S01.E10: The Black Queen

[PatsyandEddie]

Maybe Rhaenyra’s youngest children? They are very close in age but not twins afaik. One is Aegon and the other is Viserys. 

[FozzyBear]

2 hours ago, PatsyandEddie said:

Maybe Rhaenyra’s youngest children? They are very close in age but not twins afaik. One is Aegon and the other is Viserys. 

I did mean them! I thought they were twins.

[magdalene]

33 minutes ago, FozzyBear said:

I did mean them! I thought they were twins.

Rhaenyra has two toddler age sons with Daemon her second husband.  Aegon the Younger, so called to differentiate him from the current usurper king. And her youngest, Viserys, named after his grandfather. 

[proserpina65]

I've just started a rewatch of the first season on dvd (otherwise known as forcing a GOT-fan friend to watch it even though she wasn't particularly interested).  I was perversely please when, after finishing the first episode, she said "I don't mean to be rude, but that was kinda boring" since that was exactly how I felt until about halfway through We Light The Way on first viewing.  Heck, if I could've skipped directly to episode 6, which is when the show actually became good, I would've but the amount of exposition that would've required on my part was too daunting.  I've promised her it will get better and also swore I won't torture her with season 2 if she doesn't end up liking season 1.

[snickers]

On 1/9/2023 at 11:05 AM, proserpina65 said:

"I don't mean to be rude, but that was kinda boring" since that was exactly how I felt until about halfway through We Light The Way on first viewing.  Heck, if I could've skipped directly to episode 6, which is when the show actually became good,

I take this person didn't watch the Rings of Power? 😆

I still haven't finished that show...

I felt the only "slow" part was perhaps Episode 3 during the "hunt"...that part was a little slow moving, and perhaps Episode 9, but the rest of it...so good

though they could have had more battle scenes, i'm assuming they are saving the budget, even GOT season 1 didn't really have crazy battle scenes, not like the later seasons....

[proserpina65]

On 1/14/2023 at 8:58 PM, snickers said:

I take this person didn't watch the Rings of Power? 😆

I still haven't finished that show...

I felt the only "slow" part was perhaps Episode 3 during the "hunt"...that part was a little slow moving, and perhaps Episode 9, but the rest of it...so good

Definitely not.  Me neither, for that matter, even though I have Amazon.

I found the first 4 episodes varying degrees of boring, episode 3 that least.  The season picked up for me in episode 5 and was great from 6 on.

She's finding the first half of the season to be way to talky.  She wasn't sure she really wanted to watch to begin with.  I keep promising her it will get better but also that she doesn't have to watch season 2 if she doesn't like season 1.

[snickers]

Yeah it’s talking show, but so was GOT

 I’m thinking season 2 will have more action, but maybe not. But I don’t recommend Rings of Power if you and your friend thought this was boring 😆

[proserpina65]

On 1/21/2023 at 10:14 AM, snickers said:

Yeah it’s talking show, but so was GOT

 I’m thinking season 2 will have more action, but maybe not. But I don’t recommend Rings of Power if you and your friend thought this was boring 😆

I think with GOT, though, it mixed the talky with the non-talky better so that there was some of each in every episode.  Or maybe it was just what they were talking about varied more?  Either way, she definitely thought HOTD picked up with episode 5 & 6.  Can't wait to show her Driftmark and Lord of the Tides.

[proserpina65]

Just wanted to add that after 6 episodes, my friend is inclined to be more sympathetic towards Alicent and to not think very highly of Rhaenyra.  We'll see if that changes.

[CountryGirl]

11 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Just wanted to add that after 6 episodes, my friend is inclined to be more sympathetic towards Alicent and to not think very highly of Rhaenyra.  We'll see if that changes.

I’m really interested in your friend’s take and if it changes. 

[proserpina65]

On 1/26/2023 at 10:23 PM, CountryGirl said:

I’m really interested in your friend’s take and if it changes. 

As of ep 7, she still leans more towards Alicent. She did think Alicent took it to far in Driftmark, but that Rhaenyra was completely in the wrong.  And she doesn't like Daemon at all, although she thought he was better with Laena.

[KBrownie]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

As of ep 7, she still leans more towards Alicent. She did think Alicent took it to far in Driftmark, but that Rhaenyra was completely in the wrong.  And she doesn't like Daemon at all, although she thought he was better with Laena.

I would love to know what exactly, in regards to Alicent, Rhaenyra was ever “completely in the wrong for.”  
 

