Aemma Arryn - Tumblr Posts
jocelyn Baratheon - Targaryen 🌹
Pretty like roses 🌹🌹
I wonder if on some level, Rhaenyra’s resentment of Alicent is because she feels that her mother is being replaced. Not just in the sense that Alicent is marrying her father and quite literally replacing her a Queen, but also in the sense that Alicent is able to provide Viserys with heirs, something that Aemma had a notoriously difficult time trying to do. Obviously Rhaenyra is already upset when the betrothal is announced, because her best friend is marrying her father so soon after her mother’s death, but I think the fact that Alicent gives Viserys a son so soon just puts salt in the wound. From the time Rhaenyra was born up until her mother’s death, her parents attempts to have a heir, and the loss of children and pregnancies, would have been almost a constant in her life. I don’t think she really got used to the pain and grief it would have caused her mother, but I think she accepted the idea that if her parents ever did have a son, it would be the result of blood and sacrifice and years upon years of trying and failing. Then when her mother dies along with the heir her father was so set on having, it’s kind of a double blow to her, because she has not only lost her mother and newborn brother, but the one thing her mother had been trying to do for Rhaenyra’s whole life, give Viserys an heir, she hadn’t been able to do, even in death. So I think to Rhaenyra it might have seemed like her mothers sacrifice and death were all for nothing, and obviously this is going to make her pretty upset. Then Viserys married her best friend and relatively soon after (I’m not quite sure about the timings,) she gives him a son, and while I don’t want to disparage Alicent’s suffering, especially when it comes to having her children so young, I think that to Rhaenyra, the fact that her mother suffered years of miscarriages, stillbirths, and dead babies, and then died in childbirth and still couldn’t give Viserys a son, only for his new wife to give him a son pretty quickly, might seem almost like a mockery of her mother. I don’t think Rhaenyra blamed Alicent for having a son, I just think that she’s hurt that after all her mother went through, her best friend does a “better” (better in the eyes of the realm,) job of being Queen than she did. I don’t this this was at the forefront of her mind when she thought about Alicent, but it think it would have been somewhere in the back of her mind and would subtly have helped contribute to her resentment and the souring of her and Alicents relationship.
This isn’t to say that Alicent didn’t suffer at all, because obviously marriage to a man literally old enough to be her father, years of marital rape, and having children when she’s still almost a child is horrible and traumatic. This is just a look into some of the things that might have gone on in Rhaenyra’s mind at the time and how it relates to her relationship with Alicent.
AEMMA ARRYN ♕ QUEEN CONSORT
At the time of his ascent, King Viserys was twenty-six years old. He had been married for a decade to a cousin, Lady Aemma of House Arryn, herself a granddaughter of the Old King and Good Queen Alysanne through her mother, the late Princess Daella. Lady Aemma had suffered several miscarriages and the death of one son in the cradle over the course of her marriage, but she had also given birth to a healthy daughter, Rhaenyra. The new king and his queen both doted on the girl, their only living child.
— Tyrion X, A Storm of Swords
Game of Thrones 1.04 // House of the Dragon 1.01 (Requested by anonymous)
And people forget that she was raised in Faith.
"As High as Honour"
I doubt she would want Rhaenyra to get hurt for the mistakes she was making and any responsible parent would step in.
i know its a fairly popular take that "aemma would hate alicent for calling her grandsons savages" and it seems to stem/be partly influenced from this idea that like viserys, aemma would turn a blind eye to their obvious bastardry. but like, if you actually think about it - the reality is that as soon as it became apparent to her who jace and luke's biological father was, aemma would have stepped in meaning it's unlikely joffrey would have even been born in the first place.
not only like the majority of westeros aemma would have been the practioner of the faith, but she grew up in the vale which i think after the reach/highgarden is the most pious. she would have been raised/conditioned to believe in certain expectations for noble women like her and her daughter. in fact the first and only conversation we see her have with rhaenyra on screen centres around this idea of duty. i'm not saying she wouldn't have felt sympathetic to the pressure rhaenyra was under, but i honestly think some of y'all deluding yourselves if you think she would have tolerated rhaenyra's actions like viserys because it suited him. as i said the reality is as soon as aemma realized the truth, she like most people would have wanted harwin removed from his position and kicked out of the red keep. which brings to my next point. being the kind of place that westeros is, most parents would have seen harwin's affair with their daughter as dishonouring her.
like ultimately i don't really care what aemma arryn would have thought about alicent and or her fighting for her children's claim over her rhaenyra's. i don't really care if she disliked a teenage alicent, even though she would have only known a girl that rhaenyra was close with. if she's the type that would have blamed alicent for going to viserys even though she clearly didn't want to and even then was only kind to him, similar to how viserys has the audacity to blame alicent when he finally clocked that she actually wasn't in love with him, then i guess she's just a bad person like her husband was.
but it's the way y'all treat aemma arryn by automatically assuming she would have supported what rhaenyra and harwin did, and never considering that she idk might have had thoughts and opinions that don't always align with her husband and daughter. what's more, in her limited screen time we actually see her disagreeing with rhaenyra and viserys. she doesn't like rhaenyra flying while she herself is pregnant. she doesn't take viserys' "dream" seriously nor is she confident like him that she will give birth to a son.
