about WHY Daemon COULD NOT interfere during the big hall Rhaenyra-Alicent confrontation, all's logical...
So it all starts with disheveled-looking Daemon and Rhaenyra being the last ones to enter the hall in the middle of the night when shit had already hit the fan, with everyone else already being there... it's awkward enough as it is, the two of them walking in together, especially the circumstances given: Rhaenyra constantly being accused of having an affair outside of marriage/ having illegitimate children, and here she comes all disheveled in the middle of the night with none other than Daemon, her once rumoured lover, who had just buried his wife...
Daemon knows, Daemon heard even Vaemond not-so-subtly accuse Rhaenyra of all that in his funeral speech for Laena, as insane as that was. So Daemon is well aware of the dire situation in which Rhaenyra already is, and obviously isn't gonna add fuel to the fire. Caring for Rhaenyra as much as he does, he slows down significantly, and tries to make it seem like he only arrived AFTER her, not with her. He walks slowly, carefully, assessing the situation, and then he stops by the door, basically hiding away from all prying eyes, low-key keeping an eye out for any sign of trouble, trying to understand what's up...
BUT, naturally, this DOES NOT escape Otto's judging eye... (and Daemon notices Otto noticing soon after...)
So Otto immediately notices Daemon arriving with Rhaenyra and i think Otto had been suspecting there had been sth serious going on with these two for well over a decade.
I mean, we even got a close up shot (in 1x4) of Otto watching intently as Rhaenyra watched and gravitated towards Daemon, giving him heart eyes during the garden conversation post Stepstones victory,
he noticed Rhaenyra's heart eyes but ALSO Daemon's head tilt and him being all giddy and excited/flustered as Rhaenyra approached, so yeah, Otto knew.. look at how he looked at both of them:
I think Otto had always known and was pretty wary of their potential union...
Back to the big hall 1x7 scene... So it all started -> accusations, ofc Rhaenyra's children being illegitimate was brought up again, and that's when it was suggested they brought Laenor, kids' 'father' to speak on that matter... but ofc, as always, Laenor was nowhere to be found. And Rhaenyra was left to fend for herself yet again, and she had to come up with an excuse for him. But what was worse, she herself did not have a very good excuse, as she'd just returned from that beach shack where they'd just made love with Daemon, so she awkwardly tries to come up with a believable enough excuse about being unable to sleep and taking a walk, while Daemon is watching intently. And it seems to me his expression suggests he is concerned but at the same time he also finds Rhaenyra's excuse kinda funny(?), still feeling her under him just moments ago... it's like only the two of them know what had gone down and it isn't easy to hide it since it's all so fresh... Anyway, he knows it's all a "shit just got real" situation, but still, for obvious reasons he CANNOT do anything about it, there's no way he can help Rhaenyra or defend her without raising questions, and so he continues assessing the situation:
^we see him staring at her while she's coming up with her excuse and right after we see him low-key checking reactions of everyone there to Rhaenyra's excuse, checking whether they'd bought it, and if all was alright...
Thankfully, the conversation takes an expected turn, people bringing up Laenor's preferences... Then we have Viserys questioning his sons about the rumour about Rhaenyra... And when Aegon voices it in front of everyone that it's not just a rumour, and that everyone KNOWS it, we see Rhaenyra completely defenseless and defeated with tears in her eyes. And again we get a shot of Daemon staring at her, now with concern:
and again Daemon is just standing there helplessly, he knows he cannot interfere without making the situation EVEN worse for Rhaenyra...
His concern gets even more evident when Alicent eventually asks ser Crispin to bring her Lucerys's eye, Daemon looks pretty tensed now:
And then the mess starts: Alicent attacks Rhaenyra, and here's where it gets INTERESTING -> ser Crispin darts towards Alicent, and quite possibly at the same time Daemon darts towards Rhaenyra (although from the way the scene was edited in the episode, it looked like Daemon only jumped up when he saw Crispin):
but let's also take a look at a DIFFERENT camera angle which made me think about this situation again, look: Daemon in the picture above, when he jumps up, he is looking LEFT (Rhaenyra was to his LEFT the whole time, if you look at the hall from the top, you see Crispin was on the right), so it seems to me that Daemon jumps up because of Alicent attacking Rhaenyra and only THEN when he also notices crazed Crispin running, Daemon turns to stop him instead... i mean, who knows:
^ this is the shot we get, Alicent attacking, and Daemon moving towards the mess, he's in the middle, between Rhaenyra/Alicent and crazed Crispin to his RIGHT, so it's like, he asseses the situation, sees that Rhaenyra's got it, and so he immediately turns to shield Rhaenyra by stopping Crispin, look at Daemon's body position, it's like he was not going to stop Crispin, as his body had been turned more towards the circle with Rhaenyra, and so when he meets Crispin to stop him, he has to take a sharp turn right to meet Crispin. He had been aiming for the circle with Rhaenyra it seems:
if he wanted to just stop Crispin, he could have moved more to the right, go straight for Crispin, no? ...But no, it's like he was aiming for the circle first... o_O
My conclusion? Based on all their positions and movements, Daemon jumped up to run to defend Rhaenyra, then when he was in the middle, he noticed Crispin, then he saw Rhaenyra was ok, and so last minute he turned RIGHT to stop Crispin instead. (alternatively, it's simply that the scene was shot several times from many different angles and the final cut rearranged the scenes so that it caused confusion as to what happened when and how :D ...so I give up, i blame the editing!)
