"The Choosing" Part 2 of my The Last Temptation of Lord Commander Snow has arrived!
I explore how Martin shows that good men can be bad kings: by presenting Jon as a brooding, Byronic hero whose leadership is challenged by his morality.
Freak out over the feet thing all you want, but by the creepiest moment of the episode was **the way Otto told Alicent she looked like her mother** after she dressed him down. 🤢
Rhaenyra and Rhaenys’ sharp dialogue in this week’s episode resonated with me deeply and I can’t stop thinking:
At its best GOT, used *sociological* storytelling to show the brutal intersection between the personal and political.
#HotD
is doing the same, and perhaps better.
Many people have been asking ... what is up with the sexy paintings or tapestries in the Red Keep? Do they show Targaryens FUCKING DRAGONS? How many of them are there?
Yup. And they're ALL OVER Targ private rooms and unofficial common areas.
A BREAKDOWN.
#HotD
I thought Aemma Targaryen’s death was horrifying, validating, and deeply moving. I had traumatic emergency c-section and the climax of
#HouseoftheDragon
’s first episode was like a gut punch combined with fingernails on a chalk board. For me, it was the opposite of gratuitous.
⚖️🐉 Oyez! Oyez! 🐉 ⚖️ Learned Hands, the Official Podcast of the Westerosi Bar Association, has issued “Hands on HotD: Episode 1 - Heirs of the Dragon”
A legal-ish breakdown of
#HouseoftheDragon
Season 1, Episode 1.
The more I think about, the more I will never be over alicent walking in on her son whacking off out a window and then 30 seconds later telling him he is the rightful king
Thread: Even though Jon Snow is a good guy, we should be careful not to read him as an unambiguous hero.
Jon is not heroic for refusing the crown. Instead, Jon’s desire to avoid political responsibility is openly framed as a flaw.
Y’all I met Emilia Clarke and she complimented my dress. It’s been a rough couple weeks and 10 seconds of her warmth absolutely helped turn it around ❤️🐉❤️🐉
Aemma’s death is NOT portrayed as a necessary sacrifice—it’s as pointless as the violence of the tournament the show intercuts with the birth.
It’s brutal and bleak. I live in a country that just over turned Roe v Wade, so it’s fucking cathartic to show forced birth that way.
Viserys told Aemma he loved her before her ordered her bloody death—it haunts me. It speaks to a sick, uniquely male vision of what love is—to put a women on a pedestal, strip away her choices, and worship some idealized, fertile mother instead of a person with her own desires.
You’re missing the point if your take away was that *Viserys* had no choice. The scene works because it centers Aemma’s powerlessness. She’s told Viserys her pregnancies have been miserable. Rhaenyra remarks the maesters and maids are their for the baby, and not for her.
The Thrones cliche is the Hand eats and the King takes the shit. Here, men make choices and women suffer the consequences—they die, are married, watch their children die, all while men deny them power over their bodies and lives. That’s a modern story, as much as a medieval one.
The patriarchy from which Viserys participates and benefits has already chosen—neither the maesters nor the laws and norms that name male children heirs care if Aemma lives or dies. Aemma is so irrelevant no one thinks to tell her she’s been sentenced to die screaming.
I’m overall very positive on what we got from HotD season 2
BUT WBD is an asshole for unceremoniously cutting two episodes from the season after it was written. Artists and fans deserve better.
The birth scene and the funeral make me ache in a way TV rarely has. Rhaenyra is left alone at the tourney to grieve and then made to carry her father’s grief as she burns her own mother and the son she grew up watching her father pine for—that’s *women’s* burden and battle too.
I wanted to approach this with some of my trademark nuance, but all I really have to say after this episode is
1 - I love Rhaenyra
2 - the greens suck really fucking hard
3 - I WEPT FOR LAENA
When Theon comes back to Winterfell, he will repeat Jon’s advice back to him and help Jon resolve his feelings about his identity and Ned.
“You never lost him, he’s a part of you, just like he’s a part of me. You don’t have to choose. You’re a Greyjoy and a Stark.”
