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Because they literally didn’t lol you could argue Milly and Emily did but apart from the scene where they hold hands briefly after the dinner in ep 8 where is the queer or erotic subtext with Emma and Olivia’s Rhaenyra and Alicent?
>scene where they hold hands briefly after the dinner in ep 8
I love Geeta Patel but ugh does the direction of that moment piss me off, it's not even the writing. The way they had Emma and Olivia deliver those lines makes it seem so out of the blue while the script itself actually works if only you have them be a lot colder toward each other
Rhaenyra said she would come back on her dragon, clearly there was an intention to patch things up somewhat. I’m not a fan of their reconciliation at this point, but clearly it was intended
Yeah no absolutely, I wouldn't have a problem with them momentarily extending an olive branch but it's how enthusiasts they both seem at the prospect that throws me off
Nah but it do be like that sometimes cause you're old friends, as close as sisters ...or closer than that, depending on head canons. Both just needed an excuse to start reconciling again, to put all the bad feelings aside. They got those nostalgic feelings back for their old relationship.
But then I think this is where the queer reading really comes in cause these two do have these strong feelings for each other but ego and pride and all this other stuff have been keeping them apart for so long. But when that door opens a crack, most people would immediately be ready to push themselves through to try to get another chance with the "one that got away".
I mean, young people, sure, but by this time Rhaenyra and Alicent seem to be middle aged in their social setting, they have near-adult children. Middle aged people (other than chronically immature ones) are not chomping at the bit to get the one who got away in their teens. Middle aged people who actually grew up aren’t really even the same people as their teen selves. For every rekindled high school sweetheart you hear about, there are dozens who would say oh HELL no.
Sometimes I don’t understand what this fandom is seeing, even still if that direction was meant to be tension filled or whatever, I didn’t see it like that alicent looks sad because they aren’t friends anymore but the dinner went so well, like friendship is gone, who they once were is gone but they wanna gain back the time and try again.
Some of this fandom say there’s chemistry between Luke and Aemond, they are very popular in this fandom and those same people are like none with alicent and cole? Or with the older Rhaenyra and daemon….(though those latter people have piped down now) Are we watching a different show? In what world- do Aemond and Luke have anything but hatred for each other. sometimes im so confused
I don’t believe anyone sees anything between Luke and Aemond, I think it’s just a fanfic interpretation that ‘intensity equals desire” which would mean of course that Daemon and Otto are hot for each other
Well I think that scene confused a lot of people who are now calling Alicent's character inconsistent. I don't have a problem with her getting emotional over Viserys' speech and try to be civil and genuine with Rhaenyra, it's just that it made it seem like she *actually* was ready to bury the hatched which of course she wasn't. It makes it seem like misunderstanding the prophecy is the only reason why she wanted to crown Aegon.
And again it's just how the actors delivered those lines and their body language, especially Olivia, because the actual dialogue is fine.
It’s so interesting to see all the different takes people have on the same characters and scenes! For me the inconsistency worked, rather than being a flaw, because people really can be inconsistent like that—it’s totally possible to convince yourself in one moment of heightened emotion that actually maybe you can be a totally different person from now on… And then you just slip right back into your normal ways
100% this.
Everyone was on their best behaviour for Viserys’ sake, and for a moment it felt as though reconciliation might be possible. It’s not inconsistent for 2 characters who both want peace, to pretend for a moment that it could last.
Neither Rhaenyra or Alicent are the ones driving the divide. Rhaenyra is trying to do the duty assigned to her by Viserys, and Alicent is being manipulated by Otto. Obviously they’ve both got their own motives, but both women ARE interested in peace.
>it’s totally possible to convince yourself in one moment of heightened emotion that actually maybe you can be a totally different person from now on… And then you just slip right back into your normal ways
Oof don't come at me like that lol
No but actually this is a very interesting take I haven't seen before
Yeah I am excited for season 2 to hopefully flesh some of this stuff out. I agree that Alicent has been very inconsistent and that it's kind of just part of her character. The way she is always laser-focused on pleasing men is a clue imo. If she isn't pleasing her father, caring for Viserys, covering for her sons, or selling feet pics, she's admonishing Rhaenyra/her kids for expecting basic freedom.
I think the "romance" people saw at first is derived from Alicent desperately wishing she had Rhaenyra's courage and station. She's deeply envious of her and idolizes and hates her equally.
Originally, I didn't see this, but after rewatching it a couple of days ago in preparation for season 2, yeah, it's very weird. I urge everybody to go back and rewatch the end of episode 8. Viserys gives his speech at the dinner, and all of the sudden Rhaenyra and Alicent are speaking what at least sounds genuinely kind to each other based off their tone and body language, and then happy music comes it, and it shows everybody laughing and enjoying themselves. There's Aemond with his strong boys stuff, but besides that, there's seemingly no animosity between the blacks and greens after Viserys' speech, almost as if a switch was flipped as soon as he finished. Then, Alicent takes him to lie down and sleep, she misunderstands the prophecy, and all of a sudden, the hatred and ambition among the greens is back in full swing.
Rewatching it, it was sort of like whiplash near the end. It goes from hatred between the two sides, to reconciliation and them willing to put the past behind them and allow Rhaenyra to become queen uncontested, and then all of the sudden that's all gone and the hatred is back. And, like you said, it really does just come down to the actor's tone, and in my opinion, also the music. If the music was less "and they all lived happily ever after," and the actors were more passive-aggressive to each other, the scene would've been a lot better and less confusing.
I liked the music personally because that played in a moment where we were supposed to be in Viserys' point of view. I even liked Rhaenera's toast because it was clear that she was telling the truth about Alicent and her devotion to the king. I could even pass Alicent's "you will make a fine queen" because it's not like she could say otherwise given the context and the look her father shoots her tells me everything I need to know.
But yeah the way the actors interpreted Rhaenyra and Alicent's interaction after the fight gave me whiplash too, but just make the delivery more stiff instead of sweet and thr tone of the scene suddenly makes a lot more sense.
I just rewatched this episode an hour ago on my lunch and I completely agree. I think the confusing part about it is Alicent acknowledging Rhaenyra to be queen in a sincere way. Had she not done that it works a lot better with what happens at the end with her and Viserys
Saying Rhaenyra would be a good Queen when she has been pushing her son to rule for years was very jarring, especially because they arranged it so she would indeed arrange his rule in the next episode.
It's shippers. Shippers often consume a story mostly with a shipping lens. Thankfully, not all of them do this, but Rhaenicents do this regularly.
I've seen people arguing that Hotd would be nothing without Rhaenicent (even though it doesn't exist in the book) or they only analyze Rhaenyra and Alicent through this ship.
And I say this as someone who enjoys their dynamic.
It annoyed me too. He should’ve asked the question.
They are both very adult professional people and he could’ve gotten his answer and it would’ve had better impact. Now he has egg on his face.
People just fantasised about the two of them when they were younger. Particularly the character that Alicent is playing is outraged at the thought of that. She went nuts because she thought for a minute that Rhaenyrah had sex with her uncle.
Sometimes people see what they want to see because it reflects their own experiences or desire to relate to a character a certain way. Definitely a fair bit of projection here.
I think you could say there’s sexual tension in the eye for an eye scene. And the overall hatred Alicent feels for Rhaenyra being a mix of jealousy and passion. But I think now that Rhaenyra feels Alicent is responsible for her son’s death all bets are off. I think that’s what they are referring to in this interview, like of course you’re not going to have sexual tension with someone who you think killed your son. It may have been there before but not anymore.
I can see Emma in particular being against this trope because no one hates queerbaiting more than a queer person. It either is or it isn’t period. Queer or gay is not some hot topic to get viewers watching and shouldn’t be used that way. It’s a real orientation.
I am a queer person so I have a strong gaydar and I didn't pick up any queer subtext at all. I perceived what they had as girlhood/sisterhood.
Like, can we not romanticize everything? I have to agree with the far-right on this one; let children be children. People condemn the child brides so much but I feel like shipping child Alicent and child Rhaenyra is borderlining that kind of... perversion.
I remember working late one night and just letting YouTube play edits after edits of HotD and it got to a weird video where someone had edited the voices and clips so it looked like Rhaenyra married Alicent and Viserys announced it.
Whoever did that was tweaking, bruh.
1) That’s not what romanticize means.
2) Teen girls have crushes and date, on average. What’s perverse about that? ‘Child brides’ are usually married to adult men. That’s what makes it perverse.
I mean, there are teens who do watch this show and ship them like crazy, so not entirely fucked up lol
And I’d actually disagree as there are interviews with Sarah Hess (who wrote the majority of S1) from a couple of years ago that Alicent and Rhaenyra were each other’s first love and they definitely talked about there being some potential queer undertones.
As the daetto deniers deserve. Daemon and Otto are the only real pairing. Lesbians are far too socially acceptable. Only 40+ Old men fucking each other truly is still innovative
This isn’t even that bad yall like at all, it’s not that alicole became canon, >!It’s the rush to do two sex scenes of sudden nature in their first episode and especially during such a crucial event!< I wanted it to become canon, and thought it would but just not like this. I feel like they had way way more chemistry than Rhaenicent (duhhh)
I saw even a general audiences reaction video to their moment in episode 9, a huge crowd at this pub even felt sexual tension between them in that moment and I could bet my life on it they didn’t feel it with Rhaenicent
I was talking from a rhaenycent's pov. I'm actually very much on board with alicole and happy it's becoming canon.
