Queen Victoria and her daughters

so emily carey came on the official house of the dragon podcast and confirmed that she, miguel, and ryan all agreed that alicent gets her faith from her mother, that her mother was always the religious one, and that this faith is "something alicent carries because of this connection with her mother" and that's why we get the scenes depicting alicent's relationship with the faith. to remind us that this is a little girl who lost her mother and is spending the rest of her life having to deal with the empty space her mother left behind.

alicent brings rhaenyra to the sept to help with her grief from her mother because the sept is where alicent goes to remember her own mother:

alicent wears icons of the faith on her clothing:

and she brings those icons into her home in the red keep:

and she does all these things because she's bringing her mother's memory with her. because she is a scared girl navigating the misery of a forced marriage with no friends and no family aside from her manipulative father and she is trying to grasp for this maternal protection and compassion that is nowhere to be found.

A witchy kind of of autumn

Just thinking about Viserys calling Alicent Aemma, and how easily the name was uttered.

And then when he’s on his deathbed, mistaking Alicent for Rhaenyra, his ‘only’ child.

Just thinking that even though Alicent had been with Viserys for decades, she always was competing with his daughter for scraps of love from a table that never allowed her a chair, and how she was just a passing substitution for a dead woman whose name still—after all these years—sits comfortably inside her husband’s rotting mouth.

Because Alicent Hightower never stood a chance.

All of the Cersei discourse in the fandom lately has been disappointing because so much of it flattening her into either woobie victim or innately evil crazy lady, while the whole point of her character is that she’s both a victim and a perpetrator.

She was abused by Robert and sold like property like Tywin, but in turn she abuses those she recognizes can’t fight back like Sansa, Margaery, or Tommen, because she learned from her father that “strength” means domination and stomping on those beneath you in the hierarchy. She shaped Joffrey into a monster because she believed that’s what a king should be. She sees the gendered violence that’s been inflicted on her and instead of rejecting the misogyny that permeates Westerosi culture, she decides that women in general deserve it but she doesn’t because she’s special and actively perpetuates it on others. She is the embodiment of the rot that has been eating the House Lannister alive since Tywin, with his obsessive fear of being laughed at or disrespected, tried to turn them into discount Targaryens.

headcanon that when all of rhaenyra’s closest advisors leave to fight in the war while she’s in king’s landing, i.e., she’s in “maegor with tits” mode, she starts having alicent follow her around. alicent being paraded through the keep as a sign of rhaenyra’s power. alicent the literal dowager queen reduced to a sulking woman in golden fetters that’s at the whim of her sworn enemy. and that’s what alicent thinks it is. alicent begins to resent rhaenyra even more. rhaenyra’s killed her grandchildren and father. rhaenyra’s forced her sons into hiding. and now rhaenyra is showing her off like a war prize. but then rhaenyra starts asking alicent questions. rhaenyra begins to seek advice on how to run a kingdom (because alicent is the most experienced person in the castle with such knowledge). alicent doesn’t realize at first. she thinks rhaenyra is being patronizing, and she cannot imagine that a targaryen, especially rhaenyra, actually wants her counsel. but rhaenyra keeps asking questions. she’s plainly serious. alicent and rhaenyra slowly realizing what they could have been together ruling. slowly rebuilding the shattered relationship of the past. half a year passes. they’re almost friends again. but then rhaenyra asks alicent what to do about the empty coffers, and alicent is given a choice: give rhaenyra actual advice and ensure her reign or tell her to tax the smallfolk to save aegon’s life and end the war. and so alicent does what she always has: she picks her children over rhaenyra. she exploits rhaenyra’s lack of political knowledge for her own gain, but this time, to devastating effect. alicent picks duty over love. the smallfolk revolt, the last of rhaenyra’s bastards is killed, rhaenyra must flee to dragonstone where she is killed by alicent’s son. one last betrayal, one last rejection at the end from a hand pushed by duty above all else

sandor clegane core

viserys was an idiot

Viserys resented Alicent

I was rewatching episode 3 Second of his name and something actually drew my attention.

It was Aegon's second birthday, which is a huge deal because that meant that he was healthy and was less likely to die, basically meaning that he was safe.

We knew that Rhaenyra was annoyed or even jealous of her two-year-old half-brother, so it was a good choice of the writers to showcase that specifically. Aegon could be considered the heir now, he was "out of the woods" one can say. Which was displayed over and over mainly by the Lannisters, the Lords were expecting Viserys to acknowledge Aegon as his heir because he finally had a male heir.

No one was willing to talk about it because death was still very likely when it came to babies in the Middle Ages, the Realm was basically holding their breath because Aegon was the first male in the Targaryen family since Daemon.

Now when it comes to Alicent and Aemma, there is a clear difference: Alicent could give Viserys what Aemma couldn't, a healthy son. Make no mistake, Viserys is not the "girl dad" that many people want to paint him as he's a man, a King and he wanted a son, this is why he butchered Aemma to get one.

We can see that Viserys was more than proud about having Aegon, he was showing him off, showering Aegon with affection in front of the whole realm. He was finally a man, finally a King in his mind and in the mind of the realm, and for the first time, he had the upper hand on his brother, which I'm assuming didn't happen often, if ever.

We can see that Viserys was in doubt to have Rhaenyra as his heir, he said so himself. But with everyone pestering him, he made up his mind that absolutely nothing would change his mind for the rest of his life.

Viserys started to see that Alicent and Aegon as not his family, only Rhaenyra and Daemon were. The answer usually is, Rhaenyra comes from the woman he loved and I do not believe that for a second, Viserys never loved Aemma. He allowed her to die without knowing what was going on and made the decision for her to get what he wanted.

But Aemma is dead now, he blames himself as he should. The fact that his first wife was dead, meant that she was going to be held on this pedestal for the rest of his life, Aemma never did anything wrong in Viserys' eyes.

Now we need to understand that in the Middle Ages, women were blamed for men not having a son. Viserys would be no different, no matter how the show tried to paint him in a good light.

He saw the girl who gave him a son and was pregnant with the next, and Alicent was healthy enough to travel for god knows how long at the end of her pregnancy. So Viserys asked himself, why couldn't Aemma do that? Why couldn't Aemma give me a son on our first try? That would get Viserys to resent Aemma, she failed her duty as she said to him in episode 1.

Viserys couldn't have that, Aemma's "failure" would smear the perfect image he carefully made in his mind. Then he focused this rage towards Alicent, the woman who did nothing but her duty.

Viserys started to rationalise that Alicent wasn't family or the children coming from him through her. All of his rage and hurt were being directed towards Alicent and her children and he started to overcompensate with Rhaenyra by allowing her to do whatever she wanted with no consequences.

In what he believed was love, he doomed his favoured child and his House simply because he couldn't reconcile the fact that he killed his first wife for what his second wife gave him. Alicent and her children paid the price for what Viserys did, which is the theme of the Dance, the decisions of one horrible person doomed his family and the realm.

sometimes i think about how they killed sansa's dog and i go a little nuts. like what if you were thirteen and you knew how to be a Lady and sing Songs of Knights and Maidens and your whole entire life they had told you that was the type of story you were in and rewarded you for participating. taught you that you would be defended and respected for being a Good Girl. and then they killed your dog and your dad and your name and made you a little bird and called you stupid for expecting anything else. no one can protect anyone.

fav movie of all time

imagine being told by your father to flirt with your best friends dad and then he chooses to marry you (he’s the king it’s not like you have a choice) and after you get married your best friend starts ignoring and resenting you for something that was out of your control. then he gets you pregnant at about 17 and while you are forced to marry and have children with someone you would have never chosen your ex best friend and stepdaughter refuses every marriage offer she gets and when she is forced to get married she has a mistress and continues to break rules with seemingly no consequences. (this is not nyra slander)

I love you "boring" female characters. I love you ingenues. I love you female characters who aren't "modern" enough. I love you female characters who aren't "badass" enough. iI love you female characters who aren't "empowering" enough. I love you quiet female characters. I love you unappreciated female characters. I love you polite female characters. I love you female characters who "can't appeal to modern audiences." I love you frightened female characters. I love you female characters labeled as not complex just for being nice. I love you female characters who get criticism just for not being their tomboy or femme fatale counterpart. I love you silk hiding steel trope.

i would serve in a zombie apocalypse

in my mind after leaving kings landing and going to the vale sansa gets married to robin arryn after his tour and becomes lady of the vale

i want to be her handmaiden secret girlfriend lesbian love

every fall i return to my harry potter phase

In the movie the company of Mattel is run by only men who claim to be"feminists" and "support women" but they only support women if they are kind but they can't be pushovers, they have to look beautiful, but they have to feel beautiful, they have to be they have to be smart andunemotional. When barbie didn't fit this standard the business men at Mattel try to put barbie in a box, both figuratively and literally. When she refuses to fit in the box the boss of Mattel insults barbie. This whole plot point is a wonderful way of symbolizing the standards women are subjected to and it shows how women are treated if they fall short of those standards. The whole time they were managing barbie they allowed ken to roam free which inevitably caused more problems.