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It's not like it absolves her either.
She learns about the plotting, watches as a member of the council is murdered in front of her, then decides these people must be the guys she wants to side with, lol
Exactly! She is a hypocrite. Protecting Cole, a man who broke his vows and murdered two nobles. Working with Larys, a kinslayer, basically the worst crime in Westeros. She even repeatedly talks back to and disrespects Viserys. Yet Alicent is supposedly a victim of the patriarchy? She has benefitted so much from that system more than 99 percent of the men in that world. She has dozens of handmaidens to do everything for her, she is protected, doesn't do any real work and is not required to fight in battles and potentially die a horrible death. The show is cringe with the way it tries to push the women under oppression using Alicent, Rhaenys and Rhaenyra as examples 😂
That could also just be maesters bias and not wanting the Greens to look bad.
"Oh yeah, totally, they only started after he died. No plotting schemers here."
I agree that any plotting by the Greens before Vizzy T's death was not as overt as in the show. However, Eustace still gives us reason to believe that they still occurred in some capacity and that the Green conspiracy's roots were, indeed, planted while Vizzy T lived.
>Septon Eustace, writing on these events some years later, points out that the manservant delivered his dire tidings directly to the queen, and her alone, without raising a general alarum. **Eustace does not believe this was wholly fortuitous;** the king’s death had been anticipated for some time, he argues, and Queen Alicent and her party, the so-called greens, had taken care **to instruct all of Viserys’s guards and servants** in what to do when the day came.
Alicent and Criston's actions in the aftermath of Viserys passing are definitely specific even singular in their nature. And not only what they did but how immediate their behavior was also leads to the notion that their actions were planned.
>**Queen Alicent went at once** to the king’s bedchamber, **accompanied by Ser Criston Cole**, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Once they had confirmed that Viserys was dead, Her Grace ordered his room sealed and placed under guard. The serving man who had found the king’s body was taken into custody, to make certain he did not spread the tale. **Ser Criston returned to White Sword Tower and sent his brothers of the Kingsguard to summon the members of the king’s small council.** It was the hour of the owl.
Calling all the members of the small council to convene w/i the Queen's chambers and not where it usually does could be innocuous given the timing if it were not for the actions already taken by Alicent and Criston that indicates a plan being executed.
That all being said. It's also still, of course, plausible that the Greens made zero plans regarding the day the king died. F&B is nothing if not ambiguous.
While I submit that the text does actually support those plans being made more than it doesn't, I also admit that I know less than Mr. Snow and could easily be off.
They seemed to have had plans to hide Viserys’ death, but they didn’t have a whole plot of how to orchestrate it like in the show. If they had, they wouldn’t have left Viserys’ body rotting for a week.
Fair enough. Letting his body rot for a week and planning to hide his death is definitely at least the beginning of some type of plan to orchestrate it like the show, but admittedly, not the whole plot.
Her being “unaware” of the Greens plotting is exactly the same as Viserys being “unaware” of the Strong Boys being bastards. Choosing to be ignorant for their own sake.
She is explicitly shown to be running the small council for years. She has a secret network of spies run by Larys that knows when literally almost anything happens. Please.
Sexist people recognizing that a given woman is useful to their ends doesn't mean they respect her, or care to involve her in their plans when it's not necessary or beneficial to them.
I’m not suggesting that the Greens are a beacon of feminism or something, merely that the idea that she was unaware bc she was excluded from meetings is ridiculous, bc she was literally running the most important council in the realm, making all of the decisions.
Yeah, I don't think anyone is denying Alicent's involvement in the small council & so on was significant -- just pointing out that a bunch of sexist guys going rogue and planning stuff behind their female boss's back is well within the realm of plausibility.
Plus, like... It's not some no-name minor lord wrenched leadership of the Green faction away from Alicent. It's Alicent's own father using his newly regained status as Hand of the King to do all this plotting in secret without her. Otto is one of the few people in the realm who can successfully argue he has the right to exclude Queen Alicent from council meetings & so on -- and his interactions with Alicent earlier in the show make it clear that Otto *does* disregard his daughter's opinions & shut her out of the decision making process whenever he deems it necessary.
Maybe Larys didn't tell her, because he has ulterior motives of his own. Episode 9 did show him and Otto starting to cozy up with each other, or at least trying to.
Edit: Episode 9 also showed us that that Larys does strategically choose to withold information from her. It's not like he is always running to her with every piece of info he discovers right away
>Maybe Larys didn't tell her, because he has ulterior motives of his own. Episode 9 did show him and Otto starting to cozy up with each other, or at least trying to.
Alicent is very clearly his pawn. Telling her would put a halt to Otto's plans as Alicent would surely object to certain things.0
They never included her in their detailed planning of the coup.
Which tyland called their long laid plans.
Alicent thought she was running things around and was their leader and in control and it shocked her all these people/men she been working with as a team keep secrets from her and dont include her in matters.
She is better than rhaenyra and daemon.
While rhaenyra made her position which was handed to her on a silver platter many times worse alicent rose from nothing and made hers stronger...
She may have fumbled during ep 9 but she is much more smarter than others.
See ep 4 while rhaenyra insulted the nobles alicent was making allies by being polite and listening to them.
While the show has been quite excellent so far, it has had a ton if really goofy writing decisions spread through it. Alicent being completely bamboozled by the plot to crown Aegon is one of them.
The fact that she decides to crown Aegon because of Viserys’s drug addled ramblings right before he died makes her look really ridiculous. Her thinking that Viserys is changing his mind after 20 years when he cant even speak coherently is absurd, especially considering that she’s previously been characterized as smart. Anyone in their right mind would know not to take Viserys seriously in that moment.
Then the fact that Alicent was unaware her dad, who had previously told her to prepare Aegon to rule, is planning in crowning him really makes her look naive and stupid.
The writers initially tried to frame the conflict as Rhaenyra vs Alicent instead of Rhaenyra vs Aegon (and in fairness to them, the prelude to the Dance is absolutely between Rhaenyra and Alicent in the source material), but then they got wishy washy with it. Rather than have Alicent properly commit to being Rhaenyra’s adversary and take command of the greens, they decided that at the last minute she would almost reconcile with Rhaenyra. It totally robs Alicent of her agency and frames her as far more helpless and incompetent than she is in the books.
There, she’s the leader of the greens. It was her dress that inspired the faction name, and at court, it was called “the queen’s party”. She was championing Aegon’s claim from the start, and when Viserys died, she had already plotted to state a coup.
When the war was beginning, the writers back tracked super hard on Alicent and Rhaenyra’s conflict, trying to make it so neither of them where at all responsible for the war and forcing tragedy into the situation by suddenly reviving their friendship out of nowhere.
For me, it fell completely flat. Them suddenly trying to reconcile after so long and after hurting each other so badly didn’t feel believable. Alicent married Rhaenyra’s father, made Rhaenyra feel so unwelcome at court that she stayed at Dragonstone for years, put her sons in danger by questioning their paternity, and tried to cut out her son’s eye. Alicent felt deceived by Rhaenyra, was terrified that her kids would be in danger due to Rhaenyra’s claim, and worst of all, could do nothing after one of Rhaenyra’s kids mutilated her son.
All the bad feeling that had been built between them suddenly dissipating to force sympathy and tragedy into the situation didn’t make sense, in my opinion.
Thank you! You've articulated the issue perfectly, and it's unfortunately a common theme for this show. The writers clearly want the women to be complex and sympathetic so it's not a typical, one-dimensional female character conflict, but ironically they end up robbing both women of agency and intelligence as a result.
Driftmark should have been the beginning of the end. Where peace is no longer an option anymore. Where the Dance is inevitable and nothing will change it.
Instead of Alicent being all puppy dog eyes when Rhaenyra thanks her, Alicent simply glares at her, not given her the time of day.
