#feudalism

"[Robin Hood] wasn't noble at all, but a yeoman, a rung above a peasant...and while he was perfectly nice to the poor, helping them was not his main purpose. His enemies were the corrupt clergy and the land-owning nobles who took advantage of their underlings."

[Warning: Fire & Blood book spoilers]

I always really liked the idea that Rhaenyra's eventual hostility towards Nettles is motivated by the discovery that Nettles has no actual blood ties to Valyria; she's just a regular-degular commoner who bonded with a dragon by stumbling her way into a crude form of blood magic with all those sheep she'd been feeding Sheepstealer.

This revelation, that any random schlub can technically become a dragonrider and that it isn't something determined by Targaryen blood alone, would pose a massive threat to the concept of Targaryen supremacy. Their monopoly on these biological superweapons is the foundation upon which they justify and maintain their rule. Furthermore, Nettles' identity as a dragonrider not only poses a threat to the concept of Targaryen divine right, it poses a threat to the feudal system as a whole. You cannot have the peasantry finding out they can become gods among men, that everyone's places in life aren't predetermined by bloodlines and gods. It'll upend society.

So Rhaenyra is obviously anxious to be rid of this threat to her power, but her actions are misinterpreted through a lens of misogyny by the old septons and maesters who document history, dismissing it as "Oh Rhaenyra was fat and 30, she must've been jealous of the hot younger woman her husband obviously preferred, chicks be petty like that". That kind of misogyny has plagued Rhaenyra her entire life, it'd be ironic if the Westerosi scholar class inadvertently did a cover-up of this insanely devastating information because they just couldn't see past their own sexism.

All of this would be so fucking thematically on point for the ASOIAF universe, it would've been SO interesting...but then the showrunners replaced her with a pre-existing character from Valyrian dragonrider nobility.

The noble structure. I want Jaehaerys to establish a unified structure of nobility where certain lords have privileges on their status more than just the Lord Paramount -> Lords -> Knights/Masterly Houses. Distinctive titles that might be maintained by the older houses, even if it is a mere announcement.

I want to see Walder Frey announce when he swore oaths to House Targaryen as a lord, he owed specifically ABC. But Catelyn Stark mentions that as a liege vassal to House Tully, he owes XYZ to Hoster.

Take for example, Dragon Age. We know who are the senior infeudated vassals in Ferelden - the Couslands and the Mac Tirs. The arls are British Earls. The Bann are the various landed lords with minor holdings in the Bannorn, similar to English barons. In Inquisition, Vivienne exerts significant soft power because she maintains the position of mistress to a senior Duke and a member of the Council of Heralds - something similar to an English Witegamot. Whereas the Lords Declarant are treated as a faction, but what exactly to their noble positions entail? Are they permitted to petition House Arryn on certain matters as obligated by treaty? These are indications of relative power, strength, and noble jockeying for power that connote a well-designed and robustly written noble caste in a feudal society. Thank you @wendynerdwrites

Of course unlike pirates, knights have had centuries of a good reputation mostly because of the whole (constructed) idea of Chivalry and the general idea in the past that war was good and virile (ACOUP did a good article about this, unfortunately I still don't have my PC so I can't comment on it). All those ideas of Chivalry and honor only applied between people of their similar status though, members of the landowner aristocracy. If you were a rebellious peasant, it was well within their right to murder you.

From our modern perspective a knight would be, and forgive me for using this kinda metaphor, a cross between a landlord and a cop.