And even though TV Daenerys is radically and entirely different from her book counterpart (as much as I love Emilia Clarke), TV Daenerys’ daddy didn’t tell her she’s special, unlike Rhaenyra, Daenerys realized she’s special when she brought back dragons from extinction and walked out of fire utterly unharmed, please can people stop compare her to any of the mid characters from HOTD ??

Speak it again, anon, bc what?! It's quite obvious that they are trying to inject as much a literal magic layer of significance in Rhaenyra's story as magic was in Dany's Or they are trying to make Rhaenyra more "important" in the Targ lineage & "interesting" to those who loved Dany (which is most of the fandom, lets' bfr) to promote the show. And yet at every turn they have also excused D&D's atrocious illogical writing of Daenerys' core traits and convictions behind the ol' "GRRM has not finished his series".

We know that there are only 2 books left of this series and Dany is still very NOT like her show counterpart's more...demanding isn't the right word but for now, we'll go with it. Based on this fact alone, people are so much more willing to believe that Dany will turn a 180 somewhere in these last 2 bks and destroy KL or do something akin to Mad!Aerys "bc Targs are crazy and she seeks to be a white savior while profiting from slaves". That this extreme turn for her will not happen for someone like Jon Snow who literally came back from the dead after nearly all under his command killed him. That they don't feel it rather be Cersei, not Dany, who'd blow up KL despite all the comparisons and actions she has similar to Aerys in the text, word for word verbatim. No it has to be Dany, bec she is a "foreign invader" come to ruin the good town of Westeros with her slave-owning ways.

Ryan Condal recently said as much about the D&D defense on BigThink:

Besides, there were a lot other instances where it's clear the real reason why they demolished her was to move on from the project and they just didn't like Dany. Go on over to ozymalek/PhoenixAshes' Youtube and search through to see how they broke it all down.

And yes, Dany actually showed/has very good reason to believe her singularity and even this pseudo-religious quality from her revitalizing dragons, effectively patching up a lot of the magical balance of the world by doing so.

What's also pretty cool is that bk!her still doesn't think of herself as a "god" the way Euron Greyjoy is kinda heading towards/is already at.

So it's so fucking weird how they are trying to re-capitalize on Dany's effect and show!character (and before that, her nonviolenet ADwD arc about the pits) for their false version of Rhaenyra bc apparently we can tolerate and even like ambitious, vengeful, cruel, or just selfish men like Euron, Robert B, Robb (not evil, but went to war for his own ends and his armies also raped indiscriminately), TYWIN [Rains of Castamere, everything else], etc. BUT a woman who has even just the mere self-concern to want to claim back a throne that was DEFINITIVELY usurped?! Nah, apparently, that's too much. She's unsympatheziable.

For a woman, she HAS to be "unselfish", trying to prove a point to men--dead or alive--of her strength 24/7, but unable to settle with an idea of her own "strength" or worthiness, and thus eventually be lead into semi-unintentionally building some strange "cult" around dragons from Westerosi religiosity to feel in control & for people to sympathize with her. She HAS to--as one Twitter user said--have a problem with her gender identity so as to attribute "womanly" stuff as "weak" to want the same things as what a man are granted.

If the audience is stupid, does that mean you should be as well and perpetuate MORE sexist stereotypes/frameworks? No; HotD is for the money and comes form a place of ignorant "women guide violent men" narrative, no matter much it claims it is "feminist" or how lore-knowledgeable Condal says he is.

We all know this is a media company and Condal is more businessman than creator and that you need sorta both a business/production sense as well as a creative spirit for TV/film. Problem is that Condal is inevitably and attempting to build an ethos and ethical narrative while also treating the org stories and GoT as material to re-market through his own "vision" of what he'd personally like to see as a ASoIaF story.

Just bc this is a huge media company doesn't mean whatever they say is "God" for the actual story they were tasked to adapt! You can enjoy that and still recognize nothing about it or most of it informs the orig story or "proves" anything of it WITHOUT bringing up good reasoning and comparisons as to how-why!

Much of the characterization/writing/plot decisions he makes are not about feminism or making the characters palatable for others but to--like with a lot of censorship--just make it so that as many people as possible are watching and are comfortable with the most popular but incorrect ideas of what ASoIaF & feminism or sexism is about, etc.. those of which have already been in fandom and larger life/online circulation for YEARS.

Therefore, there is much superficiality as well as what could have been fleshed out and nuanced ideas or directions the current writing HotD has AS WELL AS Condal's/Hess' own biases written into the very fabric of this show that mark it as just ASoIaF "fanfiction" instead of a strict "adaptation". I know people get annoyed with the fanfic allegations, but if you have an "adaptation" that no longer has most-to-any of the core ideas, themes, characterizations, EVENTS, etc. as its original, you call that a fanfic, not an adaptation. Just bc it came from a prestige major studio/company and had a lot of money thrown at it, doesn't make it actually an adaptation.