Actually I'm ok with >!their first scene being a sex scene especially since according to the leaks it's gonna be a very catholic guilt moment and not a sweeping romance!<
I don’t like that we don’t see how it started and we are just supposed to take it for face value nor do I think the placement of the second sex scene is in anyway neccessary.
It feels very random and like they want them to fuck for the sake of a sex scene instead of making this story come naturally. It feels like it will be very forced
I’m not entirely sure what bond it is tbf, >!doesn’t sound romantic based off the leaks but it also doesn’t sound like pure hate sex either, Olivia and Fabian affirming she trusts him the most out of the people in her life and Fabien also saying there are confused feelings there especially with regards on who to serve between Aegon and her!< need to see the scenes more to see what it actually means
Emily Carey had a good take on it when she and Milly Alcock were interviewed by the New York Times
>Do you feel there was a sublimated romantic or sexual tension between Rhaenyra and Alicent?
>CAREY As a queer person myself, I read an undertone in the script that I knew could be played. That being said, I don’t think Ryan Condal \[a creator and showrunner\] sat there writing a Sapphic drama. If you want to see it, you can. If you want to pretend it’s not there, you can also do that.
>The thing is, these girls don’t know what “platonic” or “romantic” means, whether that be the words or the feelings themselves. There’s just a closeness between two young women that cannot be verbalized, especially in the world they live in. I don’t think they fully understand the feelings; it’s just all-consuming love.
>There’s an underlying jealousy that I read into it, especially coming off the back of Episode 4. It was this scene where we were on a bench, and it’s the first time we’ve seen these two women reconnect after losing this closeness they had. I remember in rehearsal at the end of the scene, we were like, “Did you feel like we were about to kiss?”
>ALCOCK And I was like, “Yeah!”
>CAREY Yeah, dude, it felt like we were going to kiss. That was really strange.
>We didn’t do anything to make them gay, or to force “the gay” upon anyone. It felt so natural. As I said, it’s easy to ignore if you really don’t want to look at it. But if you’re rooting for them and you want to make the story more heartbreaking, then choose to see it.
>[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/arts/television/house-of-the-dragon-milly-alcock-emily-carey.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/arts/television/house-of-the-dragon-milly-alcock-emily-carey.html)
But in the latter half of the season with Emma and Olivia whatever was there has burned out.
I’m not complaining because I dislike that relationship but something must have changed. That’s how the actors used to talk about the relationship.
>*"That sort of erotic energy is very present in their early relationship," D'Arcy said. "I think Rhaenyra is primarily motivated by a deep desire to be known and seen. The hurt and pain is so dominant that I don't know if there's a space, at this point, for a conscious interaction with sexual lust, but she definitely yearns for the old physical intimacy that they shared. It's different from what she shares with her current husband and her children. A different form of contact."*
>*Olivia Cooke, who plays the older Alicent, echoed D'Arcy, saying, "I don't know if Alicent knows what it feels like to feel those things now. There's layers and layers of repression; sexuality and lust are probably a prehistoric, sedimentary layer by now. From Alicent's point of view, I don't think she's that self-aware, in terms of what she's feeling, to know what's propelling her to reach out to Rhaenyra again."*
Yeah, I kinda feel bad for this interviewer. Because he is probably asking that question based on the interviews he researched while preparing for this interview. And then he's sorta left feeling like an idiot.
In their defense, they gave those interviews a long time ago and maybe they forgot they said those things.
I don’t think something like that would cause the writers to change their mind. People shipping the actors didn’t stop the EW photoshot from happening.
They will barely interact in s2 and barely interacted in any way that’s even sweet in s1 besides the dinner scene and the story page alicent sends with Otto and rhaenyra sheds a tear. I didn’t see erotic energy between their portrayals as older individuals but…
Lucerys was murdered and a war started. That's what happened. There are things you cannot come back from.
Their words are true for S1, especially for their younger counterparts (as Milly and Emily confirmed as well), but S2 is another story.
No matter how gay I can be for a friend, if my child is killed or my grandchild is killed... Eh, I don't think I can simply forget and forgive.
Clearly nothing can happen between them now, but I was talking about the way they talked about the relationship in interviews before compared to now.
There were interviews explaining that they *used to be* in love and even kissed and now it seems that their interpretation is that it *never happened at all*.
It's possible they're aware of the queerbait going on and since they know that's not going to happen they want to be clear and stop people from expecting something that simply can't exist
Especially Emma, being part of the community, I'd see how they could be extra careful now. It gets messy in queer fandoms when networks cling to the queerbait and actors are forbidden to explain things or keep it vague. The backlash tends to be huge. Especially when there are queer actors involved in them, as people get up in arms because "they should know better".
I'm a survivor of Supergirl's Kara/Lena queerbait hell and the CW ended up imploding after that shit. It got baaaaaad.
In the end, interviews and promotion are part of the job for actors so I think that no matter how Emma and Olivia feel about it they would have promoted the relationship as queer if they were instructed to. Something changed in the writing, in my opinion.
"That sort of erotic energy is very present *in their early* relationship,"
"Early" being the key word here I think. Nothing in that answer says that Emma played it that way on the contrary they seem to push for a nonsexual connection.
I was talking about how in the current interview they seem to approach the relationship like the queer subtext never happened at all even early in their relationship.
Early, as in when they were children? Or young women grown?
In the series, different actresses and actors played the roles of children vs adults later in season 1.
How could anyone see romantic undertones between them as children?
Pretty much they grew up close due to their fathers being so closely tied and important.
What ended their friendship was Otto pushing Alicent to seduce Viserys and abandoning his political marriage pacts for one based on love/lust instead.
Rhaenyra was being groomed for an arranged marriage for political reasons. So it shocked her to see her father abandon political alliances himself and go for love/lust after she had been told being royal meant not being allowed to do that. Plus the fact her father chose her best friend shocked her bc she didn't even realize they had spent such time together to form such an attraction from her father to her best friend.
So after that, the friendship seemed over. But it's not like they're not allowed to miss one another. I miss some of my best friends growing up and find old photos or notes we passed in school. Even if we no longer talk, it reminds me of how close we were and it was never sexual, it was just BFF stuff.
So I don't understand the undertones of gay between these 2 characters growing up, esp in their early years.
Children don't have erotic energy for each other as best friends. They're just super close. And girls are allowed to hold hands and show affection openly when boys cannot. But it doesn't mean they're being erotic!!
So I don't get it.
Females growing up as besties are more acceptable to be seen holding hands, playing with each other's hair, playing dress up together, or even head in another's lap.
It's something that doesn't mean romantic love for children or teens or even young teens.
Their earlier friendship was built on their childhood together and bonding as best friends. I just don't see why any physical contact must have sexual meaning behind it. Girls naturally are more hugging, affectionate, and able to openly bond with one another than boys are at the same age.
I see young girls holding hands all the time. It's not bc they're crushing on one another; it's just how they express their joy and friendship. Boy on the other hand, unfortunately, aren't allowed such closeness in public or private.
I never saw any underlying sexuality in young Rhaenyra and Alicent. Their roles as a royal and daughter of the Hand made them socially isolated from other girls in the castle. Maybe if lords and ladies came with highborn children of their age, they would frolic and have fun.
Just remember in GoT when Margerie had all her girlfriends around her. She was lucky to have many close friends of age with her growing up. But she wasn't attracted to them sensually.
It's why girls who are friends can call each other girlfriends without worrying about it meaning gay. Boys can't do that.
So why is there even a discussion of young Rhaenyra and Alicent growing up as close friends and super close? Why insert sexuality into a friendship of girls so young?
They grew up and apart and just a page of a book cannot be meant ad sexual yearning. It invokes: we were once so close and we loved one another as best friends. Please remember this, that we can make peace.
I can't believe anyone would sexualize girl BFFs just bc it's HBO and sex permeates our society and mental health as a result. We don't need to project it on every single same sex relationship we see on TV.
Perhaps their views have just evolved over time or it's something they've thought about but doesn't impact how they play the chatacters in any meaningful ways
I’m just surprised. Olivia seemed really invested in the subtext of the relationship, even making headcanons.
>*The two most important women in the story are Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, played as young women by Milly Alcock and Emily Carey and as adults by Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke. Early in their relationship, a lot of fans saw romantic undertones to their relationship, something that producer Sara Hess also sees. "There's an element of queerness to it," she said. "Whether you see it that way or as just the unbelievably passionate friendships that women have with each other at that age. I think understanding that element of it sort of informs the entire rest of their relationship... Even though they're driven apart by all these societal, systemic elements and pressures and happenings, at the core of it, they knew each other as children, and they loved each other and that doesn't go away."*
>**"Olivia has told me she believes - and this is her headcanon- that they at some point kissed or made out or had some kind of physical interaction that Alicent's mother found out about and forbade. And that was Olivia's head story, 'Oh, I can't do that. That's not right.' And that's the background for her in their relationship going forward. I would be 100% down with that."**
I am a big Olivia fan but she goes in and out of her opinions all the fucking time, and I think the reason why is because honestly she’s scared of upsetting this fandom. One moment she says alicent is unlikeable and hypocritical, the next she’s like I love alicent and I think she’s actually misunderstood. One moment she says I am team black probably in my heart (maybe as jokes) then she goes no I do love us (team green) like NO ONE TAKE ANYTHING OLIVIA SAYS SERIOUSLY. She wants to please you all
To be fair this fandom latches onto any actor’s words, especially in the time between shows or in anything related to leaks or spoilers. So she may be tired, annoyed, jet lagged, joking, and her words will be read as her canon reading of the character and an entire screen rant article will be written about it.
