I think I speak for everyone in this fandom when I say that we need Black writers back in the writerâs room.
The Black writers for seasons 1-2 of IWTV were Ben Philippe, David B Harris, and A. Zell Williams.
These are the men responsible for providing substance and depth to the Black characters in the first two seasons, mainly Louis and Claudia. They knew how to tackle struggle, injustices, history, rage, pain, and the ugly truth of American and European Black history. They didnât pull punches with the hard stuff and they knew how to work with the soft stuff.
Season 3 tried to create edgy content and humor without these men and absolutely failed at it in every way possible. And they have failed both Louis and Claudia.
The Black jokes about Louis being âLouisiana Fried Chickenâ, Louis continuing to be the pimp and needing his White savior that is Lestat, Claudiaâs entire monologue about Louis being a literal slave to Lestat in that old Louisiana accent. And not to mention the complete erasure of Lemuel after only a couple episodes.
Itâs not working.
If thereâs gonna be Black actors on screen, there needs to be Black writers in the writerâs room.
with few exceptions we have only seen black characters graphically get brutalized. they had closeups of louisâs body and face after lestat tried to murder him showing the extent of what was done, we saw just how burned and disfigured he was after her suicide attempt, claudiaâs death is one of the most graphic iâve seen on any tv show, we got closeups of their ankles slashed and shots of louis being kicked in the head and claudia being shoved into a box of live rats by the coven members. the majority of louisâs scenes in episode 7 were of his decapitated head on a pike, forced to look at his body as it flailed, begging to die, forced to apologize in something so close to a saw trap that it was bordering on copyright infringement while being painted as cruel and deserving of the abuse and then branded by armand.
we didnât see any shots of lestatâs head in the bowling bag. we saw him burn, but it was portrayed as comical. we did not see bruce as he died, we did not see lestat get torn up by the wolves, we did not watch nicki die. in the majority of the scenes where a white character is injured, the action is cut away, out of frame, out of focus, mostly implied.
the extent of what we saw of the brutality of black characters now feels almost fetishistic. at the end of episode 105, lestat is floating in the air looking dreamy and louis is beaten to a pulp on the ground; episode 207, lestat is put together in a suit with his hair done and louis and claudia have been severely beaten. like, after this season, the rest of the show just looks weird.
The showrunners chose to make Louis and Claudia black and experience life in the Jim crow era. They chose to do the full race swap in season 1, not just making the characters but also the story black. They chose to racialize the violence that both Louis and Claudia face throughout the first season. No one was forcing their hands and they got praised for the stuff they did in the first two seasons, for bringing in the added nuance of systemic racism. So why should I as an audience member of colour give them any grace when they choose to write dialogues containing numerous racialized and gendered micro aggressions not just towards Louis or Claudia but also towards minor characters like Dee or Lemuel who weren't supposed to exist as they are (black) in the show?? Why is Daniel (a white man) who is supposed to be a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist who was lecturing Louis on his own story about the racism he faced referring to him as a "bucket of Louisiana fried chicken"?? Why is Armand textually belittled for being a CSA victim while Lestat is endlessly provided with grace and understanding in the text of the show for his victimhood?? Who thought it was alright to adapt a scene from the books involving white characters talking about parental betrayal and insert racially charged dialogues (that too old school racist shit not even the n word) when it was unnecessary to preserve the nuance of the scene?? Why is this show denying the racialized nature of domestic violence that they chose to portray in S1 ??? (Lestat getting mildly annoyed that Louis didn't enjoy going to the operas in nola when he had to act as Lestat's servant to be allowed in tf??) Why is Gabriella like that??
I cannot help but look at this season of the show as a sign of the times tbh. IWTV aired during a very liberal era of entertainment and now that fascism and white supremacy are on the rise everywhere white entertainers have become comfortable enough to fall back into old habits. Never thought this show in particular would have this problem when I watched the first season but it is what it is I guess
You know it's a Gothic Horror show, and you're supposed to feel uncomfortable, right? I do. But do you? Do you, Rolin, and Hannah understand that? Because from where I stand, only the Black characters seem to be trapped in a horror story. The others appear to be in a completely different genre.
The issue isn't that viewers like myself don't want to feel uncomfortable. The issue is that, in this Gothic Horror show, Black characters disproportionately bear the brunt of the violence.
Take this season finale as an example.
At the end of Episode 6, two characters are beheaded. Yet in Episode 7, we are shown the severed head and mutilated body of the black character in explicit details, while the white character's mutilated body is shown only briefly and out of focus, and his severed head is hidden from us.