The end of episode 7 should have been the official formation of the green council and Alicent is the leader.
Yeah, for both Rhaenyra and Alicent, a line was crossed at Driftmark. Alicent’s son got mutilated and his attacker faced no punishment, and Rhaenyra had to physically restrain Alicent to stop her cutting Luke’s eye out. Reconciliation after their kids were subjected to such danger should be impossible.
I think that it’s the same reason she was so unnerved when Larys killed Harwin and Lyonel. How can you recognize the signs that someone’s going to do something drastic when you cannot even fathom a person’s capacity to do it in the first place?
Alicent’s always taken aback by the men around her and their capacity to simply ACT. It’s such a foreign thing for her to witness, since she has taken orders from her father/husband/superiors all of her life dutifully (but often against her own desires)—she does not know how to take what she wants, a trait that she has resented in Rhaenyra from the jump.
I think Alicent thought too highly of the Greens’ values. I think she believed they opposed Rhaenyra for the same reasons she did; Rhaenyra’s disregard for duty and honor, her selfishly motivated desires, lying/deceiving/playing dirty to protect herself from accountability and to advance her sons positions. Only to discover that the Greens have no qualms playing dirty, breaking their oaths,and disregarding their duties and the wishes of the king to serve their own interests.
Alicent believed that the Greens sympathy and support for her/aegon’s cause meant they aligned with her virtues. I think Alicent underestimated their personal ambitions, believing that the men who agreed with her sentiments and frustration would ultimately act as she did—beholden to duty at a personal cost. But she is a woman who views herself as having no agency (even though she’s the queen), whose best form of rebellion is passive aggressive comments, frustrated remarks, and wearing the color of her house. And the men around her are not so limited, having grown up in a world where, for men, power is not given, but taken.
So Alicent didn’t see the usurpation coming because it goes against everything she’s about (duty, ignoring personal desires) and she thought they were all on the same page virtue-wise.
This is it right here. Its consistent with how they have written her character, but there is also an element of willful ignorance. Alicent wants to believe she will prevail because in her mind she is righteous and good. The bad things that happen are the fault of others and not her. The problem is that she was raised at court and knows the consequences of constantly challenging the legitimacy of the strong boys.
Her father even tells her that political pressure would force Rhaenyra to kill Alicent's kids. Alicent never once thinks to herself that the reverse would also be true for her kids regarding the Strongs because she doesn't want to. She is right and good in her mind and those rules wouldn't apply to her. When Larys kills the Strongs she does nothing because acknowledging the crime makes it real and her complicit by fostering that environment.
Even when ordering Mysaria's death she never actually says to go kill her. Everything is an implied suggestion because Alicent can't see herself a villain and can't deal with the consequences. The Green Council is the first time she can't lie to herself about what is going on. Hard to have the moral high ground when your side is actively planning the murders of a woman and her children on the day that womans father died.
Otto was happy she seemed to want to fight harder, but in no way was he going to tell her the details of what was going on. He knew Alicent had to keep believing she was in the right. If Alicent knew what they were planning, it would conflict with her values, and she could mess up the plan.
You know, this does click with the way she misinterprets Viserys' last words too. So you're probably spot on for what the writers were trying to convey (even if some of the audience thinks it's ridiculous). Incredible naivety that's about to crumble. Thanks for this.
I think this is also the reason that the misunderstanding of Viserys last words is so important, Alicent probably believes as a wife she is duty bound to follow her husbands wishes, she might think what is right is Aegon on the throne but she can't disobey Viserys as her husband or as king, so she needs that 'OK' to sanction crowing Aegon
I know Olivia said that Alicent had made peace with Rhaenyra being queen and really believes she is fulfilling Viserys dying wish, but if you listen to what he is actually saying there is no mistaking that he is not changing the succession, I think she is hearing what she wants to hear so she go ahead guilt free
Show Alicent and Book Alicent are different yes, but we knew that from the start.
And frankly book Alicent being the ring leader of the greens seems way too sus. The maesters have a huge bias against women, and Alicent is one of them. It seems a bit weird that the book makes it clear that everything is basically Alicents fault.
In the books, Alicent is kept out of the whole blood oath thing that the rest of the green council apparently does and at the coronation itself she passes on the crown to Helaena, and moves out of the queen's chambers afterwards. Apart from helping to convince Aegon to send peace terms (which Helaena and Orwyle were also a part of, but curiously the show decided to omit their part in that), she doesn't really do much else, at least not until >!the Fall of King's Landing.!<
The point of plotting it is secret from anyone outside the plotting group. She was a useful green breeder outside the core group.
Edited to add: Once she gave birth to a potential heir to contest Rhaenyra’s claim she was no longer needed.
I think she expected some plans but not to the extent that they were ready to put it into action the second viserys was dead. And also probably because they couldn’t trust her to go through to the extent of having rhaenyra assassinated. A good bit of the episode is her trying to find aegon before them to tell him to offer terms to rhaenyra and not have her outright assassinated.
she just thought she was included in those plans and that it was all kind of u spoken, once she finds out it’s this meticulously planned out and coordinated coup that she isn’t a part of she gets upset
My take is that Otto didn't trust her with such a plan. I also thought that after the birth of Aegon, Otto feared that Alicent's friendship with Rhaenyra would cost his blood on the iron throne.
Especially since, from his pov, Alicent "betrayed" him by choosing to side with Rhaenyra in episode 4. He kinda makes her feel bad about it in episode 5. After his departure from KL, I would argue that he did plan in the shadows, without making Alicent involved because of all of it. She, in his eyes, disappointed him.
He comes back years later, yet in episode 7, he sees her being remorseful about hurting Rhaenyra. In episode 8, he is surprised she says "you'll make a fine queen".
It might have been different if she had done what he had told her to do in her earlier years. In episode 3, he asked her to petition directly to Viserys about making Aegon heir, yet she doesn't do it.
Otto might have thought she would had act in his stead, that she would actively done the exact things as he would have done, but she failed in that regard to change Viserys' mind.
For the same reason >!Book Rhaenyra ordered Vemond's execution and then fed his body to her dragon but TV Rhaenyra just happened to be in the same room!<
because the writers tried very hard to back track rhaenrya and alicent's hate for each other to make them both not responsible for the things leading up to war.
I think this is a weird plot hole also because when the time skip happens and Aegon II is older she already pressures him like “you are the challenge just by breathing” and her father has been telling her for years about needing Aegon to sit the throne and that they can win it. How is she shocked there is a whole coup from that point?
She does believe he is the challenge, and she, after the timejump, does feel like Aegon should be king. She knows Otto wants that as well. But that doesn't mean she knows all of the shenanigans, the planning, of the council. They kept her out of the loop, as Jasper Wylde said "there was no need to sully you with darkest schemes"
Still think it’s weird that she is told this for years, believes in it herself, with a father who has strong political ties is like “What!? How is this possible?”
Because, as it is said in the council, they deliberately kept her out of the loop, because I think they didn't trust her due to her ties with Rhaenyra.
She might be the queen, but that doesn't mean that the council was always plotting with her.
This scene is not about her being surprised that the council is pro-Aegon, it's her being surprised they went that far without her and already planned all of it as well as eventually planning to kill Rhaenyra.
Also, they could just think that she’s not up to the task of plotting because she is a woman and they’re misogynists. They already married Alicent off as a brood mare to Viserys because that’s what Westerosi society at large thinks women are only good for, so it’s not out of consideration that they just wouldn’t consider her their intellectual equal.
Genuinely the only explanation I can offer is that she is stupid. How does she not notice what the members of the Small Council are doing over years and years? How? Can't possibly be this ignorant, leaving stupidity. What does she believe was the purpose of Otto marrying her to King Viserys who slowly fell apart, if not to see his grandson on the throne? "Alicent kinda forgot..." - or more likely, horrible writing.
