It's Always Really Interesting Seeing Someone Say They Don’t Like Otto And Alicent Inserting Themselves

Alicent and Criston have every right to be together.

I’ve read a lot of posts regarding their non-existent hypocrisy and I’d like to clear some things up.

First and foremost, stop using Alicent’s “Where is duty, where is sacrifice?” line against her or Nyra’s outrageous “Exhausting, wasn’t it?” speech because you think you’re eating when you’re, in fact, starving. Alicent has done her duty and sacrificed herself. It’s the only thing she’s been doing for the past 20 years. She gave the man she was forced to marry four children and she took care of him despite all the shit he put her through. She has lived all her life based on her principles and now her husband is gone. She mourned him, she buried him, it’s been more than 10 days since his death (confirmed that E1 S2 takes place 10 days after Lucerys’ death) and she is finally fucking free. She deserves a sliver of comfort. Alicent is the only one in this series that’s been faithful and dutiful to a T, yet look where that got her. If someone has the right to break the law a little bit, it’s definitely her.

That being said, I don’t know when it was decided that Alicent is a pious saint that can do no wrong, but I need to remind y’all that following a religion does not magically prevent you from sinning. Is she committing fornication? Obviously. However, you are all under this impression that this is hypocritical on her behalf because she berated Rhaenyra for it when they were younger, without considering that her anger was justified for a myriad of other reasons, such as (but not limited to): 1) the fact that Rhaenyra’s freedom to marry whomever she pleased was a privilege granted to her thanks to Alicent’s efforts, who supported her even if Rhaenyra hated her, yet her friend casually threw that away, 2) the fact that Rhaenyra lied to her by swearing on her morher’s grave and never even mentioned Criston, 3) the fact that Rhaenyra had the guts to call her “sister” while lying to her face, 4) the fact that her lies resulted in Otto getting fired since Rhaenyra misled Alicent so that she speaks to Viserys in favour of her friend and betraying her own father by siding against him (a decision she wouldn’t have made if she knew the truth), leaving her completely alone and friendless at court, even if he was right all along and finally 5) the fact that Rhaenyra is the most sought after bachelorette in the whole world and by having sex she undermines herself (Rhaenyra knows this well, hence why she denies these accusations) and literally endangers herself, because had she been married to any other man but Laenor and had this man found out his wife and future queen is not a virgin, imagine the fucking horrors she could have been subjected to. Like, I hate to break it to you, but a 40-year-old widow, who’s had four kids and has completed her duty to the point where she is actually no longer needed and could leave the palace to go live the rest of her life in peace somewhere else and no one would notice her absence (literally though, she has birthed heirs, her husband is dead, her son is a grown adult king, her job is done there), having sex, is not the same as an 18-year-old princess and future heir in her prime, whose purity is linked to her worth, getting caught drunk in a brothel, hooking up with her uncle and losing her virginity to her guard, all in one night. Viserys himself was outraged. There’s lows and then there’s lows, y’all.

By the way, the crazy assumptions that Alicent has been cheating on Viserys with Criston for a while now need to stop. When Olivia Cooke said that they had filmed a messy sex scene with Fabien Frankel in a recent interview, she never said this was for S1 of HOTD. I don’t know where y’all got that from, but even if it was true, that scene has been scrapped so it is not canon. And don’t make me laugh about Daeron, a dragon rider who canonically has Valyrian features, potentially having brown hair. You’re all so blinded by your hatred for Alicent that you want her to be a lying hypocrite in order to make yourselves feel better about Rhaenyra’s mishaps, that you don’t get that the whole point of her and Criston getting physical is that she is a tortured woman who is finally able to break free, not that she has been a hypocrite all along. You’re heavily misunderstanding her arc.

