a 100% accurate depiction of Alicent and Daemon in 1x08

I agree with the other anon that it's funny how much hate Helaemond gets from some green fans as if it's the worst thing that could happen but on the other hand they're either perfectly fine with Rhaen*cent or outright ship it?? A big part of all these characters is the loyalty to their own side and family! Normally, they will NEVER betray their own side for a person who's actively fighting on the other side so to have one character - Alicent in this case - trample said loyalty to go to Rhaenyra and grovel to her is just insane lmao. And it's going to be worse to justify something like this after B&C (and after Storm's End if we're speaking from Rhaenyra's POV). Is Alicent supposed to forget her nephew's death and her daughter going insane just so she can get back with Rhaenyra? Seriously? What then? Punish Aemond? Put Aegon to death if Daemon and Rhaenyra suggest so and accept it? Or have her poison him herself in S4? I mean I wouldn't be surprised if some people in the fandom would be fine with it since they're the ones who've always had the opinion that Alicent loves Rhaenyra more than her own children since they're the product of Viserys' marital rape on her or that she actually hates them (and no, I'm not claiming she's the best mother either, but anyone who believes she hates them is delusional, sorry)… Really, nothing about this makes sense. The show is an adaptation, I get it, but this ship does more damage across the entire narrative than any good. The writers' intention to highlight how these two women just want to be close to each other and how the men around them are preventing it because they're thirsty for war falls flat. I know it's a bit of an unpopular opinion to have nowadays but: there's nothing wrong with women scheming against each other! There's nothing wrong with Alicent fighting to put her own son on the throne and doing anything necessary to achieve this result! Just…please (& this is directed at the writers), stop making everything about men vs women and stop blaming anything controversial a woman may do on the men in her life.

i get the frustration and i do think going forward even more stuff will make less sense for those who wanted an adaptation that was closer to the original source and its intention. i know i will continue to get angry myself with some of their choices but i also know their minds are set on this rhaen*cent story so i'm trying to not expect anything positive.

honestly, there's a lot to be said about the writing choice they made and this whole "women couldn't possibly have differences of their own, or self interest, or ambition, or agency and they all just want to be friends deep down" but i won't get into it. i simply don't like the direction the show took and i think it's alicent's character who will suffer the most due to this writing when it comes to development and stuff.

alicent acknowledges that both daemon and rhaenyra will never bend the knee to her son and her crowning aegon rests entirely on the fickle premise that a dying man who never even attempted to change the succession suddenly mumbled something about aegon before dying. it's so fickle that even aegon laughs when his mother tries to seriously convince him that it was his father's wish.

this is what makes alicent crown aegon and she knows this is a declaration of war regardless of her trying to "make peace". so her development in this story of war will be just as fickle as her motivation and drive resting on the words of a dying man because she herself isn't convinced of it.

of course it's hard for many to see the point that she might have made in episode 6, and sympathize with what she really believes in, when she herself doesn't truly, deeply or fully believe in it.

but hey, at least those rhaen*cents get that dangeon sex scene or whatever. great writing 11/10

rhaenyra's character remains intact. she was named heir by her father, she believes the throne is her right and she fights for it. she loses people and she dies but she dies trying to get what she thought was hers to own. she has her convinctions and beliefs untouched. sure it might pain her that she has to go war for it, that she lost a childhood friend, that later she loses her family, she might even regret the war at one point because of the family members she loses, but her conviction remains true in her heart and in the heart of the audience.

meanwhile alicent isn't just disliked for what the audience, in their majority tb, sees "she does" to rhaenyra as a friend but can't also connect to her when she has no real drive of her own. sure, a lot of them find it sad that she was manipulated and groomed by her father and such, but there's only so many "poor manipulated alicent" you can have from a majority tb audience.

i'm not sure why the writers thought that alicent can't be both a victim of her father + viserys while also growing to be a woman who's driven by ambition (to see her children on the throne) and fear (that daemon if not rhaenyra would harm her children) but yeah.

anyway i think i've said, both now and in the past, all that can be said on this subject. this story to me is not the story to choose to do this rhaen*cent dynamic they're trying to do. it is just not the story for it. and let me not mention again and again and again how fickle their foundation is.

they had a scene where rhaenyra said she wants to eat cake and ride on dragon back w alicent. they stopped talking in episode 2. they started talking again after 3ish 4ish years and again stopped talking in episode 5. exhausting to try to convince me of this was real, good friendship. it falls so flat to other stories i've seen.

but i'm also trying to just........distance myself from this narrative and enjoy s2 in others ways.