I do agree with you that the fandom becomes so hypocritical when it comes to Daemon and Daena and their hate feels very forced and overblown, especially in comparison to their actions in canon which are nothing if we compare them to canon war criminal mom-son duo Visenya/Maegor, who are well-loved and popular. I also feel that the reason why the fandom isn't willing to cut Daena/Daemon some slack or give them any charitable view is unlike Naerys/Daeron, they have more developed characters that make them difficult to project and self-insert into. Daena and Daemon are not much developed since they are historical figures that we only know about them based on what is remembered about them, though if we look at GRRM SSM/interviews and what we are given about them, they're surely much better written than Naerys and her son.
Naerys and Daeron are extremely one-dimensional, which makes it very easy to project and craft whatever headcanon you want into them and pretend it's canon. Naerys is especially annoying to me; she is the sickly Victorian child trope in a very misogynistic and fetishistic way. GRRM managed to sexualize her chronic illness even, and it's disgusting. She exists as a mere plot and character development device to other characters; in the main story, she is there as the tragic love interest of the lionized Dragonknight Aemon, and their love story in the main books doesn't exist in a vacuum, rather its there to develop future dynamics for certain characters. In TwoIAF, she literally exists just to show us the king who is called the Unworthy turned out to be well... evil?!
Elio and Linda went further in victimizing Naerys so much that they literally made her a victim of actual teenagers?! And oh, she is so helpless (despite being a queen) that she can't do anything against said teenagers, that she needs Daeron and Aemon to save the day. And she basically does nothing as a queen or as a character in general, except getting victimized through all of the sections of TwoIAF. Rhaena, daughter of Aenys I, and Rhaella were stuck with horrible husbands, but unlike Naerys, they actually got personalities and agency (Rhaella didn't allow her ladies to be turned into "whores" by Aerys), while Naerys lacks everything that can make her an actual character, let alone an interesting one.
And Daeron is also a very one-note character, that the only things we know about him from GRRM is that he was beefing with his preteen brother and used his preteen sister for his goals, and cared more about the matters of state than of love, which doesn't paint a picture of a pleasant person. However, Elio would go out of his way to glaze Daeron so much and how much of a "good" king he is, without providing textual evidence for it. And Daeron can't really be a good king no matter how Elio tries to make Yandel and other pseudo-fake historians talk about how wise, kind, good, blah blah Daeron is. Because thanks to his policies and the amount of undeserved privileges he gave to the Martells and other Dornish houses, he ensured that the realm would suffer a very long-term civil war (assuming his policies regarding Dorne angered his lords truly and it wasn't something blown out of proportion later on).
So in text:
Daeron failed with his bastard brothers.
He gave the Martells so many privileges that even other Dornish houses were pissed off.
He basically sold his preteen sister as a bargain chip with no regard for her well-being.
He didn't disinherit Aerys and Rhaegal or send them off to the Citadel despite them being completely disqualified to rule.
He gave too much power to Bloodraven and encouraged his psychopathic behavior, which will result in Westeros suffering under Bloodraven's tyranny for decades.
He raised high taxes on the commoners and the nobles to basically build a pleasure palace for the Targaryens.
He didn't pass any laws to protect the commoners from abuse, which allowed his sociopath grandson Aerion to abuse a Dornish commoner because he knows he will get away with it.
He failed to deal with the Dornish raiders, as two royal marriages didn't prevent the Vulture King from raiding Westeros.
So in general, what we have from the text doesn't paint Daeron in a positive light, much less make him a good king. Jaehaerys I was deeply flawed, but given what we know of other Targaryen kings, he seems the best; at least he managed to give Westeros 50 years of peace, which can't be said about Daeron, since he gave Westeros 5 generations of civil wars and rebellions instead.
I feel when it comes to this era of history, Naerys and Daeron are one of the worst written characters. So like I have said, the fandom has a much easier time projecting into them, unlike Daena & Daemon. Naerys can't exist without Aegon and Aemon, because if you removed Aegon and Aemon, what would be left of Naerys? Daeron is glazed by the fandom because they think he is some woke king who married a WOC baddie (never mind that was Baelor's work anyways) and because of his Gary Stu son Baelor, who has only 2 traits: 1) looking Dornish, 2) muh prince of the blood gets his brains blown out by a resentful brother. remove Myriah and Baelor and none would gaf about Daeron.
I agree with everything you said.
The only thing I have to add is that there was an attempt by Elio and Linda to whitewash Daeron II in concerns to him marrying his sister Daenerys off at only 15 to an older man. They wrote that she was of age when she married. But GRRM reiterates in both the main series and Fire and Blood that the age of majority is 16, so Daeron II married her off before she was even of age. He also married Daemon off at only 14.
Even Jaehaerys and Alysanne get criticism for marrying off their daughters too young or trying to marry their teenaged daughters to older men. I think the fandom even sees them as bad parents to their younger daughters now, especially Jaehaerys.
Elio admitted that TWOIAF saying he was 14 was an error, because Daemon was born late in 170 (since Baelor died in 171 40 days after Daena went into labor), so poor Daemon was actually just 13. He and DanyMar never got proper childhoods due to the actions of selfish rulers, but at least A4 is depicted as the villain he is.
I’ve argued that D2 not showing up in KL until 2 effing weeks after hearing of his father’s death and thus unable to make any important moves regarding the succession or at least some basic PR as his oldest son (if that is true, since people are wondering), shows that actually, he doesn’t put the health of the realm first. He puts his own petty grudges before that, and we have evidence with more characters that it’s people with considerably less power than him (mostly teens, illegitimate children, children, foreigners). Truly an unpleasant person if you’re not on “his side”.
You are right. It was a typo when they said 14. They even corrected it to 13 on the wiki. Ew. :(
