PERSONAL HEADCANONS - II (SPOILER ALERT)

So… is it just me who theorizes that the Valyrian steel necklace from Daemon will probably get a spotlight at the end of the last season? Specifically, in that scene narrated in the book where she needs to exchange Jaehaerys' Crown for a place on a ship to Dragonstone. Maybe being sold instead of the crown, or perhaps alongside it? Anyway, it would be a perfect closure to Rhaenyra's journey, in my opinion. I would definitely cry a river, but nonetheless, it would be quite symbolic. After all, the necklace was one of her favorite pieces of jewelry when she was still a young princess, The Realm's Delight. We see several scenes on the show in which she wears it, and I imagine it would be kind of tragic and bittersweet for her to have to sell the only thing left of both Daemon and their life before the Dance of the Dragons.

What Laena Velaryon would have worn...

(RENAISSANCE PERIOD)

What Rhaenyra Targaryen would have worn...

(ITALIAN RENAISSANCE)

What Alicent Hightower would have worn...

(RENAISSANCE PERIOD)

What Rhaenyra Targaryen would have worn... (TUDOR PERIOD)

COLORS, SYMBOLISM AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS RED • After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, red was adopted as a color of majesty and authority by the Byzantine Empire, and the princes of Europe.

• In Western Europe, Emperor Charlemagne painted his palace red as a very visible symbol of his authority, and wore red shoes at his coronation.

• In western countries red is a symbol of martyrs and sacrifice, particularly because of its association with blood. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Pope and Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church wore red to symbolize the blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs.

"Long before that, we were friends..."

" When Prince Daemon sent forth his call to arms, they rose up all along the rivers, knights and men-at-arms and humble peasants who yet remembered the Realm's Delight, so beloved of her father, and the way she smiled and charmed them as she made her progress through the Riverlands in her youth. Hundreds and then thousands buckled on their swordbelts and donned their mail, or grabbed a pitchfork or a hoe and a crude wooden shield, and began to make their way to Harrenhal to fight for Viserys's little girl." — George R.R. Martin; Fire & Blood.

Rhaenyra and Alicent Parallels - Motherhood

Laenor Velaryon: I hate the gods for making me as they did. Rhaenyra Targaryen: I do not. You are an honorable man with a good heart. It's a rare thing.

"(...) there were always rings on her fingers. Whenever she was anxious, she would turn them compulsively around." — George R.R Martin about Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen

P.S- A moment of appreciation for the incredible portrayal of our beloved queen, so expertly done by Emma D'Arcy. They certainly read the books to embody the character with this level of perfection.

Daemon and Rhaenyra share the blood of the dragon. They are restless and chaotic.

Love Language in House of The Dragon - I Daemon, Rhaenyra and chin/jawline touching

Love

Affection

Longing

Desire

“There was a girl there,” the queen said, “no older than I am as I sit before you now. A pretty girl, but not, I think, as pretty as she was. Her father was a blacksmith, and when she was a maid of fourteen years, he gave her hand in marriage to his apprentice. (...) But scarcely had they said their vows than their lord came down upon the wedding with his men-at-arms to claim his right to her first night. He carried her off to his tower and enjoyed her, and the next morning his men returned her to her husband. Her maidenhead was gone, together with whatever love the apprentice boy had borne her. He could not raise his hand against the lord for peril of his life, so instead he raised it against his wife. When it became plain that she was carrying the lord’s child, he beat it out of her. From that day on, he never called her anything but ‘whore,’ until finally the girl decided that if she must be called a whore she would live as one, and made her way to Mole’s Town. (...) I see no honor in any of this. I knew such things happened hundreds of years ago, I confess it, but I never dreamed that the custom endured so strongly to this day. Mayhaps I did not want to know. I closed my eyes, but that poor girl in Mole’s Town opened them. The right of the first night! Your Grace, my lords, it is time we put an end to this. I beg you. (...) The first night is an offense against the King’s Peace,” the queen concluded. “An offense against not only the maid, but her husband as well…and the wife of the lord, never forget. What do those highborn ladies do whilst their lords are out deflowering maidens? Do they sew? Sing? Pray? Were it me, I might pray my lord husband fell off his horse and broke his neck coming home.”

The Good Queen Alysanne, exercising her talent as Westeros' first feminist. This diva cornered a bunch of lords and the FUCKING King of the Seven Kingdoms himself and basically intimidated all of them to abolish the practice of the first night.

“The singers dubbed her the Realm's Delight, for she was bright and precocious—a beautiful child who was already a dragonrider at the age of seven as she flew on the back of her she-dragon Syrax, named for one of the old gods of Valyria.”

Rhaenyra, breaking records in the Guinness Book of Westeros. While other seven-year-olds learned how to ride horses, our little queen terrorized the poor Kingslanders taking Caraxes' girlfriend to the skies. Daemon must have been so proud.

Valyrian Wedding Rituals & Its Parallels

“Among the people who came to inhabit Northumbria and the Lothians, as well as among other Germanic peoples, the nuptials were completed in two distinct phases. (…) The parties plighted their troth and the contract was sealed, like any other contract, by a hand-shake. This joining of hands was called handfæstung in Anglo-Saxon, and the same word is found in different forms in the German, Swedish and Danish languages. In each it means a pledge by the giving of the hand.” Handfasting' in Scotland - The Scottish Historical Review; Anton, A. E. (1958)

“In ancient Rome, a wedding was a sacred ritual involving many religious practices. (…) In a Roman wedding both sexes had to wear specific clothing. Men had to wear the toga virilis while the bride to wear a wreath, a veil, and a yellow hairnet.” Women's Costume and Feminine Civic Morality in Augustan Rome; Sebesta, Judith Lynn (1997)

“ When the terms of the ketubah were accepted a cup of wine was shared to seal the marriage covenant. (…) The bride and groom shared the same cup, symbolizing the shared life that would be theirs. (…) Wine in Judaism has always symbolized joy. (…) Wine also symbolized blood. The marriage covenant is a blood covenant in the eyes of God. Two lives become one in a lifelong commitment.” The Ancient Jewish Wedding; Lash, Jamie (2012)

Historical Parallels: Rhaenyra Targaryen and Empress Maud