House of The Dragon 3x02 Reaction
Comments (25)
Late comment, but Alicent didn’t give up “everybody” but herself, Helaena, and Jahaera. She gave up Aegon and Aemond, the 2 people with claims to the throne to contest Rhaenyra. Otto, while having been the mastermind of the Greens, has no claim to the throne himself. You could just throw him back in a cell and not have to worry about people rising up in his name. In order for Rhaenyra to rule successfully, all of Viserys’ male heirs MUST die. That is the unsavory truth that Otto knew, that Daemon knows, that Alicent has come to know, and that Rhaenyra is grappling with. There are too many powerful actors in the Seven Kingdoms that are fundamentally opposed to having a ruling Queen for them to stand down if there is any male alternative. That’s the point of the prologue, in the recent past, the noble houses had a vote on whether or not the throne would pass through the reigning king’s line to his eldest daughter, and they chose to pass her over and anoint another male relative, Viserys. This is the headwind that Rhaenyra was always going to be running into. Otto certainly strove to increase the stature of his own family by orchestrating Alicent’s marriage to Viserys. But Viserys HAD to remarry and have more children. You cannot rule a kingdom with a single heir, it leaves you to close to plunging everything into chaos. So, Viserys was always going to have more children. If any of those children happened to be boys, and Viserys stood by Rhaenyra as his named heir, some version of all of this was guaranteed to occur. Whether the boys challenged for the throne or not, SOMEONE would have sought to put them there in place of Rhaenyra. When Alicent grabs Aegon and screams “You are the challenge!” At him, she’s speaking truth. The only real path Rhaenyra has ever had to a somewhat stable reign is Daemon’s fire and blood approach. She needs to first kill Aegon and Aemond, then purge the nobility of all those she suspects of doubting her and replace them by elevating those loyal to her. You wipe out the Baratheons, find another family in the Stormlands and install them at Storms End, and repeat that process in each region leaving only families like the Starks and Tullys that show themselves to be truly loyal. It would be a reign of terror, but she’d have a chance. Actually, that’s a process that Viserys should have started if he really wanted Rhaenyra to succeed him.
Vhagar: still a she
i've read so many rants/explanations about why what they're doing with alicent is actually brilliant and it's just not clicking at all. there is just no way for me to watch what's being done and enjoy any part of it. it's not like i'm struggling to understand what the writers *are going for*. it's that it doesn't work. it requires me to dismiss too many things that i think make no logical sense. making her *believe* that viserys meant HER aegon in his last moments (no one will ever convince me that it wasn't originally played as her bullshitting to use it as an excuse), the stupidity of her plan in 2x08 (not just the stupidity of her thinking it would work, but also the idea that she would EVER believe any of her other family members would be spared in this deal). it's as if she's new to living in her time period, unaware of the political game she's been playing for decades. even the "realizations" she was having in s2 were ridiculous. these are realities she's known about and navigated her entire life as a woman. it's a role she's played and suffered from since she was a girl. it's something she's been forced to confront multiple times in s1 (e.g. "how romantic it must be to get imprisoned in a castle and made to squeeze out heirs"). it's something she acknowledged to her father "our hearts were never one. rather, i've been a piece you moved about the board. now we proceed how i see fit." they were clearly setting something up here, a power struggle between her and her father for control over aegon. only to walk it back and put her completely in his power again, all so they can retrace their steps and have her come to the same realizations about her place in the world again. i think there's a misconception about alicent. that she somehow wasn't totally aware of how utterly shit her position as a woman is. what was interesting about her is that she KNEW it was inescapable, that she had decided her best course was to occupy this role and use whatever means she can to influence politics. to have her offer herself up as regent in s2, rather than offering up aemond and influencing him to do what she wants, was laughable. the best thing about her and rhaenyra is that they take different approaches, one tries to go against the world order to achieve total power, and the other works within the structures that already exist. but they're both in a losing position because they're women. having alicent totally abandon her side and her original approach completely robs us of that wonderful juxtaposition. it doesn't help that the dialogue in this show feels very clunky, especially the alicent and rhaenyra scenes. that cutting dialogue and electric energy in their scenes is just gone imo. EDIT: forgot to mention, this rape attempt is another egregious attempt at beating us over the head with the idea that even the men "on your side" are capable of doing this. as if, again, alicent needed this reminder. as if we didn't watch her be pimped out by her father, used by her husband, forced to debase herself and be violated by larys, be desired by her own son. it's gratuitous at this point. it's why the actress referred to her character's journey as a "humiliation".
