People only blaming the greens for the dance feels really unfair to me, particularly in the books, because to my memory only the greens, mostly Alicent, ever tried to give decent peace terms. Meanwhile Rhaenrya's response was always "fuck, you, I want everything and will not compromise!"
Like the greens tried to give her dragon stone--the place where the dragons mostly live and breed, while excepting Luke and Jace as heirs despite being bastards. Yes, aegon 3 would be a sort of hostage, but at least they offered her and her children a pretty powerful seat. Her counter offer was, just swear fealty to me and I guess I can forgive you, maybe, but nah not gonna give you anything at all.
Same thing happened when Alicent suggested splitting the relm. Alicent came up with a compromise that had both of them ruling, and Rhaenrya just shut it down, zero counter offer. I'm not saying that plan would have worked but I find it telling that Rhaenrya never offered peace terms that actually gave the greens anything, and therefore a real chance of working.
Yet it sAlicent that gets all the criticism about waging war and getting her kids killed, even though Rhaenrya also made the choice to keep fighting despite getting at least something in both peace offers by the greens.
As for taking her children as hostages:
First: the cupbearer thing matters. A lot. A cupbearer is not a random hostage shoved in a tower. A cupbearer has physical, intimate, daily access to the kingâs body. Food and drink are the classic vectors of assassination in Westeros everyone in-world knows this. Thatâs why cupbearers are usually trusted kin, wards, or people whose safety is bound to good behavior. So if Aegon II truly wanted only hostages, giving Rhaenyraâs son a position where he could very plausibly poison him would be⊠insane. Politically and practically. The offer isnât âIâm holding your child at knifepoint,â itâs âI am binding your child into my household under rules of mutual restraint.â And that brings us to the hypocrisy. People are perfectly happy to accept Theon Greyjoy as a hostage situation without screaming âabuseâ every five seconds. Ned Stark raises him, arms him, educates him, lets him sit at his table. But suddenly, when itâs Rhaenyraâs child, the same structure is reframed as uniquely monstrous, even though itâs operating on the same feudal logic Westeros has always used.
And the bigger strategic failure on Rhaenyra and Daemonâs part. Had they accepted: a cupbearer position, proximity to the king, time to build alliances inside Kingâs Landing, they could have very plausibly undermined Aegonâs reign from within. Thatâs how thrones are actually won in ASOIAF not just with dragons, but with patience, optics, and restraint. But both rhaenyra and Dameon are dumb people who didnât want restraint. They wanted aggression, because in their worldview, compromise = weakness. And ironically, that belief that power must always be asserted violently and immediately is exactly what accelerates their downfall. Rhaenyra refusing arrangements that could have stabilized her claim isnât noble rebellion. Itâs a strategic gamble one that fails. And the fandom pretending otherwise is just refusing to engage with how Westeros actually works.
What people keep glossing over is that nothing about Rhaenyraâs response to the peace terms was politically inevitable. She chose escalation. She chose to make compromise as humiliation. And once she said I will have my throne or my brotherâs head, the situation stopped being a dispute and became an existential war because you donât come back from that kind of declaration.
The war did not begin the second Aegon was crowned. The war began when peace terms were offered by the greens and rejected by rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra was not forced into war by the Greensâ opening move alone. The terms offered to her were not bad but Insulting? yes. But diplomacy in Westeros is not about accepting or rejecting a first offer itâs about counteroffers, leverage, delays, and face-saving compromises. We see this constantly in ASOIAF. What Rhaenyra did instead was treat negotiation as a personal affront. She read the terms, refused to engage, and answered with a death threat. At that point, the Greens had no incentive to de-escalate. From their perspective, she had just confirmed their worst fear: that coexistence was impossible.
From the Greensâ POV and frankly from the point of view of any lord in Westeros that line means: There will be no compromise. There will be no negotiation. There will be no safety for rival claimants. The war is inevitable. After that, peace is already dead. You donât threaten execution and then act surprised when the other side arms itself. And this is the part people really donât want to grapple with: Rhaenyra refuses to engage in discussion because she considers any debate an insult. To her, even talking implies her claim is questionable. But politics doesnât care about your feelings. Refusing dialogue doesnât make you stronger it just guarantees escalation. Peace talks arenât about affection. Theyâre about managing consequences. Once Rhaenyraâs position becomes âsubmit or die,â the Greensâ only rational response is to secure the throne first or be wiped out later. At that point, they arenât choosing war - war has already been chosen for them.
If you put Alysanne in Rhaenyraâs position, the Dance almost certainly does not happen the way it did and maybe not at all. Alysanne is the perfect counter-example because she proves that being a woman in Westeros does not automatically mean choosing bloodshed. Alysanne and jaehaerys both wanted power, authority, but they understood that legitimacy is negotiated, not declared. She argued. She persuaded. She compromised. She built coalitions. She understood that ruling meant keeping the realm intact.
There are, in Westerosi history, many Targaryen women with technically stronger claims than rhaenyra or even stronger claims than the men who ruled after them. What distinguishes them from Rhaenyra is not that they were âless legitimate,â but that they chose not to press those claims, because they understood exactly what pressing them would cost: civil war, the deaths of innocent people, and the destruction of their own family.
The only real move that couldâve actually kept everyone with Rhaenyra and her kids alive was for her to publicly step down and swear loyalty to Aegon II. Thatâs it. That was the one path that mightâve guaranteed their safety. And the thing is she tried to go that route when Luke died, she finally understood that pushing her claim meant more of her children would die, and she wanted the war to end. But Daemon? He decided to answer blood with more blood. He murdered her nephew and locked her into a war she was already trying to pull away from. He kept the fire burning, pushed the revenge narrative, and made sure there was no going back. Yes giving her claim was harsh, but politically, itâs the only path that made sense in Westerosâ patriarchal system. By doing that, sheâd turn herself from ârival queenâ to âdutiful princess,â someone above suspicion rather than a potential usurper.
