Unbetitelt

You are broke? Her House is one of the richest in the realm.

Civil war? She is one of the figureheads of the enemy. Chain her or marry her. Do both if you aim for spicy nights.

The High Septon hates you? Wonderful, her House represents the Faith. Let her speak with that man. Or again, just marry her.

Need someone to do paperwork? Marry her.

Need someone in your Small Council who actually has experience? Bring her.

Daily dose of wife scolding as ASMR for your headache? She provides well.

Domestic care? 20 years of experience in taking care of a sovereign with stupidity and chronic disease. Take her.

Your wounded inner child needs soothing? Wow, guess who's home now?

Bastardy and legitimacy are biting your arse? Didn't she tell you so years ago? 100% "I told you so" Wife Energy.

You are torn because you must put her sons on a blade? Wow shit, who said that she and her dad raised the Green kids in delulu and hatred because they believed you would do so one day to protect your throne?

Desalination is the process of generating freshwater from brackish or saltwater, usually through the process of reverse osmosis. While this can be a very useful tool in water shortages, it also has some pretty huge drawbacks--reverse osmosis requires a lot of energy, requires chemical treatment of the water, and produces concentrated brine as a waste product which can be harmful to aquatic ecosystems.

Scientists in China have developed a more efficient form of solar desalination that uses 47.4% less energy than alternatives. After the first year of testing, the scientists believe that at scale it would be able to desalinate water more cheaply than producing bottled water.

For reference:

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon's work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that … but if that was so, why had Hazzea's father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? Daenerys II, ADWD

And then:

"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was... her name…" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. Daenerys X, ADWD

I don't think she's actually forgotten. Her internal narration mentions Hazzea in Dany VIII and IX both. I think it's as the text says: Dany cannot recall. The name's there but not in her grasp. The passage in Dany X takes place when Dany is exhausted, ill, dehydrated, hungry, and as she appears to be right in the middle of a miscarriage.

But as the miscarriage is symbolic, so too is Dany's (probably temporary) inability to dredge up this information.

Cut for length. This gets a bit involved.

Aegon and Rhaena are both really interesting in how they mirror their dragons. Aegon is injured and dying/dead, the first time we’ve seen him happy since Rook’s Rest is with Sunfyre again. It almost gives the vibe that he wishes he could curl up and die next to his dragon.

Meanwhile Rhaena has fully changed her look to match Sheepstealer’s wild nature. It’s a bond that’s clearly grown a lot stronger since Ep 1 as now he listens to her, she can fly with ease, and he’s very protective. For once, she argues back against her father, denies him, insults his ideas for how they can fix it. Completely refuses to even consider giving Sheepstealer up. Obviously there are a lot of other factors but it suggests that just being around Sheepstealer is influencing her own behavior. After all, she does claim “He is a part of me.” (He’s not in the episode but Aemond very similarly changes his whole personality after claiming Vhagar.)

Unfortunately, I don't think it's correct to say that all the people Lady Stoneheart has hanged are guilty of the Red Wedding.

"Has some ill befallen Ser Ryman?" "Hanged with all his party," said Walder Rivers. "The outlaws caught them two leagues south of Fairmarket." Jaime VII, AFFC

A few lines later we're told that Ryman had three knights and a dozen men-at-arms with him. Were they involved in the Red Wedding? We can't be sure. It's likely, but we don't know. Someone could have been on another task, sent to run a message or participate in an escort. Someone could have been a recent recruit, a hedge knight who just wandered in. Someone could have spent that month critically ill with dysentery, it's not like disease is uncommon in an army. We don't know. And neither can Lady Stoneheart.

Cut for length!

OH BOY DO I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT SOME OF HER OTHER DESIGNS!

SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT SOME OF

HER OTHER DESIGNS!

Well, yes. That's the whole point, I fear.

For a fandom that always complain about nuances and the show making every character too "two-dimensional", you yourselves are really lacking on that matter. Some of the criticism against episode 3 prove it yet again.

One of the main focus of the show is pointing out the struggle women, including in upper position, faced because of society's mysoginy. Both Alicent and Rhaenyra's entire lives illustrate it perfectly.

Alicent's dependant on the men around her, unlike Rhaenyra, she's born royal and was never meant to have a power other than they are willing to grant her. Her authorithy relies on her father, her husband, then her sons. Her regency was permitted because she was supported by men, and tolerated by others (out of regard for the first). During S1 E6, we see Alicent and Rhaenyra in the small council, Viserys is there to support their power, so the rest of them aren't going to dimish it in front of him. Yet, Rhaenyra's inheritance had always been questioned because of her sex, therefore Alicent, who spent her entire life cathering, is very much aware than her own position is questioned.

Alicent was Viserys's regent, him being still alive and sometimes conscious prevented the rest of the small council from denying Alicent's authorithy. She was also the daughter of the Hand, I highly doubt Otto would have let someone else take over Alicent's position (not when it benefits him so well). So from episode 6 to 8, Alicent's power doesn't seem question. We do need to consider that we aren't told how the entirety of Alicent's. Who knows how exactly they were treating her during that time? It is likely that her decisions were being doubted in a way Viserys's wouldn't have been. And again, tolerance isn't acceptance nor respect.

Yet, in episode 9, same episodewe see the crack of this facade as soon as Viserys passed. He was the bridge of her power and that fridge collapsed. We are revealed that the small council had been planning to usurp and kill Rhaenyra without involving her. If they hid something that important to her, the mother of the very man they're planning to crown, what makes you think it's the only matter they kept her in the dark about? Cole killed another member who wasn't aware of the conspiracy and opposed to it. It's further proofs that, even amongst the men, the small council wasn't honest within one another. Why wouldn't that apply to Alicent as well? Why wouldn't they be whispering behind her back as well?