Eh, I don't think the writers were even thinking that deeply about the rape scene. They just wanted to make Jasper 100% evil and irredeemable so that when Rhaenyra killed him there was no ambiguity of who the "good" side is
I suppose the discussion raises some issues. Aegon and Aemond are victims of Alicent. (Plus of course Viserys.) Alicent was a victim of Otto. That way Otto is the final bad guy. But only because that's how far the show goes back. All you need to make Otto another victim would be one flashback where his parents somehow instill a lust for power or whatever in him. I guess my issue with that line of thinking, if taken to the extreme, is that it robs people (victims) of agency. (Without agency they can't be responsible for their actions.) One argument in defense of Alicent here: had she not told the guard/army whatever in Queen's Landing to stand down, they would have shot at the dragons. I'm thinking one result of that would have been that Daemon gleefully burns down the Red Keep and a ton of people who are just there doing their job. Even if Aegon had been there and she had handed him over, it would have been one life against hundreds of others. And that's just in this immediate situation, not even considering they wider implications of who might make a better ruler for all people. On another note, some of the fighters behave ridiculously in this episode. Why do you run at Daemon (and Aemond) one at a time, even while yelling to make sure he knows you're coming? Not that it really matters.
I for one think Alicent's characterization has been fantastic. It's unique, daring, complicated, and makes perfect sense at least to me. It's completely ok to disagree with the writing, but I wish people would not go for the "it's obvious the writers did this for... (whatever ridiculous intentions)". At least argue on the merit of what's happening on the screen
Alicent's plan was dumb but it's worth mentioning that this wasn't her plan. He plan was to trade Aegon for her (and Helaena's) freedom. When she got back to King's Landing, Aegon was gone. That's why things were so frantic in this episode.
Not sure I like how much they absolve Aegon and Aemond of their awful deeds. Like Yes Alicent was part of the problem, but I bet she never told Aegon rape is ok.
It’s sad how they destroyed the entire dynamic among the Greens... the showrunners treat this war as a simple right vs. evil conflict, neglecting and vilifying just one side and has been obvious since Season 1. But I didn't expect them to strip away so much of Alicent’s dynamic with her children and the relationships between the siblings. As George said "this is no longer my story." Still, the upcoming episodes are good, for me, at least, its turning out better than Season 2
It’s so funny because they fail even at that. Rhaenys is supposed to be good but she killed hundreds of civilians for fun then spends the second season acting wise and like she cares about casualties. She and Corlys were also ready to marry their young daughter (younger than Alicent) to viserys but Otto is the ultimate evil for doing the same.
I had the same problems with this episode. Just felt like a bunch of things happening because the writers deigned it rather than what the show usually is, fleshed out characters making reasonable choices. Regarding Alicent: I still haven’t gotten over her selling out Aegon, but since the show continues to tell me that’s who she is, I’m trying to go with it. The actual more egregious thing I can’t get over at this point, is that she does nothing to protect Daeron, who as far as she knows is as innocent as Helaena. She has to know that his life will be over by necessity if Rhaenyra rules, but you wouldn’t know it by the way she’s ready to skip town. It really feels like the writers don’t understand the implications of what she has committed to.
Plenty has been said about the Jasper Wylde rape attempt and the disaster that has been Alicent's character already. The former was pretty clearly done to make the character blatantly evil right before he was executed by Rhaenyra to remove even the slightest moral ambiguity from Rhaenyra killing him. In the books Rhaenyra takes King's Landing without any help from Alicent, who defiantly tells her that Aemond will return with fire and blood after surrendering the Red Keep. What they did with Otto is also a massive waste of a great actor, that I can only hope happened because of scheduling conflicts. Now season 2 has effectively been concluded since most of this stuff was meant to occur back then before the budget cuts. Season 3 proper starting next episode is pretty good so far with the few episodes we've gotten, and I hope that the stumbles of the the previous season don't hold the show back going forward.
I can’t say I agree with their issue on Alicent. Aegon is the one person who literally has to die for this war to end. There is no way around that unless the Greens win. There is no way he lives if Rhaenyra wins, which at this point is almost a certainty given her additional three dragons. Either they can all die when Rhaenyra takes the throne or potentially just one of her children dies and the rest are spared, even if exiled or imprisoned. Aemond is becoming increasingly deranged and is now threatening both herself and Helaena with his schemes to try and stack the odds back in their favour. It wasn’t easy to accept but it was the most pragmatic choice she had, given that the war in her eyes has been lost. Why has this decision been so hard to understand for a lot of people? Am I missing something?