Louis's arc is presented as a parallel to Lestat's. Both characters are placed in situations where they must confront people they have wronged, or at least people the narrative insists they have wronged, as well as their pasts, relationships, and mistakes. (Personally, I don't believe Louis owes Armand anything, but the narrative clearly wants the audience to think otherwise.đđđ)
Yet the way these parallel journeys are depicted are drastically different.
Lestat's reckoning unfolds in beautiful rooms, elegant spaces, and dreamlike settings. He sits comfortably while listening to the grievances of the people in his life. He argues back. He reflects. He moves through beautiful environments, from grand rooms to forests and back again. Even when he is forced to confront painful memories, the experience is framed as introspection. The focus remains on his emotional and psychological journey.
Meanwhile, Louis is placed in what looks like a torture room straight out of a Saw movie. His severed head sits on a table, hooked up to a machine. His body is positioned across from him, forcing him to stare at it. His suffering is not just physical; it is public and humiliating. His torture is broadcast for others to watch and study. His pain becomes both spectacle and data. He is joined by Regina, another Black character, whose torture is used as leverage against him.
The man torturing Louis demands an apology, not for any genuine wrongdoing, but because Louis failed to love him the way he believed he deserved to be loved, and failed to show enough empathy for his trauma. This is the same man who murdered Louis's daughter in a lynching and attempted to murder Louis in that same lynching, and who, only minutes earlier, boasted that he took aesthetic pleasure in making Louis's death visually exhilarating as part of that lynching.
And so the torture continues. Louis is pushed to the brink of death. Regina is slicing her wrist. Eventually, Louis gives in. He apologizes. He accepts responsibility not only for hurting his torturer's feelings but for the torture itself. He tells his torturer that his coldness and denial drove him (the torturer) to these actions (the torture). The torturer receives the apology he wants, ends the torture, heals and frees Regina, and leaves, but not before carving the letter "A" onto Louis's mutilated body.
Meanwhile, Lestat is still moving through beautiful settings, confronting his past, and listening to others condemn him for the failures of his life. His story reaches its climax in the final act, when he is surrounded by the people in his life and the people he has wronged, some of whom are cheering him on. Rather than being subjected to physical degradation, he is given space for self-reflection. The focus remains on his memories, his relationships, his mistakes, the horrors he has committed, and his regrets. He eventually acknowledges some of his mistakes and even apologizes to one of his victims. Instead of fleeing from his past, he chooses to face it. His reckoning culminates in understanding, and the arc ultimately ends with imagery that evokes transcendence, as though he is ascending to heaven.
Both Louis and Lestat are given parallel narrative arcs centered on confronting their pasts, their relationships, and the harm they have caused. Yet the show presents those reckonings through vastly different visual and narrative lenses. Lestat's journey is psychological, reflective, and aesthetically beautiful. Louis's journey is a sustained ordeal of physical and psychological torture, humiliation, and degradation. One character is invited to examine himself; the other is turned into a spectacle of suffering. While Lestat is afforded reflection, Louis is afforded degradation.
And I'm supposed to look at that contrast and just shrug and say, "Well, that's Gothic horror for you"? Really? Take the blinders off. Look at what is being asked of Louis and compare it to what is being asked of Lestat. One is granted introspection, reflection, and, ultimately, transcendence. The other is subjected to torture, humiliation, and spectacle. The genre does not erase that disparity. If anything, it makes it more obvious.
My issue is not the horror. My issue is who is repeatedly asked to embody that horror, whose pain is treated as spectacle, and whose pain is afforded dignity, nuance, and care.
A gothic horror show with a chilling twist: the horror is reserved exclusively for the Black characters.
Are you into watching Black characters suffer for no reason other than shock value? Are you into watching Black characters be tortured, then made to apologize to their abusers? Are you into Black characters being told that slavery is in their DNA? Are you into watching Black characters be branded like cattle by their torturer and abuser? Are you into watching Black characters be brutalized, humiliated, and blamed for their own suffering? Do you enjoy victim-blaming? What about abuse apologia? Are you drawn to narratives that seem more interested in excusing these things than condemning them?
If so, then The Vampire Lestat, streaming on AMC+, is the show for you. You'll love it.
