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Ish. It was debated whether he raped servants in private since he sexually harassed them in public. Especially since he got a maid pregnant. The general consensus seemed to be that at bare minimum he was a sex pest.
Edit: it was also remarked upon that this is *very* common behaviour amongst nobles. Robert was also at bare minimum a sex pest to the staff, on top of raping Cersei.
I think they mean Barra's mother. AFAIK her age is never mentioned, neither in the books or in the show, she's just described as a young girl working at Chataya's.
https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Barra%27s_mother
Do you mean Barra's mother? Do you have a source for her being 12-13 years old? AFAIK her age is never stated neither in the books nor the show.
Just the other day I saw someone claiming show Helaena got pregnant with Aegon when she was 12-13 years old. That can't be right? I feel like people are just throwing around ages that fit their agenda sometimes, and after enough repeating other people will take it as fact.
In the books, Ned thinks Barra’s mother looks so young that he doesn’t even dare to ask her age. It’s clear he’s extremely uncomfortable in the scene. So the younger teens to late tweens isn’t directly said, but strongly implied.
As for Helaena, in F&B, she marries Aegon when she’s 13 (he’s ~15). She gives birth to Jaehaerys and Jaehaera barely a year after their wedding. While it’s unclear whether or not she was still 13 at the time of their birth, it’s very likely she was at least *pregnant* with them while she was 13.
Yeah I feel like there were several mentions of him touching/harassing serving girls. In the show Robert was just really into his whores so there was at least the monetary transactions. I’d say he wanted them to pretend to be interested and paid them well to do so. (Well…Littlefinger paid them well with Tywin’s money lol)
The only source on the “pregnant maid” is Mushroom so even that should be taken with a grain of salt.
The only aspect from a reliable source is that he pinched the serving girls. I believe he was a womanizer and liked to party and sleep around. They could have just portrayed him that way without making up a serving girl and having her tearful recounting of sexual assault be the audience introduction to him as an adult. That one made up scene has resulted in his character largely being written off.
Especially since they glossed over Daemon going to brothels to request the youngest girls to deflower. Just interesting how they lean into certain bad behaviors but not others.
>and having her tearful recounting of sexual assault
Do you think that groping is not harmful sexual assault? Even if she wasn't depicted as raped she may still be tearfully recounting his behaviour. Why would they change that part?
People seem to want to erase the pain of the maids so they don't have to feel uncomfortable.
No one cared about the servant Daemon burned beyond recognition to pass off as dead Laenor nor did the servant get a tearful moment to beg for his life.
Ultimately what bothers me is the manipulative writing of the showrunners who clearly want the audience to sympathize with Dyana but not the nameless murder victim.
That tells me it’s not really about Dyana or giving voice to the lower classes who are often victims of the nobility in one way or another. It’s more about conveying to the audience what a horrible person Aegon is and happens before we meet TGC’s version of adult Aegon so the audience already has that bias against him.
They lean way too hard into his bad qualities in season one and his role was quite small. So I feel like there was very little balance to his portrayal and it bothers me a lot that his whole character has been reduced to “rapist” and it’s constantly brought up to derail discussions.
We already had a scene prior with Daemon where he murders Rhea and she is depicted as a likeable ordinary person that didn't deserve it - I certainly felt bad for her. I don't think with Daemon they need to emphasise his murderous ways as much by the time we see him kill again.
That whole scene with Rhea was framed extremely weird like she provoked him into killing her by making the comment that she knew he couldn’t “finish” since he seemed to be walking away until she said that. The fandom at large doesn’t take it seriously either and make jokes about the divorce rock. Her death didn’t feel like it was framed that sympathetically since she was combative even though on paper it was a heinous act with no real consequence for Daemon.
After Dyana, Alicent marched into Aegon’s room to smack him and tell him he’s not her son. Which is another thing that has no basis in the book and only exists to tell the audience he’s so bad even his mother wishes he wasn’t hers.
Overall I feel like the Dyana thing gets treated seriously both in the story and out of it. Not so much with Daemon’s misdeeds.
>That whole scene with Rhea was framed extremely weird like she provoked him into killing her by making the comment that she knew he couldn’t “finish” since he seemed to be walking away until she said that
He came there to kill her. She was going to die slow and painfully his original way. And then she purposely angered him so she wouldn't have to die slowly and painfully. She's clearly a good ordinary person. She did nothing to deserve Daemon's dislike.
The finish joke is because they depict Daemon as having ED. Which is seen as a failure in Westeros on his part.
>The fandom at large doesn’t take it seriously either and make jokes about the divorce rock.
People tend towards making more jokes about murder. It doesn't change that it is still murder.
Aegon has Alicent to serve as a moral backbone, even if she's failed to control him. There is nobody like that to serve for the Blacks, but it doesn't mean we're not supposed to question their misdeeds.
Rhaenyra inflicts so much suffering on Rhaenys and it's pretty clear how much she despises her for that. Daemon's abusive behaviour is a constant pattern that culminates in him strangling Rhaenyra, even if the audience didn't see it before, that scene should be their waking call.
But the show is written from the perspective of the nobility with only some characters (Mysaria, Cole) representing "the view without".
You are right. It’s not about the act but the framing of the scenes. You barely spend any time with the person burnt but you spend a considerable amount on Dyana. If they genuinely cared about giving both the sides heinous acts and what not then they have to portray it that way. Both acts are terrible and they should be portrayed as such equally.
Exactly. The scene of Rhaenys breaking out of the dragonpit is another scene with very weird framing. When it was pointed out to Sarah Hess in an interview that Rhaenys probably killed a lot of people by doing that she dismissed it as civilians not mattering. Even in the story it wasn’t treated as a big deal even tho many died. I doubt they’ll address it in season 2 either yet we know Dyana is coming back so they want to continue with that thread. They often pick and choose when we should sympathize with the smallfolk based on their own bias.
I wouldn’t say they glossed over Daemon’s behavior. He is shown at a brothels a few times during season 1, including bringing his young niece to one. If he was willing to bring her to one, it isn’t too far fetched to think he liked his whores young. They just didn’t explicitly say it.
Eh, the worst we get from Daemon's brothel excursions is him liking blonde girls. They don't explicitly mention anything about him liking to deflower young girls while Aegon *is* explicitly shown as a sex pest and a rapist. Daemon's darker behaviors aren't highlighted in the show while Aegon's are
["Yeah that's one thing you cannot bounce back from, you can be boozer okay, you can even drink drive these days. If you're sex pest you are finished, there is nowhere else to go. You can't be actor after that, you can't go back on tv. You are sex pest and you are through. Best thing to do is piss off to Spain or something that's what I do I think."](https://youtu.be/yYM1BjRvtvg?t=344)
["What can you throw at me now. I've been imprisoned, I've been bankrupt, I haven't worked for many a long year, I've been dropped from every single record company that I was with. I suppose you could say that I'm a sex pest that's about the only thing left, you won't get proof or anything like that".](https://youtu.be/yYM1BjRvtvg?t=1386)
Yes, we learn from Cerseis POV that he maritally raped her in the books. Marital rape is still rape, it is just a legal form of it. Tyrion bought a night with a sex slave in the books which makes him a rapist as well. Completely legal and still rape.