I don’t get it. Why did Alysanne marry Daella and Viserra to old men who already had heirs? They were princesses in their own right. Surely they could’ve done better than dead-in-childbirth-at-18 and tried-to-seduce-her-own-brother-to-escape-four-times-widower-only-to end-up-dead. Then she allows her 11 year old granddaughter Aemma to marry an 18 year old Viserys only to suffer the same fate as her mother. Good Queen sure, but good mother?
„Because he didn’t like me”
„The boy you always wanted”
„He is your son, Viserys, your blood”
„You’ve only ever tried to send me
away”
„Viserys, please, no, I’m scared”
My personal hate letter to all the men in hotd
The direct line of Daenerys’s female ancestors from before the Conquest to her.
I had so much fun drawing this :’)
Rodrik Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, was honored by King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and his wife, the Good Queen Alysanne, with the hand of their daughter, Princess Daella, and a child of that union, the Lady Aemma Arryn, in turn became the first wife of King Viserys I Targaryen and mother to his firstborn child, Princess Rhaenyra, who contended with her half brother Aegon II for the Iron Throne.
requested by @chelsearyab
CANON DAENERYS CHALLENGE || Targaryen legacy: Dany’s Targaryen Line of Descent Since the Conquest
Aemma Arryn: the Real Victim
I'm back on my soapbox about book vs show characterization, this time about Aemma Arryn. Aemma is obviously a tragic character, her mother died soon after she was born, she had many miscarriages with only one child surviving infancy, and she ultimately was killed to try to save her son who died anyway. However, the show tried again and again to romanticize her and her relationship with Viserys and trying to make it seem like she got a better deal in life than fucking Alicent (yes it all circles back to her, how she was written is my villain origin story, I fucking swear).
The show decides to either gloss over or completely remove the fact that Aemma was herself a child bride. She was thirteen when she was forced to marry Viserys (16) and was immediately forced to start having kids. This is a plot point they decided to instead give to Alicent (because of fucking course they did). Not only that, but they aged both her and Viserys up so, when she dies, Aemma looks to be around her 30s rather than the 23 she is in the book.
Another thing the show swapped between Aemma and Alicent is who Viserys "loved most". In the show, Viserys pines after Aemma for the rest of his life, even calling Alicent Aemma in episode 7. However, in the books, Viserys and Aemma are an arranged marriage by Queen Alysanne. And while he obviously loves Rhaenyra, his relationship with Aemma is kept vague. But after her death, he chooses not only to remarry (which was unnecessary since he had named Rhaenyra as his heir). Not only that but he chooses a woman (because yes Alicent was an adult by our standards when she married him) who gives no political gain and in doing so spurns many much more powerful houses (like the Velaryons). The book literally says he married her for love, Alicent not Aemma. But in the show, Viserys clearly loved Aemma more, which fed into his favoritism of Rhaenyra (which I'm not denying, but in the books there is no evidence that Viserys was as absent as they paint him to be in the show). Not only that, they take her story and make it into a sick romance while the true victimization is given almost completely to Alicent.
Now I'd like to touch on Aemma's views on honor and duty. She tells Rhaenyra in episode 1 that the birthing bed is their battlefield, a line which mirrors Alysanne and Daela's conversation before Aemma's birth (a decision by the Condal & Hess I actually like lol). She has given her all her teenage years and eventually her fucking life to fulfill her duties as a wife, desperately trying to give Viserys a male heir. Her entire life is full of the consequences of the patriarchy and the dehumanization of women. From her mother's death to Rhaenys being passed over as heir to Aemma's own death even to Rhaenyra being usurped.
Aemma embodies everything Alicent stans claim to defend and everything they make Alicent out to be. She is a child bride, she gave up her teenage years for giving birth to/raising children, she has almost no agency, and her daughter shares in her suffering. Alicent (in the books) has none of these things, except for the fact that Helaena is suffering, but that is something Alicent fucking orchestrated. Basically, if Alicent's stans actually believed what they claimed, they'd love Aemma not Alicent. Thanks for reading, long live Queen Rhaenyra and Team Black.
Finally was able to draw some fan art for Aemma! 😭
I like to think that she’s older in this piece (in my head cannon for this piece Aemma doesn’t end up traveling to Kings Landing until she’s a bit older. There’s a little AU that I’ve come up with where Aemma hopefully ends up with someone else, maybe this time around she gets to live a little bit longer). It’s kind of sad that there’s a very notable lack of fan art for Aemma, so that was one of the main reasons on why I drew this in the first place. This was meant to be a quick sketch of sorts, so I may end up changing her design later on if I’m able to draw more fan art of her.
Rhaenyra wearing this as a tribute to her mother, the late Queen Aemma Arryn
“-If you cry, I will let you go. - he warned her. - So, no tears. You are a dragon, and dragons do not cry and fear like regular men. We are more than that, princess.”
….
“In King’s Landing, Viserys sat with Rhaenyra as he told her everything. Her mother’s death, and her brother’s as well. She sat stoically and listened to him quietly.
….
“When she looked at her reflection in the mirror she felt older and sad, but she did not cry, not then, and not when the flames consumed the body that had once belonged to her mother-”
Excerpts From
The Rogue Prince
SweetestPopcorn
AEMMA & RHAENYRA House of the Dragon 1.01 "The Heirs of the Dragon" 1.06 "The Princess and the Queen"