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I wholeheartedly believe that to tell a feminist story, you have to at least tell a story that make sense, this is unfortunately not what Ryan Condal and his team did with Alicent Hightower, in season two of HOTD.

I kept defending them and their choices, until that last scene of season two, and although it breaks my heart that Alicent “sacrificed” Aegon, I have to admit that the things she said around it bother me a bit more.

Before anything, I want to point out that the patriarchy is not some fable, some story that they tell women to make them be submissive; it’s a setting that affects the lives of every living woman in the world (both the real world and asoif). It restricts the freedom of women, and put their very lives at stakes all the time. It manifests itself everywhere, so much that it’s easy to make people believe that “It’s just the order of things”. Sure, women can try to fight against these rules, like Rhaenyra (to a certain extent) who did not care about the prejudice against women and their sexuality, and vied for the throne despite having bastards. Or like Rhaenys, Visenya and Alyssane who despite all of their faults, did try to make the lives of women in the seven kingdoms better.

Alicent did believe that men were more fit to rule, while she thought that women were supposed to “guide them gently”. Although she believed that Rhaenyra should sit the Iron Throne, and she also tried to be named regent, so it’s inconsistent, but I digress. However, I don’t blame her for that. Alicent did not make these rules; these rules existed long before she was born, and that’s what she has been taught since she was a child. Alicent suffered a lot from them. In fact all her life, all she did was trying to make a better life for herself and her children under these rules. For the entire season one, Alicent was shown as the person who suffered more from gendered oppression in the show. Her reasoning for taking the throne was valid her actions were understandable and motivated by self preservation. If they Rhaenyra took it, she would need to kill all of Alicent’s children.

Somehow, season two episode height, had her apologizing for all the actions she made out of self-preservation. And you can smell that some 21st century writer was the mind behind her reasoning, but I’ll say more on that later.

Multiple people in charge of the show, talked about Alicent needing to be humbled. Why does she need to be humbled and apologize for her sins? While a man like Viserys, who cut his wife to take a child out of her and raped Alicent is glorified. They had her recite all the misogynistic criticism the general audience had against her, and apologize for it.

Alicent tried to be the perfect friend for Rhaenyra, more than she should have. For some reason people still find ways to blame her. She was groomed since she was 14 by Viserys and Otto; she is blamed for that, as if she had any agency in the situation.

Alicent should betray her family, disobey her father to protect Rhaenyra, do the opposite of what she was told since she was a child. And it would still not mean anything because neither her, nor Rhaenyra have power in the situation.

She was raped by Viserys as a 15/16 years old girl, again it must be her fault as a 15 years old girl, and she manipulated poor old Viserys who had no idea that he was grooming a young girl. And they always use the argument that it was fine at the time. The discourse around it resembles the discourse around Lolita when it was first published more than 50 years ago, and people still haven’t moved from blaming young girls for the actions of the men around them.

If they have a little bit of conscience, they will tell you that they feel bad for Alicent when she was a child, but not for the adult she became. But the adult is the direct result of the abuse that she suffered when she was a child. And again she fears that her children could be killed, a valid fear. Why would I blame her for doing what she could to save her family? Apparently Ryan Condal and Sara Heiss, think that she should apologize for that. “I lost my way; or rather it was taken away from me.” Implies that she realizes that getting married and having babies was never what she wanted, but something that was forced on her. But in the same scene (just like in the entire season), she praises Viserys even thought he was the main person who took her agency away from her. And I understand that victims can cope by idealizing their abusers, but viserys did not abuse only her, he abused her and her children, and clearly didn’t value her sacrifices. I think it came to that point where she didn’t even need a “liberation arc” to realize that, yet she still praises him.