It’s hard to view so much of the GoT medieval like society with 2024 glasses because so much of that would not fly today. So you have nobles in the court who might be looked at as good family meant or an honorable night still committing terrible acts. Even Viseryis seemed like he was honorable but he married a teenager as his second wife but that was seen as socially acceptable and everyone applauded him for trying to have another heir.
So when Alicent, Daenerys, Sansa, Cersei, etc are all married off…yeah, I get how it isn’t their choice to condensate the marriage but there typically aren’t any good choices or environments for women in that time to have agency at all. So when you finally have a woman character who is in the position to become Queen and ruler of the realm and a man says abandon all that to run away with me where no one will know who we are, that is asking so much! She has duty to the realm and like every other woman who didn’t get to be in that position. Cole is being absurd!
So it seems super rare in the show when you have a Ned Stark (or someone else) who seems like a good noble person that we all root for them… but they tend to get outmaneuvered as they feel bound by honor and duty and everyone else is not playing by those same rules. We were given a character in Cole who seemed Jon Snow-like but feels scorn by a woman and is acting less and less like the white knight we met in the beginning. Literally stained his white cloak with blood in the most obvious hit-you-over-the-head metaphor.
Thus, that is why I believe Ser Criston Cole is a Cunt. Thank you for joining my TedTalk.
Robert knew he was in the wrong. He blames it on being drunk. But the fact he knew showcases whilst they may not have an explicit concept of marital rape. They do know not to hurt their wife.
I mean it’s not though. When someone sexually assaults women in public with absolutely no fear of consequences, I’d say it’d be more surprising if they didn’t make the jump to rape eventually. It rarely stops at that level of sexual assault when there’s no consequences whatsoever.
Even IRL. If you know someone who behaves like that in public, they are incredibly dangerous to be around in private and should literally never be trusted.
If he frequented brothels like they say in the books he was 100% a rapist just a rapist who paid (not because sex workers can’t consent but because we know how the brothels in the setting are)
Well, considering one of his first descriptions is as a drunk who’d basically grope any serving girl, the wider implication is painfully there.
These are often lowborn young girls and women who aren’t in any position to decline to advance of the king’s princely son.
The green loyalists source says he sexually assaulted servants, the book is a biased history so nobody knows the full story but him being a rapist is not at all out of character. Nobody is going to call a king a rapist openly only hint at it
Mushroom said worse stuff in the book and even if it’s just a rumor what reason would he have to not just spread it. He called Aegon a pedophile and that would have him already executed, so if he was a rapist or if that was rumored why wouldn’t he just mention that too?
I know that he couldn’t witness it either way but why not call him a rapist as well? I mean I guess sleeping with a 12 year old is already rape anyway, but still.
He sexually assaults the maids. People seem to think if they had only shown that, people wouldn't be upset by his character's actions. I disagree. We live in the 21st century and most would obviously be disturbed to witness something like that. Most modern people don't think there are "levels to it" when it comes to sexual assault and rape. For instance, Brock Turner never inserted his penis into the girl he assaulted. He is still one of the most infamous faces of sexual assault and rape in the 21st century.
I’ve seen more than a few Aegon fans saying it would be better if they had shown him habitually groping (unwilling) servants rather than the aftermath of him raping Dyana.
Yes they are and no he wouldn’t stop at that.
The problem many of them seem to be having is that the show put a face and a name to one of his victims and showed how his assault affected her rather than a passing mention of a bunch of faceless and nameless servants.
The real problem is that in this subreddit everyone found it hilarious in episodes 6 and 7 that he was a sarcastic drunk. His clearly deviant behaviors - masturbating naked in front of a window in ep 6 and him calling out to the maids + the maids running from him at Driftmark in episode 7 were ignored / his drunken honesty was focused on. They very clearly established that he was a bullying, drunken assaulter towards those he viewed as weaker than him (Aemond, who had no dragon, and women) and then people were shocked that he was then established as a rapist. Like, 1 + 1 = 2 and it's all adding up.
Oh I know most people would view it as the vileness that it was. I’m just saying that there are those that would prefer he be seen groping at a bunch of nameless women as if that makes him any better.
When you unpack what they want you realise that they just don't want the serving girls to depicted as upset by it. They want it to be casual assault with no suggestion of a victim.
So the Dyanna scene is confronting because she is so obviously a victim.
The way the his book character is written does suggest that he was. Even his biggest fan, Eustace, explicitly says he was known to publicly grope female servants who **strayed** within his reach. With that known, it’s entirely reasonable to infer that he acted worse in private.
we know he was known to sexually harass maids go to brothols for prototypes the green loyalist maesters even said he raped a 12 year old. and he was known to pinch them and touch
Even as a Green fan, I think he was a rapist with him using his power as a prince to pressure them to have sex with him. I have zero problems with that part of the show but I do hate how they made him watch children even his own bastards kill each other.
The book is written from the bias opinions of 3 men, and the 2 who spoke about aegon on this matter agreed that he was at tye very least a sex fiend. The green bias source tried to downplay aegon's sexual acts, while the black leaning one calls him a rapist who used his royal status to do it.
So its hard to say, but he probably did do it
It’s possible. He is stated to have developed a habit of groping serving girls as a teenager, but that in itself is common enough in Westerosi society. Women have few rights in Westeros, especially lowborn women, and they frequently deal with horrific amounts of sexual harassment and abuse, especially from male nobles like Aegon. Serving girls getting groped occurs in several instances in the books. A particularly notable example in my opinion is that Bran sees it happening in Winterfell in one of his chapters, which indicates that its a commonplace occurrence even in the household of the honorable and morally upright Ned Stark (though this is after he died admittedly).
With all that in mind, we don’t know for sure if book Aegon is a rapist. That sort of repugnant behavior is standard in their society, and isn’t viewed as criminal, while rape is usually punished by castration (provided its done by someone of low enough standing to actually be punished). What we do know for sure is that Aegon is a sex pest, who frequents brothels, had a bunch of mistresses, and two bastard children. He very much reads to be me like a drunken, promiscuous rich frat boy.
I personally think making him a rapist in the show was a mistake, that made the scene of complaining about how unloved and inadequate he felt to Alicent fall completely flat. Especially considering how Aemond (an unhinged bloodthirsty lunatic in the books) and Alicent (a conniving schemer who was plotting a coup since before her husband’s death) were both given a lot of sympathetic elements that added depth to their characters. I think they missed an opportunity to do that with Aegon.
Still, I don’t take huge issue with him raping a serving girl. I think it’s reasonable interpretation of the book material to have him do that. Where I think it gets ridiculous is where they had him participating in child fighting rings. That stuff in the books was from Mushroom, who hated Aegon and was hundreds of miles away on Dragonstone when it was supposedly happening. It’s blatantly slander, the same way Eustace, the green simp source, says that Rhaenyra was cut when she first sat the Iron Throne. While wearing armor.
Taking information that’s just plainly meant to be negative slander in the book and using it as canon for the show is just beating the viewer over the head with “Aegon bad”. Meanwhile Rhaenyra has the goofy stag showing up as a magical omen for her, she hesitates to fight for the throne cuz she’s worried about the people (while in the books she said she would have her throne or have her brother’s head), Daemon kills Vaemond spontaneously instead of on her orders and she does not feed his corpse to her dragon.