Whatever problems Alicent had with Rhaenyra and the way Rhaenyra chose to live her life were hers alone. Rhaenyra owed Alicent, who conveniently never owns up to the fact that it was SHE who started the lies and deception in that friendship, nothing. Yeah, yeah Alicent couldn’t defy her father, but she betrayed Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra owed her nothing after that. Or Alicent’s father. Alicent should have just accepted that and moved on. She did what she had to do in service of herself and her family’s position but that meant the friendship with Rhaenyra was done. Rhaenyra was never wrong to do the same for herself. What she chose to do with her vagina, which let’s face it, was always Alicent’s real sore spot, was her business. Alicent never had any right to patrol and police it the way she did or be upset that Rhaenyra chose to make her own decisions (if Alicent felt she couldn’t do the same it’s not Rhaenyra’s problem)within the complexities of her situation regarding her sexuality and all that came with it. The only person(s) Rhaenyra owed any explanation to were her father the King and later Harwin and Laenor.  
 

Rhaenyra never did anything to Alicent to warrant all that Alicent ends up doing to her.  Lying about being with Daemon in a brothel, which was none of her business and Rhaenyra was under no obligation to share if she didn’t want to, does not justify all of Alicent’s later aggressions and overreactions. It’s so funny how Otto and Alicent and a lot of their supporters love to justify themselves by talking about Rhaenyra’s sons as threats to the realm (like they genuinely cared) because they are bastards and how Rhaenyra would kill Alicent’s kids, but ignore that Alicent was big mad and jealous BEFORE Rhaenyra even had any kids.  It was ALICENT, who spends a decade plus trying to hurt RHAENYRA’s children by deliberately spreading rumors about them, sowing seeds that she knew could risk their lives. And tries to put all the responsibility for the war they start in usurping Rhaenyra’s throne by sending bullshit letters about how she hasn’t forgotten the love they have for one another to manipulate her into just accepting them stealing what is rightfully hers. But it’s Rhaenyra that’s “completely in the wrong” and Alicent only goes too far at Driftmark. Yeah. Sure.

[proserpina65]

Both my friend and I are of the opinion that all Rhaenyra had to do after the fight was to keep her mouth shut and head back to Dragonstone.  Viserys wasn't going to punish her son for what happened to Aemond and everything would have settled down.  She brought up the bastard accusation, not Alicent, so the rest of the altercation was on her.  Alicent's attacking her was unhinged, but at least somewhat understandable under the circumstances. Her son had just lost an eye and no one was going to be punished in any way. 

Personally I think Rhaenyra is a lying hypocritical bitch and Alicent is only marginally better.  There aren't a lot of decent people in this show. 

I'm editing my post to note that I haven't expressed my opinion to my friend before we watch each episode. I've waited until she's said what she thinks about the events in the episode first and then either agreed or disagreed with her thoughts.

She does know that Aemond is my favorite character, though. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by proserpina65

[izabella]

On 1/23/2023 at 11:17 AM, proserpina65 said:

I think with GOT, though, it mixed the talky with the non-talky better so that there was some of each in every episode.  Or maybe it was just what they were talking about varied more?  Either way, she definitely thought HOTD picked up with episode 5 & 6.  Can't wait to show her Driftmark and Lord of the Tides.

GoT had a far more expansive cast with all kinds of things - talky and otherwise - happening all across Westeros and in Essos.  Here, I think it's too insular and confined.  We get no sense of context at all, who they are ruling and how that even matters.  It's just infighting among the Targaryans, and they aren't very interesting other than having dragons.  If we hadn't watched GoT, we would literally have zero understanding of Westeros from this show.  It's like it barely exists.

[proserpina65]

Just now, izabella said:

GoT had a far more expansive cast with all kinds of things - talky and otherwise - happening all across Westeros and in Essos.  Here, I think it's too insular and confined.  We get no sense of context at all, who they are ruling and how that even matters.  It's just infighting among the Targaryans, and they aren't very interesting other than having dragons.  If we hadn't watched GoT, we would literally have zero understanding of Westeros from this show.  It's like it barely exists.

That's a good point.  I'm enjoying the show now, but it definitely is more insular than GOT and that's probably why I struggled with the early episodes. 

[proserpina65]

After watching the relevant episodes multiple times, I've decided that Jace is a bit of a bully himself.  Not as bad as Aegon, but not so nice either.

Even setting aside his involvement in the pig prank, which was very cruel but surely Aegon's idea, when Jace was given the okay to order Vermax to toast his dinner goat, he turned and looked directly at Aemond, the one boy there without a dragon.  Then he was clearly involved in the pig prank and certainly found it quite funny.

