Claims historical women are portrayed evil, slutty, manipulative because men wrote the histories, goes on to portray Rhaenyra as evil, slutty and manipulative.
Woman proves women are sociopathic liars who always seek to infantilize themselves? It’s almost like women are incapable of admitting they have agency because that would make them responsible for their actions…
Long story short, I've seen the clip from the end of the latest House of the Dragon episode where Rhaenys, a member of the royal House Targaryen, bursts out of prison with her dragon and kills hundreds of civilians with said dragon's tail-whip and damage to the building they're in. She has the court of rival Targaryens who have just usurped the throne dead to rights, but doesn't have her dragon roast them on the spot even though doing so would have prevented a civil war. Despite getting things completely ass-backward (murdering scores of peasants who have done nothing and would have contributed nothing to the story is fine, wiping out the enemy leadership apparently isn't) Sarah Hess, one of the writers for the episode, says this is supposed to be a girlboss moment for her.
Also the show has gone out of its way to turn its female leads into saints, even if doing so takes away their agency & everything that makes them interesting, while demonizing the men. Which is to be expected given how heavily the marketing got into the anti-patriarchy, grrrl power angle but that doesn't make it any less hilariously bad. If you care about spoilers, best stop reading here.
Alicent Hightower, the Queen in Green:
Book version: Ambitious, scheming and ruthless matriarch from the second most powerful house in the Reach (itself the second largest and the most heavily populated of the Seven Kingdoms) who has plotted for years to put her son Aegon on the Iron Throne. Her motivation actually makes sense though: he's her son, and by all the laws and traditions of Westeros, he should have succeeded his father - the only reason he doesn't is because said father, Viserys, insists on making his firstborn daughter (Alicent's stepdaughter) his heir in contravention to all said laws. Knows damn well people are going to have to die to make this happen and is fine with it.
Show version: Hapless puppet of her dad, the Hand of the King (prime minister) Otto Hightower. Doesn't actively plot to enthrone her son Aegon and is surprised that Otto would move to make him king, after she literally tells him that King Viserys told her he wanted Aegon to inherit on his deathbed (she misheard and he was deliriously referring to a prophecy he had previously told his daughter Rhaenyra). Gives footjobs to a shady dude, Larys Strong, for barely relevant information even though she's the Queen and could've just bossed him around. Terrified of bloodshed and doesn't seem to know that launching a coup immediately after the king's death might require her faction to kill their enemies' sympathizers at court or lead to a broader civil war.
Rhaenyra, the Princess in Black:
Book version: Heiress to the Iron Throne as her father Viserys' eldest daughter and only surviving issue of his first wife. Spoiled, selfish brat who revels in her status (which combined with her daddy's permissiveness means she can do whatever and whoever she wants) and ruthlessly protects it against all threats. After cucking her gay husband and spawning three obvious bastard sons who she tries to pretend are legitimate, she has her uncle-in-law executed and fed to her dragon for pointing out that they're bastards and wanting his family's traditional lordship to not pass on to said bastards. Knows damn well people might try to snatch away her crown and is fine with killing them in a war for it. Also, she hit the wall hard and resents her stepmom Alicent for still being slender & beautiful after four pregnancies while she herself has gotten fat and complacent.
Show version: Still a spoiled, selfish brat who revels in the privilege of being Crown Princess and passing her obvious bastards off as legitimate heirs but she's supposed to be the good guy now. Her uncle-husband Daemon murders the troublesome uncle-in-law without any prompting for her and she doesn't feed his remains to her dragon, but instead seems shocked at it and generally seems scared of the prospect of violence to defend her claim. Thinks of the Iron Throne as a responsibility forced upon her by her dad rather than something she thinks would be fun to rule from with absolute power and zero accountability. Also, as Hess says, she isn't fat and resentful of Alicent (who puts more work into her appearance) on the show.