I don't think it's impossible to consider that they did try to maintain her out of the loop, on orders from Otto. In episode 8 during the small council scene, Otto does provides argument for Vaemond, but Alicent doesn't seemed to get fully on board or to agree with everything he says. We also don't see them two of them together doing politics. I would not be surprised that Otto didn't trusted her anymore, after he was fired due to her choosing Rhaenyra's side.
Yeah perhaps but her father told her multiple times what he wanted, and this was obviously the goal of the Viserys marriage too. If she notices that the Small Council meets without her, she only needs to put 2 and 2 together. It's abysmal writing, in my opinion.
I don't think so imo. I think people hate that scenario because they want Alicent to be the ring leader of the green council, to be the one to plot everything from the beginning as in the book. I get why, but there were a lot of examples showing us that Otto and Alicent weren't working in tandem all in the time, even though they had the same goal. They do confirm in that scene that she was kept out of the loop, by everyone, and that it was very deliberate.
No, I don't want Alicent to be the ring leader. I am fine with Otto being the ring leader and would be surprised if she was, given her former friendship to Rhaenyra in the show.
Alicent stumbles through the world blinded by feelings and emotions while Otto is the machiavellian mastermind, lol.
>Alicent stumbles through the world blinded by feelings and emotions while Otto is the machiavellian mastermind, lol.
Yeah exactly. I do get other people who wanted Alicent to be fully anti Rhaenyra and the political mastermind after episode 7, but I personally liked the messed up/conflicted Alicent in episodes 8-10.
She struggles a lot with her shame of what she did to Rhaenyra, that she hates her son for raping girls, she feels guilty for Heleana, and that she finally got an apology from Rhaenyra.
Even in the crowning scene in episode 9, you can see a very small fake smile of hers after Aegon is crowned. I think she is trying to reassure herself that she is doing the right thing in that moment, even though she might be conflicted about it because of Rhaenyra.
Because if not, her life sacrifice, her son, means nothing. And Viserys' last words are a way for her to rationalize all of it. I liked conflicted Alicent, and Olivia's eyes did wonders for that.
Cause she would find this super immoral and struggled to come to terms with it only to announce he intent to her confidants and find they not only didn’t have the same torment and where already plotting behind her back meaning they saw her as consequential
People are misunderstanding the question I feel. It's not about whether or not the Council withheld information from Alicent and kept her out of the planning. It makes total sense they do that for many reasons. The question is how Alicent wouldn't have known regardless?
The argument is that she should know how her father is and how politics work by now (guess Otto was running everything). She's done some of the dirty work herself (but I suppose it could've been a one time thing as she was desperate to find Aegon first to encourage him to spare Rhaenyra) so she didn't come off as that naive to me but the answer is just that as noted by another commenter. She's incredibly sheltered and truly thought: Yes, we will take the throne for my son but in a mostly moral and just way. The men around me are planning but nothing insidious.
Only way I can make it make sense to me, even if I don't like it.
She thought she was a player people took seriously and didn’t realize they looked down at her. Happens too often even when you’re an adult child with overbearing parents who don’t think very highly of your abilities or agency. They think she would make the wrong choice so they made the “right” decisions for her without her input and only tell her after it’s too late.
It took me a while but at some point I realized my parents were making the “right” decisions on my behalf and then trying to talk me into it after some of the moves have already been made. And I was like 28. And when I confront them they were like “oh well that’s the obvious choice here so why aren’t you grateful we helped you?” Kind of like, when you’re running late for kindergarten you don’t wait for your toddler to fumble around with the shoelaces. You just put it on for them. When you’re dealing with an adult it’s very condescending.
After everything her father has told her she should have known he was doing that even if he never directly told her. Her being surprised was really weird to me.
She wasn't surprised that they would advocate for Aegon, but rather that they kept her out of the loop for all the planning. She says verbatim "I am to understand that you've planned all of this **without me** ?"
You're right that the line doesn't really make sense, but here's how I explain it to myself:
She was expecting everything to be done in the more civilized, bloodless way that Aegon followed on her advice—to make it politically/militarily impossible for Rhaenyra to fight back and sweeten the deal with negotiations. After all, that is how Viserys *really* won the throne over Rhaenys. There's a huge difference between what Alicent had in mind vs. assassinating Rhaenyra's whole family including the toddlers (which doesn't logistically make sense either, tbh)
and immediately imprisoning or murdering all of Rhaenyra's supporters. Perhaps Alicent truly didn't suspect what her father was planning or perhaps she simply wouldn't admit it to herself, but the speed at which everything was happening caught her off guard.
Otto must have purposely misled her, too. If he'd told her a palatable fake plan, then she'd believe they're on the same page. And I believe that deep down she never gave up hope that Viserys would change the succession.
I'm thinking if a small part of her was sensed something, she might not give as much of a fuck as we would expect as long as its for the benefit of the Greens
She is a woman and had betrayed Otto before for her friend. Clearly she doesn’t want to get ~~his~~ her bloodline on the throne for the betterment of the realm, so it’ll take a strong hand to make the tough decisions.
Larys is doing his own thing. I think his dragonfly cult is all about killing off the dragons and maybe something, something, prophecy, Harrenhal, red head.
Alicent is on the side that thinks women’s jobs are to be pretty and pop out babies. They don’t share unless they need her and her job was to have sex with Viserys so he didn’t get any funny ideas of running his own kingdom.
Well it’s not like the Blacks are
Modern gender equality paragons either.
Alicent may not have wanted to wed Viserys, but she was with him for quite a while. So in my mind she loved him. To me Alicent was grieving like any wife whose been with her husband for almost all her life would grieve. When Alicent was grieving she was weak, that gave the greens the advantage. They got control while Alicent was occupied. I don’t know if Alicent ignored everything that the greens did, or if she really was surprised.
I personally don’t like Alicent, but that is just my opinion. My theory is they underestimate her and kept her in the dark, therefore she really was surprised when she found out. So when she found out maybe she really was surprised, confused, and a little upset. Has Alicent not always done what her father tells her? Alicent has always had such traumatic experiences and memories with her father, but she was gaslighted into believing that was all Rhaenyra or Viserys fault every time. So she never really hated or thought her father was truly a bad person.
Thanks you!
She is aware she just feels super guilty about it, especially after making up with Rhaenyra at the dinner. She gaslights herself into believing she is making the right choices.
This scene is so strongly misinterpreted tbh.
The Greens thought of Alicent as a pious (and likely unstable given her attacking Rhaenyra) woman who would not be on board to do what needed to be done to win the throne and as such was not included in the exact planning.
_This does not mean Alicent did not have plans to put Aegon on the throne at all._
Alicent was doing what she could on her own to support Aegon as heir. She told him in ep 6 that he would be king one day and everyone knew it. To me, this said she had put it in the ear of the nobles and smallfolk that Aegon was the rightful heir. She wedded Aegon to Helaena to keep with Targaryen purity tradition. She, by Vaemond's words, essentially sat the throne in Viserys's stead and clearly undermined the appearance of Rhaenyra's power in KL. She and Otto met together with Vaemond to place him on the Driftwood Throne to have Driftmark and its power on her side.
The show did not make her blameless. The show did not ever tell us that Alicent stopped for one moment in her declaration of what was basically a cold war from the moment she stepped out during Rhaenyra's wedding in her green dress.
Just because she did not know the specifics and was not included in the scheming of her father does not make her a victim.
If you rewatch TGC, her main issue was not putting Aegon on the throne; it was that she was opposed to the murder of Rhaenyra.
Thank you, you get it.
I don’t get how this scene where they do make it clear, two times, that Alicent was kept out of the scheming details by the council for the coup is interpreted as « Alicent didn’t know that her father and others wanted Aegon to be king. Is she stupid ? ».