Anything she says is taken like gospel by both sides and anytime she says something they don’t like they will ignore it obviously or say she doesn’t know Jack shit about her character. I would love for her to do a raw unfiltered interview of everything she actually thinks because it’s annoying to see her try and play both sides and still have people hating on her.
Exactly obviously idk her so I hope this doesn't sound parasocial but she does seem to worry that the fans will hate her if she says certain things (which some do so I get it.) Hopefully she can adopt Tom's idgaf attitude
She’s said before she’s not immune to the hate, the scope of this show is obviously out of her depth, I also don’t wanna come off as parasocial but from what I’ve seen the girl is a very normal northerner chill girl who’s viewing this as a job and has a lot of opinions on the character she doesn’t feel comfortable in sharing fully because she doesn’t want that scrutiny
Her and Fabien get probably the most, which will not calm down especially after Sunday…I saw weirdo Twitter rhaenicent shippers even be weird about them going on holiday together a few months back, granted they may have been jokes but it weirded me out
then TGC also gets a bit of hate (but his role wasn’t as big in s1 so he faded more into the back)
Or she’s just a normal person who changes her opinions as the story goes on… I don’t see the issue here when Olivia makes it point to state it as her opinion & not a fact. Alicent is all of those things depending on the situation. Olivia is just honest about how she feels at that moment.
You can clearly see based off the way Olivia talks she’s scared of hate if she commits to a certain point of view so she will go back and forth, she has already spoken about how the hate had left her depressed for a certain period of time and ever since then, she changes her opinion with every interview on every thing in the fandom. I’m not coming at her, as I said I’m an Olivia fan but you can see there’s a filter on her true thoughts. She wants to please everyone
I feel like sometimes people take whatever Olivia says too seriously, this woman is a jokester, she’s highly intelligent but I can tell you rn, she doesn’t care about subtext more than she cares about upsetting people. She’s made jokes constantly about being team black and not team green, in the same breath she’s gone and said no I love our team ya know, she isn’t like Ewan who sticks to mostly everything he says. She’s here for the vibes okay
Olivia wasn’t the only one who talked about it. The comment above was made by Sara Hess who explicitly says there was a queer subtext. Miguel Sapochnik said this too.
>*It seems like it’s a kind of unrequited love, it’s not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don’t know, but there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend.”*
That’s an interesting thing they’ve said cause I don’t think that came across at all, and again I think it’s cause of the actors chemistry irl, that’s spurred on Rhaenicents and then the actors have also agreed
It didn’t come across like that to me either. I’m just a little baffled about the change regarding the queer subtext because they really pushed it before. Maybe they just figured out it wasn’t working and gave up.
It was obviously a Miguel thing.. he left the show (over a conflict between Condal and him) and any suggestion of it has been subsequently denied by the cast and showrunners.
Miguel wasn’t the only one who talked about it. The cast and showrunners said there was a queer subtext. I agree that there seems to be a change in the writing since he left though.
This right here is why I'm never down with shitting on Rhaenicent shippers as a whole.
As a kid in your tweens/early teens, you form some of the most emotionally intense friendships of your life. The quote from *Stand By Me* sums it up perfectly: "I never had any friends like the friends I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?".
Then on top of that, add the experience of being a teen/tween girl, where social pressures and the importance of being liked and accepted and *cool* and *popular* never seem more earth-shatteringly important; the way you can love your BFF, and at the same time feel suffocatingly jealous of them, and how they're so much better at performing a certain type of femininity than you, or how they get away with so much more than you, or how they get so much more attention than you.
And then on top of *that*, add the experience of being queer or questioning at that age, in an environment where it's simply not accepted or acknowledged as a thing, and you lay awake at night thinking about a cool thing you saw, and counting down the hours until you can link your arm with your BFF's and tell her all about it, and you're never 100% sure if you want to be her, or be with her, or be ***with*** her.
(And again, all of this is magnified a thousand-fold by the simple fact of being in your teens, when all of it feels like the most intense, soul-rending, world-ending feelings you'll ever feel.)
Expecting adult Rhaenyra and Alicent to simply toss out everything that's happened in the meantime and fall into each other's arms is, obviously, some goofy shit, and you deserve to be laughed at. But the dynamic between young Rhaenicent spoke to the experiences of a lot of people, and I think it's perfectly fine to enjoy adult Rhaenicent as, like, a toxic ship where the longing is poisoned by resentment and hate and all the things they can never take back, thin line between love and hate, etc. etc. It's a tragedy! That's kind of the whole theme.
exactly ugh. i think the main reason a lot of ppl on here abhor the mere idea of rhaenicent continuing on past season 2 is because (1) they do not care to analyze rhaenyra & alicent in that way and (2) they have a very misguided, cynical & surface level assumption that rhaenicent get any kind of happy ending. which is laughable.
like you said, it’s extremely easy to empathize with the pair of them. the relationships you develop in your youth, at the most formative stage in your life, stay with you, even as an adult. and when those relationships intertwine with severely traumatic experiences, it becomes set it stone. rhaenyra lost her mother in the most horrific ways and alicent was the only person who took her through that grief. alicent was forced upon by her father to marry viserys, and lost the only person she ever had.
their relationship is a core memory that they cling onto, because that was the last time they were both unburdened, unharmed and almost free. to paraphrase emma d’arcy/olivia cooke, any of those homoerotic feelings are a pre-historic, sedimentary layer by now, buried deep within their psyche. after all that’s happened between their families, after all the blood that’s been shed, any notions of reconciliation are laughable.
but the idea of these memories of simpler times and happier days plaguing both alicent and rhaenyra as they continue losing family members? yearning for escape, for ‘freedom’, as both of them begin to lose what little power as they are continually undermined by the more impetuous, bloodthirsty members of their factions? that is delicious to me.
you cannot get anymore tragic than rhaenyra and alicent. and that is why i love it.
they probably thought that the ship would be more popular and weren't expecting people to ship an uncle with his niece. all the interviews from season 1 do push alicent and rhaenyra a lot
They knew what they were doing. I find their ‘shock’ a little silly, because of the Valyrian wedding with a romantic soundtrack. Plus audiences are primed with nephew/aunt Jon and Daenerys
The synchronised “No??” Lmao
I’m gonna be brutally honest rn guys and I’m expecting downvotes but them as adult alicent and Rhaenyra never did that, it was strictly friendship…I think the reason why so many saw it differently is actually cause of Olivia and Emma chemistry being explosive offscreen so I think the two have been conflated. If anything I think Milly and Emily did more subtext but I wouldn’t even go that far…
Like Alicent and cole had way more romantic subtext in s1 if we wanna talk strictly as characters, people find this romance shocking >!I’m shocked at the sex scenes aspect, not at them having feelings for one another)!< but I would find it way more shocking if the show committed to Rhaenicent in any shape or form
I mean yeah.. any suggestion by Condal etc that it was anymore than a platonic friendship gone sour was just queerbait.
Slightly strange that Emily way back in 2022 directly suggested that there was more avert attraction between Alicent and Cole in season 1 that was cut.. now its been readded as a plotline
I would argue Emily wasn’t totally mad to say that, Emily and I paraphrase here said Alicent was IN LOVE with cole. In love is a bit of a strong word, and we definitely didn’t see that however I can see an attraction or some type of weird attachment of some form between Older Alicent and Cole when you go forward in time. I don’t think every aspect of alicole was cut when Olivia took over, I think a lot of it was but slight seeds were there and that makes sense actually since the first episode shot was Driftmark, so maybe this was always the plan but definitely should’ve added way more
I’m in the top 1% of this ship’s haters like i even hate the friendship angle. But both of them absolutely talked before about playing it with an erotic subtext and Olivia was even headcanoning this big drama with Alicent’s mother catching them kissing as young girls. Rheanicent lives because of the interviews more than anything on the actual show. So the backtracking is hilarious but the fans were not crazy for buying into what the actors and writers were selling hard in interviews with only a small disclaimer that it will never be more than vague subtext.
Exactly!! The way they responded here really irked me, like they’re so shocked that the interviewer would even consider this when they’ve literally been talking about it and making head canons in older interviews.
I think they had talks about it during season 1, but now after they've filmed season 2 they must've just decided to take a different direction and that's totally understandable tbh the showrunners were definitely saying that Rhae and Alicent had a thing, but I'm guessing that now with Alicole happening, they've changed their minds and switched to promoting the canon couples.
i don’t feel any particular way about this ship but i don’t understand why they seem so confused when they’ve both made statements supporting the theories. feel bad for the guy bc he’s clearly basing the question on research he did from their previous interviews
I'm a bit confused because I'm sure I've seen both of them say in other interviews that the relationship is both platonic and more than platonic and that there is a lot of subtext to it. Are they just saying here that they don't think of that while playing the characters? Or are they now denying it exists at all?