Let’s talk about her plans to run away. This is where the writing started to feel the most like a 21st century pseudo-feminist was in charge of this writing and was more attached to the idea of Alicent being free, instead of real freedom. Alicent planned to runaway with her daughter and her granddaughter to “breathe the open air, and finally be free”, but she doesn’t plan any money? It’s as if they were trying to make her sound dumb because Aegon and Larys were also planning to runaway but somehow they knew they had money somewhere. But Alicent? Nothing. I’m actually not nitpicking. The patriarchy actively refuses to grant women power or money, so that they could stay bound to the men around them, to their family. And she doesn’t have any skill to survive when she “wanders in the wilderness” she was raised a highborn lady in a castle life in the wilderness, without any family to protect her would kill her and her autistic daughter and granddaughter. Women usually stay in abusive environments not only because they were brainwashed, but also because they feared that the world outside might be less kinder to them. It takes a minimum of logic to understand that the patriarchy can’t be kinder to a lowborn unknown woman than Alicent who sat in the royal small council, where only her and Rhaenyra sat as women in the seven kingdoms. She is still top two, of the most privileged women in Westeros, running away would not make her situation better.

We have a a history of women actually running away from Westeros and not being free from the patriarchy. Saerra was sold to a brothel, Jorah’s wife was some man’s concubine and Daenerys, had all her money being stolen and was sold as a child bride to Khal Drogo.

I think that it's safe to say that I didn't like House of the Dragon season two, and I will write multiple posts talking about all of the things that are wrong because there are a lot. It kind of let me heartbroken because my favorite character was Alicent Hightower and she had been butchered. But my complaint for today will be about episode 4 and 5 and the things I didn't like about them.

First I want all of us to be reminded that, one of the reasons why Game of Thrones was so loved, was because it showed us that character's actions have consequences, and logical consequences. Something I found lacking in House of the Dragons.

The most blatant example of that is the battle of Rook's Rest. There, Aemond fired at his brother, in the middle of the sky, in broad daylight, in front of thousands of soldiers, and somehow no one sees that no one talks about that....

We know that kinslaying and kingslaying are considered as some of the worst sins in Westeros, they say that "no one is as accursed as the Kinslayer", and Jaime was heavily criticized for killing the mad king years after it happened. Somehow Aemond tried BOTH, so he is a recidivist since he'd already killed his nefew, and the ONLY person to catch up on that is Alicent, she wasn't even in the battle. Not a single person talks about it, there's not a rumor, nothing??? If it were something logic from the moment the returning troops set foot in King's Landing, this story should be on everyone's mouth and it wouldn't be just Alicent and Criston's little secret. It makes the world of HOTD feel so dull and lifeless. It just doesn't make any sense. Rook's Rest is like the battle of the Bastards, it's all performance with no substance.

I have a hard time believing that.

But the issue continued to episode 5, where it is mixed with other issues, mainly with Alicent.

Alicent and her people plotted for years to put Aegon on the throne over Rhaenyra, because Aegon is a man and Rhaenyra is a woman. Why does she proposes herself as regent, knowing that it undermined their claim? I mean she has a good reason, but her approach is so dumb, since she should know that the council wouldn't agree with her given the entire premisses for the war. Is she dumb? She is not a Targaryen, she doesn't have a dragon, on top of that. And it's natural that she loses power because she is no longer queen but the dowager queen, her power diminishes. And I know that mothers rule as regent when their sons can't but it literally happens when they are children, if they are grown and married, it's most likely their wives who rule. Why doesn't she at least proposes Helaena? And it's so stupid because in episode height she tells Rhaenyra that Helaena would have all the power when Aemond is gone.

As I said, she has good reasons to want Aemond far from the throne he is a kinslayer, and on top of that she knows that he attempted both kinslaying and kingslaying at Rooks Rest, which make him dangerous even for her. He tried to kill a family member for power, how does she know that he won't try to kill her if she stands in his way?

While her attempt to be named as regent was dumb, it was justified.

Now I wanna be clear about something which is where the struggle of episode 4 and episode 5 seems related. If the writers cared about logic, Alicent would have proposed to be named regent and the entire council would have agreed and named her regent. They would have heard the rumors about Aemond trying to kill his brother, even if they are sexist, kinslaying and kingslaying are worse than having a woman. They should at least be frightened of him, but for some reason, they don't seem to know any of that.

Alicent on the other side knows that he tried to kill his brother and at this point he's unredeemable, she has legitimate reasons to fear for her life and she knows that the council would be more than hesitant to name a woman regent. So what does she do?

