House of the Dragon & The DESTRUCTION of Alicent Hightower (reupload)

[@LanaMarie]

This originally uploaded video got copyright claimed by HBO - in its entirety (no option to trim out the copyrighted audio/part). I filed a dispute against the claim, citing fair use... buuut it got rejected. 🙄 so that's why I "fixed" & reuploaed it. I'm sure the 30 eur I (would have) earned with the original video would have been life changing for HBO, lol. Anyway, thank you all, my dear community, for your support (especially if you're here rewatching) - you're the best! Just the fact that over 12k of you is interested in the content I make is amazing to me and means the world 💙

[@alanaatkinson551]

HBO hates criticism that's why their shows are sh!t.

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

RedTeamReview's last video says he has got claims from HBO for several of his. You're in good company. They don't like the bad publicity, for some reason ;)

[@khfan4life365]

Sweet Jesus, season two isn’t even consistent with season one, let alone the book. No wonder George jumped ship.

[@Scruffynerfherder10]

The writers are blatently team Rhaynera. So many times she could’ve and should’ve lost, but didn’t. Why, plot convenience. They want Rhaynera to win. It’s biased.

[@Kaden_97]

Considering their bias towards Rhaynera I wonder how they will tackle the ending of the series

[@LanaMarie]

the worst thing is, they're doing her a disservice by absolving her of all her book sins and removing her character flaws. instead of making fans like her more, i think the effect overall is the opposite. s1 rhaenyra was so much more interesting!

[@Scruffynerfherder10]

@@LanaMarieI’ve not read the book, but I much prefer the idea of alicent being a mix of both Tywin and Cersei Lannister, you have the motherly intuitions of Cersei and the political prowess of Tywin, mix that with the absolute jewel that is Otto Hightower and you have a great character imo…but instead they seemed to dumb Alicent down and make her into this very blatent feminist character who only wants to be left alone, instead of the person who will do anything to ensure her families survival like in season 1.

[@Stay_Zerose]

@@LanaMarie exactly. Alicent and team green are not the only ones suffering.

[@greenknightofwar7024]

Yea personally I like Alicent more than any other female character in the show in season one. And that’s for two reasons one she’s sympathetic. She’s been put in a situation she doesn’t want to be in, but she holds to her convictions and soldiers on any way. The second is she’s an incredibly flawed person. She is very poor parent and ultimately perpetuates the cycle of parental neglect like her father did to her. For these reasons I can be pulled in by the character. But season 2 threw that in the trash. I swear it’s like, I’ve finally been handed some decent entertainment only for the writers to think their hot shit and say “we can do it better than the original author” and turn it into a shitty modern day female power fantasy where they crush the patriarchy. At least I have the half way decent fan fics to compensate.

[@miguelsantos-cd9tu]

Season 2 would have been much better if Rhaenyra and Alicent had waged war out of revenge for deaths of Luke and Jaehaerys. Instead, we have them driven by a desire for peace. It's doesn't make sense. Can you imagine if Catelyn Stark want to make peace with Lannisters after Jaime paralyzed her son?

[@maggierhee0]

it doesnt make sense at all when you think as a mother that lost her son

[@khfan4life365]

Even modern mothers would have started fighting if their children were in danger. Hence the term “mama bear”. Not only do these women fail as mothers by Westeros/medieval standards. They fail by modern standards too. No mother/grandmother would be forgiving after losing their son/grandson like that.

[@jjosifovic]

Alicent is not the same from the books or the previous season. They make all the changes to make Rhaenyra better to what she actually is…….instinct like

[@ana24c]

I also really disliked what they did to Helaena, she, her children and Rhaenyra's little children were the only characters that were completely innocent, but what they did by showing Helaena in the visions was basically giving her a lot of power and influence in what will happen next because the last visions cause Daemon to be ready for the battles to come, i dont get why the did that, the season in general was very poorly written, it is a shame, well at least we didn't watch 5 seasons for it to start to show this type of problems 🤷

[@angela_merkeI]

My favourite scene was when Rhaenyra asked Alicent what she's supposed to do with Alicent's sons and Alicent answered: "I dun won dem."🥰

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

They did learn from the best, didn't they?

