“His soul had fallen silent. On a dim, somber day of that gray year, heavy clouds hung low across the sky as he rode alone through this bleak, foreign countryside. At last, as night slowly descended, the cold, familiar landscape of his homeland unfolded before his eyes.”
I’d like to talk about Alicent because she’s my favorite character in Fire & Blood.
Although Fire & Blood itself is written as a chronicle, I still think George R. R. Martin’s portrayal of Alicent is remarkably complete and worth analyzing.
One major difference from the show, in my opinion, is that the Alicent of the book (that is, Alicent as presented in Fire & Blood) is essentially the same kind of person as her father: cautious and cool-headed. Yet what impresses me most in the text is the cruelty that sometimes bursts out of her—a quality not really shown in Otto, perhaps because of limited page space.
“My son Aemond will soon return bearing blood and fire.”
“You have a hostage,” the Queen Regent answered. “Cut off one of the boy’s ears and send it to Lord Tully. Warn him that for every mile he advances you will cut off another part of the boy until he stops.”
“The Dowager Queen urged the queen to slit her husband’s throat.”
I’ve seen some comments on social media about how the HOTD writers interpret Alicent and Rhaenyra. Roughly, they claim that women are different from men: gentle at heart, reluctant to wage war, always seeking peace. Season 2 indeed depicts them that way.
Personally, I really dislike that explanation. I don’t think the desire for war or power is determined by gender—it’s determined by personality. There are cruel women and gentle men. In Fire & Blood both Alicent and Rhaenyra are women I greatly admire because they’ll stop at nothing for power. I don’t believe women are inherently peaceful, and that’s part of why book-Alicent fascinates me. She certainly suffered oppression, yet she kept a blade-sharp edge, loyal to her house and animated by an innate, captivating ruthlessness. The book shows that she and Otto did try to negotiate peace, but not out of mildness; their cautious, conservative natures drove them to look for a better way. Their bottom line never changed: they wanted the throne. So when Rhaenyra (of course) refused, they still chose war.
I think her death in the book is the most striking stroke completing her character:
“She wished to see her sons again, and her dear daughter Helaena; she wanted to read to Jaehaerys I, for he had once praised her sweet voice. She began to talk to herself and loathed the color green.”
It feels like a beautiful irony: a cruel person, at life’s end, begins to regret and recall what was good in her past; someone loyal to her family all her life ends up resenting the thing she loved most. I’ve always loved these beautiful contradictions.
To some extent I also enjoy the show’s addition of interactions between Gwayne and Alicent—something absent from the book. Yet in the Fire & Blood, Otto might just as well have brought his other sons to King’s Landing, but he chose Alicent. My own reading is that there’s only one explanation: his daughter resembled him most. I think the Hightowers valued character and learning over gender to a large degree. If Otto saw that his daughter was most like him, of course he would take her to court. It’s just a pity that the show gave this father-daughter bond another interpretation, though I don’t object to it—only feel it’s a little regrettable.
Even though I read Fire & Blood in Chinese and may have missed some of the subtler flavor of the original prose, I still find Martin’s Alicent a fully realized and utterly captivating creation.
Back to Alicent relationship with Gwayne. I just feel that the HOTD writers didn’t really read the source material carefully.
In Season 1 they arranged a tournament scene where Gwayne fought Daemon, and not long after they mentioned that Alicent’s mother had recently passed away. Then in Season 2 they had Alicent say that when their mother died, Gwayne was only eight years old — which means Gwayne was about eight when he sparred with Daemon… That’s just so sloppy.
And in the show, Gwayne is summoned to King’s Landing by Alicent herself to keep an eye on Criston (because she felt she could no longer control him). Yet a few episodes later she actively seeks peace with Rhaenyra and even hands over their marching routes… I don’t know if the writers realized that, if the audience thinks this through, they’ll see that Alicent was essentially handing over her own brother’s life along with the plan.
Then I think back to Gwayne comforting his sister in an earlier episode: when Alicent asked him whether it was the Red Keep that had turned her children into what they’d become, or if it was their mother who had made them that way, Gwayne replied, “I think you’ve done your best.” At that point I honestly don’t know what to say — I’m just speechless.
But in any case, I liked Freddie and Olivia’s brief portrayal of this pair of siblings in episode 6 when they said farewell to each other. Their parting, to some extent, reminded me of the Starks in season one of Game of Thrones—it was very likely the last time they would ever see each other alive.
