let the darkness set us free

Its kinda crazy how much Rhaenyra needs Alicent to think she's good. Like "you're the last remaining connection to the girl I once was and if you tell me you can still see her in me then maybe this will be okay, maybe things aren't too far gone and I can recover from this." Sure man whatever!!!

And the saddest truth is that in a different world, Rhaneyra would have loved Daeron, her baby brother who looks just like her treasured childhood friend. She would not have cared that he doesn't have the traditional Targaryen looks, and he wouldn't have been lonely if he were at Dragonstone. He would have cousins and nephews to grow alongside; he would have been happy.

so people can in fact see that teenage daeron is being abused and manipulated by an older relative into a position he never wanted but have for some reason been unable to extend the same understanding and sympathy to alicent who went through exactly the same thing at his age……right.

Crazy how alicent thinks her most maternal act was sending her child away when she stepped in front of a dragon for aegon, was the only person to stand up for aemond when he lost an eye, and committed literal treason to try and get her daughter and granddaughter out of the city. Girly has such a warped sense of self-worth and has never been given any agency to the point where she thinks her only worthy action is in inaction

wrt last reblog also the beautiful parallel between alicent and daeron pleading with their fathers to be merciful while they insist that bloodshed is a necessary evil: ‘reluctance to murder is a not a weakness!’ and ‘is mercy not a kingly virtue?’ alicent’s sad smile to gwayne when he mentions daeron’s kindness, she cannot possibly see how he might have inherited that from her :(((