Rhaenyra Targaryen Is Not Very Bright: A Hater's Analysis - Part 1
Of Valyrians, Empress Matilda, and 'civilians don't count'.
In my previous article, I discussed my feelings about George R.R. Martin’s books. I highlighted some positive elements, such as the author’s approach to gender and disability, although I also shared some pet peeves and larger issues with GRRM’s style and philosophy.
I also discussed my frustrations with Game of Thrones, particularly the Daenerys plotline and her character, which I feel was always presented in a manipulative way, with a moral disconnect between Dany's actions and how we are prompted to react to them. This was present from the first season, although many viewers overlooked Dany’s darker side until the final episodes.
Background
I didn't read Fire and Blood, the source material on which House of the Dragon is based. As such, I will try to keep comparisons with the source to a minimum. I am more interested in assessing House of the Dragon as a) a standalone drama in its own right, and b) an appendage of Game of Thrones, set in the same universe. I will discuss a few differences with the source material, though, where it helps to shed light on writer bias.
First, a brief outline of the premise - HotD begins about 170 years before GoT, in a time when the Targaryens still had dragons. However, the family breaks down into civil war on the death of King Viserys, dividing the realm into two parties - the Blacks (led by Rhaenyra, Viserys’ eldest daughter), and the Greens (led by Aegon, his eldest son). The resulting war leads to the loss of the dragons, and the ruling family is permanently weakened. Essentially, the core idea is that no-one wins, everyone loses, and there aren't necessarily any heroes in this conflict. The scenario is loosely based on the Anarchy, in which Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I1, fought her cousin, Stephen of Blois, for the throne of England.
As I'm not going to be nice about the show as a whole, I feel I should say something positive at the top. If there's anything praiseworthy, it is the core cast, who are so convincing in their roles that you often think that a scene was good, until you think about the logistics for two seconds and realise you've been bamboozled again. The music and cinematography are also immaculate, and like the cast often trick you into thinking you're watching a better story than you really are. Probably, the best way to consume HotD would be in a dubbed foreign language without subtitles. Also, turn the brightness and saturation up, for God's sake. The interiors are pitch dark even in broad daylight, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many windows there are or what time of year it’s supposed to be.
In the manner of Martin Luther, I am going to lay out my complaints against the show piecemeal with subheadings, hopefully in a sane order that is not too hard to follow. These first two articles are going to cover Rhaenyra Targaryen, the de facto protagonist, a character who irritates me in many ways. As such, it will have fewer pictures than usual, because getting screencaps of my own would involve re-watching Rhaenyra’s scenes, which isn’t good for my blood pressure.
Rhaenyra's framing
The framing of Rhaenyra Targaryen as the show’s heroine is by far my single biggest overriding complaint about House of the Dragon, which informs all subsequent complaints. This is a core weakness of the show - it claims to be morally grey and to present both sides as somewhat sympathetic, yet the framing of 'feminist vs anti-feminist' means that the writers ultimately have to give Rhaenyra favourable treatment, because she's a proxy for the 21st century audience and the writers’ own stated worldview.
If treating Rhaenyra favourably simply meant that we don't see her do bad things or express bad attitudes, that would be one thing2. However, the show actually does show her do things which range from sketchy to downright reprehensible, yet we still keep being told that she is upright and justified in all she does. For instance, she is very much framed as a 'Valyrian supremacist' who believes that she, and people like her, are innately superior to others, and this gives her the right to treat her subjects badly (more on this later)3. The show is never energetic in condemning this attitude, and prefers to either gloss over or justify the crimes Rhaenyra commits, which tend to be directly related to this bigoted and self-centred worldview (see below).
Any negative press the show gives Rhaenyra is also vastly overshadowed by the far more negative depiction of the Greens, and by the overriding narrative that Rhaenyra is a worthy queen who is being treated unjustly. We are constantly reminded that she is the rightful ruler, per the king's will, and is also the number one victim, because Westeros hates women, you see, and that's surely the only factor worth considering in this conflict.
Rhaenyra and Alicent
Rhaenyra's contrast with Alicent, Aegon's mother and her own childhood friend, is an especially obvious example of the rough treatment the show gives the Greens4. Rhaenyra is shown as a good and doting mother, and the show has infinite time for her maternal emotions, whereas Alicent, her rival, is largely a terrible mother incapable of showing affection to her children5, and also surprisingly indifferent to the murder of her grandchild by Rhaenyra’s husband.
