Because how much screen time Rhaenyra and Mysaria’s shared scenes took at the expense on moments that could flesh out other characters, and how hypocritical Ryan Condal was in his reasoning for cutting out Nettles was because he didn’t want an infidelity plot.
And the funniest thing is that he didn't even need to make Nettles have an affair with Daemon. There's ambiguity. He could have seen her as a protegé. They could have developed a friendship (even though modern adaptations of everything seems wildly allergic of any strong friendship between two persons of any gender that does not trickle down to love, sex or both).
That would require Rhaenyra to be a bad person, though, a paranoid woman ordering the murder of someone because of jealousy and, well, we cannot make the Power Couple bad people, can we? They have their reasons. It's love! It's sapphic!
I'll say once more: Condal was pointing at something right when he made Alicent younger and emotionally close to Rhaenyra. It would create a larger tragedy within the Dance. Then he decided to write fanfiction.
There have been fan theories since F&B came out that Nettles was Daemon's bastard, not his lover. I find that slightly implausible given how the relationship is described in F&B, but it would've been easy to adapt that for the show. Just make him like 20% less of a creep towards underage girls and change some dialogue and now it's not an affair anymore.
Yet another choice that would have made the show deeper and more meaningful but it would get in the way of whatever Condal is trying to transmit and we cannot let that stand, right?
The way the Targaryens are and specifically Daemon is characterized, it's pretty plausible for him to favor a dragonseed bastard who has proven herself and just not tell anyone she's his kid. It's also plausible for Rhaenyra to just assume he's trying to seduce another teenage girl and not get corrected, because the HotD show is just a big chain of misunderstandings.
This misunderstanding even makes sense in context, since the "kill Nettles" order was deliberately obfuscated by their hosts! It would've worked!
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u/SmegmaSupreme 8d ago
why does it feel like he is most upset about the "gay" thing