[@dominiqueodom3099]

This season is summed up in a phrase "Buried up an entire Moutain. Found a normal Mouse." Ive lost alot of interest in series tbh. Way too many changes,deviations,and cut moments and characters all sacrificed to focus on Rhaenrya and Alicent by removing all of their villanous attributes. They are not willing to potray these characters as the villanous snakes that revealed their venom as things got more desperate. Imagine the rivalry between Lucretia and Illithyia from Spartacus Blood and Sand and thats what we missed out on. Another issue that no one talks about is how rushed Season 1 was to get us all hyped for the war to start,only for season 2 to immediately take hard pump on the brakes and go "but wait,SEASON 3 is when the war will start." We spent all 8 episodes at the same 3 locations with same characters going over the same shit. They turned Daemon,the most interesting and dangerous character of the entire Dance of Dragons and he spent all his time at Harrenhal like a dad who got kicked out of his house by his wife. They refused to show us anything interesting like him courting the lords of the Riverlands and then they had to remind us about the ending of Game of thrones AGAIN? Alicent has gone down as one the most Butchered characters in Book to Screen. Theyve removed any and all of her villianous Attributes at the cost of beating us over the head with the message of "women in Westeros are marginalized" but the truth is she is so weak and useless to the Green faction to the point that they literally have to make her sabotage her own faction and her own family just because shes not in power. Jesus christ i hate Alicent in this show,especially compared to her Book Counterpart who was without a doubt the heart of the Green Factions rise to power. How is Cersei a better mother in comparison to Alicent? Think about who shes selling out too. Her lover Criston cole,her 3 sons Aegon/Aemond/Daeron,her brother Gwayne and her father Otto but shes like "just let me and Helaena go 🚶‍♀️" This season is my Season 5 moment with Game of Thrones. The moment i realized they were gonna deviate so far from it that it might as well not even be the books.

[@berserk4souls]

Spent two season with this character and I can’t even tell you what her main motivation is that drives her character and informs her choices. In every episode it seems to be different. Poor Olivia Cooke must have whiplash after all that.

[@khfan4life365]

All the other characters suffer from this too, especially in season two. In season two, the characters changed every two episodes. It’s like the writers were totally disconnected from each other when writing. We could use the Covid as an excuse, but it’s nothing that an email or Zoom call can’t handle.

[@nalublackwater9729]

Giving you views and a like just because the claim was unjust. You rock, girl.

[@LanaMarie]

Thank you! Always happy to see you around! 😊

[@lordfreerealestate8302]

Around S1, Ryan Condal stated that he intended Allicent to be "women for Trump" and Rhaenyra to be likeable. They meant to ruin her character from the beginning. But a lot of people came out of the S1 actually sympathizing with Allicent. I suspect the writers went "We can't have that!" and deliberately ruined Allicent's character to make Rhaenyra look sympathetic by comparison. While also failing to write Rhaenyra as likeable in her own right. This is actually what the writers did with Emily in Paris S2 (which is a horribly written show). They wanted to brainwash us into thinking Rhaenyra was the heroine instead of giving us one worth rooting for. But I wish both sides had been equally flawed and viewers could just pick a side or none at all. The showrunners have less of a grasp of social justice/feminism than they think they do. They actively ignore male violence when it occurs on the Black side. They want to clear-cut someone else's creative work because they think their message about gender roles is so deep. I won't pity the showrunners and writers if the show tanks. I will pity GRRM, the fans, and the actors/costume designers/other creatives who had no role in the awful direction the show took.

[@LordFleaBottom]