Through S1, we see various characters plotting against Viserys's will and questioning him. How do you not believe they were doing the same thing to Alicent? A woman? Only in her position through marriage? The main reason behind the Greens faction is that Rhaenyra is a woman so she shouldn't rule. Do you genuinely think people with that mentality won't treat their own women the same, even they're forced to accept her?

Then, Aegon is crowned and Alicent's downfall began. As the queen and the prince (non-heir), his mother was above him. When Viserys died that hierachy shift. We moved on to S2 and we saw Alicent losing her authority bites by bites. It started when Viserys died and Aegon became king, it worsened when Otto got replaced by Cole (he was no longer there to support her) and reached its peak when Aemond was made regent and kicked her out of the council. Times and times through S2, Alicent was reminded that she was just a woman and for this exact reason, she was never fully accepted (again, one of the main of the show).

Alicent was the most qualified to be regent: she had already done correctly it, she has the qualities requiered from a ruler, she had been in the small council for 16 years at most. But she's refused because she's a woman. They favored Aemond over, someone much younger, with no experience, dangerous and unstable, and who's barely been attended the small council for few months/weeks. Aemond worsened the conflict by killing Luke, as she said "Aemond is young. And his lack of restraint has already cost us dearly, while Alicent tried to do the smart thing: negociated with the other party to avoid a war. Despite her competences, despite her attempt to serve them, they once again disminished her because of her genitals. They wouldn't have done it if they believed in her from the start. Alicent was no longer above them and the king being bedrotted and unconscious, there was no one to prevent them what they have always wanted: deny her. So, how have you watched S2 and still claimed that Alicent saying that men have worked against her is absurd?

Even among the Blacks (some of which are just there out of loyalty for Viserys and/or hatred for the Greens, not because they genuinely believe in women's right to rule), Rhaenyra is still victim of mysoginy. Rhaenyra is the previous king's first born child and his chosen, yet she still has to face it, why would that be any different for Alicent who is somehow an intruder in their world? I thought we all knew that siding with your opresssors won't ever make them view as their equal. That's a reality Alicent had to learn.

Viserys himself contributed to lessening her. He treated her as his sexual object and baby machine (just like he did with Aemma). He ridiculed her when she tried to a good hostess for Daemon by showing him the tapestries (definitely not the first nor last time). He constantly made her feel like her and her children were replacements and second thoughts. He diminished and invalidated her words, like her claim of Rhaenyra's children being bastards (the truth). He let her be humiliated and acted like she was being unreasonable when Aemond lost his eye. If her own husband treated her like that, other men disrespecting her was also happening.

So yes, the show saying that Alicent was good ruler while acknowledging that men have worked against is logical. It's litterally what happened. Two things can be true at once.

She was sold to the King as a child, lost her best friend/possibly maybe soulmate, then her father polluted her head with ideas about how Rhaenyra will murder her and her entire family if she ever takes the throne, and she's subjected to marital rape over and over again by an old man whose flesh is quite literally sloughing off his body.

After decades of a lonely miserable existence she finally finds a chance to reconcile with the only person she was happy with in her entire life, only for it to fall apart literally the exact same night. She sacrifices that happiness because she genuinely believes it's her husbands will for Aegon to be made king, but then she's immediately confronted with the fact that almost none of the members of the royal court have ever respected her or valued her opinion.

She is then forced to confront the fact that her first born son, now the king, is a drunken rapist idiot who refuses to take his duty seriously and rejects any counsel he is offered. Her second born son is a violent lunatic who wants to murder his brother and rape his sister (and also now her, apparently). And her daughter has been subjected to incestual rape since she was a child, with more and more tragedies heaped upon her every day, further damaging an already fragile mind.

People have a look at Rhaenyra's first day in office with PMS and explode. Of course, we will not take her sufferings (loss of loved ones, stress from war...) lightly. But then, the Westeros Survival Contest should make a challenge of being Alicent Hightower for a day.

Started the job at ~ 14-15 years old. Bore 4 children. Took care of a rotting king who was either sleeping too much or playing with LEGO. Or mumbling about dreams that even he himself did not understand clearly. Occasionally, he mistook you for his ex-wife, the one he butchered for a son, the one who went through multiple miscarriages before death. Imagine lying next to him and finding his skin shredding off. And the smell. If I were Alicent, I would need a double dose of poppy milk to sleep after taking care of that man daily, let alone lying next to him or consummating with him.

Taking care of the children when you yourself were not even an adult yet. Fine, every single medieval woman experiences this. Fine. Still counts. Because everyone is going through the same thing does not mean it is not stressful, for god's sake!

Attending to the castle's things (well, you see in S3E3, there are lots of things that need to be solved every day. Usually, those would be the duties of the Queen Consort). Attending the council with your father and other dreadful men, including your husband, who usually falls asleep during the meeting.

On top of that, your childhood best friend, your first love, now your stepdaughter and forever your pain in the arse, brings you countless problems to deal with. And most of those things are unsolvable because both she and her dad, aka your husband, decide that whatever they want must be accepted by all people.

Well, turns out her dad is nowhere near protecting her now. Wait, does that mean it's your turn again? Wait again, you never left.

Shit.

And then, your children. Yes. Disasters. Tragedies. All yours. Helaena is good because she was born good. Daeron is good because he was raised in Oldtown by the Hightowers, not you. Wait, aren't all Hightowers hypocrites and pompous like Daemon said?! And yes, Aegon and Aemond are your faults. Completely yours. Because, once again, your husband is either busy sleeping, rotting, playing Lego, or turning blind on purpose.

Luke lost his life because it was your fault for raising your sons in resentment and jealousy. But Jaehaerys' death and Helaena's pain were just a mistake.