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horizon-verizon · 1 year

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Does Viserys ignore the children he had with Alicent in the book? Although in the series, it's clearly more Viserys' illness that's the cause of less time with the kids, rather than him disliking them and willfully ignoring them.

*EDITED POST* (4/9/24)

House of the Dragon’s Viserys

Viserys obviously favored Rhaenyra (politically). But I feel it is tied to how Show!him had a real romantic connection with Aemma yet killed her without her knowledge or consent so he could have a son who didn’t live long anyway.

Adding to that, from the trauma of losing several of his pre-kids/kids to miscarriages and stillbirths and his wife probably almost dying in some of those pregnancies--a daughter is still better than having no kids at all because he genuinely wanted kids, and because this is a feudal world where inheritance and lineage leads to pride, identity, security and power--Viserys would also care for or favor Rhaenyra even more. Rhaenrya s his first child of a series of children who all died; she is kinda his "miracle child as well as the child that officially made him a father.

Like how you hear and read fathers value their child after their mother died giving birth to them, Viserys would see this daughter as his only connection to Aemma as well as try to “make it up” to her by making their only daughter successful.

So he is more attached to Rhaenyra other than her being the only child Aemma ever could bring into being successfully.

(This does not mean that Viserys’ pain matters or is more than Aemma’s emotional and physical pain. The betrayal she would have felt when she realized Viserys was cosigning her final moments to pain--without her knowledge or permission. Because it doesn’t--he is still accountable and I dislike him and people like him. I’m saying that before he did this to Aemma, he did experience lost hopes for an heir as well as pain from having his children die before they could ever be.)

It also doesn’t mean that he doesn’t value Rhaenyra as his progeny or offspring.

He didn’t fully value her as his potential heir, or as a true, politically autonomous agent in her own right.

In the show, however, I also think that a combination of:

his rotting

Alicent's constant protests against Rhaenyra and her children/his accepted grandkids

his finding out about Otto’s hand in pushing Alicent and Viserys having to even pursue this after Young Rhaenyra told him that Otto overstepped his bounds as someone not even a part of the royal family and having her followed without royal permission and Viseys’ added guilt or confliction about that moment where he did a fuck up himself and tried to go at Rhaenyra, when he was so shortsighted himslef

all comes to him choosing to be more hands off towards his green kids and let Alicent and Rhaenyra's rivalry foment until major events happened.

His determination to keep Rhaenyra in her position that all comes across as him just “loving” Rhaenyra to an extreme to some people watching the show.

In the Book Fire and Blood and by Original Canon Lore

He had complications with his weight. Over time, he experienced more chest tightness and gout that get worse until he finally dies. Stress would have exacerbated it--his worries with his wife and daughter duking it out constantly, the tension at court, his worries over the succession, etc.

There was no literal decay. And there isn't a solid, or direct indication or quote that shows us he actively favored Rhaenyra more than his other kids.

There is also no indication that he would or did kill Aemma for Baelon (dead son) in the book.

However, we can read between the lines and reason that he valued Rhaenyra differently then his other kids for the same reasons I listed about Show!Viserys, even if Aemma had just died on her own. For being his only child by Book!Aemma, who still dies trying to birth him an heir. Doesn't mean that he didn't love them, in the book, we see he spends time with Helaena and her kids, one of those moment sjust hours before his death When he's telling them stories about past Targ generations ("A Question of Succession"):

Why Viserys Protects Rhaenyra’s Position in Both the Show and the Book/Canon Lore

Other than what I already said about the sort of love he has for her...

Politics: public image and house reputation and what we can hide and manipulate to maintain control.

If Rhaenyra is revealed to have bastard kids, then the house cannot deny the shame (objectively it is not shameful for a woman to have kids out of wedlock no more than it is for a man to do similar. Shameful in terms of cheating on your spouse if you two did not agree to an nonexclusive arrangement beforehand. But otherwise, not shameful. In the context of medieval politics and patriarchy, it becomes shameful to have this out in the open...and even then, it depends on the political climate of the persons).

