#this is absolutely NOT anti alicole

[meanqueens]

potential hotd leaks under read more

if it’s true they’re changing daeron into being alicent and criston’s bastard i’m going to walk into the ocean, just call it “the character assassination of alicent” instead of HOTD

[top-vi]

alicent fucking criston and then immediately trying to drown herself in the lake is actually extremely in character and absolutely hilarious in a fucked up way

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

HOTD with book ages vs show casting

It's interesting to think about how fans perceptions of characters would be radically different if we had book accurate casting.

Emily Carey (aged 18-19 here) is perfectly age-accurate to play an 18-year-old Alicent.

Meanwhile Paddy Considine, at 48, was pushing it a fair bit to play a 29-year-old Viserys.

For reference, Tom Glynn-Carney was 28 while filming Season 2.

So not that he's my fancast for young Paddy or anything, but let's be real. You would all be writing self-insertxVizzy fics. Alicent would have no more agency in the marriage if Viserys was his book age than his show age, but fan perceptions of Viserys would definitely be different if he was played by a young and attractive actor (no offense of course to Paddy, he is serving Targaryen realness etc.)

Or look at Fabian Frankel. He would have been around 27/28 while filming season 1. You were shipping Alicole back when Emily Carey was still in the role, after all.

And then there's Rhaenyra, who was 8 during the events of the first episode, and 9 when Viserys married Alicent.

Milly Alcock, roughly 21 here, is just a tad older than 8-year-old Rhaenyra.

Amelie Child-Villiers would have been 12-13 while filming Rings of Power, so older than Rhaenyra at the very beginning but can pass for younger.

To anyone who thinks a child Rhaenyra wouldn't have been interesting to follow, er... have you read ASOIAF? There are quite a few prominent child POV characters, you may have noticed. And Alicent doesn't automatically become uninteresting if she's 18 rather than 15... or 40.

I mean I get it, Rhaenycent shippers, you prefer the sapphic dynamic in HOTD... and it is absolutely fine to prefer something! But it isn't inherently deeper or more interesting. It isn't objectively better. BFFesbians can be just as one-note as you claim step-mother/daughter relationships are with the wrong writing, and step-mother/daughter relationships can be richly complicated.

Now, I've already gone through the absolute horror that is book Rhaenyra and book Criston

Criston Cole was 22 when he met a 7-year-old Rhaenyra, 23 during the events of the first episode. So Fabian at 27 (pictured here) is a a few years older, but his age gap with Amelie is the same as Criston and Rhaenyra. And yikes. This is why 'Criston the Dad who Stepped Up' posts make me throw up in my mouth. (Also it is so weird that Criston is never recast after the time jump even though the actor is younger than Emma D'Arcy - Criston is 47 during the Dance).

And yes, Daemon has a similar age gap with Rhaenyra

Daemon was 24 during the events of the first episode. Though I would add that Daemon wasn't, contrary to popular opinion by greens, grooming Rhaenyra when she was a young child. There isn't really any indication that he paid particular attention to his 8-year-old niece - he was mostly sulking on Dragonstone in a relationship with an adult Mysaria for starters, and then he was off in the Stepstones till Viserys and Alicent's 5th wedding anniversary tourney.

From then, no I'm not in favour of a 30-year-old Daemon and a 15-year-old Rhaenyra... I am not in favour of childbrideros. But considering he'd been absent from her life between the ages of 8-15, and there is no indication he ever paid any attention to her before then... it is less creepy than Criston Cole being Rhaenyra's shadow from the age of 7, with rumours of a sexual relationship beginning at a point when she would have been 12-14.

By Westeros standards Daemon unfortunately falls into the 'culturally normalised and could have a whole lot worse' category (and tbf, considering the popularity of ships like SanSan...). This isn't a pro-daemyra or anti-daemyra post, I'm not really going to go into their relationship or whether or not it's healthy here, just clarifying that Daemon isn't the Humbert Humbert of this story - that would be Criston (not being Humbert Humbert of course is a very low bar).

And when it comes to the casting and how that impacts audience perceptions... Matt Smith at 39 was too old for both 24 and 30 year-old Daemon (though exquisite in the role of course).

Considering how his haters condemn Daemon for his actions in episode 1 while excusing Aegon for rape and Aemond for murdering Luke (and burning alive many many other children)... Let's have a look at an age-appropriate actor for 24-year-old Daemon and see if that changes anything.