Tellingly, Alicent was described by the showrunners as 'a woman for Trump' - clearly, there was never any intention of giving this character a fair hearing, and perusing any Reddit thread or Youtube comment section you will find many people who think of themselves as good feminists delighting in the misfortunes and indignities suffered by Alicent, which she surely deserves for being a traitor to the sisterhood6. Sadly, Alicent seldom transcends her status as a crude political caricature, despite a fantastic performance from Olivia Cooke.
The closest thing Alicent gets to a 'redemption' according to the show's moral framework is her apparently going over to Rhaenyra's side at the end of Season 2, during which she is belittled by the latter. Rhaenyra tells Alicent that history will remember her as 'a cold queen grasping for power', even as Alicent offers an unconditional surrender. The lack of self-awareness in this line is truly staggering, and I can only hope that the writers meant it to be ironic7. The chances of that are 50/50 at best, but either way, it's lost on much of the audience, many of whom just see ‘Rhaenyra good Alicent bad’. In this conversation, Alicent apparently agrees to the execution of her own son Aegon, whose fate she certainly should feel responsible for8, and the viewer is apparently supposed to think that this is good behaviour.
This scene, among many others, unequivocally defines Rhaenyra as the centre of the show's moral universe - you are defined as good or evil based solely on whether you support Rhaenyra or not. Other loyalties or responsibilities you may have are not admissible even as mitigating factors.
Is this a good basis for a gritty, complex political drama?
There is a possibility that this is all an elaborate fakeout from Alicent and the writers, and that the turning point in Alicent's relationship with her son is imminent. But even if that turns out to be the case, the damage is already done. The original moral framing would still be left intact, in the form of 'we thought Alicent had turned good but she's actually still evil!'
‘Rhaenicent’
As a smaller side-note before moving on, the show has also hinted that Rhaenyra and Alicent are secretly in love/bitter exes. These hints are practically textual at this point, and the writers seemed to have leaned into this angle in Season 2, reacting to the popularity with shippers9.
Personally, I don’t like this angle very much - it seems to trivialise the nature of the conflict, placing too much emphasis on this one relationship, and makes the show come across as soapier than it is already.
Rhaenyra vs Empress Matilda
To fully understand the problems with Rhaenyra as the heroine of the show, however, we need to look at the foundation of the show's plot - the idea that all opposition to her is innately illegitimate and metaphysically evil.
When we consider the difficulties of trying to impose a controversial female heir on unwilling subjects in a real medieval kingdom, it's pretty clear that Viserys (the king) had done less than the bare minimum to prepare his daughter, his family or his subjects for this outcome. For reference, consider the following meme (not my OC):
This meme is perhaps a little too kind to Henry, but hits many nails on the head, and in the process demonstrates the weakness of the show's critique of feudal monarchy. In a real feudal state, you could do everything right and still end up with a catastrophic civil war, simply because of the way that society was organised. In HotD, meanwhile, everything that goes wrong is a foreseeable, obvious, avoidable result of bad statesmanship, complacency and sheer stupidity.
Also, note that Henry was an active and capable monarch who had to deal with many wars, rebellions and crises in his lifetime, contrary to the 'nepo-baby' image of royals in Westeros, who as a rule are passive, entitled, and incompetent at best.
Having thought about all the prudent steps that Henry I took to prepare his daughter Matilda and to secure the loyalty of her subjects, we have to recognise the fact that this still didn't work, for a number of reasons. Medieval England was, rather obviously, a patriarchal society, which has a number of implications: a) a queen was less acceptable than a king, even when the king's claim was weaker10, and b) Matilda becoming queen would have meant her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, becoming de facto king. Anjou was a traditional rival of Normandy, and Henry (not to mention his subjects) did not trust his son in law, denying him and Matilda access to important Norman castles that would have made Matilda's succession more secure.
