House of the Dragon spoiler thread

[Ruin Explorer]

Alicent and her father spent their lives trying to get their kids to rule, and appear not to have trained either to do so, which seems really odd, especially for her dad.

I think this episode was pretty clear that it wasn't that they "didn't" train them, it's that growing up in the Red Keep, in King's Landing, around the court, prevented the Hightowers from being able to train/teach them properly, because they were continually being subjected to countless "bad influences", as it were, and as princes, weren't really subject to discipline from anyone but the king himself, who was either unwilling, or unable, to really engage in it. It's not exactly surprising or unheard of - countless wealthy and powerful individuals in history have attempted to groom their heirs for succession, only for their heirs to become arrogant, psychopathic, dissolute and/or wilful (c.f. also Affluenza). Indeed, it's so common it's almost a given. As someone who went to one of the "best" schools in the UK (ugh, wish I hadn't, didn't even get me that good of GCSEs) and has friends from Eton etc., I can assure you, it is very much a real thing, too. Incredibly successful, wealthy, powerful parents often are unable to make their children into anything but, well, wankers. Particularly if those kids are raised around wealth and power. It's not 100%. I don't think it's even 50%. But it's a double-digit percentage.

They make a specific demonstration of the difference here, where Alicent asks Gwayne about her other son (who is 16), who wasn't raised at the Red Keep, wasn't raised in main court, but was instead mostly raised in the Hightower court, and is a kind and decent and normal 16-y/o instead of either a dissolute loser, or a raging psychopath.

Hearing that he turned out okay is a big emotional moment for her.

This was an interesting episode because it seemed like it set up an awful lot of stuff that's going to pay off later.

 

[Zaukrie]

I think this episode was pretty clear that it wasn't that they "didn't" train them, it's that growing up in the Red Keep, in King's Landing, around the court, prevented the Hightowers from being able to train/teach them properly, because they were continually being subjected to countless "bad influences", as it were, and as princes, weren't really subject to discipline from anyone but the king himself, who was either unwilling, or unable, to really engage in it. It's not exactly surprising or unheard of - countless wealthy and powerful individuals in history have attempted to groom their heirs for succession, only for their heirs to become arrogant, psychopathic, dissolute and/or wilful (c.f. also Affluenza). Indeed, it's so common it's almost a given. As someone who went to one of the "best" schools in the UK (ugh, wish I hadn't, didn't even get me that good of GCSEs) and has friends from Eton etc., I can assure you, it is very much a real thing, too. Incredibly successful, wealthy, powerful parents often are unable to make their children into anything but, well, wankers. Particularly if those kids are raised around wealth and power. It's not 100%. I don't think it's even 50%. But it's a double-digit percentage.

They make a specific demonstration of the difference here, where Alicent asks Gwayne about her other son (who is 16), who wasn't raised at the Red Keep, wasn't raised in main court, but was instead mostly raised in the Hightower court, and is a kind and decent and normal 16-y/o instead of either a dissolute loser, or a raging psychopath.

Hearing that he turned out okay is a big emotional moment for her.

This was an interesting episode because it seemed like it set up an awful lot of stuff that's going to pay off later.

Excuses for bad parenting don't work in real life either.....It's a hard job, that they utterly failed at. Reasons or not, they utterly failed at it.

 

[Stalker0]

They make a specific demonstration of the difference here, where Alicent asks Gwayne about her other son (who is 16), who wasn't raised at the Red Keep, wasn't raised in main court, but was instead mostly raised in the Hightower court, and is a kind and decent and normal 16-y/o instead of either a dissolute loser, or a raging psychopath.

Hearing that he turned out okay is a big emotional moment for her.

Yes but it wasn't a joyous one for her. Her very next statement which is a counter to Gwayne's note is "or its because he didn't have his mother's influence".

Alicent actually took her last sons performance very personally. In her eyes, she has failed as a mother, and so all the kids that she raised are garbage, while the one son she didn't is golden, and so assumes the cause is herself.

And....frankly there is some truth to that. Look at her relationship with Aegon, she is harsh, strict, she hits him rather than hugs him. It continues the cycle of how Otto raised her, but we see the result. The last condemnation is her last conversation from Aegon. He was desperate for a kind word from his mother, desperate for her guidance. And she gave him the absolute worst words she could have spoken to him. I'm sure she feels guilt for that as well, knowing it might have been the straw that pushed Aegon to go to war.

What is so ironic about that last conversation is.... she finally got what she wanted. Her kid the king was finally looking her straight in the eyes and going "mom what should I do". That power and influence she has been desperately seeking was put right in her lap, she finally had a real chance to shift the ship. But she was grieving and angry, and so threw that chance away. Its very human, and also heart-breaking.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Excuses for bad parenting don't work in real life either.....It's a hard job, that they utterly failed at. Reasons or not, they utterly failed at it.

Nah. When you're centering blame and intentionally ignoring realities in the way you are here, it's just silly and irrational, frankly. It can be fun and cathartic, sure, but's a hollow thing to say.

I've seen enough kids raised at 46 to know that there's surprisingly little connection between "telling your kids what to do and how to live" and how they actually behave. The only things I've seen which seem to work are:

1) Actual unconditional love for your kids that doesn't become smothering or overprotective.