Ooh would you look at that, Ewan Mitchell at 24 while filming S1.

Or Tom at 28 during S2, just two years younger than 30-year-old Daemon. With a face that wins hearts over rape. You telling me if Daemon was his book age you wouldn't be excusing his actions? You wouldn't be taking all the rape apology arguments Aegon stans use and applying them to Daemon's seduction of a 15-year-old Rhaenyra?

Especially if you still had him acting alongside 21-year-old Milly, who was supposed to pass for a 14 to 18-year-old Rhaenyra.

Hopefully though no one would be excusing a younger Daemon played by Tom Glynn-Carney if he had been put against an actual 14/15 year-old like Evie Allen. Who would have been a more age-accurate (and disturbing) casting for Rhaenyra...

Oh wait, how old was Maddie Evans (Dyana) while filming S1 again? 15? Never mind.

Casting teenagers in such scenarios is of course a difficult business - above all the first priority is to protect underage actors. Milly was well-suited to convincingly play Rhaenyra from early teens to late teens, and it's impossible to constantly re-cast for absolute age-accuracy across the time jumps. But it does impact perception - while the first priority is to protect underage actors, the casting of older actors to play teenagers does contribute to society's perceptions of teenage girls in particular as mature adults, rather than children.

Meanwhile the attractiveness of adult male actors - and the younger they are - does indeed shape what some audiences are willing to forgive or excuse. Reactions to Daemon and Viserys by fans (especially green fans) would be radically different if they were cast with their book ages - sorry to say it greens, but your objections to their characters is in large part due to the fact that you are not attracted to DILFS (or leprosy!). And even if we still aged up Rhaenyra like the show does when she first met Criston Cole, reactions to him during the Dance would be vastly different if he was played by a book-accurate 47-year-old. Again, Fabian Frankel is younger than Emma D'arcy.

Of course, the bar for age accurate casting is clear in the way we were supposed to accept Olivia Cooke playing Tom Glynn Carney's mother (they are two years apart).

Because again if Alicent had been 18 at the start of the show and 41 at the start of the dance she would have ceased to be an interesting character or something I guess. Because no one wants an older woman (ew gross!) as the series co-lead alongside a non-binary lead. And because mother/stepdaughter relationships are inherently one-note while BFFesbians are inherently rich, deep and complex... apparently. It has nothing to do with, you know, the writing quality.

Final Round!!! Aegon and Aemond picking fights with kids

Harvey Sadler here is 8/9 years old when he played young Lucerys. Which makes this baby face 2-3 years older than... a six-year-old Book Jacaerys when 10-year-old Aemond was 'pummelling him savagely'.

So yeah, "3 against 1" - the oldest of those 3 being younger than Harvey Sadler. And honestly, 6-year-old Jace has my undying respect for the sheer balls on him to go up against a bigger kid twice his age and size. Does he care that Aemond has just claimed the largest dragon in the world? No, he pushed over his baby brother!

"But it's more interesting if Aemond and Jace are peers" Maybe. If HOTD gave Jace equal screentime and character development perhaps. But they didn't. Any value added by making the antagonist interesting and sympathetic is cancelled out if the cost is ignoring the protagonist or making the protagonist boring (especially in a family civil war drama!).

"But sympathetic Aemond is much more interesting" I am not arguing against making him sympathetic. He is still a kid here, and he still has Aegon to bully him and earn him pity points and trigger a cycle of bullying as he takes out his grievances on others who don't deserve it etc. You don't need to age up his victims or remove sympathy or screentime from them. Sympathy doesn't have to be zero-sum.

Leo Hart was 13 at the time of filming, so the perfect age to play a 12-year-old Jace during the dinner scene where a grown-ass Aegon picks a fight with him over asking Helaena for a dance. Also an accurate age to play a 13-year-old Luke when Aemond murders him.

Elliot Grihault who played teenaged Luke was meanwhile actually closer in age to Book Jace during the dance than Harry Collett (no offence Harry, you still made a more believable teenager than 24-year-old Jon Snow did).

And lest we forget Aegon's true nemesis... 13 year old girls on tiny dragons 'no bigger than a horse'. No offence to a 24-year-old Bethany Antonia, but Shani Smethurst at 12 was perfectly cast to play Baela during the Dance and absolutely would have been the next Arya if this show didn't hate black girls.