And don't feel bad. After all, it's just fiction, and fiction has nothing to do with the real world. We all live in a vacuum, right?
my final thoughts on tvl (mostly under a read more as this is a very long post):
from the moment the first episode of the vampire lestat dropped, it was evident that this show was going to be nothing more than a shoddy, poorly paced mess that cared more about humiliating louisâalongside its other black and brown charactersâthan telling any sort of cohesive or lovingly crafted story. the amc team set out to undo the two previous seasons of impactful writing, and punish those of us who resonated with interview with the vampire and the characters it presented to us viewers.
rolin, hannah & co. rewrote some of their powerhouse characters (louis, claudia and assad) around uplifting a white man and excusing him of the things that he's done, but even in that they failed. because this season did not make lestat more likeable; it barely fleshed out any of his past, but made it a point to show us him kissing his mother every episode, and even that was oftentimes played for no more than shock value or laughs. there was no character development on lestat's part, even when other characters' writing was sacrificed to exonerate him.
there is genuinely no winning with this fandom or show as a black viewer. when the first season came out everyone went on and on about Book Accuracyâą and how the changes made were an affront to the legacy of anne rice's story. and as a result it was review-bombed by racists for how unabashedly black it was. then season two came out and everyone took the opportunity to say that louis was lying about what happened and that he was on an equal playing field regarding lestat and armand. and critics couldn't be bothered to praise jacob, delainey and assad for their incredible performances, instead turning the spotlight on sam, despite lestat being one of the more minor characters until ep 7. and things only got worse once iwtv ended
s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.
they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.
but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?
and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:
louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written
louis being called a "nappy headed slave"
louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being
louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers
louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt
louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored
louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display
louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand
louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode
louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit
louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".
nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?
why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.
there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.
nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?
and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??
this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.
armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...
i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.
every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?
the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.
there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.
in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatementâthey have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.
tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.
and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.
fun fact about me is I had a class last year in university where for entire semester we literally just discussed Frankenstein through different lens of literary theory. and this meant for like 13 weeks I was just thinking A LOT about Frankenstein & reading these articles & during one of them I realised the author had incorrectly stated the entire Frankenstein family had died by the end of the novel. and this led me to become quite obsessed with ERNEST FRANKENSTEIN of all characters because the fact he's forgotten both within the text itself and in the conversations surrounding it were (& still are) extremely fascinating to me. its also really crazy to me that if you look him up here or elsewhere you'll likely find dozens of posts that state some sentiment of "wow it's so crazy Mary Shelley just forgot Ernest so much even the Monster forgot to kill him đ€Ș" yes he has a total 16 mentions in the entire novel but he is important!! incredibly so!! he survives and therefore cannot exist within the tragedy of his own life, as it is Victor's story. he betrays Victor's narration and exposes that it is not the whole truth; that Victor is also guilty of the manipulations he accuses the Monster of to gain sympathy and friendship. Ernest lives and Victor abandons him, ultimately denying him the truth of his own life and a place within it!!
From Tolkien Gateway: "Orkish was a general term for the jumble of languages used by the Orcs, composed from corrupted borrowings from other languages of Middle-earth. The variations in Orkish between different tribes and types of Orc were so great that it was often useless for communication, and so a standard language was necessary."
Oh god they're still playing with language. They're still speaking-people. They've lost everything else but they're STILL PLAYING WITH LANGUAGEâ
Alison should have stayed dead. Even though it was iconic the whole did you miss me? Bit.
But there is something about a girl acting so adult and talks about a beautiful corpse that ends up dead and throughout the show we see that what she wanted to die young and beautiful is not what immortality.
Emily should not have been the only LGBTQ+ in the show. Caleb should have been bi, Hanna and Mona should have confusing feelings for each other, and honestly I wish spencer had been demisexual
Arias family struggle should have been more of a focus that could have bonded Hanna and Aria
Emily should have had a plot struggle besides being gay and swimming
Hannas eating disorder should have been a big deal
Spencer's clear neglect in the first (at least) two season should have been addressed and how it contributed to her addiction issues
The complexity of the different character dynamics should be addressed. For one Jenna and the girls. Always wanted a good resolution.
Jenna and Melissa should have had better character direction.
It's the year 2025 and I somehow still have pretty little liars brainrot- about Melissa and Spencer Hastings, who after all these years still drive me insane.
Probably my favourite sibling relationship in any form of media because it is so realistic. It is raw and bitter and yet they are the most loving siblings on the show. Spencer and Melissa are wretched mirrors of each other and they know it, and that is exactly what having a sister is like.
The whole family dynamic drives me insane. It's an incredibly dysfunctional family that forces both of them to have to curate this very particular image. The two see each other as competition, as enemies, as the only people who will ever understand what goes down under that roof. 'Protecting her before it started.'