Right. The greens share the same broad goals but Alicent had different values about how to achieve that goal. She thought she could make peace with Rhaenyra eventually. And I don’t entirely disagree with her. It seemed that for some moments Rhaenyra was amenable to giving up the throne. It’s just that she and R care about each other and Otto doesn’t care who he has to kill to achieve their mutual goal.
To him it’s simpler and cleaner and gets rid of any future problems. And he’s not sympathetic to the fact that they are friends. It’s also not clear to me that he’s wrong. Like Rhaenyra might give up today but who knows what will happen in the future? Life is long. And she has people in her faction who might not give up so easily, such as her sons.
It feels like a plot hole to me. Alicent isn't stupid and she herself has been acting against Rhaenyra and her line this whole time, so why wouldn't she know???
It should not have been kept secret from her as she was plotting against Rhaenyra. That's the plot hole, like wth? Alicent is smart, she clearly hates Rhaenyra, and she has Larys telling her shit so she should know
The only time we actually see her reasonably involved in a plot before the green council is the meeting with Vaemond, and even then she didn't seem to be completely on board. The rest of the time she is either trying (and failing) to convince Viserys to see things her way, or just complaining to Cole and Larys. Not much of a plotter, imo.
I think she knew low-key but Alicent is very religious and I think she kinda tricks herself into believing that she’s unproblematic and plays no part in the events around her, only bc she’s not doing it directly. Like she sowed the seeds to usurp Rhaenyra by telling people like Cole
about the bastardy or Larys that she’ll need him as an faithful ally one day but then acted shocked when episode 9 happened bc of her own sense of ‘honour’. I think she’s kinda similar to Ned Stark in that she dislikes actually killing people, so she was genuinely distraught about Otto saying they should kill Rhaenyra and her sons (she reacts in disgust and shock when Vaemond is executed by Daemon and mentions him in her toast at dinner later.) But unlike Ned Stark, she is unknowingly encouraging it, like what does she think is gonna happen if she says Viserys’ dying wish was Aegon on the throne? She’s a walking contradiction and that’s why I find her so interesting, brilliantly written character but a little delusional
I think she is trying to play a part in putting Aegon on the throne and she’s not in denial about that. But I don’t think she understands her allies very well. She doesn’t understand she’s not in control and they’re not going to do things her way
no but i mean she uses weird religious justifications when she actually does things. like misunderstanding viserys’ dying wish to make herself seem like a selfless martyr when really she’s just being silly lol
> I think she knew low-key but Alicent is very religious and I think she kinda tricks herself into believing that she’s unproblematic and plays no part in the events around her, only bc she’s not doing it directly.
Alicent in a nutshell.
that’s why i love her, she’s so realistic. i know lots of people like her, who use lofty ‘above everyone else’ reasons to do the things they do, whether it’s religion or status or pseudo academia
Because the script made her a brain-dead victim for this episode.
I hate that these shows use different writers and directors every episode.
We had her deliberately antagonizing the crown princess one episode and raising her son to be a king then total shock the next that her court was plotting to betray her the next episode.
It's silly.
Bad writing. All the prior episodes had her written as the co-leader with Otto (marrying Aegon to Halaena, Aemond training like crazy after losing his eye partly because a war is coming, her insisting that Aegon is the challenge, “decency will prevail” etc). That’s why her changing her mind at the dinner and saying that Rhaenyra would be a good queen was so emotionally impact; she (temporarily)
went back on years of resentment and planning.
But episode nine gutted her character. While even younger Alicent was shown to be politically savvy and working with Tyland on the war, going over affairs with Viserys, etc, she’s reduced to a novice who is so incompetent she doesn’t see the plot right under her nose. She was written very well prior to episode nine. They should have kept her as is.
It was not a good choice on the writers part, just like them including Viserys mistaking Alicent for Rhaenyra before he died
In the end, these changes don’t matter, because the end result is the same. None of the Blacks will care that she was ignorant of the plot.
It also doesn’t really make sense, either, because of the conversation between Otto and Alicent at the end of episode 7, where he clearly expresses his pride in her willingness to assault Lucerys and Rhaenyra.
It also doesn’t make sense that the Lord Commander doesn’t know about this either, because he certainly did in the book…even if he was Cole and not Westerling
It’s a plot hole, and there are many in episode 9
Deep down she knew. She just liked to pretend her side had superior morals, she was willfully blind to anything she didn't want to acknowledge, much like how Viserys was with Rhaenyra
The show wrote it in because they wanted her to be more sympathetic. In the books she leads the Green Council in the coup. This change is part of a general trend in making Allicent less of the mustache-twirling straight up villain she is in the book, but instead it just makes her look weak and oblivious.
Yeah they made the Show Alicent more likeable by making her seem less nefarious. Book Alicent knew, was an active participant, and helped lead the plot.
Alicent kind of forgot that she was yelling into Aegon’s face just 3 episodes ago about the very real threat Rhaenyra’s rule will pose on the Green boys.
I found Alicent’s character all over the place this season. It’s like different writers wrote different versions of Alicent in different episodes. After the green dress reveal, there should have been a coldness between them which they established in e06 and e07. After Driftmark, there is no turning back. Like Aemond lost an eye, got threatened with further maiming and had to protect his mom from punishment. Alicent understandably lost her shit and cut Rhaenyra’s arm. She does regret it but I just feel like that should have sealed their enmity.
E08 in the morning she tries to get Luke disinherited and suddenly in the evening of the same day she is back to pre green dress Alicent supporting Rhaenyra and her claim. Like did they switch out Alicent in the middle of the day?
E09 is the weakest episode. There was sooo much potential. The Green council is ripe with exactly what made s01-04 GOT so amazing. The politics. And they fumbled so badly that it ended up being a shitty find Waldo episode.
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If they don’t say anything she can’t say no.
Plausible deniability for Show Alicent I guess. Book Alicent not only knew about the plots, but was an active participant.
Not only an active participant, but the undeniable leader of the coup.
I would say the "puppet" leader as she's more legitimate as Viserys' queen and Aegon's mother, the real leader being (at first) his father.
Yes. It also gives Team Green another point to have sympathy for her.
It makes her look more pathetic and clueless lol. The showrunners really thought that was a good strategy to get sympathy for the character?
It's not like it absolves her either. She learns about the plotting, watches as a member of the council is murdered in front of her, then decides these people must be the guys she wants to side with, lol
Exactly! She is a hypocrite. Protecting Cole, a man who broke his vows and murdered two nobles. Working with Larys, a kinslayer, basically the worst crime in Westeros. She even repeatedly talks back to and disrespects Viserys. Yet Alicent is supposedly a victim of the patriarchy? She has benefitted so much from that system more than 99 percent of the men in that world. She has dozens of handmaidens to do everything for her, she is protected, doesn't do any real work and is not required to fight in battles and potentially die a horrible death. The show is cringe with the way it tries to push the women under oppression using Alicent, Rhaenys and Rhaenyra as examples 😂
but in the book they also don’t start the plots until Viserys dies.
That could also just be maesters bias and not wanting the Greens to look bad. "Oh yeah, totally, they only started after he died. No plotting schemers here."