I have zero confidence in HBO in ever getting anything GRRM wrote right. Not that Fire & Blood doesn’t have it’s share of flaws. It’s one of the lowest rated and lowest selling books GRRM ever wrote. Rhaenys vs. Aegon/Aemond: Zero interaction until Rook’s Rest. Daemon vs. Aemond: Zero words to each other until Gods Eye. Aemond vs. Jacerys: Zero interaction during the war. Aemond did kill Jace’s brother. Daemon vs. Criston: Zero interaction in the war. Rhaenyra vs. Aemond: Zero interaction after Aemond killed her son. Daemon vs. Aegon and Helaena: Zero interaction after the latter couple’s son was killed. This is all in the book. There’s no build up to their matchups. What beef did Rhaenys have with Aegon and Aemond prior to when Rhaenys was killed? Nothing. We have characters getting mixed up with each other but none of them had much prior history with each other. In the show, zero interaction between Rhaenyra and her half-siblings. The show covered a span of 20 years and we never saw Rhaenyra say a word to Aegon, Helaena, or Aemond. The only things HBO created that wasn’t in the book was having Rhaenyra and Alicent meet up twice. In the book, they’re not friends. They hardly interact with each other during the war. Rhaenyra is jealous of Alicent’s beauty and not Alicent was jealous of Rhaenyra’s liberal lifestyle. But the worst thing HBO did was make them close to the same age and make them have a lesbian romance with each other. This lesbianism holds back the show. Who is the showrunner for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms next year? Ira Parker. m.imdb.com/name/nm6358299/ You’re confident Ira Parker will get The Hedge Knight right? I don’t. Will probably turn Dunk and Egg gay for each other. HBO can do a series of Aegon the Conqueror who is the ultimate Gary Stu and all he will do is beat everyone except Dorne with his dragon and it probably still end up a disappointing series filled with one-dimensional characters. The best we ever got was Game of Thrones S1-S6. That’s it. Don’t expect a prequel spin-off on the level of Better Call Saul. Same old shit. Just a bunch of rich white people getting into wars to sit on the throne. Aenys and Maegor is Viserys and Daemon done in reverse as if Daemon had become a king and became paranoid and insecure from his advisors. They’re so similar to each other as if Viserys and Daemon are time variants of Aenys and Maegor or whichever characters GRRM wrote first.

[@fourth-dimensionalbeing9737]

I imagine they'll just shoe in feminism somehow into the show like what happened with The Witcher and all of the characters will just girlboss their way into Summerhall

[@eons8941]

Agree with everything you said but book Rhaenyra wasn't jealous of Alicent's beauty. Rhaenyra was called the Realm's delight because she was beautiful and charming until she had 5 children and childbirth wrecked her body. Alicent being jealous of Rhaenyra's liberal lifestyle is and was an invention by the TV show Book Alicent is nearly decade older than Rhaenyra. Alicent seized the throne because of ambition and to protect her Children but the TV show kinda forgot that, no ambition and projecting her family is offering them like a sacrificial lamb to the enemy. Go Girl power yay

[@jennifera.4511]

Tbh I'm seriously starting to think Olivia had also a tiny part of blame in all this mess. I saw a print on twitter and it shows how Olivia asked the showrunners to go to Spain because apparently she was bored of studio scenes? She said "If you don't ask, you don't get it. They wrote it in and I HOPE IT WORKS FOR THE PLOT". This answer is glaring, even more after we know how Tom and Phia had to beg to have a scene, Emma and Matt complained they wanted more scenes too (but honestly I'm glad emma and matt were ignored), when Olivia apparently just needed to ask. And then we have that print where she says she has no idea how rhaenicent scene ended up because she has no ideia how it was edited. I have no ideia which set is the one in Spain, but whatever scenes were written and filmed there to accomodate her demands, she had also a fair share of the blame for how Alicent arc ended up. Not to mention she's also a staunch rharnicent supporter, I saw a print where people said "say amen for rhaenicent dungeon s3x scene" or something similar, and she joined the crowd saying amen. I'm sure she doesn't give a damn about how Alicent is written, as long as she has some sort of creative control over it.

[@Luca___00]

I don't know about Spain (I'd put the blame more on whoever allowed it anyway) but that Olivia is very oriented towards Rhaenycent is very true. Emily, on the other hand, seemed more oriented towards Alicole which in terms of plot makes much more sense.

[@aminaismyname4318]

The amen for rhaenicent dungeon s*x was edited, the original was under a post that smth along the lines of "one amen to get spongebob out of jail". Other than that, I did see a snippet of an interview in which Olivia said she played alicent in the reunion scene as if she wanted to spit in rhaenyra's face, which is def a but confusing considering the final product, maybe they cut out some scenes?? Or maybe she like other actors were trying defend/make sense of this god-awful script.

[@khfan4life365]

@@aminaismyname4318to be fair, the scene was probably edited and cut that part out. There were various cuts between the actresses.

