When I was building Alicent's character, I felt like she needed to be someone who was deeply sensitive to the truth. No matter how painful it is, the truth is always more acceptable to her than lies or being kept in the dark.
You can see that even in the bargain she makes with Daemon at the very beginning.
That doesn't necessarily mean she's always truthful herself... and that's the interesting part.
Alicent wants to know the truth because knowledge gives her control, not because she's inherently virtuous. That's why there are moments in the story where she withholds the truth, or even twists it to serve her purpose.
And what I find fascinating about that bargain with Daemon is that it's almost as if she knew, from the very beginning, that one day Rhaenyra would look at him and say,
"I can give you something Alicent never can."
She knew she could never allow Daemon to face the choice of me or the Iron Throne, because Daemon would never abandon his ambition.
So instead...
she placed herself in the path of that ambition.
Because, in her mind, that was the only way she could ever take revenge on a world that had treated her so unfairly.
And Daemon's ambition itself is an interesting journey.
At best, Rhaenyra can walk beside him on that road. She can stand with him through the hardships, ask him to clear the path, and complain when he can't.
But Alicent shows him that she can help design the road.
That they can clear it together.
That they can stand back-to-back when things go wrong, knowing when to defend and when to strike like a united team.
I think that's what gives their relationship its unique value.
It turns Alicent into someone Daemon simply can't afford to cast aside.
And I think... that's where his obsession with his cunning little wife begins. 😏