atp it seems only rhaenicent fans are fully invested in hotd. every one else has been disappointed and put off, more or less. not only the fans, spec tg fans but also grrm..š„²
Unfortunately, I think this applies only to online fan spaces like Tumblr, Reddit and maybe some Yt comments. Casual fans, who barely interact with the online fandom, just watch the show and enjoy the flashy light show and move on with their day until they get to watch the next episode.
A reality that's sometimes easy to forget when you're very invested in an online fandom is that the majority of viewers watching a show like Hotd just aren't going to spend a lot of time thinking about the show and are therefore never going to notice the inconsistencies and botched character arcs.
I think a different thing is happening with Rhaenicent fans, which I actually was for quite a while. I've seen plenty of Rhaenicent fans criticize the show quite harshly (me included). Most of the Rhaenicent fans who genuinely like where the show is taking both characters seem to be invested only in the ship. Which tbh I think is a common issue across fandoms, where you always have some people who are primarily there for the shipping and have very little interest in anything else that isn't easily and directly able to be linked back to their preferred ship.
As someone who does still conceptually ship Rhaenicent, as in ignoring everything after season 1 episode 7, I do think the execution on the ship after that point in the show was absolute ass. Not just because it made Alicent and Rheanyra less interesting as characters but also because it negatively impacted the entire narrative.
By season 1 episode 8 it was already starting to become apparent that the show didn't know how to handle Rhaenicent appropriately to tell the story of the dance. They seem to be under the delusion that to write a compelling romantic dynamic between two characters, that said characters need to constantly pine for the other to the point of not caring for anything else. The problem here is that this sort of dynamic runs directly counter to the dynamic Rheanyra and Alicent need to have for them to fulfill their narrative roles laid out in Fire&Blood.
The Rhaenicent I expected and wanted to see when they laid out the foundation for it in the early episodes was all about having past affection and yearning turn bitter over the years. That with each death and loss they both suffer the past unfulfilled love they might have once shared slowly turns into kindling for their hatred. This would genuinely have been a compelling dynamic that could have enhanced the rivalry they already had in Fire&Blood as leaders of their own factions.
Instead Rhaenicent has become a useless narrative device to keep both Rheanyra and Alicent as passive and inactive as possible to avoid either of them doing anything too horrible that might alienate the sensibilities of modern puritanical audiences.
