@cleverjonquil reblogged the post “cleverjonquil: Unpopular opinion but...” and added:
Hi. Yes, I’m 100% aware GRRM has control of the story and I wish he’d stop fridging and ignoring the moms/wives. I’m not hating on Dany here; it says outright on my bio I like her. I’m not sure where you got anything about “good victims” (yikes), but it says more about your own views of survivors who didn’t have the privilege of fighting back like Elia and Rhaella than mine.
Your passive-aggressive condescension is unnecessary, thanks, especially for a post that didn’t require a reply that deep to begin with. I’m allowed to care about female characters GRRM and fans deem unimportant, as well as criticize Aerys and Rhaegar and their horrible treatment of Elia (and Dany’s own victim blaming of her) and Dany’s disinterest in learning the truth, but hope she does one day when she’s ready.
Again, considering that 90% of what we know of Elia and Rhaella in the books (excluding TWOIAF) is because of Dany asking questions about them, I really don’t think she’s disinterested. Viserys either didn’t know or had only limited and biased information, and since him she’s had no one to ask except Barristan, who is (a) reluctant to speak ill of the king he served, (b) reluctant to bring up the issue of his own participation in ignoring Rhaella’s abuse and Aerys’s madness, and (c) deeply fanboys Rhaegar. Also, we can’t go entirely Watsonian here, I’m sorry. Because GRRM is unconcerned with dead ladies, or because he prefers to slowly dribble out information about Rhaella and Elia because of secrets/spoilers/writing style -- not to mention information about Aerys and Rhaegar (who Dany has also asked Barristan about) -- therefore the fact that Dany hasn’t asked and received a giant infodump learning everything about everybody and who she should admire or not, is on him. “When she’s ready” unfortunately depends entirely on “when GRRM is ready to tell the readers”.
I actually didn’t think your post was a purposeful anti-Dany one (although the “she never thinks of her mom” made me wonder, as well as your apparent belief she sees Aerys as a role model, and this post’s “her disinterest in learning the truth” doesn’t help I’m afraid), and sorry that other people may be thinking such. But certainly people should care about characters that GRRM may not? (Like, the reason I know exactly what Elia and Rhaella info we have, and what POV chapters it comes from, is because I care about them too.) And god knows I’m critical of Rhaegar, let alone Aerys (???), and certainly I think anybody (please, everybody) should feel the same? And in-world, I hope that Dany gets all the info she needs about all her family, whenever GRRM deigns to give it to her, sigh. (Also note, re her learning about Aegon and Jaehaerys et al, that was referring to GRRM's statement that she’d benefit from reading Fire & Blood.)
However, I was very confused by the thought that Dany would do better by emulating Elia and Rhaella’s good qualities, when the good qualities we know they have are ones she already has. Thus, to clarify, the “good victims” paragraphs were a highly sarcastic and confused reach for anything else that could distinguish Elia and Rhaella’s known good qualities from Dany’s own good qualities, my apologies for lack of clarity and bad impressions there. Just a bewildered “the only serious difference I can see is that Elia and Rhaella were silenced and never achieved agency, and you surely can't mean you want Dany to emulate that when she already has achieved agency? I know there are fans out there who say they’d like Dany better if she suffered in silence, if she shut up and sat down and stopped fighting and was a “good girl”, dutiful and quiet, say you're not one of them?” (And yes, sorry, it was written condescendingly as well as sarcastically, because I really dislike those sorts of fans.) It's not intentionally victim-blaming or disparaging the value of survivors who can’t fight back, not in the slightest, but rather, being boggled at the thought of that character element as something for Dany to emulate, when (among many other things) that’s not her character type. (Not to mention being boggled at the thought that Dany sees Aerys as a role model, but I already disputed that.) But I’ve edited in a line for clarification, hopefully.
Nevertheless, apologies for painting you with an anti-Dany brush if that was not your intention. (Though I’m not going to apologize for replying “that deep”, considering that’s just me, lol.) And despite any other distractions in my reply, I hope that you saw that Dany is interested in learning about her mother and sister-in-law, that most of what we know about Elia and Rhaella comes through her POV, and that she also shares their good qualities. She should definitely keep them, while she gathers leadership skills and other qualities of a ruler as well...