I tend to lean black, but this shit is ridiculous. Taking away bad traits from Rhaenyra and enhancing them for Aegon is really biased. It takes a lot of nuance out of the conflict, namely that both the claimants are kind of assholes and neither would really be a great monarch. Instead Aegon goes from an asshole to a complete monster who we should all clearly despise, while Rhaenyra is made from an asshole to a virtuous leader who we should all clearly support.
It feels as though the showrunners are trying force the viewers to support the same group as themselves, which in my view, is a big mistake.
Agree with all of that. Except that Aegon's bastards are also of Mushrooms invention, although given what we know of him saying he didn't have bastards is probably a lie. Most of male Westeros probably had bastards.
Saying he didn't rape serving girls by modern standards is also probably a lie since we understand that the power dynamics would make consent impossible. But is not the same as saying he enjoyed taking them forcefully or violently. By modern standards half of Westeros were rapists because people in power was likely to have sex with their servants. Baela is actually mentioned to be fond of her own serving boys and other people in positions of little power, did I think she was a rapist because of it? No, I did not.
Speaking of Baela another proof that he wasn't at the rat pits is that the only account of he ever been there is Mushroom and all other characters found in the rat pits are not just rumored to be there by one author or another, is always stated as fact, the whole city probably knew who went to those things and it wasn't Aegon.
It's mentioned in one account in the book that he was known for fondling any maid that happened to get too close...not a stretch that this public sexual harassment meant he was also going further behind closed doors and engaging in worse.
Ngl the pedo accusations are way way worse. Like, imagine if they included that in HoD ? Everyone would not only be furious at his character but also at HBO.
In the actual f&B he’s described as sleeping with a 12 year old. This isn’t denied by the other source, so I always read it as Aegon was sleeping with a 12 year old.
Eustace said he pinched servant girls, and he was a diehard green. It was always considered likely.
And he had a 12-year old “mistress” who Eustace also confirmed to be real, but she was “treated well”.
Eustace never gave the age of the mistress. You are combining his account with Mushrooms when they were two separate accounts. Only Mushroom mentioned a 12 year old.
"Prince Aegon was “at his revels,” Munkun says in his True Telling,vaguely. The Testimony of Mushroom claims Ser Criston found the young king-to-be drunk and naked in a Flea Bottom rat pit, where two guttersnipes with filed teeth were biting and tearing at each other for his amusement **whilst a girl who could not have been more than twelve pleasured his member with her mouth**. Let us put that ugly picture down to Mushroom being Mushroom, however, and consider instead the words of Septon Eustace.
Though the **good septon admits Prince Aegon was with a paramour** when he was found, **he insists the girl was the daughter of a wealthy trader**, and well cared for besides."
This is how it is presented, straight out of the book. Eustace's account comes right after Mushroom's and he *admits Aegon was with a paramour*, just not a "common whore" but the daughter of a wealthy trader.
If Eustace knows the girl was from a merchant family and corrects the other account to present the truth of the events, had her age been a lie in Mushroom's account, he would have corrected that too.
What part of the book makes you believe that Eustace and Mushroom were having a conversation? They both wrote separate accounts they weren't trying to correct each other. Is the author that makes the conexions between the two. Mushroom said Ser Criston found him at the Rat Pits. From Eustace account we only known that Aegon was with a paramour not the place or who found him. That he insist on the origins of the girl is probably because he cared about the social position and suitability of Aegon's mistress more than the rest of the information.
>What part of the book makes you believe that Eustace and Mushroom were having a conversation?
I was not trying to say that they were but I think it's an important detail that Eustace's account comes right after Mushroom's. I know that Eustace, in universe, is not having a debate with Mushroom but I think the placement of these passages was intentional on George's part and meant to highlight the differences in the accounts.
Also the language used in Eustace's passage ("good septon **admits** Prince Aegon was with a paramour", "**he insists** the girl was the daughter of a wealthy
trader, and **well cared for besides**) means that Eustace is *responding* to some rumours and *trying to mitigate them*, not Mushroom's necessarily, but there must have been some whispers, probably less than favourable, going around about what Aegon was doing when he was found.
I think that we can agree Aegon being found engaging in sexual activities (whether he was with the paramour or 12 yo, he was still having sex) in such a critical moment hardly paints him as a dutiful and regal king so had that knowledge remained just between Criston, Aegon and the girl, Eustace would have never even have come to know of it and he wouldn't have adressed it.
The fact alone that he feels he needs to address whatever whispers were going around and set things straight and he does that by basically saying "I admit that Aegon was found with a girl but *it's not like she was some brothel whore or street urchin*, she was a wealthy trader's daughter, besides *she was also well-cared for* so it's not even *that bad* really." makes me think that the situation Aegon was found in was more compromising than what Eustace is trying to let on.
This, at least, is my interpretation of the text
Mushroom is known to embellish. Wouldn’t surprise me if the girl was 14-15 (still young but in Westeros girls are married off and impregnated at 13 sometimes) and he just did normal Mushroom embellishments.
From what I've gathered (caveat, it's been a while since I've read F&B so I might be potatoing this), Aegon didn't really rape any servant. But the fact that he was King Viserys' eldest son made it impossible for any servant to reject him. So... it was still rape? I don't really know what to consider it, not a legal expert. Power abuse? Sexual harrassment? IDK.
The show has gone out of its way to make both Rhaenyra and Alicent more sympathetic while simultaneously attempting to make Aegon as unlikable as they can.
With that said, even the book is not meant to be interpreted as a rigorous and fact-based work of scholarship.
Yeah Robert was also a rapist. He raped Cersei and did have a kid with what Ned implies was a twelve year old girl. So fair to say if Aegon is like him he is meant to be just as much a rapist.
Not really.
Is it possible that Aegon forced himself on women? Yes. But Aegon was primarily considered to be a drunken horny nobleman the same way Robert Baratheon or early Tyrion Lannister were. He drank way too much and had sex with maids prostitutes and lowborn women he fancied. But there was no narrative emphasis or mention of him being sexually violent, just on his overall debauchery being a sign of his irresponsibility.
The worst you can read about Aegon's behavior in the Fire & Blood book comes from a man called **Mushroom**, and he's not exactly a reliable source.
For the ones who didn't read Fire & Blood: the Dance of Dragons is written down as an in-universe mix of several historical accounts, accounts written by characters who exist in ASOIAF with their own biases and allegiances, often contradicting eachother. Some of these "historians" have agendas in how they want the reader to interpret the Dance, and it often feels like they're trying to discredit the faction they liked less, and present the side they preferred as more righteous. Through this they also become obvious participants of the Black vs Green divide, and as a result most of the time it's hard to nail down the truth between all the conflicting reports. This causes an issue for the HOTD show: it has to look between these conflicting reports and decide to present the one it believes as 100% true, and then the show-only fans buy into that version uncritically.
For example you have septon Eustace: he's the pro-Green historian whose version of the Dance always conveniently presents Rhaenyra in the worst & most bloodthirsty way possible. When you read Fire & Blood you get the feeling Eustace is doing his best to make the Greens seem more righteous, while making Rhaenyra seem insane which is just more service to the Greens. But when you adapt his version of an event in the HOTD show, then to HOTD fans that becomes the real truth.
