loving you is fatal

In the show? Probably because the writers didn’t think of it. Because this show is desperate to make team black feminist and deny book canon, but the writers aren’t competent enough with their own lore to do it properly.

Genuinely that’s it. They had Corlys offer it to Baela (and her reject it for no reason to follow canon), so they could pretend that Team Black cares about feminism and believes truly that female heirs are worthy (even though it took Lucerys dying for him to get there). And then they forgot about it. Because it was a stupid scene invented by the writers to prove a point and nothing more.

Once that point was proven they moved on and forgot about it, opting to follow loose canon again and have Corlys pursue making his bastard his heir. The show doesn’t care about feminism more than cheap lines and in your face messaging. They don’t take any time to develop themes. Why would they when they can just shove it in your face and then forget about it?

In the book, however? it’s because despite what Team Black fans will try to gaslight you into thinking, Team Black in (book) canon is not feminist. Not even the slightest bit.

Team Black in the book is not operating under a belief in absolute primogeniture nor female empowerment. The basis of Rhaenyra’s claim is Viserys’s proclamation. He named her heir. That’s why she should be Queen. Thats it. There’s no belief in women deserving to rule.

Team Black believes Rhaenyra is the exception because Viserys named her heir. But that other eldest daughters shouldn’t inherit. This is why Rhaenyra denies Lady Rosby and Lady Stokeworth ruling in favor of younger brothers, at the behest of Corlys.

And why does Corlys insist on denying them and Rhaenyra agrees? Because, and this is 100% true, naming daughters heirs over sons would “overturn centuries of laws and precedents”.

i would also go so far as to say hotd is no longer an adaptation, nor is it viewed as such. even beyond grrm straight-up saying this isn't his story anymore, these debates of "should this scene have been in the show" and "what did this accomplish" (alicent getting sexually harassed, rhaenyra having her period on the iron throne, rhaenyra quoting elizabeth's speech, etc) aren't even about whether the events were in the book or if they accurately adapt what the book was trying to say anymore.

"The endeavor of tracing the House Fyrebrew's origin is muddled by their humble beginnings. Simple truths are known, both directly from accounts of the period and backed by leases and guild records, but any personal information regarding who Tiphaine was before the dance swiftly becomes a place of theories built on sandy foundations. Conewall's depiction of her draws on popular rumors of her mother being a promiscuous woman, claiming Tiphaine as the mother of her two wards. Graegori instead paints the relationship of her and her supposed husband as one so deep it is the cause of her avoidance of marriage later. Without any personal records prior to the Dance, it's hard to argue which theory might be true."

- The Burning Costrel: A History of House Fyrebrew

... But in my opinion, almost nothing is as grating as Helaena's characterization.

Rhaenyra and Alicent, for all their handling is abysmal, do have a sort of guideline, at least on paper. Rhaenyra wants the throne: crying every two minute, yes, acting as she's a Geneva convention expert in an ultra feudalistic world, all right, but at least she has a goal she's moving towards. Alicent is an idiot and an hypocrite on an almost pathological level, but she wants to "be at least myself (...) die free and unnoticed" (how she wants to do that in practice is a discussion for another day), which is... underwhelming, but still something.

What the fuck does Helaena want?

She's not a Cassandra figure; she never tries to act on her visions or even warn those around her. She's too little tormented for the reference to stick. She's not a grieving mother, because it's one thing to express grief in an unconventional way, it's another to shrug your child's brutal death because "children die". She doesn't want to burn innocents but doesn't ever advocate herself for peace. She's not a dragonrider despite having a dragon. Aemond is treated as a monster for the crime of asking her a perfectly reasonable thing - help him fight against the side responsible for her boy's murder. She wants to keep chicken, because apparently anything with more layers than that is too far beyond the scope of her Neuro divergent mind.

She also kinda forgot her two-year-old son was decapitated in front of her (cos only Rhaenyra is allowed to be a grieving mother).

She also kinda forgot that she rides one of the largest dragons in the Dance and could have flown away on Dreamfyre instead of telling Alicent she wants to raise chickens.

As an autistic woman, I hate this representation so much. She’s infantilised so badly and it makes me want to scream. Autistic women are not children, nor are we emotionless robots or manic pixie dream girls.

I’m sorry why did you not fucking free her the second it happened, you SELFISH ASSHOLE PRICKFACE. So much for FRIENDS. So much for BEING A GOOD PERSON WHO HATES SLAVERY.

Bryce is pretty much as bad as every other slave owner at this point. Like. What, were you keeping Lehaba in RESERVE? Were you waiting for the RIGHT MOMENT? Did you just want to do it in front if other people so they could see how (supposedly) SELFLESS you are?

Bryce is dead to me. “Oh but I’m freeing you” why didn’t you do it in the first place you ASSHOLE, the SECOND you managed to buy her, what was your ducking excuse for waiting? Was there too much paperwork? Would it take time from your pity party to fill it out?

Look I try not to speculate on the mindset of real life people I haven't actually met. I don't always succeed, but I try. This forms a pattern, though: this author's books consistently throw slavery into the worldbuilding mix as a cheap way to show that the bad guys are bad and that the good guys (who say they don't support slavery) are good.

he hit me and it felt like a kiss.