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@vrenice
people are literally so boring a male character will kill 10000 people and steal candy from babies and theyll be like omg thats my king! but a female character is rude once and theyre like i hope she dies violently
reblog to support female characters violently killing people
Everyone talks about Daemon's kill count and aura in s3 ep2 so I'm gonna talk about his personality moments:
I love that Daemon genuinely made friends at a fuckass place like Harrenhall. And that they're the most unlikely bunch: a teen boy who takes no crap from him, an old man that gives no fucks, a witch midwife who's clearly fucking with him for sport. He mellowed out a bit for them after they endured his antics and didn't flinch. He was genuinely happy to see Simon again, treats Oscar Tully with newfound respect, and refused Alys' request as gently as possible.
The fact that he likes singing even though he's not great at it and joined in instead of brooding.
Full-blown "mwuahahahaAhahahahhaha" when he saw Otto. It cracked me up ngl.
Him reading about Jace's death and immediately going into crisis management mode.
Him clearly feeling bad but doing his best to keep Rhaenyra on the path to her goal instead of letting her succumb to despair.
Wanting to shit-talk Alicent with Mysaria so bad but keeping a lid on it.
His bewildered look when he looked behind him and saw Rhaenyra holding a sword. He got too excited too soon afterwards though. Rhaenyra was clearly overwhelmed and not ready to kill Otto like that. Killing chills Daemon out and he probably thought ending the man who schemed against Rhaenyra all these years and brought so much misfortune on her would help her get over it but Rhaenyra isn't built like that. But then again it's the writer's fault for making Rhaenyra take King's Landing so soon after Jace's death.
when you are the beloved prince of the realm who serves face even at funerals but you are doomed by the narrative
Personal sigils of Targaryens that definitely would’ve had them but don’t for some reason
Aenys (and Aegon the uncrowned): silver dragon with gold spines under a golden crown
Maegor: a black sheild baring the classic targ dragon with cross swords on a red field
Rhaena: silver dragon eggs on a pale blue field with the Farman red and yellow border
Jaehaerys (and Alysanne): two headed bronze and silver dragon under a golden crown
Aemon: red dragon with golden spines (to represent caraxes)
Baelon: Green dragon with golden spines (representing Vhagar)
Rhaenys: classic targ dragon quartered with the Baratheon stag and the Velaryon sea horse
Viserys: classic targ dragon on a field of black scales
Kudos to Jace for thinking of killing the rider and Vermax for having enough training to execute it, instead of simply giving a command to attack. Jace saw Sheepstealer's size and claws and knew neither his or Baela's dragons could take him on in a dragon fight, so his first thought was a good strategy. And Vermax did a good job dodging last minute. That swerve was insane. He instantly listened to Jace instead of panicking and going rogue. They had a BOND. They were trained.
House of the Dragon + in memoriam: Vermax
(Source: Sen the donkey)
What is a Play-by-Play? And Why are They a Problem?
What is a Play-by-Play?
In writing, a "play-by-play" happens when the author simply follows the character around while the character does unimportant things, like get dressed, eat, and do homework. It's like getting a narrative version of the character's schedule. For example:
Jared woke up and took a shower, thinking about the last baseball game he watched until the water turned cold. In the kitchen, he made waffles and eggs for breakfast, while the rest of the household slept. Then, he went to the grocery store to pick up some deli meats for lunch later. He and John were planning on a hike that afternoon, so Jared also gassed up--it was a bit of a drive to get to the trailhead. Back at home he unloaded the dishwasher and emptied the trash. He decided to watch another game to pass the time. John called to make sure they were still hiking, because he'd heard it might rain. Jared said he was still up for it. They decided to leave earlier.
To be honest, I'm not sure at this point if I came up with the term "play-by-play" or if I heard it somewhere. I could only find two sources that use the term, and my usage predates those sources by a lot . . . though I've never done a post exclusively on the topic. Some of my clients also now use the term.