But if it is kept hidden, then the reputation doesn’t completely falter, the line of succession goes throuhg Rhaenyra, and the whole house doesn’t face censure.

lt and the people can still work under an image.

If you don't like this, blame politics and patriarchy.

This is what @the-king-andthe-lionheart says in a reblog:

“With regard to royal children, the only consideration more important than their kingly blood was the monarch’s self-interest. Many kings acknowledged children they knew had been fathered by someone else. Often, kings did not want to cast doubt on the paternity of older children they knew to be their own. In the case where the king could not father children, sometimes court factions heartily desired the queen to bear bastards in order to stabilize the throne and cement their own interests.

Fortunately, the queen’s complete and utter disillusionment with her husband usually set in after the birth of the heir. And so it was not deemed worthwhile to lose international prestige, throw the nation into tumult, and question the paternity of all royal children, simply to deny the one cuckoo in the robin’s nest. In the early nineteenth century, the last son of King John VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina of Portugal was extremely good-looking and slender - unlike either of his parents - and happened to be the spitting image of the handsome gardener at the queen’s country retreat. Other than a few snickers behind painted fans, no one said a word.” (Sex With The Queen by Eleanor Herman)

and

“It was never adultery alone that did in a queen, or the fact that she did not resemble the Virgin Mary, or that she had polluted the royal bloodline. It was politics.

If the queen followed the traditional pattern of bearing children, embroidering altar cloths, and interceding for the poor - pious duties that the Virgin Mary would likely have approved of - even if she took a lover she was usually left in peace. There was rarely reason to shoot down a political nonentity at court. But an intelligent ambitious woman who spoke her mind and built up a faction was always open to the accusation of adultery by her political rivals, whether the accusation was true or fabricated.

Adultery charges offered the accuser many benefits. The very mention of adultery suddenly cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the offspring of a suspected queen, possibly rendering them unfit for the throne and opening the door to other ambitious candidates - usually the accusers themselves [...] (Sex With The Queen by Eleanor Herman)”

Plus he had already named Rhaenyra heir long ago.

While you are the monarch and can change the heir while the previous is still alive, to change the heir would have come across as revealing or “admitting” Rhaenyra’s not having trueborn sons.

Defeating the entire purpose of protecting her and going against the need and cultural compulsion to uphold his and his house’s own public image/reputation.

So Viserys wanted to make sure the throne kept his feudal dignity.

Feudalist power and monarchy.....you know, the thing the Greens canonically wanted just for itself in the first place?

The other reason why Rhaenyra is allowed to get way with her sons’ illegitimacy is because Viserys wants to keep her and the grandsons he accepts as his grandsons alive. Because he loves them.

Viserys is not a good father, but he is not Tywin Lannister--one of the most evil fathers to exist in Westerosi history.

I doubt a father/grandfather who has some real caring for their child/granfchild, no matter their position, would allow his child and grandchild’s lives to be forfeit.

If Rhaenyra is publicly revealed with inscrutable evidence that he can’t just ignore and deny or hide (Vaemond wasn’t enough) to have had illegitimate children, then her kids could die, could be exiled, or face total ruination to the point they can’t live in Westeros without facing worldwide hatred for being illegitmate.

Which, by the way, comes from a bogus Faith belief. The same religion rules that children who are born out of wedlock (parents who weren’t married to each other) are inherently untrustworthy. The logic is that because these people are born from “lust, lies, and weakness, and as such, they are said to be wanton and treacherous by nature”.

This is blood purity, anon. That one would actually believe that a person is inherently evil, dangerous and lesser than another because their birth didn’t happen within a marriage is to say that people can have inherently traits that define their entire being and value in society forever and ever.

So not only do we had the risk of women all over Westeros losing even more ability to use political power, we also have the seeds of racism/outright classicism and discrimination.