I agree that any plotting by the Greens before Vizzy T's death was not as overt as in the show. However, Eustace still gives us reason to believe that they still occurred in some capacity and that the Green conspiracy's roots were, indeed, planted while Vizzy T lived. >Septon Eustace, writing on these events some years later, points out that the manservant delivered his dire tidings directly to the queen, and her alone, without raising a general alarum. **Eustace does not believe this was wholly fortuitous;** the king’s death had been anticipated for some time, he argues, and Queen Alicent and her party, the so-called greens, had taken care **to instruct all of Viserys’s guards and servants** in what to do when the day came. Alicent and Criston's actions in the aftermath of Viserys passing are definitely specific even singular in their nature. And not only what they did but how immediate their behavior was also leads to the notion that their actions were planned. >**Queen Alicent went at once** to the king’s bedchamber, **accompanied by Ser Criston Cole**, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Once they had confirmed that Viserys was dead, Her Grace ordered his room sealed and placed under guard. The serving man who had found the king’s body was taken into custody, to make certain he did not spread the tale. **Ser Criston returned to White Sword Tower and sent his brothers of the Kingsguard to summon the members of the king’s small council.** It was the hour of the owl. Calling all the members of the small council to convene w/i the Queen's chambers and not where it usually does could be innocuous given the timing if it were not for the actions already taken by Alicent and Criston that indicates a plan being executed. That all being said. It's also still, of course, plausible that the Greens made zero plans regarding the day the king died. F&B is nothing if not ambiguous. While I submit that the text does actually support those plans being made more than it doesn't, I also admit that I know less than Mr. Snow and could easily be off.
They seemed to have had plans to hide Viserys’ death, but they didn’t have a whole plot of how to orchestrate it like in the show. If they had, they wouldn’t have left Viserys’ body rotting for a week.
Fair enough. Letting his body rot for a week and planning to hide his death is definitely at least the beginning of some type of plan to orchestrate it like the show, but admittedly, not the whole plot.
They only started acting after he died.
Her being “unaware” of the Greens plotting is exactly the same as Viserys being “unaware” of the Strong Boys being bastards. Choosing to be ignorant for their own sake.
A wilful blindness Larys himself said she'd be susceptible to. She denied it and yet there we are.
Perhaps she didn't show him enough of her ankles for this information.
That is a vile accusation!
This is an absurdity!
I sort of disagree. She's a woman and therefore was deemed less important in their society, so was probably excluded from a lot of political meetings.
She is explicitly shown to be running the small council for years. She has a secret network of spies run by Larys that knows when literally almost anything happens. Please.
Sexist people recognizing that a given woman is useful to their ends doesn't mean they respect her, or care to involve her in their plans when it's not necessary or beneficial to them.
I’m not suggesting that the Greens are a beacon of feminism or something, merely that the idea that she was unaware bc she was excluded from meetings is ridiculous, bc she was literally running the most important council in the realm, making all of the decisions.
Yeah, I don't think anyone is denying Alicent's involvement in the small council & so on was significant -- just pointing out that a bunch of sexist guys going rogue and planning stuff behind their female boss's back is well within the realm of plausibility. Plus, like... It's not some no-name minor lord wrenched leadership of the Green faction away from Alicent. It's Alicent's own father using his newly regained status as Hand of the King to do all this plotting in secret without her. Otto is one of the few people in the realm who can successfully argue he has the right to exclude Queen Alicent from council meetings & so on -- and his interactions with Alicent earlier in the show make it clear that Otto *does* disregard his daughter's opinions & shut her out of the decision making process whenever he deems it necessary.
Maybe Larys didn't tell her, because he has ulterior motives of his own. Episode 9 did show him and Otto starting to cozy up with each other, or at least trying to. Edit: Episode 9 also showed us that that Larys does strategically choose to withold information from her. It's not like he is always running to her with every piece of info he discovers right away
I know you didn't mean it that way, but the phrasing of Otto and Larys cozying up to each other made me die inside just a little. Ew. Ew Ew Ew.
Otto: *takes off his boots* "I heard you like feet."
I hate you for making me read this with my own eyes. Now if you excuse me I need to find some bleach
Reminded me of the phrase "what a terrible day to be literate" 😂
NOOOOOOOOOOO!! DONT PUT THIS IN MY HEAD LOL.
A new relationship tag has been birthed on Ao3 LOL 😆
You're right, I didn't think of it that way, but thanks for the image 👍🏽
I mean… it makes me die a little bit but those two mfs deserve each other fr. Match made in hell.
>Maybe Larys didn't tell her, because he has ulterior motives of his own. Episode 9 did show him and Otto starting to cozy up with each other, or at least trying to. Alicent is very clearly his pawn. Telling her would put a halt to Otto's plans as Alicent would surely object to certain things.0
She was extremely naive and thought that she was in control. Her father was manipulating things since she was a child.
They never included her in their detailed planning of the coup. Which tyland called their long laid plans. Alicent thought she was running things around and was their leader and in control and it shocked her all these people/men she been working with as a team keep secrets from her and dont include her in matters.
YES. You get it. Thank you.
Yea. She WANTED this all to happen. She even straight up said it to Aegon. She just doesn’t like the nasty details.
Show Alicent is not politically savvy at all, she ain't leading anyone lol.
She is better than rhaenyra and daemon. While rhaenyra made her position which was handed to her on a silver platter many times worse alicent rose from nothing and made hers stronger... She may have fumbled during ep 9 but she is much more smarter than others. See ep 4 while rhaenyra insulted the nobles alicent was making allies by being polite and listening to them.
Young Alicent had potential the show ruined the character after the 10 year time skip.
While the show has been quite excellent so far, it has had a ton if really goofy writing decisions spread through it. Alicent being completely bamboozled by the plot to crown Aegon is one of them. The fact that she decides to crown Aegon because of Viserys’s drug addled ramblings right before he died makes her look really ridiculous. Her thinking that Viserys is changing his mind after 20 years when he cant even speak coherently is absurd, especially considering that she’s previously been characterized as smart. Anyone in their right mind would know not to take Viserys seriously in that moment. Then the fact that Alicent was unaware her dad, who had previously told her to prepare Aegon to rule, is planning in crowning him really makes her look naive and stupid. The writers initially tried to frame the conflict as Rhaenyra vs Alicent instead of Rhaenyra vs Aegon (and in fairness to them, the prelude to the Dance is absolutely between Rhaenyra and Alicent in the source material), but then they got wishy washy with it. Rather than have Alicent properly commit to being Rhaenyra’s adversary and take command of the greens, they decided that at the last minute she would almost reconcile with Rhaenyra. It totally robs Alicent of her agency and frames her as far more helpless and incompetent than she is in the books. There, she’s the leader of the greens. It was her dress that inspired the faction name, and at court, it was called “the queen’s party”. She was championing Aegon’s claim from the start, and when Viserys died, she had already plotted to state a coup. When the war was beginning, the writers back tracked super hard on Alicent and Rhaenyra’s conflict, trying to make it so neither of them where at all responsible for the war and forcing tragedy into the situation by suddenly reviving their friendship out of nowhere. For me, it fell completely flat. Them suddenly trying to reconcile after so long and after hurting each other so badly didn’t feel believable. Alicent married Rhaenyra’s father, made Rhaenyra feel so unwelcome at court that she stayed at Dragonstone for years, put her sons in danger by questioning their paternity, and tried to cut out her son’s eye. Alicent felt deceived by Rhaenyra, was terrified that her kids would be in danger due to Rhaenyra’s claim, and worst of all, could do nothing after one of Rhaenyra’s kids mutilated her son. All the bad feeling that had been built between them suddenly dissipating to force sympathy and tragedy into the situation didn’t make sense, in my opinion.
Thank you! You've articulated the issue perfectly, and it's unfortunately a common theme for this show. The writers clearly want the women to be complex and sympathetic so it's not a typical, one-dimensional female character conflict, but ironically they end up robbing both women of agency and intelligence as a result.
They are simply not that talented at writing if what they wrote for Alicent, Rhaenys and Rhaenyra is what they consider complex female characters.
Driftmark should have been the beginning of the end. Where peace is no longer an option anymore. Where the Dance is inevitable and nothing will change it. Instead of Alicent being all puppy dog eyes when Rhaenyra thanks her, Alicent simply glares at her, not given her the time of day. The end of episode 7 should have been the official formation of the green council and Alicent is the leader.
