Anon · 5mo
Saera was definitely out of line for comparing herself to Maegor! Sorry, but I completely understand why Jaehaerys lost his temper after she said that. Honestly, this is the only moment I can see his anger justified. That man destroyed his family, Maegor fought and killed one of his brothers in battle, tortured another to death, refused to give his brother a proper Targaryen funeral, allowing his body to rot in the courtyard, married his older sister against her will, and abused her. I would have lost it so badly that even people in Dorne would have heard my screams.
Don’t get me wrong, I sympathize with Saera, just as I do with all of Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s children, but sometimes it just reaches a breaking point. Aegon the Conqueror was right there; Saera shouldn’t have compared herself to Maegor.
I do think Jaehaerys could have handled it differently because, despite her flaws, Saera was still his young daughter. It was his duty as a father to protect her and guide her towards a better path. I believe she was most likely trafficked, which is terrible and beyond words. That wasn’t what Jaehaerys intended, but it’s what happened nonetheless. In my opinion, neither Jaehaerys nor Alysanne were truly prepared for parenthood or fully aware of what it entailed, which is crazy considering they had so many children, many of whom they neglected, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I think they were more worried about securing their line or the crown than about their children.
I also believe Saera wasn’t entirely a good person, and she’s not portrayed as such. I can sympathize with her, but I also understand that she was both a victim and a perpetrator, like many complex cases. It’s honestly so hard to discuss the Targaryens from this era because I don’t want to come off as an enabler or supporter of something I don’t endorse, nor do I want to seem unsympathetic. It was a very complicated situation, and it ultimately went the worst way possible.
Saera comparing herself to Maegor was out of line and I think it she was made to say it because she is a neglected kid who acts out to get the attention that she never does. She was able to do whatever she wanted because she was never really looked after. She's a princess and the things that she was capable of doing out of boredom weren't that great but that behavior does not exist in a vacuum, it came from somewhere. Nothing she ever said or did ever mattered to her father before, and that was Jaehaerys' mistake. Saera had never felt consequences in the way he doled them out at that time and the only thing she knew to do was to rebel and fight back. She has been given so much freedom, that man that wants to control her now after permitting everything else she's ever done is someone she will want to hurt. I think that Maegor comment was meant to hurt Jaehaerys and it did but it lit something inside of her father that Saera probably only ever heard about and never saw, this is what happens when children do not know their parents well enough to know where the limit is. Jaehaerys took things way further than he needed and in doing that he assured that Saera would run away and she would have had to be taken in by someone and there was no other work that she could have done than being a whore.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne were raised in war and they have a toxic codependency due to that time. They have no examples of what a good marriage or good parenting looks like. They didn't have the time to focus on those kinds of things. Alyssanne probably didn't truly want kids out of anything more than duty because she basically states how she would've been a maester if she were a man. I think that they may have loved their kids but they were shit parents and they would have been better not being parents. I mean look at their kids and the fact that Jaehaerys gave his blessing to his granddaughter to marry someone that was her father's age. Are you actually kidding me? That family is so fucked and needed to go. No more incest for the Targaryens; they're doing something wrong. Give the incest to the other houses who will appreciate it more. They fucked up being nepobabies, like, it's bad.