But in any case, can you see or sense a problem here? This isn't story. It's lazy writing. So let's get into why such passages are problematic (and then when they aren't).
Why Play-by-Plays are Problematic
As touched on above, play-by-plays are often (though not always) the result of lazy writing. The author doesn't know what to write next or what the next important part of the story is, and so just starts giving the audience the protagonist's (or whoever's) day-to-day schedule, until they get somewhere.
Of course, it's okay to write play-by-plays like this in a rough draft--just make sure they get edited out before publication.
Play-by-plays are often unimportant, and are written in ways that are dull to read. They often lack meaningful plot elements, and so don't have the power to change the story in any significant way.
Most of the time, the audience doesn't need them, and they can be cut without hurting the story.
And in fact, often their presence isn't just filler, but is harmful to the story by slowing the pacing down too much, and lacking proper tension.
It's also just not generally pleasing to read a "laundry list" of to-dos.
Sometimes writers use play-by-plays like this to transition to the next scene, but they don't know how to utilize them (or just transition) properly.
With that said, this doesn't mean that all play-by-plays are bad and useless.
They're just commonly used poorly. (Usually by new or lazy writers.)
So let's talk about when a play-by-play might be a good idea.
When (and How) to Use a Play-by-Play
Play-by-plays can be useful in a few situations.
First, they can be used to establish a baseline for what is normal or expected . . . which the writer will then upend (hopefully sooner than later).
Consider the opening of Barbie. A couple of play-by-plays are used to establish a sense of normal, before that normal gets upended. First, we are following a bunch of little girls playing with baby dolls--the witty commentary and setting help, but in some sense, this is a play-by-play. We get a sense of what is normal for little girls, until Barbie arrives and upends their lives.
Similarly, in Barbieland, we watch Barbie wake up and go about her day--showering, getting dressed, eating breakfast. But this is soon disrupted by her having thoughts of death and then getting bad breath. It also works because while her life is ordinary to her, it's extraordinary to us, which makes her "normal" more interesting, which brings me to my next point.
Play-by-plays can be interesting when following an unusual lifestyle. In Harry Potter, we can easily get a play-by-play of Harry's first days at Hogwarts, because they are so extraordinary to us--they're interesting. They're unfamiliar and not mundane.
And so, having one is also useful in establishing a new normal after a major turn in the story, a major change in a situation or environment. In Interstellar, after the astronauts are in space, we get a play-by-play of what it's like and what they do in the ship. This sets up expectations of how things are run, so the audience can appreciate everything at risk and everything that goes wrong, as the story progresses.
In such situations, it can also be useful to address day-to-day tasks to answer the audience's questions and put their minds at ease. For example, in The Hunger Games, after Katniss's enters the Games and escapes the bloodbath, the audience is going to wonder what she'll do for water and shelter, so showing her finding those things will addresses that.
However, none of these moments are poorly written, and none of them are lazy.
Play-by-plays can also be useful in sequel scenes--where what the character is doing doesn't matter so much as what the character is feeling and thinking about what just happened. The focus is on the internal experience, so the external doesn't carry much weight.
And finally, play-by-plays can be used as transitions, but in such cases, they should usually be short.
The more your play-by-play is going to read like a list, the shorter it probably needs to be.
Otherwise, use the same techniques you use to make any summary interesting. Create a mini arc, utilize plot elements (like Katniss having the goal to find water and finding it), appeal to the senses, and/or elevate the writing style or make it entertaining. I have some related posts that can be helpful here:
10 Cheats to Tell Well Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Show, don't Tell" Scene vs. Summary & When to Use Which
In conclusion, while play-by-plays do have a place in storytelling, they are usually overused and improperly used. Next time you write one, ask yourself if it's really serving the story, or if it's just serving you (laziness).
Story Terminology as Determined by Word Count
by Rana Eros
So, just to review,
100 words=drabble.
500 words and under=flash fiction.
500-1000 words=short short.
1000-15000 words=short story.