I have the example of Kendall Roy from succession who was in a similar situation in the middle of the first season, Kendall is not very smart, but at least he had an entire plan to overthrow hid father. And it's basic logic, he knew that people wouldn't agree to have his father removed if he didn't give them a reason, just like Alicent knew that the council would prefer to name a man instead of her at it's head. And both of them had valid reasons, Kendall realized that his father was a bit senile and Alicent knows that her son is a psychopath.

She had to convince them that he wasn't fit to rule and strengthen her claim, by proposing Helaena as regent, even before going to the small council that's the least she could do.

It's like in season two Alicent lost all of her intelligence and it bothers me.

Alicent Hightower is definitely not the most consistent character of House of the Dragon, consequently she is the most hated, but on the other side, and she is the most complex among the female ones to a point where it is often very difficult to understand her. But why is it so hard to understand her motives?

Alicent in the book

My first answer would be that it’s due to the huge differences between her characterization in the source material, Fire and Blood, and the TV series adaptation. In Fire and Blood, Alicent married Viserys at the age of 18 and likely seduced him because he was a puppet, while on the other side Rhaenyra was 8. When Alicent gave three sons to Viserys and he decided to still keep Rhaenyra as heir, her somewhat amicable relationship with Rhaenyra vanished, instead she started resenting Rhaenyra, and it never stopped. When Rhaenyra became old enough to get married Alicent proposed her first born son Aegon as it was the tradition in House Targaryen to marry brother to sister, but Viserys refused, stating that Alicent only wanted her blood on the throne. Their relationship became even sourer, to a point were Alicent demanded the eye of Lucerys Velaryon, in exchange for that of her son Aemond who lost his eye to the same Lucerys Velaryon, because he called Lucerys a bastard. In defense of her son Rhaenyra asked to torture Aemond in order to know why he called him a bastard. But in the end Viserys ordered that Rhaenyra leaves Kings Landing after that incident, and married Aegon and Heleana, his oldest children by Alicent to each other.

When Viserys died, Alicent let Viserys’s body rot for days and took an active part in the usurpation of the throne, stating that Rhaenyra’s sons were bastards, and that her son was the rightfull heir to the Iron Throne. Criston Cole found a reluctant Aegon and convinced him to usurp the throne, he crowned him, while Alicent placed her own crown on Helaena’s head. She also convinced Aegon to try to make peace with Rhaenyra instead of going to war. The most widely spread interpretation of Alicent in Fire in Blood is that she was a stereotypical evil, selfish, manipulative and self-serving stepmother, and Rhaenyra was her total victim. In the manner of Lady Tremaine and Cindrella.

Alicent in the Series

In the Show, Alicent was aged down to 14 when she married Viserys and this marriage caused her to lose her friendship with Rhaenyra who was aged up, to also be 14, because Rhaenyra was already the heir and Alicent would just bring other claimants to her throne. Alicent didn’t love the king and married him only for duty, she supported her husband who was a decaying man, had children and sex with him, even if she never wanted it. Alicent actively supported Rhaenyra as queen, until Rhaenyra lied about her virginity, and Alicent was convinced to prepare Aegon to rule by Otto otherwise her children would simply die. Years after, Rhaenyra made bastards and proposed Alicent to marry her daughter to the oldest one of them, but Alicent refused, and married Aegon to her daughter instead. Alicent and the people who supported her made Kings Landing a hell to Rhaenyra, enough for her to leave Kings Landing and hide at Dragonstone. Alicent had strained relationships with Aegon and Helaena, but everything with Aemond seemed to be fine, until he lost his eye to Lucerys Velaryon, for calling him a bastard. Rhaenyra asked to torture Aemond to learn where he heard of the bastard allegations and Alicent claimed one of Lucerys’s eyes in payment for that of Aemond. When Viserys refused, she lashed out asking if all the things that she had been doing for House Targayen for years had only been free labour, and Rhaenyra told her that she went too far, but she slashed Rhaenyra in the arm.

