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I always had a suspicion that that scene with the knife would be after Aemond gets hurt because, damn, in Alicent’s place I might’ve snapped too. Like, even all the other baggage they’ve got aside, your kid just gets stabbed and permanently disabled by one of the multiple other kids who ganged up on him in a 4-on-1 fight (two of whom had already been involved in lowkey bullying him before), and your husband, your hurt child’s father, seems far more concerned what mean things your hurt child had said to “provoke” being stabbed. (The things happened to be mean but also true.) Then, the brat’s mother says your already seriously injured child should be tortured until he confesses where he heard the mean-but-true things he said. And while that doesn’t happen, literally no one is punished for your child being beaten and stabbed for no fucking reason other than saying some mean things. I mean, come on…
good job /s
Sep. 11th, 2022 07:20 pmSo. Rhaenyra does something brash and kind of irresponsible (though understandable – she’s young, she wants to have fun, etc) which could have very serious consequences for her reputation, and ultimately be a political hazard.
Otto – is told about her actions and informs Viserys (in private) which, regardless of his self-interest, is a reasonable and astute thing to do, as this is a train the crown should get in front of. (Note that it’s unclear that Otto is specifically spying on Rhaenyra. More likely he’s spying on Daemon, given his sources. And anyway, he likely has informants in general who bring him information of interest.)
Rhaenyra – confronted by her (former?) friend/someone who seems concerned about her, lies and manipulates to get out of it, going so far as to invoke her mother’s memory. (Again, understandable that she’d want/need to defend herself from the consequences and she can’t trust that Alicent won’t tell Viserys.) When confronted by her father, manages to mostly get out of it without lying because he doesn’t ask, and instead of just taking that as a victory, emotionally manipulates her father into getting revenge on a man who hasn’t, in fact, done anything but his duty in this situation.
Viserys – has confirmation from Daemon that at least something untoward happened (and given the moon tea, clearly he doesn’t fully believe Alicent’s defense), so he knows the information Otto received wasn’t baseless and admits to Alicent that Rhaenyra has some fault Immediately allows his daughter to manipulate him into weird paranoia, blames Otto for his own desire for Alicent, lowkey accuses him of murdering Prince Balon (?????), and strips him of his office for………Telling him about compromising information that it behooves him to know that Viserys also knows is at least in significant part true?? Because Otto might be biased/have self-interests, even though Viserys just told his own heir that everyone at court is? And that he MIGHT do something to undermine Viserys/Rhaenyra, which at this point is based on……what, exactly? A teenager’s tantrum that she got caught doing something she shouldn’t have been?
I have no particularly warm feelings for Otto, but he just got screwed for nothing just because Viserys is an easily manipulated idiot, who apparently doesn’t consider his own children who aren’t Rhaenyra his own blood, but only ever someone else’s.
the HOTD ages drama
Sep. 6th, 2022 07:05 pm“I’m happy/mad that HOTD aged Alicent down.”
Guys. Seriously, the amount by which they aged her down is pretty negligible. It’s not stated explicitly, IIRC, how old she is in the show, but assuming she’s the same age as Rhaenyra (15ish in E1), she was only aged down by 3 years. Like, ok, sure in real world terms there’s some difference between an 18 yr old and 15 yr old marrying a man pushing 30, but this doesn’t seem to be the main/only issue for everyone, and in every other way the 3 years difference is functionally negligible. (And in any case, the 18/29 age gap is still significant, and Alicent is still a very young and, likely, inexperienced woman at that age who wouldn’t have had much more agency in this society than at 15-16.) Given than adulthood in Westeros occurs at 16…again, the aging-down is kind of *shrug*
You know who’s age got changed in an ACTUALLY significant way though? Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra who was about 9 when her father remarried and about 10 when Aegon was born. (Funny enough, she was close to the same age as Catelyn was at Edmure’s birth. Cat had also been raised as Hoster’s heir until then - he just didn’t make any formal announcements about it.)
So if you want to be happy/mad about someone’s age change, it should be hers, not Alicent’s. Because 9 and 15 is a big difference in a very functional way. And it affects a LOT of things. Even re: Alicent - a 15 year old and an 18 year old can be friends. It’s different if the age gap is closer to 10 years. But also things like…of course it sounds a lot more ridiculous to propose marriage between Rhaenyra and Aegon when their age gap is closer to 15-16 years than 10, instead of Viserys making a political blunder because he’s playing favorites with his children. Of course it make sense for an ailing Viserys to cling to his choice of heir, who is already an adult (vs a toddler), for practical reasons, and not just because he loves only one of his children way more than the others. As an older-teenager/in-universe adult, Rhaenyra can do badass #Girlboss moves like the confrontation with Daemon (which would not have really been a possibility in book canon).
Like regardless of whether you like or dislike the changes the show is making, I don’t really get the fixation on “aging Alicent down” when that’s not really the impactful age-change here.
