thoughts on aemond and daemon, respectively?
Two of my favorite characters. Those that say Aemond is a one-note cartoon in the books are absolute fools, I tell you. Heâs so incredibly complex and tragic. (My other two faves are Rhaenyra and Alicent.)
Iâve already spoken about Daemon being a Byronic hero: mad, bad, dangerous to know, traumatized but driven by love. Aemond is himself another Byronic hero. But thereâs another difference: Aemond is Daemonâs Jungian shadow in the classic sense.
Iâll also say that while a lot of people think of the Dance as bad people hurting bad people, I actually find it much like Othello or Hamlet: a tragedy, to be sure, but the tragedy is because the characters have so many great points that seeing them fall is painful. I donât think anyone involved is a âbadâ person besides perhaps Aegon the Elder.
Some thoughts in what follows are taken from @linkspooky
Daemonâs love is defined by love, both given and received. Aemondâs is defined by duty and the lack of receiving love.
You silly girl! cry the twitter mobs. Stop seeing this as a love story! To which I slide Wuthering Heights, a classic work of Romantic literature, over to them and say, please read. A love story is not always #goals.
Also, yeah, I said it. Aemond is the opposite of a cartoonish villain. Heâs actually pretty defined by love too.
Daemon did not love his first wife, and he definitely had Rhea Royce murdered. No doubt there. Iâm not excusing him but talking about complexity.
Then, enter Laena. And I think this is a tragic aspect of the show that they cut: the book says Laena taught Daemon to love. And she did. Rhaenyra loved her too (as more than friends, by the way).
Did Daemon kill Laenor in the books? Very possibly, yes. Did he want power? Yes. Do I think he loved Rhaenyra for more than just her claim?
Yes. Iâm not getting into the grooming aspect; Iâm talking after Laena. Laena taught him to love.
If he only wanted the crown, he could have killed his brother. But the books make it clear that despite their issues, Daemon loved his brother. He won wars for him.
The book also directly states Daemon named his children after loved ones: Rhaena after Laenaâs mother. Baela after Daemonâs father. Viserys after his elder brother. Aegon after his younger brother. Yes, I see the common name being taken as a slight by Alicent, but it was also out of love for a brother who died while still a baby.
The man is an emotional wreck and lashes out at others because of it. Thatâs what a rogue is. Hence, the title âThe Rogue Prince.â Iâm not saying heâs a good person, because âa son for a sonâ was nauseating. Iâm just saying that the story indicates Daemon is driven by love, but where heâs driven to isnât always a great place.
Listen, Aemond is the most overlooked of Alicentâs kids. Not Daeron, who is well-loved by the common people along with Helaena. Heâs also not the heir.
As a boy, Aemond just wanted to prove himself. Him taking Vhagar at the funeral of Laena was hurtful, but it was the innocent work of a child who didnât fully grasp what he was doing. Heâs not a monster for it. Luke taking Aemondâs eye is also the work of a kid who doesnât fully understand what âpermanent blindnessâ means. Heâs only just experiencing death. These are childrenâs squabbles with greater consequences than intended.
He wants to prove himself because he lacks love. Viserys is a neglectful dad, and itâs not wrong to say his neglect is abusive towards Alicentâs kids. But Alicent, while I donât doubt she loves her kids, also fails her kids. Iâll discuss this below.
When Aemond kills Luke in the book, itâs not âoopsie.â Itâs framed as the lashing out of a boy who had no love, and itâs explicit in this framing.
Aemond literally arranges a deal with Stormâs End to agree to marry a girl he does not love. Love is a transaction for the Hightowers. The sister he does not pick then taunts him about his missing eye, so he kills Luke to prove to a girl he doesnât even love and isnât even promised to, that he is strong. If he has not love, heâll at least have respect⊠right?
Alicent Loves Her Kids (Just Not Well)
Like Cersei, Alicent can both genuinely love her kids and fail them all the same. Again, like Cersei, itâs the trauma of having their bodies and love sold to a king for a transaction of power that cripples their understanding of love. In other words, Tywin and Otto are the blame first and foremost.
The showâs adaptation of the âeye for an eyeâ scene is good, because it makes the novelâs subtext actual text. The scene had nothing to do with Alicent requesting justice for her son and everything to do with lashing out at someone else and hurting them because she was hurting.
Viserys was a neglectful dad, but taking his grandkidâs eye? No. Who would that have helped? Ned Stark, the most loyal and moral character in the entire series besides perhaps Davos Seaworth, literally begs Robert in a parallel scene not to kill Sansaâs wolf. Itâs seen as a turning point for Joffrey becoming worse, and itâs a turning point here too, for Aemond turning to cruelty.
Alicent, because of the lovelessness of her environment where her father sold her and sheâs treated like less than a person, turns to violent retribution lashes out at people who are innocent (violence against children, almost like thatâs a theme). She cuts Rhaenyra and Rhaenyraâs line ânow they see you as you areâ is meant to point out the reality: Alicentâs issue is with Rhaneyra, not with Luke. Itâs not about Aemond. Itâs about Alicent.
