asoiaf stans who hate house targaryen so much because they stan bench players and are jealous that their worthless bench-playing favorites will never move big chess pieces or have actual plot relevance are so funny to me because they really stretch themselves so far in ignoring all the objective aspects of the plot just to frame house targaryen as the, like, only feudalist house in the whole of the world of ice and fire. which is just funny because poor grrm did so much worldbuilding to showcase that all the houses are culpable at least some degree in violent oppression:
- tywin lannister, robert baratheon, and their allies annihilated most of house targaryen — not simply the mad king, but innocents like elia martell and rhaenys and aegon, as well as other innocent men, women and children. daenerys was a newborn and viserys was a kid when they had to flee westeros. robert baratheon sent an assassin to murder pregnant 14-year old daenerys and her unborn child.
- robert baratheon was a horrible king and the realm fell into greater disrepair and chaos because of his oversight and poor leadership. this is acknowledged by characters such as ned stark and barristan selmy.
- the lannisters started the war of the five kings.
- kings participating in the war: renly baratheon, stannis baratheon, joffrey baratheon, robb stark, and balon grejoy. houses participating in the war: baratheon, stark, greyjoy, tyrell, lannister, arryn, tully, and all the minor houses associated with each region.
- lannister soldiers are setting fire to the riverlands and wreaking havoc on the smallfolk of the riverlands.
- house lannister is basically running a slave torture camp of the smallfolk at harrenhal.
- the brotherhood without banners have to fight stark, baratheon, and lannister loyalists. they explicitly state that they will protect the smallfolk whether it be a stag, wolf, or lion in the woods.
- house frey, house lannister, and house bolton together conspire to murder robb and catelyn stark as well as their soldiers and various allies at the red wedding, and succeed.
- joffrey baratheon is a tyrant who abuses his people left, right, and center, and is allowed to get away with his abuses.
and even if you guys don’t care about house targaryen or are happy, even, that it’s nearly extinct:
daenerys targaryen and her house did not start the war of the five kings, they did not push bran stark out of a window or frame tyrion lannister for that action, they did not murder a bunch of ned stark’s soldiers, they did not imprison, frame, and execute ned stark, they did not kill robert baratheon, they did not kill jon arryn, they did not murder robb and catelyn stark, they did not drive bran and rickon stark out of house and home or set fire to two farm boys to take their place, they did not take over winterfell and the north, they did not force jeyne poole to marry ramsay bolton, they did not set fire to the riverlands, they did not murder mycah the butcher’s boy or lady the direwolf, they did not order the deaths of robert baratheon’s bastards across westeros, they did not kidnap alayaya and have her whipped, they did not murder lysa arryn, they are not the ones plotting to poison sweetrobin, they did not run a torture camp at at harrenhal, they did not poison joffrey baratheon at his own wedding, they did not frame tyrion lannister and sansa stark for joffrey’s death, they did not force 11 year old arya stark to do excruciating, brutal labor and live on the run, they are not hunting members of the brotherhood without banners, they did not take 13 year old sansa stark as a political captive and forcefully marry her to tyrion lannister, they did not embolden the militant faith of the seven… i could go on, but i’ll stop here because otherwise i’ll end up rehashing all the events of this series.
at some point you have to stop being brain-damaged and blind while reading this series and realize that using house targaryen as some scapegoat to ease the cognitive dissonance of being a “loyalist” for houses that have committed atrocities and war crimes and even heroic characters who’ve done cruel and ruthless things in the name of this war just won’t work. this isn’t the kind of series grrm has written. if he wanted to write a series in which house targaryen are the nazi dragonlords whom the beautiful heroic people of westeros band together to defeat then he would have, but he didn’t, and i’m sorry that it upsets you, lol. i won’t even get into the historical details about the other houses revelead in twoiaf or f&b because you people wouldn’t care about those details and i’m not the biggest expert on them anyway. in the narrative of the main series, however, if george wanted to go for the “ALL HOUSES VS EVIL HOUSE TARGARYEN HEHEHE” plot line, he easily could have! nothing stopped him from doing so! why bother detailing all of these aspects of the war and even write about a war in which house targaryen has no actual role in?
you’re seriously missing the point if your takeaway is all other royal houses and noble houses = good, ethereal, brilliant, noble, moral, heroic, cunning, clever, strong and house targaryen = bad, dragon nazis, elitist, arrogant, horrible, entitled, violent, nothing good whatsoever, the final boss.
but anyway, if that makes you feel better about stanning worthless bench players and meaningless side characters, so be it!