addressing rhea's marriage.
by the way, i believe i've addressed this before on my blog, but i cannot find the post and so i hope i'll be able to reiterate this well, but: my portrayal of rhea and her following narrative will contain a lot of criticism of daemon. it will always be in the context of their marriage. outside of it, she does not truly have any problems with daemon's character. in fact, sometimes, she will admit or even defend daemon's reputation as a great knight, swordsman, dragonrider. rhea is an honourable woman, after all. she does not slander nor lie.
still, there is admittedly a lot of bad blood between them. i've always imagined it like this : they are sort of victims of each other, as much as they are the perpetrators of each other's wound. i believe, in their early days of marriage, they would say the most hurtful thing to each other β mostly because daemon is against the marriage, and rhea is completely taken aback that he will not, essentially, carry this duty to her as her lord husband. remember, rhea comes from someone who honours these things, who follows duty step-by-step, who was taught to uphold it even. it's unfathomable to her that he just threw that out of the window. so β metaphorically β he bit at her, and she bit back. they are each other's anguish.
but, all the same, i do believe they are also together victims of a much larger system, aka the monarchy of his family. based on the book, good queen alysanne arranged the match. and in my personal headcanon, rhea β possibly having been without a maternal influence β had truly been enticed by the strengthened claim of her seat that queen alysanne promised, but also most likely have been just as moved by someone of higher authority who recognised her potential and had somewhat been motherly to her. she was ensnared by the possibility of a targaryen backing her position as runestone's heir, and so she accepted the match. in reality, of course, the match has most likely already been decided.
and, more than likely, it is rhea's much stable position that queen alysanne had sought after, to ensure that her grandson or the targaryen dynasty may have another claim to a stronghold and land.
that is to say, while rhea has very bad experience and it will be expressed in her narrative, i do see and write this dynamic with much complexity. i believe both daemon and rhea were dealt with very shitty sutuations and they both, in their youth and stubbornness, couldn't have handled it nor saw the larger picture to be able to rise above it. so again, metaphorically, they bit at each other. and of course, as it is in fictional writings, i welcome conversations and situations to consider if they would. or, if they could reflect on it much, much later β even with other characters.
tl&dr; i hope none of my roleplaying partners would feel put-off by the narratives i've set for her in regards to her marriage. despite her high criticism, and sometimes mean streak towards him, i would love to explore the complexity from the larger theme of having been apart or used by a powerful dynasty, to the smaller themes of what it means to just go through something like that. of course, if the thread pertains to this specific topic!







