S02.E08: The Queen Who Ever Was

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

See, I don't think this fits either character unless they're both stupid.

I think you could just be blinded by a combo platter of childhood fondness for the  other person, self-righteousness, and undue optimism/wishful thinking.

Not exactly the same as being stupid, but not necessarily in a different ballpark. 

[Roseanna]

12 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

See, I don't think this fits either character unless they're both stupid.

It's easy to say when we as the audience know much more than the characters. IRL most of us are as "stupid". 

In addition, reading the book or watching the movie or series, we know the rules of the genre. Although surprises can and must happen, we know that the war must begin, otherwise why make this show? People here seems to wait eagerly for fights between dragons. 

12 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

See, I don't think this fits either character unless they're both stupid.

It's easy to say when we as the audience know much more than the characters. IRL most of us are as "stupid". 

In addition, reading the book or watching the movie or series, we know the rules of the genre. Although surprises can and must happen, we know that the war must begin, otherwise why make this show? People here seems to wait eagerly for fights between dragons. 

[proserpina65]

11 hours ago, Roseanna said:

It's easy to say when we as the audience know much more than the characters.

I don't think it was realistic within the show's world for Rhaenyra to think she could ask Alicent to call off the war, knowing only what the two of them could've known.  For her to not realize that only bending the knee to Aegon would have the desired effect at that point, after both Lucerys and Jahaerys had been killed, was ridiculous.

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

I don't think it was realistic within the show's world for Rhaenyra to think she could ask Alicent to call off the war, knowing only what the two of them could've known.  For her to not realize that only bending the knee to Aegon would have the desired effect at that point, after both Lucerys and Jahaerys had been killed, was ridiculous.

Let me break it down.

Rhae likely knows or at least strongly believes:

• Viserys never would have voluntarily decided to name Aegon as his heir on his deathbed as Ali and the Greens claimed. He loves her too much to do that to her.
• The Greens had Viserys blasted out of his mind on milk of the poppy and were possibly unduly influencing him.
• Ali's claim that Viserys did name Aegon was an important piece of propaganda underscoring the plot to prop up Aegon as Viserys's successor
• Ali is a truly devout person (or at least she has claimed to be for years)
• Ali knows Aegon is a selfish, idiotic, narcissistic rapey bully who is wholly unfit to be king
• Ali retains some element of control over Aegon, monster though he is
• Ali knows that Rhae would be a good queen.

Some reasonable IMO  (if erroneous or likely erroneous) conclusions she could have drawn from the above:

• The Greens pushed Ali into the coup unwillingly. She's too into the Seven to have been complicit in subverting Viserys' wishes. 
• Ali has a guilty conscience over what she has done to Viserys and Rhae, and Ali would want to make amends.
• Ali would want to avoid the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents because of her deep faith.  Her desire to avoid those deaths is so high that Ali might be willing to help her try to find an alternative to war.
• Ali might want a clear conscience and avoiding the aforementioned deaths more than she would want the Greens to retain power under these circumstances.
• Ali could potentially work some motherly magic on Aegon and get him to step down voluntarily.
• In the alternative, Ali admitting publicly that she lied about Viserys naming Aegon as his successor and instead supporting Rhae's claim would cause enough of the smallfolk and great houses to reconsider their support for Team Green.

 

Edited August 21 by Chicago Redshirt

[Roseanna]

9 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Let me break it down.

Rhae likely knows or at least strongly believes:

• Viserys never would have voluntarily decided to name Aegon as his heir on his deathbed as Ali and the Greens claimed. He loves her too much to do that to her.
• The Greens had Viserys blasted out of his mind on milk of the poppy and were possibly unduly influencing him.
• Ali's claim that Viserys did name Aegon was an important piece of propaganda underscoring the plot to prop up Aegon as Viserys's successor
• Ali is a truly devout person (or at least she has claimed to be for years)
• Ali knows Aegon is a selfish, idiotic, narcissistic rapey bully who is wholly unfit to be king
• Ali retains some element of control over Aegon, monster though he is
• Ali knows that Rhae would be a good queen.

Some reasonable IMO  (if erroneous or likely erroneous) conclusions she could have drawn from the above:

• The Greens pushed Ali into the coup unwillingly. She's too into the Seven to have been complicit in subverting Viserys' wishes. 
• Ali has a guilty conscience over what she has done to Viserys and Rhae, and Ali would want to make amends.
• Ali would want to avoid the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents because of her deep faith.  Her desire to avoid those deaths is so high that Ali might be willing to help her try to find an alternative to war.
• Ali might want a clear conscience and avoiding the aforementioned deaths more than she would want the Greens to retain power under these circumstances.
• Ali could potentially work some motherly magic on Aegon and get him to step down voluntarily.
• In the alternative, Ali admitting publicly that she lied about Viserys naming Aegon as his successor and instead supporting Rhae's claim would cause enough of the smallfolk and great houses to reconsider their support for Team Green.

 

A good list, but I beg to differ in in some points. 

