House of the Dragon finally proves all of Alicent’s changes with one great line

Emma BowmanAugust 6, 2024

House of the Dragon finally proves all of Alicent's changes with one great line

Alicent has become one of the most controversial characters in House of the Dragon season 2, but the finale beautifully explained her role with a shocking exchange.

Book readers have always been critical of House of the Dragon, but some criticisms are more fair than others. For example, the decision to seduce Daeron when we should have seen him already… bad! The deletion of Nettles after Rhaena reveals the Sheepstealer… also bad!

However, there seems to be a growing misunderstanding about the show’s intentions: this is not the official version of the events of Fire and Blood. George RR Martin has long said that there are two continuities: the canon in the books and the canon in the show, so there can be no violation of each other.

This is especially true of the reaction to Alicent. In the books, like the other Greens, she is portrayed as a cunning, power-hungry widow queen who is fiercely protective of her children. She is not particularly sympathetic, nor does she have much of a relationship with Rhaenyra; they are 10 years apart in age, rather than the childhood sweethearts you see in the early episodes of the show.

“History Will Paint You the Villain”

The problem is: Fire and Blood is not a novel in the traditional sense. It is an unreliable account of the Dance of the Dragons, written by Archmaester Gyldayn from a variety of sources—including Mushroom, a loquacious dwarf whose claims have been widely disputed.

It is a book rife with bias and contradictory accusations. Crucially, it is told from the perspective of an observer, not from the actual experiences of its characters—a point subtly and tragically illustrated by the final episode of House of the Dragon Season 2.

rhaenyra almost choking up and fighting back tears when she said "go" to alicent hurts my heart so bad like i literally want to sob right now
pic.twitter.com/rMKD6Wa3XT
— house of the migraines (@hoefordolores) August 5, 2024

In the final scene, Alicent secretly travels to Dragonstone. She pleads for peace, admitting the hypocrisy of virtue as her “flag” and that she was wrong to support Aegon.

“I do not want to rule. I want to live, to be free from all this endless plotting and fighting… I will take my daughter and her child and leave it all behind,” she tells Rhaenyra, who insists that too much blood has been shed to return.

Then came her dire proposal: after Aemond left King’s Landing to join Criston Cole in the riverlands, Alicent told Rhaenyra that she should take King’s Landing (and leave Helaena safe, who happily complied).

There was just one small wrinkle: Aegon. Alicent believed he would bend the knee, but Rhaenyra knew the inconvenient truth: she needed to take his head before the city. “Will you back down from what you intend to do, or will you do it and make the sacrifice? A son for a son,” Rhaenyra said.

Astonished, with tears in her eyes, Alicent agreed to her son’s death. “History will paint you as the villain—a cold queen who held power and was defeated,” Rhaenyra warned her.

“Let them think what they must. In the end, I have no greater ambition than to go wherever I like and breathe the fresh air, to die unnoticed, unnoticed, and free.”

Future generations of the Seven Kingdoms will look back on Alicent as a villain; a mother who watched a city fall into chaos and caused chaos. They will never know the pain and despair of her sacrifice, the mistakes she made with sincere intentions—but we will.

After the finale, read our analysis of the Season 2 ending and find out what we know about House of the Dragon Season 3.

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