Which affects every single person in a society and would make them define their entire worth according to external, socially-constructed ideology. Creating a divide between those "deserving" and those not.

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horizon-verizon · 1 year

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HotD: Daemon & Viserys

Disclaimer: This is a post detailing what I think the show writers' perspective and thought processes in creating HotD.

Image Credit: fireandbloodsource @ Tumblr

In regular feudal history, the individual receives economic security through marriage, rights by lineage, and family connections. Inheritance determines deserving.

In the lore of A Song of Ice and Fire, incest and kinslaying results in the abuser, or the perpetrator of violence, sharing the similar physical and psychological spaces with their victim. the Targaryens are a prime example of it.

Which means that likelihood of localized oppression and abuse PLUS salvation from that abuse or from general social degradation lies within your own family most of the time. Where else does Rhaenyra feel she can find what could develop into an unequivocal allyship if not with the relative that Valyrian and Targaryen custom sets up for her? It's not really until she married Daemon that she gets a feeling for being closer to having a basis of more independent power (in the moment of her youth's emotional confinement). And yet Daemon could have been the one to undo her authority if he perceives her actions to get in the way of his spontaneous decisions to seize political or personal power for himself. Similar to the Cersei-Jaime situation, but Jaime was less into the political one unless it protected his siblings and father. Daemon clearly has a lot of pride in the Valyrian dragonriding culture for its dominance, which Rhaenyra, a dragonrider and the heir, is the closest to being emblem of that.

Daemon

Book Description:

The greatest of his [Otto Hightower] rivals was Daemon Targaryen, the king’s ambitious, impetuous, moody younger brother. As charming as he was hot-tempered, Prince Daemon earned his knight’s spurs at six-and-ten [16], had been given Dark Sister [Visenya’s sword] by the Old King himself in recognition of his prowess. Though he wed the Lady of Runestone in 97 A.C., during the Old King;s reign, the marriage had not been a success. Prince Daemon found the Vale of Arryn boring (“In the Vale, the men fuck the sheep”, he wrote. “You cannot fault them, the sheep are prettier than their women.”), and soon developed a mislike of his lady wife, whom he called “my bronze bitch” after the runic bronze armorworn by the lords of House Royce. Upon the accession of his brother to the Iron Throne, the prince petitioned to have his marriage set aside. Viserys denied the request, but he did allow Daemon to return to court, where he sat on thr small council serving as master of coin from 103-104, and master of laws for half a year in 104.

Governance bored the prince, however. He did better when King Viserys made him Commander of the City Watch. Finding the watchmen ill-armed and clad in oddments and rags, Daemon equipped each man with dirk, short sword, and cudgel, armored them in black ringmail (with breastplates for the officers) anf gave them long golden cloaks that they might wear with pride. Ever since, the men of the City Watch have been known as “gold cloaks”. (pgs 354-355)

...nor [Viserys] have much taste for the joust, the hunt, or swordplay, whereas Prince Daemon excelled in these spheres, and seemed all that his brother was not: lean and hard, a renowned warrior, dashing, daring, more than a little dangerous. (pg 355)

We could refer to Daemon talking to Rhaenyra in the garden in episode 4, where she talks about not wanting to marry and how marriage for women can be a death sentence due to being pushed into give birth and weakening themselves. Daemon responds with Aemma's death being a tragedy but Rhaenyra shouldn't let tragedies stop her from enjoying other good things in a marriage...like having enjoyable extramarital sex while still doing one’s “duty”. The question of grooming in this scene relies on whether or not you perceive Daemon as being sexually interested in Rhaenyra or interested in getting her to trust him so he can sexually exploit her. And I believe that he fully intended to exploit her lost virginity against Viserys so that he had his “revenge” for a perceived lack of trust and betrayal.