Aegon Targaryen, the Green King:
Book version: Lazy, irresponsible, fat slob who doesn't particularly want to be king but is pushed into it by his mother Alicent. Nevertheless cares for his kids, being told that Rhaenyra will have to have them eliminated to secure her hold on the Iron Throne is what convinces him to seize the throne for himself. Very friendly with his pet dragon Sunfyre, said to be the most majestic-looking dragon to ever live.
Show version: A pedophilic rapist who also watches underground gladiator matches pitting kids against one another, including at least one of his own bastard children. Doesn't seem to care about his own kids, legitimate or otherwise. Sunfyre barely appears this season.
Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince:
Book version: Brutal, ruthless asshole suspected of murdering his first wife to shack up with Rhaenyra. Engages in purges and wars all the time, in general he loves and revels in bloodshed. Will carry out the Black faction's worst atrocities at his niece-wife's command without question and with a good deal of sadistic enjoyment.
Show version: Basically the same except now he, and he alone, is responsible for atrocities like killing his brother-in-law (Rhaenyra's uncle by marriage) for questioning the paternity of Rhaenyra's oldest children. Definitely murdered his first wife, no ambiguity to it at all. They also cut out sympathetic moments for him, like when he comforts his own eldest daughters at their mother's (his second wife's) funeral, to make him look as evil as possible.
But then again, Rhaenyra is basically the champagne feminist incarnate just as Daenerys was the ultimate SJW in the main series. She's an immensely privileged and spoiled princess by birth, fat, petty, a bitch even to people whose help she badly needs, uses others for her pleasure without a thought for their feelings or their very lives (her first lover is Criston Cole, a Kingsguard - whose oath means he will be gelded or executed if they catch him with her), has no problem using feminism to advance herself while throwing lower-ranking women under the bus for her own convenience, and becomes a sadistic tyrant and baby-murderer in a hurry once the war proper starts but is clearly rotten to the core long before. Little wonder the writer may see herself in her and tries to make her look better.
You are on the right track. This show is classic bait and switch. They've conned a lot of people into liking it.. but boy o boy are they going to regret it come the next few seasons.
Daemon especially.. they are going to deconstruct that guy for sure. Can't wait to meet "Mary Sue" Nettles LOL
A woman, POC and dragon rider fighting for Rhaenyra? Definitely going to be made the saintliest figure in this show. The only question is whether the show's demonization of Daemon will mean they'll actually have him die at the Gods' Eye or if they'll let him live just so Nettles can keep him around for a happy ending.
Thing is, Rhaenyra getting fat is actually a minor plot point from the source material. Her stepmother Alicent Hightower gives birth to her four half-siblings and is almost a decade older than her, but stays slender and graceful into middle age. Rhaenyra, who had lost her own beauty by the age of twenty, resents Alicent for being both luckier & putting more effort into her appearance, to the point where it's literally one of several reasons why the two hated each other canonically.
Can't have Princess Champagne Feminist envy another woman for her looks or have any physical imperfection of her own though (and for all the bleating about how fat is beautiful nowadays, I suppose Sarah Hess & company don't truly believe that themselves after all), so not only has Rhaenyra been changed into someone who doesn't care about her stepmom's looks, but she's now portrayed by a more slender actress as well.
Slutty, eh up in the air as some were just as promiscuous as the men in the area.
Manipulative, God yes a that was one of the best qualities. Man or woman, being able to manipulate people, not let them know your intentions before you made your move is how nobles rose through the ranks or just survived.
I'm guessing though these versions of nobles in the show aren't as clever so trying to pass it off as a "yass queen" moment?
Ironically in their efforts to whitewash the leading Princess & Queen, HOTD's writers have made it so neither of them get to do much (or any really) manipulating - taking away their agency and making them much more boring characters than they were in the source material. If anything Rhaenyra and especially Alicent are now constantly being manipulated by the men around them, while doing almost nothing on their own, whereas Book-Rhaenyra was plenty proactive at combating threats to her claim and Book-Alicent was basically the co-leader of the Green faction.
I'm really trying hard to remember the last faithful book adaptation, it seems even with the books, Hollywood lost the talent to adapt it to film or tv years ago.