Been thinking about Alicent telling Rhaenyra that Aegon came “without a fuss.”
It’s hurtful because of how Aemma died and because she knows Rhaenyra doesn’t want kids. It emphasizes how no one is here for HER.
It reminds me a lot of things women said to me while I was pregnant.
It is worth repeating—critiquing the pointless patriarchy is not even subtext in
#HouseOfTheDragon
— it’s text. You don’t have to watch brutal violence if it’s too much for you, but to decry showing violence as *inherently* anti-feminist is condescending and illiterate.
Aemma’s death is NOT portrayed as a necessary sacrifice—it’s as pointless as the violence of the tournament the show intercuts with the birth.
It’s brutal and bleak. I live in a country that just over turned Roe v Wade, so it’s fucking cathartic to show forced birth that way.
Rewatched
#HotD
Ep 1, and a sad thought struck me listening to the opening narration by Emma D’arcy. What if that’s Rhaenyra giving a history lesson to one of her children, one of the heirs to the iron throne?
In our culture demagoguery and selfishness are at an all time high, so it is timely if Cersei is the endgame villain in Game of Thrones. The past 100 years of history practically scream that the greatest threat to humanity is underestimating *human* evil.
Part I of my essay analyzing Jon's decision-making in aDwD is out! The Last Temptation of Lord Commander Snow argues that unlike in the show, Jon is a strategic liar and oath-breaker, motivated by love and vengeance as much as duty and honor.
Thread: The argument between Sansa/the North and Jon/team Dany is 💯 a realistic political struggle with no clearly correct side. Westeros has been decimated by war and barely has the resources to feed its people through winter, let alone supply armies to fight the dead.
I've been thinking about the parallel between Dany and Anakin this entire season and it absolutely breaks my heart. Dany burning King's Landing absolutely feels like Anakin murdering the Padawans...not sure, what that means for this episode, for better or worse.
Revenge of the Sith is one of my guilty pleasures. (I know everyone hates it). I can't stop thinking about it after tonight. Is Jon going to be telling this to Dany next episode?
#GameofThrones
#StarWars
what the fuck, how is this episode already giving me EVERYTHING I wanted in the first 20 minutes
a middle finger to the iron precedent
rhaenyra and laenor agreeing to be open
Corlys Rhaenys romance
Lyonel as hand
a pretty beach
Daemon getting owned by his wife
The biggest flaw with ASOIAF is that the POV chapters are not actually Roman numerated in the books. I have been forced to defile every book by adding them. Chaotic neutral or chaotic evil?
People keep talking about Criston Cole being hot, and while they are not wrong, it’s Daemon that is really hitting me in the problematic sexy daddy feels.
If Jon and Daenerys are foils, then Jon’s willingness to set aside duty and political power is the mirror of Daenerys’ single minded ambition and entitlement to her birthright.
If the song of ice and fire longs for balance, then both those extremes may be wrong.
Rhaenys at Aegon’s coronation was not the first time that Otto “kind forgot” about the power of dragons—back in episode 2, he underestimated Daemon and Caraxes at Dragonstone and Rhaenyra had to bail him out on Syrax. Small detail, but an interesting little parallel misstep.
Arya's perspective in the Bells reminds me of Guernica, Picasso's anti-war masterpiece painting in response to the destruction and lost of innocent life during the firebombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Modern reactions to Guernica mirror my reaction to the Bells.
I’ve been on this soapbox for a while: GRRM wrote Fire and Blood as a condemnation of the Targaryens and all hereditary monarchy. I’m feeling vindicated and believe this message is why he rushed to release it to help give more context to the ending of the show.
Jon Snow is a beautiful deconstruction of mythological hero: Jon is Aragon reaching Gondor and finding an implacable city of Denethors, a Luke Skywalker who never finds the words to turn his father, an Arthur who never had a Camelot to lose.