Funny how in the book Fire and Blood, Daemon was organizing a group of soldiers for Viserys’ claim before the Great Council of 101 A.C.:

Reports had reached the court that Corlys Velaryon was massing ships and men on Driftmark to “defend the rights” of his son Laenor, whilst Daemon Targaryen, a hot-tempered and quarrelsome young man of twenty, had gathered his own band of sworn swords in support of his brother Viserys (pg 344).

(Only the events of the Dance of the Dragons/Dying of the Dragons is told to us as being the least reliable of events recorded happening to the Targaryens.)

However, I'm also inclined to think that the episode wanted us to know that he had some nonsexual and non-ambitious kin-based concern for Rhaenyra and realized it fully when he got Rhaenyra up against the wall, even as he also intended to use her lost virginity to spite Viserys and get back at him for not allowing Daemon to act out his perception masculine power through specific political positions. As the show would have us believe.

By looking at her the way he did when he drew back a little while Rhaenyra went forward several times to draw him back, it looked to me like he was and not understanding why.

Daemon has a lot of extramarital sex and there were many theories as to why he can’t finish with Mysaria in episode 1, why she offered a “silver”-haired “maiden”. In the book Fire and Blood, it was assumed by mainly aristocrats around him that he preferred having sex with pale-haired virgins.

The first episode makes this preference more of a mystery. Does Daemon like virgins that happen to look Valyrian enough because virgins are the ideal for power-seeking, does Daemon like to have sex with pale-haired people because he is attracted to Rhaenyra, or is he sexually attracted to pale-haired people because he feels he should be? Mysaria in the books came from Lys and had pale hair which lead to her being called the “White Worm” by others. The show casted Sonoya Mizuno who has her dark hair out instead of a pale wig, so that makes me think that it’s that Daemon was always interested in a Valyrian.

In episode 6, we saw him go through a book of Valyrian dragonriders and Laena revealing he still dreams of inheriting and practicing their Targaryen dragonriding “glory”.

When I offered up my crown, you said I could have anything. I want Rhaenyra. I'll take her as she is and wed her in the tradition of our house. Give me Rhaenyra to take to wife and we will return the house of the dragon to its proper glory. (Daemon: Season 1, Episode 4)

As a prince/nobleman in this world, he’s also used to the idea and reality of getting his own way most of the time. Those closest to him are his Valyrian family, yet his brother is his political superior and had not allowed him to hold a position he believes was his due while only benefiting Viserys the more: the Hand position.

Family-by-blood is the most dependable source of personal security to Show!Daemon. Everyone else is either subject or enemy. That Viserys, in his view, denied him the position was baffling, stupid, and hurtful. But he’s a prince, a man who wants power and still thinks it should be given to him, so he won’t do any asking of any kind or open himself to that.

I think, in the show, that he was confronted by the knowledge that Rhaenyra was rival, child, prospective lover, brother’s daughter, loved one all at once in immediacy of sex/expectancy of sex. That many things finally presented themselves as a mess of overlapping realities of their relationship and that that was intimidating. That closeness and seeing Rhaenyra’s excitement and willingness to have sex with him and lose that virginity discombobulates his confidence because he likes and wants her too much to only use her as a means to defy Viserys. And he doesn’t see or feel the weight of that it until then.

Image Credit @ PeanutGalleryBanter

In episode 5 he walks up to Rhaenyra asking her in the dance, “Is this what you want?” in High Valyrian (after which for the rest of the season, they never speak to each other again in).

It was apparent to me that he wanted to get out of his own anxiety by riling her up after sitting through that part of the engagement party. After realizing the dilemma described above, he seems to have wanted to run away from his own discontent by stirring up problems as well as have that opportunity to...kiss her? Did he kiss her or was it just weird face-touching?

The fact the scene is in Viserys’ point of view and was blocked by passing people is an artistic touch to make us uncertain whether or not they actually kissed. But even if they didn’t close the distance, it was too close between them and their faces were too close to merit doing in her engagement party while her wedding date was just announced. So we get both the assurance that they were publicly intimate without actually seeing if anything was “completed”. A callback to the first time they kissed where they didn’t actually have sex, and therefore never “finished”.