But hey, at least we got adult Baela saying "I am blood and fire" while the script struggles (*cough doesn't bother) to find her anything to really do. That sure is an improvement over book Baela acting out, causing chaos, kissing kitchen boys and crying to save them from punishment, grieving alone on dragonstone after the gullet, trying desperately to get the adults around her to believe her suspicions about Grey Ghost, wrecking Aegon on her tiny dragon, being forced to grow up quickly under captivity and fiercely defending her rescuers from execution.

[comradekarin]

Heartbreaking to think that we could have had a peck on the cheek in Season 1, but HBO decided against it.

bethany and harry did mention they improvised a small kiss scene in season one but it didn’t make the final cut. my oomfs think it was during the dinner scene right before jace asked helaena to dance. absolutely sick that i have to see so much of criston cole on my screen, alicole sex scenes, daemon going to pound town on his mom, and seeing that dumb look on alicent’s face every single scene but i can’t get a small jacaela kiss that would have taken two seconds? anti blackness is a hell of a disease because why else are they robbing us blind like this?

[thephantomcasebook]

Do you think we'll get some Helaemond scenes and maybe Aemond fathering Maelor? For episode 4 leaks, Helaena still isn't pregnant before Rook's Rest and after Rook's Rest, Aegon’s gonna be fried crispy... I dunno if we'll get Maelor or they'll cut it. But antis are so pressed about it, saying it’ll ruin Helaena’s arc. They claim Helaemond is never in the script and Ryan Condal isn't making it happen, saying shippers are delulu

I can dig antis that have legit arguments against Helaemond.

But most anti-Helaemond people are really only against them because of the appearance of it. As if, somehow, it'll make the Greens look bad to the TB supports who will call them hypocrites. Which, first of all, it's ASoIaF ... they're all hypocrites, that's the point of the stories. Second of all, who the fuck cares what the Team Black Supporters say?

It astounds me that so many Green Supporters want some sort of affirmation or absolution from normies and Black supports, or are so bent on being morally justified in their favs. It's getting really annoying at this point.

I mean, I have a shit boat of problems with the way Condal and Hess, and the ghost showrunner is writing Team Green, especially Alicent and Criston. And I really hate Hess's double standards. But at the same time there really isn't any good arguments against Helaemond or A+C=D, other than it will make Team Green look like Hypocrites or somehow it'll hurt the Green's legitimacy somehow ... which as I say "As Opposed too ...?"

Like, Daeron being a bastard, who used the Citadel's texts and the Magical Library of the Hightower to tame Tessarion, is really no different than what Nettles does. And somehow, we're supposed to be offended cause only Nettles should be allowed to tame a dragon with no Dragon Lord blood? Nettles isn't in the show, cause Condal, like a lot of us, found her relationship with Daemon fucking creepy.

Condal has said that Maelor is coming, that he'll be a character, and since the leaks confirm that TCG will not be reappearing this season after Episode 5, it really means that Maelor is either going to be Aemond and Helaena's son or he'll be Criston and Alicent's baby. Either way, Phia Saban and Ewan Mitchell have confirmed that they have a lot of scenes together in the back half of the season and they played it as if Helaemond is a real thing.

So time will tell, but from what I understand, 5-7 is gonna be the Alicole and Helaemond show for TG.

[queenvhagar]

Even the way Alicole sex scenes are shot indicates that Alicent’s sexual liberation is seen as comedic or hypocritical by the writers. We should have sensed something was very wrong during B&C when Helaena walked into Alicole having sex. Absolutely no reason for having that scene if not for (once again) humiliate and mock Alicent and somehow push the blame on her. The scene HAS to have a visual shot of Olivia riding too….not just bursting the doors open and Alicent getting off Criston.

Exactly. This voyeuristic view is meant to objectify her 100%. You can also see it in that her very first on screen appearance this season is her also having sex and the viewer sees this as it is already ongoing. There is no thought to their experience or relationship and it's meant to simply shock each time it happens. Doing this to a child bride sexual assault victim in an attempt to humble her and make her look hypocritical for finally finding a safe sexual experience in her life... is anti feminist frankly. Sexual freedom is only praised when it is Rhaenyra making her bastards and committing treason.

[mhevarujta]

Alicent and her sexuality in s02

Alicent is going to be called ALL kinds of names. A hypocrite, a whore, nasty etc. come Sunday.

It has already started. Antis who have heard about alicole happening are trashing the character. And for what?

