#one true queen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dragondream-ing · 4 months

Text

If someone defends Rhaenyra’s usurpation because of tRaDiTiOn, they better be waving a Maegor banner proudly.

I’m being serious.

So many people in this fandom care about the tradition of Westerosi inheritance and act like yelling about it justifies team green’s actions. They never seem to take into consideration what it means.

This post is inspired by my allergy to inconsistency and hypocrisy. Here we go.

The only consistent tradition of Targaryen succession is the ruler choosing their own heir. Sometimes that aligned with Westerosi tradition, often it did not. And it started with the very first heir. So either you admit Maegor was the rightful heir over Aenys, or you admit he wasn’t because Aegon the Conqueror said so.

Let me explain.

Visenya was Aegon’s first wife. In Westerosi tradition, Rhaenys would be considered at best a mistress and her children out of the succession or, at the least, behind Visenya’s children. The lords accepted the validity of Aegon’s plural marriage because they didn’t have the power to oppose the Conquerors, simple as. Tradition didn’t matter in the face of dragons. It is not a genuine argument and hasn’t been since the creation of the Crown itself. House Targaryen’s exceptionalism went beyond incest and dragons from the start, and accepting Aenys as king shows the nobles accepted this when it was convenient.

So I’d like team green to be consistent. Is the king’s word law, a la Aegon choosing Aenys as his heir? Or is this a break from tradition that was only corrected when Maegor killed his nephew and took the throne?

It gets messy from here. Maegor, as we know, didn’t have a child, so he chose his great-niece, Aerea as his heir. Jaehaerys was still alive, he could’ve chosen him. Heck, that might’ve eased like a drop of the tension between him, Jaehaerys and Alyssa Velaryon. So if you’re a tradition truther, Maegor was the proper king but then chose an untraditional heir. Hmm.

Then we get to Jaehaerys, and a tradition truther might think YES, THAT’S OUR GUY. But he’s really not.

Yes, he stopped considering his eldest living child, Daenerys, as his heir after Aemon was born. But then Aemon died.

Aemon did, however, die with an heir. Her name was Rhaenys. In Westerosi tradition, she’d inherit after him, because a daughter inherits before a brother. Now, I know the lords do all sorts of things to circumvent this (see Alys Karstark), but that *is* Westerosi tradition.

Did Jaehaerys follow tradition? Nope. He picked his second oldest son, Baelon.

Some might say there are logical reasons for this. Baelon was a warrior, older, and had grown sons. Rhaenys was like 18, married to an ambitious lord not named Targaryen, and at risk of dying in childbirth (Baelon was named heir in 92, Rhaenys had her first child in 92). HOWEVER, we see with Jeyne Arryn becoming Lady of the Vale while still a *toddler* that Westerosi tradition doesn’t set aside claims merely because such concerns exist. In fact, in ASOIAF, some Lannister married an f-ing BABY to lay claim to her lands because *she* is the acknowledged inheritor.

You could argue that it matters more when it’s the Crown, and I’ll concede that while pointing out you’ve made my argument for me: isn’t that a good reason for the Crown to do what it wants instead of following traditions that hamstring it?

If you’re a tradition truther, however, you should be in a rage and insisting Rhaenys inherit, and you should be outraged by what was done to her at the Council of 101 after Baelon dies. Her claim wasn’t even considered, Laenor’s was—ya know, her toddler son who got his claim *through* her.

So then Viserys takes the throne and continues the Targaryen custom of choosing his heir. And the tradition truthers of the fandom rise up and boo, and they cry “duty and sacrifice! What about tradition!?”

Just admit that the lords of Westeros, Alicent, her merry band of greens, and the fans that make excuses for them didn’t and don’t care about tradition unless it suits them, and they only become vocal about it when a woman stands a good chance of inheriting over a man.

Viserys never wavered in his choice, the realm knew it and so did the greens. This is precisely why Rhaenyra had far more support than her brother, and why the argument that the realm wouldn’t accept her is bs. The realm DID accept her. Because they understood something many in this fandom struggle to

There was only one consistent tradition of royal succession between the Conquest and the Dance: the ruler chooses their heir.