Unlike when he tried to use Mysaria in episode 2, Daemon partially sees Rhaenyra as being competent and trustworthy enough to match the prominence of being a Valyrian dragonrider. He also seems to relate to Rhaenyra’s bristling at perceived obstacles to her own authority and agency, which to Daemon are one and the same.

He never really respected Mysaria like how we moderns would want a man to treat a woman as an equal, and he obviously didn’t treat her the exact same way as he did Rhaenyra (before episode 10... this is an obvious edit) nor ever like Rhea Royce. And all those sex workers he slept with were people he didn’t regard as much as the next Westerosi nobleman or noble woman wouldn't. Still, Daemon is better, by even entertaining Mysaria's condemnations when another lord would have sent her off or even become violent. And he was willing to accept either futures of their childlessness or having children (even with them being illegitimate).

But as a man still wanting a specific type of power and being very emotionally stunted from that life-goal, he still doesn’t totally going to allow himself to ever feel indebted to anyone.

And all that culminated into a clarity, then shock and hesitance that finally gave way to a guilt he was not used to feeling. Which shows his immaturity and callousness.

And it seems unlikely that he had a serious problem with ED when it came to her since it's never really referred to again after he marries her or after the 5th episode. Of course, it’s possible that he still did and Rhaenyra was successful in making him feel it actually didn’t matter, but I can’t really believe that--with how sexual potency is a chief component to how more powerful men feel confident in themselves. (Unless the creators of the show just decided to let that pass or forgot about that suggestion completely.)

Maybe with Laena? Men can still impregnate while having ED--the condition varies amongst individuals. But again, that issue is never brought up again. We'll have to see if it in in the second season to better determine if his ED was mostly emotion based--him not having the person he really desired--or just a physical thing. Or both.

As for him choking Rhaenyra, I believe that was him showing how little he understands and cares about accountability--his own and others--as he loses control over the repressed feelings about Viserys’ death. Viserys was the brother who he felt didn’t see his worth in protecting what Daemon felt paramount. There is no real closure between them...not that there ever would have been with both men being so emotionally closed off from each other.

He focused more on putting himself to “use” as he saw it by setting up both defenses and offensive measures while Rhaenyra screamed for him to stop the planning and appear in her birthing room, specifically to stop him from waging violence before it became necessary.

But he also seems to want to run away from the possibility of her death, as he witnessed Laena’s labor pains and voluntary death, her “abdandonment”. Moreover, in light of Viserys’ just-announced death. And yet he also sees himself as being a reason for Viserys’ death---Second Son-style (all their arguments and not being there to “protect” him--in episode 8 we see that he looks like he is appalled by Viserys’s decay and pities him) while seeking to destroy Alicent for looking suspicious enough to kill Viserys/not being a Targaryen.

Because he is so repressed, as Rhaenyra makes herself an obstacle in his violence and learned method of releasing inner turmoil/grief, she becomes the target, the focus as she always partially was (episode 3 with the egg incident on th bridge to Dragonstone). Again, this is show!Daemon.

Rhaenyra, to my surprise/not surprise, doesn’t resent him or show anger but focuses on how his anger reveals his ignorance of the prophecy. And once again, the unexpectedness of her reaction and her forcing him to see a different truth of him shakes him into trying to ignore or run off from that shock. Again, a certain immaturity.

