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Tiktok PISSES ME OFF. It's unbearable. The number of media-illiterate people per square meter has exceeded my tolerance. At some point, I won't be able to stand it and will break my vow not to explain to idiots on the Internet why they are idiots - this will make me an idiot, because I will waste my strength, time, energy and nerves on useless attempts to hand over grains of common sense to empty-headed consumers who have never opened a book in their lives, and therefore are not capable of analyzing more complex moral dilemmas than My Little Pony.
HOWEVER
Stop driving me crazy with the "poor show!Luke was only five years old in Driftmark, an innocent baby, this is the worst death in the entire Dance of the Dragons" bullshit comments and tiktoks BECAUSE IT'S NOT
Yes, in the book, Lucerys Velaryon was five years old when he gouged out the eye of Aemond, who was ten. He died at fourteen, while Aemond was nineteen. This was not an adult killing a child, these were two teenagers with a five-year age difference. Still bad, I agree.
However, in their wisdom, unavailable to us mere mortals, the writers of HOTD stuck the chronology in a blender along with their fetishes, poorly executed agenda, sexism, racism, nepotism and a dozen other problems, turned it up to maximum and fed us the most vomit-inducing smoothie ever.
For some reason unknown to me, Aemond is officially sixteen in episodes 8-10 of season one. God knows why, but he left us and so we can't ask him. Lucerys is officially fourteen, so there's a two-year age difference between him and Aemond.
So in Driftmark, which takes place in 124 AC (again, unlike the book, which took place in 120 AC, but there's no point in complaining, believe me, I tried), Aemond is ten, Lucerys is eight. That's not a big age difference, right?
Moreover, since Jacaerys, Baela, and Rhaena are also sixteen at the end of season one, we get the following picture - Aemond is not fighting little kids, but his peers. He's 10, the twins and Jace are about 9-10, Luke is 8.
Yes, it was different in the book, but you know what else was in the book? A sound timeline, sound logic, complex characters, moral dilemmas, need I go on?
Lucerys was fourteen, making conscious decisions like mocking the man he had mutilated, knowing there would be no consequences, and running away like a coward when he was alone with the man. He was wrong about that. He still didn't deserve to die, but calling him an innocent angel wasn't right.
Aemond was sixteen, making conscious decisions like threatening his nephew to remind him that his ass couldn't be covered forever. He couldn't expect Luke to fail to discipline Arrax, who would provoke Vhagar. He could assume that an angry Vhagar would retaliate despite her orders. He was wrong about that. He still deserves blame for his actions, but if the fandom is so vocal about how a fourteen year old boy is not responsible for his actions, shouldn't a sixteen year old boy get the same innocence card?
But if we go back a little earlier, say six years, shouldn't a ten-year-old child receive the same treatment as an eight-year-old? Why is one boy, who had to fight off four peers, considered a monster, since he took a stone and insulted the offenders, and the second is a little defender, since he took a dagger to hit his neutralized enemy with it?
This wasn't the "hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby" situation the book portrayed. This was two teenagers, one with a bigger stick than the other.
This plot bunny is destined for the stew, because I simultaneously under-squeezed and over-squeezed it. According to the original idea, purely logically, Aemond should die (you'll understand later), but the thought of it almost gave me a heart attack, a stroke, and thirteen seizures at once. You will take my little beloved son only by digging up my grave and tearing him from my rotting hands. So realism goes somewhere where I have never been and will not, okay?
* * *
"You will die screaming in flames just as your father did!" Aemond growls, holding a stone over little Luke's head. Jace's eyes dart between the stone and his brother, looking warily at his uncle, who has just managed to fight off the three of them and take a hostage. However, as soon as he hears this threat, his face immediately changes - from confused and fearful, it becomes attentive and focused.
"My father’s still alive!" Luke yells, and suddenly Aemond has no interest in threatening physical violence. No, his sharp-tongued uncle has better things to do - while he loved a good fight, consistently winning in his training, he found his true calling in taunts and threats, putting his mind before his sword.
Jace feels his blood boiling like a true dragon's - he's not a cold-blooded seahorse, is he? He's the son of a dragon princess and Harwin Strong. He's lost a father he won't be allowed to mourn, a father he never knew as a parent. More than that, it means he's a bastard, a sin in the eyes of the gods and other men, and everyone, everyone knows it - and Uncle Aemond isn't shy about saying it out loud.
"He doesn’t know, does he, Lord Strong?" Aemond sneers, and that's the last straw for him.
Jace draws his dagger and charges into battle. Aemond throws Luke towards him, and Jace, without much tenderness, throws his younger brother, who had just been choked and almost hit in the head with a rock, aside so that he would not be in the way.
A swing, another swing of the blade - all misses. Aemond is too fast, too agile, even though they are the same age, but the level of combat skills is simply unattainably different in his uncle's favor.
Jace remembers what his father Harvin Strong taught him, and, dodging a rock aimed at his head, strikes again with the dagger, this time faster, more accurately, and harder. And hits.
Aemond does not scream. He gasps weakly, strangled, and sinks to the ground, pressing his hand to the hilt of the dagger protruding from his stomach.
The cave shakes with the deafening, enraged roar of Vhagar.
* * *
The idea, basically, is this: what if Jace had stabbed Aemond in the gut? In canon (BOOK! IT'S THE ONLY CANON I RECOGNIZE! show just gives me characters, a few scenes, and a distaste for life), Vhagar went nuts when her boy got his eye cut out. If Aemond thinks he's dying, the old war criminal lady will burn half of Driftmark before she can be calmed down, and the whole island will be fucked if Aemond actually dies.
But he won't die, because plot armor will suddenly appear, the maesters will patch him up better than a Swiss hospital, because Corlys will do anything to save any part of his house, and because I fucking said so.
There's no denying that this was an assassination attempt on Jace's part anymore - it's weird that the show doesn't say anything about it. How will the investigation go in this case, who is right, who is guilty, and who should get what cut off as punishment? I don't know, but it will be fun =)
PS. English, if you ever come back with the milk you went for, I will throw you out, we barely knew each other, but you made me so many children =/
TB stans: the greens ones feel sorry for Jaehaerys for his cruel death, but they don’t feel sorry for Lucerys, who is exactly the same child!!!
Excuse me, but why is Lucerys a child? Do you need to be reminded that at the age of 15, Robb Stark led an army and went to the South to avenge the death of his father and rescue his sisters from captivity?
Remind you that Arya was exposed to the cruelty of the world at a young age when she was captured at Harrenhal and forced to watch the cruel deeds of Tywin Lannister?
Do you finally need to remember Shireen, whom her own father took on a hike in the dead of winter? She never once complained about her age.
Finally, think of Tommen, who also had to face the fanatics of the High Sparrow at a young age. I’m already silent about Bran and Rickon - they were in exile from a young age and wandered through foreign lands in search of help, and Bran generally went beyond the Wall and lived in the wilderness.
And after that TB stans call Lucerys a CHILD? what kind of child is he if he was sent as an ambassador on a responsible mission to gain the support of a great House for his mother? Would a child be sent on such a dangerous journey for dangerous negotiations? Or are you saying that Rhaenyra is so stupid that she didn't find anyone better than a child to be an ambassador? shut your mouths and be silent. stop comparing the deaths of a truly INNOCENT CHILD and a person who was a FIGURE in the war that started.