cassiopea

I am baffled that there are show fans complaining about book fans being upset over the changes to the source material in the show when the literal author is upset over it. Poor GRRM literally got into arguments with Fuckface Condal because he kept changing his work and you think we’re overreacting, seriously?

guys you gotta stop thinking of women in their 30s as elderly it’s just misogyny

you also gotta stop thinking about actual elderly women as lesser human beings. Youth is not a measure of one’s worth.

Condal read GRRM's blog post and said okay fine here's Maelor but he'll die in childbirth or very shortly after. That way Maelor isn't included for any of his book plot moments that make Rhaenyra's side look bad but just so he can say that he technically exists in the show (and pretend that was always the plan and not reactionary to the blog post). This will also likely be Helaena's primary motivation to die (since GRRM was not happy with the fact it happened for "no apparent reason" in the original outline he saw). This way Rhaenyra isn't involved in Helaena's death whatsoever and if anything Helaena hiding her pregnancy for so long will be viewed as the issue. It does turn the tragedy of Helaena into something it wasn't in the books, and much like many of the other show changes, it's doubtful this one will be an improvement on the original.

There was finally a dialogue scene between Rhaenyra and one of her siblings in this show. It's season 3.5 of 4 of the show that's supposed to be about siblings fighting a civil war that destroys their family, and this is the first time there's been a conversation between any of the involved siblings onscreen. It's not dialogue between the two figurehead siblings, no, but it is between Rhaenyra and her sister Helaena whose six year old she indirectly got murdered in his bed right in front of her and that her sister knows Rhaenyra and her husband are responsible for. An event in the source material that breaks the character psychologically and has a permanent impact on her. And in this long-awaited dialogue, Helaena asks Rhaenyra how she feels about losing her eldest son Jacaerys. And then not one of the characters - Helaena, Rhaenyra, or Alicent - mentions the death of Helaena's eldest only son Jaehaerys just months prior (nor did he come up last season even when Rhaenyra explicitly referenced a "son for a son" which Team Black had already explicitly done in killing Jaehaerys). The show and its characters really forgot about Rhaenyra and Daemon causing the death of a kindergartener in front of his mother's eyes. Which like. Why did it happen then? There's a reason it was included in the original story. Almost like it was supposed to be the tipping point into an all-out war of vengeance and retribution that destroyed everything and everyone! Almost like this singular event was so calculated and heinous on purpose to demonstrate the cruelty of this war, the consequences it inflicts on innocents, and the lengths someone would go to get revenge. What started as an eye for an eye at Driftmark becoming a son for a son and the story asking when does it end and how far could it go? But no it never happened in the show apparently. Aegon killing the rat catchers afterward had a longer lasting impact on the story than one side of the war's young child being murdered in front of his mother and siblings. Said murdered child's grandmother is actually helping those responsible claim the throne and volunteering the child's father, uncles, and grandfather to die in the process so she can wipe her hands of the whole thing, and murdered child's mother is happy to go pet some chickens in the countryside and figures that kids die all the time so why be sad!