Viserys

Image Credit: unknown @ Tumpik

Book Description:

Viserys I Targaryen had a generous, amiable nature, and was well loved by his lords and smallfolk alike. The reign of the Young King, as the commons called him upon his ascent, was peaceful and prosperous. His Grace’s open-handedness was legendary, and the Red Keep became a place od song and splendor. King Viserys and Queen Aemma hosted many a feast and tourney, and lavished gold, offices, and honors on their favorites. (pgs 353-354)

The king had grown soft and plump over the years. Viserys never claimed another dragon after Balerion’s death, nor did he have much taste for the joust, the hunt, or swordplay, whereas Prince Daemon excelled in these spheres, and seemed all that his brother was not: lean and hard, a renowned warrior, dashing, daring, more than a little dangerous. (pg 355)

Viserys I Targaryen was not the strongest-willed kings, it must besaid; always amiable and anxious to please, he relied greatly on the counsel of the men around him, and di as they bid more often than not. (pg 361)

Viserys is presented by the show--or TV Viserys--is just easier to understand to me than either TV or Book_Daemon is.

After listening to the Emma D'Arcy, Paddy Considine and Ryan Condal, I'm inclined to think that Viserys looked to Alicent not only as the better option for a second wife (because of her more advanced age over Laena), but also because she actively acted to comfort him by talking to him about his grief and present turmoil over Rhaenyra's position. But really, again, this is just for how the writers saw the original story and created their own fanfiction passed as an adaptation.

TV_Viserys sees Daemon as too unruly and someone not completely trustworthy he can’t trust because they act against his wish to justify himself.

After not only losing his wife in the birth of his yearned-for son, he wants Daemon to obey his orders more than ever so that that performance (of obeying) buttresses his own sense of control. Of his conflicting emotions, his authority, and his right to the last.

He betrayed Aemma in not telling her about the c-section that would kill her quicker but also left her totally unprepared for the worse pain of it versus the dying she was going through before. She was a charcater that experienced the betrayal of someone she had been doing her “duty” towards for years, who she had been emotionally and physically intimate with for years and already had a child with.

What he did to Aemma shook his understanding of himself: father vs partner came at a clash when under his feudal duty as king and the precedent Jaehaerys left. Daemon was supposed to be his way of fixing this almost as much as Rhaenyra was. Still, I never looked at him fondly since the first episode when he had Aemma cut open and how he handled the disagreements between Alicent, Rhaenyra, and their kids. As well as how he handled Aemond’s eye getting taken so violently. How they never got to why Jace and the other boys wanted to hurt Aemond. And how he’s never really addressed Alicent’s misgivings and possible desires.

I agree mostly with Emma in that show!Viserys feels immense guilt for denying Aemma's autonomy when he decided to rip her open without her consent so he "makes it up" to her and tries to comfort himself by making Rhaenyra heir and refusing to change that.

But he mainly looks like he tried to relieve himself of that weighted guilt by creating his own meaning of her death from the ready ideological principle of king/man-must-do-his-duty-and-secure-house-power be the only meaning--and his own meaning has Aemma be only “mother” and “wife”, rather than show her as something other than that.

To Viserys, Rhaenyra’s success would mean Aemma’s death was for not for nothing. That he could be a justified murderer and all that becomes what “really” matters to him when he has a kingdom to rule. That his debt to Aemma would be fulfilled or shaven off, little by little. That though one of the kids he put in her killed her, the living one would “reward” her. Aegon's prophecy also is a hanging oppression unnecessary to the story itself, yet it hangs on him asif the Targs absolutely went to conquer Westeros for altruistic reason, setting up this "for the realm" nonsense Alicent repeats.

But that creates a negligence in him: in trying to understand or see the importance of asking for the motivations and desires of others. The appearances of behaviors will inevitably mean more than the how and why, and the appearances mean so much more when you factor in that they actually do matter when performances give people the excuse to not confront a more advantageous and higher statused person, like Viserys the king.

It allows him to think that there is a simple and direct way to organize others’ behaviors and to see them as the problem.

It makes Viserys harsher to Rhaenyra than was necessary when he confronted her having extramartial and unlicensed sex with who he thought was Daemon (someone who he sees as a destroyer of the house), ignoring knowing anything about her motives and allowing himself to diminish them to just her wanting sex. There was no opportunity for discussion and opening up about motivations in that conversation, so Rhaenyra clams up and speaks to what he will consider--how Otto is plotting against his own authority.