That is retarded. How many main characters did Daenerys fry when she snapped near the end of GoT? The reaction of a legion of mouthbreathing girl-power watchers was OH LAWD WHY DANY I CANT EVEN!1
Civilian losses were one of a very exclusive few symboly, plotty, storytelling-like literary thingymajigs remaining in focus by the end of the show. Next showrunner: "It's game of thrones, civilians don't count!"
Bonus Narrative: Civilians are code for your European ancestors :)
Most of them. Makes me think of Tolkien. He treated death differently, but it was almost always a man dying. I think we both probably understand the male sense of honor in sacrifice that Tolkien would invoke in those moments. It's just that society doesn't treat it that way anymore. Except under special narrative conditions (for instance when an "ally" character of fodder variety dies).
I really do think that if GRRM had placed ASOIF in, say, an African kingdom setting, showrunners adapting it in modern America would be squeamish about depicting "good guys" slaughtering civilians. In the same way that, if it were set in a ridiculous exclusively female society, they wouldn't slaughter those civilians.
If you ignore the racial element of the genocide propaganda narratives, the narratives in which the one kind of person is "fodder" and treated as less-than-human, you will only get part of the picture.
Because the point of promoting feminism is to destroy the host society. Means to an end. There's a reason complacent races like the Chinese are spared from the propaganda we suffer. We are fed propaganda to weaken us, Whites are not part of the global underclass scheme. Keeping with the Chinese as a counter-example, they are fed propaganda that promotes focus on family (to the EXTREME exclusion of their neighbors) and complacency (fear of government, reminders of surveillance, govt promoted narc campaigns, and on and on).
Claims historical women are portrayed evil, slutty, manipulative because men wrote the histories, goes on to portray Rhaenyra as evil, slutty and manipulative.
Woman proves women are sociopathic liars who always seek to infantilize themselves? It’s almost like women are incapable of admitting they have agency because that would make them responsible for their actions…
And certain groups are all too eager to let them avoid it.
Long story short, I've seen the clip from the end of the latest House of the Dragon episode where Rhaenys, a member of the royal House Targaryen, bursts out of prison with her dragon and kills hundreds of civilians with said dragon's tail-whip and damage to the building they're in. She has the court of rival Targaryens who have just usurped the throne dead to rights, but doesn't have her dragon roast them on the spot even though doing so would have prevented a civil war. Despite getting things completely ass-backward (murdering scores of peasants who have done nothing and would have contributed nothing to the story is fine, wiping out the enemy leadership apparently isn't) Sarah Hess, one of the writers for the episode, says this is supposed to be a girlboss moment for her.
Also the show has gone out of its way to turn its female leads into saints, even if doing so takes away their agency & everything that makes them interesting, while demonizing the men. Which is to be expected given how heavily the marketing got into the anti-patriarchy, grrrl power angle but that doesn't make it any less hilariously bad. If you care about spoilers, best stop reading here.
Alicent Hightower, the Queen in Green:
Book version: Ambitious, scheming and ruthless matriarch from the second most powerful house in the Reach (itself the second largest and the most heavily populated of the Seven Kingdoms) who has plotted for years to put her son Aegon on the Iron Throne. Her motivation actually makes sense though: he's her son, and by all the laws and traditions of Westeros, he should have succeeded his father - the only reason he doesn't is because said father, Viserys, insists on making his firstborn daughter (Alicent's stepdaughter) his heir in contravention to all said laws. Knows damn well people are going to have to die to make this happen and is fine with it.
Show version: Hapless puppet of her dad, the Hand of the King (prime minister) Otto Hightower. Doesn't actively plot to enthrone her son Aegon and is surprised that Otto would move to make him king, after she literally tells him that King Viserys told her he wanted Aegon to inherit on his deathbed (she misheard and he was deliriously referring to a prophecy he had previously told his daughter Rhaenyra). Gives footjobs to a shady dude, Larys Strong, for barely relevant information even though she's the Queen and could've just bossed him around. Terrified of bloodshed and doesn't seem to know that launching a coup immediately after the king's death might require her faction to kill their enemies' sympathizers at court or lead to a broader civil war.
