my point in that post was to talk about how daemon was openly affectionate with rhaenyra, his niece, because he was actively grooming her and had ulterior motives with her. however when it comes to his daughters, he has no active use for them at this point in the show, so he therefore just outright ignores them or doesn't even spare them a second glance

"Sometimes I think I hate him" told us a lot about his current strained relationship with his daughters at this point. daemon can be very self interested, and those who don't currently serve a purpose for him usually get outright ignored or thrown to the backburner

a lot of hotd revolves around fathers and daughters so it's interesting to me that daemon used to shower his teenage niece with gifts and attention whenever he was around (the one he was grooming) and yet could not even spare his daughter a second glance or even ask for the whereabouts of the other daughter this season

i personally think this season was truly a transition season to full out war. people are pissed because they wanted war to instantly happen after lucerys died last season, but in reality things arent that black and white and i think it would have cheapened the plot to fast forward through the political negotiations and underhanded scheming to try and win without fighting, to just full on nuclear dragon war.

I actually like the idea that this season was like standing on a cliffs edge where one wrong move led to oblivion with millions of people dying and the practical annihilation of half of house targaryen. I'm glad that the writers took the time to emphasize how dire this war could become before barreling us into it. the political battles and moral dilemmas are just as fun to watch as the actual battles

that being said, there are still valid criticisms of the show being brought up too: like the weird pacing and absolute dragging on of daemons harrenhal ghost adventures. on one hand I get it, because in the books daemon just disappears for weeks at a time, and the writers had to do SOMETHING with him this season instead of having him peace out for 7 episodes. but I agree that the harrenhal visions became repetitive, and I'm also not a huge fan of the back to the future magic being shoved in our faces instead of more subtle clues to it

overall, it was a transition season, not the absolute best season of television history, but it's definitely not the worst (and not even CLOSE to being as bad as got s8). I think in modern age media consumption, people now equate "i personally don't like this" to "this is all horrible and the whole show is trash now"

the hotd fandom complaining that the series is moving "too slow" for their instant gratification media shot brains is ironic to an almost hilarious degree. it's like the final monkeys paw curling inward as we slowly lead ourselves down the same path that gave us season 8 of game of thrones

one reason that I sincerely hope that they adapt an aegon the conqueror prequel is so that they can specifically go after the rumor that aenys I wasn't even aegons actual child and was instead a bastard of rhaenys and another lover she was rumored to have. this would basically mean that aegons' direct lineage ceased after maegor died.

this would make the centuries and centuries of targaryens fighting over a birthright to rule based on their "direct line to aegon the conqueror" not even be real in the first place. which would be both ironic and absolutely hilarious