Just like Rhaenys did when she accepted Viserysâ rule. Ppl love to say âRhaenyraâs kids would never be safe as long as Aegon was king,â but when you actually look at the logic and precedent in Westeros, that doesnât really hold up. Rhaenyraâs situation isnât unique sheâs literally repeating history that already showed how these things work out. First off, look at Rhaenys. She was technically heir based on her status as the only living child of the original heir. But when Viserys was chosen instead, she didnât start a war or demand her birthright. She accepted it, lived comfortably, and her kids even married into the royal family. Her existence wasnât a threat to Viserys bc she was a woman, and her renunciation was seen as natural. Rhaenyra couldâve done the same exact thing. Her position as a woman made it culturally acceptable for her to step aside no one wouldâve thought less of her for it. But she (and especially Daemon) saw peace as humiliation. Rhaenyraâs claim was only strong while her father was alive to back it. Once Viserys died, that âI said soâ logic didnât mean much anymore bc there was zero precedent for a queen ruling in her own right.
So if she had publicly renounced the claim and acknowledged Aegon as king, the whole situation couldâve cooled down immediately. Aegon wouldnât have needed to see her or her sons as enemies bc politically, they wouldnât be enemies anymore. Her sons were bastards in the eyes of most of the greens; no lord was going to rise up to put them on the throne over the kingâs trueborn sons. And tbh, Aegon had no reason to target her or her children unless she kept pressing the issue. Even Rhaenysâ line âthose boys wonât be safe so long as Aegon is kingâ makes sense only if Rhaenyra keeps fighting. If she renounced the claim, thereâs literally no incentive for Aegon to harm them. The Greens offered peace terms that wouldâve secured her familyâs future with lands, incomes, and safety. Thatâs not the behavior of people planning to murder them. So yeah Rhaenyra wouldâve always been less of a threat to Aegon than he was to her. The thing is that she refused to take advantage of that, and bc of daemon she instead walked straight into a war that her culture had already decided she couldnât win.
Alicent did not have meaningful choices. Once Viserys remarried and had sons, Alicent was locked into a trap that Rhaenyra simply was not. From the moment Aegon was born, Alicentâs children existed in a binary: either Aegon becomes king, or Aegon dies eventually, quietly, or violently. That isnât paranoia. That is how succession works in Westeros. Rival claimants donât get to just âexist safelyâ forever. Even not pressing a claim does not protect them if someone else decides they are inconvenient later. There is no third option for her.
Rhaenyra had choices. Real ones. Painful, humiliating, unfair choices but still choices within the Westerosi system. She could have accepted Aegonâs accession and lived. Not as a nobody, not stripped and exiled, but as a princess of immense rank, wealth, and influence. She would have kept Dragonstone, kept her children alive, kept her dragons, kept her power base, and avoided a civil war that killed tens of thousands and permanently crippled Targaryen supremacy. Westerosi society would not have condemned her for stepping aside it would have expected it. Just as it did with Rhaenys. Just as it had done countless times before. Her gender, unfair as it is, actually protected her in that scenario.
Thatâs the uncomfortable truth fandom doesnât like to sit with: Rhaenyra chose war. Not because she had no alternative, but because she wanted the throne more than peace, more than safety, more than compromise. That doesnât make her uniquely a monster it makes her a feudal ruler acting exactly like every other feudal ruler in ASOIAF. Ambition first, bodies later. And thatâs where Alicent is fundamentally different.What choices did Alicent actually have? She didnât choose to be married to Viserys. She didnât choose to bear sons into a succession crisis. She didnât choose Viserysâs incoherent, contradictory policies. She didnât even get her children meaningful positions of power that might have made compromise viable. Viserys didnât gave Aegon a position of power or prepare the realm to accept Rhaenyra cleanly. He didnât resolve the contradiction he created. He just died and left everyone else to bleed.
Alicentâs sons existing was already a threat not because of anything she did, but because of how Westerosi succession works. Once Aegon was born, it was no longer a matter of âifâ conflict would happen, but when. Alicent could not step aside the way Rhaenyra could. If Rhaenyra ruled uncontested, Alicentâs sons would always be living liabilities. Everyone in that world understands that. Including Rhaenyra.
So when people say âthis is all Alicentâs fault,â they are ignoring the asymmetry entirely. Alicent is fighting because she cannot afford not to. Rhaenyra is fighting because she refuses to give up what she believes is hers, regardless of cost. That doesnât make Rhaenyra evil but it does mean she is not uniquely righteous, and it certainly does not make Alicent the singular architect of the war.
The Dance happens because: Westerosi succession is unstable, Viserys created an impossible situation, and two women were placed in radically unequal positions, one with options, one without.
Alicent tries to stop the war twice? Thatâs just being annoying. Rhaenyra refuses the peace terms? Girlboss moment. Refuses to marry Aegon the Younger to Jaehaera to literally end the war? Strategic silence. Refuses to take Daeron as a hostage and spare his life despite him being a teenage boy the same age as her own son Jace, and despite Corlys begging her to do so, which directly leads to Bitterbridge? Character consistency. But Alicent suggesting peace? Unforgivable crime. Yeah. Of course we blame Alicent.
Pretending Rhaenyra was forced into war while Alicent was simply âpower-hungryâ is reading the story like a 9yo child.