Years after this incident, Alicent ruled in the place of Viserys because he was sick, Aemond became a brilliant fighter, while Aegon was a sex offender, and she hid it for him by paying his victims. With her allies she tried to take Driftmark from Lucerys Velaryon, in favor of Vaemond, Corlys’s brother, this tentative was prevented only because Viserys miraculously rose up from bed to defend Rhaenyra. Later that day Alicent and Rhaenyra reconciled after Rhaenyra showed gratitude for all the years she spent taking care of Viserys, and Viserys made a speech about how he loved all of his family.

Viserys died in the same night and Alicent misinterpreted his last words and thought that he wanted Aegon to be named king. When Alicent went to the Small Council she realized that her father was planning to put Aegon on the throne without her, and wanted Rhaenyra to be dead. Alicent took control of the coup and ensured power over Aegon trying to convince him to not kill Rhaenyra and send peace terms instead.

Alicent and Cercei

Many people would say that she was only a helpless victim with no agency in the show, while blaming her for everything that happened. Looking at Alicent in the book, it is easy to assign her a personality similar to that of Cercei Lannister. She hated a young girl, and wanted to usurp a throne, she was a bitter queen consort and its pretty much everything. But the parallel between Alicent and Cercei is more subtle in the show, because they both suffered from misogyny and ended up oppressing women around them in the same way that they were themselves oppressed. Tywin made Cercei feel inferior due to her gender, and married her to a violent misogynistic man, and Cercei did the same to Sansa. Alicent on the other side married Viserys for duty, and had non-consensual sex with him, and children that she never wanted, in return Alicent did the same to her daughter Helaena by marriying her to Aegon who didn’t love her and is also a sex offender. Both ended up upholding the feudal system in the exact same way that it made them each unhappy and bitter. And in Alicent’s case it’s worse because she did it to her own daughter whom she loves.

Alicent and Sansa Stark

People still claim that she has no agency, and compare her to Sansa Stark. However, Alicent and Sansa are hated for absolutely opposite reasons, but both are for sure given the responsibility of things that are simply out of their reach. Just like Sansa Alicent was an idealist when she was younger. But unlike Sansa, Alicent was aware of the world around her and most of the time she knew the consequences of her actions. Alicent knew that if she married Viserys she would essentially betray Rhaenyra, but she did because that’s what her family wanted from her. Alicent knew the consequences of supporting Rhaenyra after the brothel affair but she decided to support her because she was her friend after all. Unlike Sansa, Alicent did got a bit of autonomy, she sat in small council for meetings, took care of Viserys and, married her children to each other, she made Rhaenyra flee King’s Landing, almost took one of Rhaenyra’s biggest allies away from her, took control of the coup from Otto. And on top of that she raised three children almost like she was a single mother. While Sansa, so far in the books is a prisoner who slowly learns about the world around her. People complain about Alicent having no agency while there are a couple of things that would have been different if it was true. Like the betrothal between Jacerys and Helaena would have made Helaena a prisoner in Rhaenyra’s side, and she is partly responsible for the way her children ended up being, considering her parenting style. I mean Aegon didn’t even want to be king. So Alicent is definitely not a silent character in the show. And her actions are definitely not without intent and consequences. I think that the readers of Fire and Blood refuse to admit that even in the book Alicent endured her marriage to Viserys like a convict endures treadmill simply because Viserys refused to name Aegon heir, putting her children and her in real danger. Thus they come up with absolute garbage think pieces as Alicent had a happy marriage with Viserys, or that Viserys loved Alicent, or that Alicent had a lot of agency despite the fact that she only wanted one thing, which was the right of every noble woman at the time but never getting it.

Alicent and Margaery Tyrell

The book version of Alicent Hightower is similar to one character in the A song of Ice And Fire universe and it’s not Cercei, it’s Margaery Tyrell. Alicent and Margaery Tyrell have in common their position in the stories as girls who had to seduce kings in order to become queens and advance their positions. People in their entourage can see them as evil women who are reaching for power, like Cercei saw Margaery as an opportunist. In the show we have the point of view of Alicent, but in the book we have no idea of what she thinks of her marriage to Viserys, we only can project things into her and we know that she turned bitter once everything went wrong and committed usurpation. And we have no idea of how Margaery Tyrell feels about her situation. The book version of Alicent simply seemed to go along with everything that would have benefitted her family, as she was probably groomed to behave that way, just like probably Margaery Tyrell. But this works only for Alicent as she is presented in Fire and blood.

