This post is honestly proof that people tend to hate historically grounded characters because they remind us that the past was complicated. Not everyone had the freedom to think or act like a 21st-century person with modern values.
As a result, these characters end up being judged through a modern lens and reduced to “religious zealot,” “conservative,” or “misogynist,”
Historical realism means acknowledging that people are shaped by the societies they live in, even when those societies are deeply flawed.
I wish Alicent was motivated by being a religious zealot and conservative who refuses to accept a Queen with ~loose~ sexual morals who intends to put a bastard on the throne.
You think bastardy isn’t a big deal in a society that built its entire political system around legitimate inheritance? GRRM pulls heavily from real history, especially late-medieval England and Western Europe, when building Westeros. And in that period, the legal situation for bastards actually got worse, not better. During the Late Middle Ages, the Church and the nobility both pushed harder on strict marriage rules and strict legitimacy laws. Being born outside of marriage became a much bigger problem than it had been earlier. Even noble families started treating illegitimate children as political dangers, not just family secrets.
If Rhaenyra’s sons are widely believed to be illegitimate and one inherits the Iron Throne, that’s a recipe for civil war because rival claimants will always have grounds to challenge them. On top of that, Alicent has her own children. Their existence changes everything whether you think she’s right or wrong, her concern isn’t simply, "Rhaenyra had sex" It’s that Viserys produced legitimate sons under a system that overwhelmingly favors male succession, yet insists everyone ignore that reality.
This isn’t unique to ASOIAF either you have IRL Caroline Matilda of Denmark and her daughter Louise Augusta. Louise Augusta was almost certainly the child of Johann Friedrich Struensee rather than the king. Officially she was recognized as the king’s daughter, yes but the scandal exploded anyway. Struensee was executed and the queen was exiled. Even the suspicion of passing off a lover’s child as a royal heir was politically horrified or another closer example Joanna la Beltraneja who was widely considered illegitimate, but she was officially the daughter of King Henry IV of Castile. The legitimacy was questioned because her mother, Joan of Portugal, was believed to have had an affair with a courtier named Beltrán de la Cueva, who was rumored to be Joanna's biological father. This became a central issue during the succession struggle that followed Henry's death despite the king insisted she’s his bio daughter.
Whether the accusations are true almost becomes secondary the rumor alone can destabilize a realm. Rhaenyra insisting her sons were legitimate wouldn’t have magically ended the speculation. Bastardy rumors have started succession crises throughout history, and in asoiaf they’re even more politically explosive. Her reign was always going to led to another dance due to her stupidity, with or without Alicent. A claim that produces another inevitable civil war is a failed claim, regardless of who holds it.
We see this with Catelyn Stark and Jon Snow. Catelyn fears having a bastard raised alongside her own children, is she just a religious zealot who hates bastards? Catelyn is worried about the potential consequences for her children’s future in a society where obsessed with legitimacy.
Of course Catelyn would see Jon’s presence as a political risk. That doesn’t mean every action she takes is right, but her fears are understandable within the world she lives in.
I wish Alicent was motivated by crazed paranoia, genuinely believing that her children and children's children will always be a threat and thus never safe.
It’s not paranoia when history repeatedly shows rival claimants being imprisoned, executed, or used as figureheads whether they wanted the throne or not. The Princes in the Tower. Arthur of Brittany. Lady Jane Grey. Just like Elizabeth I didn’t choose to be a threat to Mary. Mary didn’t choose to be a threat to Elizabeth. Lady Jane Grey didn’t want to be queen either she was a teenager used as a political pawn. Even within ASOIAF, succession disputes end in bloodshed because claims themselves are dangerous.
Alicent doesn’t have to believe her descendants will always be hunted. She only has to recognize that as long as rival claims exist, her children and grandchildren can be used against the reigning monarch or be removed by those who fear they’ll become rallying points for rebellion. That’s not “crazed paranoia.” That’s how hereditary monarchy functions. The system doesn’t care whether the claimant is ambitious or completely innocent. Their mere existence is enough to make them politically dangerous.
Nor did Alicent create this contradiction viserys did the moment he named Rhaenyra heir, remarried, fathered multiple legitimate sons, and refused to legally resolve the succession, he created two competing lines with plausible claims. Once those sons existed, they became a threat to Rhaenyra’s line by default, just as Rhaenyra became a threat to theirs.
We see this thought process throughout the main series with Robert and Stannis as well.
Yes, part of it comes from Robert hatred of the Targaryens, but there is also a political necessity: he wants to remove potential threats to his rule. At the end of Robert’s Rebellion, the main surviving Targaryen threats were Viserys and Daenerys, with Viserys being viewed as the bigger threat because he was the male heir. Even after Viserys dies, Daenerys remains a potential threat because she is married and pregnant. Any son she has could be used as a claimant to the Iron Throne.As long as Daenerys lives and can produce children, ambitious nobles could use her bloodline as a banner for another rebellion. That is why Robert saw her existence as a political danger.
This is also the logic behind Stannis’ situation with Robert’s "children." Even though he is Robert’s rightful heir, taking the throne would not automatically end the conflict. He needs to deal with Tommen and Myrcella because as long as they are alive, there would still be people who believe they’re Robert’s children and could rally around them, even if they were bastards, innocent, even if they did not want power themselves.
We see similar situations with unwin Peake who attempted to use Jaehaera by arranging a marriage that would create another Targaryen line to oppose Aegon III and his descendants. The goal was to prevent rival branches from becoming tools for ambitious factions.