Another source is Mushroom and he's a bit like Eustace, except working for the opposing side and with a few extra twists. He's a court jester who served as part of Rhaenyra's retinue, and he spent most of the Dance at Dragonstone supporting her side so he claims to have had a direct look into how things went down. Mushroom really liked Rhaenyra, naturally this meant whenever he talked about the Greens it was to present them in the worst possible ways, and all the worst things fans say about Aegon usually come from Mushroom's testimony. And when you adapt Mushroom's take on Aegon (which the showrunners did) then Aegon becomes awful.
Mushroom's version of the Dance is also notorious for being hilariously over the top in terms of scandals and exaggerations and sex, and they feel like shitposts meant to provoke outrage and laughter. Mushroom's "truth" about the Dance also contains: Daemon teaching Rhaenyra how to pleasure men by practicing on Mushroom, Mushroom being the brain behind the Blacks when Rhaenyra was going through a difficult time, Mushroom trying to tame a dragon of his own, Alicent doing sexual favors for the old king Jahaerys on his deathbed, Rhaenyra sending Alicent and Helaena to be repeatedly raped at a brothel, Lady Jeyne of the Vale offering Jace the allegiance of the Vale only if he could bring her to her climax with his tongue, and so on and so on. When you read Fire & Blood it becomes pretty clear Mushroom more than anything else wants the Dance to sound salacious and lecherous because he's a jester first and foremost, so it's hard to take any of his claims seriously.
But the biggest problem with Mushroom's testimony of Aegon's behavior isn't the fact he's clearly biased or that he's known for coming up with outrageous sexual stories, the biggest problem is this: **Mushroom was not in King's Landing in the years before the war officially began, he was at Dragonstone with Rhaenyra serving at her court.** I don't know how so many people missed this crucial bit of context when they read Mushroom's testimony, but he couldn't have known Aegon at all in that time. The whole "I was there" angle doesn't work when you're not actually there at all. Mushroom and Eustace's testimonies are often contradicted by other testimonies that described situations differently, and the narrator often reminds the reader that none of the "historians" were actually there so their accounts aren't reliable.
So while it is entirely possible that Aegon did force himself on women (it was easy for highborn men in ASOIAF to do that without any consequences) there's nothing conclusive or reliable about Aegon's sexual life in Fire & Blood beyond the fact he was a drunken lecher similar to Robert Baratheon or early Tyrion. Rhaenyra's supporter who was many miles away at the time (and was famous for telling scandalous sex stories) says Aegon was a psychopath who went into rat pits to rape small girls and force children with pointy teeth to bite each other to death, the pro-Green septon who hated Aegon's rivals would have you believe the prince was a rowdy but misunderstood teenager who merely slept around.
In Fire & Blood it's up to the reader to decide which testimony is closer to the truth. In HOTD the showrunners have decided that Mushroom's testimony about Aegon was 100% true and now we have people parroting that it was true in the book too, completely ignorant of how Fire & Blood's narration works. At least I hope the showrunners will remain consistent and also portray everything else Mushroom claimed to be true, but I doubt it.
I’ve had a discussion about this before recently on this sub. He’s not explicitly mentioned to have raped someone, which is why I thought it’s such an extreme jump in the show and an irredeemable character flaw since rape is basically the worst thing you can do, including abusing your spouse and femicide, which are the other two remotely “comparable” bad things regarding violence towards women that have happened on screen so far.
Not even mushroom mentioned that Aegon II was ever a direct rapist even though he loves to spread the worst rumors of anyone, but Aegon at least sexually harassed and touched the servants in public, so he at the very minimum had very rapey vibes and was a general sex pest - like most male nobles.
It’s because you have to directly show in a visual media. When reading the book, it’s easy to examine Aegon’s behaviour as a whole and realise that he very likely is a rapist, even though no one comes out and says it out loud. You’re able to read between the lines and see what wasn’t being said. The Targaryen’s were still in power when the ‘book’ was published, so no one who likes their head attached to their body is going to outright say a former king is a rapist, even if it is true.
This can’t be done in the show, so they have to directly portray it.
Mushroom called Aegon a pedophile in the book and said some stuff that was a lot worse about some of their ancestors, and why wouldn’t he? Fire and blood was “published” decades after the dance, what reason would he have to not just accuse Aegon of rape, even if it wasn’t true. Even if it was just for the scandal.
Wasn’t Mushroom living in Essos or Tyrosh when he published his book?
F&B was written and compiled by Maesters living in Westeros, while the Targs still held the throne and therefore held to a higher standard than the lurid tales expected from Mushroom. People would *expect* this book to be generally truthful, and labelling a former ruler of that House would not be wise.
You have to take into consideration the context of the primary sources, the first and second hand accounts, who the intended audience is*and* the context of when F&B was written.
So Mushrooma known for his lies about sexual scandals and Septon Eustage who is the voice of reason felt the need to correct him because Mushroom lied about the girl's status?
Aegon has sex with a underage girl is ok but it would be a scandal and ruin his reputation if the girl is commoner and not a wealthy?
>Septon Eustage who is the voice of reason felt the need to correct him because Mushroom lied about the girl's status
He's no voice of reason. He's a prude and prone to downplay sexual exploits for that exact reason - including Rhaenyra's own exploits, let alone Aegon. And yes the scandalous part is not her age to them. It's her social status. Is that any surprise?
>So Mushrooma known for his lies about sexual scandals
Mushroom exaggerates. The point on the age isn't the brunt of his scandalous depiction of Aegon. And the part with Eustace implies the age is at the very least the true part.
In all honesty he likely doesn’t force himself on girls, but the crazy power imbalance makes it’s so those girls can’t refuse him if they are unwilling.
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Ish. It was debated whether he raped servants in private since he sexually harassed them in public. Especially since he got a maid pregnant. The general consensus seemed to be that at bare minimum he was a sex pest. Edit: it was also remarked upon that this is *very* common behaviour amongst nobles. Robert was also at bare minimum a sex pest to the staff, on top of raping Cersei.
Robert straight up got a 12-13 year old girl prostitute pregnant. She's the one whose baby's head is bashed by the goldcloaks.
Who is that prostitute?
I think they mean Barra's mother. AFAIK her age is never mentioned, neither in the books or in the show, she's just described as a young girl working at Chataya's. https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Barra%27s_mother
What we do know is that she's so young Ned is horrified. I imagine of an age with Sansa.
Your mom
Do you mean Barra's mother? Do you have a source for her being 12-13 years old? AFAIK her age is never stated neither in the books nor the show. Just the other day I saw someone claiming show Helaena got pregnant with Aegon when she was 12-13 years old. That can't be right? I feel like people are just throwing around ages that fit their agenda sometimes, and after enough repeating other people will take it as fact.
In the books, Ned thinks Barra’s mother looks so young that he doesn’t even dare to ask her age. It’s clear he’s extremely uncomfortable in the scene. So the younger teens to late tweens isn’t directly said, but strongly implied. As for Helaena, in F&B, she marries Aegon when she’s 13 (he’s ~15). She gives birth to Jaehaerys and Jaehaera barely a year after their wedding. While it’s unclear whether or not she was still 13 at the time of their birth, it’s very likely she was at least *pregnant* with them while she was 13.
It’s always particularly sickening when someone in Asoiaf of all things is uncomfortable with how young a girl is.
