The Reason Why Rhaenyra Would Make A Better Queen Than Alicent
House of the Dragon Season 1 tells us the story of brewing confrontation between the two branches of the Targaryen dynasty, the Green party, defending Queen Alicent's children claim to the throne, and the Black party, consisting of Princess Rhaenyra, the alternative heir, her children, and her supporters.
It is no particular secret that the showrunners want the audience to sympathize with the Blacks, but whether because they want to paint the conflict in shades of grey even more, or whether because they do not realize how bad certain characters from the Black camp look in their interpretation, the conflict between supporters of Blacks and Greens on the web still rages almost as fiercely, as it does in the show itself.
Fans have been compiling a list of reasons why Rhaenyra would make a better Queen than Alicent for weeks now, but, admittedly, some of these reasons are pretty far-fetched.
For example, Rhaenyra having a Targaryen-Velaryon alliance on her side is not really a big point in her favor, because by the end of Season 1 the House Velaryon is nearly extinct, in fact, its heirs are Rhaenyra's own children, who would have been on her side anyway.
Daemon supporting Rhaenyra's is an obvious drawback for her as a Queen, because Daemon has never solved any problem he encountered with methods other than open violence or stealthy murder, in fact, he never even tried to, and the whole kingdom knows his reputation, and, as Episode 10 demonstrated, Rhaenyra's control over him is limited at best.
But there is one big, perfectly valid reason why Rhaenyra would make a better Queen than Alicent: she is both a Queen and a dragonrider.
Alicent can only rule through her sons, and not only because that is the order of succession on which the Greens insist, but because both Aegon and Aemond are dragonriders, while Alicent isn't – once Aegon is crowned as Aegon II, he not only rules over all legally, but also personally wields a good chunk of their faction's military might.
Alicent, however well-intentioned she is, no longer has power to control him, and she was notably bad at controlling him even while young Prince Aegon was effectively in her power, and allowing King Aegon II to act as he pleases is obviously not a good idea.
While Aemond is more dutiful, reasonable and competent than his older brother, he's shaping up to be Daemon 2.0, a dangerous man who is prone to solve problems with violence, and act as he pleases, also not someone Alicent could control.
Rhaenyra might be worse at the business of ruling a kingdom than Alicent, but at least she has power to actually rule.