In Defense of the Daemyra Sex Scene:
So I almost didn't finish this but I still have a lot of thoughts and a few lovely people said they wanted to read my thoughts so here it goes.
Many people didn't like the sex scene or felt underwhelmed, and I'm still confused about why but maybe this wordy meta can help put things into a different and more satisfying perspective. I'm not here to say that you're wrong for how you feel, but I do feel like the scene was great and deserves to be defended, especially since people are blaming the director, who I think actually captured a lot of special things during the scene.
I can understand that people wanted it to be a bit spicier. Who doesn't like to see their favorite couple go at it with lustful chemistry but I think it was unrealistic to expect the scene to live up to an AO3 fanfic. It was never going to be a sex scene plucked right out of fanfic with all of your favorite positions and a lot of mindless rutting, but that's okay because IMO what we got was even better, and I think they picked the direction of the sex scene for a reason.
So no, it did not have the lust-filled frantic to be with each other feel that people expected or the intense tension of that the scene in episode 4 but in my opinion this is not due to bad directing or lack of chemistry. It's done on purpose because the two sex scenes were trying to highlight completely different aspects of their relationship.
The characters that made love on the beach at Driftmark are characters that have gone through so much over the last decade, and most of the things they've gone through have happened without being near each other. Rhaenyra even says she barely knew anything about what Daemon has been doing for the last 10 years. Their separate lives for the last 10 years did not change the love they had for each other but it did change both of them. I mentioned in my metas on episode 6 that Daemon and Rhaenyra lived perfectly content lives and had beautiful relationships and children, but they lived this life suppressing who they really are and what they really want, which meant no matter how happy and content they were there was always a cloud of sorrow and regret around them. This cloud of sorrow and unending feeling of loss shaped how they interacted with each other when they were reunited in episode 7.
The most gripping aspect of Daemon and Rhaenyra's scenes for me was how you could feel the sad longing they both felt through every word, kiss, and touch. They try to talk candidly and casually with each other but even during the part of their conversation that's not about the two of them, you get the sense that there is still so much under the surface that's begging to come out but they are both attempting to show restraint because of how they left things the last time they saw each other. There is so much pain underneath the surface. Pain about not being able to be with each other, pain about shrinking yourself to conform and being humiliated anyway, pain about abandonment, pain about being denied the one thing that you ever asked for from your brother, pain about the loss of two people they cared deeply for that they may have never experienced if they had just been with each other, pain about the what ifs that played in their minds for a decade, pain about not only losing each other but losing themselves.
Their relationship has been an open wound festering for 10 whole years. It never healed completely. It partially scabbed over and just stayed there, nagging them and causing them pain while it just waited for the right time to burst open and oh boy, did it burst. IT burst in the most achingly beautiful way.
If you watch carefully, the creators sought to directly contrast the Daemon and rhaenyra from episode 5 with the Daemon and Rhaenyra we have now. There were so many callbacks to that episode, from the way Daemon and Viserys once again reunite, to the way Rhaenyra stalks Daemon through a crowded room, to the way Otto is still lurking in the wings, and how Rhaenyra patiently waits until she has the opportunity to get him alone.
At the most basic level, a lot of things are exactly the same, except they also highlight all the ways in which they are not.
Viscerys and Daemon do not have an amicable reunion this time. In fact, this time, it's Viscerys who seeks out Daemon and attempts to reconcile, only to be reminded that he rejected Daemon for the last and most hurtful time 10 years ago when he denied him Rhaenyra's hand in marriage.
Rhaenyra lurks in the shadows again, but she's not the oblivious young woman acting without thought that she once was. She's keenly aware that she's being watched and analyzed for any misstep. She's also a mother now, so she can't dedicate all of her attention to her uncle. She actually has other people to care about and tend to that distract her from whatever she wants to say to Daemon.
The only thing that remains the same is Rhaenyra's innate pull to Daemon but we later see that even that pull is clouded by hurt, anger, and trauma. So even when it appears they've once again slipped back into their comfortable and transparent dynamic, it becomes clear that Rhaenyra has had 10 years to stew in her hurt and is not about to let it go even if her heart and soul are happy to be near him again.
One of my favorite aspects of the conversation that leads to their sex scene is how vulnerable Rhaenyra allows herself to be. We've seen her angry and sad before, but all of those emotions before episode 7 were hidden from the person on the other side of those feelings. She has spent the last 10 years believing she can't be vulnerable, she can't appear weak, she can't appear desperate. When Harwin leaves and dies she can't cry or mourn, when Laenor wants to abandon him she can't lash out completely or beg him to stay at her side, when Alicent humiliates her she has to put on a brave face, and deal with it.
With Daemon, the entire facade of her emotional stability collapses. She's so openly vulnerable that she almost appears childlike again. She finally lets herself express how she's been absolutely alone to drown at court and express how angry she is that he abandoned her..
"Look at what my life became without you" is such a loaded and vulnerable statement from her at that moment because it outright says "I was a young woman in over my head and I needed you, you marked my soul with your kiss and your touch then brutally snatched it away, and I was lost without you, my life became a sad tragic incomplete mess because I didn't have you". That one line alone gives Daemon so much power, power that Rhaenyra, as a woman who has been attempting to navigate patriarchy without completely giving into it, has been fighting to hold on to her entire life and especially over the last decade. In front of anyone else, those words would make her seem weak, directionless, and pathetic. They make her seem like a stupid little girl who needs a man to guide her life but in front of Daemon, a man who she still trusts completely, those words give her a new burst of power because they are authentic and are being expressed to someone who will not weaponize them against her.
Daemon has always given Rhaenyra a safety she could not get anywhere else, even before their relationship turned romantic and THAT's what she's been missing for the last decade. That's why she's been drowning this whole time and why she's so angry he did this to her. He snatched her safe space away from her at a time when she needed it the most and from her perspective, he never once looked back to see if she could survive it.
Even the way she is the one to initiate intimacy with him and she's the one who goes in for the kiss and the way she whispers "I want you" in that painfully tender voice could have made her appear just desperate but instead, she feels truly empowered for the first time in years because even if it is desperate this desperation is coming to from the deepest part of her soul, a place she's buried for years and now feels free enough to chase.
This is the most transparent and openly broken we've seen Rhaenyra and it's not just her we see this way. Daemon also finally finds the space to be vulnerable as well. His marriage to Laena was happy enough but the man has been a shell of himself. He was completely incapable of being honest with his wife, probably out of hurt and shame and probably because he cared for her and didn't want to make her feel like being with her was a burden instead of a choice. He couldn't even admit he missed home or this brother to her because he wanted to keep up the appearance of being content in his life but with Rhaenyra, he gets angry when she seems to believe he hasn't been hurting for 10 years just like her. He's finally honest with himself and with her and he allows himself to actually be angry too because it's like do you think I was truly happy? Do you think I was overjoyed across the sea without the one person who understood me and the one person my soul truly burned for? No, I was alone and discontent too and now look my life is a droll tragedy just like yours.
They both finally acknowledged their wounds, and by doing so, it freed them to finally heal, but even that healing was hesitant because of everything that had happened between them, and that's why their love scene had to be slow, painfully tender, and hesitant. It wasn't about lust or burning passion even if the passion is still there, it was about soul-crushing longing and emptiness, and finally feeling complete.
The point of Rhaenyra and Daemon's first sexual encounter is Rhaenyra and Daemon are crossing a line they've never crossed before and Rhaenyra is experiencing a pleasure she's never experienced before. The current Rhaenyra and Daemon have already acknowledged what is between them and Rhaenyra is a seasoned lover, she's experienced plenty of pleasure from Harwin over the years. So the focus with this encounter isn't pleasure, it isn't newness, it's wholeness, the feeling of being completely filled, physically and emotionally. This longing to be whole and filled is in every touch Rhaenyra gives Daemon. It's in the way she hesitates to touch his chest on the beach and sighs when she finally lets her hand travel. It's in the way Daemon breathes her name as if he wants her to stop because what they're doing is dangerous but he also craves her touch as deeply as she craves to touch him. It's in the way she gently reminds him she's no longer a child aka she knows what she wants and what she's doing to help him drop the final barrier he erected a decade ago to hold himself back from her.
Once the mutual wanting is acknowledged, they give themselves to each other in a more profound way than sex. Where Daemon's hands were rushed and determined to please before this time, they are slow and determined to worship. Where kisses were heated and lust-filled, and without thought, they are now so beautifully soft and meticulous so that we can actually feel the deep love between them.
Honestly, I don't know how you can watch the way Daemon's fingers gently hold her chin as they tenderly kiss with so much silent passion and wanting in that first shot of them in the wrecked boat and not see the chemistry and love there. There is a sense of reverence in the way Daemon slowly undressed her instead of pulling her clothes off like a brute and the way he clutches her face in his hands after she's undressed him, and that reverence speaks more profoundly about his love for her than any rushed frantic kiss and undressing ever could.
Rhaenyra gets to slowly undress him to highlight that she's truly making his choice to have him and she has an equal amount of reverence for him as he has for her. They are two people who are slowly healing with every kiss and every touch. The more they lay themselves bare to each other, the more their love grows and the closer they are to reaching that place of wholeness they've been without all this time.
Listen this shit was better than any amount of foreplay these creators could have ever thought up. The sex scene was emotional and sexy because we got to see Daemon take her leggings down, caress her thigh, and even grab it to show how badly he wants her. We see how he rolls his hips, and Rhaenyra opens up even more for him as his hands travel to grab his ass. All of the sensual elements are there, but they are in perfect balance with the emotional gravity of the scene.
And the best part is they finally become whole, and we get to see the moment it happens for both of them. Daemon is initially on his knees when he takes her leggings off and enters her but he brings himself closer as soon as he is joined with her, he completely envelopes her with his body, and from that moment on, he never lets her go because he's finally found his place in the world again. I know there is some controversy because we don't see his face as he rocks into her, but I actually like that we don't have to actually see him to understand where his head is at. The man is buried in her neck like he needs to breathe her in to survive and he hugs her body as he experiences his pleasure like having her in his arms is the only thing he's ever wanted in life. His feelings are very much conveyed in the scene, just now with words or facial expressions.
For Rhaenyra, it's the exact opposite. There has always been controversy over her facial expressions during their love scene. People say she looked bored or like she wasn't enjoying it. I think that's a misreading of what that moment meant for her. No, Rhaenyra's face didn't look like the face of a woman in the throws of intense pleasure and passion but what we got was even better. To me in that moment, Rhaenyra's face is the face of a woman who had been drowning for years, but now she has finally reached the surface again and now she can finally breathe. The angle they shot her also gives the appearance of someone who rises to the surface after fighting for air. We also hear her take a large inhale while Daemon rocks inside of her as if she had been holding her breath this whole time. Rhaenyra wasn't supposed to look like a woman who has found pleasure. She's had pleasure with Harwin for 10 years, she knows what coupling and orgasms feel like. This moment is meant to be more impactful than that because of who she's with and where she is in life how. She's supposed to look like someone with air to fill her lungs and fire boiling in her soul again. It's supposed to look like a relief, a moment of absolute serenity and completeness that has escaped her for years. We're supposed to see the spark of life in her eyes now and the energy that has come to her entire body as she rocks underneath him and runs her hands over every inch of his body she can reach because she's found her safe space again, she's found her center of gravity and the anchor to her identity that she's been missing. We watch her come alive and transform in Daemon's arms; now she can be who she truly is without shame or fear. That was ultimately the entire purpose of her coming together with Daemon in the first place.
That's why this scene was great and almost perfect (y'all can drag Miguel over that shitty-ass lightning for the next 10 years he deserves it lol). This is why I feel like I needed to defend it because we actually got something that was beautiful and nuanced. The directing of this scene gave it an impact that was worthy of the depth of longing and love they have built between these two characters for 7 episodes. That's why I'm so obsessed with it and I hope you become obsessed with it too.
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