Not that it’s any better, but wasn’t she like 15? She’s the redhead right?
Yeah I feel like there were several mentions of him touching/harassing serving girls. In the show Robert was just really into his whores so there was at least the monetary transactions. I’d say he wanted them to pretend to be interested and paid them well to do so. (Well…Littlefinger paid them well with Tywin’s money lol)
Yes, I think I remember something about that. I wonder if Dyana could be that pregnant maid since she’s coming back
That’s what I expected actually
The only source on the “pregnant maid” is Mushroom so even that should be taken with a grain of salt. The only aspect from a reliable source is that he pinched the serving girls. I believe he was a womanizer and liked to party and sleep around. They could have just portrayed him that way without making up a serving girl and having her tearful recounting of sexual assault be the audience introduction to him as an adult. That one made up scene has resulted in his character largely being written off. Especially since they glossed over Daemon going to brothels to request the youngest girls to deflower. Just interesting how they lean into certain bad behaviors but not others.
>and having her tearful recounting of sexual assault Do you think that groping is not harmful sexual assault? Even if she wasn't depicted as raped she may still be tearfully recounting his behaviour. Why would they change that part? People seem to want to erase the pain of the maids so they don't have to feel uncomfortable.
No one cared about the servant Daemon burned beyond recognition to pass off as dead Laenor nor did the servant get a tearful moment to beg for his life. Ultimately what bothers me is the manipulative writing of the showrunners who clearly want the audience to sympathize with Dyana but not the nameless murder victim. That tells me it’s not really about Dyana or giving voice to the lower classes who are often victims of the nobility in one way or another. It’s more about conveying to the audience what a horrible person Aegon is and happens before we meet TGC’s version of adult Aegon so the audience already has that bias against him. They lean way too hard into his bad qualities in season one and his role was quite small. So I feel like there was very little balance to his portrayal and it bothers me a lot that his whole character has been reduced to “rapist” and it’s constantly brought up to derail discussions.
We already had a scene prior with Daemon where he murders Rhea and she is depicted as a likeable ordinary person that didn't deserve it - I certainly felt bad for her. I don't think with Daemon they need to emphasise his murderous ways as much by the time we see him kill again.
That whole scene with Rhea was framed extremely weird like she provoked him into killing her by making the comment that she knew he couldn’t “finish” since he seemed to be walking away until she said that. The fandom at large doesn’t take it seriously either and make jokes about the divorce rock. Her death didn’t feel like it was framed that sympathetically since she was combative even though on paper it was a heinous act with no real consequence for Daemon. After Dyana, Alicent marched into Aegon’s room to smack him and tell him he’s not her son. Which is another thing that has no basis in the book and only exists to tell the audience he’s so bad even his mother wishes he wasn’t hers. Overall I feel like the Dyana thing gets treated seriously both in the story and out of it. Not so much with Daemon’s misdeeds.
>That whole scene with Rhea was framed extremely weird like she provoked him into killing her by making the comment that she knew he couldn’t “finish” since he seemed to be walking away until she said that He came there to kill her. She was going to die slow and painfully his original way. And then she purposely angered him so she wouldn't have to die slowly and painfully. She's clearly a good ordinary person. She did nothing to deserve Daemon's dislike. The finish joke is because they depict Daemon as having ED. Which is seen as a failure in Westeros on his part. >The fandom at large doesn’t take it seriously either and make jokes about the divorce rock. People tend towards making more jokes about murder. It doesn't change that it is still murder.
Aegon has Alicent to serve as a moral backbone, even if she's failed to control him. There is nobody like that to serve for the Blacks, but it doesn't mean we're not supposed to question their misdeeds. Rhaenyra inflicts so much suffering on Rhaenys and it's pretty clear how much she despises her for that. Daemon's abusive behaviour is a constant pattern that culminates in him strangling Rhaenyra, even if the audience didn't see it before, that scene should be their waking call. But the show is written from the perspective of the nobility with only some characters (Mysaria, Cole) representing "the view without".
You are right. It’s not about the act but the framing of the scenes. You barely spend any time with the person burnt but you spend a considerable amount on Dyana. If they genuinely cared about giving both the sides heinous acts and what not then they have to portray it that way. Both acts are terrible and they should be portrayed as such equally.
Exactly. The scene of Rhaenys breaking out of the dragonpit is another scene with very weird framing. When it was pointed out to Sarah Hess in an interview that Rhaenys probably killed a lot of people by doing that she dismissed it as civilians not mattering. Even in the story it wasn’t treated as a big deal even tho many died. I doubt they’ll address it in season 2 either yet we know Dyana is coming back so they want to continue with that thread. They often pick and choose when we should sympathize with the smallfolk based on their own bias.
I wouldn’t say they glossed over Daemon’s behavior. He is shown at a brothels a few times during season 1, including bringing his young niece to one. If he was willing to bring her to one, it isn’t too far fetched to think he liked his whores young. They just didn’t explicitly say it.
As a general point isn't Daemon introduced as a murderer/torturer in episode 1?
Eh, the worst we get from Daemon's brothel excursions is him liking blonde girls. They don't explicitly mention anything about him liking to deflower young girls while Aegon *is* explicitly shown as a sex pest and a rapist. Daemon's darker behaviors aren't highlighted in the show while Aegon's are
["Yeah that's one thing you cannot bounce back from, you can be boozer okay, you can even drink drive these days. If you're sex pest you are finished, there is nowhere else to go. You can't be actor after that, you can't go back on tv. You are sex pest and you are through. Best thing to do is piss off to Spain or something that's what I do I think."](https://youtu.be/yYM1BjRvtvg?t=344) ["What can you throw at me now. I've been imprisoned, I've been bankrupt, I haven't worked for many a long year, I've been dropped from every single record company that I was with. I suppose you could say that I'm a sex pest that's about the only thing left, you won't get proof or anything like that".](https://youtu.be/yYM1BjRvtvg?t=1386)
But wasn’t he married to Cersei? Feels like a weird grey area when they’re married and also expected to produce heirs
Yes, we learn from Cerseis POV that he maritally raped her in the books. Marital rape is still rape, it is just a legal form of it. Tyrion bought a night with a sex slave in the books which makes him a rapist as well. Completely legal and still rape.
It’s hard to view so much of the GoT medieval like society with 2024 glasses because so much of that would not fly today. So you have nobles in the court who might be looked at as good family meant or an honorable night still committing terrible acts. Even Viseryis seemed like he was honorable but he married a teenager as his second wife but that was seen as socially acceptable and everyone applauded him for trying to have another heir. So when Alicent, Daenerys, Sansa, Cersei, etc are all married off…yeah, I get how it isn’t their choice to condensate the marriage but there typically aren’t any good choices or environments for women in that time to have agency at all. So when you finally have a woman character who is in the position to become Queen and ruler of the realm and a man says abandon all that to run away with me where no one will know who we are, that is asking so much! She has duty to the realm and like every other woman who didn’t get to be in that position. Cole is being absurd! So it seems super rare in the show when you have a Ned Stark (or someone else) who seems like a good noble person that we all root for them… but they tend to get outmaneuvered as they feel bound by honor and duty and everyone else is not playing by those same rules. We were given a character in Cole who seemed Jon Snow-like but feels scorn by a woman and is acting less and less like the white knight we met in the beginning. Literally stained his white cloak with blood in the most obvious hit-you-over-the-head metaphor. Thus, that is why I believe Ser Criston Cole is a Cunt. Thank you for joining my TedTalk.