At 17500, you’ve ventured into novella/novelette territory (I’ve seen it split so that 17500 to 25000 is a novella, and 25000 to 40000 is a novelette. I have also seen it split the other direction. Generally, the two terms are used interchangeably).
At 40000, congratulations, you have yourself a novel.
But wait! I hear you cry. What about vignettes? What about…
chapters?
I’m so glad you asked because now I can answer.
A vignette has nothing to do with word count. Customarily, it is under 1000 words, but the significant thing about a vignette is the theme, not the word count. A vignette is meant to give new insight into a character or the relationship between two or more characters. Most vignettes don’t involve a lot of action. Some of them also don’t involve a lot of dialogue. The important thing is the illumination of character or relationship. That’s what a vignette is all about.
As for chapters, they have no impact on how your story is classified by word count. Let me repeat that. Chapters have no impact on how your story is classified by word count. If you write a chaptered story that is under 17500 words, you have written a chaptered short story.
Lyonel had a point, but no. Because yes, it’s true that Baelor had the advantage, but he was using that advantage precisely to protect those who didn’t have it. He knew the guards couldn’t harm him, so if he went after them, he had the assurance that they wouldn’t go after others who were vulnerable to attack, injury, or even death. That’s using your privileges to protect those who don’t have them, that’s how social capital can be used to shield those who lack it.
And that’s why Dunk, even if he isn’t consciously thinking in those terms, feels that this man gave his life for him. At the end of the day, he didn’t have to intervene, didn’t have to put his body or his integrity on the line, but he did it because it seemed wrong that they were picking on a poor boy who hadn’t done anything wrong, quite the opposite, in fact. So, to balance the scales, he jumps into a fight that was already pretty uneven: apart from Daeron, the rest of the knights fighting for Aerion were highly experienced and in peak physical condition.
Yes, the others were taking more risk, because they were minor nobles and a nameless wandering knight and if they died, it wouldn’t really matter. But that’s exactly why the way to use privilege is to put yourself as a wall between your own and the vulnerable.
That said, it’s also ironic that Lyonel makes that speech, because while he isn’t a royal, he’s one of the great lords of Westeros. Clearly, any animosity a royal guard might have toward the Lord of Storm’s End will never be the same as the one they could have toward Raymun, who is not only from a minor house but from a cadet branch. There, my friend, he’s slipping a bit out of jealousy. A badly one indeed.
It's so interesting to compare how the various Valyrian houses dealt with Westerosi influences and xenophobic pressures, particularly the Targaryens and Baratheons. The Targaryens were dragon lords; the Velaryons and offshoot Baratheons were not. The Targaryens gradually adapted, but still maintained at least a semblance of their traditional culture to the end despite continuous pressure to change, while the Baratheons assimilated completely. The Velaryons allied closely to the Targaryens and maintained a more Valyrian influence, as well as their own strong maritime family interests, and despite not being dragonlords in Valyria, through their connection to the Targaryens became part of the dragon-sourced Valyrian powerhold. So, in short, dragons and their associated strength gave Valyrians a shot at maintaining their own identity in the face of various pressures to conform to mainstream Westerosi culture. The Velaryon decision to stick with the Targaryens brought them into that stronger traditional circle; apparent lack of interest from the Baratheons led to their total assimilation into Westeros' culture and identity.
Loss of the dragons makes maintaining this identity much more difficult. The crippling of House Velaryon during the Dance led not only to the dwindling of their power and influence but to absorption into mainstream culture. Meanwhile the factions that wanted an end to or control over Targaryen power (and likely orchestrated the extinction of their dragons in hopes of achieveing that) found the Targaryens generally stubbornly committed both to maintaining their power and their traditions. Removing Targaryen power post-dragon then necessitated erasing their remaining cultural identity or wiping out the house entirely. The Baratheons by this point, on the other hand, are so deeply assimilated that they barely seem to realize they even are Valyrian. The show gives Raymun a rant about the Targaryen "aliens," only for him to go into combat beside a Baratheon who apparently doesn't count, and Robert tries to hunt down even the Targaryen children, seemingly intent on wiping out the entire bloodline despite— perhaps even unconscious of— his being as much a Valryian descendant as they are.