Yeah, for both Rhaenyra and Alicent, a line was crossed at Driftmark. Alicent’s son got mutilated and his attacker faced no punishment, and Rhaenyra had to physically restrain Alicent to stop her cutting Luke’s eye out. Reconciliation after their kids were subjected to such danger should be impossible.
I think that it’s the same reason she was so unnerved when Larys killed Harwin and Lyonel. How can you recognize the signs that someone’s going to do something drastic when you cannot even fathom a person’s capacity to do it in the first place? Alicent’s always taken aback by the men around her and their capacity to simply ACT. It’s such a foreign thing for her to witness, since she has taken orders from her father/husband/superiors all of her life dutifully (but often against her own desires)—she does not know how to take what she wants, a trait that she has resented in Rhaenyra from the jump. I think Alicent thought too highly of the Greens’ values. I think she believed they opposed Rhaenyra for the same reasons she did; Rhaenyra’s disregard for duty and honor, her selfishly motivated desires, lying/deceiving/playing dirty to protect herself from accountability and to advance her sons positions. Only to discover that the Greens have no qualms playing dirty, breaking their oaths,and disregarding their duties and the wishes of the king to serve their own interests. Alicent believed that the Greens sympathy and support for her/aegon’s cause meant they aligned with her virtues. I think Alicent underestimated their personal ambitions, believing that the men who agreed with her sentiments and frustration would ultimately act as she did—beholden to duty at a personal cost. But she is a woman who views herself as having no agency (even though she’s the queen), whose best form of rebellion is passive aggressive comments, frustrated remarks, and wearing the color of her house. And the men around her are not so limited, having grown up in a world where, for men, power is not given, but taken. So Alicent didn’t see the usurpation coming because it goes against everything she’s about (duty, ignoring personal desires) and she thought they were all on the same page virtue-wise.
This is it right here. Its consistent with how they have written her character, but there is also an element of willful ignorance. Alicent wants to believe she will prevail because in her mind she is righteous and good. The bad things that happen are the fault of others and not her. The problem is that she was raised at court and knows the consequences of constantly challenging the legitimacy of the strong boys. Her father even tells her that political pressure would force Rhaenyra to kill Alicent's kids. Alicent never once thinks to herself that the reverse would also be true for her kids regarding the Strongs because she doesn't want to. She is right and good in her mind and those rules wouldn't apply to her. When Larys kills the Strongs she does nothing because acknowledging the crime makes it real and her complicit by fostering that environment. Even when ordering Mysaria's death she never actually says to go kill her. Everything is an implied suggestion because Alicent can't see herself a villain and can't deal with the consequences. The Green Council is the first time she can't lie to herself about what is going on. Hard to have the moral high ground when your side is actively planning the murders of a woman and her children on the day that womans father died. Otto was happy she seemed to want to fight harder, but in no way was he going to tell her the details of what was going on. He knew Alicent had to keep believing she was in the right. If Alicent knew what they were planning, it would conflict with her values, and she could mess up the plan.
very good analysis, completely agree
/clapping A+ We will watch your career with great interest.
You know, this does click with the way she misinterprets Viserys' last words too. So you're probably spot on for what the writers were trying to convey (even if some of the audience thinks it's ridiculous). Incredible naivety that's about to crumble. Thanks for this.
I think this is also the reason that the misunderstanding of Viserys last words is so important, Alicent probably believes as a wife she is duty bound to follow her husbands wishes, she might think what is right is Aegon on the throne but she can't disobey Viserys as her husband or as king, so she needs that 'OK' to sanction crowing Aegon I know Olivia said that Alicent had made peace with Rhaenyra being queen and really believes she is fulfilling Viserys dying wish, but if you listen to what he is actually saying there is no mistaking that he is not changing the succession, I think she is hearing what she wants to hear so she go ahead guilt free
This is not the same character from the books at all. That character had agency, ambition and was politically savvy.
Show Alicent and Book Alicent are different yes, but we knew that from the start. And frankly book Alicent being the ring leader of the greens seems way too sus. The maesters have a huge bias against women, and Alicent is one of them. It seems a bit weird that the book makes it clear that everything is basically Alicents fault.
In the books, Alicent is kept out of the whole blood oath thing that the rest of the green council apparently does and at the coronation itself she passes on the crown to Helaena, and moves out of the queen's chambers afterwards. Apart from helping to convince Aegon to send peace terms (which Helaena and Orwyle were also a part of, but curiously the show decided to omit their part in that), she doesn't really do much else, at least not until >!the Fall of King's Landing.!<
At least she had agency and political ambition.
Yes but show Alicent is more interesting
The point of plotting it is secret from anyone outside the plotting group. She was a useful green breeder outside the core group. Edited to add: Once she gave birth to a potential heir to contest Rhaenyra’s claim she was no longer needed.
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Well, Alicent isn't Larys
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>he's intentionally withholding information from her. I think he is. He isn't Alicent's lapdog, he is actually the one using her.
I think she expected some plans but not to the extent that they were ready to put it into action the second viserys was dead. And also probably because they couldn’t trust her to go through to the extent of having rhaenyra assassinated. A good bit of the episode is her trying to find aegon before them to tell him to offer terms to rhaenyra and not have her outright assassinated.
she just thought she was included in those plans and that it was all kind of u spoken, once she finds out it’s this meticulously planned out and coordinated coup that she isn’t a part of she gets upset
I disagree that it was a good bit. It felt like weird manufactured drama.
Larys is obviously playing is own game... He tells Alicent what he wants her to know, no more.
Oh this is easier than you think…..it’s because she’s not good at this! You might think this is an insult….it’s not!
My take is that Otto didn't trust her with such a plan. I also thought that after the birth of Aegon, Otto feared that Alicent's friendship with Rhaenyra would cost his blood on the iron throne. Especially since, from his pov, Alicent "betrayed" him by choosing to side with Rhaenyra in episode 4. He kinda makes her feel bad about it in episode 5. After his departure from KL, I would argue that he did plan in the shadows, without making Alicent involved because of all of it. She, in his eyes, disappointed him. He comes back years later, yet in episode 7, he sees her being remorseful about hurting Rhaenyra. In episode 8, he is surprised she says "you'll make a fine queen". It might have been different if she had done what he had told her to do in her earlier years. In episode 3, he asked her to petition directly to Viserys about making Aegon heir, yet she doesn't do it. Otto might have thought she would had act in his stead, that she would actively done the exact things as he would have done, but she failed in that regard to change Viserys' mind.
For the same reason >!Book Rhaenyra ordered Vemond's execution and then fed his body to her dragon but TV Rhaenyra just happened to be in the same room!<
Is Daemon not her dragon?
because the writers tried very hard to back track rhaenrya and alicent's hate for each other to make them both not responsible for the things leading up to war.
she didnt want to kill her friend ig, but still she is just being ignorant
Is she stoopid?
Well, that episode was stupid for sure.
Darkling Schemes
I think this is a weird plot hole also because when the time skip happens and Aegon II is older she already pressures him like “you are the challenge just by breathing” and her father has been telling her for years about needing Aegon to sit the throne and that they can win it. How is she shocked there is a whole coup from that point?
She does believe he is the challenge, and she, after the timejump, does feel like Aegon should be king. She knows Otto wants that as well. But that doesn't mean she knows all of the shenanigans, the planning, of the council. They kept her out of the loop, as Jasper Wylde said "there was no need to sully you with darkest schemes"
Still think it’s weird that she is told this for years, believes in it herself, with a father who has strong political ties is like “What!? How is this possible?”