Anyway, after this situation, we get Rhaenyra/Daemon parallels again -> Rhaenyra fiercely stopping crazed Alicent, Daemon fiercely stopping crazed Crispin, side by side, Daemon's there, all this time, as Rhaenyra's shadow :
So to sum up the verbal part of the big hall confrontation scene : Daemon did not want to get openly involved NOT cuz he was afraid, or that he was protecting himself there, QUITE THE OPPOSITE. It was to protect Rhaenyra. Daemon knew that ANY kind of his involvement, defending Rhaenyra so suddenly and so openly in front of the whole court despite them not having been in any contact for 10 years, and now arriving late together, with Daemon who has made it a point to stay away from all court affairs for good, now suddenly out of nowhere siding with the King's Landing's outcast Rhaenyra against the whole court just like that? A freshly widowed man now being the only one to stand up for the black sheep Rhaenyra in front of everyone, fiercely protecting her honor against all odds, even getting into a fight for this woman, ready to shed blood for her, on the night of his wife's funeral ??? - well that would've raised tons of questions and not only among the rivals of Rhaenyra, but now also among Velaryons who were like, the last ones that still at least respected/accepted Daemon and Rhaenyra as family...
So with the question of Rhaenyra's decency out there, Daemon being all "back away from my girl" would've been the last nail in Rhaenyra's decency's coffin. And Daemon would never jeopardize Rhaenyra's reputation like that or put her at risk.
Remember how he backed down in front of Otto (despite the fact he was ready to roast Otto right there and then) on Dragonstone just cuz Rhaenyra was there and he wanted to help her cause? Not taking her away on her wedding day despite her pleas, was also for her sake. He chose Rhaenyra's well-being instead of his own desire to marry her himself - thus making sure they wouldn't take away her right to the throne or exile her for his own selfish desire and Rhaenyra's naivety. Ultimately, what was important for her, ended up being more important to him than his own well-being...
Back to commenting on the post 1x7 big hall confrontation: when the big hall fight was finally over, and everyone had seen hysterical crazy Alicent, in the silence we hear Aemond say he's contented despite it all cuz he'd got a dragon: and it seems to me that at this very moment Rhaenyra turns right, to stare at Daemon in shock (remember? they heard/saw Vhagar in the sky after their beach lovemaking, and they looked confused, it's like now it all fell into place, and so Rhaenyra is immediately searching for Daemon in shock)
(again, i may be wrong about the angles, but i'm basing this on where all of them were standing). And right after the shot of Rhaenyra, we get this shot of Daemon staring left, as a reaction to a reaction? that is also why i think they were looking at each other... but who knows?
Anyway, after this we get Viserys who finally puts an END to it all.
And right after Viserys, we get this shot of Daemon, staring intently at Rhaenyra, ready to dart her way, and a (still) crazed Crispin glaring at Daemon (who now has other thoughts on his mind already and couldn't care less about Crispin):
and right after this shot we see Daemon getting through the crowd to where he's been looking -> he's walking fast and straight to Rhaenyra, (despite Viserys still being there, kind of ,although leaving... so Daemon is still fairly subtle about his protectiveness...but at the same time, he sees that people are already dispersing, so he feels more free to act now that the show is over, and Viserys made it clear no one was allowed to continue that "Rhaenyra inquisition", so either A/ Daemon knew that him being by her side now at least wouldn't endanger her anymore. B/ He's understood that everything bad that could've been said against her has already been said and so him being with her couldn't make things worse, C/ or the moment when he saw Rhaenyra get threatened with a knife, made something snap inside of him and he decided to stand by her now, no matter what, like, to hell with it ...) And what do YOU guys think?
First thing Daemon does when he reaches Rhaenyra, he immediately checks her hand, her well-being being his number one priority again:
And then he shields / half-embraces her,
and later half-embraces Rhaenyra's boys as well, when they get to them, creating this "new family protection circle" :)
I also love Crispin's expression when he sees Rhaenyra's got Daemon now,
Daemon, who is the feared Rogue prince, fierce King of the Stepstones and the Narrow sea, the former commander of the Night watch, rider of Caraxes and the one who's first called him ser Crispin)
- do you think Crispin understood here that Daemon and Rhaenyra were now a thing?
I think Crispin got it right there and then. Hell, if I were Crispin, I'd shit my pants if I saw Daemon giving me THIS glare ... :D