If the author themselves--even though they should know better bc look what happened with Dany, Euron, Cersei-Jaime, etc.--say something is egregiously wrong with how they written a certain thing in the show, it is not actually using the orig lore and therefore it is more fanfic than adaptation:

Dany--unlike any other Targ, which includes Rhaenyra--has a relationship with 3 separate dragons even though she will only ride one. Vermithor should NOT have been as "docile" with Rhaenyra as they were in the show (saw another clip online, still haven't watched the episode). There is still a reason why Jace tried to get her out TWICE, why Viserys was upset at Aemond for going down to the Dragonpit alone, why Rhaena nearly died trying to bond with some, , why Nettles approach and SUCCESS with Sheepstealer is so amazing, why Baelon bumping a dragon on the nose gave him the moniker "Baelon the Brave", etc. Dragons are damned dangerous to anyone who aren't their rider! And Rhaenyra's "specialness" was evident in the plethora and rise of dragon eggs....you want to show her as such? Have dialogue about the trajectory of dragon eggs laid compared to now vs 40/30/20/10 yrs ago!

Yes, most of the Targ women are connected and esp through magic and fertility & expressed "Targaryen woman's strength" and agency in unique but still related ways. But as rhaenin-time once said:

HotD thinks it's somehow an improvement to insist that actually, no, they're all just (by circumstance) variations of a "generic targ girl" template.

You could have even have Rhaenyra stumble on something a GoT character later finds but not have her go into that deep about it bc she's focused on the war/usurpation if you really want to stick with the whole oversimplified "distracted by selfish stuff" going on. Point is, Rhaenyra's significance was meager compared to Dany's SPECIFICALLY when we talk about active and participatory spiritutality/magic. Passively and more subtly, Rhaenyra dying spelled the end of dragons...so be subtle about it and stop with the whole "religious cult" nonsense that really is just a continuation of the whole Dany-is-a-facist nonsense we got in the final season of GoT. "Targ madness" and all that.

Looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a cinnamon roll: Rickon

Looks like a cinnamon roll, but can actually kill you: Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, Bran

Looks like they could kill you, is actually a cinnamon roll: Robb, Benjen

Looks like they could kill you, could actually kill you: Jon, Ned

Because he killed Daenerys Stormborn.

But seriously, Daemon asking Alys for help, her actually helping him and the last hallucination she gives him is that of reconciliation with his brother… I’m still processing this and what it’ll mean down the line. I need to know her motives because it can’t just be helping out Daemon ?? She calls them both chess pieces at the hands of larger forces… How far into the future has she seen ?

Besides that point she knows how Daemon dies, she told him “he’ll die in this place”, so why does she even help him ? And what about Aemond ? Like I wonder what the end goal is for her. Since she will know Aemond dies, imagine she doesn’t warn him about it when she met him which will be 100% funny.

First, this is nothing against you anon. But I don't take HotD's writing and characters at face value or value them bc I believe much of HotD's writng is superficial and too contradictory for that. Even without considering how they have made it so much easier to hate and misunderstand several F&B characters, general ASoIaF lore, etc., enough for people to think this war wasn't as anti-woman-leader focused as it was bc the showrunners have blatantly said they wish to make this more about "both teams bad, Targs are uniquely selfish".

Answer: (in case you weren't being facetious) Sorry, nothing is ever going to beat for me Alys getting impregnated by the craziest bitch of the greens, aka, anti bastard team. Other than that, show!Alys is not doing for Daemon but for the Riverland smallfolk, so yeah she doesn't care for Grover Tully that much. I believe she's meant to parallel Mysaria in HotD's endless love for "parallels".

I don't think the writers know what her end goal is, bc even this is not all that clear in the book as she disappears from history with her son. And I don't think that she has much to anticipate since unless HotD is trying to say that Jojen Reed was Alys' descendant, how did a Targ father contribute to any of Jojen or Meera's abilities in GoT or ASoIaF? Nah, this storyline is weird & jumbled.

As for Daemon asking for help, I think this is the "toxic-man-learns-he's-not-that-special-and-asks-for-a-woman's-help-to-raise-women's-importance" arc HotD has out for him in this season. An unnecessary one that contradicts the first one--and no 1x10 was bullshit esp the choking scene, so 🤷🏿‍♂️.

Sigh...I don't even...

This is also why I cannot take Show Rhaenys and anything she said seriously. Including her behaviour towards Alyn. Because, contrary to Cat, she was the embodiment of Ryan and Sara's mediocrity as writers for she was entirely their creation and had nothing in common with GRRM's Rhaenys Targaryen save for her name. Show Rhaenys wasn't a person but a statement. They desperately wanted her to be likeable, going to the extent of presenting her as the only sensible voice on the show (even though she had irresponsibly murdered a bunch of smallfolk previously but that was obviously brushed under the rug because Rhaenys could do no wrong and also because the writers have double standards). She had to say and do everything that the writers of the show deemed 'appropriate' because any seemingly honest untoward behaviour from her side would reflect badly upon them.

It frustrates me to say something nice about Benioff and Weiss but the changes they made to Catelyn on the show were more palpable and believable. Show Catelyn had remorse about her behavior towards Jon but she was still, as long as she lived, connected to the character that GRRM had created in the book.

Maybe a response to this post that I reblogged.

Before I read the books, I couldn't like or sympathize with Lysa because in the show she was presented as what she became-- I did not witness or hear much about her past and how her own family treated her. I still do not really like her because, like Cersei, goes after others who do not deserve abuse BUT yes the burden of disgust is not packed with a simple disregard for her person. so, admittedly, Lysa makes me uncomfortable, and that's what good fiction does. (Uncomfortable with real, truths revealed and not contrived displays of shocking material for the sake of it.)