A Psychoanalysis of Otto and Alicent's Relationship
Otto and Alicent don't have the average father-daughter relationship you'd expect, even by Westerosi standards. Unlike Viserys and Rhaenyra, who appear to have a relationship of love and trust, Otto and Alicent's relationship is dysfunctional by all means, toxic, and twisted.
(1) It seems to me that even though Otto loves Alicent, he doesn’t love her as a daughter in the traditional sense. He values her as an extension of himself: she’s both his pawn and his proof of competence. His own making. Something to be proud of because he constructed it. Alicent’s worth in his eyes seems directly tied to how well she performs as the vessel of House Hightower’s ambition. Every conversation they have circles back to what she can do for “the family,” “the realm,” “her duty.” (This reminds me of Tywin Lannister; they are both highly ambitious and devoted to their House.) As a result, Otto showers his daughter with conditional affection, whereupon Alicent learns that love and approval are earned through self-denial and compliance, not through existing as her own person. This explains why, when pressured to marry Viserys, she didn't stand up to her father like Rhaenyra did, who was free to be herself and could direct her step any way she chose. Alicent didn't know who she was (until maybe her catharsis by the lake in S2) because she always lived for House Hightower.
(2) Otto wields power over Alicent, and in doing so, he places a subtle emotional burden on her: he makes her responsible for the success and survival of the family, a role that should never fall on a child. Even after she’s Queen, you can feel Otto looming over her like some permanent moral voice whispering: "you must not fail us," which she then replicates in her relationship with Aegon, who comes to accept himself as a failure (the poison drips through). This twisted and toxic dynamic leads to Alicent’s emotional repression. She’s stuck between being an obedient daughter and a woman who never got to figure out her own desires, who never felt comfort and unconditional love from her father, who mourns the loss of her mother and the loss of her girlhood alone.
(3) Especially in S1, Otto has absolute control over Alicent. The scene when Alicent needs to look towards Otto for his approval before giving her favor to Daemon, as well as her constant nail-biting, are indicative of his coercive control over her and the anxiety his criticism and his presence induce. Otto doesn’t come across as overtly abusive in a traditional way: he doesn’t scream or threaten. He uses language like “for your own good,” “what must be done” instead, which creates a sense of coercive control disguised as care. In so doing, he is offering limited choices that aren’t really choices, and he is instilling in Alicent the belief that deviating from his path is not just rebellion, but betrayal.
(4) I believe that Otto and Alicent's relationship can better be understood through the framework of their deep-rooted fear of powerlessness. Alicent is constantly plagued by guilt, by feelings of unworthiness, and by "not being good enough" for her father, the Seven, or her own role as Queen. Otto has been taught to think that to be a nobleman/noblewoman without leverage is to be nothing. Thus, Alicent clings to her role as Queen and mother to heirs as her only form of safety. They are both defined by generational trauma passed down through political ambition.
(5) Otto doesn’t just want Alicent to succeed in controlling the realm and securing the throne for Aegon; he wants to live through her. There’s something dark about how his political legacy relies on her uterus, her children, her choices ("wear one of your mother's dresses"). It’s a distorted dynamic: Alicent doesn’t get to be her own person because her identity is entirely consumed by Otto’s plans. In dictating Alicent's life, Otto is enmeshed with her girlhood, womanhood, and femininity, and Alicent is stripped of any agency in return. This extensive level of regulation is suffocating for Alicent, and by the time she realizes it, the knife has already cut too deep and Alicent is already buried inside the system that Otto has built for her:
"How could I know? I wanted whatever you impressed upon me to want."
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germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
titsay
janainaart