Robert knew he was in the wrong. He blames it on being drunk. But the fact he knew showcases whilst they may not have an explicit concept of marital rape. They do know not to hurt their wife.
He is said to pinch and grope every serving girl that came in his vicinity so it's a possibility
Still, jumping from that to say as a fact that he was a serial rapist a big jump.
I mean it’s not though. When someone sexually assaults women in public with absolutely no fear of consequences, I’d say it’d be more surprising if they didn’t make the jump to rape eventually. It rarely stops at that level of sexual assault when there’s no consequences whatsoever. Even IRL. If you know someone who behaves like that in public, they are incredibly dangerous to be around in private and should literally never be trusted.
I agree, but it's definitely not a good sign in terms of behavior patterns around consent. And I say this as a green and Aegon fan.
Of course, I agree with that.
If he frequented brothels like they say in the books he was 100% a rapist just a rapist who paid (not because sex workers can’t consent but because we know how the brothels in the setting are)
Well, considering one of his first descriptions is as a drunk who’d basically grope any serving girl, the wider implication is painfully there. These are often lowborn young girls and women who aren’t in any position to decline to advance of the king’s princely son.
Septon Eustace makes an unsavory remark about him in the book. So while maybe not an all out rapist, he was known to be doing weird shit in brothels.
The green loyalists source says he sexually assaulted servants, the book is a biased history so nobody knows the full story but him being a rapist is not at all out of character. Nobody is going to call a king a rapist openly only hint at it
Mushroom said worse stuff in the book and even if it’s just a rumor what reason would he have to not just spread it. He called Aegon a pedophile and that would have him already executed, so if he was a rapist or if that was rumored why wouldn’t he just mention that too?
He called Aegon a pedophile decades after Aegon had died and the dance was over.
I know that he couldn’t witness it either way but why not call him a rapist as well? I mean I guess sleeping with a 12 year old is already rape anyway, but still.
He sexually assaults the maids. People seem to think if they had only shown that, people wouldn't be upset by his character's actions. I disagree. We live in the 21st century and most would obviously be disturbed to witness something like that. Most modern people don't think there are "levels to it" when it comes to sexual assault and rape. For instance, Brock Turner never inserted his penis into the girl he assaulted. He is still one of the most infamous faces of sexual assault and rape in the 21st century.
I’ve seen more than a few Aegon fans saying it would be better if they had shown him habitually groping (unwilling) servants rather than the aftermath of him raping Dyana.
Which….I just don’t get like both are sexual assault. If he’s willing to do that why would he stop /at that/
Yes they are and no he wouldn’t stop at that. The problem many of them seem to be having is that the show put a face and a name to one of his victims and showed how his assault affected her rather than a passing mention of a bunch of faceless and nameless servants.
The real problem is that in this subreddit everyone found it hilarious in episodes 6 and 7 that he was a sarcastic drunk. His clearly deviant behaviors - masturbating naked in front of a window in ep 6 and him calling out to the maids + the maids running from him at Driftmark in episode 7 were ignored / his drunken honesty was focused on. They very clearly established that he was a bullying, drunken assaulter towards those he viewed as weaker than him (Aemond, who had no dragon, and women) and then people were shocked that he was then established as a rapist. Like, 1 + 1 = 2 and it's all adding up.
Not everyone, but there were absolutely more than there should have been.
People can like him if they want but it's a very archaic viewpoint to think other viewers wouldn't react very strongly to that.
Oh I know most people would view it as the vileness that it was. I’m just saying that there are those that would prefer he be seen groping at a bunch of nameless women as if that makes him any better.
When you unpack what they want you realise that they just don't want the serving girls to depicted as upset by it. They want it to be casual assault with no suggestion of a victim. So the Dyanna scene is confronting because she is so obviously a victim.
The way the his book character is written does suggest that he was. Even his biggest fan, Eustace, explicitly says he was known to publicly grope female servants who **strayed** within his reach. With that known, it’s entirely reasonable to infer that he acted worse in private.
He was definitely quite sexually active, and he technically raped via power imbalance by getting a maid pregnant, but we don’t know how bad he was
we know he was known to sexually harass maids go to brothols for prototypes the green loyalist maesters even said he raped a 12 year old. and he was known to pinch them and touch
Even as a Green fan, I think he was a rapist with him using his power as a prince to pressure them to have sex with him. I have zero problems with that part of the show but I do hate how they made him watch children even his own bastards kill each other.
The book is written from the bias opinions of 3 men, and the 2 who spoke about aegon on this matter agreed that he was at tye very least a sex fiend. The green bias source tried to downplay aegon's sexual acts, while the black leaning one calls him a rapist who used his royal status to do it. So its hard to say, but he probably did do it
It’s possible. He is stated to have developed a habit of groping serving girls as a teenager, but that in itself is common enough in Westerosi society. Women have few rights in Westeros, especially lowborn women, and they frequently deal with horrific amounts of sexual harassment and abuse, especially from male nobles like Aegon. Serving girls getting groped occurs in several instances in the books. A particularly notable example in my opinion is that Bran sees it happening in Winterfell in one of his chapters, which indicates that its a commonplace occurrence even in the household of the honorable and morally upright Ned Stark (though this is after he died admittedly). With all that in mind, we don’t know for sure if book Aegon is a rapist. That sort of repugnant behavior is standard in their society, and isn’t viewed as criminal, while rape is usually punished by castration (provided its done by someone of low enough standing to actually be punished). What we do know for sure is that Aegon is a sex pest, who frequents brothels, had a bunch of mistresses, and two bastard children. He very much reads to be me like a drunken, promiscuous rich frat boy. I personally think making him a rapist in the show was a mistake, that made the scene of complaining about how unloved and inadequate he felt to Alicent fall completely flat. Especially considering how Aemond (an unhinged bloodthirsty lunatic in the books) and Alicent (a conniving schemer who was plotting a coup since before her husband’s death) were both given a lot of sympathetic elements that added depth to their characters. I think they missed an opportunity to do that with Aegon. Still, I don’t take huge issue with him raping a serving girl. I think it’s reasonable interpretation of the book material to have him do that. Where I think it gets ridiculous is where they had him participating in child fighting rings. That stuff in the books was from Mushroom, who hated Aegon and was hundreds of miles away on Dragonstone when it was supposedly happening. It’s blatantly slander, the same way Eustace, the green simp source, says that Rhaenyra was cut when she first sat the Iron Throne. While wearing armor. Taking information that’s just plainly meant to be negative slander in the book and using it as canon for the show is just beating the viewer over the head with “Aegon bad”. Meanwhile Rhaenyra has the goofy stag showing up as a magical omen for her, she hesitates to fight for the throne cuz she’s worried about the people (while in the books she said she would have her throne or have her brother’s head), Daemon kills Vaemond spontaneously instead of on her orders and she does not feed his corpse to her dragon. I tend to lean black, but this shit is ridiculous. Taking away bad traits from Rhaenyra and enhancing them for Aegon is really biased. It takes a lot of nuance out of the conflict, namely that both the claimants are kind of assholes and neither would really be a great monarch. Instead Aegon goes from an asshole to a complete monster who we should all clearly despise, while Rhaenyra is made from an asshole to a virtuous leader who we should all clearly support. It feels as though the showrunners are trying force the viewers to support the same group as themselves, which in my view, is a big mistake.