Rhaenyra doesn't know that Aegon raped a servant girl as Alicent kept it secret.  She is also wrong to believe that Alicent was unwilling to crown Aegon and that she lied about Viserys' dying wish. As we have seen, Alicent honestly believed it.

On the other hand, Rhaenyra made a little success: she made Alicent to realize that Viserys spoke to her of "Song of Fire and Blood" that he had earlier spoken to Rhaenyra - that it, before his death he believed to speak to Rhaenyra, not Alicent, and thus Aegon he spoke about wasn't their son and  "you" who he believed could prevent the prophecy to be true wasn't Alicent but Rhaenyra.  

Also, Rhaenyra wasn't wrong that Alicent didn't want people to die (although it was a part of her hypocricy that it could be prevented). In this scene Alicent was more realistic by saying that it was too late. In the second scene their roles were opposite.

When Viserys ate the last time with his family, Rhaenyra made a peace offering to Alicent by praising her for taking care of Viserys, but their sons' mutual hostility destroyed a possibility to reconciliation (if there was any after Aemond was blinded bny Jace and Viserys took wholly Rhaenyra's side against Alicent). 

  

[baldryanr]

15 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

In the alternative, Ali admitting publicly that she lied about Viserys naming Aegon as his successor and instead supporting Rhae's claim would cause enough of the smallfolk and great houses to reconsider their support for Team Green.

I'd be curious to see what the fallout would be if Alicent actually did this.  Would Aemond just toss her in a dungeon for treason and say that she's mad with grief over her grandson's murder (thanks Daemon!)?  I don't think even Aemond would be willing to execute his mom.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, baldryanr said:

I'd be curious to see what the fallout would be if Alicent actually did this.  Would Aemond just toss her in a dungeon for treason

She can demand trial by combat... choose Criston as her champion... Aemond picks Gwane... ironically, each guy will be trying to lose...

[Chicago Redshirt]

6 hours ago, Roseanna said:

It's easy to say when we as the audience know much more than the characters. IRL most of us are as "stupid". 

In addition, reading the book or watching the movie or series, we know the rules of the genre. Although surprises can and must happen, we know that the war must begin, otherwise why make this show? People here seems to wait eagerly for fights between dragons. 

i would say most of people's real-life stupid decisions are at least explainable/understandable. People know they need to lose weight, yet constantly have double cheeseburgers and fries and the like for lunch but "compromises" by having a Diet Coke. It's an objectively bad decision that makes sense when those things taste good and that one can attribute to a lack of willpower. People have no-good partners (romantic, business or otherwise) but don't kick them to the curb despite the abundance of red flags. Well, the people are scared of change, or have been bullied into accepting the unacceptable, etc.

Rhae and Ali have generally been presented as bright, although none of them are likely to get recruited for Westeros Jeopardy. ("This house proclaims it does not sow. What is House Greyjoy, Alecks")

But they have made some stupid decisions. I agree that some of their decisions may seem stupid to us because we are genre-savvy and thus know there is no peaceful solution. But other things I think should have been fully apparent to them based on what they know and the world that they grew up in. I will die on the hill that Rhae was foolish for not taking any steps to make sure that everyone would line up and support her ascensdancy the second there was a potential male heir.

For all the durdling and wheel-spinning that was done this season, I don't think it has done all that good a job developing Rhae. They want to have it both ways with her: she talks a good game about wanting to avoid war that will lead to 10k+ deaths, but don't really flesh out why she isn't willing to accept the terms that were essentially: live your life exactly as you had done. I suppose there's the Song of Ice and Fire that is somewhat of an explanation, but even with that, we don't know why it would have to be her line that continues on and not just other Targs. I think I would have preferred it if they presented her more along the lines of GOT Viserys and less GOT Dani 1..0 (pre-Mother of Dragons to Qarth)

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Roseanna said:

A good list, but I beg to differ in in some points. 

Rhaenyra doesn't know that Aegon raped a servant girl as Alicent kept it secret.  She is also wrong to believe that Alicent was unwilling to crown Aegon and that she lied about Viserys' dying wish. As we have seen, Alicent honestly believed it.

I didn't mean to say that Rhae knew about the particular rape of the particular servant that we were shown. Although come to think of  it, it's certainly a possibility that she does. It seems plausible to me that other servants know about that particular situation and thus plausible that her spymaster heard about it either from one of them or even the woman herself. 

It's more that I think that Rhae is generally familiar with Aegon's character, and that character seems clearly to be rapey (along with the other things I mentioned). Or at least, in viewing Ali dealing with the servant, it definitely came off to me like this was a practiced routine and there was a line item in the royal budget for hush money and Plan Tea for Aegon's rape victims. The spymaster also expressly knows that Aegon has sired a number of bastards who he enjoys watching be pit against each other in fights IIRC, and presumably shared that with Rhae as well. 

Yes, Rhae would have been incorrect in thinking (if she did; we are just speculating on this point) that Ali was a dupe or otherwise went along with Team Green's coup unwillingly.

What I'm suggesting is it would be a reasonable assumption that Ali only said Aegon was named true heir on Viserys's deathbed because she had no other choice.