Rhaenyra, the Princess in Black:
Book version: Heiress to the Iron Throne as her father Viserys' eldest daughter and only surviving issue of his first wife. Spoiled, selfish brat who revels in her status (which combined with her daddy's permissiveness means she can do whatever and whoever she wants) and ruthlessly protects it against all threats. After cucking her gay husband and spawning three obvious bastard sons who she tries to pretend are legitimate, she has her uncle-in-law executed and fed to her dragon for pointing out that they're bastards and wanting his family's traditional lordship to not pass on to said bastards. Knows damn well people might try to snatch away her crown and is fine with killing them in a war for it. Also, she hit the wall hard and resents her stepmom Alicent for still being slender & beautiful after four pregnancies while she herself has gotten fat and complacent.
Show version: Still a spoiled, selfish brat who revels in the privilege of being Crown Princess and passing her obvious bastards off as legitimate heirs but she's supposed to be the good guy now. Her uncle-husband Daemon murders the troublesome uncle-in-law without any prompting for her and she doesn't feed his remains to her dragon, but instead seems shocked at it and generally seems scared of the prospect of violence to defend her claim. Thinks of the Iron Throne as a responsibility forced upon her by her dad rather than something she thinks would be fun to rule from with absolute power and zero accountability. Also, as Hess says, she isn't fat and resentful of Alicent (who puts more work into her appearance) on the show.
Aegon Targaryen, the Green King:
Book version: Lazy, irresponsible, fat slob who doesn't particularly want to be king but is pushed into it by his mother Alicent. Nevertheless cares for his kids, being told that Rhaenyra will have to have them eliminated to secure her hold on the Iron Throne is what convinces him to seize the throne for himself. Very friendly with his pet dragon Sunfyre, said to be the most majestic-looking dragon to ever live.
Show version: A pedophilic rapist who also watches underground gladiator matches pitting kids against one another, including at least one of his own bastard children. Doesn't seem to care about his own kids, legitimate or otherwise. Sunfyre barely appears this season.
Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince:
Book version: Brutal, ruthless asshole suspected of murdering his first wife to shack up with Rhaenyra. Engages in purges and wars all the time, in general he loves and revels in bloodshed. Will carry out the Black faction's worst atrocities at his niece-wife's command without question and with a good deal of sadistic enjoyment.
Show version: Basically the same except now he, and he alone, is responsible for atrocities like killing his brother-in-law (Rhaenyra's uncle by marriage) for questioning the paternity of Rhaenyra's oldest children. Definitely murdered his first wife, no ambiguity to it at all. They also cut out sympathetic moments for him, like when he comforts his own eldest daughters at their mother's (his second wife's) funeral, to make him look as evil as possible.
But then again, Rhaenyra is basically the champagne feminist incarnate just as Daenerys was the ultimate SJW in the main series. She's an immensely privileged and spoiled princess by birth, fat, petty, a bitch even to people whose help she badly needs, uses others for her pleasure without a thought for their feelings or their very lives (her first lover is Criston Cole, a Kingsguard - whose oath means he will be gelded or executed if they catch him with her), has no problem using feminism to advance herself while throwing lower-ranking women under the bus for her own convenience, and becomes a sadistic tyrant and baby-murderer in a hurry once the war proper starts but is clearly rotten to the core long before. Little wonder the writer may see herself in her and tries to make her look better.
You are on the right track. This show is classic bait and switch. They've conned a lot of people into liking it.. but boy o boy are they going to regret it come the next few seasons.
Daemon especially.. they are going to deconstruct that guy for sure. Can't wait to meet "Mary Sue" Nettles LOL
A woman, POC and dragon rider fighting for Rhaenyra? Definitely going to be made the saintliest figure in this show. The only question is whether the show's demonization of Daemon will mean they'll actually have him die at the Gods' Eye or if they'll let him live just so Nettles can keep him around for a happy ending.
"Rhaenyra had kids and got fat"
I agree that this doesn't fit reality. Women get fat without having kids.