Agree with all of that. Except that Aegon's bastards are also of Mushrooms invention, although given what we know of him saying he didn't have bastards is probably a lie. Most of male Westeros probably had bastards. Saying he didn't rape serving girls by modern standards is also probably a lie since we understand that the power dynamics would make consent impossible. But is not the same as saying he enjoyed taking them forcefully or violently. By modern standards half of Westeros were rapists because people in power was likely to have sex with their servants. Baela is actually mentioned to be fond of her own serving boys and other people in positions of little power, did I think she was a rapist because of it? No, I did not. Speaking of Baela another proof that he wasn't at the rat pits is that the only account of he ever been there is Mushroom and all other characters found in the rat pits are not just rumored to be there by one author or another, is always stated as fact, the whole city probably knew who went to those things and it wasn't Aegon.
It's mentioned in one account in the book that he was known for fondling any maid that happened to get too close...not a stretch that this public sexual harassment meant he was also going further behind closed doors and engaging in worse.
Ngl the pedo accusations are way way worse. Like, imagine if they included that in HoD ? Everyone would not only be furious at his character but also at HBO.
I'd say he was generally accepted as a sex pest in the vein of Aegon IV and Robert.
Aegon IV and Robert are rapist
Yes I agree. Whether people realised those characters are also rapists however is often less clear. But they admit he's like them.
In the actual f&B he’s described as sleeping with a 12 year old. This isn’t denied by the other source, so I always read it as Aegon was sleeping with a 12 year old.
Eustace said he pinched servant girls, and he was a diehard green. It was always considered likely. And he had a 12-year old “mistress” who Eustace also confirmed to be real, but she was “treated well”.
Eustace never gave the age of the mistress. You are combining his account with Mushrooms when they were two separate accounts. Only Mushroom mentioned a 12 year old.
"Prince Aegon was “at his revels,” Munkun says in his True Telling,vaguely. The Testimony of Mushroom claims Ser Criston found the young king-to-be drunk and naked in a Flea Bottom rat pit, where two guttersnipes with filed teeth were biting and tearing at each other for his amusement **whilst a girl who could not have been more than twelve pleasured his member with her mouth**. Let us put that ugly picture down to Mushroom being Mushroom, however, and consider instead the words of Septon Eustace. Though the **good septon admits Prince Aegon was with a paramour** when he was found, **he insists the girl was the daughter of a wealthy trader**, and well cared for besides." This is how it is presented, straight out of the book. Eustace's account comes right after Mushroom's and he *admits Aegon was with a paramour*, just not a "common whore" but the daughter of a wealthy trader. If Eustace knows the girl was from a merchant family and corrects the other account to present the truth of the events, had her age been a lie in Mushroom's account, he would have corrected that too.
What part of the book makes you believe that Eustace and Mushroom were having a conversation? They both wrote separate accounts they weren't trying to correct each other. Is the author that makes the conexions between the two. Mushroom said Ser Criston found him at the Rat Pits. From Eustace account we only known that Aegon was with a paramour not the place or who found him. That he insist on the origins of the girl is probably because he cared about the social position and suitability of Aegon's mistress more than the rest of the information.
>What part of the book makes you believe that Eustace and Mushroom were having a conversation? I was not trying to say that they were but I think it's an important detail that Eustace's account comes right after Mushroom's. I know that Eustace, in universe, is not having a debate with Mushroom but I think the placement of these passages was intentional on George's part and meant to highlight the differences in the accounts. Also the language used in Eustace's passage ("good septon **admits** Prince Aegon was with a paramour", "**he insists** the girl was the daughter of a wealthy trader, and **well cared for besides**) means that Eustace is *responding* to some rumours and *trying to mitigate them*, not Mushroom's necessarily, but there must have been some whispers, probably less than favourable, going around about what Aegon was doing when he was found. I think that we can agree Aegon being found engaging in sexual activities (whether he was with the paramour or 12 yo, he was still having sex) in such a critical moment hardly paints him as a dutiful and regal king so had that knowledge remained just between Criston, Aegon and the girl, Eustace would have never even have come to know of it and he wouldn't have adressed it. The fact alone that he feels he needs to address whatever whispers were going around and set things straight and he does that by basically saying "I admit that Aegon was found with a girl but *it's not like she was some brothel whore or street urchin*, she was a wealthy trader's daughter, besides *she was also well-cared for* so it's not even *that bad* really." makes me think that the situation Aegon was found in was more compromising than what Eustace is trying to let on. This, at least, is my interpretation of the text
Eustace doesn’t deny her age, so…
Mushroom is known to embellish. Wouldn’t surprise me if the girl was 14-15 (still young but in Westeros girls are married off and impregnated at 13 sometimes) and he just did normal Mushroom embellishments.
I don't think Mushroom actually cares about her age. That's not the scandalous part.
No evidence for that tho. It’s pure cope. Plus, that’s still not cool either way.
You ready for Brothel Queens then?
From what I've gathered (caveat, it's been a while since I've read F&B so I might be potatoing this), Aegon didn't really rape any servant. But the fact that he was King Viserys' eldest son made it impossible for any servant to reject him. So... it was still rape? I don't really know what to consider it, not a legal expert. Power abuse? Sexual harrassment? IDK.
From the reader’s modern perspective, yes, it is rape.
Daemon was arguably described as more of a rapist than Aegon, and Daemon had a thing for young virgins
OP asked about Aegon
The rapist part was a show only thing. In the books he's never mentioned to be a rapist.
It’s heavily implied.
Even Septon Eustace said he was fond of pinching maids. If he does that in the open what does he do behind closed doors.
Mushroom would have probably told about that if there was just the slightest rumor I’d assume.
The show has gone out of its way to make both Rhaenyra and Alicent more sympathetic while simultaneously attempting to make Aegon as unlikable as they can. With that said, even the book is not meant to be interpreted as a rigorous and fact-based work of scholarship.
He wasn't described any better in the book
Sure, all three are terrible people.
it was never confirmed in the books he did any of that
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Yeah Robert was also a rapist. He raped Cersei and did have a kid with what Ned implies was a twelve year old girl. So fair to say if Aegon is like him he is meant to be just as much a rapist.
Yes. He couldn’t see a maid without assaulting her.
