Other than Rhaenyra being the rightful/declared heir, why are you still TB?

The HEIRS to the throne mind you

Not team specific and not the big ones like “___ was the rightful heir” or the endless discussion of legitimacy. Smaller things and/or things that have no canonical basis.

The one that gets me the most often is the exaggerations of Sunfyre’s state when he fought Moondancer. “He only had one wing”, “he was barely alive” and “half dead” as if it would be remotely possible for him to have been flying daily with Aegon and fly over a whole ass volcano before Baela got to him. Along with that is the minimization of the injuries Moondancer inflicted upon Sunfyre.

Question I have

- during the Dance, the Greens/Tyland Lannister sent a quarter (or was it a third?) of the treasury to the Iron Bank for safekeeping in case civil war broke out.

(We see how well it worked for them)

The Iron Bank accept the money, which means they knew that they were siding with Aegon's faction. Why would they give Rhaenyra a loan, when she returns to KL, and discovers that there is no money/it was all sent away.

Am I missing something?

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Letters from crows as reminders, even from the houses that previously swore oath, for the rightful queen?

Aegon and the greens should have bent knee for the rightful heir. Were there no crows sent?

Perhaps luceyrs was slow, but crow would follow in reasonable time?

At times I do wonder what would have happened in Game of Thrones Season 1, if Cregan Stark was in place of Ned Stark, as the hand of the king to Robert, and placed in the same situation as Ned.

Would he be foolish enough to confront Cersei in private, or plan his steps carefully.

What do you think?

Bc in season 3 finale, Corlys told Gwayne that his honor is all he has left, and he isn't gonna give it up for anything. Plus, he pulls Daemon out from Tumbleton. At this point in the story, it doesn't make sense for him to switch to the Greens in season 4 but who knows what the writers have cooked up. If he does switch, what would make him "give up his honor?"

This is obviously a Book-only take, but there are no spoilers for what the show still has to cover.

The show leans hard on Cole as this almost mythic fighter. In Fire & Blood he is very good. He is not “realm's greatest warrior” and nobody in the later books remembers him that way.

What the book actually gives Cole:

• Exceptionally skilled knight, especially with a morningstar.
• 104 AC Maidenpool tourney: knocks Dark Sister out of Daemon’s hand in the melee, then unhorses Daemon in the lists plus both Cargyll twins. Then he gets unhorsed by Lymond Mallister. So even the book intro is “formidable, not invincible.”
• Later melee: breaks Harwin Strong’s collarbone and shatters his elbow. Cracks Joffrey Lonmouth’s helm; Joffrey dies days later.
• Named to the Kingsguard in Ryam Redwyne’s place, later Lord Commander.

That’s a real martial reputation. It is mostly tourney and one-on-one reputation. Cole is elite at the thing knights are measured by in peacetime: lists, melees, single combat. That is the one area where the book lets him look better than Daemon.

Daemon is the more complete martial figure. He is already a proven knight and fighter before Cole ever appears: knighted at sixteen, given Dark Sister by Jaehaerys for prowess, described as lean, hard, and a renowned warrior while Viserys is not. He loses to Cole at Maidenpool, so Cole can beat him in a set-piece fight. That does not make Cole the better overall warrior. Daemon’s record is not built on winning every tilt. It is built on staying dangerous across different kinds of war.

Where Cole is thin, Daemon is not:

• Commander: he actually leads campaigns and holds together ugly coalitions. Stepstones with Corlys. City Watch. The riverlords at Harrenhal. He can raise men, keep them, and use them. Cole as Hand/general is aggressive and brittle. He marches a shrinking host through the Riverlands, gets starved and harried, then dies trying to turn an ambush into a duel. The Butcher’s Ball is the book saying “this man wanted a champion’s death and got a commander’s failure.”
• Endurance / chaos fighting: Daemon’s reputation is years of real fighting, not a string of tourney highlights. Cole’s best feats are concentrated bursts against individual opponents. Daemon is the one the histories treat as someone who can keep going through wars, raids, and messy battles.
• Dragonriding: this is not a side stat. Caraxes is a war dragon, and Daemon is one of the best riders of the Dance, and possibly of all time. Cole has no answer for that layer of warfare at all.
• Charisma / leadership: this matters as much as the sword arm. Daemon can make sellswords, gold cloaks, and riverlords follow him. Cole can impress a tourney crowd and dominate a melee. He cannot hold an army together in conditions that Daemon can.

So the honest book split shows Cole is better at the narrow thing, which is sanctioned 1v1, morningstar work and tourney dominance. Daemon is the better overall martial character. He is good enough in duels and lists, much stronger as a commander, campaigner, endurance fighter, dragonrider, and leader of men.

The “realm's greatest warrior” line is show spectacle. The books remember Cole as the Kingmaker, best and worst of the white cloaks and not as the finest warrior alive. Daemon is the one who actually looks like a complete war-maker. Daemon is Criston, Aemond and Ormund in one character, which is why he is remembered to be greater than all three combined.

I find it funny that team green loves to say that the show is trying to make tb “look good”. In the book rhaenyra never thinks she is the prince that was promised, yet the show made her say it so that she looks delusional. This gave tg a new reason to hate her and make comparisons to daenaerys where they mock rhaenyra. But yet when you tell them that halaena being a dreamer is only show canon or that the show removed rhaenyra and laena’s close friendship to instead replace laena with alicent , when in the book Rhaenyra was 9 when alicent(18) married viserys. What i am trying to say is that the show misunderstands many of the characters , both that are on team green and team black and makes them less interesting than their book counterparts , yet tg will still tell you that the shoe is tb propaganda.

Where it all began for some of us. Where it will probably end on 2028. (Dragonstone)

Rhaenyra Targaryen To the bitter End!

Season 1 gave us so many feels. Not a single bad episode.

Do you guys remember when the amount of posts and the absolute meltdown in EVERY hotd sub when Hightowers were compared to the nazis and how they were treated unfairly…only for few weeks later Rhaenyra being called a fascist too and crickets suddenly LMFAO