stories of the gentle fall

alicent hightower character of all time to me because even when shes doing fuck all in harrenhal i think she so effectively captures this really specific and realistic experience of motherhood that isnt just real and unexplored so thoroughly in fiction but also thematically fitting to the larger story. and its where she doesnt necessarily hate her children or even truly neglect them but rather she is unable to see them as real human beings independent from her and her experience of the world and all of her mistreatment of them stems from that core. they cannot be aegon and aemond and helaena to her they are always Targaryens with a capital T, they are always viserys, they are always rhaenyra trampling duty and sacrifice under her pretty foot, they are always her father telling her to wear her mother's dress and go to the kings chambers, they are always the fear she felt the first time she did so, they are always the blood on her cuticles and most importantly they are always her. they cannot be both real people and all of these things, so they become just all of these things. she has now said this verbatim to helaena ("what's the difference?") but even back in season 1 for example when she slaps aegon she says that he should have thought about the way his behavior reflected back on her. of course this is a very parent-ly thing to say but for alicent its effectively literal. her children are a defining feature of hers no different and no more separate from her than her auburn hair. helaena even frames her relationship to her unborn fetus in the same language, "it's mine". it's all she has that is hers. for alicent it was no different. if her children are the reason for her existence and the source of all of her value to society then of course she can see them as nothing more than an extension of her. she treats them as violently as she treats herself. she hates them the way she hates herself. her disregard for their life in this context is unsurprising. they are literally a limb of hers that hurts and aches and makes her limp and she doesnt hesitate to cut it off when she gets the chance. "whats the difference?" there literally is none