Alicent Hightower and Catelyn Tully

But the way Alicent treated Rhaenyrain the book, even if we don’t have precise informations about it made many people think that Alicent was a kind of diluted version of Cercei. But when it comes to cruelty and selfishness Alicent and Cercei simply don’t play in the same league. So the most likely answer is definitely Catelyn. Because Catelyn hated Jon for the same reasons Alicent started antagonizing Rhaenyra. Both Jon and Rhaenyra were threats to Catelyn and Alicent’s children claim to their father’s seats. Jon is the bastard of Catelyn's husband, and he might challenge her children’s rights to their father’s seat. On the other side Viserys named Rhaenyra heir, when Aegon, had a claim, that every Targaryen ruler up holded, in line with thousands of years of Andal customers, and the ruling of 101.

Most people don’t make the link because Jon is a boy and Rhaenyra a girl.

Both Catelyn and Alicent have serious historical events to justify their fears, mainly the Blackfire Rebellions and the succession crisis of 101.

Both Catelyn and Alicent don’t hate the children for who they are and out of pure spite, but because of the danger that they represent. Alicent had a good relationship with Rhaenyra, until she realized that Rhaenyra was becoming a threat to her children’s claim. So within a medieval context you can understand how the presence of Jon in Winterfell and keeping Rhaenyra as heir can be seen by their stepmothers as slights.

Alicent Hightower and the human heart in conflict within itself

In the show it wasn’t the same thing. Alicent was in fact the character who was confronted to dilemmas the most throughout the series. From the beginning she had to choose between her family, that was her duty and Rhaenyra who was the only friend she had, and the most beautiful thing that ever happened in her life, and she had to make the choice multiple times over the course of the season, it became even more difficult when she had children and those children, especially Aegon becomes everything she will ever achieve in her life, because they were everything feudality permitted her to be. So it’s weird to admit that Alicent in the book was that much of a great character when she’s just an ambitious woman, with understandable motivations.

Why the evil stepmother trope doesn’t work

I don’t have much struggles with the show changing this character and erasing the evil stepmother side of Alicent, because it brings nothing good to the story, and the themes of the show. The dance of the Dragon was a situation showing how a feudal system would prefer to destroy itself instead of letting a woman get power, and somehow the antagonist was another woman, the story feels like it was making Alicent responsible for all the time the Targaryen messed up with their own succession laws, and made the most misogynistic choice every time they had to choose a ruler. So by presenting Alicent as the head of the coup, the story does not only present the antithesis of what it’s trying to tell, which is that misogynistic men don’t like to be governed by women. It also presents Rhaenyra and Alicent as rivals, who were both vying for the attention of people at court. When in fact Rhaenyra had always been loved by everyone, and had an okay relationship with her, until Alicent had other viable heir for the Iron Throne. This trope also blames women for not being perfect victims, like everyone does to Alicent. She shouldn’t be criticizing the Strong boys and calling them bastards as if she was the one responsible of their existence. She shouldn’t slash Rhaenyra even though Rhaenyra asked to torture her son, she should let her daughter marry a bastard even if it would be dangerous and so on. In fact some people completely erase the real social context that inspired the series and the well presestablished lore within the story. Because it serves the demonization of Alicent.

Lastly this misogynistic trope had been used quite a few times in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe with Catelyn, Cercei, and Lysa, and it became redundant. People who miss this characterization of Alicent don’t care about Alicent as a character, because it simply offers less room for depth. They also don’t care about women’s rights, they care about Rhaenyra being Alicent’s helpless victim in the book. And it not as interesting as the friendship between Alicent and Rhaenyra.

Conclusion

Some of the readers of Fire and Blood literally erases all the cultural bias that the Westerosi society has against women, especially in relation to power in order to make Alicent more of a villain. It is not far fetched assume that given how the hierarchy of Westeros works the power of women were greatly reduced in comparison to what we see in the pages of the dance.

