Kind of sad that there seems to be nothing of Daemon's trauma and heartbreak. How he felt abandoned and betrayed by Rhaenyra. She refused to have faith in him, accused him of betraying their marriage. She had sent him away from her, she was growing paranoid and distrustful (understandably so). But how that might have affected Daemon is completely missing from Aegon's perspective.
I admire his love for his mother but he is completely glossing over his father's feelings. It's always about 'how Daemon left his Queen' but no conversations about what Daemon lost, what he must have felt like. Nothing.
Rhaenyra lost a lot in the Dance but so did Daemon. He did so much for her. And Aegon and by extension Harwin, have no acknowledgment for that.
Aegon has Rhaenyra, Jace even Harwin up on a pedestal for how they did one thing and then died. But he isn't seeing how much Daemon did, how much he lost. Daemon did more than any of these for Rhaenyra but all he gets to hear is how he "failed" because he didn't want to return to Court and hear Rhaenyra accuse him of the worst, exactly the same as Viserys did.
I love Daemon and Rhaenyra in the books but I know they both, especially Rhaenyra, made more than their fair share of mistakes during the Dance. Your fic is glossing over all of Rhaenyra's faults and punishing Daemon for every little thing that went wrong. It makes one question, why is Daemon even here? Why not have Rhaenyra choose Harwin and have her precious boys and let's see how good Harwin does in Daemon's shoes.
I love your work, but its becoming very obvious how pitiful Daemon is being made to be. He is having to burden the entire guilt for something that was not all his own. Aegon has taken Daemon's love and devotion for granted and it's not ok in any situation.
He isnt wrong to cherish Rhaenyra, Jace and others, but all he has for Daemon is a shitload of accusations and burdens. It's not healthy for anyone, least of all Daemon if his entire life is to be protecting/loving/devoted to people who think he owes them something he doesn't.
Love/devotion is a two way street and by resting the blames entirely on Daemon's "failures", its robbing Rhaenyra of much needed growth.
Because if it's all how Daemon failed, why is he even needed? He isn't appreciated or allowed to want love/devotion back. It's all, he failed, he has to give, give and give.
If its different and I missed it, please correct me but so far, I'm genuinely questioning why Daemon is kept by these people if not out of pity disguised as love/obligation. His emotional validation is sorely missing.
I am not entirely sure but I think Egg didn‘t really know about the distrust that Rhaenyra felt and thus could not have seen it the way you do (i do agree with you). I mean he only knew through Alys about Daemon‘s wanting to die, so it is possible that he didn’t even notice anything else that could have caused Daemon to do what he did. Correct me if I am wrong.
The approach in general is like this because all they have is Aegon's vision and what marked Aegon was witnessing the crude death of Rhaenyra, I would even say that it may be a defense mechanism to blame Daemon (as he-egg- did in the forest ) because of this situation, his father told him that he would come back and he didn't, we know how Daemon felt to the point of going into a suicidal fight.
Now, I agree that in general (fics) it is often overlooked how the war affected Daemon who also wanted the other children as his own, we must also take into account that Aegon did not witness many things probably because of his young age and how they were kept away from the details of the conflict even between Daemyra.
here (fic) Daemon was comforted on several occasions by Rhaenyra, she even told him that these are things that he did not do, Daemon is tormented by everything mentioned in this chapter, even Rhaenyra also has things that are difficult for her to handle (like the number of children that he had) in the end they are things that they did not live and here they are not their own dreams, everything is from the vision of a child who is deeply emotionally affected.
and I want to point out that Daemon also sometimes overlooked Egg's feelings so that he could overcome or handle certain things (the whole thing with the dragons) they are both full-fledged father and son emotionally speaking, but the responsibility of communication is of Daemon being the adult.
Sorry if I rambled too much😅 I just wanted to defend the point, because I don't feel like the author is burdening Daemon by blaming him, in fact Daemon has done a lot here already securing the greens from turning the other side.
