genuinely wtf are they doing with rhaena. i'm so worried for her. it's already bad enough that the narrative they're going with is choosing to blame her almost entirely for jace's death, ry*n condal has explicitly said that he cut nettles solely because it wouldn't make sense for daemon to be infidel to rhaenyra, and supposedly because they didn't want a character sitting around in the vale doing nothing for four seasons. but they understand that half the plot falls apart without nettles so they're trying (and failing) to split her up and scatter her across the landscape of this story while still rewriting the inescapable parts of the plot that were forwarded by her alone, all because saint rhaenyra is so holy and perfect and incapable of being a bad person and has never done anything wrong in her life.
rhaenyra can't be cast in a bad light whatsoever so her racism has to be absolved by the fact that the velaryons are black, #feminism has to be saved so they're diminishing her role as an abuser to a 16 year old child by having me believe said child is responsible for her son's death so her rage towards rhaena looks justified and not paranoid, as well as, of course, preserving her esteem and desirability to both daemon and the audience because why would he leave our beautiful skinny white aryan kween for some random black girl? (something that they deliberately refused to do for laena, the woman he actually loved)
but now that rhaena has spent several episodes across 2 seasons running around hunting sheepstealer, claiming sheepstealer, and then driving that 2005 honda accord ass bitch (affectionate) right onto an f1 race track in the first episode, she hasn't done anything since. she's still being incredibly underutilized.
it's very obvious that rhaenyra is not going to kill her so that entire thing with her guilt about jace and the fear of the repercussions will be dragged out for more than half the season with nothing substantial to show for it as they won't risk portraying rhaenyra as cruel by ordering her stepdaughter's head. which then begs the question, all of this was to what end?
it doesn't appear as if daemon will take her into battle into the riverlands as nettles was, she won't drive a fatal wedge between rhaenyra and daemon, and rhaenyra will maintain her nunhood until the day sunfyre has sunday brunch on dragonstone.
so when sheepstealer remains the last dragon of the targaryen dynasty on either side, all while her sister is in chains, her father is dead and green armies are still fighting the dwindling black armies, will they use the excuse of her guilt about her part in the gullet to have her squat in a cave in the vale and do nothing? the very thing they didn't want her character to do in the first place?
i think there is a very real chance they'll kill her off and i swear that's the day i review bomb this show to hell but the signs are not looking good.
daeron, gwayne and helaena are all whitewashed of their staunch allegiance to aegon's cause or given some frame of victimhood to make them more sympathetic characters through the lens of a firmly pro-rhaenyra show. condal and hess allegedly can't even agree on whether to keep jaehaera alive or not when it is integral to the story that aegon's bloodline dies with her and does not run through the descendants of the throne.
while it could be said that hess' and condal's ignorance about the real-world reaction to a black female character being responsible for the death of a beloved white male character not being immediate, overwhelming sympathy and grace as they'd expect, this doesn't really explain why they've taken the most blameless character in the dance and had her bear such an unforgivable, indefensible responsibility and such an indignity and humiliation of living in squalor like a fugitive.
given the pattern of things they've taken from black female characters (daemon's love for laena and his daughters, laena's bond with rhaenyra, rhaena being pampered in all luxuries of the vale,erasing nettles and possibly daenaera) and awarded to their white ones (helaena being set up as some innocent, clueless girl when she was firmly pro-aegon and an active political figure in the early days of the war, diminishing alicent's responsibility and cunning throughout the entire story, helaena still maintaining her feminity and royal dignity despite actually being the one to fall into squalor by refusing to bathe or eat), i would have to assume it comes from a place of deep malice. and given the lack of regard for the source material, i highly doubt that type of narrative contempt for rhaena will give way to her having any sort of dignified ending.
