It's always summer in the songs

Dreamers were cherished, protected in daenys' time. Aenar or whatever his name was, listened to her and changed both his and his house's fate. It is no coincidence that a dreamer always emerged when house targaryen was ready to burst. When the dragon was already beginning to eat its own tail. When the self destructive tendencies of the dragons were at their precipice.

Heleana was never listened to, often dismissed and never protected from the mental toll that the dreams took on her. In the end she gave into the madness of what her gift was. Because being a dreamer is no small feat. Seeing the future, especially the deaths of ur loved ones and knowing the causes breaks the mind. Particularly when you dont have any support. She did not and house targaryen lost its dragons, crippled in a way they never were before. Not even by maegors actions.

Then comes daeron, he knows what is to come and is not believed or even paid attention to. His murmurs are probably dismissed by maekar and slowly his mind becomes his enemy because maekar is not a gentle parent especially after dyannas death. He gives into drinking, whoring and dies as he probably knew he would. House targaryen at this time was going in the right direction. Baelor and maekar would have made a terrific team and had baelor become king he would have brought forth a legacy that perhaps would have lasted longer than the next 5 decades the dynasty lasted.

The Targaryen sigil is a red dragon on black background, so I think red is being used to indicate how much of a "dragon" each Targaryens is.

Daeron = entirely in black

Daeron wants nothing to do with any of this. He is plagued by dragon dreams, but they are utter torture. Just give him some wine and let him take a mud nap without any prophecies involved for once.

Baelor = mostly black, with the smallest of red lining and accents visible

Baelor is the best of the Targaryens—kind, thoughtful, measured—but you don't want to forget that a dragon still lurks beneath. He just keeps everything very well contained.

Maekar = black doublet with large red accents

Maekar is hot-tempered, gruff, and grumpy. Doesn't mince words and far more uncontained than Baelor. He's not cruel like Aerion, but you certainly don't want to be anywhere near him or his mace if you piss him off.

Aerion = entirely red doublet

Aerion thinks he is a dragon in human form. He is erratic, violent, and cruel. He dies by drinking wildfire, thinking it will turn him into a dragon. Ergo, 100% dragon for him.

Egg's is the most interesting, visually:

Egg 1.0 = black doublet with large red accents

Egg is initially dressed very similarly to his father, which makes thematic sense. He's finally been brought back to his family, and Maekar has dressed him like his Mini Me.

Egg 2.0 = mostly all-black, with some small amount red stitching and buttons

He then changes into a nearly all-black outfit, with only the tiniest of red threading, which more closely mirrors Baelor. And look at that ^ face! That is a boy in awe of his Uncle Baelor for standing up for Dunk and doing the right thing.

I don’t understand why so many people are so classist toward him. The way people mock how he speaks or interacts with the royals is weird, because… he’s a lowborn man. Of course he isn’t going to speak or carry himself like nobles who were raised from birth in court culture.

That’s the point of his character. He comes from a completely different social background and suddenly finds himself surrounded by people who have spent their entire lives learning royal etiquette and politics. Expecting him to immediately behave like a lord is unrealistic and stupid. People criticize him for not having noble manners while ignoring the fact that Westeros itself created those class divisions in the first place.

He also reminds me of Dunk. They’re both kind of rough around the edges, both are not the most polished or educated compared to nobles, and they both speak to royals in a very direct, informal way.

But that’s also what makes them interesting. They come from lower social backgrounds and don’t have the same court training as aristocrats. They’re not going to suddenly start speaking like maesters or lords just because they’re standing in front of royalty.

People mock characters like Ulf or Dunk for lacking “proper” manners, but that’s literally the point they show the difference between someone raised in privilege and someone who raised with zero privilege. Their honesty and lack of refinement are part of their characterization, not proof that they’re inferior.

When Baelor tells Dunk “I’m a prince of the realm. I’m blood of the dragon, not a hedge knight.” A lot of people read that as a cool or factual statement, but what Baelor is saying here is that there is a fundamental difference between them. Not because of character or virtue but because of birth.

Dunk is a hedge knight a poor wandering knight with no lands, no family connections, no wealth, and virtually no institutional protection.

Baelor is a prince. His authority comes from bloodline and inherited status. And that’s exactly how feudalism works. Sometimes people gets so caught up in admiring individual nobles that they forget what these systems actually are. Baelor may be one of the better princes in Westerosi history, but he’s still a prince. His position exists because society is structured around hereditary privilege.

