Everything Alicent Did Wrong in House of the Dragon E7
Because yes, there is a list.
Warning: the following article contains spoilers for House of the Dragons episode 7
Queen Alicent appears to be on a mission to become more and more annoying with every new episode of House of the Dragon. In episode 7, titled Driftmark, she lets herself loose — but let's start from the beginning.
It's clear that Alicent cannot make peace with the fact that Rhaenyra is simply there as King Viserys' heir and even has children. The Queen is the only person who seems to care that Rhaenyra's children bear very little resemblance to their official father, with Viserys, Daemon, and pretty much every other person (except maybe Ser Criston Cole and Otto Hightower) is cool with it.
Alicent, however, is not. Since the beginning of the episode, she is throwing annihilating glances at Rhaenyra and only waits for a scene to happen. Naturally, it soon happens: after her and Rhaenyra's kids have a squabble that costs Aemond an eye, Alicent demands Viserys to serve justice. According to her, the justice would mean having one of Rhaenyra's kids eyes in return.
Viserys refuses and tries to put Alicent back to her place. However, it only ends to an escalation: the queen snatches his blade and attacks Rhaenyra in front of everyone, basically assaulting the king's heir.
She seems to realize that was, to say the least, a little bit over the top. Later in a conversation with her father Otto Hightower — who conveniently happens to have returned to the role of King's Hand — Alicent admits that she lost control and compromised herself. However, Otto seems to encourage this, even though he agrees that Alicent overreacted in that particular episode.
Now, the point of no return appears to be there for Alicent, as she even makes it clear to Larys Strong that she has noted his "devotion" and will be ready to receive even more help from him in the future. And we all remember very well the means Larys uses to "help" the Queen.
No matter her reasons, Alicent seems to be hated by the majority of House of the Dragon fans, and the three remaining episodes are unlikely to fix that in any way. New episodes arrive on HBO Max every Sunday, with the grand finale scheduled for October 23.