Other people in Rhae's situation might have assumed that Ali was fully complicit in the lies and the coup and thus there is no point in talking to her. Still other people might have assumed the possibility that Viserys did have a 11th hour change of heart actually happened, given Ali's generally truthful nature, and would have tried to deal with the ramifications of that. I don't think any of those assumptions makes one "stupid" as such. 

The writers get to put their thumb on the scale by making it so that Ali is operating in good faith but on incorrect assumptions of her own.  

[Roseanna]

15 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

But other things I think should have been fully apparent to them based on what they know and the world that they grew up in. I will die on the hill that Rhae was foolish for not taking any steps to make sure that everyone would line up and support her ascensdancy the second there was a potential male heir.

For all the durdling and wheel-spinning that was done this season, I don't think it has done all that good a job developing Rhae. They want to have it both ways with her: she talks a good game about wanting to avoid war that will lead to 10k+ deaths, but don't really flesh out why she isn't willing to accept the terms that were essentially: live your life exactly as you had done.

Yes, she was offered good terms and had *then* no reason to fear of her and her family's life. 

Until then, she had shown neither ambition nor sense of duty but lived her life just as she had pleased.  

 

[baldryanr]

5 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Yes, she was offered good terms and had *then* no reason to fear of her and her family's life. 

Well, if Daemon's head didn't explode on the spot she'd have to figure out a way to neutralize him.  He would never accept any negotiated peace that left the Greens in charge.

[proserpina65]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:56 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Let me break it down.

Rhae likely knows or at least strongly believes:

• Viserys never would have voluntarily decided to name Aegon as his heir on his deathbed as Ali and the Greens claimed. He loves her too much to do that to her.
• The Greens had Viserys blasted out of his mind on milk of the poppy and were possibly unduly influencing him.
• Ali's claim that Viserys did name Aegon was an important piece of propaganda underscoring the plot to prop up Aegon as Viserys's successor
• Ali is a truly devout person (or at least she has claimed to be for years)
• Ali knows Aegon is a selfish, idiotic, narcissistic rapey bully who is wholly unfit to be king
• Ali retains some element of control over Aegon, monster though he is
• Ali knows that Rhae would be a good queen.

Some reasonable IMO  (if erroneous or likely erroneous) conclusions she could have drawn from the above:

• The Greens pushed Ali into the coup unwillingly. She's too into the Seven to have been complicit in subverting Viserys' wishes. 
• Ali has a guilty conscience over what she has done to Viserys and Rhae, and Ali would want to make amends.
• Ali would want to avoid the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents because of her deep faith.  Her desire to avoid those deaths is so high that Ali might be willing to help her try to find an alternative to war.
• Ali might want a clear conscience and avoiding the aforementioned deaths more than she would want the Greens to retain power under these circumstances.
• Ali could potentially work some motherly magic on Aegon and get him to step down voluntarily.
• In the alternative, Ali admitting publicly that she lied about Viserys naming Aegon as his successor and instead supporting Rhae's claim would cause enough of the smallfolk and great houses to reconsider their support for Team Green.

 

A lot of this list relies on Rhaenyra knowing things the viewer has seen but she has not.  Which, imo, makes her trip to KL to talk to Alicent stupid and pointless unless she had intended to bend the knee to Aegon, because based on what she actually knew, THAT is the only thing which would've prevented the war.

Sorry, I just don't buy it.  It was poor writing based on the misguided need to keep the story centered around the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent.  But I'm not going to keep harping on it, so I'm peacing out on the subject.

Edited August 23 by proserpina65

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

A lot of this list relies on Rhaenyra knowing things the viewer has seen but she has not.  Which, imo, makes her trip to KL to talk to Alicent stupid and pointless unless she had intended to bend the knee to Aegon, because based on what she actually knew, THAT is the only thing which would've prevented the war.

Sorry, I just don't buy it.  It was poor writing based on the misguided need to keep the story centered around the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent.  But I'm not going to keep harping on it, so I'm peacing out on the subject.

I don't think anything on the list of things I think Rhae knows/believes relies on things that she hasn't directly been involved in or that she wouldn't have experienced off-screen.

She knows how Viserys is from 35+ years of experience with him. 

There was a scene explicitly where Daemon complained to her about how the Greens had Viserys blasted.

There wasn't an express scene of a given house saying "Well, if Ali says it was a deathbed switch to Aegon, it must be true" but I do think it is an obvious inference that is available to Rhae.

I think it's safe to say that Rhae knows how devout Ali pretends to be, from draping the Throne Room in seven-pointed-stars to having been chastised by her about rule-following. There's a friendship of 20ish years.

Rhae has similarly known Aegon his entire life. Admittedly, she doesn't know some of the particulars, but Aegon doesn't exactly hide his unfitness to be king under a bushel.

The level of control Ali might have over Aegon is perhaps speculation/wishful thinking. But again, knowing Aegon's character it's also a reasonable conclusion that a teenager will listen to his mom still.

Rhae explicitly said that Ali told her she would be a good queen in a recent episode, so that is something that she experienced.

Anyway, good discussion and fine to agree to disagree.