š£ļø every word that came out of alicent's mouth in s2 in regards to aemond and aegon is bad writing. she condemns aegon to public death and aemond to death in battle because she believes - and the writers believe - and we are meant to believe - that they deserve to die, that they are both so irredeemable and fundamentally worthless as human beings because of their crimes (many of which they committed by c&h's own creative choice) that their continued existence is a shameful thorn in alicent's side. the only one she cares about now is helaena because of her "innocence." to have them wiped from existence would be a sort of cleansing for alicent and a reasonable price to pay for her freedom and the end of the war.
like.... in what world??? how am i supposed to buy that aegon and aemond are any worse than daemon?? than viserys? but only the men who support rhaenyra get redemption arcs, even when those redemption arcs do nothing to address the rot in their characters. daemon's most problematic trait isn't that he coveted his wife's throne. it's that he's a misogynist who was physically violent with said wife after he groomed her as a child in retaliation for a conflict with his brother (and i happen to like the guy!!!). it's that he's dismissive of women in general, including laena and his daughters, and was downright nasty to rhea for the entirety of their marriage until he onscreen!murdered her. and okay, some of these, like aemond and aegon's, are fanon crimes, but none of this is ever brought up, none of this is addressed in any meaningful way, it's okay because he bends the knee to rhaenyra and builds her an army and swears to never leave her. redemption. he is a man cleansed of his sins and we must accept him as such.
but aegon and aemond? who are much younger than him? were written off by the narrative long ago. it doesn't matter that aegon got a few sympathetic scenes this season; the fact that they made his mother offer up his life to rhaenyra (and that the scene approves of her decision by framing her as finally free underneath an open sky, with the belief that it's just her and helaena now) tells us everything we need to know.
So basically House of the Dragon is Ryan Condal's masterclass in how NOT to adapt a book for television.
This show could have been epic and that's really sad.
psa: after all these leaks coming out, im only writing based on the books now. There is no way in hell that I can take this season as inspiration. What a way to ruin characters and a storyline. Such a waste.
We waited almost two years for this fucking nonsense. Itās just tiring at this point.
Y/n Celtigar
Young lady of house Celtigar
Lady wife of prince Aemond Targaryen
Mother of princes Rhaegar and Baelon Targaryen
Daemon Targaryen
Prince of house Targaryen
King Consort to Queen Rhaenyra I Targaryen
my masterlist series masterlist
EWAN MITCHELL as AEMOND TARGARYEN in the final House of the Dragon season two trailer
so, now that the season is over, can i just vent about how useless and borderline tasteless those aemond/sylvi scenes were? maybe not tasteless, as ewan wasn't filmed naked against his will or coerced like the og GOT actresses were, but i certainly didn't feel whatever it was they were trying to get me to feel by watching those brothel scenes. while i can empathize with the plight of the smallfolk and will always stand up for sex workers, it just didn't work for me in this context. yes, as a big fan of aemond, there was a part of me that wanted to see him express some degree of vulnerability this season, but with his own fucking family and not at the expense of seeing the brothel madame from s1 again! anyone who is in or even on the fringes of the HOTD fandom knows what an issue the conversation surrounding sylvi was back in 1x09, and i feel like this was a move to capitalize on aemond's popularity, set the stage for his preference of older women once he meets alys, or maybe even just filling the nudity quota as per hbo's standards. i mean, damn, if they're going to put aemond in a position of romantic or sexual intimacy, can they just save that shit for his semi-canonical love interest? hell, i would rather he be demanded to bring floris baratheon to court, which would do that job of opening up conversation about whatever is going on in the stormlands and how borros is choosing the handle the war effort on his end! sylvi is not a character we know or care about on the same level of the main cast and i doubt she's going to leave a significant impact on who aemond is going forward, so why shove this glorified extra in our faces and attach them to a character who was/is kinda the dark horse breakout fave of s1? she adds nothing to him or the story beyond another smallfolk pov - which we already have with mysaria and the dragonseeds! what a waste of time. š
I agree. The purpose of these scenes was to humiliate the character or make him laughable for having "mommy issues" and literally drinking milk and laying in an older woman's arms. And all that so they could also include Aegon bullying him for it because otherwise he had no motivation to want to kill him all of a sudden. It is extra icky with the implication that this is the first woman Aemond was ever with as a literal child when he was brought to her to "get it wet." I don't think the show handles discussion and portrayal of sex in this show at all. Despite its "sex positive" attitude toward Rhaenyra it seems it shames every other character when it comes to sex: Aegon having his penis exploded, Aemond having mommy issues cuddling his abuser and drinking milk, the voyeuristic sex of Alicole included only for shock value and shaming the characters for being hypocrites, the lack of recognition of Alicent's inability to refuse Viserys and that marital rape scene seemingly just used to contrast with Rhaenyra's sexual liberation... To say this show is weird about sex and mixed with its messaging is saying the least.