Match 49: Jon Snow (8) vs Cersei Lannister (57)
Jon makes his debut against family nemesis Cersei. He may be The Prince That Was Promised, destined to lead the battle against the Others. Cersei tries to rule in a nest of vipers for which she is partly responsible
#asongofmadness
Me, a book nerd: Power resides where men believe it resides.
My husband, a show watcher: Man, I was sad when [Varys] died. He was the most honest character on Game of Thrones.
The Black and Green trailers are a thesis and anti-thesis, told from the point of view women arguing for power but denied freedom. They ask us to supply a synthesis: that both Rhaenyra and Alicent are dehumanized by patriarchy, unable to take control of their lives or emotions.
🩸⚖️OYEZ, OYEZ⚖️🧀
In this very special 🚨EMERGENCY POD🚨 Merry & Clint go in depth and loooooooong on
#HouseOfTheDragon
and the dueling trailers they've released for season 2.
“Theon is the character I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses.”
- GRRM
I’ve been thinking lately about the similarities between Theon and Hamlet—two princes who struggle with action and consequence, familial loyalty, self-identity, and death. Thread.
If there is no Mushroom in
#HotD
then it is indisputable, canon fact that Archmaester Gyldayn invented him because he was into writing smutty, real person fanfic.
The combination of discomfort and pleasure in this episode felt raw and intimate. Director Claire Kilner’s female gaze made both the agency and power disparities of the characters the focus sex scenes—which lets us feel and experience the murkiness and complexity of consent.
🐉 ⚖️ Oyez! Oyez! 🐉 ⚖️ Hands on HOTD have dropped our *extensive opinions* of concerning the King of the Narrow Sea feat
@fagittarius_jd
!
After hours of deliberation, we conclude that consent is sexy and so is Criston Cole.
I cannot emotionally, financially, or collaboratively support David after witnessing the hurtful way he has treated not only Mallory, but other friends and content creators.
Actions reveal our values. David’s actions do not match his words.
Therefore, I join in this statement
Alicent’s cathartic but unsettling boiling over was a darkly, poetic spectacle. An alchemical dance of thwarted desire and repressed rage set the tone for
#Driftmark
The dutiful child bride who scratched her nails until she bled has grown up, furious and entangled in patriarchy.
🐉 ⚖️ OYEZ OYEZ 🐉 ⚖️ Hands on HotD have issued opinions on the allegedly purloined Vhaegar, the fate of Laenor Velayron, and Rhaenyra’s courtship of her uncle Daemon on
#HouseOfTheDragon
Episode 7
#Driftmark
Hi friends.
Most of you are used to using she/her pronouns for me. I am asking you all to please use they/them pronouns for me going forward.
For now, please accept that this is part of an effort to honor myself and it’s been a long time coming.
The finale of Game of Thrones finally captured a key element of Jon’s book character—Jon wants to do the right thing, but his human heart cannot help but let love cloud reason.
Like Ned, family comes before duty and honor for Jon Snow—even if Jon will not admit it to himself.
Watching Viserys play with model Valyria in the show: awww what a sweet dad hobby
Watching blood gush through model valyria in the opening credits: oh god what a fucking goth horror show
#HotD
#HotD
is making a strong attempt to show sexism is systemic. When we’re evaluating characters’ actions and beliefs, we should look for the ways sexist systems influence them.
The lords at the (not-so) Great Council are one example—so are the Maesters at Aemma’s death.
🧵
Absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but denying power has not made Jon Snow pure—it has made him culpable.
Sansa and Varys—as impure and in tune with power as they might be—are meant to show us that Jon avoiding the crown was flawed, not heroic.
The earliest, clearest depiction of sexy dragon time come in the first episode, in the tapestry above Aemma's bed during her death scene (yuck). Her room has at least three separate pieces of orgy art. The one with the most clear dragon-sex is above her bed.
“Regent” was episode of people stewing in their vibes. Grief and anger, frustration and impotence, guilt and repression, horror and imprisonment, regret and longing. The more I reflect on it as about mood, rather than plot, the more appreciate it.