we all float

So I’ve seen a few people who haven’t seen the show wondering what the hell B.illy Har..grove did to warrant all the controversy, so I thought I’d make a little post about it.

Billy is verbally, physically and psychologically abusive towards his step-sister Max. He shouts at her, manhandles her, drives recklessly to scare her, breaks her belongings as punishment, and torments her by threatening to run over three boys on their bikes because he knew she was acquainted with them.

Billy is immediately antagonistic towards Steve. From what we’re shown they’re ‘introduced’ at the party as rivals by some random guy, and Billy appears to take that more seriously than Steve does once the party is over. Billy physically hits and shoves Steve a few times, and makes some comments.

From the get go Lucas he singles him out of the three boys Billy sees her with and talks about how Max cannot hang out with ‘those kinds of people’. The Duffer brothers have confirmed themselves that Billy’s reasons are racist. It’s not coding, it’s not hinting, it’s not a theory: it’s confirmed canon.

Billy trespasses on private property, breaks and enters said private property, assaults Steve for trying to stop him getting in.

Assaults a minor, Lucas. This one also doubles up as a hate crime given that, as previously said, Billy’s motivation is because Lucas is black. That’s not me saying that, that’s the damn writers confirming his reasons.

Although related to point 4. this needed it’s own point. Attempted Murder. Billy fights with Steve, but soon escalates it by smashing a ceramic plate on Steve’s head and then continually beating Steve until the boy passes out. He does not stop hitting Steve in the head until he is subdued via tranquilizer. 

One thing to note about Billy is that his father in one scene is shown to be abusive towards him. Which apparently excuses him for then abusing his sister, racially discriminating against a child, almost running over three children and trying to kill another boy. Which I find odd because I can think of three other characters, abused by their shitty father/’father’, who aren’t pieces of crap and two of which are absolute tiny angels who deserve the world.

You know what the difference is? Why the writers want you to believe that Sansa and Arya are morally superior while Dany was somehow a piece of shit? Why Dany was made to lose everything and die by the hands of the only man left she trusts, while Arya survived with fireproof plot armor and Sansa insisted on keeping the north independent out of sheer xenophobia and got her wish, being rewarded with a queenship she no longer deserves?

Because Arya is the kind of “feminist” who says “most girls are idiots” and denounces being a lady, and Sansa’s brand of “feminism” is the one that gets to where she is by being nice to men, even while they abuse her, until she takes what they have, and then being thankful for the little she was given. Now, am I saying that’s wrong? No. Am I saying Sansa is anything less than a survivor? No. Am I belittling what she survived? No. But compare her “If it weren’t for Ramsay and Littlefinger I would still be a little bird” to Dany’s “The only thing that kept me standing is faith in myself.” 

Sansa gave credit for where she is to the men who abused her, while Dany said “fuck that noise”.  That’s why Sansa’s stans told Dany to “Get over it and stop complaining” when she mentioned all the hardships she went through. 

Daenerys Targaryen never made herself palatable for men. She never bowed down and thanked Viserys, Drogo, the khals, the slavers for abusing her.  She never gave them credit for where she is because they don’t deserve it. She was too strong, too big, too smart, too intimidating for these men (both her adversaries and the writers), so they tried to weaken her, dumb her down, shrink her into nothing, take away all that she has worked for. Their fragile masculinity and their peanut-sized dicks couldn’t bear to have a woman be that unapologetic about her power.

And even though their final sick, misogynistic vision is what was given the screentime, it is all too transparent. Even the people who never particularly loved Dany saw through it. The critics, the reviewers, the audience, we all saw through it. Those final three episodes have tainted the show forever with their legacy. That’s why HBO is in a panic, calling up actors to insult Daenerys and try to sell us that she was evil all along. But no one is buying it except the incels and the Sansa stans, and neither of them has any credibility.

Daenerys Targaryen ultimately won. She showed us what men are all about. She refused to go down without dragging the whole ship down with her. We all saw through the contrived moral superiority of the rest of the cast of this show who are all murderers in their own right, and hung on to our love for Daenerys for dear life.

Do you think it would’ve been fair for us if Daenerys got a happy ending? She’s just like every coloniser in our history.

The Starks had plenty of reasons to dislike Daenerys and none of them had to do with xenophobia. Really? The Starks that opened the doors of Winterfell to refugees are xenophobic? Nah son, you just wanted them to worship the ground Dany walked on.

Do I think the writing was shitty and that it was rushed? Totally. But Daenerys has been speaking of taking what’s “hers” with fire and blood since the early seasons. Do you hear that? That’s the voice of colonists. People have no claim to the land their ancestors stole from other people.

The man they fed to his dogs was Sansa’s rapist, he had it coming. Just as Viserys had his death coming, Daenerys wasn’t bad bc she didn’t react to her abuser’s death (tbh Dany could’ve laughed at Viserys while he died and it would’ve been a-okay).

The way you treat Dany’s “feminism” is really telling of what you think of people who are not in safe situations to express their hatred for their abusers. You are assigning morality to Sansa’s response to her abusers, last time I checked Dany stans were angry bc ppl did that when Dany didn’t react to Viserys (rightfully so, like I said Dany owes nothing to Viserys). There’s nothing that screams fake feminism as holding abuse victims accountable for their reactions to their abusers and stablishing a superior or “right” way of reacting. You cannot say a woman’s existence and reaction to abuse is bad/good feminism.

The dialogue in which Sansa is “thanking” her abusers is fucked up, it is misogyny in writing at its finest. Do I think Daenerys storyline was affected by misogyny? Fuck yes, we all know it has been, but so has every other woman’s in the show, that’s unforgivable yes, but believe me, we have reasons to dislike Daenerys and none of them have to do with the fact that she is a woman.

Does this negate that Daenerys suffered a great deal and came out on the other side? Absolutely not. Does this discredit her rise into power? When it was done by brutalising brown bodies, fuck yes.

Do you think it was a coincidence that most of Dany’s abusers and people she burnt were brown people? Dany’s storyline has always been carried on the bloody backs of people of colour, intertwined forever with racism.

She freed slaves? Yes, but only to get an army. Almost none of Daenerys actions have been altruistic. You all whities love the Mhysa scene but listen to voices of colour and they’ll tell you why it was actually disturbing.

where was the petition when game of thrones made up a whole homophobic subplot to kill off their only canon gay character, where was the petition when two women of color were gruesomely killed on screen for no reason other than to show women of color dead and bleeding?