In the same way people say “there are no ethical billionaires” because extreme wealth requires participation in unequal systems, there are arguably no fully ethical feudal princes either. Their status is built on a hierarchy where some people are born with immense power while others are born with almost none.

That doesn’t mean Baelor is evil. It means he benefits from a fundamentally unequal system. And I think that’s part of what makes Dunk such an important protagonist. Dunk constantly exposes how arbitrary aristocratic privilege really is.

He’s braver than many nobles. More honorable than many nobles. Kinder than many nobles. Yet society still treats him as lesser because of his birth.

Meanwhile mediocre or cruel nobles can command enormous authority simply because of their surname. Even when Baelor helps Dunk, it’s worth remembering that he isn’t working from outside that system. He’s working from the very top of it.

Unlike Egg, who spends much of the story deliberately crossing class boundaries and living among commoners, Baelor remains a prince first and foremost. His worldview is shaped by that position. When Baelor intervenes on Dunk’s behalf, there is genuine fairness there, but there is also politics. A prince cannot act without considering royal authority, public perception, and the reputation of his house as @moompl said HERE.

His actions are tied to preserving the image of the crown and maintaining social order. That’s not necessarily cynical. It’s simply the reality of being royalty. Which is why I think the line is so interesting. It’s not just a statement about who Baelor is. It’s a reminder that even one of the most respected Targaryens in the series still sees the world through the lens of class and hierarchy.

[Warning: Fire & Blood book spoilers]

I always really liked the idea that Rhaenyra's eventual hostility towards Nettles is motivated by the discovery that Nettles has no actual blood ties to Valyria; she's just a regular-degular commoner who bonded with a dragon by stumbling her way into a crude form of blood magic with all those sheep she'd been feeding Sheepstealer.

This revelation, that any random schlub can technically become a dragonrider and that it isn't something determined by Targaryen blood alone, would pose a massive threat to the concept of Targaryen supremacy. Their monopoly on these biological superweapons is the foundation upon which they justify and maintain their rule. Furthermore, Nettles' identity as a dragonrider not only poses a threat to the concept of Targaryen divine right, it poses a threat to the feudal system as a whole. You cannot have the peasantry finding out they can become gods among men, that everyone's places in life aren't predetermined by bloodlines and gods. It'll upend society.

So Rhaenyra is obviously anxious to be rid of this threat to her power, but her actions are misinterpreted through a lens of misogyny by the old septons and maesters who document history, dismissing it as "Oh Rhaenyra was fat and 30, she must've been jealous of the hot younger woman her husband obviously preferred, chicks be petty like that". That kind of misogyny has plagued Rhaenyra her entire life, it'd be ironic if the Westerosi scholar class inadvertently did a cover-up of this insanely devastating information because they just couldn't see past their own sexism.

All of this would be so fucking thematically on point for the ASOIAF universe, it would've been SO interesting...but then the showrunners replaced her with a pre-existing character from Valyrian dragonrider nobility.

So far we've had Alicent Hightower embodying the Internalized Misogyny Pick-Me while Rhaenyra is characterized as the Strong Woman Challenging Patriarchy. Within that limited framing, we're obviously supposed to view Rhaenyra as the hero. Hell, Rhaenyra sees herself as the underdog hero because of this framing.

But Nettles fucks that framing up. The moment a common born woman of color's power potentially threatens Rhaenyra's privileged position, she's suddenly extremely ready to crush her to maintain the status quo.

And then Rhaenyra weaponizes the misogyny of the scholar class to cover up the reality of the situation. She's rejected sexist Westerosi gender norms her entire life, but now she's happy to embrace them as long as it benefits herself, like "Ah you know me, I'm just a petty jealous lady, I'm just a girl, I couldn't possibly be eradicating a massive threat to the deeply inequitable hierarchy that grants my family immeasurable power haha ah jeez"

The smallfolk aren’t a background mob this time they’re the moral barometer. Their fear, anger, and desperation are responses to noble violence, not some random cruelty. Aerion isn’t a “tragic misunderstood prince” he’s an example of exactly why unchecked nobility is dangerous. The fact that the smallfolk turn on him isn’t savagery it’s consequence.

Dunk & Egg shows us a world where nobility is already morally hollow where common people are crushed under the consequences of decisions made by dragonlords long dead. Dunk exists to show how unjust that system is from the ground up. Egg grows up with the smallfolk watching this and realizes that kingship without justice is meaningless, which is why his reign later tries and ultimately fails to reform the system peacefully.

"my brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one."