To Westeros and the anti-Targaryen factions within it, the Baratheons are what they hoped to make the Targaryens– defanged, de-cultured, and, as much as possible, in nature, in power, in blood, a group in line with the rest of Westeros— a faction that played by Westeros' rules and could be controlled by those rules. But for every apparent move toward losing Valryian identity the Targaryens continued to cling to it in other ways. (Even Aegon the Unlikely, one of the Targaryens most willing to embrace Westerosi norms and marry into Westerosi families, was invested in restoring the dragons— conveniently for the Targaryen's rivals, his most ambitious attempt at this not only failed but killed a large amount of his family, and directly led to the rule of Aerys, who allowed a Westerosi lord to dictate much of his policy—policy which frequently undid Aegon's earlier work— and became a cartoonishly evil enough figure that Westerosi society could justify the extiction of his entire family as "casualties" of removing him.) And when they have acculturated, it usually proved detrimental to their longevity, figurative and literal. Despite show!Raymun's claims that they "disrespect" Westerosi traditions, it's a Targaryen's recourse to, and his family's following of, the bonds of an explicitly Andal ritual that directly leads to Baelor Breakspear's death.
Despite having allowed preexisting Westerosi culture to remain ascendent after their arrival with little change, it was the Targaryen's stubborn refusal to dispense entirely with their own culture that became so problematic to their subject population, both as a point of mainstream cultural discomfort and internal power jockeying among Westerosi families and factions. Interestly, the indigenous culture of the North is in a similar situation, but being more widespread, less powerful, and dispersed mostly through a geographically distant and difficult area, the North's cultural longevity is not a concern to mainstream Westeros on the same scale. This survival and independence through remoteness is seared into the Northern identity; the association with going South as bringing death to the Starks is not only realized in the political murders that have befallen the family, but in their cultural survival— they have only been allowed to maintain the cultural independence they have preserved because of their distance from much of the Seven Kingdoms proper. If their ambitions or geography had brought them into closer contact with mainstream culture, it's likely the North would have faced similar pressures— suggestive or aggressive — to adapt to the preferred cultural norms just as the Valyrians did.
In this way, the Targaryens and the North/First Men join the dragons, the Children of the Forest, and other elements either assimilated into, or banished/exterminated by Andal encroachment and control. Westeros had already been remade in the shape of the Andal vision long before Aegon's conquest, and the Valyrians lacked the numbers or influence to reasonably supplant it. The Valyrians, like the First Men, were willing to make peace with some amount of cultural and political collaboration and dissonance; both, notably, adopted their enemy's religions, for example. The Andals meanwhile, seem to prefer, if not need, anyone they come in contact with to fall into line with their own ideas, and have little tolerance or consideration for things to go the other way around. (This even colors their approach to magic and religion, which I went into in a humans vs magic in Westeros vs Essos post a couple years ago.) However they manifest, all these non-Andal/Westerosi, non-comformist elements are intolerable "nails that stick up" to the predominately Andal culture of the Seven Kingdoms and if those nails are close enough or prominent enough, they will inevitably be "hammered down." Despite the Targaryen's initial strength, eventually the Andal legacy worked on the Targaryens as it did on all the others, a legacy dependent on xenophobia, assimilationist pressures, and commitment to extermination if less passive measures prove ineffective.
Another interesting note related to this is how the GOT show zeroed in on these general themes of assimilation, separatism, and xenophobia, and in fact went out of its way not only to emphasize them but to use them in enforcing a moral viewpoint not really present in the books, and with wildly vacillating intents and results.