It’s not always as simple as “I will kill you because you want power” or “because you are personally trying to take the throne.” In many succession conflicts, the person being removed may be completely innocent and may not even want power at all. Rebels can use someone’s name and claim as a symbol to gather support, even against that person’s own wishes.
Preventing future rebellions could lead rulers to make extreme decisions, even against people who were not personally responsible for the conflict, people they loved, or even their own kin. That is one of the darkest parts of monarchy that family ties did not always protect people when rulers believed their existence could become a threat to the stability of the realm.
I wish Alicent was motivated by internalized misogyny and staunchly believing a brother should come before a sister and that women shouldn't rule in their own right at all.
There’s a difference between being against one specific woman and being against women ruling in general. Alicent’s conflict was not simply “women can’t rule.” If that was her belief, she wouldn’t have considered marrying Aegon to Rhaenyra or accepting a situation where Rhaenyra remained the ruler and Aegon became her consort.
She wanted her blood on the throne, and to achieve that, she supported Aegon’s claim. That doesn’t automatically mean her motivation was “women should never rule.” Her actions were tied to her own children.
Also her problem was with Rhaenyra specifically and the consequences of Rhaenyra’s claim for her own children. She feared that her sons’ position and safety would be threatened, especially because they were male Targaryen heirs.
Her desire to preserve the feudal order is not simply about "wanting her son on the throne or men to remain in power" it comes from a woman who has been forced to survive within a system that defines her worth through “sacrifice”. For Alicent, the feudal patriarchy is both the system that limits her and the system that promises her protection. She has spent her life fulfilling the role demanded of her: being a wife, producing heirs, and serving her husband. Therefore, she expects that sacrifice to have meaning / that the rules she was forced to follow cannot simply be discarded when they no longer benefit her.
Aegon becoming king is not only about placing her son on the throne. It is also about ensuring that the sacrifices she made are “recognized” and that her children are protected in a society where their existence as male heirs gives them political value.
Alicent’s does not simply defend that system because she benefits from it; she defends it because it is the only system she has been told can provide “security”, and “protection” for herself and her children.
I wish Rhaenyra was motivated by fearing for her sons and own life, knowing that they could all be put to death if their illegitimacy are publicly acknowledged.
And that would also be Alicent:
If the idea is that Rhaenyra should be motivated by fear that she and her sons could be killed if their illegitimacy became public, then why having them as bastards in the first place ? She knowingly had children with Harwin, who looks nothing like Laenor.
If her priority was protecting her claim and her children’s safety, choosing someone who made the rumors so obvious was an enormous political risk.
And that’s because Rhaenyra was a selfish, narcissistic, and foolish person who chose to have those children while refusing to fully acknowledge the dangers they would inherit because of her choices. She prioritized her own desires and personal happiness over the political reality her children would be forced to live in, leaving them to face the consequences of decisions they had no part in making.
And yes, she did defend them but the way she defended them came with consequences. She was willing to act like a tyrant by using extreme measures to protect their positions: people were punished, a family was threatened, tongues were removed, and Vaemond was killed and fed to Syrax after challenging the legitimacy of her children. She was willing to act ruthlessly in defense of her children, but the question is at what cost? Was protecting their immediate position worth creating a situation where their safety depended on secrecy and fear?
Rhaenyra could not protect them forever. She would eventually die, and the same questions surrounding their legitimacy would remain just like the moment Viserys died, the protection he provided disappeared and the consequences of his actions led to a civil war because he put his personal desire above duty.
In that sense, Rhaenyra repeated the same mistake as Viserys she protected the present without fully securing the future. And those children would be left to inherit a conflict that they did not create but would ultimately have to face.
You may argue about what Rhaenyra "should" do in a situation where her husband is unable or unwilling to provide heirs because of his sexuality. The simple answer is that she did not necessarily need to have children. Her position as heir was based on Viserys naming her successor, not solely on her ability to produce heirs.
Only a “queen consort,” is pressured to have children that came from the expectations of a patriarchal system that viewed her primary political value through the ability to secure “the dynasty” and provide heirs, especially male heirs, queens such as Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and other royal wives experienced enormous pressure because producing a surviving male heir was considered one of their most important duties. And Alicent already fulfilled (was forced) that expectation. She provided Viserys with trueborn sons.
However, this expectation applied differently to a queen consort than to a queen regnant, whose authority came from her own claim and position rather than solely from producing children. Elizabeth I, proved that a queen regnant could maintain her authority without producing children. Her decision not to marry and being childless was partly influenced by the political dangers surrounding a husband who could challenge her authority or create competing factions. We also have Jeyne Arryn, Lady of the Vale, who ruled in her own right without producing heirs/children. What about Daenerys too? Those women were not forced to have children in order to justify their right to rule.
I wish Alicent was motivated by pure spite and jealousy, simply wanting to fuck Rhaenyra (and Viserys) over big time.
You just turned Alicent into a one-dimensional jealous woman whose entire motivation revolves around Rhaenyra. Book Alicent is much more interesting because, whether you agree with her or not, she has political and familial motivations. She loves her children and believes she’s protecting them, their inheritance, and what she sees as the lawful succession. Those motivations are far more interesting than reducing everything to “she was just jealous.” With bunch of Misogynistic tropes.
I wish Alicent was motivated by nothing but ambition and a lust for power. Just because.