This is not to say that the political consequences of any public knowledge of her having extramarital sex aren't valid in the context of this feudal system and the uncertainty of a peaceful succession. That would definitely give incentive for both to act and say what they did, but they weren’t the only strong reasons for the emotional suppression in that "conversation".

But after many years of their married life, he seems to perceive that Daemon and Rhaenyra are not as rebellious or troublesome as he thought they’d become when he talked to Alicent about them. He is still too lax about Rhaenyra's birthing the illegitimate Strong boys, as that endangers their hold through Rhaenyra’s succession--mainly because to investigate her after the first virginity incident would shake Rhaenyra’s base worse. He also seems to think here that Daemon isn’t as influential over Rhaenyra to make chaos and for the sake of appearances, thus Alicent goes ignored.

And the reason why he doesn’t pay enough attention to or favor his other kids as he does Rhaenyra is not just because Rhaenyra is the daughter of the dead and betrayed Aemma (those kids remind him that he took another wife), or that Rhaenyra is the heir he chose, or that Aemma was the wife he was happiest with:

those kids are also the children of a woman who did not want him in the first place and who never really was romantically willing--the daughter of Otto, who he always distrusted after dismissing him. The whole set is more Other and foreign, less actual family, than Rhaenyra and Daemon are to him

they are all also potential competition to Rhaenyra and her claim since Rhaenyra and Alicent’s rift (caused by him, but he never gets to that fact), and any competition to her claim, in light of Aemma-the-betrayed, can’t be held close to him’

At least how I understand it.

Context

The definitions of family, honor, childhood versus maturity and what youth was to the general ancient & medieval person was 1) not based on any (comparatively) more advanced scientific knowledge or study of human psychology for the sake of the individual 2) paired with and determined by the economic needs of the people in the agricultural-to-mercantile societies.

The fact that 12-18 year old persons in Westeros or real life were not only allowed but purposefully arranged to marry and have sex with over-18 persons for resources, power, and status for centuries is going to unsettle and even anger today’s people who live in digital/metropolitan societies. (No matter the context) Even with instances of marriage with persons even younger and where they weren’t allowed to have sex with their married person for safety reasons it’s still harrowing to imagine putting a child in the a position where them having sex and having it with an adult or much older child.

While there were women in real European medieval history who held gave orders to knights and other men, ran lead a castle under siege and and armies into battle, more often than not it was under the name of and for the rights of their absent husband, father, or children or after the properties were given to her by a father or husband. The ideal political leader who got to make the decisions that will determine the living conditions of the majority was the oldest living male in a noble house. Which is what makes a patriarchy, and the one I described with one having lords and knights is a feudal patriarchy.

This sort of thing is much bigger than any individuals themselves and only could have been practically stopped and critiqued by after a change in cultural ideology on the borders between childhood and adulthood, how much and where gender/class creates a person and their social dues to other persons.

B) As Condal, Hess, and Writers Use It

But older/younger men and boys (more overtly in aristocratic groups), like Viserys, also had the license and advantage to decide for others in many, many cultures. You break it down to who is the oldest man, who would become the head of the house/realm, and you’ve got a “head man” deciding things for not only women, children, peasants, etc., but also other men who grow up with a sense of their own license to order around those who do not themselves head a house (feudal lords like a Stark or a Tully or an Uller) as well as one’s own younger brother. Thus, patriarchal systems with deceptively simple hierarchies allowed certain men and boys the chance to perform more oppressive actions against the woman (who was made subject to the man-as-leader) as marriage and reproduction equaled more security over resources.

While there is the undeniable and timeless principle that there is a point in a human’s psychological development where they cannot fully understand the elements of healthy limits for themselves and others and how exactly they can form identities from that (childhood), such a phenomenon itself is always going to be determined and defined by the time-allowed, resources and rights of those around them. What those adults can and cannot give them and still be considered a “ deserving citizen” of the society in which they all live. The value that your neighbor (fellow human) sees in you based on how well you behave according to how they can live as safely and with as much advantage as possible.