In the books its clear the Lannisters under Tywin have interests in taking over the Targaryen's spot at the top, both by undermining them, and by eventually worming their way into the vacuum left after the Targaryens are ousted. There's also an insular quality to the family's ambitions: Tywin's commitment to extending his influence through his own bloodline, his marriage to a first cousin and refusal to remarry, Tyrion's vague position as not "fully" part of the family and so not fully allowed to represent them or be relied on, and Jaime and Cersei's incestous affair and resulting offspring. In the books, this seems to reflect the family's tendency toward myopic self-obsession, a trend begun with Tywin and inherited to some extent by his children. (Cersei, for example, seems to have genuine affection for Jaime and connection to her children, but most of it is rooted in how they resemble, or are even extensions of, her.) In the show, however, this goes further, with the Lannister ambitions and loyalty to "brand" and family seeming to verge on family-centric isolationism, and a desire on some level to separate themselves from the rest of Westeros' society as a unique class as the Targaryen's had done, made clear through invented lines like Tywin's "the lion doesn't concern himself with sheep," and Cersei's "everyone who isn't us is an enemy." It's an odd decision, I feel, but also one that's clearly designed to mark the Lannister's out as "bad guys," if only for their almost xenophobic repulsion to those outside the clan, an impulse that let's them manipulate and murder even children and innocents with little compunction.
By the end of the show, however, xenophobia is a good thing, a crowning achievement for the show's "heroes." Daenerys, being Valyrian, a Targaryen, having been raised outside Westeros, and commanding a mixed force of foreign soldiers (and, presumably, also being an uncowed female) makes her insufficiently assimilated and thus a threat to True Westeros Culture; she becomes every inch the evil foreign "alien" threat Westeros has imagined the non-compliant Targaryens to be for centuries. Her convenient and inexplicable descent into "madness" only proves her insufficient assimilation and thus insufficient humanity; it is only right that she be put down like the rabid animal she is.
Sansa meanwhile, as a Northerner (for some reason, the darling and apparent moral center for the show runners by this point) is sprung from the font of all goodness and truth. (Also, unlike Daenerys, who has a show-only speech about how despite all she's suffered, it's her own innate self and—explicitly foreign and Targaryen– identity that has brought her through her struggles; Sansa instead equates her abuse and violation with making her who she is, and even thanks the people who enacted it for enlightening her. This, it seems, makes her taking power while being female forgivable.) So when Sansa echo's Cersei's "enemies" line, it's all for the good, and when she implies Arya's disagreement with her may cause a rupture between them that will mark Arya as "not family" and thus, the enemy, this is also good. Her role, after Daenerys is dead and the last of the "alien" foreign influence gone with her, as ruler of the newly separated, apparently isolationist kingdom in the North is the ultimate triumph for xenophobia, and one we're expected to celebrate.
The non-GOT spin offs have had an interesting balancing act to play between the show and the books, since they are tied to the show canon, but telling stories that increasingly must diverge from the show's alterations from the books, and they've landed in different places regarding Valyrian ostracism and xenophobic themes at different times. Presumably, however, Raymun's outburst in AKOTSK is not meant to highlight the insular, xenophobic currents prevalent in Westeros' culture that even otherwise decent people may absorb, but to establish the show's moral viewpoint, wherein Targaryens can be accepted as people, and good people even, but only if they break with Targaryen identity, admit they're actually "just like everyone else," and distinguish themselves through extra-familial allegiances and mores. Baelor can be heroic because he has a Dornish mother and more mundane looks; Aegon can grow up to be a good king not because his time with Duncan exposed him to the excesses of absolute monarchy and feudalism, but because of his internalized self-hatred and dislike of being a Targaryen. It's really such a bizarre valorization of Andal/Westeros cultural hegemony. Considering that culture is distinguished in both the books and show by conquest, fuedalism, patriarchy, repressive religion, and enforced homogeneity, it's bizarre to see it propped up as a kind of "kinder, gentler" culture, and the Valyrians, who were willing to collaborate and concede to that culture, as the innately evil "alien" interlopers.