That's a pretty weird take? To begin with, up until Alys told them Deamon's death was a quasi-suicide, Aegon idolized his father; in fact, he still does, and is upset thinking that Deamon is mad at him and thinks him a coward. Rheanyra's response to learning that Deamon intentionally didn't come back to her, was to blame herself, to think her counterpart must not have loved him enough, since he sent him away. Harwin doesn't blame him for anything except not talking to Egg. As for Rheanyra's faults not being mentioned, that's because the one recounting the tale is Alys and she hasn't met Rheanyra yet. If it was her there with Egg, I bet she would have had a lot to say about Rheanyra the Cruel.
Rhaenyra has been very loving and supportive with Daemon and chose to marry him no matter what Viserys thinks about it. This is a huge deal that she did this.
I think you may just need to read Daemon and Egg's upcoming talk, their reunion with Rhaenyra. 🔥🖤🔥 Egg needs some major love and TLC.
We also need to remember that most of this is coming from Egg's dark and suicidal thoughts and Aly's skewed perception, and Daemon's own feelings of failure/guilt.
Egg is still thinking like a little boy, who lost too many family members, who's dad promised to come home and then he hears that he chose to die.
Alys, despite her age, powers, and connection with Aemond still does not know everything. She is blaming Daemon back then without even knowing him. And now she thinks he should go all berserk and slaughter the Greens. She also thinks that he hasn't done enough because he hasn't done things fast enough to suit her in this new timeline.
Daemon knows the suicidal feeling already from the Stepstones and he had lost a bunch of family and Viserys' love/acceptance. He can't fathom failing Rhaenyra, his family and their legacy, and not having Rhaenyra's love and trust to come home to. He understands even without living that life, how lost he would be without her. That would be totally new for him because he had always had her welcome him back. He is experiencing survivor's guilt in that other life as well as being devastated about losing Rhaenyra's trust.
Rhaenyra has not been blaming Daemon at all. She has been very supportive and working with Daemon to turn this very difficult political tide. 🖤💓🖤
Egg has only blamed him in brief moments because he is overwhelmed with the idea that his larger than life hero daddy can do anything, he thinks, and if he had been there he would have been able to save Rhaenyra when Egg was not able to, or so he believes.
Suicidal thoughts is a tag on this fic and the thoughts and feelings dealing with suicide are messy and complicated. People who have lost loved ones to suicide sometimes feel anger at the one who "chose" to die because they love and miss them so much and this makes them feel like they were "not enough" for the person to choose to live for.
We shall have to see how the rest of the story plays out and the resolution to Egg's pain.
I have faith in our dear author in spinning this beautiful web.
🖤💔🕸️🔥🩸🔥🐉
Aegon has plenty of fond memories of his father, at the start of the story he thinks of him as a hero, but he only recently learned that Daemon committed suicide, this after he had been carrying around a ton of shame himself for having made the same choice, and as a child he understandably has a lot of really complicated feelings about that.
Aegon was ten when his parents died, and he was never going to be privy to everything that went on in their marriage, and there's no one who can give him insight into what was going on in his father's mind or his mother's mind in their last days. I really doubt Rhaenyra was telling her ten year old kid about his father's supposed affair with Nettles, and if she did tell him, a ten year old is not going to be able to contextualize what Rhaenyra was going through as "paranoia" anyway, seeing as how Aegon himself was probably out of his mind with fear himself in those last days before they fled King's Landing. Daemon himself doesn't know what his other self's motivations were either, he can only assume. Alys might be able to add an adult perspective, but she wasn't in Rhaenyra's or Daemon's minds either and didn't know anything about their marriage. The only people who might be able to add that perspective are dead or living in the alternate world.
We, as the readers, know that things that the characters don't know, but a writer can't shoehorn in a perspective that none of the characters would reasonably have. This author does an excellent job of preserving an authentic POV for Aegon, trauma, depression, anger and all. But Aegon doesn't know what he doesn't know, and I'd much rather his voice feel authentic than have the writer soapbox about Daemon's suffering during the war.
