Imagine you're Rhaena.
You're 8 years old. It's the night after your mother's funeral. You're lying in bed in your grandparents' house, staring out the window at the dragon that belonged to your mother your entire life. You've known Vhagar since birth and - just as the adults told you - you hope you can bond with her and become a dragonrider like your mother, keeping a part of her with you.
You wake up in the night to find that someone has sneaked in and without any Dragonkepper tradition or ritual "stole" the dragon. You don't know who it is.
You go to meet this person and it turns out it's your older cousin. You don't know him; you saw him for the first time at your mother's funeral, which was today. You tell him that Vhagar IS your mother's dragon, still using the present tense. And in response, he mocks you and the fact that your mother is dead.
You say Vhagar was yours to claim, just like your father once had the chance to try bond with his mother's dragon, before Meleys rejected him and became your grandmother's dragon. You didn't try it, because your entire family was grieving, your mother died and you had only just arrived in Driftmark. It's still the night of your mother's funeral.
And this older boy, a stranger to you, openly mocks you and tells you you should ride a pig, because "it will suit you". You don't know him and you don't know about the joke his brother made, you only know that he's openly mocking you and that all hurts you.
And since you're eight years old and a child in mourning, you react like child and push him.
In response, he throws you to the ground with much greater force and aggression.
And…
It's 2026 and people are STILL making Rhaena out to be the villain in this scene 🤡 According to their logic, an 8-year-old girl MUST behave like a rational and emotionally stable adult, not like the child she was, but a 10-year-old boy can behave like a spoiled child, because he has the right to do so 🤡