Sure, Alicent having sex as a dowager in that world, with the existing standards of morality, IS hypocritical, but that's kind of the point. She is religious and she TRIED, oh, she DID try to uphold what she has been raised to believe in. But she's also human. A human who married young a man she was not in love with, who became his carer for the vast majority of her youth, whose only other exploration of sex has been to allow Larys to look at her feet for information that her father COULD have made her privy too because he DID have people of his own gathering information. He even allowed it to continue when Larys told him he too could benefit.

Alicent, her indulgence after her husband's death, her guild (especially after a moment of pleasure gets entangled with a traumatic event from her family) are all things that can make one understand her and feel for her... IF one cares to understand the character.

Of course she ends up being a hypocrite, because the standards she has been raised with, the same ones that had her ruin her life, pick at her nails etc. are impossible to uphold without being absolutely miserable, and even when she tries to break free her internalized beliefs doom her to misery still.

Alicent is deeply flawed, but understandable in a way that can easily make one empathize. I genuinely think that it's misogynist to write her off as a whore, or any other offensive word that I've seen.

[saltywinteradult]

I’ve seen Alicent stans who are anti Rhaenicent make this argument so I want your honest truth. Hand on heart, is the only reason you ship Rhaenicent because Alicent has no other female relationship in either book or show minus Helaena?

Absolutely not.

Shipping isn't a zero-sum game to me. If Alicent had any other women in her life besides Helaena, I might ship her with them too. For comparison, I totally ship Rhaenyra with Laena (we were ROBBED!!!) and I even have a soft spot for Rhaenyra and Harwin (yeah, we were kinda robbed of that one too. Damn those time jumps!). Likewise, I am absolutely on board with platonic Alicole because for all his flaws, Criston is one of the few positive relationships Alicent has (and also because it's objectively hilarious how Criston puts Alicent on a pedestal as the Mother incarnate while Alicent, the lesbianest lesbian to ever lesbian, is still lusting after Rhaenyra decades after their breakup). However, none of this changes the fact that I consider Rhaenyra and Alicent to be the central relationship of the show. The fact that I don't think Rhaenicent will ever be canon doesn't change that. Their messy gay breakup is not the only thing that caused the Dance of the Dragons, but it sure as hell contributed a lot. It's a divorce so toxic it caused war crimes to be committed and thousands of people to die. Is it a deeply toxic dynamic? Yes. Is it by far the best relationship on the show? Also yes.

[florisbaratheons]

#fcking hate that sex scene between rhaenyra and criston#no matter how many excuses clare kilner or whoever wrote the scene give it will never change the fact that what they shot was#sex under coercion 😕 such an irresponsible way to go about what they wanted to convey bc all it gave was rape#'they loved each other' please shut the fuck up and touch up on the criteria of consent. or how to direct your actors. or how to write this#supposed love between characters BC SINCE WHEN DID THAT FEELING EMERGE ???!?#god this show is awful with sexual assault themes#alicent#criston cole#alicole#anti rhaenyra#hotd critical#hotd (via @gojuo Absolutely. "He could have said no! What could Rhaenyra have done to him?! He was an adult and she was a teenager!" Okay? Maybe don't have the teenager be a very powerful princess who could have pointed the finger and said "Daddy, he did XYZ." And remember Criston expecting to be executed? He flat out says that to Alicent when he confesses. "The sin you allude too. I have committed it. At her instigation, it is true, but it is no excuse. My oath has been broken, I have dishonored myself. I deserve no consideration. But if, as a clement queen, you are inclined to pity. I would ask only this. But rather than gelding me, and having me tortured. You would sentence me mercifully to death."

And then why do we keep forgetting about Saera Targaryen? Her relationships with her boyfriends were all consensual, but her father still killed one and gelded the other two, and made her watch.

Alicent and Criston have every right to be together.

I’ve read a lot of posts regarding their non-existent hypocrisy and I’d like to clear some things up.

First and foremost, stop using Alicent’s “Where is duty, where is sacrifice?” line against her or Nyra’s outrageous “Exhausting, wasn’t it?” speech because you think you’re eating when you’re, in fact, starving. Alicent has done her duty and sacrificed herself. It’s the only thing she’s been doing for the past 20 years. She gave the man she was forced to marry four children and she took care of him despite all the shit he put her through. She has lived all her life based on her principles and now her husband is gone. She mourned him, she buried him, it’s been more than 10 days since his death (confirmed that E1 S2 takes place 10 days after Lucerys’ death) and she is finally fucking free. She deserves a sliver of comfort. Alicent is the only one in this series that’s been faithful and dutiful to a T, yet look where that got her. If someone has the right to break the law a little bit, it’s definitely her.

