House of the Dragon finally justifies all of its Alicent changes with one brilliant line
HBOAlicent has become one of House of the Dragon Season 2’s most contentious characters, but the finale beautifully explains her portrayal with one devastating exchange.
Book readers were always going to nitpick House of the Dragon, but some criticisms are fairer than others. For example, the decision to bait Daeron’s casting when we should have seen him already… bad! The likely erasure of Nettles following Rhaena’s Sheepstealer reveal… also bad!
However, there seems to be an increasingly prevalent misunderstanding of the show’s purpose: it is not the official version of Fire and Blood’s events. George R.R. Martin has long said there are two continuities: book canon and show canon, so one cannot violate the other.
This is especially true of the response to Alicent. In the book, much like the other Greens, she’s written as a cunning, power-hungry dowager queen who fiercely defends her children. She’s not particularly sympathetic, nor does she have much of a relationship with Rhaenyra; they’re 10 years apart, rather than the childhood sweethearts you see in the show’s early episodes.
“History will paint you the villain”
Here’s the thing: Fire and Blood isn’t a novel in the traditional sense. It’s an unreliable account of the Dance of the Dragons, written by Archmaester Gyldayn from a variety of sources – including Mushroom, a gossiping dwarf whose claims have been widely disputed.
It’s a book full of conflicting biases and allegations. Crucially, it comes from the perspective of observers, not the lived-in experience of its characters – something exquisitely and tragically illustrated by the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale.
In its final sequence, Alicent secretly travels to Dragonstone. She pleads for peace, admitting the hypocrisy of virtue being her “banner” and that she was wrong to back Aegon.
“I do not wish to rule. I wish to live, to be free of all this endless plotting and striving… I would take my daughter and her child and leave it all behind,” she tells Rhaenyra, who insists too much blood has been shed to turn back.
Then comes her devastating offer: after Aemond leaves King’s Landing to join Criston Cole in the riverlands, Alicent tells Rhaenyra she should take King’s Landing (and leave Helaena unharmed, who’ll gladly comply).
There’s just one small wrinkle: Aegon. Alicent believes he’ll bend the knee, but Rhaenyra knows the inconvenient truth: she needs to take his head in front of the city. “Will you shrink from what you set out to do, or will you see it through and make your sacrifice? A son for a son,” Rhaenyra says.
Shockingly, with tears in her eyes, Alicent agrees to her son’s death. “History will paint you the villain – cold queen grasping for power then defeated,” Rhaenyra warns her.
“Have them think what they must. I am at last myself with no ambition greater than to walk where I please and breathe the open air, to die unremarked, unnoticed, and be free.”
The Seven Kingdoms’ future generations are destined to look back on Alicent as a villain; a parent who watched a city fall into disarray and set chaos in motion. They’ll never know the agony and desperation of her sacrifice, her mistakes made with honest intentions – but we will.
After the finale, read our breakdown of Season 2’s ending and find out what we know about House of the Dragon Season 3.