#anti team green #anti alicent stans #say tradition one more time I dare you #the Targaryens answer to neither gods nor men hello #is the king’s word law or not #one time I asked a team green stan this on Twitter and got blocked so fast lmao #team black forever #Rhaenyra is the true queen deal with it

158 notes · View notes

lemonhemlock · 1 year

Text

Rhaenyra v Cersei: Battle of the Bastards

Lo' and behold, looks like I'm not done with bastardposting after all. For this piece, I would like to compare and contrast the two main situations that the general public has been exposed as far as the issue of illegitimate children is concerned within the ASOIAF-verse: Rhaenyra v Cersei.

The parallels are obvious. Rhaenyra has three bastard children, Cersei has three bastard children. Let's see how they handle it.

Rules

According to Westerosi law, bastards can't inherit. It doesn't matter if they're the husband's or the wife's, the King's or the Queen's. Children born out of wedlock to any spouse are explicitly excluded from the line of succession.

Only the King can legitimise bastards via a royal decree. Enough of these "Roose legitimized Ramsay" lies. It's patently untrue. Tommen legitimized Ramsay.

In order to be legitimised, the children in question first have to be declared bastards. You cannot legitimize trueborn children. You cannot secretly legitimise bastards. "Viserys claimed Rhaenyra's children were trueborn, ergo he implicitly legitimised them." No, he didn't. He never admitted they were bastards.

Why does this matter? Because it is unclear where legitimised bastards fall in the line of succession. If they maintain their place by birth order or if they are relegated to the back of the line, behind any and all other trueborn claimants.

There are no genetic tests available in Westeros. People have to prove adultery or rely on common sense.

1. Cersei has a distinct advantage over Rhaenyra, since her children look like her. She can very easily argue that they favour her, as their mother, and this is exactly what everyone believes for years, including Robert. Since Jaime is the male version of Cersei, Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella can look like no else. Catelyn's kids look like Catelyn and no one bats an eye. Only Arya and (to Catelyn's irritation) Jon look like Ned. However, Ned doesn't ever doubt his children are not his.

Rhaenyra's kids look nothing like Rhaenyra and nothing like Laenor. They, instead, share distinct physical traits with her sworn shield, a man seen very often in her presence. People are not idiots. There is no plausible deniability here. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Cersei's kids were, say, Dornish-looking, people would be calling her out for her bullshit.

There is a way you can reasonably get away with passing over your bastards as someone else's, but that is 100% not Rhaenyra's way. This is why Cersei is chilling in the Red Keep, living her best bad bitch life, while Rhaenyra is running away to Dragonstone when the rumours are nipping at her heels. They are not the same. There are no paternity rumours to quell Cersei's girlboss vibes. She is sly enough that even Robert is convinced he inseminated her (gross).

2. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of Ned Stark's Scooby-Doo, Hercule Poirot mystery plot of unraveling Cersei's misdeeds. Ned has his own beef with the Lannisters and is convinced they are up to no good. He investigates them like the meddling kid he is and comes away with a suspicion. He knows nothing (heh) for certain until Cersei verbally confirms it for him. yOuR bRoThEr Or YoUr lOvEr. boo!

Had Ned not been on the Lannister trail from the very beginning, a fair assumption can be made that he never even would have suspected anything untoward. He never questions the children's paternity when they visit in Winterfell.

Again, this is distinctly different from Rhaenyra's situation. No one believes Cersei's children are bastards,* whereas no one believes Rhaenyra's children are trueborn. Pretending otherwise is very, very strange.

*at the beginning of AGOT, at least

3. Robert claimed Joffrey all his life and specifically named him his son and heir in his will, under dictation, to Ned. In turn, Ned deliberately changed Robert's words and wrote them down as "my rightful heir".

This is a parallel to show!Alicent, who misunderstands Viserys' dying words and him naming his son Aegon as heir. If Alicent didn't have the right to muddle the King's meaning, then neither did Ned. However, no one in their right minds is arguing that Ned is a traitor to the Crown. I wonder why is that?

I have already pointed out the circular logic in arguing that Robert only said that because he didn't know the children weren't his.

4. So what does this mean? Can anyone just accuse anyone they don't like of being a bastard and, thus, endanger that person's entire social status?

No, of course not. But, unfortunately for Cersei, Ned and Stannis aren't just some randos in a tavern. Ned is the Hand of the King. Stannis is Lord of Dragonstone and on the Small Council. These two men have a stalwart reputation and are renowned for their obsession with justice, duty and, in Ned's case, honour.

If Ned Stark stands in front of the Iron Throne and proclaims Joffrey a bastard, risks his daughters' lives and literally ends up losing his head as a result of this,

if Stannis Baratheon sends letters throughout the realm claiming Cersei's children are illegitimate,

the people of Westeros are going to pay attention.

These two very important men using their public platform to denounce Joffrey and starting wars over this? Say what you will about them, but they are not oathbreakers and they are not liars. No, they don't come with DNA tests, but for a lot of Westerosi, this is enough. They believe it.

Is this foolproof? No, of course not! But it convinces enough people that they are willing to band together to support rival claimants to the throne, thus igniting the War of the Five Kings. Speaking of political headaches, this is a huge one!

That being said, while Cersei is playing in the Champions League, Rhaenyra is fighting for her life in the relegation zone. She doesn't even need a Ned or a Stannis to cast doubt on her because no one believes her kids are not bastards.

Moreover, Vaemond obviously parallels Ned in this story. He tells the truth in open court and loses his head for it. In the show, Daemon and Viserys play the same role as Joffrey. In the texts, Rhaenyra and Daemon are stand-ins for Joffrey. This is not meant to be a triumphant moment of girlbossery. This is an abuse of power and an act of terror.

All in all, I'm sorry to say, but Cersei wins this hands down. She is savvy enough in her choice of sperm donor and can maintain plausible deniability without looking like a goddamn clown and the entire circus to boot. She holds the capital and has access to all the emblems of state after Robert dies. In contrast, Rhaenyra is floundering across the Blackwater Bay, yelling at the dragon gargoyles that her children are trueborn.

Why is this issue important in the story?

a). No one has a problem with Jace being King.

If people had a problem with Joffrey being King, enough to go to war over it, it would be narratively inconsistent for them to just accept an obvious bastard as King. It would contradict the internal logic of the fictional world we're talking about. That's quite some level of suspension of disbelief just because some fans like Jace. This isn't about him being amiable or a good kid.

b). They're still Rhaenyra's sons / it's a Targaryen internal matter and concerns no one else / the concept of Jace being King doesn't personally affect anyone else, so why does anyone care?

Because it's the freaking law! The name of the crime Rhaenyra commits is high treason! Punishable by exile or death!

No, the crime is not adultery, it's not having bastard children, it's specifically putting said bastard children in line to the throne. In that, Rhaenyra is as guilty as Cersei is.

It absolutely does affect others, since Rhaenyra actively steals the inheritance of House Velaryon for Luke. How is that not a crime? I would even go so far as to say that Laenor and Corlys are complicit in it and should be punished as well.

Contrary to bafflingly-popular erroneous beliefs, the monarch can't just do whatever they want. Even in absolutist monarchies, the sovereign serves the vital social role of upholding the law and the rights of their subjects. Rhaenyra breaks said law by committing theft, murder, high treason and destabilizing the entire system of inheritance.

c) Rhaenyra breaks the social contract

Jock Locke argues for the "right of revolution" in the Second Treatise of Government. He writes that when the government acts against the interests of its citizens, then said citizens gain the right to overthrow it and replace it with an authority that will protect their interests.

I am not trying to impose 'progressive' understandings of the political process anachronistically, in a medieval fantasy; my thesis-statement is that we have already seen this concept at play within the world of ASOIAF: the Faith Militant uprising against Aenys I and Maegor due to their practices of incest and polygamy and Robert's Rebellion, caused by Rhaegar kidnapping a noble lady and Aerys II carrying out executions without due process. The people of Westeros are not unfamiliar with opposing monarchs who don't abide by the law.