Exactly what I think (maybe except the Cersei part), but put into words in a way that I'm incapable to do.
the septons say we must love our brothers, the blood shared creating a bond so eternal—just as maegor left aenys to reign in peace but slaughtered his son and legacy.
and so the septons command that thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, so daemon never lets himself hate viserys but seduces his daughter to take payment for his imagined slights, robbed of a throne that will never be his.
did the septons not tell us that whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling, and so aemond in his resolve forged a false crown in a sky of fire as aegon was burnt by his dragon’s flames.
then the septons remind us whoever loves the gods must also embrace his brother as well, so daeron the good gave daemon blackfyre his love which became the blackfyre’s sharpened steel blade of bitterness and ambition.
love your brothers, the four sons of daeron the good must abide by this gospel, as they are brothers in fire and blood. you must love your brothers, but maekar knows it was his mace that felled the brightest prince in the realm, and he holds baelor’s ghost close, to his very last breath. and he loves his brother, he loved his brother, he loves—
the septons say love your brothers, but the septons do not know the truth, they do not know that brothers of targaryen blood will love their brothers the only way they know how. for a targaryen, to love is to consume, to love your brother is to destroy him as well.
A little more on my feelings about Lyonel’s line, “He risked nothing!” I liked Lyonel as a character, but god, that line is infuriating, wildly wrong, and honestly, stupid. Lyonel seems to forget, for a second, that besides the Kingsguard there were other knights fighting too. But even if they were busy, the most important, the most dangerous one remained. Maekar motherfucking Targaryen.
Lyonel apparently thought Maekar would sit his ass down and only fight one opponent at a time? From what we saw in the few minutes of combat they actually showed, Maekar was an absolute fucking beast. Knocking Lyonel off his horse mid-gallop, dodging counterattacks, breaking through his defense like it was nothing... and if it weren’t for Baelor (who, of course, Lyonel loved to shit-talk!), Lyonel wouldn’t have stood a chance. They barely held him together, and Maekar was somehow fighting both of them at once. Lyonel’s injuries and his broken leg? Yeah, those are all on Maekar. Considering that two of Dunk’s team died in the first clash, meaning they were immediately outnumbered, that’s how insane this was.
Lyonel looks like a complete idiot, honestly and sorry, but he really does, given that Baelor was basically holding and distracting Maekar to stop him from tearing Lyonel to pieces. Targaryens fight on a completely different level, at least in my eyes. So yeah, Lyonel can shove his “He risked nothing!” line right up his ass, and I’m glad Dunk called him out on it, even if just in some small way.
War Crimes in the Riverlands
ASOIAF:
HOTD:
"WAR CRIMES? IN OUR RIVERLANDS? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! A SCANDAL! FIE ON THOSE EVIL TARGS! Willem Blackwood we hereby charge you with violating the Geneva Convention-"
Bringing this back after Raymun Fossoway accuses House Targaryen of inventing feudalism:
"They enslaved our people"
Bro they literally just introduced another level of aristocracy onto an already existing feudal aristocracy, and the underpinning exploitation and oppression of peasants continued as it always had done.
Unless by "our people" you mean your fellow lords and ladies*, and by "enslaved" you mean "the great houses now have to answer to a higher house, the same way the smaller houses already had to answer to the great houses above them".
*On that note, I've got to imagine that when that old woman gave Egg his fortune and said "all who know you will rejoice in your death" she was mainly referring to the other nobility who resented his pro-smallfolk reforms.
Raymun brings up the Field of Fire, but not the fact that vast majority of the men who died were forced to be there against their will. The nobility commanded them onto that field with the expectation that most would die a bloody and gruesome death. This isn't a DEFENCE of the Field of Fire - but why should oppression by non-Targaryens be viewed as morally superior to oppression by Targaryens?
Take Septon Meribald's Broken Man speech:
Would the plight of the Broken Man be worse if the Lords who exploited him was also an 'incestuous alien'? Or does it make zero material difference? I don't care if they're an incestuous alien, what's the price of eggs?
