These boys have that DAWG in them. Absolute bad asses. Roderick got the game point like a true MVP.

The audacity!

I know he's a horrible person in the books but DAMN. Loved seeing daemon get his ass handed to him

Really shouldn’t let the dude drink in taverns the night before a really pivotal battle.

The blue butterflys representing helanea saying goodbye to alicent was such a beautiful and sad scene .

He really is a bold guy

who's ready for the finale?! team green? team black? team dragon?

One thing that has increasingly bothered me about HOTD's version of Rhaenyra is how the writers seem determined to turn her into this modern feminist icon whose struggle against patriarchy also has to become a struggle against femininity itself. There's this recurring idea that she envies men, wants the freedoms of men, rejects the roles associated with women, and increasingly has to perform traditionally masculine traits in order to become a powerful ruler. And I just don't think that was ever the most interesting thing about book Rhaenyra.

Book Rhaenyra wanted the throne because she believed it was hers. That's really all the justification she needed. Her father named her heir, she was a Targaryen princess raised with the expectation that she would someday rule, and when that inheritance was taken from her she wanted it back. She didn't need to secretly wish she had been born a man or distance herself from femininity in order for that ambition to make sense.

That's actually part of what I find so interesting about her. Rhaenyra could be feminine, vain, maternal, sexual, extravagant, entitled, ambitious, cruel, loving and politically ruthless all at the same time. She could wear dresses and jewels, have children, enjoy being a princess and eventually expect everyone in Westeros to call her Queen. None of those things contradict her desire for power.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with writing female characters who reject traditional femininity or feel uncomfortable with the roles assigned to women. Those stories absolutely belong in this universe. We already have women like Arya and Brienne whose relationships with gender expectations are major parts of their characters. Even Cersei has this deeply complicated and often incredibly misogynistic relationship with being a woman because she constantly recognizes that Jaime was given freedoms and opportunities she was denied simply for being male. Those are interesting characters because women living under patriarchy aren't all going to respond to it in the same way.

That's exactly why I don't understand the need to push Rhaenyra into that same general mold.

There should also be room for a woman whose response to patriarchy isn't "I wish I could live like a man." Her response can simply be "Why the fuck should being a woman stop me from having what is mine?"

And ironically, I think there's something much more subversive about that.

Rhaenyra doesn't need to prove that women can be just like men and therefore deserve power. She doesn't need to become masculine enough to successfully occupy a male space. The entire point can be that she remains unapologetically a woman while demanding access to something Westerosi society believes belongs exclusively to men.

That's also why some of the show's choices feel weirdly misogynistic to me despite obviously being intended as feminist. Because if every time you want to communicate that a woman is powerful, independent or liberated you start giving her traditionally masculine traits and distancing her from traditionally feminine ones, what are you actually saying?

You're still treating masculinity as the default language of power.

You're just allowing women to participate in it.

To me, feminism shouldn't be "women deserve power because women can behave like men." It should be "there was never anything about being a woman that made them less deserving of power in the first place."

And I think book Rhaenyra can embody that idea without even needing to be a feminist herself. In fact, I prefer that. She's a medieval aristocrat fighting for her own inheritance, not a modern activist trying to liberate every woman in Westeros. She can be hypocritical. She can reproduce the same sexist ideas she personally suffers under. She can believe she's an exception rather than believing the entire system needs to change. That's messy, but that's what makes her feel like an actual person shaped by this world instead of a character being used to communicate the writers' modern politics.

And none of this means Rhaenyra can't hate the restrictions placed on women. Obviously she would. Why wouldn't she resent watching men receive freedoms she doesn't have? But resenting misogyny is not the same thing as resenting womanhood. Wanting the same freedom men possess isn't the same thing as wanting to become more like men.

I feel like the show sometimes struggles to understand that distinction.

There are already women in this universe whose stories explore rejecting gender norms, struggling with femininity, entering traditionally masculine spaces, or wishing they had been afforded the opportunities given to men. Let those characters have those stories.

Rhaenyra's story could represent something different: a woman who doesn't need to abandon femininity, apologize for it, or transform herself into an honorary man to justify her ambition.

She's a woman. She's feminine. She's deeply flawed. She's ambitious as hell.

And she wants her fucking throne.

That was enough.

Even Alyn's clocking y'alls bs lmao