Melissa, who had grown to hate Spencer. Spencer who had grown to hate Melissa. Abel and Cain, Romulus and Remus. Melissa genuinely believed Spencer of raising that weapon and bringing it down onto the head of the girl she considered a sister. Melissa, watching her blood, spill blood. The person she was raised to hate, raised to love inside the hell of the Hastings house, where the first priority is to protect their name.
Abel watching Cain, Cain watching Abel. Melissa watching Spencer walk away from the murder and Melissa asking herself. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer being yes, always yes. 'protecting her since it started.'
Melissa, never saying a word. Melissa, accepting that Spencer didn't remember. Melissa being her keeper and letting her live in ignorance. Melissa being so so angry about the thing she cannot talk about, so she is angry about other things, about the boyfriends and the barn and all these other things because she cannot say why she is angry. That she is angry because Spencer turned them into their father. Spilled blood on her hands, the same blood that is Spencer's.
And Spencer keeps looking for answers. When the answer is looking through the mirror. She keeps trying and it drives Melissa insane. 'You don't understand'
And then Spencer asks these questions, like: if you had to choose between me and someone you loved, who would you choose.
And Melissa doesn't answer. Spencer looks at her devastated. Melissa throws the question back and tries to ignore that feeling when Spencer looks unsure of herself about her own answer. 'You've never understood'
who would you choose: the words always in Melissa's head. 'Are you your brother's keeper?' and the answers are yes, always yes. How dare Spencer think anything else.
(Spencer, who has been left out in the cold all her life. Who's keeper is herself and the walls she has built. Melissa has been built in the same way, the wretched mirror will never let either of them be warm.)
The island is full of noises, and the garden is full of bodies. Melissa whispers an I love you from across the world, and Cain bears his mark. Spencer thinks there is no one in this life she hates more than Melissa, and there is no one who will ever love her like her sister. The Hastings house is cold until it is violent.
Targaryens love to glorify the fire, the conquest, the dragonsâconstantly obsessed with being the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror. But what if Aenys didnât come from Aegon at all? What if the entire dynasty theyâve been killing each other over was founded on the union of a queen and a simple bard who just loved to hear her sing while he played his lute?
What if Aenys wasn't the trueborn son of Aegon, but instead the product of something completely unexpectedâgenuine, human love? Think about it. While Maegor embodies everything about Valyrian supremacy, bloodlines, strength through fire and blood (and let's be honest, probably born from blood magic because Aegon was infertile and Visenya wasnât about to let the dream die), Aenys was... different. Aenys was soft, âweakâ. But he was so profoundly humanâhe loved stories, the stars, music. If Maegor was a blade forged in black fire, Aenys was a quiet song lingering in the air.
And isnât it fitting? The Targaryens repeat the same mistakes over and over again because they are obsessed with the idea that theyâre descended from Aegon the Conqueror, when they are really all descendants of a queen and a lowly bard. Thatâs the ironyâthis family that prides itself on Valyrian superiority and divine right is actually the product of something far more humble and human. Their âdestinyâ wasnât fire. It was songs. Stories and songs are the lifeblood of Westeros. People remember through stories. The histories, the legendsâthese arenât forged in blood, theyâre passed down through mummerâs plays, puppet shows, songs sung at taverns. What are we told over and over in ASOIAF? That songs are how history survives.
Aenys was born of love and song. And that matters because look at how their dynasty ends. Egg grew up loving stories of knights and heroes. He wanted to be one of those heroes from the tales. He wasnât drawn to power or conquest, he was drawn to the stories of honor, of justice, of doing whatâs right. He thought that the return of dragons would be the salvation of the realm, that it would fix everything, and what did it lead to? Summerhall. A tragedy.
Look at Rhaegar. He wasnât some warmongering conquerorâRhaegar loved his harp, not his sword. He could make people weep just by playing a few notes, by singing a song. His magic was in music, in creating something beautiful in a world constantly obsessed with destruction. But what did Rhaegar do? He gave it all up to chase a prophecy. He abandoned his harp and took up the sword, convinced that the answers lay in some ancient, cryptic vision of three-headed dragons. He died in the mud of the Trident, not as a poet or singer, but as a fool chasing a doomed prophecy.
They thought their destiny was fire, but itâs always been about the songsâthe things that outlive the fire. Thatâs what Aenys represented, what Rhaegar embodied, what Egg loved as a child.
But the Targaryens were too busy chasing dragons to hear the music.
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