A0random0gal - Scrolling My Life Away

Thinking about the twins stealing things and being chased all over the castle in an effort to retrieve what has been stolen.

Alicent's best quill is suddenly gone. Oh dear, there's the dowager queen chasing her squealing granddaughter down the corridor.

Criston's Hand pin has evaporated off of his tunic. There's the Hand of the King tailing the little prince, who is holding the pin above his head and laughing in delight.

Give me Alicole being grandparents. Give me their kids egging THEIR kids on and causing chaos.

Give me the Greens being happy.

You’re cheering…they managed to further ruin a character they already made inconsistent in the first season but you’re cheering because you got a stupidly written scene that fuels your ship?

This👆👆👆

Here's a toast to the HBO Targaryen wives who were made Targaryens by men who didn't love them

Aemma Targaryen deserved better

Alicent Targaryen Deserved better

Rhea Targaryen deserved better

Laena Targaryen deserved better

And Elia Targaryen most of all, deserved so much more better

Because if you're going to take your a-hole husband's last name and are expected to relinquish all that made you you while he makes it clear he's only there to get whatever use he can out of you. Then you sure as heck deserve better

Luke and Jaehaerys watching both their families hesitating to fight each other even after their deaths:

Tell me I’m not the only one who's been thinking this

I’m not team green in an “Aegon should be king” type of way. I’m team green in a “I would die for Alicent Hightower and team green is just more complex and has better and more interesting characters than team black” type of way.

Alright. THATS IT. TIME TO LOSE MY SHIT.

The fact that Alicent is even ON THIS LIST is just flabbergasting. Now, to their credit, she’s second to last on this list (somehow worse than JAMIE LANNISTER?!). But still. Most evil characters?!

So, for fun, I thought I’d take a look at her characterization according to the writer of this list and rebut.

For the sake of organization, I will post the whole paragraph below and then go point by point:

“This one is fairly low on the rankings as it's not quite clear how villainous Alicent could become, with her moral standing leaning toward "complicated" rather than straightforward good or evil. However, she isn't quite the most innocent character in House of the Dragon either, with her manipulation of the grieving and ailing King Viserys, covering up her son's sexual crimes and fiendish proclivities and politically maneuvering an underhanded coup from her former best friend raising more than a few eyebrows about how far she'll go to protect her family.”

“Her manipulation of the grieving and ailing King Viserys”

First of all: Alicent was a 15 year old girl, the same age as Viserys’s own daughter, and his daughter’s best friend. Viserys is a full grown man and also the most powerful person in the entire kingdom as, you know, the king. Grief is a powerful thing and can certainly cause us to act contrary to our characters; however, that is not an excuse to have sex with and marry a child you have watched grow up alongside your own child.

Second of all: Alicent was not the master manipulator in this situation. She tried to fight back against the plan as much as she was capable as a girl and child, against her father who is the second most powerful man in the kingdom. The blame should go solely on Otto for this.

Blaming Alicent for “manipulating” Viserys when: she was a child forced to do this by her father, she fought against the idea, she was 15 and Viserys was a full grown man, and most of all HE WAS THE FUCKING KING, is crazy. Alicent had no power in this situation, nor did she want it. It was Otto’s idea and Viserys’s fault. Y’all blaming a child and acting like she’s an insidious master manipulator instead of criticizing the full grown man who had sex with her is crazy. Grief is no excuse. The men in this situation took advantage of Alicent. Not the other way around.

“Covering up her son’s sexual crimes and fiendish proclivities”

Where is the accountability on the deadbeat dad? Everyone keep blaming Alicent for how awful Aegon is. But nobody utters a word on how the other parent in this situation has done absolutely nothing. Viserys is also Aegon’s father (though this may be a shock to even Viserys himself seeing how neglectful and abusive he is to his children by Alicent). Viserys is the king. He has the power to implement whatever he wants but sits back and does nothing. But sure, Alicent is to blame because she’s actually involved and therefor her son being ruined is only her fault.

Alicent does her best at parenting Aegon and dealing with the shit he generates. What exactly could Alicent do to Aegon, a prince of the realm, to rectify the situation? Y’all are never happy when she does anything. When she disciplines Aegon, you scream she’s “abusive”. When she tries to compensate and fix the situation to the best of her ability, you scream that she’s enabling and covering up crimes. She will never win. And btw, she didn’t cover up for Aegon. Alicent listened to Dyana and tried to compensate for the pain. There’s literally nothing else she could do.

Y’all will blame Alicent for all the actions of the men in her life. Why not hold Aegon, the actual rapist, accountable for the situation. Not Alicent for trying to fix it. Because guess who’s not on the fucking list…AEGON. How will you penalize Alicent for trying to help fix the situation her son caused, but not penalize the man who actually committed the sexual crime? It reeks of sexism.

“Politically maneuvering an underhanded coup from her former best friend”

Ok. Let’s get this out of the way. Alicent believes Viserys said it was Aegon who is the heir. Stupid or not she does. But even without that Alicent does not stage a coup in some sort of villainous attempt to seize power for herself and away from Rhaenyra. She does it to protect her family. She has seen what happens when one of them is harmed, nothing. There will be nothing stopping team black from killing her or her children. This is a fight for survival. Not villainy. Fear.

