After Episode 9, Fans Can't Really Hate Alicent Hightower
If you think about it, Alicent is not a monster many fans deem her to be.
Episode 9 was quite heart-wrenching to watch — and it certainly was full of drama for Alicent Hightower, who appears to be less evil than Blacks supporters portray her.
At the beginning of the episode, she is seen mourning her dead husband. It clearly looks like she is genuinely heart-broken and not just playing a role. Then, she has to withstand her father's throne ambitions as Otto Hightower is already making plans to remove Rhaenyra from his way to the throne.
Alicent is clearly not okay with that. In fact, throughout the entire episode, she is grieving and trying to muscle through the situation she absolutely does not enjoy. She looks nothing like someone who is happy to finally usurp the crown; instead, she actively persuades her father not to do that.
However, things still go the way Otto insists they should go. During Aegon's coronation, Alicent is visibly proud of her son, she supports him all the way through and even stands in front of him to protect when Rhaenys and Meleys suddenly interrupt the ceremony.
When fans saw Alicent having to deal with her toxic family, they started to "dislike her less", as they put it. After all, Alicent is still the Blacks' main enemy who refused to accept any peace agreements that Rhaenyra offered.
"I personally believe the majority of her grief was the fact that she now has to deal with her father wanting to kill her childhood best friend, inciting war, and has to drive her delinquent son in the right direction as king of the realm," Redditor TimeausStrokes said.
It looks like Alicent genuinely wasn't ready for things to stop being a game and turn into actual bloodshed. And there's little doubt that this is the path they are going to go now that the Greens have usurped the crown.
Still, even amid her grief and uncertainty about her father's course, Alicent doesn't seem like she wants to backtrack. Which can only mean one thing — Dance of the Dragons is nigh, and there's no turning back at this point.
House of the Dragon's tenth and final episode for season one will premiere on HBO Max this Sunday, October 23.