Sinful Sunday: The Queer Tragedy of Alicent Hightower
HBO's "House of the Dragon" gives much-needed richness and depth to one of the most hated characters in Westeros.
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Welcome to “Sinful Sundays,” where I explore and analyze some of the most notorious queer villains of film and TV (and sometimes literature, depending on my mood). These are the characters that entrance and entertain and revolt us, sometimes all three at the same time. As these queer villains show, very often it’s sweetly good to be bitterly bad.
At first glance, it might seem a bit counterintuitive to suggest that Alicent Hightower, the one-time quasi-leader of the Greens, is a queer villain. After all, most of her longest relationships, both sexual and otherwise, have been with men–her husband Viserys, obviously, but also Larys and Criston. However, it’s not hard to see how the one bond that has always mattered the most to her, both when she was a teenager and even as an adult, has been with Rhaenyra. It may be hard to remember now, but a great deal of commentary around the first season involved just exactly how close the two women were when they were young, and there does seem to be at least a fragile consensus that there was sapphic longing on both their parts. This, indeed, is what makes House of the Dragon even more tragic than it is already, focusing as it does on a powerful dragon-riding dynasty that tears itself apart and sows the seeds for its own ruin.
Thus, it’s worth taking a closer look at Alicent as a queer villain, though perhaps it might be more accurate to say that she’s a queer tragic heroine, in the sense that her actions, while seemingly justified, end up bringing about the very chaos and bloodshed she wants to avert. Moreover, as we learn during the course of the second season, she increasingly finds herself sidelined within the royal court, right up until the moment her son Aemond essentially banishes her from the small council, leading her to wander in the Kingswood with only one member of the Kingsguard for company. If that isn’t a scene straight out of a Shakespeare play, then I don’t know what is.
By now it’s no secret that much of the show’s fandom has a deep-rooted hatred of Alicent, thanks in no small part to the part she played in giving the anti-Rhaenrya coup the extra ballast it needed by proclaiming that it was Viserys’ last wish that the crown pass to his son Aegon rather than Rhaenyra. She also seems at times to be willfully ignorant of how things have spiraled very much out of control, and there have been times when her wide-eyed innocence can seem more than a bit feigned.
However, one of the things that I’ve appreciated most about House of the Dragon is the extent to which it has drawn out some of the complexities and nuances of Alicent’s character and made her into something much more interesting than she ever becomes in Fire & Blood (where she is far more passive and cold than her on-screen counterpart). As becomes clear during the second season in particular, her belief that Viserys intended the crown to pass to his eldest son was born out of a fatal misunderstanding, and it’s only when Rhaenyra conspires to meet with her in King’s Landing (in disguise, of course), that the full truth dawns on her. Olivia Cooke perfectly captures Alicent’s dawning horror and terror as she realizes that she helped to set a war in motion based on a misunderstanding (which is itself based on the frustrating Targaryen tendency to give children names that are either the same or quite similar).
Indeed, this whole scene, implausible as it is, does remind us of just how close these two women were, in those halcyon days before the realm was plunged into uncertainty and an ever-escalating state of civil war. When the series begins, the two young women are bosom buddies, and though they never consummate their relationship in any physical sense, it’s clear that they’re putting their toes right on the line when it comes to doing so. As Chloe Johnson rightly points out, theirs is a “formative homoerotic friendship that never got to fulfill its potential.” Even though the show doesn’t come right out and say this, it’s repeatedly suggested that it’s this frustrated love that, as many writers have pointed out, still remains the heart and soul of the series. They are star-crossed lovers torn apart by politics, circumstance, and the ruthless, irresistible logic of patriarchy.
Even after the rupture between the two halves of the Targaryens in the aftermath of Viserys’ death, it’s clear that neither of them is quite willing to let go of their affection for and faith in the other. While it’s tempting to laugh at Alicent’s almost desperate inquiries as to whether Rhaenyra has answered her letters regarding Lucerys’ death at Aemond’s hands (and Vhagar’s jaws), there’s something almost endearing about the look in her eyes as she asks. You get the feeling that she genuinely does want to know what’s going through her former friend’s mind and that it hasn’t really dawned on her just how bad things have become and how lines have been crossed that can never be uncrossed. Likewise, you actually find yourself sympathizing with her when she lights a candle for young Luke’s soul, a reminder that, behind the ugly caricatures of the historians, there is in fact a very human face.
All of this isn’t to say that Alicent isn’t totally absolved of her guilt in the usurpation. Far from it. Even if she earnestly believed that Viserys had changed his mind on his deathbed–and whether or not you believe this depends a great deal on how nefarious and subtle you think she is–the truth is that she knew very well that his entire life and reign was devoted to making sure that his daughter was the one to ascend the Iron Throne. While one can’t blame her for wanting to do the best by her son–and while there was probably some truth to the idea that Aegon would have ended up being killed, either by Rhaenyra herself or by those who would want to help her solidify her hold on the throne–there’s no doubt that she violated her husband’s avowed intentions when it came to the succession.
As the second season has gone on, House of the Dragon has also repeatedly reminded us that there are far more things binding Rhaenyra and Alicent together than there are things pushing them apart. At the end of the day they are both women trying to exert some measure of control and power in a world in which women are repeatedly sidelined and pushed out of positions of power. Their fates are mirrors of one another, both for better and for worse, and it will be fascinating to see what happens between the two of them when and if Rhaenyra should be successful in claiming King’s Landing and the Iron Throne.
And then there’s the question of Alicent’s actual physical desire. By this point we’ve seen her have at least three sexual relationships with men, but what’s been made abundantly clear is just how little she seems to feel for any of the men in her life. Her marriage to Viserys was one of political convenience, her foot play with Larys was seemingly a matter of gaining influence and insight into the workings of power, and her dalliance with Criston was…well, it seems to have been something to pass the time and achieve at least a bit of physical pleasure and satisfaction on her own terms. None of these, however, ever seem to come close to the simple intimacy that she shared with Rhaenyra, before the ugly politics of Westeros entered their lives and disrupted the future they might have had. Is it any wonder that she speaks to her father of her belief that the gods are punishing her?
It’s very easy to hate on Alicent and to see her political sidelining and eventual dismissal from the small council as her just desserts for the role she played in displacing Rhaenyra from the rightful succession. It’s worth pointing out, though, that she never really asked to be a part of this messy family; she was essentially thrown into Viserys’ bed by her father and his own unremitting lust for power and influence. She has, quite simply, done the best that she can with a dreadful hand, and all while contending with the fact that the one person in all the world with whom she might have been able to build a life–one of adventures beyond the Narrow Sea and eating cake every day, as Rhaenyra puts it in the first season–was snatched away from her, never to be regained.
And now, at last, we all stand on the precipice as we wait for tonight’s episode, to see how far each side is willing to go in order to secure the Iron Throne. At this point it’s not just about the power that it represents; instead, it’s about the very lives of those involved. Too much blood has been spilled, too many acts of violence have been committed, for anyone to really back down now. To do so would be to invite certain death. Alicent seems to recognize this unfortunate reality, which is perhaps why she retreats to the Kingswood, to commune with nature and perhaps find some measure of the peace that continues to elude her in King’s Landing. As book readers know, there is a very bleak future in store for her and, unlike so many others, I dread seeing it come to pass.