house of the dragon is fundamentally a story which centres rhaenyra and alicent and their persisting tragic love for each other and there is genuinely no way this ends without alicent on dragonstone bearing witness to rhaenyra and aegon's confrontation. the dominos are lined up to fall like this. between "i want to fly with you" and "come with me" we are hurdling towards rhaenyra making that bid again and alicent finally taking that leap. them running away together is chekov's gun primed to go off
and another inevitability of this narrative to me is aegon's death and the central role i think alicent has to play. rumours abound in f&b as to who does it but for this show, for this story, alicent has to be the hand at which he meets his end.
what is aegon truly if not the very physical manifestation of Alicent's duty, created from her very flesh and blood. the son viserys wanted so badly, the boy otto sought after so much he shoved his daughter into marriage with a man old enough to be her father, the son alicent schemed and plotted to put on the throne because she believed it was her duty to heed a dying man's words (not matter that it was a misunderstanding). aegon is the symbol of the rift between rhaenyra and alicent, the first crack in the fissure.
and the love that alicent and rhaenyra share persists throughout the entirety of the show, beyond reason in the minds of other characters, none of them able to grasp the nature of it. otto and aemond and aegon consistently accusing alicent of her love for rhaenyra, jace pleading with his mother to not trust a word alicent says, rhaenyra sparing alicent's life when she retakes kings landing
what kills aegon if not that persisting love that exists between them?
what sees rhaenyra's blood on the throne if not alicent herself?
and what is love, if not the death of duty?