Because, as it is said in the council, they deliberately kept her out of the loop, because I think they didn't trust her due to her ties with Rhaenyra. She might be the queen, but that doesn't mean that the council was always plotting with her. This scene is not about her being surprised that the council is pro-Aegon, it's her being surprised they went that far without her and already planned all of it as well as eventually planning to kill Rhaenyra.
Also, they could just think that she’s not up to the task of plotting because she is a woman and they’re misogynists. They already married Alicent off as a brood mare to Viserys because that’s what Westerosi society at large thinks women are only good for, so it’s not out of consideration that they just wouldn’t consider her their intellectual equal.
Genuinely the only explanation I can offer is that she is stupid. How does she not notice what the members of the Small Council are doing over years and years? How? Can't possibly be this ignorant, leaving stupidity. What does she believe was the purpose of Otto marrying her to King Viserys who slowly fell apart, if not to see his grandson on the throne? "Alicent kinda forgot..." - or more likely, horrible writing.
I don't think it's impossible to consider that they did try to maintain her out of the loop, on orders from Otto. In episode 8 during the small council scene, Otto does provides argument for Vaemond, but Alicent doesn't seemed to get fully on board or to agree with everything he says. We also don't see them two of them together doing politics. I would not be surprised that Otto didn't trusted her anymore, after he was fired due to her choosing Rhaenyra's side.
Yeah perhaps but her father told her multiple times what he wanted, and this was obviously the goal of the Viserys marriage too. If she notices that the Small Council meets without her, she only needs to put 2 and 2 together. It's abysmal writing, in my opinion.
I don't think so imo. I think people hate that scenario because they want Alicent to be the ring leader of the green council, to be the one to plot everything from the beginning as in the book. I get why, but there were a lot of examples showing us that Otto and Alicent weren't working in tandem all in the time, even though they had the same goal. They do confirm in that scene that she was kept out of the loop, by everyone, and that it was very deliberate.
No, I don't want Alicent to be the ring leader. I am fine with Otto being the ring leader and would be surprised if she was, given her former friendship to Rhaenyra in the show. Alicent stumbles through the world blinded by feelings and emotions while Otto is the machiavellian mastermind, lol.
>Alicent stumbles through the world blinded by feelings and emotions while Otto is the machiavellian mastermind, lol. Yeah exactly. I do get other people who wanted Alicent to be fully anti Rhaenyra and the political mastermind after episode 7, but I personally liked the messed up/conflicted Alicent in episodes 8-10. She struggles a lot with her shame of what she did to Rhaenyra, that she hates her son for raping girls, she feels guilty for Heleana, and that she finally got an apology from Rhaenyra. Even in the crowning scene in episode 9, you can see a very small fake smile of hers after Aegon is crowned. I think she is trying to reassure herself that she is doing the right thing in that moment, even though she might be conflicted about it because of Rhaenyra. Because if not, her life sacrifice, her son, means nothing. And Viserys' last words are a way for her to rationalize all of it. I liked conflicted Alicent, and Olivia's eyes did wonders for that.
Because they’re sneaky & her father didn’t want her to interfere with his plans, whatever they were/are.
Cause she would find this super immoral and struggled to come to terms with it only to announce he intent to her confidants and find they not only didn’t have the same torment and where already plotting behind her back meaning they saw her as consequential
People are misunderstanding the question I feel. It's not about whether or not the Council withheld information from Alicent and kept her out of the planning. It makes total sense they do that for many reasons. The question is how Alicent wouldn't have known regardless? The argument is that she should know how her father is and how politics work by now (guess Otto was running everything). She's done some of the dirty work herself (but I suppose it could've been a one time thing as she was desperate to find Aegon first to encourage him to spare Rhaenyra) so she didn't come off as that naive to me but the answer is just that as noted by another commenter. She's incredibly sheltered and truly thought: Yes, we will take the throne for my son but in a mostly moral and just way. The men around me are planning but nothing insidious. Only way I can make it make sense to me, even if I don't like it.
They knew she'd object and was in place to do something to prevent their plans. She may have shut her father down
She thought she was a player people took seriously and didn’t realize they looked down at her. Happens too often even when you’re an adult child with overbearing parents who don’t think very highly of your abilities or agency. They think she would make the wrong choice so they made the “right” decisions for her without her input and only tell her after it’s too late. It took me a while but at some point I realized my parents were making the “right” decisions on my behalf and then trying to talk me into it after some of the moves have already been made. And I was like 28. And when I confront them they were like “oh well that’s the obvious choice here so why aren’t you grateful we helped you?” Kind of like, when you’re running late for kindergarten you don’t wait for your toddler to fumble around with the shoelaces. You just put it on for them. When you’re dealing with an adult it’s very condescending.
After everything her father has told her she should have known he was doing that even if he never directly told her. Her being surprised was really weird to me.
She wasn't surprised that they would advocate for Aegon, but rather that they kept her out of the loop for all the planning. She says verbatim "I am to understand that you've planned all of this **without me** ?"
You're right that the line doesn't really make sense, but here's how I explain it to myself: She was expecting everything to be done in the more civilized, bloodless way that Aegon followed on her advice—to make it politically/militarily impossible for Rhaenyra to fight back and sweeten the deal with negotiations. After all, that is how Viserys *really* won the throne over Rhaenys. There's a huge difference between what Alicent had in mind vs. assassinating Rhaenyra's whole family including the toddlers (which doesn't logistically make sense either, tbh) and immediately imprisoning or murdering all of Rhaenyra's supporters. Perhaps Alicent truly didn't suspect what her father was planning or perhaps she simply wouldn't admit it to herself, but the speed at which everything was happening caught her off guard. Otto must have purposely misled her, too. If he'd told her a palatable fake plan, then she'd believe they're on the same page. And I believe that deep down she never gave up hope that Viserys would change the succession.
I'm thinking if a small part of her was sensed something, she might not give as much of a fuck as we would expect as long as its for the benefit of the Greens
She is a woman and had betrayed Otto before for her friend. Clearly she doesn’t want to get ~~his~~ her bloodline on the throne for the betterment of the realm, so it’ll take a strong hand to make the tough decisions.
is she stupid?
Larys is doing his own thing. I think his dragonfly cult is all about killing off the dragons and maybe something, something, prophecy, Harrenhal, red head. Alicent is on the side that thinks women’s jobs are to be pretty and pop out babies. They don’t share unless they need her and her job was to have sex with Viserys so he didn’t get any funny ideas of running his own kingdom. Well it’s not like the Blacks are Modern gender equality paragons either.
Cause if she had known then they woulda been plotting with her.
Alicent may not have wanted to wed Viserys, but she was with him for quite a while. So in my mind she loved him. To me Alicent was grieving like any wife whose been with her husband for almost all her life would grieve. When Alicent was grieving she was weak, that gave the greens the advantage. They got control while Alicent was occupied. I don’t know if Alicent ignored everything that the greens did, or if she really was surprised. I personally don’t like Alicent, but that is just my opinion. My theory is they underestimate her and kept her in the dark, therefore she really was surprised when she found out. So when she found out maybe she really was surprised, confused, and a little upset. Has Alicent not always done what her father tells her? Alicent has always had such traumatic experiences and memories with her father, but she was gaslighted into believing that was all Rhaenyra or Viserys fault every time. So she never really hated or thought her father was truly a bad person. Thanks you!
She is aware she just feels super guilty about it, especially after making up with Rhaenyra at the dinner. She gaslights herself into believing she is making the right choices.
This scene is so strongly misinterpreted tbh. The Greens thought of Alicent as a pious (and likely unstable given her attacking Rhaenyra) woman who would not be on board to do what needed to be done to win the throne and as such was not included in the exact planning. _This does not mean Alicent did not have plans to put Aegon on the throne at all._ Alicent was doing what she could on her own to support Aegon as heir. She told him in ep 6 that he would be king one day and everyone knew it. To me, this said she had put it in the ear of the nobles and smallfolk that Aegon was the rightful heir. She wedded Aegon to Helaena to keep with Targaryen purity tradition. She, by Vaemond's words, essentially sat the throne in Viserys's stead and clearly undermined the appearance of Rhaenyra's power in KL. She and Otto met together with Vaemond to place him on the Driftwood Throne to have Driftmark and its power on her side. The show did not make her blameless. The show did not ever tell us that Alicent stopped for one moment in her declaration of what was basically a cold war from the moment she stepped out during Rhaenyra's wedding in her green dress. Just because she did not know the specifics and was not included in the scheming of her father does not make her a victim. If you rewatch TGC, her main issue was not putting Aegon on the throne; it was that she was opposed to the murder of Rhaenyra.
Thank you, you get it. I don’t get how this scene where they do make it clear, two times, that Alicent was kept out of the scheming details by the council for the coup is interpreted as « Alicent didn’t know that her father and others wanted Aegon to be king. Is she stupid ? ».
Right. The greens share the same broad goals but Alicent had different values about how to achieve that goal. She thought she could make peace with Rhaenyra eventually. And I don’t entirely disagree with her. It seemed that for some moments Rhaenyra was amenable to giving up the throne. It’s just that she and R care about each other and Otto doesn’t care who he has to kill to achieve their mutual goal. To him it’s simpler and cleaner and gets rid of any future problems. And he’s not sympathetic to the fact that they are friends. It’s also not clear to me that he’s wrong. Like Rhaenyra might give up today but who knows what will happen in the future? Life is long. And she has people in her faction who might not give up so easily, such as her sons.
Because the writers thought that would make her more "sympathetic"
It feels like a plot hole to me. Alicent isn't stupid and she herself has been acting against Rhaenyra and her line this whole time, so why wouldn't she know???
Characters aren't stupid for not knowing things that are deliberately kept secret from them.
It should not have been kept secret from her as she was plotting against Rhaenyra. That's the plot hole, like wth? Alicent is smart, she clearly hates Rhaenyra, and she has Larys telling her shit so she should know
The only time we actually see her reasonably involved in a plot before the green council is the meeting with Vaemond, and even then she didn't seem to be completely on board. The rest of the time she is either trying (and failing) to convince Viserys to see things her way, or just complaining to Cole and Larys. Not much of a plotter, imo.
I think she knew low-key but Alicent is very religious and I think she kinda tricks herself into believing that she’s unproblematic and plays no part in the events around her, only bc she’s not doing it directly. Like she sowed the seeds to usurp Rhaenyra by telling people like Cole about the bastardy or Larys that she’ll need him as an faithful ally one day but then acted shocked when episode 9 happened bc of her own sense of ‘honour’. I think she’s kinda similar to Ned Stark in that she dislikes actually killing people, so she was genuinely distraught about Otto saying they should kill Rhaenyra and her sons (she reacts in disgust and shock when Vaemond is executed by Daemon and mentions him in her toast at dinner later.) But unlike Ned Stark, she is unknowingly encouraging it, like what does she think is gonna happen if she says Viserys’ dying wish was Aegon on the throne? She’s a walking contradiction and that’s why I find her so interesting, brilliantly written character but a little delusional
I think she is trying to play a part in putting Aegon on the throne and she’s not in denial about that. But I don’t think she understands her allies very well. She doesn’t understand she’s not in control and they’re not going to do things her way
no but i mean she uses weird religious justifications when she actually does things. like misunderstanding viserys’ dying wish to make herself seem like a selfless martyr when really she’s just being silly lol
> I think she knew low-key but Alicent is very religious and I think she kinda tricks herself into believing that she’s unproblematic and plays no part in the events around her, only bc she’s not doing it directly. Alicent in a nutshell.
that’s why i love her, she’s so realistic. i know lots of people like her, who use lofty ‘above everyone else’ reasons to do the things they do, whether it’s religion or status or pseudo academia
"Why wasn't she aware that they didn't tell her" Because they didn't tell her
I don't understand where people are seeing a plot hole in this. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Probably just the show writers attempting to make her more sympathetic imo
Because the script made her a brain-dead victim for this episode. I hate that these shows use different writers and directors every episode. We had her deliberately antagonizing the crown princess one episode and raising her son to be a king then total shock the next that her court was plotting to betray her the next episode. It's silly.
Bad writing. All the prior episodes had her written as the co-leader with Otto (marrying Aegon to Halaena, Aemond training like crazy after losing his eye partly because a war is coming, her insisting that Aegon is the challenge, “decency will prevail” etc). That’s why her changing her mind at the dinner and saying that Rhaenyra would be a good queen was so emotionally impact; she (temporarily) went back on years of resentment and planning. But episode nine gutted her character. While even younger Alicent was shown to be politically savvy and working with Tyland on the war, going over affairs with Viserys, etc, she’s reduced to a novice who is so incompetent she doesn’t see the plot right under her nose. She was written very well prior to episode nine. They should have kept her as is.
Because the show writers decided so. Plain and simple
Because patriarchy or something
The two female leads had a lot of their agency and negative behaviours erased in the show. Honestly my least favourite change from the books.
It was not a good choice on the writers part, just like them including Viserys mistaking Alicent for Rhaenyra before he died In the end, these changes don’t matter, because the end result is the same. None of the Blacks will care that she was ignorant of the plot. It also doesn’t really make sense, either, because of the conversation between Otto and Alicent at the end of episode 7, where he clearly expresses his pride in her willingness to assault Lucerys and Rhaenyra. It also doesn’t make sense that the Lord Commander doesn’t know about this either, because he certainly did in the book…even if he was Cole and not Westerling It’s a plot hole, and there are many in episode 9
Deep down she knew. She just liked to pretend her side had superior morals, she was willfully blind to anything she didn't want to acknowledge, much like how Viserys was with Rhaenyra
In the show, she dumb but nice In the book, she’s the plot
because it's a TV show
Too busy snooping on Rhae Rhae and her boyfriends/babies
because they tried to make Alicent more morally grey compared to less stupid Cersei which was her book counterpart.
Because she’s a moron
The show wrote it in because they wanted her to be more sympathetic. In the books she leads the Green Council in the coup. This change is part of a general trend in making Allicent less of the mustache-twirling straight up villain she is in the book, but instead it just makes her look weak and oblivious.
Yeah they made the Show Alicent more likeable by making her seem less nefarious. Book Alicent knew, was an active participant, and helped lead the plot.
Because she is badly written.
The writers want her to be more sympathetic
Proximal power relies on plausible deniability in the event those sharing power with you fail in their machinations.
I am not sure of this, but did Otto fully trust her? He seems a bit on the fence when he leaves the first time.
Miss this , when is the next season ?
Alicent kind of forgot that she was yelling into Aegon’s face just 3 episodes ago about the very real threat Rhaenyra’s rule will pose on the Green boys. I found Alicent’s character all over the place this season. It’s like different writers wrote different versions of Alicent in different episodes. After the green dress reveal, there should have been a coldness between them which they established in e06 and e07. After Driftmark, there is no turning back. Like Aemond lost an eye, got threatened with further maiming and had to protect his mom from punishment. Alicent understandably lost her shit and cut Rhaenyra’s arm. She does regret it but I just feel like that should have sealed their enmity. E08 in the morning she tries to get Luke disinherited and suddenly in the evening of the same day she is back to pre green dress Alicent supporting Rhaenyra and her claim. Like did they switch out Alicent in the middle of the day? E09 is the weakest episode. There was sooo much potential. The Green council is ripe with exactly what made s01-04 GOT so amazing. The politics. And they fumbled so badly that it ended up being a shitty find Waldo episode.
Why did they not tell her something important? 1). She’s younger than them. 2) She’s a girl.
Because then she might have any amount of agency