For me, however, the most notable moment was in The Black Queen, when Jace and Luke were sparring on the beach.  Jace treated his brother exactly the same way Aegon had treated him in the training yard years earlier, to the point that the King's Guard with them had to admonish him for it.

Admittedly none of this makes Jace anywhere near as horrible as Aegon, but it does keep him from being the squeaky clean nice boy I think I'm supposed to believe he is.  Does make him slightly more interesting than he'd be otherwise, though, which is a good thing since overall he's boring as hell.  Even Luke had more personality.

[proserpina65]

So I finished inflicting House of the Dragon on my best friend this past weekend.  She ended up liking it well enough once we got past the midway point of the season but probably won't continue with the next season.  Primarily because her general feeling is that are really aren't any decent characters for whom to root, unlike GOT (which she did enjoy) where you had actual good people like Davos and Brienne.  I get that - most of the characters on HOTD are some shade of dark grey, other than ones like Aegon and Larys who are out and out vile, or Helaena, Baela and Rhaena who are inoffensive but sort of just there.

She still was more sympathetic to Alicent than to Rhaenyra whom she thought remained a spoiled, entitled brat throughout.  Not that she had all that much sympathy for Alicent either.  She just felt Alicent was trapped in her situation to a greater extent whereas Rhaenyra had more agency but made some really bad decisions and mostly refused to own them.

She did get into the scene at Storm's End and the resulting dragon chase, though.  It was rather like being at the movies and having someone yell "Oh no!" and "Don't go in there!" at the screen.  And she actually jumped when Vhagar appeared out of the clouds and chomped Arrax into pieces.  I was kind of the same when I first watched it so it was pretty entertaining seeing her reaction.

So there you go, some opinions from a viewer who was not obsessed with the show like us.  For whatever that's worth.

[millennium]

On 1/26/2023 at 11:02 AM, proserpina65 said:

my friend is inclined to be more sympathetic towards Alicent and to not think very highly of Rhaenyra

On rewatch I see Alicent as a tragic figure.  She was a good person who never sought any of this.  She was a pawn of her father.  Regardless, she did her best to serve as queen while quietly mourning the loss of her friend Rhaenyra.   It appears that over the years she performed noble servitude in her caring for Viserys, especially in the very disgusting last phases of his illness (all I could think of is how the breath issuing from that rotting mouth must reek).   I think her maternal protectiveness  was her undoing, though God knows why she's so driven given the two assholes she has for sons.   Maybe her eagerness to get Aegon on the throne is a way of absolving herself for the imbecile (Alicent's word) he turned out to be.    

On 1/17/2023 at 1:09 PM, proserpina65 said:

I keep promising her it will get better but also that she doesn't have to watch season 2 if she doesn't like season 1.

The showrunners have said that Season 2 will be faster-paced.

[proserpina65]

6 hours ago, millennium said:

The showrunners have said that Season 2 will be faster-paced.

True.  She ended up agreeing that the show got much better halfway through, but still said she was kinda over the whole Westeros thing.  Did say she might change her mind during the very long wait for season 2, though.

 

On 1/28/2023 at 8:08 PM, KBrownie said:

I would love to know what exactly, in regards to Alicent, Rhaenyra was ever “completely in the wrong for.”  

The "completely in the wrong" referred to Rhaenyra's behavior at Driftmark.  She could've kept her mouth shut and gone back to Dragonstone but she's the one who brought up the bastard accusation and demanded that Aemond be "sharply questioned" about it while he was sitting there having his face sewn up after losing an eye.  She fully deserved the "bitch, please" look she got from Aemond at that moment.

Edited September 6, 2023 by proserpina65

[millennium]

I just finished rewatching Season 1 in anticipation of Season 2 beginning on June 16.   You've heard the phrase a "comedy of errors."  Season 1 was a tragedy of errors.   What a sequence of misheard dialogue, misinterpreted intention, and plain old mistakes, all with catastrophic results.

I began to wonder how Aegon and Aemond turned out to be such rotten kids.   There's the Targaryen strain of course, but it occurs to me that we never saw Viserys have any real interaction with them.   By all appearances he was an absentee father.   The boys were allowed to run wild and do as they please, with only nominal pushback by Alicent.   I don't know if it was different in the books, but one would think that Viserys, after wanting a son for so long, even sacrificing his wife in the pursuit of progeny, would have been more involved in their upbringing.   Yet I can't think of a single instance in this show where he treated the boys as little more than strangers.  The closest interactions shown were 1) the day he casually watched them at training in the yard and all hell broke loose between Criston and Harwin Strong; and 2) his violent interrogation of them after Aemond lost his eye.     Otherwise?   I think the show dropped the ball in this regard. 