*Replying to a comment that got deleted: I have no knowledge of the character besides the one from the show so that isn’t a factor for me personally, but major changes can upset a built-in fanbase so that makes sense. Yes, this has all come about by Alicents own hand, but Alicent herself was groomed as a child. These are children she was forced to bear. The psychological impact of that on a mother surely can’t be overstated when it comes to these children. Her eldest, a rapist man-child. Her second, a psychopath by all measures. Is a mother condemned to love her children and protect them regardless of who they are? Regardless of how they came to be her children? She does not love her children the way Cersei did as a comparative character, imo. Alicent as a parent is completely reactionary in her style. She has taken no responsibility in her role of it. You say she raises her children without love and you’re right. She allowed her daughter to be married to her son and become a victim of marital child rape exactly as she was. She put Aegon on the throne at the behest of her father, who had her believe they would be killed by Rhaenyra otherwise, and also she truly believed Viserys meant for Aegon to have it in the end. She is proven wrong on this by context given by Rhaenyra later, and realises she has made a mistake in crowning him. She is selfish, so saving herself and wishing to be out from the politicking she grew up in makes sense to me. She has both a resentment and a disconnected sense of attachment to her children, at least the two elder boys. I can see how this would make it easier to give up on them. Helaena is gifted with prophetic dreams and visions but she is clearly intellectually disabled to a certain extent. Maybe neurodivergence, maybe a very slight and far more benign touch of Targaryen madness, I’m not sure. She won’t be able to fend for herself if forced out of power alone, and so Alicent would see that she and her son are safe with her. As for doing what’s best for the Blacks, the Blacks have won in theory already, it’s just a matter of how many die when they make a move. Daeron does not need to die necessarily, and Aemond is a force unto himself, and the worst possible person to take the throne for just about everyone. Perhaps I’ve just always viewed this character differently, but the choice she makes has a logic to it. I can see why she comes to the conclusion she did. She makes for an interesting character to analyse at the very least!
Alicent gives up Aegon. Aemond has to die because he will never surrender. Daeron too because he is a male heir and has a dragon. Even her brother because she gave his location to Rhaenyra and he will fight with Aemond. Same person that stood in between a dragon and Aegon in season 1. I just don’t know why she’s on my screen anymore. Also idk why she would even trust that Heleana would be safe because the person that went behind Rhaenyra’s back to kill her grandson is still Rhaenyra’s husband.
even if aemond surrenders he'd have to die. and if the writers are willing to make rhaenyra so benevolent (stupid) that she'd let any male heirs (with dragons!) live, surely alicent would never believe that daemon, who went behind rhaenyra's back to kill one of alicent's grandchildren, would allow daeron to live. it truly feels like the writers didn't consider how either 1) heartless or 2) unbelievably stupid, alicent looks. there is not conceivable reality in which she doesn't know daeron must die too.
I don't think it's fair to say that everything her sons are is alicents fault. Like she wasn't a great mother but plenty of people have bad mothers and aren't rapists and don't visit child fighting rings.
The show frames the kids as broken because of the lack of love from their father and mother. This is not real life, the show presents a narrative clearly
Alicent doesn't bother me as much as she seems to bother others. She essentially lost all of her power and influence and is just doing her best to save Heleana and her grandchild at the very least. She's panicking and making rash decisions. Obviously she doesn't deserve to go free. She screwed up being a mother. Even if she takes blame for what she's done I think Heleana and her child dies as well so I'm still rooting for her to accomplish her goal
Oh how I miss season 1 ep6-10 Alicent. She was intimidating and as much as I hated the succession being switched I enjoyed her being the villain. I don’t know this Alicent
Few thoughts on this episode: 1. Emma D'arcy is an amazing actor 2. It annoys me when a dragonrider hops down & starts swordfighting. Stay on your nuclear weapon! 3. The attempted rape scene is the worst piece of writing in the entire show so far 4. Not only does Daemon have gold cloak connections, but it was also established in season 1 that he & Rhaenyra know some of the secret tunnels within the Red Keep. There's a number of ways the writers could've written that scene that would've made Daemon & Rhaenyra look savvy rather than like reckless idiots who were saved by a deus ex machina. 5. I really appreciate that the writers allowed Rhaenyra to look overwhelmed during Otto's execution. Regardless of what he's inflicted upon her, beheading someone you've known since childhood when you've never killed someone with your bare hands before would be emotional for anybody.
why is it the worst piece of writing of the show?
You’ve got to understand, Alicent plan was to give her son to Rhaenyra and be make her and her daughter and granddaughter free but now that Aegon is gone she panicked and doesn’t know what Rhaenyra would do, or she thinking she betrayed her that’s why she decided to escape without planning as they showed us they really were in a hurry!
Give Emma D’arcy all the awards
very tired of how when the writers are stuck, they throw in a random sexual assault scene. its indicative of the worst of GoT storylines