🦴 ݁ .⠀ ⏆ ✺ !

ఌ☽

(note i love both characters very much and i stan both rhaenyra and alicent, just to let you know before you jump on this short little thread and spout hate bc i love their characters and find them both fascinating).

i think there's a very interesting conversation to be had about alicent and rhaenyra BOTH representing facets of 'white feminism' because i see team green stans an team black stans accusing the other of being white feminists. just as a disclaimer neither of them are are ultimately feminists because feminism simply does not exist in medieval times and both of them do not really fight for women as a whole, they are working for their own goals and achievements, but they aren't working for the rights of other women (especially smallfolk women, the most oppressed on the hierarchy).

starting with alicent, i really think she represents the kind of white feminism of using the patriarchy to oppress other women. she becomes embittered with the injustice being done to her and she sees how no one feels sorry for her, so she comes to embrace the system that had made her a victim to oppress other women and strip away their rights (as seen in her silencing dyana or arguing for aegon's right to the iron throne over rhaenyra). many white feminists use the patriarchy as a tool in order to oppress other people all the while focusing on their rights and distancing themselves from their victimization by becoming representations of the patriarchy themselves. alicent is a victim of marital rape, a child bride, a victim of her father's abuse and she sees a way of escaping her victimization by utilizing the very same system that had nearly destroyed her to assert her power over women and making it 'fair.' because if she has to suffer other women must suffer with her, they're not allowed to escape their consequences, they have to follow the order like she did, they have to sacrifice like she did, and they have to follow their duties like she did. and so i really think she is emblematic of the aspect of white feminism of using the patriarchy to oppress other women.

rhaenyra is emblematic of 'white feminism' because she fights for herself and herself alone. of course she wants what's best for her stepdaughters and will protect them, but she doesn't care about the rights of the smallfolk women, because she's content to keep that same system in place so long as she is ruling. she is fighting for her rights as a female heir in the face of men, but that doesn't necessarily extend to other women who have been oppressed and which i think is a key aspect to white feminism, they don't fight for anyone but themselves, it's not intersectional, it's only aligned in their own interests. rhaenyra herself does not pursue oppression of other women like alicent does but she's certainly not helping other women either, she's helping herself and focuses on what will benefit herself and her family.

a very very short but concise analysis because rhaenyra and alicent are two very different characters and they have been oppressed in different ways and so they react differently, they are resilient in their own ways (alicent by embracing the patriarchy/religion that had victimized her in the first place and feeling the need to exact her vengeance on other women. rhaenyra by fighting for her rights and her rights only against the system that she believes has stolen from her). and perhaps 'white feminism' isn't the correct term to use because feminism simply does not exist in these medieval times, but both of them are very emblematic of the term that the greens and the blacks throw at one another because nuance is simply gone and we have to reduce characters to buzzwords and hate them because they defy what we think look like good characters.

"take a good look"

winter of ‘96

<3

this user has an ED but supports and encourages recovery

“Have you forgotten Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon?”

“Never. That was Lannister work, Your Grace.”

“Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper’s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty.” (Daenerys II, ADWD) 

It kind of amazes me that people expect Dany to just automatically worship Ned Stark. Yes, Ned Stark was a great man, an honorable man, but he still actively participated in the Rebellion and was the righthand man to the person who led the slaughter of Dany’s House. He was best friends with the man who called Rhaenys and Aegon “dragonspawn”, and even after his own anger at Robert, he still agreed to be Robert’s hand, 14 years later. He joined Robert to quell Balon’s rebellion. Ned’s guilt at aiding and abetting Robert in fact plagues him throughout AGOT. 

For me, it’s a little upsetting that the fandom doesn’t acknowledge that one of Ned’s actual flaws was his constant willingness to aid and abet Robert and overlook his excessiveness for so long. When Ned refused to cosign the plan to assassinate Dany, that was the first time in 14 years and probably the only time that Ned defied Robert and went against him. When Ned was angry at Robert sanctioning and being pleased at the deaths of Rhaenys and Aegon, he still went back to him after Lyanna’s death. He still saw Robert happily crowned. He still joined him to quell Balon’s rebellion. He still agreed to be Robert’s hand. When Joffrey got Mycah the Butcher’s Boy killed and Cersei ordered Lady to be executed, he didn’t stand up to Robert. It took Ned years to go against the dictates of his best friend.