[proserpina65]

On 6/7/2024 at 3:05 PM, millennium said:

Yet I can't think of a single instance in this show where he treated the boys as little more than strangers. 

Viserys was a shit father to his children with Alicent.  At the family dinner from hell, I got the feeling he looked at them and went "Do I know you?  Oh right, drunky, one-eye and what's her face."  And honestly, he wasn't a great father to Rhaenyra either.

[millennium]

3 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

And honestly, he wasn't a great father to Rhaenyra either.

I agree, but in Rhaenyra's case at least the neglect seems in keeping with his character -- he wanted a boy.    What makes no sense to me is that when he finally gets boys, he treats them worse than even Rhaenyra.   I suppose we could fanwank that he had already named Rhaenyra his successor, so the birth of sons in the aftermath may have seemed a pyrrhic victory, which led him to neglect them ... but we shouldn't have to guess.

[AntFTW]

On 6/10/2024 at 4:26 PM, millennium said:

What makes no sense to me is that when he finally gets boys, he treats them worse than even Rhaenyra.   I suppose we could fanwank that he had already named Rhaenyra his successor, so the birth of sons in the aftermath may have seemed a pyrrhic victory, which led him to neglect them ... but we shouldn't have to guess.

I always thought it was a reflection of his feelings for Aemma. I always thought that he liked Alicent but loved Aemma, felt some guilt about her death, and never really moved on. I thought he was using Rhaenyra to make up for that guilt and reconcile those emotions.

Edited June 16 by AntFTW

[millennium]

1 hour ago, AntFTW said:

I always thought was a reflection of his feelings for Aemma. I always thought that he liked Alicent but loved Aemma, felt some guilt about her death, and never really moved on. I thought he was using Rhaenyra to make up for that guilt and reconcile those emotions.

I think that's a pretty good read of the situation and makes the most sense.

[Roseanna]

On 1/29/2023 at 3:08 AM, KBrownie said:

I would love to know what exactly, in regards to Alicent, Rhaenyra was ever “completely in the wrong for.”  
 

Whatever problems Alicent had with Rhaenyra and the way Rhaenyra chose to live her life were hers alone. Rhaenyra owed Alicent, who conveniently never owns up to the fact that it was SHE who started the lies and deception in that friendship, nothing. Yeah, yeah Alicent couldn’t defy her father, but she betrayed Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra owed her nothing after that. Or Alicent’s father. Alicent should have just accepted that and moved on. She did what she had to do in service of herself and her family’s position but that meant the friendship with Rhaenyra was done. Rhaenyra was never wrong to do the same for herself. What she chose to do with her vagina, which let’s face it, was always Alicent’s real sore spot, was her business. Alicent never had any right to patrol and police it the way she did or be upset that Rhaenyra chose to make her own decisions (if Alicent felt she couldn’t do the same it’s not Rhaenyra’s problem)within the complexities of her situation regarding her sexuality and all that came with it. The only person(s) Rhaenyra owed any explanation to were her father the King and later Harwin and Laenor.  
 

Rhaenyra never did anything to Alicent to warrant all that Alicent ends up doing to her.  Lying about being with Daemon in a brothel, which was none of her business and Rhaenyra was under no obligation to share if she didn’t want to, does not justify all of Alicent’s later aggressions and overreactions. It’s so funny how Otto and Alicent and a lot of their supporters love to justify themselves by talking about Rhaenyra’s sons as threats to the realm (like they genuinely cared) because they are bastards and how Rhaenyra would kill Alicent’s kids, but ignore that Alicent was big mad and jealous BEFORE Rhaenyra even had any kids.  It was ALICENT, who spends a decade plus trying to hurt RHAENYRA’s children by deliberately spreading rumors about them, sowing seeds that she knew could risk their lives. And tries to put all the responsibility for the war they start in usurping Rhaenyra’s throne by sending bullshit letters about how she hasn’t forgotten the love they have for one another to manipulate her into just accepting them stealing what is rightfully hers. But it’s Rhaenyra that’s “completely in the wrong” and Alicent only goes too far at Driftmark. Yeah. Sure.

