If we are talking about the legitimisation of Ramsey Bolton, then that was straight out of the books, if I recall correctly.
So when Valeryon the younger lost the services of his head , where exactly did Daemon sword strike?
The mechanics are a bit unclear? His neck seemed fine.
It was pretty clear that the sword struck between the upper and lower jaws, leaving the tongue and neck intact, and severing the top of the head from the body.
Accusing the Kings heirs of being bastards results in losing at least a part of your head. It is known.
And Ned Stark still sent the damn letter.
Well, it’s also the case that if the accusation of bastardy is true, then it’s the participants in that act of adultery–and the resulting issue–that would be punished.
Presumably there would ordinarily be a hearing or trial in which the speaker would be accused of treason and get to offer evidence of the truth. I don’t think that decapitation on the spot is necessarily the precedential act of justice.
Also, Ned thought he was lining up enough support amongst the powerful by revealing the evidence he gathered to get them to change the regime before he could be put to trial for treason.
I was expecting Alicent to say a bit more when she confronted naked Aegon about his raping the hand maiden.
He’s whining “It’s so hard to please you!”
So, you habitually abuse alcohol and drugs, and you raped someone. It really doesn’t seem like you’re trying very hard.
Of course, maybe we are seeing an example of Alicent’s poor parenting. But still, come on.
She made a bigger deal out of it than I expected to be honest.
Really? I think of her as a basically decent person. I would have expected her to be outraged. And it’s clear this isn’t the first time she has expressed her displeasure at his behavior.
She doesn’t seem as doting and hands off as Cersei Lannister, certainly. She does seem to have a moral compass.
It doesn’t really matter how decent she is, I did not think she could even consider it rape for what she sees as the heir to the throne to take a serving girl. I think she was more concerned about him fathering a bastard before fathering a heir than anything else.
She never said the word “rape,” but given how she has been portrayed and her experiences with not having control over her own body, especially sexually, I think it fit right in for her to at least have some compassion for Dyanna. An ongoing theme of the first half of the season has been the lack of self L-empowerment of women in the Westerosi upper classes.
Perusing online articles, it seems that a lot of people think that Alicent poisoned Dyanna. I wonder whether there will be any clarification.
Aegon in the source material does have bastard children, so I think the scene was too ambiguous. I don’t know whether the show plans to clarify.
There seems to be very little reason to poison her. I doubt anyone would give a single shit if a serving girl was raped. The problem is if she gets pregnant, which she fixed.
The fact that she had probably seen behavior like this many times before helps explain the lack of outrage. The first couple of times, she was probably outraged. By now she knows that he won’t change and she can’t punish him, so what’s the point?
That could be a way for a mother to react. It’s not the only realistic way. Indeed, I would consider that to be a distinct minority in terms of real life, more like a Cersei personality.
I certainly would not expect the mothers I have known personally to react the way you describe.
I think Alicent’s reaction is closer to true for her character, but, as I said, I believe she would have said even more in reaction to Aegon’s whining.
Yes, not killing her would be more rational, and would fit more into what I think Alicent’s character is. Killing her so coldly and personally would make Alicent into a very different character. I think this story is stronger when we can see Alicent and Rhaenyra as both having some fundamental decency and goodness, making it difficult to choose sides between them.
What still troubles me is the ambiguous way that that scene was edited. Why did they create that ambiguity? Was it intentional or was it a mistake?
If it wasn’t for the scene at the end with the other serving girl I would have assumed it was just a mistake and it was never meant to seem ambiguous.
She isn’t a XXI century AD woman,
She is a 126AC Queen consort in a world heavily influenced by medieval Europe. Her views on it are going to be different to what we have. She sees it as distasteful and unnecessarily cruel. Not a horrendous crime like we do. And before you say it, of course it’s a horrendous crime.
I think it’s portrayed accurately as how a woman of that time would behave. She does not approve, she sympathises with the girl and in her own way offers restitution. She tells off her son, severely.
What drugs is he abusing?
Privilege.
I am pretty sure she did not poison her. If she had the show would have shown it to make it clear. I think some people are seeing wheels within wheels where none are there.
If we are still talking about my comment about Alicent, remember that I was taking about Alicent’s failure to react to Aegon’s stupid whining about “never being good enough.” That was some Class A adolescent bullshit that I would definitely expect many mediaeval era mothers to slap down, not just modern 21sf century mothers.