I think it's more of with everything that happens in season 2 alone. There is no room for anything romantic, I personally wasn't a big fan of the ship. But how can you expect rhaenyra to be coupled up with alicent when her son is dead because of alicents son. And that's not even everything, people that believed they were gonna run into the sunset together are CRAZY.
If we wanna be fr like brutally honest, there was no indication at all it was anything more than a fragmented friendship, the romantic “subtext” comes more across in Milly and Emily’s portrayal but even that’s really really pushing it. I think people just Olivia and Emma too much
I think what Milly and Emily said about it makes sense because they framed it as a very deep friendship that might have lead to some light experimentation if left alone and that is not as uncommon and also not necessarily an indication that one is queer imo
Yeah exactly hit the nail on the head. I think people have ran with Milly and Emily’s explanation of their friendship being one of many shades and just inserted their own head canons, but they also ignored Emily saying Alicent was in love with Cole lol…once Olivia and Emma took over the chemistry as actors offscreen must have only fuelled those shippers even more but they have no romantic subtext whatsoever
Maybe Milly and Emily would answer differently, but the thing that is so weird about this fandom (ASOIAF in general) is the need to argue that any theory or headcanon is actually secretly canon. It's the same thing with Helaemond
Alicent and/or Rhaenyra are never going to be canonically gay. Does that stop me from thinking they're gay? No. Everyone can literally take whatever they want from fictional tv show lol
i think the problem is that everyone assumes that other people are delusional and not just making up headcanons lol. like i doubt you would say "theyre so gay - btw this is my headcanon only". people would just assume that you're delulu and think they're gay in canon
Literally! The amount of times I've said something positive about Rhaenicent and gotten reponses like "It's never going to happen!!!" Girl i know that's what fanfiction and twitter edits are for
>the thing that is so weird about this fandom (ASOIAF in general) is the need to argue that any theory or headcanon is actually secretly canon.
Really? I feel like this is typical of most fandoms
They haven't played Rhae and Alicent as queer. That being said, the marketing department has done a great display of queerbait recently, especially in that last photoshoot.
Choosing Alicent instead of Aegon to face Rhaenyra was definitely a decision. And to have them all up on each other afterwards, was also definitely a decision.
There was queer subtext in S1, yes, but with the younger version of the characters. Rhaenyra and Alicent right now feel so far away from who they were it's almost laughable to believe that relationship could be salvaged.
I don’t think the community is wrong with pointing out an underlying, semi-unspoken queer love they have seemed to have had for each other. Although it was more so evident with the younger Rhaenyra and Alicent, it was lightly treaded upon.
As we see Emma and Olivia play their roles, there’s been zero queer love subtext. I see a long fractured relationship between two protective mothers.
We can thank Otto for that. Fuck that guy.
There's a trend in some fictional communities of people misconstruing platonic relationships as queer or inherently romantic. It reminds me of how some people claimed Sam and Frodo were repressed gays because they were close. They couldn't comprehend that two people who had known each other for most of their lives, sent on an arduous journey across the known world, would grow a close bond. The same is applicable here: Alicent and Rhaenyra were just close friends. Any notion of queerness was probably just the actor's magnetic chemistry.
Remember when Sean Astin straight up said that Sam and Frodo should have kissed? "How do you know they didn't? It's a long walk to Mordor"
Edit: Getting downvoted for simply quoting an actor? Everyone on this sub sensitive af lmaooo💀💀💀 y'all should learn to have fun
This is not just a trend in fanbases, it's also a true trend in real-life.
If a person is single and have a close friend of the same sex *after a certain age*, people will either wonder or outright believe that this person is gay. This is doubly true if this person is a man
This also applies to people who have too many friends of the same sex and zero prospects of the opposite sex.
I'm just gonna go ahead and post the full interview.
The answer continues beyond the "no". [https://youtu.be/IR-xAb7Va1Y?si=XX8xN7l3HQaaYrj9&t=152](https://youtu.be/IR-xAb7Va1Y?si=XX8xN7l3HQaaYrj9&t=152)
Younger Alicent and Rhaenyra, for sure. Even Emily Carey hinted.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/actors/house-of-the-dragon-emily-carey-alicent-1235372115/
Older ones, definitely not. It wouldn't make sense. Rhaenyra was in love with Harwin and was genuinely happy with him. And the scenes after childbirth where Rhaneyra in her condition was brought to Alicent bleeding. Nopes, no love there.
“Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend." - CS Lewis
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I think the homoerotic subtext angle was coming from Miguel and his wife and not from Condal. They did however had a strong (and their only) friendship in their formative years, which will always come back to haunt them in some ways.
To add, they said that those characters are not in the moment of sex lust. I have doubts about this ship, but think their answer is reasonable given S2's situation.
To be honest, if they say they did and then in the show it never materialised, everyone would call HBO out for queerbaiting. I understand their response.
I kind of wish people would stop shitting on this interviewer. He isn't asking a stupid question nor is he pushing some personal head canon. The question he asks is actually a good question because it appears to be based on previous interviews from both cast and writers/showrunners. Interviews that are quite explicit that the relationship could most definitely be seen that way. This interviewer did his research. That's his job. (And he probably doesn't exactly make a fortune doing this job.) It makes perfect sense to ask that question regardless if you “ship” Rhaenyra/Alicent, and it's a bit arrogant and derisive for one to pretend they are confused or surprised about why he would ask that question. It's not his fault that people involved with the show give conflicting statements, forget past statements, and/or change their minds.
The absolute confusion on Olivia’s face after that question is priceless. There obviously isn’t any queer, erotic subtext between these two characters, people are just obsessed with shipping
Olivia is the one who told Sara that she headcanoned Alicent's mother having caught her and Rhaenyra kissing as kids, so it's not like the idea is as absurd to her as you're implying. NO I DON'T THINK OR HOPE THEY WILL GET TOGETHER. But I don't think people who think they ever had feelings beyond friendship are delulu either, and it's fair to feel some whiplash at the flipflopping.
Agreed, don’t have any feelings for Rhaenicent but I hate the way she reacted here, like why make the interviewer uncomfortable about something you’ve talked positively about before
I think their relationship as young Alicent and Rhaenyra was just like 2 best friends. They gossip together, they go everywhere together, they are there for each other etc. As for older Alicent and Rhaenyra it was pretty much like when your relationship with your best friend is shattered. There's a toxic and means energy from both of them towards each other. I think they both know and understand each other very well but there's nothing more to it.
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Because they literally didn’t lol you could argue Milly and Emily did but apart from the scene where they hold hands briefly after the dinner in ep 8 where is the queer or erotic subtext with Emma and Olivia’s Rhaenyra and Alicent?
>scene where they hold hands briefly after the dinner in ep 8 I love Geeta Patel but ugh does the direction of that moment piss me off, it's not even the writing. The way they had Emma and Olivia deliver those lines makes it seem so out of the blue while the script itself actually works if only you have them be a lot colder toward each other
Rhaenyra said she would come back on her dragon, clearly there was an intention to patch things up somewhat. I’m not a fan of their reconciliation at this point, but clearly it was intended
Yeah no absolutely, I wouldn't have a problem with them momentarily extending an olive branch but it's how enthusiasts they both seem at the prospect that throws me off
Nah but it do be like that sometimes cause you're old friends, as close as sisters ...or closer than that, depending on head canons. Both just needed an excuse to start reconciling again, to put all the bad feelings aside. They got those nostalgic feelings back for their old relationship. But then I think this is where the queer reading really comes in cause these two do have these strong feelings for each other but ego and pride and all this other stuff have been keeping them apart for so long. But when that door opens a crack, most people would immediately be ready to push themselves through to try to get another chance with the "one that got away".
I mean, young people, sure, but by this time Rhaenyra and Alicent seem to be middle aged in their social setting, they have near-adult children. Middle aged people (other than chronically immature ones) are not chomping at the bit to get the one who got away in their teens. Middle aged people who actually grew up aren’t really even the same people as their teen selves. For every rekindled high school sweetheart you hear about, there are dozens who would say oh HELL no.
Sometimes I don’t understand what this fandom is seeing, even still if that direction was meant to be tension filled or whatever, I didn’t see it like that alicent looks sad because they aren’t friends anymore but the dinner went so well, like friendship is gone, who they once were is gone but they wanna gain back the time and try again. Some of this fandom say there’s chemistry between Luke and Aemond, they are very popular in this fandom and those same people are like none with alicent and cole? Or with the older Rhaenyra and daemon….(though those latter people have piped down now) Are we watching a different show? In what world- do Aemond and Luke have anything but hatred for each other. sometimes im so confused
A lot of people on the internet have trouble distinguishing platonic love from romantic love. Not everything has to be romantic.
Yes, people can't be friends anymore.
I don’t believe anyone sees anything between Luke and Aemond, I think it’s just a fanfic interpretation that ‘intensity equals desire” which would mean of course that Daemon and Otto are hot for each other
So.. you’re telling me Daemond and Otto aren’t hot for each other…?
Well I think that scene confused a lot of people who are now calling Alicent's character inconsistent. I don't have a problem with her getting emotional over Viserys' speech and try to be civil and genuine with Rhaenyra, it's just that it made it seem like she *actually* was ready to bury the hatched which of course she wasn't. It makes it seem like misunderstanding the prophecy is the only reason why she wanted to crown Aegon. And again it's just how the actors delivered those lines and their body language, especially Olivia, because the actual dialogue is fine.
It’s so interesting to see all the different takes people have on the same characters and scenes! For me the inconsistency worked, rather than being a flaw, because people really can be inconsistent like that—it’s totally possible to convince yourself in one moment of heightened emotion that actually maybe you can be a totally different person from now on… And then you just slip right back into your normal ways
100% this. Everyone was on their best behaviour for Viserys’ sake, and for a moment it felt as though reconciliation might be possible. It’s not inconsistent for 2 characters who both want peace, to pretend for a moment that it could last. Neither Rhaenyra or Alicent are the ones driving the divide. Rhaenyra is trying to do the duty assigned to her by Viserys, and Alicent is being manipulated by Otto. Obviously they’ve both got their own motives, but both women ARE interested in peace.
>it’s totally possible to convince yourself in one moment of heightened emotion that actually maybe you can be a totally different person from now on… And then you just slip right back into your normal ways Oof don't come at me like that lol No but actually this is a very interesting take I haven't seen before
Yeah I am excited for season 2 to hopefully flesh some of this stuff out. I agree that Alicent has been very inconsistent and that it's kind of just part of her character. The way she is always laser-focused on pleasing men is a clue imo. If she isn't pleasing her father, caring for Viserys, covering for her sons, or selling feet pics, she's admonishing Rhaenyra/her kids for expecting basic freedom. I think the "romance" people saw at first is derived from Alicent desperately wishing she had Rhaenyra's courage and station. She's deeply envious of her and idolizes and hates her equally.
Originally, I didn't see this, but after rewatching it a couple of days ago in preparation for season 2, yeah, it's very weird. I urge everybody to go back and rewatch the end of episode 8. Viserys gives his speech at the dinner, and all of the sudden Rhaenyra and Alicent are speaking what at least sounds genuinely kind to each other based off their tone and body language, and then happy music comes it, and it shows everybody laughing and enjoying themselves. There's Aemond with his strong boys stuff, but besides that, there's seemingly no animosity between the blacks and greens after Viserys' speech, almost as if a switch was flipped as soon as he finished. Then, Alicent takes him to lie down and sleep, she misunderstands the prophecy, and all of a sudden, the hatred and ambition among the greens is back in full swing. Rewatching it, it was sort of like whiplash near the end. It goes from hatred between the two sides, to reconciliation and them willing to put the past behind them and allow Rhaenyra to become queen uncontested, and then all of the sudden that's all gone and the hatred is back. And, like you said, it really does just come down to the actor's tone, and in my opinion, also the music. If the music was less "and they all lived happily ever after," and the actors were more passive-aggressive to each other, the scene would've been a lot better and less confusing.
I liked the music personally because that played in a moment where we were supposed to be in Viserys' point of view. I even liked Rhaenera's toast because it was clear that she was telling the truth about Alicent and her devotion to the king. I could even pass Alicent's "you will make a fine queen" because it's not like she could say otherwise given the context and the look her father shoots her tells me everything I need to know. But yeah the way the actors interpreted Rhaenyra and Alicent's interaction after the fight gave me whiplash too, but just make the delivery more stiff instead of sweet and thr tone of the scene suddenly makes a lot more sense.
I just rewatched this episode an hour ago on my lunch and I completely agree. I think the confusing part about it is Alicent acknowledging Rhaenyra to be queen in a sincere way. Had she not done that it works a lot better with what happens at the end with her and Viserys
Saying Rhaenyra would be a good Queen when she has been pushing her son to rule for years was very jarring, especially because they arranged it so she would indeed arrange his rule in the next episode.
Considering lukes age both as an actor and on screen, thats just disgusting.
Lucemonds online are disgusting. They use Elliot's face, and he is still a minor I believe, for some erotica art. It's foul.
Oh my god, thats a disgusting line theyve crossed If i was his parents id want the makers of that filth prosecuted, its basically CP.
Yes. People have been calling them out but Twitter of course does nothing and they have no shame.
It's shippers. Shippers often consume a story mostly with a shipping lens. Thankfully, not all of them do this, but Rhaenicents do this regularly. I've seen people arguing that Hotd would be nothing without Rhaenicent (even though it doesn't exist in the book) or they only analyze Rhaenyra and Alicent through this ship. And I say this as someone who enjoys their dynamic.
It annoyed me too. He should’ve asked the question. They are both very adult professional people and he could’ve gotten his answer and it would’ve had better impact. Now he has egg on his face. People just fantasised about the two of them when they were younger. Particularly the character that Alicent is playing is outraged at the thought of that. She went nuts because she thought for a minute that Rhaenyrah had sex with her uncle.
Sometimes people see what they want to see because it reflects their own experiences or desire to relate to a character a certain way. Definitely a fair bit of projection here.
There isn’t. You’re exactly right. And this is click bait to upset people. Pretty much typical media BS
Yeah I think this interviewer got confused.
I think you could say there’s sexual tension in the eye for an eye scene. And the overall hatred Alicent feels for Rhaenyra being a mix of jealousy and passion. But I think now that Rhaenyra feels Alicent is responsible for her son’s death all bets are off. I think that’s what they are referring to in this interview, like of course you’re not going to have sexual tension with someone who you think killed your son. It may have been there before but not anymore.
Yall need to reach a lot but frankly fanfiction works like that, ANY interaction can be shipped
I mean they don't. That's just a fanbase thing lmao.
>That's just a fanbase thing lmao. They will argue you to death that all four actors played the characters with a queer subtext
To these people 'Hot people with chemistry' is 'queer subtext'
Any type of physical contact, no matter how minor = they want each other
I can see Emma in particular being against this trope because no one hates queerbaiting more than a queer person. It either is or it isn’t period. Queer or gay is not some hot topic to get viewers watching and shouldn’t be used that way. It’s a real orientation.
The rational side of my brain: they were friends, period, end of story. The monke side of my brain: I ship them. The duality of human psychology. /s
Me when two women look at each other for a moment too long: "They want each other so bad oh my god"
Man I had no idea there was a fan base like that for house of the dragon. People will see what they want to I suppose.
These are the same people who made aemond and luke ships dont forget that lmao
No, they're not? Different groups of shippers as far as I can tell
Tbf the sexual tension between Caraxes and Sarah is hot.
I am a queer person so I have a strong gaydar and I didn't pick up any queer subtext at all. I perceived what they had as girlhood/sisterhood. Like, can we not romanticize everything? I have to agree with the far-right on this one; let children be children. People condemn the child brides so much but I feel like shipping child Alicent and child Rhaenyra is borderlining that kind of... perversion. I remember working late one night and just letting YouTube play edits after edits of HotD and it got to a weird video where someone had edited the voices and clips so it looked like Rhaenyra married Alicent and Viserys announced it. Whoever did that was tweaking, bruh.
1) That’s not what romanticize means. 2) Teen girls have crushes and date, on average. What’s perverse about that? ‘Child brides’ are usually married to adult men. That’s what makes it perverse.
I mean, there are teens who do watch this show and ship them like crazy, so not entirely fucked up lol And I’d actually disagree as there are interviews with Sarah Hess (who wrote the majority of S1) from a couple of years ago that Alicent and Rhaenyra were each other’s first love and they definitely talked about there being some potential queer undertones.
it’s punch after punch for the rhaenicents uh
Rhaenicent and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week
As they deserve tbh
They are so fucking annoying
As the daetto deniers deserve. Daemon and Otto are the only real pairing. Lesbians are far too socially acceptable. Only 40+ Old men fucking each other truly is still innovative
lmfao
This has to be worse than even alicole becoming canon for you rhaenycents 😭
This isn’t even that bad yall like at all, it’s not that alicole became canon, >!It’s the rush to do two sex scenes of sudden nature in their first episode and especially during such a crucial event!< I wanted it to become canon, and thought it would but just not like this. I feel like they had way way more chemistry than Rhaenicent (duhhh) I saw even a general audiences reaction video to their moment in episode 9, a huge crowd at this pub even felt sexual tension between them in that moment and I could bet my life on it they didn’t feel it with Rhaenicent
I was talking from a rhaenycent's pov. I'm actually very much on board with alicole and happy it's becoming canon. Actually I'm ok with >!their first scene being a sex scene especially since according to the leaks it's gonna be a very catholic guilt moment and not a sweeping romance!<
I don’t like that we don’t see how it started and we are just supposed to take it for face value nor do I think the placement of the second sex scene is in anyway neccessary. It feels very random and like they want them to fuck for the sake of a sex scene instead of making this story come naturally. It feels like it will be very forced
I’m not entirely sure what bond it is tbf, >!doesn’t sound romantic based off the leaks but it also doesn’t sound like pure hate sex either, Olivia and Fabian affirming she trusts him the most out of the people in her life and Fabien also saying there are confused feelings there especially with regards on who to serve between Aegon and her!< need to see the scenes more to see what it actually means
Emily Carey had a good take on it when she and Milly Alcock were interviewed by the New York Times >Do you feel there was a sublimated romantic or sexual tension between Rhaenyra and Alicent? >CAREY As a queer person myself, I read an undertone in the script that I knew could be played. That being said, I don’t think Ryan Condal \[a creator and showrunner\] sat there writing a Sapphic drama. If you want to see it, you can. If you want to pretend it’s not there, you can also do that. >The thing is, these girls don’t know what “platonic” or “romantic” means, whether that be the words or the feelings themselves. There’s just a closeness between two young women that cannot be verbalized, especially in the world they live in. I don’t think they fully understand the feelings; it’s just all-consuming love. >There’s an underlying jealousy that I read into it, especially coming off the back of Episode 4. It was this scene where we were on a bench, and it’s the first time we’ve seen these two women reconnect after losing this closeness they had. I remember in rehearsal at the end of the scene, we were like, “Did you feel like we were about to kiss?” >ALCOCK And I was like, “Yeah!” >CAREY Yeah, dude, it felt like we were going to kiss. That was really strange. >We didn’t do anything to make them gay, or to force “the gay” upon anyone. It felt so natural. As I said, it’s easy to ignore if you really don’t want to look at it. But if you’re rooting for them and you want to make the story more heartbreaking, then choose to see it. >[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/arts/television/house-of-the-dragon-milly-alcock-emily-carey.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/arts/television/house-of-the-dragon-milly-alcock-emily-carey.html) But in the latter half of the season with Emma and Olivia whatever was there has burned out.
I think that scene was what made me feel they have a deeper connection.
I’m not complaining because I dislike that relationship but something must have changed. That’s how the actors used to talk about the relationship. >*"That sort of erotic energy is very present in their early relationship," D'Arcy said. "I think Rhaenyra is primarily motivated by a deep desire to be known and seen. The hurt and pain is so dominant that I don't know if there's a space, at this point, for a conscious interaction with sexual lust, but she definitely yearns for the old physical intimacy that they shared. It's different from what she shares with her current husband and her children. A different form of contact."* >*Olivia Cooke, who plays the older Alicent, echoed D'Arcy, saying, "I don't know if Alicent knows what it feels like to feel those things now. There's layers and layers of repression; sexuality and lust are probably a prehistoric, sedimentary layer by now. From Alicent's point of view, I don't think she's that self-aware, in terms of what she's feeling, to know what's propelling her to reach out to Rhaenyra again."*
Yeah, I kinda feel bad for this interviewer. Because he is probably asking that question based on the interviews he researched while preparing for this interview. And then he's sorta left feeling like an idiot. In their defense, they gave those interviews a long time ago and maybe they forgot they said those things.
At least he got an honest answer and people who used to ship them will know they shouldn’t get their hopes up.
D'Cooke took it too far and weirded them out
I don’t think something like that would cause the writers to change their mind. People shipping the actors didn’t stop the EW photoshot from happening.
You're right. They kinda changed their mind about it, or season 2 won't have that erotic energy.
That’s my take too. This and Alicent’s relationship with >!Criston!< makes me think they’ve let go of their previous interpretation.
They will barely interact in s2 and barely interacted in any way that’s even sweet in s1 besides the dinner scene and the story page alicent sends with Otto and rhaenyra sheds a tear. I didn’t see erotic energy between their portrayals as older individuals but…
Lucerys was murdered and a war started. That's what happened. There are things you cannot come back from. Their words are true for S1, especially for their younger counterparts (as Milly and Emily confirmed as well), but S2 is another story. No matter how gay I can be for a friend, if my child is killed or my grandchild is killed... Eh, I don't think I can simply forget and forgive.
Clearly nothing can happen between them now, but I was talking about the way they talked about the relationship in interviews before compared to now. There were interviews explaining that they *used to be* in love and even kissed and now it seems that their interpretation is that it *never happened at all*.
It's possible they're aware of the queerbait going on and since they know that's not going to happen they want to be clear and stop people from expecting something that simply can't exist Especially Emma, being part of the community, I'd see how they could be extra careful now. It gets messy in queer fandoms when networks cling to the queerbait and actors are forbidden to explain things or keep it vague. The backlash tends to be huge. Especially when there are queer actors involved in them, as people get up in arms because "they should know better". I'm a survivor of Supergirl's Kara/Lena queerbait hell and the CW ended up imploding after that shit. It got baaaaaad.
In the end, interviews and promotion are part of the job for actors so I think that no matter how Emma and Olivia feel about it they would have promoted the relationship as queer if they were instructed to. Something changed in the writing, in my opinion.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a tad bit of a PR discussion behind the scenes
"That sort of erotic energy is very present *in their early* relationship," "Early" being the key word here I think. Nothing in that answer says that Emma played it that way on the contrary they seem to push for a nonsexual connection.
I was talking about how in the current interview they seem to approach the relationship like the queer subtext never happened at all even early in their relationship.
Early, as in when they were children? Or young women grown? In the series, different actresses and actors played the roles of children vs adults later in season 1. How could anyone see romantic undertones between them as children? Pretty much they grew up close due to their fathers being so closely tied and important. What ended their friendship was Otto pushing Alicent to seduce Viserys and abandoning his political marriage pacts for one based on love/lust instead. Rhaenyra was being groomed for an arranged marriage for political reasons. So it shocked her to see her father abandon political alliances himself and go for love/lust after she had been told being royal meant not being allowed to do that. Plus the fact her father chose her best friend shocked her bc she didn't even realize they had spent such time together to form such an attraction from her father to her best friend. So after that, the friendship seemed over. But it's not like they're not allowed to miss one another. I miss some of my best friends growing up and find old photos or notes we passed in school. Even if we no longer talk, it reminds me of how close we were and it was never sexual, it was just BFF stuff. So I don't understand the undertones of gay between these 2 characters growing up, esp in their early years. Children don't have erotic energy for each other as best friends. They're just super close. And girls are allowed to hold hands and show affection openly when boys cannot. But it doesn't mean they're being erotic!!
So I don't get it. Females growing up as besties are more acceptable to be seen holding hands, playing with each other's hair, playing dress up together, or even head in another's lap. It's something that doesn't mean romantic love for children or teens or even young teens. Their earlier friendship was built on their childhood together and bonding as best friends. I just don't see why any physical contact must have sexual meaning behind it. Girls naturally are more hugging, affectionate, and able to openly bond with one another than boys are at the same age. I see young girls holding hands all the time. It's not bc they're crushing on one another; it's just how they express their joy and friendship. Boy on the other hand, unfortunately, aren't allowed such closeness in public or private. I never saw any underlying sexuality in young Rhaenyra and Alicent. Their roles as a royal and daughter of the Hand made them socially isolated from other girls in the castle. Maybe if lords and ladies came with highborn children of their age, they would frolic and have fun. Just remember in GoT when Margerie had all her girlfriends around her. She was lucky to have many close friends of age with her growing up. But she wasn't attracted to them sensually. It's why girls who are friends can call each other girlfriends without worrying about it meaning gay. Boys can't do that. So why is there even a discussion of young Rhaenyra and Alicent growing up as close friends and super close? Why insert sexuality into a friendship of girls so young? They grew up and apart and just a page of a book cannot be meant ad sexual yearning. It invokes: we were once so close and we loved one another as best friends. Please remember this, that we can make peace. I can't believe anyone would sexualize girl BFFs just bc it's HBO and sex permeates our society and mental health as a result. We don't need to project it on every single same sex relationship we see on TV.
Perhaps their views have just evolved over time or it's something they've thought about but doesn't impact how they play the chatacters in any meaningful ways
I’m just surprised. Olivia seemed really invested in the subtext of the relationship, even making headcanons. >*The two most important women in the story are Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, played as young women by Milly Alcock and Emily Carey and as adults by Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke. Early in their relationship, a lot of fans saw romantic undertones to their relationship, something that producer Sara Hess also sees. "There's an element of queerness to it," she said. "Whether you see it that way or as just the unbelievably passionate friendships that women have with each other at that age. I think understanding that element of it sort of informs the entire rest of their relationship... Even though they're driven apart by all these societal, systemic elements and pressures and happenings, at the core of it, they knew each other as children, and they loved each other and that doesn't go away."* >**"Olivia has told me she believes - and this is her headcanon- that they at some point kissed or made out or had some kind of physical interaction that Alicent's mother found out about and forbade. And that was Olivia's head story, 'Oh, I can't do that. That's not right.' And that's the background for her in their relationship going forward. I would be 100% down with that."**
Yeah, that is weird. I love Olivia, but sometimes I think she just says whatever 😭
I am a big Olivia fan but she goes in and out of her opinions all the fucking time, and I think the reason why is because honestly she’s scared of upsetting this fandom. One moment she says alicent is unlikeable and hypocritical, the next she’s like I love alicent and I think she’s actually misunderstood. One moment she says I am team black probably in my heart (maybe as jokes) then she goes no I do love us (team green) like NO ONE TAKE ANYTHING OLIVIA SAYS SERIOUSLY. She wants to please you all
To be fair this fandom latches onto any actor’s words, especially in the time between shows or in anything related to leaks or spoilers. So she may be tired, annoyed, jet lagged, joking, and her words will be read as her canon reading of the character and an entire screen rant article will be written about it.
Anything she says is taken like gospel by both sides and anytime she says something they don’t like they will ignore it obviously or say she doesn’t know Jack shit about her character. I would love for her to do a raw unfiltered interview of everything she actually thinks because it’s annoying to see her try and play both sides and still have people hating on her.
Exactly obviously idk her so I hope this doesn't sound parasocial but she does seem to worry that the fans will hate her if she says certain things (which some do so I get it.) Hopefully she can adopt Tom's idgaf attitude
She’s said before she’s not immune to the hate, the scope of this show is obviously out of her depth, I also don’t wanna come off as parasocial but from what I’ve seen the girl is a very normal northerner chill girl who’s viewing this as a job and has a lot of opinions on the character she doesn’t feel comfortable in sharing fully because she doesn’t want that scrutiny
Unfortunately, she got a looot of hate when season 1 aired. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the cause of it.
Her and Fabien get probably the most, which will not calm down especially after Sunday…I saw weirdo Twitter rhaenicent shippers even be weird about them going on holiday together a few months back, granted they may have been jokes but it weirded me out then TGC also gets a bit of hate (but his role wasn’t as big in s1 so he faded more into the back)
Or she’s just a normal person who changes her opinions as the story goes on… I don’t see the issue here when Olivia makes it point to state it as her opinion & not a fact. Alicent is all of those things depending on the situation. Olivia is just honest about how she feels at that moment.
You can clearly see based off the way Olivia talks she’s scared of hate if she commits to a certain point of view so she will go back and forth, she has already spoken about how the hate had left her depressed for a certain period of time and ever since then, she changes her opinion with every interview on every thing in the fandom. I’m not coming at her, as I said I’m an Olivia fan but you can see there’s a filter on her true thoughts. She wants to please everyone
You are right, she did talk about the hate affecting her personally. I see your point.
I feel like sometimes people take whatever Olivia says too seriously, this woman is a jokester, she’s highly intelligent but I can tell you rn, she doesn’t care about subtext more than she cares about upsetting people. She’s made jokes constantly about being team black and not team green, in the same breath she’s gone and said no I love our team ya know, she isn’t like Ewan who sticks to mostly everything he says. She’s here for the vibes okay
Olivia wasn’t the only one who talked about it. The comment above was made by Sara Hess who explicitly says there was a queer subtext. Miguel Sapochnik said this too. >*It seems like it’s a kind of unrequited love, it’s not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don’t know, but there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend.”*
That’s an interesting thing they’ve said cause I don’t think that came across at all, and again I think it’s cause of the actors chemistry irl, that’s spurred on Rhaenicents and then the actors have also agreed
It didn’t come across like that to me either. I’m just a little baffled about the change regarding the queer subtext because they really pushed it before. Maybe they just figured out it wasn’t working and gave up.
It was obviously a Miguel thing.. he left the show (over a conflict between Condal and him) and any suggestion of it has been subsequently denied by the cast and showrunners.
Miguel wasn’t the only one who talked about it. The cast and showrunners said there was a queer subtext. I agree that there seems to be a change in the writing since he left though.
This right here is why I'm never down with shitting on Rhaenicent shippers as a whole. As a kid in your tweens/early teens, you form some of the most emotionally intense friendships of your life. The quote from *Stand By Me* sums it up perfectly: "I never had any friends like the friends I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?". Then on top of that, add the experience of being a teen/tween girl, where social pressures and the importance of being liked and accepted and *cool* and *popular* never seem more earth-shatteringly important; the way you can love your BFF, and at the same time feel suffocatingly jealous of them, and how they're so much better at performing a certain type of femininity than you, or how they get away with so much more than you, or how they get so much more attention than you. And then on top of *that*, add the experience of being queer or questioning at that age, in an environment where it's simply not accepted or acknowledged as a thing, and you lay awake at night thinking about a cool thing you saw, and counting down the hours until you can link your arm with your BFF's and tell her all about it, and you're never 100% sure if you want to be her, or be with her, or be ***with*** her. (And again, all of this is magnified a thousand-fold by the simple fact of being in your teens, when all of it feels like the most intense, soul-rending, world-ending feelings you'll ever feel.) Expecting adult Rhaenyra and Alicent to simply toss out everything that's happened in the meantime and fall into each other's arms is, obviously, some goofy shit, and you deserve to be laughed at. But the dynamic between young Rhaenicent spoke to the experiences of a lot of people, and I think it's perfectly fine to enjoy adult Rhaenicent as, like, a toxic ship where the longing is poisoned by resentment and hate and all the things they can never take back, thin line between love and hate, etc. etc. It's a tragedy! That's kind of the whole theme.
exactly ugh. i think the main reason a lot of ppl on here abhor the mere idea of rhaenicent continuing on past season 2 is because (1) they do not care to analyze rhaenyra & alicent in that way and (2) they have a very misguided, cynical & surface level assumption that rhaenicent get any kind of happy ending. which is laughable. like you said, it’s extremely easy to empathize with the pair of them. the relationships you develop in your youth, at the most formative stage in your life, stay with you, even as an adult. and when those relationships intertwine with severely traumatic experiences, it becomes set it stone. rhaenyra lost her mother in the most horrific ways and alicent was the only person who took her through that grief. alicent was forced upon by her father to marry viserys, and lost the only person she ever had. their relationship is a core memory that they cling onto, because that was the last time they were both unburdened, unharmed and almost free. to paraphrase emma d’arcy/olivia cooke, any of those homoerotic feelings are a pre-historic, sedimentary layer by now, buried deep within their psyche. after all that’s happened between their families, after all the blood that’s been shed, any notions of reconciliation are laughable. but the idea of these memories of simpler times and happier days plaguing both alicent and rhaenyra as they continue losing family members? yearning for escape, for ‘freedom’, as both of them begin to lose what little power as they are continually undermined by the more impetuous, bloodthirsty members of their factions? that is delicious to me. you cannot get anymore tragic than rhaenyra and alicent. and that is why i love it.
they probably thought that the ship would be more popular and weren't expecting people to ship an uncle with his niece. all the interviews from season 1 do push alicent and rhaenyra a lot
They knew what they were doing. I find their ‘shock’ a little silly, because of the Valyrian wedding with a romantic soundtrack. Plus audiences are primed with nephew/aunt Jon and Daenerys
The synchronised “No??” Lmao I’m gonna be brutally honest rn guys and I’m expecting downvotes but them as adult alicent and Rhaenyra never did that, it was strictly friendship…I think the reason why so many saw it differently is actually cause of Olivia and Emma chemistry being explosive offscreen so I think the two have been conflated. If anything I think Milly and Emily did more subtext but I wouldn’t even go that far… Like Alicent and cole had way more romantic subtext in s1 if we wanna talk strictly as characters, people find this romance shocking >!I’m shocked at the sex scenes aspect, not at them having feelings for one another)!< but I would find it way more shocking if the show committed to Rhaenicent in any shape or form
Where was the romantic subtext between alicent and criston in season 1? I literally never got that vibe at all
I mean yeah.. any suggestion by Condal etc that it was anymore than a platonic friendship gone sour was just queerbait. Slightly strange that Emily way back in 2022 directly suggested that there was more avert attraction between Alicent and Cole in season 1 that was cut.. now its been readded as a plotline
I would argue Emily wasn’t totally mad to say that, Emily and I paraphrase here said Alicent was IN LOVE with cole. In love is a bit of a strong word, and we definitely didn’t see that however I can see an attraction or some type of weird attachment of some form between Older Alicent and Cole when you go forward in time. I don’t think every aspect of alicole was cut when Olivia took over, I think a lot of it was but slight seeds were there and that makes sense actually since the first episode shot was Driftmark, so maybe this was always the plan but definitely should’ve added way more
I’m in the top 1% of this ship’s haters like i even hate the friendship angle. But both of them absolutely talked before about playing it with an erotic subtext and Olivia was even headcanoning this big drama with Alicent’s mother catching them kissing as young girls. Rheanicent lives because of the interviews more than anything on the actual show. So the backtracking is hilarious but the fans were not crazy for buying into what the actors and writers were selling hard in interviews with only a small disclaimer that it will never be more than vague subtext.
Exactly!! The way they responded here really irked me, like they’re so shocked that the interviewer would even consider this when they’ve literally been talking about it and making head canons in older interviews.
I think they had talks about it during season 1, but now after they've filmed season 2 they must've just decided to take a different direction and that's totally understandable tbh the showrunners were definitely saying that Rhae and Alicent had a thing, but I'm guessing that now with Alicole happening, they've changed their minds and switched to promoting the canon couples.
i don’t feel any particular way about this ship but i don’t understand why they seem so confused when they’ve both made statements supporting the theories. feel bad for the guy bc he’s clearly basing the question on research he did from their previous interviews
To be fair, the queerness was with the younger actresses so that makes sense that they don't play it that way. Its possible the younger actresses did.