What I was going for with chapters like this one is more to get into the heads of the characters. Daemon’s working through things and has a pretty rough mindset right now, and I’m sorry that came across to you as seeming like he’s unappreciated, etc. I think show canon Daemon *is* under-appreciated for years by Viserys and probably Rhaenys as well, his two closest family members save Rhaenyra, and that can get in your head. (And I have LOTS of thoughts about episode 10 and Daemon and his purpose/belief about his usefulness). The darkness in here is more his own thoughts than a representation of everyone else.
Fic Rhaenyra definitely appreciates him and wants him by her side (which I hope comes across in her chapters so far and especially in the next two Rhaenyra chapters). Fic Aegon is a little more complicated because it’s all tangled up in his head. He’s always thought he could never measure up to his father, things would have been different if he survived, etc, and to find out that he essentially planned a suicide run was a big blow. But he still feels shame for his own actions and thinks fic Daemon is ashamed of him. This will be discussed next chapter, and I hope that makes a couple things about their relationship a little clearer for you.
This has been long and rambly, but I think overall, I was going for each character having to overcome their own thing, and Rhaenyra’s things (worries about motherhood, reconciling her mixed feelings about Alicent and her rosy view of her father with the future they’re heading toward, learning how to develop her own power at court) don’t hit as close to home for Egg or for the person Rhaenyra becomes later (she’s still v young rn). Future Daemon’s “failures” are very present for Egg and Daemon both, so I think that’s why it feels more like piling pain on him. They only think about what they *know*, also, so that limits things, as a couple other commenters have said.
Thank you for reading! I hope that clarifies my intent a little at least? I hope you like the next chapters and they resonate better with you.
It's more a critic of almost every fic I've read and the show in general. The show writers hate Daemon and the worst way that hate has manifested is a total and complete lack of Daemon's emotional validation.
His thoughts, worries, dreams and feelings are legit non existent in the show. He just exists to serve Rhaenyra. I know it's absolutely not like that in the books and Rhaenyra and Daemon's devotion for one another is very obvious. That's sort of what I'm desperately looking for in fics cause that show ain't giving me anything.
Ep10 was so bad it legit made me laugh. Rhaenyra's actions was straight up equivalent to a scam. She lied about being together, united and burning together completely. Daemon's fears were essentially mocked and it made their entire relationship seem like it was nothing but a ploy to get his support because Rhaenyra knew she had fucked up by having obvious non-Valyrian kids. Daemon was made to be little more than a support bodyguard and at best, sperm donor to his kids in the show. I guess it made me rather bitter about how Daemon's emotions are written in my favorite fics because that's all I have now.
Rhaenyra is such a precious girl. Aegon is such a precious boy. And Daemon is such a precious character. I desperately want to see them happy and more than that, loved and cherished.
I think the only part I disagree with is, Aegon should know how badly his mother messed up. She was paranoid to the point of never leaving her kids alone. Aegon was called her 'little shadow.' He definitely saw her order Corlys' arrest, Addam's execution, raising taxes, ordering beheadings/torture of Green Lords etc. (The green Lords part is very justified btw.) And, by the time Jaehaera died, he was king for around 3 years. He was surrounded and trained by Green and Black Lords alike and they had to have told him of both Aegon ii and Rhaenyra's mistakes. So technically, he should have a more nuanced/critical idea of how Rhaenyra was as a Queen and be able to acknowledge her faults as well (which sadly, since she's a woman, become way more glaring than if she was a man.)
Your fic is one of VERY few with so much nuance and I guess I'm more attached to Daemon and more bitter because of how much of him as a lover and dad (by extension, Daemyra) we were robbed of in the show.
Nossa você falou tudo que acho sobre essa fanfic Mas eu nunca poderia ter escrito tão bem Por sinal tomei antipatia da cara desse Aegon. Ele é só louvores por um homem que ele nunca conheço e só desprezo e reclamação sobre o pai. Sem contar ele querer comparar ele tentar se matar com Daemon morrer na guerra matando uma das maiores ameaça a Rhaenyra, que foi Vaghar e Aemond. Achei a comparação patética. E a propósito Harwin também falhou com os filhos.
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