So people who constantly complain about Alicent were the same who hated her and never really cared about her agency in the book because she was likely no more than a very well groomed girl for the service of her family, and how realistic it looked. But only about how much pain she could bring to Rhaenyra. Complaining that she should have been a copy of Cercei, when the character in the show had simply more layers of tragedy, and is more fleshed out.

Aegon is the first son of King Viserys Targaryen by his second wife, Alicent Hightower. From the day he was born, everyone expected him to be name heir, but his father kept his older sister, the princess Rhaenyra Targaryen the heir to the Iron throne, despite the Andal Tradition and the precedent established by the Great Council of 101, stating that the succession would follow absolute male primogeniture.

He was neglected by his father, who was sick at the time and didn’t really love or care about his four children with Alicent. And his mother was physically abusive, meaning that she used to slap him when he did wrong things. Aegon did a lot of wrong things. Like raping servants, drinking, and watching children fight in the pits of Flea Bottom. He is also aware that he is not loved by his parents, which is partially true and says that he tries a lot to make them feel proud of him but it never works. The people around him forced him to usurp the throne, which was rightfully his sister’s.

I think that Aegon is a badly written character simply because the writers want to make us feel bad for him while simultaneously presenting him as pure evil, or at least they do very little nuance him as a character. Aegon does unarguably the worst things someone could do in the first season of the show, we are not told why he did, and there’s no balance between some good things that he may have done and all the disgusting things he does. He doesn’t have any goal that might make people feel interested about the things he might do in the future. Even the things he says that he tries to do to please his parents are not shown.

In fact when he says all that, it feels more like gaslighting because the discussion was not about him being lazy, or not trying hard enough, it was about him raping a young girl, but he tried to turn the discussion about this totally unrelated subject. Even if we consider what he says about trying hard, the context of the discussion just proves that he was lying. Because it’s not very difficult to not rape the maids in the castle, and just go to a brothel, like he does all the time. On top of that he’s the last person to wake up in the castle, even the little children that he has, have already woken up, and there’s an important meeting that he doesn’t even know about.

It’s not even the worst thing that he does; personally, I think that watching children fight to death is worse. And there’s no build up to it, again we just have accept that he does just like watching children die. He is objectively evil, with no redeemable quality. I know his parents didn’t like him but it is not written in a way, that it could explain why he is the way he is, or at least the writers failed to frame it that way, especially considering that he’s a prince who was raised and pampered in a castle.

As a character he makes me think of a failed male version of Pearl. They have a lot in common:

• Their very religious and conservative mother;

• The sick father;

• The need to leave the place that they live in;

• The fact that they seem to be born evil, even though only Pearl recognizes it.

The first difference is that the movie was about Pearl, her life and her feelings, while Aegon had little screen time in a show that discusses mainly the struggles of women in a feudal and patriarchal setting, and he iss a rapist who doesn’t face the consequences of his crimes because the system protects him. He’s the antagonist.

Second of all, Pearl has all the things that might make you sympathize with a villain, she does good things by taking care of her sick father and working hardly in her family’s farm. On the other side Aegon seems so lazy, and is always bored, he does wrong things and it’s all he does. We can’t feel bad that his parents don’t love him, because the bar is literally in hell, he still can’t touch it.

Pearl has goals, she wants to become famous and leave the place she leaves in, but Aegon doesn’t have any goal, any purpose, he wants to leave his family but it’s mainly to avoid doing anything serious in his life, while his family might die if they don’t take the throne for themselves, and crown him.

Lastly Pearl does arguably the worst things between them two, she kills all her family but every death has an emotional weight to them.

• She kills her mother because she wanted her to feel as bad as she made her feel about herself;

• Pearl kills her father because she couldn’t leave him all alone in the house, and because she loves him;

• She kills the projectionist because he lied to her, and wanted to abandon her;

• And she kills Mitsy because she thinks that Mitsy is privileged by being younger and blonde, and got the role she wanted.

But Aegon does horrible things just because he finds pleasure in doing them. He doesn’t draw any emotion from the public, outside of disgust and outrage.

