G Martin 87 said:
Quad Dog said:
G Martin 87 said:
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Rhaenys was also thinking of the political optics involved in roasting the newly crowned King and all his family in front of the very people who just watched the coronation. Rhaenys would be regarded as the usurper, not the Hightowers. In order to win support for Rhaenyra's claims among the houses that haven't declared yet, she can't be the one to topple the government.
To her it wasn't the newly crowned king. If she had roasted them, then it would have been carrying out the execution of traitors to the true queen. Something the old king talked about more than once.
Rhaenys is a pragmatist, not a hothead like Daemon.
Right.
One thing that's getting overlooked here--and this is because we know that the series is about the all-out civil war between the branches of the family--is that from Rhaenys' perspective, it's not a foregone conclusion that this ends in a full blown civil war, engulfing the whole realm.
There's still a possibility, small perhaps but not insignificant, that this can be worked out one way or another without bloodshed on a massive scale. The sides could take stock of the others' strengths and realize that civil war between them will wipe out a huge part of their families/dragons, tear the realm apart, etc, and decide it's a bad idea.