Okay wow so I read The Rogue Prince and my takeaway is that myrish-swamp and her aerystocracy are 1000% correct about what the Targaryen family were like at their height, omg. The ~narrative voice is a snide and prudish/prurient Maester who is obviously trying to smear Rhaenyra for being promiscuous and her husband being gay, but he actually paints a picture of a very interesting and functional poly and queer household (which of course is destroyed by her traditionalist/sexist brother sigh.) THE TARGISTER POLYQUAD IS REAL.
- So the main character is sort of Prince Daemon but actually his neice Princess Rhaenyra, who is a precocious child, an early reader, rode her first dragon at age 7.
- Uncle Daemon is married off to a Royce but hates the stuffy Andal Eyrie and moves back to the Capitol, where he hangs around the commoners so much the people call him "the Prince of the City." He notices that the city police are running around in rags and makes them into a functional unit. He hangs out in brothels and among regular people, gets into fights, and generally horrifies the rest of the court in the Red Keep and especially the Hightower Hand. He finally settles down with a "dancing girl" sex worker paramour from Myr; he wanted to marry her a la Oberyn and Ellaria, but she's sent away and dies in childbirth in exile.
- Meanwhile, teenage Rhaenyra is crossdressing to sneak out, go clubbing, and date both men and women. The personal guard who's been her UST partner for over a decade either came on to her and was turned down, or he judged her so harshly for being a slut that he became her lifelong enemy.
- After being married off, she was in a committed triad with her lover Harwin Strong (the father of her first three sons) and her gay husband Laenor; Laenor later became involved in another LTR with another man, but both he and Harwin were in the delivery room when she had her children when it's not culturally required for the father to be present for births at all. Cersei points out that Robert was off hunting when she was having her children but Jaime stayed by her side in the delivery room against the taboo laid down by the midwives; in this case BOTH Rhaenyra's legal husband and her children's bio father cared enough about her and the kids to be with her.
- after Laenor was murdered by a later boyfriend, Rhaenyra married "the prince of the city" in a political marriage that gives them both more agency and seems to have made a functional, happy extended family with her new husband, his daughters from a previous marriage, and their grandmother, there is 0 drama about integrating Baela and Rhaena into the family and 0 drama about the oldest three sons and all the kids from these multiple marriages seem legitimately well adjusted and cared for
- Grandpa Viserys accepts Jace, Luke, and Joffrey as his grandsons and heirs. He knows they were born out of traditional wedlock but doesn't care because they're his daughter's children.
- Rhaenyra wearing the god damned rainbow crown
