alright now i’m pissed off. i keep seeing takes saying that alicent proved in last night’s episode that she’s an uncaring mother who doesn’t understand motherly instincts, especially in the scene where she asks helaena to leave jaehaera and run. they say she literally doesn’t understand why helaena wants to stay or why she refuses an abortion. these takes also inevitably point out that helaena, in contrast, is a caring mother. okay. hey listen. can we google the madonna/whore complex for a second? can we lock in?
alicent asks helaena to run away without jaehaera because in that moment, she’s trying to protect HER baby. it’s an unconscionable choice that alicent is making in pure survival mode, but that’s her motivation here. she also clearly does not want to leave jaehaera. she wants to save helaena, the only kid she can conceivably save at this point. she clearly fucking understands why helaena wants to save her living child and her fetus! but she feels she can only save helaena.
that is by fucking definition, being a caring mother. it’s a harsh motherhood that our own patriarchal structures can’t accept: what can happen when a woman is forced to have children. alicent is a victim of martial rape. she got pregnant four times from that marital rape. she was a teenager when she became a mother, a choice that otto & viserys made for her.
we can also surmise that helaena may be a victim of marital rape, and we can also surmise that helaena enjoys being a mother in a way that alicent does not. however, her decision to prioritize jaehaera and keep her unborn child is not wholly dissimilar from alicent’s decision. they are both trying to save their kids no matter the consequences. what’s truly different is that alicent is trying to take helaena’s choices away & force helaena to let alicent save her life—accept alicent’s version of freedom & safety.
(and that’s another messy part of parenthood, not to talk out of my ass: what happens when your child asserts their agency, and you know their decisions will harm them? can you live with that?)
the hotd fandom has consistently demonizes alicent from day 1 and misogyny has always been laced in the criticism. “she was the slut who seduced rhaenyra’s dad and betrayed her trust” but also “she was too weak to stand up to otto. why did hotd make her such a weak character with no agency?” and now we’re at “alicent should just shut up and stop making decisions”. that push-pull causes revulsion in the audience, i think. there’s something unacceptable about alicent’s circumstances and the way she responds to them.
like, yes, sometimes i think alicent (and rhaenyra) are both passive to the detriment of the story. i think the writers have some Dany Fear. but alicent is the only mother in this entire story who, we can surmise, never started enjoying being a mother. who might have made a different decision, had she access to that decision. who didn’t fight her social conditioning and has done everything expected of her, and who started to fight back too clumsily and too late. i think it’s honestly a core angst in our global society: how many mothers never wanted their children, love their children anyway, and don’t succeed at loving them correctly. and alicent does love her children: that’s the point here, that’s the tragedy.
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