Meanwhile when the Targaryen's first arrived there was actual slavery taking place in the Riverlands under Ironborn rule:
Hence why the Riverlords eagerly sided with the Targaryens and most likely saw them as liberators:
Generations previously, they had also sided with the Ironborn against the Durrandons when they had been the conquerors ruling over them.
Fear of Ironborn expansion was also why Argilac Durrandon initially invited House Targaryen to take buffer lands between the Stormlands and the Riverlands in the first place.
And because I know this criticism is coming - yes the argument of "the savages were already fighting/enslaving each other anyway" was used to justify imperialism and colonialism. But the Targaryens of Dragonstone (unlike their Valyrian ancestors, unlike the Ghiscari, unlike the Tigers of Volantis - all explicitly identified as imperialist) did not practice imperialism or colonialism. There was no extraction of resources and slaves from a Westerosi periphery to an imperial Valyrian homeland, there was no displacement or cleansing of Westerosi to make way for Valyrian settler colonialism, there was no erasure of Westerosi culture, there was no racial coding of the westerosi as second class citizens.
Just same feudal trash, different feudal trash can.
Lords from the Westerlands, Riverlands, Stormlands, the North etc alike base their wealth and privilege on the labour of the smallfolk, obtained through violence or the threat of violence. And all these lords conscripted smallfolk to fight in their conflicts over power and land - so no Raymun, House Targaryen is not uniquely guilty of dragging people into their wars. The Blackwood-Bracken feud, the mass drowning of civilians at Castamere by Tywin Lannister, the succession crises in the Vale, the WAR OF THE FIVE KINGS* - all non-Targaryen conflicts in which the smallfolk have suffered for infighting amongst the nobility.
(*Honestly, if Joffrey Baratheon had been a normal well-meaning kid like Tommen, would you have been rooting for Ned or Stannis at all? Ned would be the villain for not leaving well-enough alone - endangering a child and risking a war over a lack of a biological relation to King Robert. If Joffrey and the Lannisters weren't cruel or sadistic tyrants, we wouldn't really care).
Conflicts such as the Dance weren't just a case of Targaryen infighting either. House Hightower was the driving force, as was every other house that had a vested interest in the outcome of the Dance. Upholders of the patriarchy weren't dragged against their will; they joined the war on a particular side because they wanted to uphold the patriarchy. Had they not answered the Green's call then the coup would have fizzled out and failed.
Other houses joined the war because they wanted to uphold law and order - Houses Arryn and Stark had both experienced coups by relatives and had a vested interest in ensuring the greens did not set a successful precedent. War is a corollary of a feudal monarchy - the nobility will inevitably go to war to secure the foundations of their continued wealth and status, to secure the continued stability of their own inheritance.
Same with the Blackfyre rebellion - that wasn't just another case of Targaryen siblings fighting. It was the other lords who supported one claim over the other and decided they were willing to conscript their peasants into a war for it - and their decision to fight for Daemon Blackfyre stemmed in large part from racism and misogyny and Daemon being their preferred Strongman:
And yes, dragons gave the Targaryens a greater capacity for violence and coercion than the other nobility. The issue with this "dragon nukes" argument is that it assumes that the greater capacity for violence is worse than the actual violence. 100,000 civilians died in the firebombing of Tokyo - is that less of a war crime than the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was the firebombing of Tokyo more moral? Are the war crimes Arya witnessed on the road to Harrenhal more moral because a Lannister did them rather than a Targaryen? Does murder and oppression become more moral if less efficient tools of violence are used?
Dragons are not nukes - dragons are power and violence. And power and violence can be a tool of oppression and of liberation. That's why Egg tried to hatch dragons for his pro-smallfolk reforms, that's why Dany is a breaker of chains, that's why the first time GRRM ever wrote the phrase 'fire and blood' it was this abolitionist speech in Fevre Dream:
