#Alicent

[the-highgaryen-council]

Alicent and Dyana: S1E8 scene analysis

This scene between Alicent and Dyana reveals that the queen's humanity persists despite her duty. To sanctify or vilify Alicent for it would be to miss the point entirely. Here's how I see it.

Dyana is prostrating on the floor, sobbing, as if she’s ready to beg for mercy. The high angle shot makes her look even smaller and more fragile. Alicent is then filmed from bellow, appearing grander and more powerful, as she is. The camera angles reflect this extreme power imbalance between the handmaiden and the queen. They are not equals. Dyana’s fate lies entirely in Alicent’s hands.

The queen looks perturbed, slightly teary, silent. She nods to the other handmaiden who tells her that Dyana was brought there immediately. But it’s only when she’s left alone with the young girl that Alicent breaks her silence. “Come here sweetling”, she says warmly, as she lowers herself and gently touches Dyana’s shoulder. The girl gets up terrified and crying. Her gaze meets the queen’s for a blink of an eye before she turns away.

Alicent asks for the girl’s name, keeping the calm and gentle tone from the start. This warm approach seems to surprise Dyana, but it also gives her the confidence to look the queen in the eye as she reveals her name. “Dyana, what a pretty name”, the queen notes, smiling at her.

It is only then that Alicent addresses what happened, employing the same calm tone as before. But her face changes as she hears Dyana recalling what Aegon did to her. Alicent frowns, closes her eyes, and for the first time in this scene she deviates her gaze from the girl. The queen is certainly ashamed of her son, and perhaps she feels guilty about the ways in which she protects him. But she also feels empathy for the young girl. Alicent was too a victim of rape, marital rape. She knows it all well.

“You must believe me”, Dyana pleads. Alicent’s eyes are teary as she reaches out to hug the girl. She soothes her, trying to calm her down. As she breaks from the hug, she thanks Dyana for telling her.

The queen cups Dyana’s head to look her in the eye and reassure her “I know it wasn’t your fault. I believe you”. Dyana seems surprised once again by the queen’s attitude. She believes her, she genuinely does.

Alicent’s tone becomes colder, as she adopts the point of view that most people would when questioning Dyana, which would be to incriminate the girl. Albeit harsh, Alicent’s questionary was necessary for Dyana to realise her own peril. The handmaiden swears she won’t tell a word to anyone. Alicent, once again, believes her.

The queen goes back to her calm soft tone, as she places a bag of gold in Dyana’s hand, for her troubles. As she watches the girl drink the moon tea she had asked to be prepared for her, Alicent looks down at the floor, breathing deeply.

CONCLUSION

No amount of gold can undo what Aegon did to Dyana, neither can an abortion lead to its dissipation, but it’s the best Alicent can do in this context.

It is true that by doing this, Alicent was protecting her son and her family, but she was also protecting Dyana from the harm that would come to her if the rape were made public. The handmaiden would be cast aside and doomed to live as a pariah, if not worse.

This is not to say that Alicent is a saint, neither is this to excuse her role in protecting her son Aegon. But to vilify her over this scene is simply wrong. Yes, you can say she did the bare minimum, but not even that much was demanded from her.

Alicent chose her humanity over her duty, even if briefly and in the limited frame her social status allowed. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble by simply incriminating the girl, but instead, she listened to her, reassured her, calmed her down, and to the best of her abilities, protected her. Because Alicent knows what it feels like to endure such pain in silence.

How unlikely for a dutiful queen to lower herself to be able to look a handmaiden in the eye, to hug her, and to believe her over her son. But that’s what Alicent chose to do.

[myfandomprompts]

ALICENT HIGHTOWER & RHAENYRA TARGARYEN

Gif Dump X

[fshfish]

requests from twitttterrrrr

[bbygirl-aemond]

aegon sleeping through alicent holding his hand and sitting at his bedside and cupping his cheek and waking only in time to see her retreating back and mumbling "mummy" is so sick and twisted holy shit

(gif from @joekeerys)

[azperja]

[heavenhatesme]

Alicent and Ser Crispy Cream having a righteous flirty session.

Meanwhile Gwayne Hightower:

[faunshiii]

rhaenicent x challengers idek man

[talesofhightower]

Okay but ..... m o t h e r 😃💗🎀

[flowerandblood]

[nyxemisa]

Queen Alicent Hightower

[goldensunflowe-r]

Rhaenyra spitting fire, angry that someone claimed Seasmoke: WHAT DO YOU WANT?!

Adam freaked out and confused: All I wanted was to go fishing.

[clixsmxdernxs]

[alicentloyalist]

OLIVIA COOKE as ALICENT HIGHTOWER in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON ↳ 2.07 - "The Red Sowing"

[fshfish]

rhaenyra teaching alicent to swim

[bbygirl-aemond]

alicent being forced to choose between saving aegon or saving helaena in the exact same way that helaena was forced to choose between saving jaehaerys or saving jaehaera, and making the exact same choice helaena did to save her daughter, because the truth is that there is no saving her son no matter what she tries to do... the writers ate this one lil thing because the parallels are paralleling