#casual reminder that alicent is meant to be eight years older than rhaenyra

[girddlepatchilles]

I think the worst thing about making Alicent younger for HoTD was that we lost the fact she used to read to Jaehaerys before his death. Like… in canon Alicent was a teenager when she was reading to the Old King and she was known to Jaehaerys’ heir Viserys. His choice to marry Alicent made a lot more sense in the book than it did in the show.

I suspect in show canon, Alicent’s mother was the one doing the reading, so perhaps that’s how Rhaenyra and Alicent ended up first meeting. Babby Rhaenyra bothering grandfather and instead finding a new playmate? Adorable! Maybe Alicent's mother saw how excited her daughter was after she spent an afternoon with Rhaenyra. Queue the ticking time bomb that is the tragedy of Rhaenyra and Alicent's love I mean friendship.

If we look at the book, Alicent was Jaehaerys' companion until his death. We're told in Fire & Blood that Jaehaerys started to mistake her for his daughters towards the end. Towards the end of Alicent's life, we learn that she starts talking about the king. Despite how... Targaryen Jaehaerys is, I do think he and Alicent must have grown close in the short time Alicent was reading to him. I suspect the young Alicent (who was fifteen at the time) may have either developed a crush on Jaehaerys or started romanticising the idea of him. I would not put it past Otto to have tried convincing Alicent to seduce the old king, or perhaps even establish herself as a potential mistress for Viserys. It seems highly likely that Alicent based her expectations for Viserys on her relationship with Jaehaerys... which sort of explains why during her last days she asked to see her children and King Jaehaerys... while saying nothing of her husband.

Basically, the show runners missed a really strong reason for Viserys to inevitably choose Alicent and removed an interesting aspect of Alicent's book characterisation.