This Is All Made Sadder By The Unironic Out-of-universe Hate My Poor Girl Gets For Not Being A Grizzled

Alicent is a traitor.

The thing Alicent (at least in season two because season one Alicent seemed cognizant of that fact), the showrunners and their defenders ignore and what makes her deal with Rhaenyra be nothing but pure is that the Dance of Dragons is a war of annihilation.

Rhaenyra is absolutely not going to forgive Aemond for murdering Luke and Rhaenys. Everyone in Rhaenyra's faction would turn against her if she did so.

Aemond has an army and rides Vhagar, the largest dragon in the world. Even if he is outnumbered, Aemond has no reason to kneel to Rhaenyra since he knows for a fact it is either winning or dying for him.

Rhaenyra cannot bring the peace she desires without getting rid of Aemond and his army. Cole and Gwayne, both who have been nothing but loyal to Alicent, are in that army.

The deal Alicent cut with Rhaenyra in S2E8 does not buy safety for her family. It doesn't guarantee that Aemond, Criston, and Gwayne will surrender, or that any attempt they make to surrender will be honored by the Blacks. It doesn't guarantee that Daeron and the Hightowers will stand aside and watch as Rhaenyra murders their King and crown prince.

Alicent didn't just sell Aegon to Rhaenyra. She sold her sons, her lover, her brother, her father, and her entire extended family.

Watching TYBW and Ichigo saying Riruka is too weak to fight the quincies was kinda funny like bro you brought Ganju 😭

Having completely normal thoughts about Dune Part Two.

my standard for future lesbian media is kinda set by the chainsaw man dyke with four demon girlfriends who she has on screen sex with

Ambessa truly is both the fox and the wolf

We got to see a bit of her more brutal "wolf" side in season one and now in season two, we get to see her "foxy" self-orchestrating events in Zaun and Piltover for her own benefit.

Double-crossing Salo and naming Caitlyn the commander of Piltover was an extremely smart move. Salo is a crippled man with no fighting experience at all; I bet he would command ZERO respect from the Enforcers and the topside elite would quickly figure out how much of a puppet the guy is.

Caitlyn is from a distinguished patrician family so we see how quickly the elite accepts her

And further, she is clever and clearly has the respect of the Enforcers given how quickly they started clapping with the Noxian soldiers.

And, despite all that and how qualified she is, Caitlyn is also young and grieving which makes her vulnerable to the manipulation of an older, more experienced woman.

This echoes a bit of that scene in season 1 in which Mel also tries to set up a puppet ruler on her childhood flashback. Ambessa is doing a similar thing but in a "harsher" way fitting her more militant nature.

Valyrian attitudes toward women

Thinking about what we know about Valyrian gender roles;

It seems to have been more normalized for women to take more martial roles - both of the Conqueror's sisters, even Rhaenys who Is described by the histories as less martial, rode dragons into battle.

Valyrian inheritance practices seem to have favored men over women. Aegon I inherited Dragonstone over his sister Visenya, despite the fact she was older than him.

So in general it doesn't seem that Valyria was that much different from their Andal counterparts as far as we are aware, hang-ups amount women in battle non-withstanding.

(Nor would it make sense for the eugenist slavocracy to have particularly progressive opinions on women anyway)

And even then I'd guess valyrian tolerance to women actively taking part in battles only extends to highborn, dragon-riding aristocrats.

🦑 prince of fools 🦑

Something this season of Invincible has been doing that I find interesting is how it's engaging with the Superman archetype in the specific context of his role as the quote-unquote "top superhero-" what happens when "superhero" is enough of a demographic that you've got a bunch of moderately powerful ones, but then you've got one who's basically so overwhelmingly powerful compared to all the rest that from the perspective of the people in charge of planetary security, he's basically the only one who matters. There have been several subtle beats this season about how holding that position is distorting Mark's interactions with everyone around him without him even realizing- Robot leaves the Guardians not because he necessarily thinks Mark is right, but because he thinks it's important to stay on his good side. The Powerplex subplot has Scott's coworkers at the GDA expressly state that Mark is being granted infinitely more leeway by Cecil than anyone else would be, because he's their only plausible answer to the Viltrumites.

What's interesting is how they've made Rex the site of a lot of this. One of the first scenes of the season is him complaining about the needing constant adjustments to the hack-job prosthetic he was issued after the Lizard League debacle, juxtaposed against the bajillion dollar bespoke machine that was built for no purpose other than training Invincible specifically. When they go out into the field together, Rex is perfectly in his element against a single street-level opponent, but when Multipaul jumps him, Invincible has to pull his ass out of the fire via intense meatgrinder violence. It isn't a coincidence that in the same episode where (Debbie's boyfriend) Paul realizes the gulf between the impact his job has on the world and the impact that Mark and Oliver have, with Debbie assures him that it's okay to be normal- Rex gets his fatal crossing-the-Rubicon moment by refusing to retire with Rae.

Rae can read the writing on the wall here about the power scaling of the story she's in; capes like Invincible and Immortal brush off everything the world can throw at them, but she and Rex are gag characters- a couple extra bodies who, in the best case scenario, are somewhat useful to have around, and in the worst case scenario end up in the hospital for months at a time before getting stitched up and thrown back into the fray so the GDA can wring a little more utility out of them. But even though his lifestyle is very clearly going to get him killed, Rex refuses to quit because being a superhero- even a middling one- is all he has going on. He's never going to be as relevant as Invincible because he's nowhere near as powerful as Invincible, but if he doesn't keep throwing himself at the same kinds of problems Invincible does, he'd be nobody. He'd be Paul. Is being Paul worse than dying? Well, we're gonna find out in a minute

Arcane S2 asking the real brave questions such as: catholic yaoi or fascist yuri

Arya Stark of Winterfell, Daughter of the north, Queen of Winter, The night wolf, The ghost of Harrenhal, Witch queen, Bloodwitch, Wolf witch, water dancer, The She-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell.