#if you use the word 'qu/eerbait' in reply to this post i will block you

[mswyrr]

the Sept scene was fully in character for Rhaenyra & Alicent

I've seen fans--even Rhaenicent fans!--saying it was ooc or "fanfic." It wasn't. The original scene was much shorter: Emma and Olivia, two very talented actors who know their characters well, expanded it. They weren't just wasting time or suddenly lacking in talent and insight. They knew what they were doing and it connects all the way back.

So let's go all the way back! Where do we begin? Episode 1x01, King Viserys wants a son and male heir; he has wanted a son for so long that Rhaenyra, his 14-year-old daughter says (ep 1x01) "For as long as I can recall, it’s all he’s wanted." What has this done to her? Well, for one thing, it has made her mother, who has difficult pregnancies, in ill health for most of her life. This ill health means that Aemma did a lot of lecturing (and trying to keep Rhaenyra from flying and doing other risky things while she was sick) and not a lot of getting to spend quality time with her daughter. A distracted father, ruling the realm, and a mother sick with trying to give him the male heir he prioritizes above his wife and daughter.

Who has been there for Rhaenyra? Alicent. Alicent was hers. When Rhaenyra flies on her dragon, experiencing freedom from all her worries and power and joy, she wants ALICENT to be there with her, high above the sea, looking out over the city:

[source: 1x01 script]

When Rhaenyra had to have a difficult conversation with her mother, it was Alicent she looked to for comfort and emotional support -- in an act a cut scene from the script *explicitly calls "flirting"*. Rhaenyra relies on and longs for that "disarming kindness" she says Alicent has.

And it was Alicent's lap that Rhaenyra flirts about loving to lie upon. Alicent is so much to Rhaenyra that she dreams of running away together, just the two of them and Rhaenyra's bonded dragon Syrax.

Alicent was her cherished girl, her comfort and her chief supporter and advisor. She was Rhaenyra's heart's rest. And, yes - it was a friendship blossoming into flirtation and desire as the two matured. They were on the cusp of something. They were the world to each other.

[source]

Emma and Olivia get it and have always gotten it. Rhaenyra has this gorgeous yang or solar energy that finds balance with Alicent's yin or lunar energy. They're a sun and moon couple, balancing each other's strengths and weaknesses. With Alicent, the sword of Rhaenyra's intense energy has a sheath. A resting place. Her fire has a hearth. And Alicent isn't drained by people (like Viserys would later do...) who just take and take and take -- hurting her and draining that "disarming kindness" of hers until she's broken and ruined inside. Rhaenyra gives and cherishes in a way that made Alicent feel whole and appreciated.

Rhaenyra goes from being angry (angry the way a jilted lover would be - calling Alicent a "whore" for what she felt emotionally imo as Alicent cheating on Rhaenyra with her father) to instantly deeply protective and possessive once she learns more. See the cut scene after Viserys reveals his engagement to Alicent:

[script pages source] [photo source]

Rhaenyra is ready to take on the whole Seven Kingdoms to protect her girl!

Rhaenyra liked being the focus of Alicent playing the "lady beloved" role - reading soothingly to her, supporting and encouraging and admiring her, teasing her for being naughty, advising her about her political situation. She found rest and comfort there - and then Viserys took her mother, cutting her open to get his precious son out. And then, in his remorse and grief, he took comfort in Rhaenyra's girl (who was forced to give him that precious kindness of hers by her father) and her father *stole her girl too*. Not only did he steal her girl, he put her own status as heir into question by having a firstborn son with her - after wounding Rhaenyra deeply by chasing a son as far back as she could remember!

All the "she should be over it" stuff about Alicent... if Rhaenyra were a male character people would recognize the wound of having his crush stolen out from under him by his old man at the same time his old man refuses to fully back his status as heir - it's archetypal! It's gd Greek. Your old man trying to keep you from the girl you want, from your desires and destiny as an adult.

Rhaenyra makes total sense in the Sept scene - she has the primal wound of a girl who is an HEIR - who wanted to have things and act and possess and stand tall and be the lover to a girl's beloved in a way only boys are allowed in this society... and whose father took her girl away from her as well as making her feel uncertain of her status in a deeply wounding way. Rhaenyra correctly locates, emotionally, her rupture from Alicent as where it all went wrong. The Sept scene is about all of that emotionally and it makes total sense. It is also about Rhaenyra's sheer desperation and comprehension of the horror coming... and the most heartbreaking longing to return to a time when Alicent's heart was her home.

Alicent's heart was Rhaenyra's home. And her father stole the girl she loved. He took her and savaged and used and broke her and made her give birth to children she didn't want (at least not with him) from decades of sex she did. not. want. because even men who think they're nice in this society are allowed that - to cut a wife open for a son, to use a girl young enough to be his daughter. He vacillated between wounding and affirming Rhaenyra, never fully able to honor her as his heir because she was not a boy. And he couldn't even conceive of her feelings for Alicent because this is a deeply homophobic society - but he was also, even seeing it in a platonic light, selfish and inconsiderate of her feelings for her best friend.

He kept putting his feelings and needs first, over his wife, over his daughter, over her best friend.

I don't care if nobody else gets it - the way Emma plays it? They get it. They're an extremely talented actor who wasn't going "ooc" in the Sept - they were playing *that*. My father inflicted these primal wounds on me because my coming of age was more like a boy's--like things that should be allowed girls but are denied them-- and he thwarted me and yet I love him. And I love Alicent and I long for her heart, though it's full of poison and broken things now. Why does it all have to be like this? Why does it have to hurt so much?

The Sept scene is entirely in character for both of them. It is not "fanfic." It is not OOC. It is the broken heart of this tragedy bleeding before our eyes.