Daemon as de facto king
In HotD, we have a parallel in this with Daemon, Viserys' younger brother, who is not Angevin, but is a bloodthirsty, impulsive sociopath who always had designs on the throne, and is now Rhaenyra's husband (GRRM is crazy about incest). As a result of the brothers' strained relationship (I assume, it's never explained), there was a period of years in which the king did not see his daughter or his grandchildren, which didn't send a clear message about the succession to his subjects, many of whom were never even asked to swear oaths to Rhaenyra11. As such, the king's will might have been clear to those closest to him, but it was definitely not being broadcast effectively to the realm.
The Daemon issue also made Rhaenyra's claim much more undesirable, because her succession would be the closest thing to handing the throne to Daemon, which Viserys had previously tried to avoid at all costs, and for good reason. For Rhaenyra to have married Daemon at all seems very stupid when you think about it for more than two seconds, given his volatile behaviour and atrocious reputation - he murdered his first wife and stole her family’s lands, mutilated criminals during his spell as head of the capital's police force12, assaults messengers, commits numerous other murders, steals dragon eggs from his family, attempts to seduce his niece, and is generally a brooding, entitled menace to society.
Matt Smith's performance makes the character entertaining, funny and even somewhat likeable, but we shouldn't lose sight of the basic fact that he's a nasty piece of work and not a person you would want near power13.
He also seems perfectly able to dominate Rhaenyra, and it’s obvious that the lords of the kingdom would rather be taking orders from a man. So, Rhaenyra as queen would either translate to Daemon as king, or at the very least an unstable and volatile kingdom torn between the two parties.
However, this obvious, sound, concrete reason to keep Rhaenyra away from the throne is overshadowed by the narrative that the opposition to Rhaenyra is built on baseless prejudice against her personally. To this end, the most prominent member of Rhaenyra's own council is a cardboard cutout sexist nobleman, who is boorish, tactless, arrogant and disrespectful, and a traitor to boot. He is hardly even a character, just a caricature existing to remind the viewer that Westeros is sexist and Rhaenyra, the most privileged person in the room, is actually being oppressed at all times, even by someone with a fraction of her power and influence who she could easily dismiss and replace. The Green council has a very similar character, who might as well be played by the same actor.
Cup-bearing blues and misplaced grievance
In Season 2, Rhaenyra is seen admiring pictures of Visenya (her sword-wielding female ancestor) and self-pityingly remarks that instead of giving her a sword, her father gave her his cup. This refers to a point in Season 1 when a teenage Rhaenyra was invited to serve as the king's cup-bearer in council. This was a real position in medieval courts, and a prestigious one - it implied total trust in the cup-bearer, who would guard the king's cup from being poisoned, and could also be trusted to attend his councils and keep his secrets.
For Rhaenyra, therefore, this post should have been taken as a sign of her father's trust. It meant access to the king's ruling council and a chance to observe and learn about the actual business of government. However, she resented and complained about the post, considering it demeaning, and wanting to have an active role in ruling despite being a teenager with no experience14.
In short, she was given the opportunity to learn to govern, saw it as beneath her, and to this day still thinks that her father was being unjust to her. Viserys would subsequently double and triple down on his commitment to having Rhaenyra as his heir, at the cost of his relationship with his wife, his sons, his advisors and his subjects. He even did so knowing that it would more than likely start a civil war, yet decades later his favourite child still resents him for not indulging a self-important fifteen year old sufficiently.
It's all the more absurd that Rhaenyra should voice grievance over this early effort to include her as heir15, when she has far better reasons to resent her father. She should be complaining about the fact she was apparently excluded from court for years after her marriage to Daemon, when she should have been with her father learning to rule and building her influence in the royal court.
Rhaenyra's isolation
The fact that Rhaenyra is absent from court for so long is so against her interests that it's really a plot hole, particularly as the show offers us no in-universe explanation. The meta explanation is that it exists to heighten the drama when Rhaenyra (and the audience) sees Viserys' declining health after a timeskip, yet it undermines the long-term plot and Rhaenyra's character by making her look like a negligent daughter and heir. Once again, she also looks entitled and foolish, having apparently believed that the realm would crown an absentee heir, when she already knew that she was an unpopular choice and that the king’s council was actively working against her.
She was on Dragonstone during this time, which is very close to King's Landing, and could easily have visited her father (she's a dragon rider, after all). Since she didn't, we have to assume that the reason is political.
There are a couple of possible political explanations -
a) Viserys was angry at Rhaenyra’s marriage to Daemon, and refused to see them.
b) It was Rhaenyra’s own choice to stay away, to avoid further infighting between Rhaenyra's sons and the king's.