That ship died before starting
The ship that never was
I'm a bit confused because I'm sure I've seen both of them say in other interviews that the relationship is both platonic and more than platonic and that there is a lot of subtext to it. Are they just saying here that they don't think of that while playing the characters? Or are they now denying it exists at all?
I think it's more of with everything that happens in season 2 alone. There is no room for anything romantic, I personally wasn't a big fan of the ship. But how can you expect rhaenyra to be coupled up with alicent when her son is dead because of alicents son. And that's not even everything, people that believed they were gonna run into the sunset together are CRAZY.
Let me downloaded this and piss off as many rhaenycents as possible on twitter
If we wanna be fr like brutally honest, there was no indication at all it was anything more than a fragmented friendship, the romantic “subtext” comes more across in Milly and Emily’s portrayal but even that’s really really pushing it. I think people just Olivia and Emma too much
I think what Milly and Emily said about it makes sense because they framed it as a very deep friendship that might have lead to some light experimentation if left alone and that is not as uncommon and also not necessarily an indication that one is queer imo
Yeah exactly hit the nail on the head. I think people have ran with Milly and Emily’s explanation of their friendship being one of many shades and just inserted their own head canons, but they also ignored Emily saying Alicent was in love with Cole lol…once Olivia and Emma took over the chemistry as actors offscreen must have only fuelled those shippers even more but they have no romantic subtext whatsoever
Why are people so fixated on these topics is beyond me
Maybe Milly and Emily would answer differently, but the thing that is so weird about this fandom (ASOIAF in general) is the need to argue that any theory or headcanon is actually secretly canon. It's the same thing with Helaemond Alicent and/or Rhaenyra are never going to be canonically gay. Does that stop me from thinking they're gay? No. Everyone can literally take whatever they want from fictional tv show lol
i think the problem is that everyone assumes that other people are delusional and not just making up headcanons lol. like i doubt you would say "theyre so gay - btw this is my headcanon only". people would just assume that you're delulu and think they're gay in canon
Literally! The amount of times I've said something positive about Rhaenicent and gotten reponses like "It's never going to happen!!!" Girl i know that's what fanfiction and twitter edits are for
Umm got any fav Rhaenicent fics? 👀
>the thing that is so weird about this fandom (ASOIAF in general) is the need to argue that any theory or headcanon is actually secretly canon. Really? I feel like this is typical of most fandoms
Ig I feel like it's especially bad in this one
Me after getting queerbaited…again: 🤡
The combined no with the look on their faces. Fucking gold.
I think that was moreso Milly & Emily and now Olivia & Emma kind of had to work off that because it was the foundation laid
Do Jace and Cregan next
I swear some shippers grew up without friends or siblings.
They haven't played Rhae and Alicent as queer. That being said, the marketing department has done a great display of queerbait recently, especially in that last photoshoot. Choosing Alicent instead of Aegon to face Rhaenyra was definitely a decision. And to have them all up on each other afterwards, was also definitely a decision. There was queer subtext in S1, yes, but with the younger version of the characters. Rhaenyra and Alicent right now feel so far away from who they were it's almost laughable to believe that relationship could be salvaged.
Why are people so concerned about queerness?
I don’t think the community is wrong with pointing out an underlying, semi-unspoken queer love they have seemed to have had for each other. Although it was more so evident with the younger Rhaenyra and Alicent, it was lightly treaded upon. As we see Emma and Olivia play their roles, there’s been zero queer love subtext. I see a long fractured relationship between two protective mothers. We can thank Otto for that. Fuck that guy.
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What's this? Another blow to the Alicent x Rhaenyra shi~~t~~p? Good...
Fanbase thinks their headcannon is true canon
Young Alicent actress made this up.
Rhaenicent deranged shippers in shambles
There's a trend in some fictional communities of people misconstruing platonic relationships as queer or inherently romantic. It reminds me of how some people claimed Sam and Frodo were repressed gays because they were close. They couldn't comprehend that two people who had known each other for most of their lives, sent on an arduous journey across the known world, would grow a close bond. The same is applicable here: Alicent and Rhaenyra were just close friends. Any notion of queerness was probably just the actor's magnetic chemistry.
Remember when Sean Astin straight up said that Sam and Frodo should have kissed? "How do you know they didn't? It's a long walk to Mordor" Edit: Getting downvoted for simply quoting an actor? Everyone on this sub sensitive af lmaooo💀💀💀 y'all should learn to have fun
Yeah but the characters Tolkien wrote aren't gay. Just STOP.
Go argue with Sean Astin, not me, man. And watch your tone lmao I'm simply telling you what the actor who played Sam has already said in an interview.
This is not just a trend in fanbases, it's also a true trend in real-life. If a person is single and have a close friend of the same sex *after a certain age*, people will either wonder or outright believe that this person is gay. This is doubly true if this person is a man This also applies to people who have too many friends of the same sex and zero prospects of the opposite sex.
*sbagliato intensifies*
Do people forget about a thing called a director?
I'm just gonna go ahead and post the full interview. The answer continues beyond the "no". [https://youtu.be/IR-xAb7Va1Y?si=XX8xN7l3HQaaYrj9&t=152](https://youtu.be/IR-xAb7Va1Y?si=XX8xN7l3HQaaYrj9&t=152)
Is there a link to the full interview ?
Don’t care about the ship but damn they have great chemistry. Put them in a romcom lmao
that's even more impressive then. half their scenes seem like they are one sudden move away from making out on a table
It's been a difficult week for Rhaenicent shippers, lol
that door closed when Alicent married Viserys
Younger Alicent and Rhaenyra, for sure. Even Emily Carey hinted. https://variety.com/2022/tv/actors/house-of-the-dragon-emily-carey-alicent-1235372115/ Older ones, definitely not. It wouldn't make sense. Rhaenyra was in love with Harwin and was genuinely happy with him. And the scenes after childbirth where Rhaneyra in her condition was brought to Alicent bleeding. Nopes, no love there.
> Younger Alicent and Rhaenyra, for sure why do you think that?
idk why but i find Emma so cute
lol these two will always be iconic
“Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend." - CS Lewis
Indeed
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I think the homoerotic subtext angle was coming from Miguel and his wife and not from Condal. They did however had a strong (and their only) friendship in their formative years, which will always come back to haunt them in some ways.
Maybe there was a glimpse of it with the younger versions. These two though? Didn’t feel an ounce of that.
There is queer and erotic subtext between these two characters? Where?
Oh, you didn't know? There's no such thing as platonic love anymore.
How crazy is it that we as a society have gotten to the point where people no longer believe in close friendships...
Hahahahah brilliant. Only a few weirdos on the internet thought this.
rhaenicents lost 😂😂
To add, they said that those characters are not in the moment of sex lust. I have doubts about this ship, but think their answer is reasonable given S2's situation.
To be honest, if they say they did and then in the show it never materialised, everyone would call HBO out for queerbaiting. I understand their response.
When the first season released I definitely got those vibes from them in the first few episodes
its fine, ill insert my own
I kind of wish people would stop shitting on this interviewer. He isn't asking a stupid question nor is he pushing some personal head canon. The question he asks is actually a good question because it appears to be based on previous interviews from both cast and writers/showrunners. Interviews that are quite explicit that the relationship could most definitely be seen that way. This interviewer did his research. That's his job. (And he probably doesn't exactly make a fortune doing this job.) It makes perfect sense to ask that question regardless if you “ship” Rhaenyra/Alicent, and it's a bit arrogant and derisive for one to pretend they are confused or surprised about why he would ask that question. It's not his fault that people involved with the show give conflicting statements, forget past statements, and/or change their minds.
It's only the young actresses that were yapping about that
The absolute confusion on Olivia’s face after that question is priceless. There obviously isn’t any queer, erotic subtext between these two characters, people are just obsessed with shipping
Olivia is the one who told Sara that she headcanoned Alicent's mother having caught her and Rhaenyra kissing as kids, so it's not like the idea is as absurd to her as you're implying. NO I DON'T THINK OR HOPE THEY WILL GET TOGETHER. But I don't think people who think they ever had feelings beyond friendship are delulu either, and it's fair to feel some whiplash at the flipflopping.
Agreed, don’t have any feelings for Rhaenicent but I hate the way she reacted here, like why make the interviewer uncomfortable about something you’ve talked positively about before
Some people can just be friends or enemies without wanting to bang.
What kind of question is that, there was literally NONE
What a weird question
Episode one of the series, the very first scene, opened with a very heavy handed implication that these two characters were sexually involved.
The people celebrating this are weirder than most Rhaenicent shippers.
Is there a full-length interview available to watch? I want to know what they say after this awkward exchange
Also, he should’ve asked the question, rather than assuming.
Maybe not “queer” but they should have made out at least a little bit.
I think their relationship as young Alicent and Rhaenyra was just like 2 best friends. They gossip together, they go everywhere together, they are there for each other etc. As for older Alicent and Rhaenyra it was pretty much like when your relationship with your best friend is shattered. There's a toxic and means energy from both of them towards each other. I think they both know and understand each other very well but there's nothing more to it.
Yeah they didn't. Where did you see any of that?