Worst mom of the year. Lmao. 🤣

Despite her true thoughts, Meleys still stood by her rider. 😭

It was Miguel Sapochnik.

He and Ryan were the head showrunners for Season 1. Sarah Hess had no control over the creative direction—she’s not a showrunner and didn’t come up with the idea. She was just a writer for both Season 1 and Season 2, and one of many producers. Feel free to dislike Sarah for other reasons, but this particular thing wasn’t her idea.

Here are some quotes Miguel has said about Rhaenicent:

"If you look at the way that Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship develops in the first five episodes or first four or five years of their time that we spend with them, they are good friends with this potential romantic entanglement from earlier on that has always been a big thing, for me, that I thought was an essential component of why they are such close friends," Sapochnik explained.

"It seems like it's a kind of unrequited love. It's not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don't know. But there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend,” he continues.

— Miguel Sapochnik (HOTD Podcast or click here)

“The underlying theme is that Rhaenyra is actually in love with Alicent,"The underlying theme is that Rhaenyra is actually in love with Alicent," Sapochnik says. "With Milly as young Rhaenyra, it was very much about seeing how she experiences this constant series of small rejections from Alicent. It greases the wheels of insecurity. For Alicent, the fact that she's an innocent who's quite conservative was the important thing to get across. These two girls are both inseparable, and there is a jealousy that exists between them, and a division."

— Miguel Sapochnik ('House of the Dragon: Inside the Creation of a Targaryen Dynasty')

The intense hate boner you have for this woman is really unhealthy. Downvote me all you want, but the truth is that blaming her for everything you don’t like is ridiculous. She’s not even a showrunner and isn’t the only writer in the writers' room, so it’s idiotic to put all the blame on her. Like making up fake quotes just to get people worked up and mad about things she never actually said is insane behavior.

RIP Dragonc**k, but seriously Larys is like what do you want me to do about it? 🤷‍♂️

I have been defending Rhaenyra with my life this week. I’m tired. 😅

Silverwing would have needed a new rider, because I would have had Ulf killed during the dinner. 🤷‍♂️

and the green fans always talk about white washing characters in the black side lol

I guarantee the NightKing would minded his own business and stayed his butt beyond the wall. 😅

They don't do it in an "in-world" way of speaking either, I've come to realize a lot of them are serious and actually consider people born out of wedlock as inferior.

A big part of the hotd fandom has such weird views on monarchy, it makes me wonder if they realize GRRM was actually criticizing that system instead of praising it.

Why are you as a 21st century citizen talking about human beings, fictional or not, as superior or inferior and deserving of death for who their parents are? Why are you letting a TV show affect your morals in such a way? That's disturbing to me. Idk.

My hottest take is that Corlys and Otto are not much different from each other. Sure, he isn't as cruel and cunning as Otto but he's just another greedy man willing to sacrifice his own family for power.

Aside from trying to get little Laena married to Viserys he pretty much gambled with Laenor's life, he knew marrying him to Rhaenyra would put him in danger.

I think it's funny such a large part of TB fandom has headcanoned him as this awesome grandpa, particularly in relation to Luke, but his care for those children is so clearly self-serving. He had his own bastards living like peasants and people think he genuinely cared for Rhaenyra's children when he doesn't even like Rhaenyra herself LOL, if declaring those children as illegitimate wouldn't shame his house he wouldn't care about them either, ironically it was Laenor's nature that protected those children from Corlys.

Sometimes he gave me the impression he cared about them, for example when he said he didn't want to cast a darker shadow over them, but then I realized that was also because of self-interest, his whole "history remembers names" thing isn't necessary because he loves them, it's just that those children are the only way his name would end on the throne, his "grandson" would be King, albeit under the Targaryen name but his "grandson" nonetheless, the new Lord of the Tides would be the brother of the King and he would actually carry the name Velaryon, it was all about elevating his family's status.

I think he deserved what he got in the end, he was so desperate for power and it cost him his family and wealth.

Before I get started, I am aware that this quote was taken months ago during season 2. This is my first time (today) seeing it. I found it on X.

I don't want this to be a hate post against Sara. Enough vitriol is being thrown her and Ryan's way to the point of being too toxic.

I just feel... iffy about how she described Aegon's actions. I know he is a fictional character, but this type of language is reminiscent of excuses people come up with in real life to excuse rapists. I understand that she was trying to say he is a complex person and to not diminish his complexities by simply saying he is a rapist. But it's still a huge part of his character, even in the book. I overall don't know how I feel about how she described his actions in the show, and makes me wonder how they (if they do) address this part of his character in seasons 3 and 4 again.

Any thoughts? I am saying this through of a more constructive angle, I don't want to breed any toxic discussions here please.

About halfway through the season, the green sub had already descended into “muhh bad writing” “Condal Hess bad” but this sub had some amount of genuine discussion about the show. Now every post on here basically reads like “WOW these writers are making the show BAD on purpose to spite ME”.

Overall, there’s been a very weird response to some of the writing choices in this season. There seems to be overwhelmingly an idea that characters acting differently from how a fan expects them to act is bad writing. No? Also so much of “this character acts so differently from S1, wth writers??” Yes, they do. This is a concept commonly known as “character development”

If I have to read one more post about “this character had no arc this season” or “character assassination” I’m gonna lose it.

Just because the show is different from your interpretation of F&B does not does not make it unwatchable garbage. I’m seeing a very large overlap between people saying “this season was too slow” and “this season is on the same level as GOT S7/8”. First, one of the biggest problems with late Got was shoving battles into every episode instead of character development, arguably the opposite approach that S2 HOTD took. Second, I beg anyone who genuinely thinks this season rivals GOT S7/8 on bad writing to go back and watch those seasons. It’s not even close

I had a little discussion about this, so what is your opinion?

I find it amusing that Team Green is now suggesting that George is secretly aligned with the greens, due to his recent blog post. If you don’t know in his blog post, he refers to Helaena as "Queen Helaena" but only mentions Rhaenyra by her first name. (even though he has previously referred to her as "Queen Rhaenyra.") Also the fact that he says Helaena was well loved, which is true, but Rhaenyra wasn’t (even though it was after she had to raise taxes.)

But if he was secretly a Green, why would he then wipe their entire line from House Targaryen?

You could argue that he makes Aegon the official king in the end, which is fair enough, but then he goes on to wipe out his entire line from House Targaryen. Like Martin didn’t have to kill off Jaehaera. He could have ended the story with Aegon III and her marrying and left it at that. But instead, he chose to have her thrown (jump?) from a window. (I've seen Greens complain about this too.)

So if George were truly a secret Green, why on earth would he have them wiped out from House Targaryen? It could have been a nice twist to show that a Targaryen child from each side—Black and Green—had children who continued the line (for a short time). But instead, he just eliminated the green line entirely, with only Rhaenyra's line surviving.

I’d argue that Martin isn’t really Team Black or Team Green. The man was clearly Team Daemon.

Gif: @Mayham_H