Going to say something that might ruffle a few feathers!
See the thing with the HOTD fandom (+ society in general) and Alicent’s motherhood is they treat her as if it is her inherent responsibility and obligation to be a good and competent mother - which had she chosen to be a mother, had she wanted to, it would be!
It is the inherent responsibility and obligation of women who choose to have children to protect and provide for those children. They chose to bring those children into the world, they chose that responsibility.
Society desperately needs to unlearn looking at women as nothing more than tools whose only purpose in life is for everyone but themselves.
It is NOT a woman’s obligation to be a mother for children she did not choose to be a mother for. No, it doesn’t just “become” her responsibility to look after those children because she was forced to give birth. Just because that responsibility was forced upon her does not mean it actually is hers.
Do children deserve to be loved? Of course. Do they deserve a mother who protects and provides? Of course!
That never, not even a little bit, negates the fact that women should have full bodily autonomy.
Alicent is a flawed character, she is far from perfect, but to say Alicent is a bad mother implies that it was ever actually her responsibility to be a mother in the first place. So many people do not interact with her character nor her flaws with the correct understanding of this.
Alicent’s attempts at being a mother, despite her flaws and despite those attempts most definitely not always being the best ones, are still attempts that were never her responsibility to begin with.
No, it doesn’t make her a good mother either, but she’s already doing a lot more than 1. she’s required to and 2. most men who want and choose children do.
And the comparison of her between Rhaenyra, a woman who did want and choose her children and did have the choice of who and when, is simply illogical.
It is nothing more than misogynistic standards that Alicent, a girl who was forced into marriage at 14, raped and then forced to give birth multiple times, faces significantly more vitriol than the man whose choice it was to marry her, rape her and force her to bear his children. Even though that very man, who did have obligation to those children, the children he wanted and he chose, was a completely useless, neglectful, absent father.
Oh and! Just because girls and women have been raped, forced into marriages and forced to give birth for centuries and centuries does not mean that it was ever something that was acceptable or good, does not mean it was ever their “duty” and definitely does not mean that just because they were forced to and did take on that responsibility, that other victims should do the same and are lesser if they don’t. You would think this would be common sense, but unfortunately far too many people tend to go “oh but xyz went through the same thing and xyz reacted this way so!”