That being said, I don’t know when it was decided that Alicent is a pious saint that can do no wrong, but I need to remind y’all that following a religion does not magically prevent you from sinning. Is she committing fornication? Obviously. However, you are all under this impression that this is hypocritical on her behalf because she berated Rhaenyra for it when they were younger, without considering that her anger was justified for a myriad of other reasons, such as (but not limited to): 1) the fact that Rhaenyra’s freedom to marry whomever she pleased was a privilege granted to her thanks to Alicent’s efforts, who supported her even if Rhaenyra hated her, yet her friend casually threw that away, 2) the fact that Rhaenyra lied to her by swearing on her morher’s grave and never even mentioned Criston, 3) the fact that Rhaenyra had the guts to call her “sister” while lying to her face, 4) the fact that her lies resulted in Otto getting fired since Rhaenyra misled Alicent so that she speaks to Viserys in favour of her friend and betraying her own father by siding against him (a decision she wouldn’t have made if she knew the truth), leaving her completely alone and friendless at court, even if he was right all along and finally 5) the fact that Rhaenyra is the most sought after bachelorette in the whole world and by having sex she undermines herself (Rhaenyra knows this well, hence why she denies these accusations) and literally endangers herself, because had she been married to any other man but Laenor and had this man found out his wife and future queen is not a virgin, imagine the fucking horrors she could have been subjected to. Like, I hate to break it to you, but a 40-year-old widow, who’s had four kids and has completed her duty to the point where she is actually no longer needed and could leave the palace to go live the rest of her life in peace somewhere else and no one would notice her absence (literally though, she has birthed heirs, her husband is dead, her son is a grown adult king, her job is done there), having sex, is not the same as an 18-year-old princess and future heir in her prime, whose purity is linked to her worth, getting caught drunk in a brothel, hooking up with her uncle and losing her virginity to her guard, all in one night. Viserys himself was outraged. There’s lows and then there’s lows, y’all.

By the way, the crazy assumptions that Alicent has been cheating on Viserys with Criston for a while now need to stop. When Olivia Cooke said that they had filmed a messy sex scene with Fabien Frankel in a recent interview, she never said this was for S1 of HOTD. I don’t know where y’all got that from, but even if it was true, that scene has been scrapped so it is not canon. And don’t make me laugh about Daeron, a dragon rider who canonically has Valyrian features, potentially having brown hair. You’re all so blinded by your hatred for Alicent that you want her to be a lying hypocrite in order to make yourselves feel better about Rhaenyra’s mishaps, that you don’t get that the whole point of her and Criston getting physical is that she is a tortured woman who is finally able to break free, not that she has been a hypocrite all along. You’re heavily misunderstanding her arc.

Finally, when it comes to my good man Criston, y’all have lost it completely. No, Alicent is not raping him, unless he tells her to stop and she closes the door behind her like Rhaenyra did that is. No, Criston did not lie about how important his honour is to him. There’s a whole article on how Clare Kilner, the director of E4 S1, decided that Cole removing his armour slowly was necessary because it symbolises his inner conflict and uncertainty over breaking his vow: should he soil his cloak for the sake of the woman he loves? And he does soil it, because he thinks she loves him back. But that honourable man dies the day Rhaenyra tells him that he’ll never be anything more than a side piece to her. This man stops giving a flying fuck about his honour, oath, position and life. He is trying to kill himself. And you know what stops him? Alicent. Alicent is the only thing between him and death, the only person to show him kindness and understanding, to pull him up from the lowest point in his life. I don’t think you heard Alicent in E7 S1: “No, you’re sworn to me!”. Y’all. His life is hers. He doesn’t care about Rhaenyra, his job, Viserys, anyone else at this point. Only Alicent exists in his mind, Fabien himself has said time and time again that his loyalty to her is unwavering. He only exists for Alicent’s sake. He’s who you wish Daemon was. Crying that “Criston is a bad knight and a liar because he broke his chastity oath yet again!” is so pointless because that knight has been dead since Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor. What does an oath mean when you find out the people you swore it to have betrayed you?