It is a paradox that we, as humans, have to live with and don’t always learn to see. That the meaning of a society’s core, enduring values is still subject to, comes from decisions on, and changes of economic needs and desires.

Daemon, the TV character, himself says to Rhaenyra that she was "only a child" in episode 7 as a reason for not staying with her after the episode 4 & 5 events. He also says to Viserys in episode 4, after Rhaenyra's found out, that Rhaenyra is now a woman who can do what she wishes like the two of them. But Viserys confronting him was a moment where Daemon, in his perspective, tried to make a bad situation advantageous (for him, Viserys, and Rhaenyra), all of which brings up interesting implications for his character. And Viserys is a man give the role of supreme leader who also has to keep in mind that the lords under him have their own military power and distinct ideological heritages (lineage histories and how those form their identity).

Which is what ultimately brings me away from thinking Criston Cole, Viserys or Daemon totally equal to the pedophiles and groomers--those who search for victims to abuse against the socially recognized needs of that child.

I think that it's more accurate to say that the show is trying to tell us that many of the men are heavily conditioned into participating in using and abusing young female bodies for their own advancement. When Westerosi boys and men are told, forced, or and compelled to satisfy the practical demands of their aristocratic hold on lands, as well as their ideological identities as noble men. Combined with a ethnic history of sanctioned Valyrian incest, incest of cousin-marriages in Weteros, and worldwide child marriages, we’ve got A Song of Ice and Fire TV series.

Their priorities are house pride and maintaining or getting more power over the mental wellbeing of those house's individuals. We remember that both Rhaenys/Corlys and Otto put forward their ultra young daughters up for marrying the adult Viserys, who chose the better option of an 18 year old he had been Netflixing and chilling with at her father's pushing. After his own wife's death at his own hands.

The Ties to Alicent & Rhaneyra

Them acting this way doesn't take away the consequences their actions, though. Alicent is still deprived of a teenage stage of sexual exploration and becomes more and more desperate for her own political and emotional support from others in the face of a neglectful, older husband who has more political authority than her. But she doesn’t realize that her own father has been using her and attacks Rhaenyra, who has doesn’t nothing wrong really and Alicent becomes an ardent agent of misogyny and feudal patriarchy: “Duty and Sacrifice”.

Rhaenyra faces censure for not being as submissive to her father's demands of her body and society's demands of her behavior, despite the grief she continues to feel and her problems with duty and motherhood that she is compelled to ignore to conform. She takes on the heir role she didn’t want partially to get back her father’s regard (that was more focused on getting a boy) and recognition in her overall agency and competency -- respect (as the show seems to suggest). She has no real peers due to her princess status, her heir status, so she doesn’t have any other person who could relate to her and speak with her frankly and gently.

By marrying Viserys, Alicent becomes her superior and Otto’s agent, thus emotionally separating them since Alicent will always have the advantage of ordering her around even against her will.

Thus Rhaenyra was also very lonely, both before and after marrying Laenor. Harwin alleviated some of that loneliness but he couldn’t be both partner and protector. Daemon, as a candidate as her partner by being a dragonrider, military leader, and a Targaryen, is her best perceived option as well as the one who she felt she could relate to the most without losing too much of a sense of her own authority.

Please refer to @last-ofthe-starks ‘s Post on their Analysis on Why Daemon Being an Anti-Hero

(Can’t Find a Post How He Isn’t Yet)

#alicent hightower #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #aemma arryn #hotd comment #viserys i #hotd accountability #daemon's characterization #viserys i's characterization #aemma's characterization #viserys and aemma #daemon and viserys #viserys and daemon #viserys and rhaenyra #rhaenyra and viserys #anti hero #hotd #fire and blood #asoiaf

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