I find a) to be the better reason, as Viserys emphatically didn't want Daemon near the throne. This was the reason Rhaenyra ended up heir in the first place, and naturally he never consented to the marriage, nor would he have if asked.
b) is simply a bad reason, because Rhaenyra's sons had been (accurately) accused of being bastards. Hiding them away from court only made Rhaenyra look even more guilty, and her sons even less legitimate, while also forfeiting all influence at court during the king's final years. This was both an eternity in politics and a critical time in terms of securing the succession.
Whatever the in-universe reason, Rhaenyra should never have accepted this de facto exile from court, and the fact that she did suggests extreme complacency.
Rhaenyra's leadership
We see the consequences of Rhaenyra's years of passivity with her actual attempts at ruling, which have been very feeble thus far. As a ruler, Rhaenyra is:
- Openly disobeyed by Baela (Daemon's daughter), who attacks Green forces with her dragon when under orders not to engage. Rhaenyra doesn't even verbally reprimand her, others see this.
- Openly disobeyed and disrespected by Jace, her son. Doesn't reprimand him.
- Openly disrespected in council by cardboard cutout man, with whom she frequently argues. She tells him at one point that he has no more military experience than her, which makes one wonder what he's doing in the war council. Eventually, she finds a pretext to send him away. He promptly takes the opportunity to betray her, so she's a bad judge of character on top of everything else.
- Openly disobeyed by Daemon, who until his magical lobotomy is at least consistent in his desire for the throne, and doesn't see Rhaenyra as an equal or superior.
- Goes to great lengths to speak to Alicent, ostensibly in an effort to stop the war. This makes no sense, since Aegon has already been crowned, all parties are committed, and Alicent has less power than ever since her son’s succession, which she herself pushed for.
In short, Rhaenyra is something of a pushover when it comes to her family and her supporters, shows poor judgement, and never commands respect or disciplines those who undermine her. It makes me miss Cersei, whose father was the only person capable of pushing her around.
The Dragonpit Massacre
Rhaenyra is not shy when it comes to pushing commoners around, though. In a brutal scene, she seals a group of common Targaryen bastards in with an angry dragon, in the hope that one will manage to tame it. We see people burned alive and torn apart, dying in agony while Rhaenyra looks on entranced and prevents her guards from taking action to protect the commoners. When one (Hugh Hammer, noted for his huge hammer) succeeds in taming the dragon, the scene ends on an eerie shot of a smiling Rhaenyra overlooking the carnage with her triumphant hero music in the background.
This is pretty jarring, and it's a more extreme version of the same moral disconnect between what we see and how we're told to feel that made Dany such a difficult character in GoT (see previous). Indeed, it feels like the show's approach to Rhaenyra is entirely just to duplicate the Dany formula, minus the full frontal, with more atrocities, and also more incompetence16. Evidently, though, the formula still works, particularly on those whose brains were rotted by Dany's theme music and/or Emilia's attributes back in the day.
Moreover, the Dragonpit scene is absolutely an example of Stupid Evil, in that it will definitely, obviously have foreseeable consequences. Anyone who survived being in that room would certainly hate Rhaenyra's guts, and is the last person she should want in control of a dragon. We know from the source that Hugh will betray Rhaenyra, but the show's presentation makes that outcome entirely foreseeable and entirely Rhaenyra's fault.
It will be interesting to see how the writers handle this, given their unlimited sympathy for Rhaenyra thus far, and the positive depiction of Hugh (who is one of very few upstanding, responsible, non-sex pest men alive during this period).
Will he be character assassinated? Or will the writers finally turn on Rhaenyra?
The Murdered Servant
Speaking of Rhaenyra's attitude to commoners, she also bears responsibility for the murder of a servant17, whose body was burned to make him look like her husband Laenor. This was so that she could marry Daemon, a move that was alleged to strengthen her claim (though as discussed above, the marriage had the opposite effect).
This scheme was so that Laenor - who is gay, and supported Rhaenyra's affair with Harwin - could escape to live in obscurity. In the source, Rhaenyra is alleged to have murdered Laenor; however, the show couldn't have that - it would be an example of the 'bury your gays' trope, you see, which is outdated and wrong18. So, instead an unnamed servant was murdered in cold blood (bury your poors?).
