I’m still stuck with Aegon immediately rolling with whatever chaos Aemond unleashed at the dinner and slamming Lucerys’ head into the table. Look at his smile. He 100% has been in several bar fights before

Tom and Ewan in the new video>>>

the blue dress effect.

Aegon II Targaryen through the years

SCREAMING

Why the fuck does Laena Velaryon, who is canonically younger than Rhaenyra Targaryen in the show, look like a fucking 20-year-old in episode 5 while Rhaenyra, her elder, still looks fucking 13? Why the actual fuck did they change the YOUNGER girl’s actress and made her look older, but it’s okay for Rhaenyra to continue looking like a preteen? I’ll tell you why.

They’re trying to distract us from the fact that creepy ass Daemon is courting a 14-year-old. A FOURTEEN YEAR OLD. Rhaenyra is 15 in episode 1 and Laena is 12, meaning they have a 3 year age gap. Then, Viserys tells Rhaenyra that she must marry since she’s 17 now, making Laena 14, maybe 15 at best. So they obviously can’t afford having Daemon thirst over a child again, therefore this is a shitty attempt to cover up the fact that Laena still is a very fucking young child.

HBO what is this? Why do your casting choices indicate that you’re trying to use some kind of ageist technique to manipulate your viewers? Why are the supposedly good guys, Rhaenyra and her children, portrayed by very young actors? Is this to show how innocent and pure they are? Why are the characters who are supposedly evil, Aegon and Aemond, or the character for whom we shouldn’t worry too much about since she’s just a tool for Daemon’s story line to develop, Laena, portrayed by obviously older actors even though they’re all supposed to be kids? Because the youth = good people and old = bad people analogy is fucking gross and lowkey paedophilic. Not to mention how weird it is to make all the black girls in the show look like fucking grown ups. What kind of racist bullshit is this?

I can’t understand HBO’s decisionmaking for the love of me. Like, on the one hand, it’s so obvious that they’re forcing Daemon and Rhaenyra down our throats, to the point that I actually laughed out loud when the show runner said “he doesn’t get why people like Daemon”. Like, my guy, you MADE the show. You made him look like an appealing, dangerous, sexy, strong, victorious and mysterious man, so what do you mean you don’t get the appeal? On the other hand though, most of the actions that they allow Daemon to perform are so horrifying that it makes it impossible for a sane person to stand beside him and defend him. Like, they try to sugarcoat that he’s an abusive piece of shit yeah, but they somehow don’t shy away from the fact that he’s terrible? Are they doing both of these things on purpose? Are they trying to challenge the viewer, to show us how abusers, despite being openly deranged, still have their way of dazzling their victims, the average person, and hypnotising them with their charm? Is Daemon doing to us (and by us I mean you Daemon stans, not me, stay safe though) what he’s doing to Rhaenyra and Laena? Are the show producers testing the average viewer’s intelligence and ability to recognise an abuser? Will there be a lesson to be learned?

I would like to hope so but I highly doubt it, because while one could support this theory by arguing that changing Laena’s actress is an attempt to mask Daemon’s degenerative nature a bit so that it isn’t completely obvious that he’s a bad man, someone else could counter this argument by saying that we’ve already seen Daemon groom a minor so this wouldn’t be something new. We’ve seen him do much more violent crimes actually, so why shy away from the fact he’s a groomer when we are already aware of this? Idk man, I really want to think that HBO is trying to make us see that Daemon is an evil person, but then indirectly glorifying him constantly makes me believe they just want people to root for him.

P.S. I may anger a lot of people by saying this, so I’ll make myself clear by stating that I love and greatly respect actors who specialise in portraying evil characters, because doing so and not losing yourself is a challenge (*cough* Leto *cough*) but if done correctly, it’s a true showcase of one’s talent and hard work. Lee, De Niro, Hopkins, Bardem and Rickman are just a few to name. However, Matt Smith has never rubbed me the right way. No hate to the guy, I don’t even know him, but I’ve seen him play the villain in three separate occasions (HOTD, Last Night in Soho, Morbius) and I just get these weird vibes, but I usually told myself it’s just my imagination running wild. However, I recently found out that Smith claimed that Daemon is a loyal man who loves deeply and that his “heir for a day” brothel feast was his way of honouring Aema, which really disturbed me for obvious reasons. I don’t know if he said this because he’s trying to defend his character and by extension himself, or if he just wants to promote the show, or if he doesn’t understand Daemon or if he funnily enough has fallen victim to his own character’s charm and I don’t care because it is a dangerous thing to say. Painting this character, the arrogant, obnoxious, self serving, people slaughtering, wife murdering, backstabbing, abusing, grooming, lying, manipulating, war criminal of a man, in such a positive light while being a man yourself, knowing that most of this character’s supporters are young impressionable women who just find him hot, makes me lowkey wanna cover my drink in his presence, I don’t know.

