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ATTENTION: This article contains SPOILERS for both Fire and Blood and House of the Dragon. Read at your own risk. This shit ain't my fault if you read beyond this point.

In George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe, there is no shortage of universally despised deviants, predators, and rapists. Oberyn Martell goes to great lengths to remind the viewer of this in season four of A Game of Thrones, where he takes every opportunity to level accusations against Ser Gregor Clegane (aka The Mountain) for his alleged crimes against his sister Elia Martell and her children during the sack of King’s Landing (“you raped her, you murdered her, you killed her children” whatever dude see you in court). Keep in mind these are words of a Dornishmen (known liars and snakes) and it’s something we have never seen depicted in any medium (maybe in the play idk nobody saw that shit and might not be canon). But there is one diabolical sexual predator and rapist in Martin’s universe whose crimes have been depicted in both the text and screen and leave little room for interpretation and motive: Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Realm’s Delight. More like the Realm’s Rapist!

Team Black apologists (losers and liars) paint Ser Criston Cole as Rhaenyra’s bitter ex, a jaded lover who turned to Team Green out of spite for a woman who rejected him. But this is simply not true. Ser Criston Cole was an honorable member of the Kingsguard, a common born who rose as far as he could possibly have imagined in service of the realm. He appointed to be Rhaenyra’s protector when she was younger, the Princess calling him her “White Knight.” He tried to stay loyal to his vows, to remain chaste in the face of temptation. He spurned her on multiple occasions but the Princess would not relent, even going so far as to take lessons from her uncle Prince Daemon Targaryen on how to properly seduce a man, according to the reputable source known as Mushroom (note: rephrase this, this makes Daemon sound gay as hell). Eventually, the honorable Ser Criston Cole gave into the temptations of the flesh, a mistake he would guilt himself over for the rest of his days.

I know what some Rhaenyra stans might say, that Ser Criston Cole had a say in this, that he could have firmly rejected Rhaenyra and reported her behavior to King Viserys himself, etc. But let’s talk about a little thing called power dynamics. Imagine that you’re Ser Criston Cole and you go to King Viserys and accuse his only daughter of raping you. How do you think that’s going to go? That tongue is going to disappear like Josh Allen in the AFC Championship game and that’s the best you could hope for. Maybe he’d make you Take the Black too. Imagine freezing at The Wall without a tongue to complain about the cold. Hell, Princess Rhaenyra herself could lob a false accusation against you and your ass is dead as hell. Our noble knight had no choice but to give into Rhaenyra’s predation, an act forced upon by someone more powerful. There’s a word for that and it’s in the title. Despite being the victim of an emerging predator, this act would haunt Ser Criston Cole, one of the best swordsmen the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen, until his dying day, disturbed by how easily his honor and virtue was stripped of him through no fault of his own.

I think it’s quite logical to assume that Rhaenyra had more victims than just Ser Criston Cole, just an opening act in a play that would last her entire life. A predator like Rhaenyra doesn’t just stop at one, it’s an insatiable thirst that can never be quenched. They always re-offend. Fire and Blood only tells us what we know to be true, but who is to say that someone like Larys “The Clubfoot” Strong didn’t fall victim to Rheanyra’s hunger? Perhaps after being plowed by his older brother Harwin, she sought out the cripple and cornered him in his room. What could the Clubfoot do in this scenario? We saw how he moved under duress in season three and he did not move with any urgency. Aegon II, First of His Name, was scrapping with and stabbing a nigga on the ground while the Clubfoot hobbled away, held up by his cane. He couldn’t flee shit. They wrote Tortoise and The Clubfoot about him. He was easy pickings for Rhaenyra and we don’t know what she did with that cane. He probably tried to tell his father and brother afterwards and they were all like “nah that shit ain’t happen” and then he torched them to death in Harrenhal, killing Harwin and leaving Rhaenyra, at least temporarily, a single mother of no good Strong bastards.

King Viserys I probably knew of his daughter’s deviancy and instead of facing the problem like a good king he just kicked the can down the road (par for the course, I’m afraid). He kept sending Rhaenyra back to the Dragonstone and while the text blames the interfamily friction, you must wonder what the real source of that friction was. Alicent Hightower, a faithful and devout follower of The Seven (a dumb bitch in the show but whatever #NotMyAlicent), doesn’t play with that rape shit. She probably kept bringing it to Viserys’ attention and he probably said some shit like “Rhaenyra will be Rhaenyra” and then make a joke about the time he saw a brown cow rape another brown cow and produce a white cow or whatever shit he said to cope about Rhaenyra’s bastards while his eye was dangling out of its socket.

We don’t know much about Rhaenyra’s time on Dragonstone before the Dance of the Dragons, but the Targaryen’s reputation there preceded even Aegon the Conqueror himself. They were known to take liberties with the smallfolk, and these liberties produced tons of bastards with the Blood of the Dragon flowing through them, including Ulf the White and Hugh the Hammer, whose dragon blood allowed them to become dragon riders, at least initially, for Team Black.

According to Fire and Blood, the Targaryens were seen as gods by the smallfolk on Dragonstone and you know that Rhaenyra took full advantage of that. House of the Dragon establishes that Rhaenyra swung both ways, so not a single soul was safe from Rhaenyra’s proclivities during her time there. As usual, Rhaenyra had the time of her life while literally everyone else around her suffered. The screams of the smallfolk were silenced while the Dragon sung.

Fire and Blood tells us that it’s unknown what caused Ulf the White and Hugh the Hammer to betray Rhaenyra and Team Black in the Battle of Tumbleton. The author suggests that perhaps they were tired of being played with, having prizes such as Casterly Rock and Storm’s End dangled in front of their face before being withdrawn. But I think their betrayal was more noble in origin. They had seen what Rhaenyra had gotten up on Dragonstone, they had seen what Prince Daemon permitted, and they decided that enough was enough and that Aegon II The Magnanimous, who magnanimously blessed a lucky few smallfolk in King’s Landing with his seed, was the True King of Westeros. Tumbleton burned while Rhaenyra sat on the Iron Throne, a temporary seat that she would sit just a while longer before facing the King’s Justice and atoning for her many sins.