Finally, when it comes to my good man Criston, y’all have lost it completely. No, Alicent is not raping him, unless he tells her to stop and she closes the door behind her like Rhaenyra did that is. No, Criston did not lie about how important his honour is to him. There’s a whole article on how Clare Kilner, the director of E4 S1, decided that Cole removing his armour slowly was necessary because it symbolises his inner conflict and uncertainty over breaking his vow: should he soil his cloak for the sake of the woman he loves? And he does soil it, because he thinks she loves him back. But that honourable man dies the day Rhaenyra tells him that he’ll never be anything more than a side piece to her. This man stops giving a flying fuck about his honour, oath, position and life. He is trying to kill himself. And you know what stops him? Alicent. Alicent is the only thing between him and death, the only person to show him kindness and understanding, to pull him up from the lowest point in his life. I don’t think you heard Alicent in E7 S1: “No, you’re sworn to me!”. Y’all. His life is hers. He doesn’t care about Rhaenyra, his job, Viserys, anyone else at this point. Only Alicent exists in his mind, Fabien himself has said time and time again that his loyalty to her is unwavering. He only exists for Alicent’s sake. He’s who you wish Daemon was. Crying that “Criston is a bad knight and a liar because he broke his chastity oath yet again!” is so pointless because that knight has been dead since Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor. What does an oath mean when you find out the people you swore it to have betrayed you?

Otto loves Helaena almost as much as I do!

Credit: @TheneverlandG on twitter

Guinevere and Lancelot's Sex

(an overview so we can be on the same page when discussing Alicent and Criston's sex)

I've been looking into the history of courtly love for quite a while now, trying to figure out where the "chaste" bit comes from. And honestly I'm still not sure. (My best theory at the moment is that it was Elizabeth I's contribution?) Histories consistently trace courtly love to The Knight of the Cart, the OG Guinevere and Lancelot story — a story where they do have sex.

They are the poster children. And they have always been unambiguously sexual.

The Knight of the Cart

Queen Guinevere and Lancelot have sex about halfway through The Knight of the Cart. At this point, Lancelot has traveled for a week and braved all sorts of hurdles to come rescue Guinevere, who's being held captive. He wants to have sex with her, but he does not expect sex from her — he doesn't think he's owed anything. This is expressed in this line:

"It would take more than these bars to keep me out. Nothing but your command could thwart my power to come to you. If you will but grant me your permission, the way will open before me. But if it is not your pleasure, then the way is so obstructed that I could not possibly pass through."

A reminder that The Knight of the Cart was commissioned by a woman, Marie de Champagne. This is a female fantasy — and specifically, the fantasy of a noblewoman who's in a political marriage where sex is presumbably expected and owed.

So Guinevere says yes, he climbs through her window, and they have sex. It's written "fade to black" style, but the author does tell us they had a great time.

Their sport is so agreeable and sweet, as they kiss and fondle each other, that in truth such a marvellous joy comes over them as was never heard or known. But their joy will not be revealed by me, for in a story, it has no place. Yet, the most choice and delightful satisfaction was precisely that of which our story must not speak.

I've seen too much discourse where Criston wanting to worship Alicent and have sex with her are framed as if they're in opposition or mutually incompatible. Which just — no. Lancelot kneels to Guinevere in an explicitly religious way, both when he enters the room to have sex with her, and before he leaves.

then he comes to the bed of the Queen, whom he adores and before whom he kneels, holding her more dear than the relic of any saint. .... When he leaves the room, he bows and acts precisely as if he were before a shrine; then he goes with a heavy heart, and reaches his lodgings without being recognised by any one.

Alicent’s relationships with her children can never be perfect and healthy because they’re objectively broken from their onset. And I’m so tired of seeing brain dead takes comparing the “superior” relationship Rhaenyra has with her kids to Alicent and her kids as some sort of gotcha.

Alicent’s exposure to motherhood isn’t on her terms in any conceivable way. Her children are the products of marital rape and coercion. They are conceived and born when she is a young teenage girl 15-18, well before she is ready to have them. They are born in quick succession with no opportunity for her to recover. And, they are from a man that not only does she not love but who neglects and belittles her.

All these factors severely damage Alicent’s ability to connect with her children in their infancy. And can you blame her given the circumstances?

