I have to ask regarding “The Princess and the Queen”, where many of the fans see Rhaenyra as proto-Cersei without parsing through the text and Gyldayn’s obvious misogynist PoV. I am seeing many fans reading it and saying that Viserys II was wrong in trying to make a woman a heir and the like. Do you think we are supposed to take Rhaenyra’s reputation as “Maegor’s teats” or that the Iron Throne cut her while she was wearing armour at face value?

bryndenbfish:

racefortheironthrone:

Rhaenrya had her good qualities and her bad. I think chiefly among her bad qualities was an early-Stannis-like inability to let anything slide, thus the moment she actually gets into power she spends more time taking revenge than actually ruling. Hence, mass arrests and executions and torture, and people side-eyeing her because of putting Alicent in chains and poor Haelena committing suicide over the death of her children, hence completely counterproductive orders to execute her own dragonriders. 

I’m sure we can chalk some of it up to propaganda, but some things are historical fact – Rhaenrya so alienated the people of King’s Landing that they rose up against her and killed her dragons, breaking the power of her House. That on its own discredits her as a politician.

But ultimately, Viserys II’s mistake was that he couldn’t make up his mind. If Rhaenrya was going to be his heir, he shouldn’t have remarried and had more children. 
 

I like this comparison between Stannis and Rhaenyra a lot — though so far, Stannis has been relatively forgiving of his enemies and traitors. Though I doubt that Stannis will ever sit the Iron Throne, I am curious if we’d have a “heads, stakes, walls” phase of rule by Stannis — especially if he didn’t have a war to fight.

Sure. Hence why I say early Stannis. Post-Castle Black, Post-Blackwater, even Post-Storms End Stannis is a different man from Prologue Stannis.

Stannis has the capacity for growth and change, and I think it will be his salvation.