having one faction being written as only heroic and awesome and the other being written as only villainous and awful negates the original message of grrmās original work, btw. itās kind of interesting to see how these characters are written (the greens being a dysfunctional family who donāt seem to like each other vs the blacks being given positive traits that belong to the greens in the books, or simply not writing things if the source material that could make the blacks seem not heroic) and how fans take this very seriously. itās partly a result of the marketing strategy for season two, the whole āeveryone much choose a side thingā because thatās⦠not the point of this war, at all. but itās also the writing and itās very deliberately very obviously pro targaryen, especially with the whole āaegon conquered westeros for the good of the worldā thing they have going on. which is an incredibly strange take. i think itās really telling when you compare how the tragedies are written. rhaenyraās loss of her children is obviously and rightfully tragic. her journey in episode one of season two was so tragic and so beautiful because you donāt hear her speak until the end of the episode, when she finally realizes her son is gone. but you also have her riding a dragon immediately after giving birth to her stillborn daughter, who is never mentioned again, if i recall correctly, and that doesnāt seem⦠possible. but with the greens, you have a very horrific and traumatic event via the brutal murder of jaehaerys being reduced to two silly men committing a crime, when that crime was the beheading of, like, a five year old. you then have his grandmother having sex while this is happening, in an attempt to blame her for it, which is genuinely so infuriating. idk why i made this post, i saw that season two wasnāt even nominated for best television drama and i was just like. yeah i know thatās right. you cannot expect an show adaptation of a very well-known series from a very well-known author to do well when you completely ignore the original source material and then claim your interpretation is better or the truth. itās simply insisting on itself and itās simply pissing on the tragedy of the dance of the dragons and itās simply exhausting.
And the award for the worst TV adaptation goes to...
Two messy bitches who love drama
SPOILERS-HOTD LEAKS
Aemond being physically aggressive towards his sister and Haelena telling him that heās going to die and that basically no one will care are the most OOC things I can imagine for both characters. That being the case, I donāt even know why Aemond still wants to fight, since he knows that no one supports him and I canāt find a single reason why he should go to Harrenhall at this point. He should go to Essos and spend the rest of his days enjoying life and not giving a shit about anything
LEAKS!!!!! BEWARE!!!!!! Answer under the cut<3
THE MOST OOC SHIT THIS SHOW HAS GIVEN US!!!!!!!! Iāll die on this hill when I say Aemond would NEVER get physical with his loved ones!!
Ryan is telling me that I have to believe Aemond is nicer to a sex worker rather than HIS OWN MOTHER AND SISTER!!????????????
Oh I deeply need him to leave EVERYONE behind and leave because no one gives a single flying fuck about him so why should he even TRY to fight for them? He should leave for Essos and have good sex with essosi wine
GRRM basically saying that Condal has no idea of what he is doing and that HOTD is heading for disaster if they don't abandon the changes planned for S3 and S4 was not necessarily on my 2024 bingo card š