If Rhaenyra were a modern woman, her choices would indeed be only her own business. But she was the heir to the throne - such a position demands that one doesn't do what one wants but fulfills one's duties and that she refused to do while enjoying the benefits of her position. In a world where a "legimate birth" mattered it was she who endanged her own and her sons' lives - not Alicent for "rumors" were true and her sons had no right to succession and were thus stealing it from Viserys' trueborn sons by Alicent. Only her father's refusal to see the truth saved Rhaenyra and her sons' lives.

[PatsyandEddie]

Laenor claimed the boys as his own though so that should have carried some weight. 

[Roseanna]

11 hours ago, PatsyandEddie said:

Laenor claimed the boys as his own though so that should have carried some weight. 

Yes, it was a custom in some cultrures before Christianity for a father either acknowledge a child after birth or refused to do so. In the latter case a child could be legitimely simply left to die.

On the other hand, it was regarded unhonorable for a man to accept a child who he knew for sure was not begotten by him, for thereby he stole fortune from those it legitimately belonged (sometimes his younger children, sometimes his brother or nephew). Fortune was family's fortune and an individual was only its temporary keeper.  

That's way I can't at all undesrtand Gorlois' attitude that blood didn't count. Rhaenys was right in that kind of society: their nieces should have been heirs. 

I think this show tries to have both ways: it is mostly created as a patriarchal and "barbaric" society, but to please the audience some values are "modern" although they are impossible in that kind society. The result is that charcters' actions and motivations are sometimes quite incomprehensible. 

[Ceindreadh]

Life would have been so much easier if Rhaenyra had put a bit more thought into her choice of lover and picked one that looked like either her or Laenor.  That way it would have been less obvious who their father wasn't.

Or failing that, if she'd at least managed to produce one legitimate child before playing away, it would have gone some way towards allaying suspicions.

[KBrownie]

16 hours ago, Ceindreadh said:

Life would have been so much easier if Rhaenyra had put a bit more thought into her choice of lover and picked one that looked like either her or Laenor.  That way it would have been less obvious who their father wasn't.

Or failing that, if she'd at least managed to produce one legitimate child before playing away, it would have gone some way towards allaying suspicions.

Or, the Greens just could have not usurped Rhaenyra’s throne.  Simple.  Why is it always on Rhaenyra, and no one else, to do the perfect thing?
 

It doesn’t matter anyway. The fact is that she could have done this, and everything else, perfectly and the Otto and Alicent would have found some reason, any reason to usurp her. They were planning to usurp her before she had any children.  It didn’t matter what she did.  

Rhaenyra and Laenor tried to conceive a child. What else was she supposed to do? She was set up to fail. Viserys forced her to marry Laenor, knowing Laenor’s preferences, because he wanted to smooth over tensions with the Velaryons after he passed over Laenor for Alicent. Daemon wanted to marry her and he sent him into exile.  Their children, as seen in the ones they eventually have, would have had the right hair color.  Alicent and Otto would have taken issue with that or found something else Rhaenyra did or didn’t do to make them seem in the right to usurp her throne.  

Edited July 19 by KBrownie

[proserpina65]

15 hours ago, Ceindreadh said:

Life would have been so much easier if Rhaenyra had put a bit more thought into her choice of lover and picked one that looked like either her or Laenor.  That way it would have been less obvious who their father wasn't.

Or failing that, if she'd at least managed to produce one legitimate child before playing away, it would have gone some way towards allaying suspicions.

Or only had one child with Harwin Strong.  She needed an heir but didn't have to have 3 children with her lover.  And she certainly knew how to prevent pregnancies.  All the fun with none of the consequences.

Rhaenyra made it a lot easier for Otto Hightower than she really needed to.  She was rather stupid in that, and other, respects.

[Roseanna]

On 7/19/2024 at 2:54 AM, KBrownie said:

Viserys forced her to marry Laenor, knowing Laenor’s preferences, because he wanted to smooth over tensions with the Velaryons after he passed over Laenor for Alicent. Daemon wanted to marry her and he sent him into exile.  

There was no sign that Viserys knew Laenor's preferences and even his father supposed that it was only youthful phase and would pass.

In any case, Viserys first gave Rhaenyra freedom to chose her husband among lords of the country, but she didn't use this rare possibility but behaved like a child that doesn't understand the facts of her own situation ("they don't want me for me but what they get with me"). It was only after Viserys was told that she had lain with Daemon, which he at least doubted to be true by sending her tea, that he ordered her to marry Laenor.

Any royal and aristocratic father wuld have done the same decision even before and the alliance was the best possible one. As for Daemon, his marriage would have neutralized him as a pretender but he was already married and any wise father would have had grave doubts to marry her daughter to him because of his character that he had just shown by taking his niece to a brothel.