Do you think there’s love between Daemon and Rhaenyra? I keep seeing people saying Daemon is incapable of experiencing emotions but I’m not really sure that’s true lol
... What evidence is there to suggest Daemon is incapable of experiencing emotions? Lmao? He seems to experience extremely strong emotions that he doesn't express well, and when he does express them it's often in a way that we think of as very typically masculine (by which I mean shouting and hitting stuff). It's not subtle.
Case in point: what immediately follows after this GIF.
This is not a cool brooding sociopath man, this is a man who runs incredibly hot at least 85% of the time. To believe otherwise is to read a lot of his anger as a product of ambition instead of hurt, and to do that you have to take Otto Hightower at his word when he says "The gods have yet to make a man who lacks the patience for absolute power." (And you shouldn't take Otto at his word when he says that, because he's talking about a different second son: himself.)
Anyway, I touched a little bit on the question of whether Daemon loves Rhaenyra in this other meta. Approaching it from a different direction, we're meant to take from his behavior in episode 8 that he loves her very much, but we are meant to take from his behavior in episode 10 that love doesn't blunt Daemon's sharp edges or render him safe. I'm not only talking about the choking scene, but about the way he immediately shifts into attack dog mode and therefore ignores what emotional needs or actual desires his wife may have.
But—just to head some questions off at the pass–although I say "love" I don't mean it's a modern-day romantic ideal: we're starting with the foundation of an incestuous marriage, after all! Still, even before they marry it's easy to see that Daemon adores her, that he likes to spend time with her, and that he desires her. He holds some kind of regard or respect for her which prevented him from deflowering her in that brothel, more than just her being into it. And all of those ingredients add up to something.
Daemon's family is the star around which his planet orbits, providing the gravity that dictates his behavior. Initially the biggest and brightest of these stars was Viserys, and now it's Rhaenyra. She is the center of his universe. Someday that star will go supernova and become a black hole which will devour them both, but if that's not some kind of love, destructive and all-consuming, then, I guess, what is?
Edit: I spent so much time talking about Daemon because of the question about his emotions that I forgot to add that Rhaenyra loves him too, as family and an ally and a lover all at once. Okay bye.
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