HELAENA TARGARYEN

"THE GREEN COUNCIL" 01.09

“Rhaenyra, my only child”

I will never understand why or how people are so touched and think that this line is so sweet…

Aemma

This old creep of a man, married a woman and forced her to have as many children as she could. She had Rhaenyra who was born healthy, but due to her not being born a boy, Viserys pushed Aemma to have 5 more babies.

One who died in the cradle, two stillbirths and two miscarriages.

He was so sure that he wanted a second child, a boy, that he was willing to sacrifice his wife for him. Yet they both died.

Alicent

He then went on to marry another young truly innocent girl. Don’t even think about coming at me with the whole false accusation “Alicent seduced him” because you sound like a predator making excuses to blame a child for an adults actions.

He forced her to have 4 more children, 3 of which were boys… yet he never cared nor paid attention to any of them whilst growing up. This left Alicent to raise her children single-handedly.

“Rhaenyra… my ONLY child”

These two woman, both victims of Viserys’ carelessness, had several children, and at the end of it all, only Rhaenyra, 1 out of 10 children, was labeled as his child.

This isn’t disrespectful to just Aegon, Aemond, Helaena and Daeron. It’s disrespectful to the 5 dead children he had with Aemma, Aemma herself, and Alicent.

Don’t have more than one child if your not capable of loving more than one. Even better: don’t force two woman to carry your children if your only going to love one…

Alicent made Helaena’s life hell, huh?

Even if you assume it was Alicent’s idea to marry Helaena and Aegon, it wasn’t the thing that “ruined” Helaena’s life. She was actually quite happy. She has her mother, her siblings, a pretty neglectful husband but a husband nevertheless, and she of course has her kids! Nothing about that seemed like “hell” to me. “Hell” in Helaena’s life started when her children started dying.

Oh and, I thought it was Daemon who ordered Blood and Cheese, not Alicent. And I’m also pretty sure it was Rhaenyra to put a price on Maelor’s head which led to his eventual death.

B&C was the worst thing to happen during the dance. nothing the greens did even came close to B&C. and people who support\ defend\ justify B&C are in no position to claim moral superiority over anyone.

because it wasn't just about killing jaehaerys - an innocent child. no. it was about psychological torture, sadism ,and pure cruelty. they made a woman chose between her 2 children only to kill the child she didn't chose to torment her. they threatened a 6yo child with rape. they murdered a 6yo child.

like are you really going to tell me you care about "women's rights" when you justify a 6yo little girl being threatened with rape? are you really telling me that the blacks are "the good guys" when aegon spared baela and aegon 3 despite B&C and rhaenyra responsible for the death of maelor???

the fandom's willingness to justify & brush off B&C and helaena and her children's suffering is horrifying.

just remembered that we’re gonna get aemond and aegon saying dracarys in season two and i’m feeling so normal about that!

mother

oh

killing myself

this has to be one of the dumbest takes I’ve ever seen

I don’t even know which one makes me angrier. The fact that they think Daemon did anything at all for LOVE or the fact that they think Aegon did all that for fucking FAME.

Like how do you misunderstand two characters so fucking much??? This is actually crazy.

If you have ANY reading comprehension you would understand that the one and only reason why Aegon became a more responsible king and person, and actually started fighting this war, is because his six year old son was brutally murdered and now he is afraid that something might happen to his mother, his sister wife, his brothers and his remaining children. Like you don’t need to be a genius to understand that he did that for FAMILY, for LOVE. That was his main motivation. He never wanted power, responsibility or fame, he was fighting to protect his family.

Daemon on the other hand… like, I can understand why it can be a little hard to understand him, but BFFR. He did not orchestrate B&C for “love”. I bet he didn’t even like Lucerys that much, preferring his more valyrian looking sons with Rhaenyra over the dark haired bastards. He just wanted an excuse to kill a child with no consequences. When he killed Vaemond, he didn’t do it for “love”. He was enjoying it, with all those “say it…” and “he can keep his tongue.” that he was throwing around. He QUITE LITERALLY did it for fun.

"maybe in another universe people understood me and appreciate me for who I am"

the other universe:

hair holds memories.