2) Keeping them away from obviously-bad influences, which very much includes stuff like, I dunno, going to Eton or in this case, hanging around the Red Keep.

3) What behaviours you model for them.

That's talking about positive factors, of course, there are countless negative forces that can get in on things. And like, people don't intuitively know all this. Especially not people who weren't raised well themselves. It's not even really cultural knowledge in most societies.

Parenting princes in a monarchical society isn't just a hard job, it's an extremely challenging one, that can easily be made basically impossible. The main way the father "failed" here was by becoming extremely ill. The main way the mother "failed" was by being a child bride who obviously, being a child, didn't really know how to raise children, and didn't have the holistic viewpoint you'd have needed to realize they needed to not be raised at court if she wanted them to be sane and kind.

 

[Stalker0]

The main way the mother "failed" was by being a child bride who obviously, being a child, didn't really know how to raise children, and didn't have the holistic viewpoint you'd have needed to realize they needed to not be raised at court if she wanted them to be sane and kind.

Just one correction. Alicent wasn't a "child bride", she was a bride. Lets remember that women through the vast majority of human history married and had children much earlier than we find culturally acceptable now, part of that just as a matter of necessity (if your going to have ten kids you need to start EARLY).

HOTD models after those common medieval practices, and so most parents started young, because most children grew up a lot faster than kids today.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just one correction. Alicent wasn't a "child bride", she was a bride. Lets remember that women through the vast majority of human history married and had children much earlier than we find culturally acceptable now, part of that just as a matter of necessity (if your going to have ten kids you need to start EARLY).

HOTD models after those common medieval practices, and so most parents started young, because most children grew up a lot faster than kids today.

Alicent was absolutely a "child bride" for the purposes of blaming her for not being good at raising kids, dude.

Also, no, kids did not "grow up faster". Growing up is primarily a biological process, even in the brain. It's a misapprehension that people in the past "grew up faster". Rather, people who were still young were forced into worse situations more routinely.

 

[Stalker0]

Alicent was absolutely a "child bride" for the purposes of blaming her for not being good at raising kids, dude.

Also, no, kids did not "grow up faster". Growing up is primarily a biological process, even in the brain. It's a misapprehension that people in the past "grew up faster". Rather, people who were still young were forced into worse situations more routinely.

With respect, because women were expected to start raising kids at an earlier age, they were trained by their parents early to be able to do that. Young parents was not a weird exception to the rule....it was literally how society operated.

And psychologically, people actually can "grow up faster". Current psychology suggests that human brains become capable of adult thinking around age 10 (which also correlates with anthropology, many societies have a "coming of age" type ceremony around age 10-12, but almost no cultures have them before that). If a person is exposed to adult thinking and adult responsibilities, at that point they CAN in fact start thinking like an adult. Now its absolutely true that their brainpower continues to develop into their early 20s, but they are capable of adult responsibility far earlier than that.

In summary, in medieval societies' a 13 your old girl raising a kid was not a "child raising a child", it was a "young adult raising a child".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

With respect, because women were expected to start raising kids at an earlier age, they were trained by their parents early to be able to do that. Young parents was not a weird exception to the rule....it was literally how society operated.

With respect, I'm a student of history also, and your word "trained" here is a pretty weasel-ish word because that "training" was not particularly good. In fact, in matters of parenting that relate to behaviour and psychology, I would say medieval and renaissance people were genuinely worse at it than people from pre-civilized cultures. In fact a lot of civilized cultures had horrific child-raising practices, like insane, which run counter to basic logic and common sense, let alone decency or empathy.

And psychologically, people actually can "grow up faster". Current psychology suggests that human brains become capable of adult thinking around age 10 (which also correlates with anthropology, many societies have a "coming of age" type ceremony around age 10-12, but almost no cultures have them before that). If a person is exposed to adult thinking and adult responsibilities, at that point they CAN in fact start thinking like an adult. Now its absolutely true that their brainpower continues to develop into their early 20s, but they are capable of adult responsibility far earlier than that.

No.

This is waffle that is not supported by actual neurological development. Psychology isn't really a science so it can say whatever it likes, because it absolutely fails to follow the scientific method (for the most part). Actual science though strongly disagrees with this.

Like I said, you get children being forced to act like adults, but they don't have the brain development to support that, they're absolutely chock-full of hormones, and so on.

In summary, in medieval societies' a 13 your old girl raising a kid was not a "child raising a child", it was a "young adult raising a child".

And that's untrue. It's a child raising a child in any real sense. Society just didn't see them as a child.

 

[John R Davis]

Mostly enjoyed the latest but now very done with Shakespearian tragedy Damon

 

[Meech17]

Mostly enjoyed the latest but now very done with Shakespearian tragedy Damon

Every time the show has cut to a Daemon scene for the last 2-3 episodes my girlfriend has let out an audible groan.

I'm also getting bored of the whole "Haunted by his dreams" thing, but this last episode was one of his better ones. I enjoyed watching him be humbled by the Rivermen.

I've been rooting for our boy Ulf all season and I was glad to see him claim (Or rather, get claimed by) a dragon. I was also glad to see him not get shot down over Kings Landing.

I'm also team Rhaenyra all the way. Hopefully her embracing unconventional tactics doesn't come back to bite her.. (even though we know it most certainly will)