Thing is, Rhaenyra getting fat is actually a minor plot point from the source material. Her stepmother Alicent Hightower gives birth to her four half-siblings and is almost a decade older than her, but stays slender and graceful into middle age. Rhaenyra, who had lost her own beauty by the age of twenty, resents Alicent for being both luckier & putting more effort into her appearance, to the point where it's literally one of several reasons why the two hated each other canonically.
Can't have Princess Champagne Feminist envy another woman for her looks or have any physical imperfection of her own though (and for all the bleating about how fat is beautiful nowadays, I suppose Sarah Hess & company don't truly believe that themselves after all), so not only has Rhaenyra been changed into someone who doesn't care about her stepmom's looks, but she's now portrayed by a more slender actress as well.
Feminist women just living their fantasies of mass murder vicariously through piles of media cash.
Slutty, eh up in the air as some were just as promiscuous as the men in the area.
Manipulative, God yes a that was one of the best qualities. Man or woman, being able to manipulate people, not let them know your intentions before you made your move is how nobles rose through the ranks or just survived.
I'm guessing though these versions of nobles in the show aren't as clever so trying to pass it off as a "yass queen" moment?
Ironically in their efforts to whitewash the leading Princess & Queen, HOTD's writers have made it so neither of them get to do much (or any really) manipulating - taking away their agency and making them much more boring characters than they were in the source material. If anything Rhaenyra and especially Alicent are now constantly being manipulated by the men around them, while doing almost nothing on their own, whereas Book-Rhaenyra was plenty proactive at combating threats to her claim and Book-Alicent was basically the co-leader of the Green faction.
I'm really trying hard to remember the last faithful book adaptation, it seems even with the books, Hollywood lost the talent to adapt it to film or tv years ago.
First they lost the talent to create, then the talent to mimic the creativity of others. All they can do now is destroy.
That is retarded. How many main characters did Daenerys fry when she snapped near the end of GoT? The reaction of a legion of mouthbreathing girl-power watchers was OH LAWD WHY DANY I CANT EVEN!1
Civilian losses were one of a very exclusive few symboly, plotty, storytelling-like literary thingymajigs remaining in focus by the end of the show. Next showrunner: "It's game of thrones, civilians don't count!"
Bonus Narrative: Civilians are code for your European ancestors :)
It's a female writer.
Fair, Imp. I was just thinking about the setting mirroring medieval Europe. War of the roses and stuff.
I can't be bothered to watch this show, or anything like it, but I'd be curious how many fodder deaths were male.
Most of them. Makes me think of Tolkien. He treated death differently, but it was almost always a man dying. I think we both probably understand the male sense of honor in sacrifice that Tolkien would invoke in those moments. It's just that society doesn't treat it that way anymore. Except under special narrative conditions (for instance when an "ally" character of fodder variety dies).
I really do think that if GRRM had placed ASOIF in, say, an African kingdom setting, showrunners adapting it in modern America would be squeamish about depicting "good guys" slaughtering civilians. In the same way that, if it were set in a ridiculous exclusively female society, they wouldn't slaughter those civilians.
If you ignore the racial element of the genocide propaganda narratives, the narratives in which the one kind of person is "fodder" and treated as less-than-human, you will only get part of the picture.
How can you say there's a racial element when white women have insane levels of value in leftist propaganda films?
Because the point of promoting feminism is to destroy the host society. Means to an end. There's a reason complacent races like the Chinese are spared from the propaganda we suffer. We are fed propaganda to weaken us, Whites are not part of the global underclass scheme. Keeping with the Chinese as a counter-example, they are fed propaganda that promotes focus on family (to the EXTREME exclusion of their neighbors) and complacency (fear of government, reminders of surveillance, govt promoted narc campaigns, and on and on).
Is it? I think it's to rebalance the hierarchy to put women at the top.
The Chinese are spared it because their views on women make mine look tame.
And someone hired her as a writer? Wow
"It's ok when I do it"
The Hypocritic Oath.
The person who created the fucking story is saying it....