She’s not ready to have them at all, so she doesn’t know how to properly mother them. And she likely resents them at least a bit in the early stages because they are the physical manifestation of not only her rape but the life she is trapped in. And that likely compounds with severe guilt because these are her babies, why doesn’t she feel the love and joy she’s supposed to?

And yet. She still loves and cares for them. She holds them as babies (despite being a baby herself) and dutifully cares for them even though she could simply dump them off with a nursemaid. She charges with a knife at Rhaenyra for them. She stands between them and a dragon from them. She betrays her closest companion of her childhood for them. She defies the king and their father for them.

I know that Alicent makes some crucial mistakes that ends up hurting her children. And I know that the scenes we see with Alicent and her kids often show her lack of connection to them. But despite the fact that her relationship to them can be nothing but fractured at the onset. There is so much passion and love and devotion she has for them.

These are not scenes of a woman who is a bad mother. These are scenes of a mother who adores her children and would do anything for them. But who can only love them roughly because she never had an opportunity to love them gently. Their very existence was never gentle for her and never fostered through love.

Alicent’s relationship with her kids may be broken. But it’s not her fault that it is. And no matter what there is love and it is her motivation. So stop acting like she is a bad mother when she’s fighting like hell to breed a relationship with them that is fostered in connection.

I‘d say that‘s generally the green experience these days.

The emotional rollercoaster of fluctuating between utter despair, disgust, and hopelessness to pure childlike elation within two days is what it feels to be an Alicole shipper

It never really sunk in until you mentioned it but yeah, there is something weird and gross about how a handful of the characters on Team Green are disabled, especially when the show is choosing to portray them as the villains, or at least that's what the casual audience thinks.

it's a stark contrast to game of thrones/asoiaf, which is still praised to this day for its inclusion of multiple disabled characters. tyrion, jaime, and bran each had several dedicated episodes exploring what happened to them and how they are disadvantaged and discriminated against in a world not made for their bodies.

on the other hand, aemond and larys are widely viewed as evil. their disabilities are footnotes in the origin story of sick and violent individuals, as if they are disney villains. helaena is the epitome of the magical savant stereotype/trope, and she goes from cryptic to conversant, touch-averse to touch-neutral, whenever the writers want to show that she approves of team black or hates team green. people care more about rhaenyra getting scratched and luke getting threatened by alicent than the person she was fighting for, the person who actually permanently lost an eye.

this is wild to me because we literally watched aemond and helaena grow up. there was so much opportunity to show how aemond's depth perception would've changed as he trained with criston and learned how to ride vhagar. so much opportunity to flesh out helaena's prophecies and communication style. and don't even get me started on how larys's entire relationship to his body is reduced to an evil foot fetish. there's no examination of how disabilities have affected any of these characters' lives or how they've made accommodations. the only reason why any of their disabilities are brought up is to vilify or ostracize them. it's deeply dehumanizing and ableist

…And guilty of conspiracy to commit murder … and a sexual predator …and incompetent …and married to a serial rapist, pedophile, murderer (thrice over by now) …and sheltering a terrorist.

it's always both sides are bad :( when one of them is a rapist incompetent usurper and the other is... a woman

Don’t try defending this

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

i had a dream that time travel was invented and too many people choose to travel back in time to save the titanic from sinking (the question of whether unsinking of the titanic deserved so much attention in the face of human history was the subject of both heavy academic and online discourse), which caused a rift in the space-time-continuum that led to the titanic showing up indiscriminately all over the world’s oceans and sea in various states of sinking.

this caused a lot of issues both in terms of fixing said space-time-continuum and in terms of nautical navigation, and after a long and heavy battle in the international maritime organization it was decided that the bureaucratic burden of dealing with this was to be upon Ireland, much to their dismay. the Irish Government then released an app for all sailors and seafarers so they could report titanic sightings during their journeys, even though they heavily dissuaded you from reporting them given the paperwork it caused.

anyway i woke up with a clear image of the app in my head and needed to recreate it for all of you: