Catharsis || Character dynamics analysis:
*Kinda spoilery for some tbwritten quotes, but also not, because the premise is known and I simply wanted to get it out of my chest*
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Rhaenyra, when Aemond reveals to her that he knows her son is alive (and also that he wants to own him like he owns her):
"He's. my. son! You have no right - no right to take him from me!"
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"She's my. mother. My mother! He already took everything from me! He cannot have her as well, he can't-!"
And now, the dissection of this fascinating for me dynamic:
✓ Yes, they're going to be a little co-dependent and fixated on one another, but then again, they're the oldest members alive from their family that they know of. You can't blame them. They literally are each other's hope. (Rhaenyra doesn't know whether or not Baela, Rhaena, Aegon III and Viserys II are okay in Winterfell.)
✓ ✓ Also, Rhaenyra is not a thing to be owned, obviously.
But we are in a misogynistic medieval society,
so that means that Luke - subconsciously and due to his trauma
✓views his mother as a 'goal' to be achieved, as something to hope for so he doesn't spiral to grief and **kill himself**
especially when he hears that Aemond has become King and instead of killing his mother swiftly, he holds her hostage just to torture her and play all these mind games.
*Aemond is in his Ramsey Bolton Era*
✓✓As for Aemond, yes, Rhaenyra IS very much a thing to be owned.
✓✓He puts her in a cage, he treats her like a wild animal, he "gets off" by her defiance.
(A defiance he very rarely sees on Alicent anymore bc she's dismissive & bitter every time they interact.)
✓And it's Rhaenyra's exact honesty with herself and towards him, her rage and her dismissal of power what makes him so obsessed with her.
"Dictators love having people opposing them until they get bored."