The question of Rhaenyra having bastards is framed in a lot of commentary through the lens of her right as a woman to have extra-marital sex and not be demonised for it and to find fulfilling love within the constraints imposed on her by her station. While debating the personal individual freedom of women in a patriarchal feudal society is not to be side-lined, her fundamental fault is that she is demanding rights and exemptions for herself, while the rest of the country have to abide by an entirely different set of rules.

The laws of inheritance, as unjust as they may appear to our modern eyes, are in place to prevent crises of succession, violent conflicts or even large-scale wars from starting every time someone's estates are passed on. Illegitimate children suddenly gaining access to inheritances threatens the political and economical calculations that predicate many Westerosi marriages.

Imagine paying a handsome dowry for your daughter, just so her husband's bastard birthed by some high-born mistress to make use of his maternal family's resources and cheat your legitimate grandchildren out of theirs.

Imagine being married to some lord and now his random bastards threaten the inheritance of your lawful children. Because, hey, the Queen acts like this is fine! This is Catelyn Stark's worst nightmare.

You think you can just sue your husband? What a silly notion. You think you can sue the bastard claimants after your husband is dead? Tough luck, your liege lord may rule in their favour by taking a leaf out of Queen Rhaenyra's book. You think you can appeal to Queen Rhaenyra? How are you going to travel all the way to King's Landing? Good luck with that, maybe you're built different and don't die during this dangerous and expensive journey.

Is this fair for the illegitimate children? Hell no, but Rhaenyra and Viserys are not planning on reforming family law in any meaningful way, because they know what a hassle it would be and how much opposition it would meet!

It reeks of rights for me, but not for thee and I, for the life of me, don't understand the stronghold she has on the liberated feminist brigade.

and finally

d). The Green Coup is not dependent on the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's children.

No. But her committing high treason earns her an automatic disqualification from her right to rule, rendering her claim null and void.

#anti rhaenyra targaryen #cersei lannister #house of the dragon #asoiaf #anti team black #team green #stannis baratheon #hotd meta #bastardposting #ned stark #cersei is the one true queen of westeros don't let anybody tell u different #forgive me queen for dragging u thru the streets like this #u remain the no1 messiest baddest bitch in my heart

791 notes · View notes

riddlerosehearts · 5 months

Text

i am so tired of seeing this screenshot about wish's ending reposted everywhere and used to make fun of the movie:

and this is coming from someone who didn't even like the movie very much, but this is misrepresenting what happened. yes, there is a thing where asha wears a cloak resembling that of the fairy godmother and at the end star makes her a magic wand and the kids say she's like a fairy godmother, king magnifico does get trapped in a mirror, etc, and the movie was absolutely filled with easter eggs and references to previous movies--yep, when i saw the movie i did in fact take these scenes as just easter eggs! after all, think about this logically, if all currently existing movies in the disney animated canon were meant to take place in the same universe, and asha canonically grows up to be cinderella's fairy godmother, then...

how can you explain such a drastic difference in appearance? how can you justify asha, a brown-skinned afro-hispanic girl with a face full of freckles and long brown hair, and this old white woman being the same person? you can't, because they're not!!!! if i recall correctly asha doesn't even wear that cloak at the end when they're calling her a fairy godmother, she just wears it during one scene when she's a fugitive and has to sneak around. also...

the creators of the movie have directly confirmed that they were not trying to set up a disney multiverse and that it's not meant to be taken that seriously. rapunzel and eugene's cameo in frozen also wasn't meant to be taken anywhere near as seriously as everyone took it. neither were any previous cameos like belle in hunchback of notre dame or aurora in oliver and company (and if aurora being in oliver and company was canon, she'd be over 600 years old!). and, back to wish specifically, the little easter egg earlier in the movie where magnifico sees a wish bubble from someone who wants the perfect nanny to take care of their kids and says he's "poppin' that one" also doesn't mean the banks family from mary poppins canonically lives in rosas. the scene at the end where a boy named peter who wears all green and dreams of creating a flying machine goes to work with a girl in a blue nightgown whose wish is to fly doesn't mean peter pan and wendy actually somehow lived together in rosas and knew each other before the movie peter pan ever happened. it is literally impossible for all of these movies to take place in the same time period and universe, so it's a good thing that they, uh, don't, and were never intended to. please, if you don't like the movie, that's perfectly fine, but don't say disney is trying to create some convoluted multiverse and "MCU-ify" their movies when that just literally isn't true.

