My thoughts on this are not fully coherent but I guess one of the themes this episode (HOTD S3.E2) was the limited ways in which women are allowed to hold power in this world, and also what happens when they're stripped of even that.
Rhaenyra is the heir to the throne but we’ve seen repeatedly that the men around her don’t fully respect her and will question her authority and judgment at every turn and will override her (even her own son does this) when one has to wonder if they would have done that so easily with a male superior even if he was acting in the exact same ‘compromised’ ways Rhaenyra was? And when she’s finally standing in front of the throne that’s hers by rights, she still has to prove that she’s worthy and capable of claiming it by beheading Otto herself. Somehow, she still has to earn it. ‘If you wish to rule, show them you do not waver.’
Meanwhile Viserys wavered all the time and while some of the people around him may have taken advantage of this, he still received way more respect as his due and was never expected to prove he deserved to sit the throne. Viserys was not truly a leader of men but he was named heir at the Great Council just by virtue of existing as a man. Rhaenys was the Queen Who Never Was but had she been a man she would’ve been king. (I’m talking about the show here, not the book.)
And now we have another Queen Who Never Was. We’ll never know what sort of ruler Rhaenyra would’ve been was she treated the same as a male claimant and could just rule the way she wanted instead of continuously having to prove herself and justify her rule to people who think a woman is inherently unfit to rule and will never change their minds about that. It will not stop with her beheading Otto. There’s this piece of telling dialogue from the preview for the next episode:
Alicent: You may not rule and remain yourself. There is in you a door that must shut. You will do things that your heart would’ve recoiled from.
Rhaenyra: I dispute that I must become what I'm not.
Alicent: Time will tell.
Rhaenyra will have to become what she’s not inherently: cruel. Because showing kindness or mercy will be viewed as proof that she’s soft and weak and unfit to rule when those same qualities (kindness, the capacity for mercy, etc.) might have been tolerated or even praised in a male ruler.
Alys Rivers is Harrenhal’s unofficial maester. Like a maester she provided Daemon with personal and political counsel. And it’s only thanks to her help that he gained the Riverlands’ support – he was failing miserably on his own. But when Alys finally tries to ask something of Daemon in return, it becomes clear that he doesn’t value her or her contributions and he reduces her to a midwife (derogatory)(of fucking course a very important profession is looked down on when it’s held primarily by women).
(It also strikes me that Daemon is denying Alys what’s basically already hers. Alys is the only one who understands Harrenhal and its magic and its curse and is fit to hold it. Much like a dragon choosing their rider, Harrenhal has accepted her, hasn’t killed her off like it does everyone else who tries to claim or hold it, and allows her to command it. Imagine if Rhaenyra had smirked and told Addam he can’t have Seasmoke because he has neither name nor title nor noble father – obv. he does actually have a noble father but Rhaenyra doesn’t know that – and the Crown is not in the habit of giving out dragons to shipwrights?)
And then Aemond shows up and burns the home Alys cherishes. (I don’t know that she cares about the Strongs and I don’t blame her when we’ve seen they basically just treat her like a servant – they make her serve them at meals when they would never have a maester doing that – but she definitely cares about Harrenhal.) And Aemond might’ve killed her too if he wasn’t injured. He’s dangerous and unstable and would you have warm feelings towards someone who just destroyed even more of your home when it’s already in such a bad state? And she doesn’t know that Aemond won’t be just another Daemon who ultimately won’t give a fuck about her and will walk away and leave her empty-handed as soon as he’s got what he wanted and needed out of her. But she’s going to take the chance of helping him because attaching herself to an influential and powerful man is a woman’s only real power in this world, like Daemon just affirmed for her. (Whether or not genuine feelings later develop between Alys and Aemond is besides the point here. In this moment there’s no love between them yet and saving him or leaving him to die is a gamble on Alys’s part.)
Alys views herself as a healer and the custodian of Harrenhal and its magic. Maybe she'll try to be a positive influence on Aemond and discourage him from harming innocents who knows? but regardless, the sum of what Westeros will remember her as in future is the evil and salacious witch queen aiding and abetting the world’s foremost war criminal, a view she will probably have to encourage herself. We already saw her call herself a witch (something I don’t think she habitually does because it carries highly negative connotations in Westeros) and resort to playing up the creepy stereotype when she was trying to get the dragonseeds away from the Isle of Faces, the most sacred place to the old gods. (They brought lit matches (i.e. dragons) to a sanctuary of highly endangered holy trees!)
Alicent has already been stripped of most of the power and influence she had. Her power was really only ever second-hand and based on the influential men she was attached to and how much they would allow her. And now all those men are dead, gone, or have decided they’ll no longer tolerate Alicent in the political sphere and she should retire to her ‘proper place’ as a woman. She’s desperately clutching onto what shaky influence yet remains to her via Helaena to get the city to surrender to Rhaenyra and hold up at least half of her end of the deal she’s made. (Aegon is gone so the plan’s already half failed.) But ultimately the gold cloaks don’t come on board because they’re heeding Alicent’s authority (they don’t) but because they recognize Daemon’s influence. Daemon is coming back and he will be in a position to either reward or punish them based on what they do next.
And then Jasper Wylde (that guy is a Bluebeard figure with a string of dead wives behind him) tries to rape her to punish her for getting ahead of herself and to force her back into what he sees as a ‘suitable role,’ for a woman, i.e. a submissive object/body to be used. And to add insult to injury he accuses her of snaking her way into the halls of power when she was just a girl when it was her father taking advantage of her ‘comeliness’ to advance his own ambitions, basically pimping her out starting when she was just a girl. (The scene where Alicent goes to the City Watch barracks placed her in a similarly threatened position – the lone and clearly vulnerable woman surrounded by naked and half-naked men and then Luthor Largent comes out with that wolfish look – and I was scared for her from the moment she walked in there and worried that Largent was about to demand a sexual favor from her in exchange for his support.)
Mysaria’s power and influence is based entirely on Rhaenyra and the emotional support and unofficial political insights she provides her behind closed doors in private spaces. Mysaria was basically acting like the wife to Rhaenyra’s king in S2. And then Rhaenyra’s two other partners come back and Mysaria’s position is threatened. Wives can’t set their lord husbands aside, but kings/lords can find a way to set their wives aside. We see Mysaria desperately trying to cling onto her position (as she’s literally holding onto Rhaenyra’s crown) by reminding Rhaenyra that she’s been her most faithful wife supporter. Long ago Mysaria freed herself of Daemon. It was supposed to be different with Rhaenyra as her patron/partner but will it really? And what will Mysaria resort to when it becomes clear it isn’t?
I also think this Maester Orwyle quote comes to mind for all of them at one time or another:
“I do not know what you have done, Your Grace. I fear it is something desperate.”
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