When Alicent dies in the books, her last words are about wanting to see her kids again and to see Jaehaerys. But the context is everything here.
When Alicent dies, she has a granddaughter left, and spends her time traumatizing the girl by telling her to slit her husbandâs throat so the girl was sobbing and refusing to visit her. Her remembered Jaehaerys is not out of fondness or truth but regret and delusion, because Jaehaerys died thinking Alicent was Saera, the daughter he disowned, come to forgive him.
It is a scene that is filled with regret about how she failed her kids and grandkids, and dying choosing to believe a kind lie (that she was someone else) over reality, because at that point she doesnât want to acknowledge what she knows: that she wishes she had become someone other than who she became. Still, the complexity enters in that she hurt her granddaughter up until the end. Itâs regret but not honest regretâit looks everywhere but inwards. Alicent saw Rhaenyra as her Jungian shadow, and destroyed her instead of reconciling it.
Aemond always tries to do the right thing by his family. But it gets him absolutely nothing. Even when he kills Luke, Alicent tells him heâs accursed for slaying his own kin. Just like Alicent targets Rhaenyra and lashes out at her continually for the lack of love in her life, so Aemond lashes out at others. But neither of them are lashing out at the right people.
Aemond always lashes out at those weaker than him. His victories are pyrrhic. He doesnât want to fight those bigger and better than him despite his boasting not because heâs craven, but because he wants to prove himself worthy because what else does he have? When he eventually does fight Daemon, he loses.
Aemond goes to war for his brother, Aegon, but thereâs no remarks of love between them. Itâs duty Aemond cites all the time, and while I do think he acted out of loyalty for Aegon, itâs certainly not reciprocated. Compare that with Daemon and Viserys. For all their flaws, I do think they genuinely cared about each other. Aegon must take the crown because of duty. Even in the show, he is open to wedding Helaena if âduty commands it.â Itâs the classic duty vs love, that age old tragic trope.
Aemond settles for duty, even though he wants love. But Martinâs books are never so simple as to paint love or duty as good or bad, black and white. No, itâs much more complex. So love doesnât make anyone better inherently, but without it thereâs no hope at all.
But if Daemon really loved Rhaenyra, why was he cheating with Nettles?
I⊠genuinely am not sure the intent of the story is that Daemon was cheating with Nettles. Before you accuse me of rose-tinted glasses, please here me out.
The book made it seem like two options: he was cheating or she was his daughter. However, when the text mentions rumors (which Iâve been paying attention to as I reread ASOIAF), itâs usually NOT one or the other, but usually a mixture of the two with some unknown third component there.
The problem is that both of the two options severely weaken a different theme.
Like, if Nettles is his daughter, that reinforces the idea that magic is only for a certain bloodlines, and while there is some truth to this in ASOIAF, itâs not fully the truth, and it seems very very odd to me that George would stick to this one fantasy trope and not deconstruct it like he usually does. Tyrion is most likely a dragon rider in ASOIAF alongside Jon and Dany, and it is much more powerful if he is not a Targaryen.
As for the more likely optionâcheatingâalso weakens the themes because again, a queen is not paranoid and losing everyone if sheâs right. Iâve seen some speculate Rhaenyra didnât write that letter, but it is most likely that Rhaenyra did write that letter, because in a tragedy, she must bring about her own downfall. The problem is that it is a lot less thematically powerful if Rhaenyra is right about Daemon cheating on her.
The most powerful thematic option is if Daemon just saw a kid who had power and tried to protect her from the war. Maybe trying to get some insight into her powers, maybe not. But he loses Rhaenyra in the end because of her own inability to trust, and then what does Daemon do? He decides to essentially die tragically defeating Rhaenyraâs most formidable enemy: Aemond and Vhagar.
When thereâs no love left, thereâs still duty towards a queen.
Like, no, of course that isnât âcouple goals.â Iâm not saying itâs some great fantastical romance that we should all swoon at. But Iâm also saying that it is true that Daemonâs life was defined by love, which is way more thematically consistent with Martinâs works than âbad guy do bad thing.â
Aemond is Daemonâs Jungian shadow, like I said above. Heâs Daemon with all the duty and none of the love⊠until Alys Rivers.
Alys is literally the aunt of Luke, Jace, and Joff. A bastard, worth little in society, still, he loves her, I genuinely think the books leave no question about this. She finds Daemon for him. He kisses her before he battles Daemon. She has his child. He takes her on dragonrides with him. It also clearly parallels Sara Snow and Jace.
But because of events set in motion by Aemond, his end comes and love canât save him anymore than it could save Daemon.
When he finally faces Daemon, Daemonâs lost Rhaenyraâs trust, but heâs determined to go out taking out her most formidable foe. And he does. But the tragedy there, too, is that in the eye for an eye point of view in the battle above the Godâs Eye, he takes Aemond from Alys and his unborn child.
Of the Greens, Aemond is the only one with a potential heir left by the end of the book (after Jaehaera is murdered and Gaemon too). Wonder why that was (love).
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