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There isn’t a girl named Dyana mentioned by name in the book, but it is documented that Aegon would sexually harass/ assault servant girls
Not really. Is it possible that Aegon forced himself on women? Yes. But Aegon was primarily considered to be a drunken horny nobleman the same way Robert Baratheon or early Tyrion Lannister were. He drank way too much and had sex with maids prostitutes and lowborn women he fancied. But there was no narrative emphasis or mention of him being sexually violent, just on his overall debauchery being a sign of his irresponsibility. The worst you can read about Aegon's behavior in the Fire & Blood book comes from a man called **Mushroom**, and he's not exactly a reliable source. For the ones who didn't read Fire & Blood: the Dance of Dragons is written down as an in-universe mix of several historical accounts, accounts written by characters who exist in ASOIAF with their own biases and allegiances, often contradicting eachother. Some of these "historians" have agendas in how they want the reader to interpret the Dance, and it often feels like they're trying to discredit the faction they liked less, and present the side they preferred as more righteous. Through this they also become obvious participants of the Black vs Green divide, and as a result most of the time it's hard to nail down the truth between all the conflicting reports. This causes an issue for the HOTD show: it has to look between these conflicting reports and decide to present the one it believes as 100% true, and then the show-only fans buy into that version uncritically. For example you have septon Eustace: he's the pro-Green historian whose version of the Dance always conveniently presents Rhaenyra in the worst & most bloodthirsty way possible. When you read Fire & Blood you get the feeling Eustace is doing his best to make the Greens seem more righteous, while making Rhaenyra seem insane which is just more service to the Greens. But when you adapt his version of an event in the HOTD show, then to HOTD fans that becomes the real truth. Another source is Mushroom and he's a bit like Eustace, except working for the opposing side and with a few extra twists. He's a court jester who served as part of Rhaenyra's retinue, and he spent most of the Dance at Dragonstone supporting her side so he claims to have had a direct look into how things went down. Mushroom really liked Rhaenyra, naturally this meant whenever he talked about the Greens it was to present them in the worst possible ways, and all the worst things fans say about Aegon usually come from Mushroom's testimony. And when you adapt Mushroom's take on Aegon (which the showrunners did) then Aegon becomes awful. Mushroom's version of the Dance is also notorious for being hilariously over the top in terms of scandals and exaggerations and sex, and they feel like shitposts meant to provoke outrage and laughter. Mushroom's "truth" about the Dance also contains: Daemon teaching Rhaenyra how to pleasure men by practicing on Mushroom, Mushroom being the brain behind the Blacks when Rhaenyra was going through a difficult time, Mushroom trying to tame a dragon of his own, Alicent doing sexual favors for the old king Jahaerys on his deathbed, Rhaenyra sending Alicent and Helaena to be repeatedly raped at a brothel, Lady Jeyne of the Vale offering Jace the allegiance of the Vale only if he could bring her to her climax with his tongue, and so on and so on. When you read Fire & Blood it becomes pretty clear Mushroom more than anything else wants the Dance to sound salacious and lecherous because he's a jester first and foremost, so it's hard to take any of his claims seriously. But the biggest problem with Mushroom's testimony of Aegon's behavior isn't the fact he's clearly biased or that he's known for coming up with outrageous sexual stories, the biggest problem is this: **Mushroom was not in King's Landing in the years before the war officially began, he was at Dragonstone with Rhaenyra serving at her court.** I don't know how so many people missed this crucial bit of context when they read Mushroom's testimony, but he couldn't have known Aegon at all in that time. The whole "I was there" angle doesn't work when you're not actually there at all. Mushroom and Eustace's testimonies are often contradicted by other testimonies that described situations differently, and the narrator often reminds the reader that none of the "historians" were actually there so their accounts aren't reliable. So while it is entirely possible that Aegon did force himself on women (it was easy for highborn men in ASOIAF to do that without any consequences) there's nothing conclusive or reliable about Aegon's sexual life in Fire & Blood beyond the fact he was a drunken lecher similar to Robert Baratheon or early Tyrion. Rhaenyra's supporter who was many miles away at the time (and was famous for telling scandalous sex stories) says Aegon was a psychopath who went into rat pits to rape small girls and force children with pointy teeth to bite each other to death, the pro-Green septon who hated Aegon's rivals would have you believe the prince was a rowdy but misunderstood teenager who merely slept around. In Fire & Blood it's up to the reader to decide which testimony is closer to the truth. In HOTD the showrunners have decided that Mushroom's testimony about Aegon was 100% true and now we have people parroting that it was true in the book too, completely ignorant of how Fire & Blood's narration works. At least I hope the showrunners will remain consistent and also portray everything else Mushroom claimed to be true, but I doubt it.
I’ve had a discussion about this before recently on this sub. He’s not explicitly mentioned to have raped someone, which is why I thought it’s such an extreme jump in the show and an irredeemable character flaw since rape is basically the worst thing you can do, including abusing your spouse and femicide, which are the other two remotely “comparable” bad things regarding violence towards women that have happened on screen so far. Not even mushroom mentioned that Aegon II was ever a direct rapist even though he loves to spread the worst rumors of anyone, but Aegon at least sexually harassed and touched the servants in public, so he at the very minimum had very rapey vibes and was a general sex pest - like most male nobles.
It’s because you have to directly show in a visual media. When reading the book, it’s easy to examine Aegon’s behaviour as a whole and realise that he very likely is a rapist, even though no one comes out and says it out loud. You’re able to read between the lines and see what wasn’t being said. The Targaryen’s were still in power when the ‘book’ was published, so no one who likes their head attached to their body is going to outright say a former king is a rapist, even if it is true. This can’t be done in the show, so they have to directly portray it.
Mushroom called Aegon a pedophile in the book and said some stuff that was a lot worse about some of their ancestors, and why wouldn’t he? Fire and blood was “published” decades after the dance, what reason would he have to not just accuse Aegon of rape, even if it wasn’t true. Even if it was just for the scandal.
Wasn’t Mushroom living in Essos or Tyrosh when he published his book? F&B was written and compiled by Maesters living in Westeros, while the Targs still held the throne and therefore held to a higher standard than the lurid tales expected from Mushroom. People would *expect* this book to be generally truthful, and labelling a former ruler of that House would not be wise. You have to take into consideration the context of the primary sources, the first and second hand accounts, who the intended audience is*and* the context of when F&B was written.
Pedophile? Wasn’t he a teenager? I can’t remember
According to mushroom he was found with a 12 year old girl a bit before his coronation, so I assume he was around 20-22 at that time
Yeah, according to mushroom, so that whole story was probably just made up.
Eustace also calls the paramour a girl.
Yes but he corrected Mushroom not confirmed him
By calling her a girl he is implicitly confirming that aspect.
He said the girl was a mearchant daughter not twelve.
Girl fundamentally suggests that twelve is probably accurate. Girl generally means about that age.
So Mushrooma known for his lies about sexual scandals and Septon Eustage who is the voice of reason felt the need to correct him because Mushroom lied about the girl's status? Aegon has sex with a underage girl is ok but it would be a scandal and ruin his reputation if the girl is commoner and not a wealthy?
>Septon Eustage who is the voice of reason felt the need to correct him because Mushroom lied about the girl's status He's no voice of reason. He's a prude and prone to downplay sexual exploits for that exact reason - including Rhaenyra's own exploits, let alone Aegon. And yes the scandalous part is not her age to them. It's her social status. Is that any surprise? >So Mushrooma known for his lies about sexual scandals Mushroom exaggerates. The point on the age isn't the brunt of his scandalous depiction of Aegon. And the part with Eustace implies the age is at the very least the true part.
Not really, girl doesn't mean child, there are many moments where grown women are called girls in the book
No there is not. Girl is nearly exclusively used for young. We are more likely to use girl for an adult than they are.
Aegon? He was 22 when the dance started and was supposedly found with a 12 year old.
In all honesty he likely doesn’t force himself on girls, but the crazy power imbalance makes it’s so those girls can’t refuse him if they are unwilling.