#disney #wish #disney wish #ughhhh #wish 2023 #nobody is even going to see this post or care but whatever. i am Tired.#one person i explained this to said even they KNEW it was all just easter eggs but they hated the movie and wanted to shit on it #and like??? what is the point??? if you hate it that bad then make fun of it for something that's actually true at least 😭😭#to be completely honest i feel like the fact that there is zero logical way for asha to be THE fairy godmother #should've tipped people off if nothing else!?!?!?#you can even tell that the cloaks aren't the exact same--asha's doesn't have sleeves and has purple inside the hood #anyway i'm so glad princess aurora really was literally there in the 1980s in oliver and company #even though she was born in the 1300s #we stan disney's first immortal vampire queen <3

119 notes · View notes

insignificant457 · 9 months

Text

Life on the Archimedes (755 PCE)

#red rising #light bringer #light bringer spoilers #darrow of lykos #cassius au bellona #sevro au barca #I would read an entire book about their daily life on the Archimedes full stop #this has been the best trio since the scene in the loch back in book one #I’m so glad they made their triumphant return this book #also mustang was so on the money when she said ‘put them together and stupidity tends to be exponetial’#so true Queen the brain cells have left the building

301 notes · View notes

ladyviren · 10 months

Text

Bubbline for the end of Pride Month ❤️

#my art #art #fan art #otp #one true pairing #bubbline #princess bubblegum #pb #adventure time #adventure time princess bubblegum #adventure time marceline #marceline #marceline the vampire queen #sapphism #sapphic

178 notes · View notes

wonder-worker · 5 months

Text

something I find especially entertaining about Edward IV's reign is how Scandalous™ it was lol

he married a woman “whose origins broke all established conventions for English queenship” in a secret ceremony without consulting any of his lords and then made it everyone else's problem. he committed regicide, he committed fratricide; he was accused of bastardry, he was accused of bigamy and a 19-year-long sham marriage, he was accused of using necromancy against his subjects, he was accused of being enchanted by witchcraft by both his wife and his mother-in-law (multiple times). his own mother was said to "rule the king as she pleased" in the early years of his reign. he knew he was hot and actively milked it for money. he was vain as fuck: “he was wont to show himself to those who wished to watch him, and he seized any opportunity that the occasion offered of revealing his fine stature to onlookers”. he knew everything about everyone. "he was more favourable than other princes to foreigners". he was “fond of boon companionship, vanities, debauchery, extravagance and sensual enjoyments”; he was "thought to have indulged in his passions and desires too intemperately”; "it was ever feared he was not chaste”. his subjects publicly gossiped about his sex life, his doctors thought he was insane. NOBODY understood how he was still competent despite all this.

honestly, who was doing it like him?

#(the quote is by J.L. Laynesmith)#Edward IV #my post #the original post was written as a drunken shitpost but it's still 100% true #henry viii could NEVER. Even Humphrey of Gloucester pales in comparison I'm sorry to say #(EW was also accused of controlling both Edward and the country but I don't want to get into the propaganda against her right now - however #true or false it may have been in reality - so I didn't include it. HOWEVER it's absolutely true that Edward gave her a great deal of #unconventional authority by appointing her in royal councils for the heir and spare in her own right during her tenure as queen. So there #was an existing basis for the accusations against her even though they were obviously ultimately extremely unfair and prejudiced #and meant to denigrate her)#Elizabeth Woodville #Cecily Neville #english history #its kinda funny how historians often emphasize his womanizing (which very obviously happened tho it's difficult to say to what extent) when #talking about his over-the-top lifestyle. But as we can see: Croyland - who was best-placed to know - emphasizes a wider variety of things #that worried/scandalized his contemporaries. Edward sleeping around was just one of many (and the last on Croyland's list)#I don't necessarily think it should be highlighted as much as it is #(also funnily enough 'sensual enjoyments' was also used to describe *Richard III* on his northern progress during his reign lol)

104 notes · View notes