useless bullshit. One minute she's not afraid to defend her opinion, the next she's playing Mother of Dragons 2.0 (Vermithor scene was indescribable cringe, as was posing with a goofy grin with three dragons while Aemond scampers away with his bloodthirsty granny). Here's Rhaenyra having a great dialogue scene with her son, and here she is kissing a SA victim who just shared her tragic backstory, but don't worry, it's very romantic and everyone is happy.

And it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it feels if Rhaenyra were like young Rhaenyra, whose flaws were real and not smoothed over by the constant reminder that this woman was the best thing to happen to the world since the invention of latte macchiato. Young Rhaenyra, if she were in the sept with Alicent, would have yelled at the woman, risked getting caught, and wouldn't have been shy about reminding Jace who was in charge and that he had no right to scold her. Would she have been right, or smart in her actions? Still no, but she wouldn't be hailed as fair, peaceful and perfect - she'd be a selfish, confused, grieving woman who'd lost so much and was desperately trying to figure out how to salvage what was left and take back what was taken.

The show does everything it can to make me despise Rhaenyra. She's selfish, self-righteous, smug, arrogant, delusional, self-important, dumb as a rock, spineless, one-dimensional cheap knockoff of Daenerys from the early seasons of Game of Thrones. And the worst part is that all of these qualities would be interesting if the show would just stop holding me by the balls and demanding that I must love and adore her for every little thing because Rhaenyra is always right, the best girl in the world, worthy of all praise, and perfect to the core. Let me decide for myself whether I want to like a character or not, because unlike some people, I have an IQ above room temperature and can empathize with a complex, ambiguous character with adult morals, not just Bloom from Winx in a white wig.

I constantly have to remind myself that it's okay to dislike a female character if she's written terribly, and that doesn't make me a bad person.

Ps. Still not native speaker and dgaf about mistakes, english can suck my imaginary dick; apparently somehow part of text was translate in my native language wtf