Also it’s worth reminding that Alicent is the only one defending Rhaenyra’s life. Otto and other greens are perfectly fine with murdering Rhaenyra. Alicent is the only one fighting to protect her and counseling Aegon not to harm her.

In the end, Alicent is not a villain. She is the personification of how the patriarchy has abused women and torn them down in every way. Alicent has done her best to make everyone in her life happy. She has tried desperately to satisfy the selfishness and power-hungry nature of all those around her and reconcile everyone in her life. Alicent is not malicious or evil. She’s not seeking war or bloodshed. She wants her children and herself to be safe. Nobody should have “raised brows” at her defending herself and her family after she has spent decades being abused and seen more than enough proof that she is not loved or protected.

Villainizing Alicent can only happen if you’re willing to admit all this as well:

Grown men can never be held liable for having sex with teenage girls.

Teenage girls are at fault for the feelings adult men have for them.

Women are responsible for how their children turn out and men have no accountability in raising children or how they grow up.

Deadbeat father’s are ok, and the women left with the children are at fault for anything bad their kids do because they didn’t do a good enough job at being both parents.

Teenage mothers need to be perfect parents and can never make mistakes or have no idea what they’re doing because they, themselves are children.

Parents (specifically mothers) are responsible for the crimes of their children

Men shouldn’t be held accountable for rape. It’s their mom’s fault

And most of all: women who experience consistent trauma and abuse for years must hold it all in, accept further abuse with a smile, and “keep to their place”

Go ahead black fans. Admit this all. Admit you hate women and have deeply sexist beliefs. Then I’ll let you call her a villain :)

Couldn't have said it better

Sorry people this is gonna be a long post, but I needed to vent.

A lot of people in the HOTD fandom are so quick to say that everything Alicent does "against" Rhaenyra is because she's judging her for not following the "rules" of the patriarchy, but imo the anger and conflict between them is way more personal than that. After Alicent is chosen by Viserys as his new wife, Rhaenyra, showing all of her immaturity (understandable, she's so young) feels betrayed by Alicent and starts treating her poorly. Of course Alicent in turn feels betrayed by her closest friend cause Rhaenyra abandoned her when she needed her the most. She was too sheltered and comfortable in her privilege to realize that other women cannot simply say no, Alicent was considered her father's property and then her husband's to do with as they pleased. She is continuously raped by a man she did not choose to marry, forced to carry child after child and on top of that she is refused the only comfort she had, her only friend. She never had the luxury of choice, but Rhaenyra in her naivety, still punished her for it. Alicent tried to hang on, still caring about Rhaenyra and still trying to reconcile with her and being constantly denied and judged by her.

Then, the moment Rhaenyra did something that would surely put her in trouble, she lied to Alicent's face. Alicent believed her and defended her with the king, insisting that Daemon must have lied, that her father must have been misinformed. Viserys knew this to be false, he knew Rhaenyra had lied, but still she was not punished for it. Instead Alicent is indirectly punished again, losing her only ally (Otto is a vile person, but still for Alicent he was the only piece of home, of familiarity she had) because of Rhaenyra. Naturally when she learned that Rhaenyra had lied to her, it was another huge blow to Alicent's heart, because trusting Rhaenyra has literally cost her the only bit of protection she felt that she had left. It's only natural at this point, that Otto's claims about Rheanyra's character began to take root in Alicent's mind. Rhaenyra proved that she could not be trusted and Alicent wasn't about to put her children's lives in the hands of someone who had betrayed her so. She realized that no one would protect her, not Viserys, not Rhaenyra, so she must do it herself.

From then on things were bound to go downhill cause Alicent began resenting Rhaenyra as she still remained oblivious to her privilege and she benefited from it again and again, perhaps even using her father's affection for her to her advantage. And Rhaenyra (understandably) grew tired of Alicent's treatment of her.

In light of that, what happened with Aemond inevitably had a massive impact on their situation, especially on Alicent, whose faith in Rhaenyra was already broken. Her son lost an eye (taken by one of Rhaenyra's kids). Rhaenyra refused to even acknowledge the magnitude of this offence, so quick to defend her kids (and their birthright), who would never do anything wrong and were simply defending themselves (despite there being 4 of them against Aemond) And even in such a dramatic circumstance, all Viserys cares about is protecting Rhaenyra from what essentially is, the truth.

So in my opinion Alicent is not only saying "it's not fair" because Rhaenyra constantly did things that were not "proper" and was never punished for it, what she's saying is more along the lines of "Rhaenyra abandoned me, betrayed me, punished me, hurt me, my son and others to fulfil her selfish goals and nobody ever punished her for it or even had the decency to admit that she might have been wrong".

Alicent is not questioning Rhaenyra's claim to the throne because she's a woman, she's questioning her integrity and wether or not she's trustworthy, she's doing it to protect herself and her children, who she feels could never be truly safe as long as Rhaenyra rules with Daemon by her side.

And feelings like these cannot be simply dismissed, not even with an apology, one must really work on rebuilding trust in each other in order to fix years of betrayal and mutual hurt and resentment, and sadly they just didn't get enough time to do it.

they are hanging ....... posters ......... in king's landing .......... asking the illiterate smallfolk .......... to come to dragonstone to claim dragons

Mommy I kneel

mother...............

Streets saying Aegon will try to off himself, as seen by what appears to be a strangle mark in this EW photo. OMG!