Alicent and Criston should not be written as lovers who fail to sleep together. They should be written as lovers who must not and whose entire bond depends on that impossibility.
Just like Nerys and Aemon. Alicent and Criston were perfectly positioned for a classic medieval courtly love dynamic: longing without consummation, devotion expressed through service, chastity as tension rather than repression, love that exists precisely because it cannot be fulfilled. That kind of relationship would have fit both characters’ psychologies and the period far better than what we got.
In medieval literature, fin’amor (courtly love) is defined by restraint, not fulfillment. The lovers do not sleep together; in fact, they often cannot. Think of it like Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult you feel the longing, the devotion without anyone needing to be degraded or shamed. That’s the medieval “we love, but we can’t.”
Criston Cole, a lowborn knight sworn to chastity and honor, serving a highborn queen, fits this pattern exactly. Alicent, bound by marriage, motherhood, and queenship, also fits the archetype of the unattainable lady. This is why the comparison to Nerys Targaryen and Aemon the Dragonknight is apt. Their love is remembered as tragic because it was never acted upon. The restraint is the point.
In courtly tradition, love is expressed through service, loyalty, and suffering, not physical intimacy.
Criston Cole, especially in the book, is defined by absolutism. He takes vows seriously to a pathological degree. His entire break comes from the idea that he failed morally once and can never cleanse himself. Alicent, likewise, is a woman whose entire life is shaped by restraint, duty, denial, and self-surveillance. If you wanted yearning, stolen looks, loyalty, and a bond built on shared repression and resentment of the system they were right there.
Criston’s defining traits: absolute loyalty to Alicent, violent hostility toward those who “dishonor” her and written his actions as moral duty rather than desire. These are classic markers of courtly devotion. The knight loves by defending the lady’s honor, even when it destroys him.
Alicent, in turn, relies on Criston as her champion, her protector within a hostile court and an extension of her will when she cannot act openly. This mirrors the medieval ideal where a lady’s power is indirect, exercised through the loyalty of men sworn to her.
Why it can’t be consummated?
Courtly love depends on impossibility. If Alicent and Criston slept together, the dynamic collapses: Alicent becomes morally compromised (and politically vulnerable) Criston becomes dishonored in his vows. The love ceases to be idealized and becomes merely illicit sex. That’s why the “we love but we can’t” tension is so important. Their bond exists precisely because crossing that line would destroy both of them.
Contrast with Rhaenyra & Criston. Rhaenyra offers Criston something courtly love rejects: consummation without restraint. That is why his dynamic with her collapses so violently. It breaks the medieval ideal. Instead of unattainable devotion, he becomes a man who has broken vows for desire, which in courtly logic is degradation, not fulfillment.
Alicent restores the “proper” structure: love sublimated into duty, desire rebranded as righteousness and loyalty as moral redemption.
Instead, the writers chose the laziest, most modern, most cynical route: sex as humiliation. Not sex as intimacy. Not sex as rebellion. Not sex as tragic transgression. Sex as punishment.
They strip Alicent of complexity by reducing her to hypocrisy (“look, she’s just as bad”), and they strip Criston of ideology by turning him into a man ruled by libido rather than belief. And yes it very clearly functions to reassign blame for Blood & Cheese, as if Alicent’s “sexual failing” somehow morally authorizes the violence done to her grandchildren.
What makes it worse is that the show repeatedly sexualizes Team Green suffering while romanticizing Team Black’s transgressions. Alicent’s sexuality is written as shameful & degrading. Rhaenyra’s is written as liberatory even when the actual actions are arguably more politically destabilizing.
Courtly love would have preserved Alicent’s dignity while still allowing desire. It would have made Criston’s loyalty legible instead of laughable. It would have underscored how repression, not lust, drives them toward extremism. And it would have avoided turning a medieval political tragedy into a modern morality play about “sex bad, women hypocrites.”
But the showrunners don’t trust restraint. They don’t trust silence. They don’t trust longing. Everything has to be explicit, consumable, humiliating, and easily moralized for the audience.
So yes they vulgarized it. Yes they robbed it of chivalry. Yes they used sex to punish characters they don’t like. And yes i have to remind everyone of what could have been one of the most beautiful, restrained relationships in the story.