Rhaenyra absolutely must have known about this - the discussion on screen doesn't go into specifics, so as not to spoil the twist, but she must have known that the plan was to murder someone and pass off the body as Laenor's19. Even if she somehow wasn't the instigator, it clearly wasn't a deal-breaker as far as her relationship with Daemon was concerned, yet the show's narrative quickly glosses over this cold-blooded murder of a seemingly innocent man.
The discussion around this murder also supports the idea that Rhaenyra fully knew about and supported it, because in her talks with Daemon she appeals to their special and superior nature as Valyrians, and marries him in a Valyrian ceremony rather than a Westerosi one.
Evidently, she considers herself to be racially/culturally separate from and superior to her subjects, and it is in this spirit that this lowborn man is murdered for Rhaenyra's benefit.
'Civilians don't count'
This brings me to my final point of Part 1, which isn't to do with Rhaenyra directly, but with her aunt Rhaenys. Through Season 2, Rhaenys is presented as wise and peace-loving, whereas the men, we are didactically told by Rhaenys herself, are all stupid and war-loving20.
However, this is undermined by the fact that Rhaenys murdered probably tens of commoners at Aegon's coronation by bursting through the floor on a dragon, under the feet of a packed crowd. At the very least, it looks like a 'dozens dead, hundreds injured' type of situation. However, the message we were apparently supposed to take from this scene is that Rhaenys is merciful, because she spared Aegon.
An interview with the episode's writer is revealing. In response to the interviewer mentioning that Rhaenys murdered many 'civilians' (not an in-universe term but suitable), the writer (Sarah Hess) joked:
'It’s Game of Thrones — civilians don’t count!'
This seems like rather a stupid thing to say, given that the show continually pays lip service to the idea that class matters and that the commoners (called 'smallfolk' in GRRM's books) matter21. What is the point of showing us so much of the domestic lives of Hugh Hammer, Addam and Alyn, or telling us so much about Mysaria's bleak backstory, or even putting so much emphasis on the ratcatchers (oh, the ratcatchers....), if we aren't supposed to think of the smallfolk as complete people?
The very fact that the interviewer (who was by no means hostile) asked the question shows that the audience does in fact notice when 'heroes' kill large numbers of defenceless people on purpose, for no good reason22. Again, there's a moral disconnect: Rhaenys is doing something utterly evil that surely escalates the war, yet being presented as a good peacemaker.
More bizarrely still, after the death of Meleys (Rhaenys' dragon), the smallfolk are seen looking on in shock and unease as the dragon's head is carted through the streets, accompanied by sombre music. This is at most a few weeks since the very same dragon massacred an unknown number of smallfolk at the coronation in the same city. Said dragon was also enforcing a blockade that was causing the people to starve. Shouldn't they be cheering for the death of this creature?
To me, this incident illustrates better than any the biased approach that the writers have to the Greens and the Blacks, which shows the hand of the writers and yanks you out of the story at every turn. We were reminded of Aegon’s execution of the ratcatchers approximately twice per episode for the majority of Season 2, and a huge deal was made out of it by all and sundry23. On the other hand, the writers apparently don’t even consider Rhaenys to have done anything wrong, and no-one in the world reacts appropriately, least of all the peasants literally crushed beneath her dragon’s feet, as if that doesn’t resemble a heavy-handed metaphor for power, class, and the injustice of the Valyrian tyranny Rhaenyra champions.
The ratcatchers were 'fathers and brothers and sons', but it seems the smallfolk at the coronation were just CGI images after all.
To be continued…..
Fun fact: Henry had at least three other daughters named Matilda. The others were among his twenty-four (!!!) acknowledged illegitimate children.
Possibly a boring premise for a character, but perhaps not.
The fact that book Rhaenyra is basically a racist (or at least some kind of serious cultural chauvinist) is diluted by the fact that the Valyrians are multiracial in the show, which greatly undermines the Valyrian vs Westerosi ethnic/cultural dimension of the war, and makes Rhaenyra look more open-minded than she actually is. One scene in the show which I did like featured her son Jace questioning his mother’s attitudes - Rhaenyra scoffed at the idea that anyone but a Valyrian could ride a dragon, but Jace clearly knows that he’s a bastard and much less Valyrian than she is, yet he’s a dragon rider. This raises interesting questions about whether Valyrians actually share a special magical connection to dragons, or whether this is just propaganda. As a long-term Targ-hater, I know which version I prefer.
