#but making Alicent literally bend to Rhaenyra's (narrative) needs is so insulting

[lunamond]

I really hate how they have all but confirmed that they are going to purposely sideline Alicent in season 2.

This is clearly Condal's idea of making Alicent sympathetic. They are framing Rhaenyra as not just the rightful heir but as the only moral choice for future monarch, so as her opposition the Greens have to be villains.

But because they want Alicent to still be likeable, they can't make her the leader of the Greens. By having her secretly pine for Rhaenyra, while also being mistreated and ignored by the men in her faction, Condal thinks he can make the audience like her more.

But this doesn't really work because they only really manage to make her look whishy washy in her resolve to fight a war in which her children's and grandchildren's lifes are at stake. She ends up being continually victimised and robbed of her agency to ensure that she can never take a decisive and definitive stance against Rhaenyra. Every time she makes a move against her, the writers have her walk it back almost immediately.

S1Ep8 is probably the most eggregious instance of this. She goes from strictly opposing Rhaenyra's and her sons' claims to praising Rhaenyra at the dinner, saying she will make a good queen and back to using Viserys last words to place Aegon on the throne, all in the span of a single episode.

They made Alicent narratively subservient to Rhaenyra, which is a big problem because her express purpose in the narrative is to be Rhaenyra's opposition.

Knowing how the 1st Episode of Season 2 will go done + a couple of other leaks of later episodes + the things they tease about Alicent in interviews is so frustrating, because they are clearly doubling down in this.