In the end, Aegon as a character is like an empty shell. He has nothing to appreciate, and this characterization will have an impact on things that he will do in the future, or how he will react to events like Blood and Cheese. How him going mad after this event will make sense if he never cared in the first place?

In Fire and blood, his characterization was more alike to that of Robert, minus the good humor, but in House of the Dragon, he seems to be an annoying, and whiny type of Geoffrey.

However I still think that Aegon plays some roles in the show quite perfectly:

• Being the embodiment of everything wrong with the feudal system;

• Being a foil to his brother, who thought that he was much better than him but won’t get the throne, because Aegon was the older brother;

• Serves in the development of characters around him especially Alicent who still loves him despite his very bad actions.

His biggest enemy was the time jump, because the writers seriously want us to believe that all his troubles come from his relationship with his parents when he was younger. But the only time we saw him as a child he was still being loved by his father and mother, so it doesn’t seem like they did anything wrong to him. When he grows old Aegon looks like he has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). And for this part I’m gonna extrapolate a lot from what is presented in the show and make a lot of assumptions, because there is little source material to work with

People with BPD, have an unstable image of themselves, difficulties to regulate their emotions, causing an increase in impulsivity, they are thus subjects to intense mood swings, feelings of emptiness and fear of abandonment. Generally important factors in the development of this disorder are from bad parenting styles.

His upbringing seems more that of a quiet type of BPD as there are four types, the impulsive, the petulant, the self-destructive and the quiet. But I digress. The quiet type of BPD is quite different from the others. As the quiet BPD are often overly dependent to their caretakers and in Aegon’s case this caretaker is his mother, Alicent. It is mainly small details that show his dependence to her, like the fact that when they all grow up, he’s the only one to wear green, the color they all wore when they were children, Alicent’s color. For Vaemond’s petition Haleana wore a golden dress and Aemond was dressed in black. But he was wearing green as if he was still dependant on her. In addition at the age of twenty she was waking his up, when everyone had already awoken by themselves. And it may not seem relevant but a lot of times, commentators who try to understand him talk about him as if he was some kind of teenager.

The lack of identity is linked to his position as the only first born son, in his period to not inherit their father’s position. From a societal point of view, if he’s not his father’s heir, what is he going to be? And there is no one to help him find another purpose. His father is often lost in poppy dreams and even when he is not, he cares more about Rhaenyra’s children than his own. On the other side his mother believes that he is going to be king but not because he is deserving of anything or because she loves him, but because she believes that he is going to die if he doesn’t. There has never been anyone around him interested in him as a person enough to show love or appreciation. I mean, they were preparing a coup in order to put him on the Iron Throne and he wasn’t even consentant, he wasn’t event present.

The caretakers also don’t encourage autonomy and erase the child’s sense of self efficacy; the child’s needs are neglected in favor of those of the caretakers. We saw Aegon being belittled by Alicent when he was fourteen, and at the same time she was forcing kingship onto him, and forced him to mary his sister, while all he ever needed was love and appreciation from his parents. He even knows that he is not suited, and doesn’t deserve anything, it’s probably the reason why he wants to leave, and maybe he thinks that everyone’s life would have been better if he wasn’t there.

People with this type of BPD are often somber, moody, quiet, clingy, and very angry on the inside. This is not at all how I would describe book Aegon, who is more impulsive, but it goes quite well for Aegon in the show.

People with BPD often experience feelings of emptiness, and often exhibit very hardcore behaviors in order to fill the void. They are always in search of pleasure, and adrenalin. And for Aegon it is blatant that even when he was only a teenager, he went farer than other children, like masturbating in front of a window, developing drinking habits and using sextoys (dildos). The more time passes the farer he goes, he drinks more, and rapes servants and watches children fight to death, all to fill the void left by the absence of his identity. These are traits that are most likely to be found in a self-destructive Borderline person. They come from quite explosive environments, and have a lot of repressed feelings, mostly anger from never getting their needs met. And it often creates anxiety and depression. This type is like the other, they are simply vacillating, between obedience and recklessness, impulsivity and indecisiveness. And I think that we will get more