Ironically, this unequal treatment on the part of Viserys is one of Alicent’s major grievances. Rhaenyra is the favourite and can do no wrong, Alicent and her children are afterthoughts. That this is also pretty much how the writers treat them is almost comical.
People will point to her protectiveness of her daughter Helaena, but earlier in the show Helaena is shown to be very uncomfortable in Alicent’s presence. Helaena is depicted as autistic, and the cast have spoken about this, but we also see her being more outgoing and at ease at family gatherings than she is when alone with her mother: she studiously avoids eye contact with Alicent and flinches from her touch. Reading between the lines, it seems that Alicent has been abusive to Helaena at some point, and the relationship between them is strained.
I have very little time for this attitude. A major message of GoT is that life is complicated and people have divided loyalties. See: Jaime Lannister’s entire character.
We know from the source that this is how history remembers Rhaenyra.
‘Do you love me?’ he abruptly asks as Alicent pushes him into taking the throne. Later, he is mutilated specifically because his mother goaded and belittled him into rushing into battle. She 100% knows that his fate is her fault, or should, but instead of examining this the writers divert our attention to her fear of Aemond, her other son, because everything bad that happens must be a man’s fault. More on this another time.
If you don’t know what that means, I envy you.
And in Westerosi law, Aegon’s claim is categorically not weaker, unlike Stephen’s in real life.
‘I myself swore no such oath; I was a child at the time.’
ACAB doesn’t seem to apply to Daemon in the eyes of fans, but the fact that he went too far even by King’s Landing standards pretty conclusively shows that he’s the worst kind of cop on top of everything else.
The writers themselves clearly recognise this - they had to resort to a magical lobotomy at the end of S2 to stop Daemon from running roughshod over Rhaenyra (more on this later…).
Consider how much better the dissatisfied princess archetype was with Eowyn in LOTR. Eowyn is an interesting mixture of self-sacrificing and self-destructive, rather than entitled and eager to wield power. She would have come across quite differently if she wanted to rule in Theoden’s name at fifteen, and spent decades sulking after being told no.
A skim of the wiki indicates that in GRRM's world it's very common for crown princes to serve as cup-bearers, so if the source material counts for anything, then Rhaenyra categorically had no cause to complain about being a cup-bearer in the first place, never mind decades later - she was literally being treated like a male heir. Also, in both Westeros and real life cup-bearers could be male or female - the show misleadingly depicts it as a subservient, female-coded domestic task, to make us feel sorry for Rhaenyra.
Which is strange, considering that Dany was supposed to be a teenager (though cast older in the show) with no training on how to rule, and Rhaenyra is supposed to be the king’s chosen heir in her mid-thirties.
Or guard, I don’t know his job title.
I’m not sure if having Laenor a) agreeing to the murder of an innocent man, b) deceiving and traumatising his aging parents whose daughter had also recently died, c) leaving behind three children who likely saw him as their father, and d) abandoning his dragon (who spent years pining for him) can be called great representation either. He seems like a selfish ass, and not someone anyone would want to be associated with.
Her cryptic dialogue with Daemon, 'fire burns but water can be used to flee' strongly suggests that she was the source of the plan.
This is another way in which HotD fails as a show that markets itself as feminist. The behaviour and attitudes of its characters are extremely gendered - women are sensitive, reactive peacemakers, we are told (even when we’re shown otherwise), whereas men are violent, active agents in their world. As such, the plot is overwhelmingly driven by men, whereas the female characters mostly just react and make self-pitying remarks. Unsurprisingly, the upshot is that HotD’s men are generally much more engaging, less preachy, and more fun to watch. Diversity win?
Looking at the source, the commoners in King’s Landing hating dragons is even going to be a major plot point later on….
Obviously, it would have been much easier and safer for her to leave the Dragonpit via the gate, as dragon riders generally do.
More on this later. Suffice to say, having Otto Hightower throw away decades of work in a matter of minutes was the stupidest thing they could possibly have done with that character. Also, they could literally have just asked Helaena to identify the murderer….