So, while Ned isn’t “cold-eyed” or of “frozen heart” like Viserys taught her, and while he isn’t exactly a “dog” like Robert or Tywin, he was still culpable, and the AGOT narrative holds him accountable through his constant and repetitive feelings of guilt at Elia and her children’s deaths, as well as his fears of what will happen to his own daughters at the hands of the Lannisters. In fact, Varys’ very speech to Ned about Princess Rhaenys showcases that Ned stews in the hypocrisy of warring against one tyrant who kills children but then supporting a King who cheered and smiled at the deaths of other children. 

In that sense, yes, “all the dogs are just as guilty”. Ned is guilty of being complicit in Robert’s anti-Targaryen blood purity by aiding and abetting his conquest and his reign. GRRM has strived to show us that Robert’s Rebellion was ultimately not a moral or revolutionary conquest, as it replicated the same oppressive infrastructures Aerys II simply took to a 1000th degree. Robert still wanted innocent children and women murdered, he still massacred an entire house, in Balon’s Rebellion he enabled the Ironborn smallfolk to be murdered and their women raped, he himself was a rapist and abuser, he left bastards all over Westeros and was a horrible and absent father, he left the realm in disrepair, and the hole created by his absence led to the outbreak of a civil war that no one can blame the Targaryens for this time around. 

Ned even saw Robert slapping Cersei. He came to realize that Robert is abusive, which is why he warned Cersei that he knows the truth about her children, because he did not want Robert hunting them. That he was even going to tell him the truth and endanger their lives is something else that has always bothered me. Is a warning really good enough to keep them out of danger, especially knowing how Robert reacted to Rhaenys and Aegon’s murders? Regardless, if the narrative holds Ned accountable for his complicity in Robert’s actions, and if the narrative shows us, time and time again, that Robert’s Rebellion was ultimately a bastion of hypocrisy and did nothing meaningful to change the structures that led tyrants like Aerys to brutalize people, then it does not make sense to think that Dany here is being “unreasonable”. If your entire family was murdered and someone told you that the guy who was best friends and comrades-in-arms with the man responsible for the event was a good person, would you be so quick to believe them, so quick to forgive?

I’m sure Dany will learn that Ned was truly a good person and that despite his complicity in Robert’s crimes, he felt guilt and actively strove to be a better person and to right the wrongs of his past (namely, the complicity, the overlooking/the willful blinding), and that he was one of the few people who cared about what happened to Elia and her children, many years later. But Dany has the right to mourn her family and the right to be angry at everyone involved in what happened to them, as well as to currently hate the people who were best friends with and aided the man who smiled at their corpses. 

You guys often like to say that the Starks will be justified in mistrusting Dany because she’s Aerys’ daughter (and Aerys killed Rickard and Brandon Stark). I’m saying here that Dany will be justified in mistrusting the Starks for being Ned’s children because Ned Stark was Robert’s best friend and Robert ruined Dany’s life, led to the slaughter of her house, murdered her eldest brother, hunted her even when she was in the womb, sent an assassin after her, and smiled at the corpses of her niece and nephew. She is justified in that anger and she will be justified in that mistrustfulness. It absolutely does and will go both ways. 

The tragedy of Daemon Targaryen is this: the only language he knows for love is violence.

In “King of the Narrow Sea,” we learn that Viserys believes Daemon was their mother’s favorite. Daemon was always sneaking off to win tournaments. Daemon was the great warrior, and Viserys wasn’t. That difference between the boys earned him the larger share of Alyssa’s love, though Daemon demurs, uncharacteristically, when Viserys tells this story.

Daemon often feels pushed aside by those who should love him, chiefly Viserys. But he learned young that love is earned by skill. Love is a boon granted because of what you can do. Daemon is a weapon that he has forged himself. He makes himself the sword.

I’ll purge the city of criminals for you. I’ll go to war for you, and win that war without your help. I’ll kill my wife for you. I’ll defend you. I’ll cut down those who aim to smear you. I will put myself between you and yours and the danger that lurks outside. I will strike the first blow so the harm I fear will befall you never comes. I will only barely be reined in, and only by your word.

(And yes, some of it is pride, some of it is glory. But what is glory if not the admiration of others? What is pride if not the love you set aside for yourself?)

There is love in Daemon Targaryen. Like most characters of his ilk, he appears to feel all of his emotions very strongly, and love is no exception. It is sometimes in gestures, it is hardly in words. It is all in action, action, action.

In the end, Daemon dies fighting.

Baby you’re not good for me,

But baby I want you, I want you…

bacta tanks r so funny. sorry youre so sick youre going in the Jar