[@cloudeeent-sg2le]

It's so refreshing to listen to someone who is objective and sees characters for who they really are. Ur not just blindly supporting characters because of any bias. Hell, you even have better HOTD takes than channels with over 2m subs. You have a new subscriber. Excellent analysis, well done.

[@cyberpunkdarren]

I just love this channel. Smart, thoughtful content and sometimes fashionable!

[@abandonallhope.1040]

Many scenes in Season 2 threw me off like it gave me the same vibes when I saw Arya come out of nowhere and kill the NK and when Rhaegal was shot by Euron just wtf??

[@cattraknoff]

It's just bad writing. Here's the answer: They chose to sideline George and write it themselves and push modern politics at the expense of the story like modern hollywood writers can never resist doing. They thought with the foundation of season 1 they could do what they wanted and everyone would love it. But they didn't learn the lesson of Game of Thrones' latter seasons: Hollywood writers who are good at adapting stories are not suitable for creating as high-quality stories as written by a real author out of thin air. They chose to break the story in spite of George's instructions on how it should go. Now he's not even going to be involved at all going forward. Hollywood writers aren't good at being creative. When they create anything everything always has to be connected to their politics and self-identity. This becomes the core of whatever they write. It overwrites whatever essence used to exist before in something like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Game of Thrones. Without someone to keep them in check, left to their own devices, they will turn everything into imitations of their own shallow and miserable existences and worldviews.

[@eons8941]

Poor George and to think he hired Rayan condal himself atleast D&D were Good adapters until they run out of source material.

[@islasullivan3463]

Also if she wanted so badly to escape why go to Rhaenyra and not Larys. Dragonstone should be covered with guards on high alert from the assassination attempt on Rhaenyra, they would arrest or kill Alicent on sight. The logic to go to her just doesn’t make sense. Larys has also been disrespected by Aemond and denied power. As long as he doesn’t know her plan is to disappear into the wilderness he has a reason to be in her favor. Did she just stop showing him her feet for information?

[@MagisterEpistularum]

I'm glad I tempered my expectations. The show just makes me appreciate George more. For all his faults, he doesn't infantilize women. He lets them be as evil and as good as appropriate. If I were to rank my favorite ASOIAF characters, only Vizzy T from HOTD can break into my top 20. Every other HOTD character just doesn't measure up.

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

The show is written for the HBO paying audience: dumb kids who want to see infantilised heroes win or at least loudly claim their immaturity. That's why it strays from the book. Different audience.

[@loril899]

house of the dragon refuses to make any female character truly evil or even unlikable

[@randomcenturion7264]

And it shows. "Oh those men and their wars, when will they learn?" My expectations for Season 3 are low. Really low. What the Hell is the capture of King's Landing gonna look like now that Alicent is Team Black and Halaena is seemingly not utterly broken by her son's murder to lead to her demise?

[@maggierhee0]

yeah and that makes women sound weak and that wars are only for men

[@khfan4life365]

In their “efforts”, the writers made all the female characters, except Jaehaera, unlikable.

[@maggierhee0]

@@randomcenturion7264 rhaenyra and alicent are weak

[@cyna5190]

The writing is just so bad in general. Don't get me wrong, I'm on team black, but they tried too hard to make Rhaenyra look good and anti war, now she just looks dumb. I especially hated the scenes in which she and Alicent meet - they are so so stupid.

[@pbh9195]

Alicent willing to surrender the thrown is the equivalent of Zuko joining Aang on season 2 Without that pro-antagonist dynamic your story collapses on itself

[@deannaeasy5188]

Great video! Just a note that the 'Un-alive' term isn't needed here. KZbin doesn't punish videos that use the words 'death' 'killed' or 'died'. That was an old Tiktok rule.

[@dchhhadarklight2428]

***How people see Alicent Hightower*** Alicent: *Does Literally Anything* Team Black: "See she's evil!" Alicent: "What are you talking about? I just woke up!" Team Green: "Wait why does Alicent have a pitchfork?" Alicent: *Looks at hands* "Ahh, how long was I holding this?!" HBO: "It's part of your true form, your EVIL form!" Everyone Else: "Since when did Alicent have evil demon wings?" Alicent: "Wait WHAT!" Me: "The most evil thing Alicent has ever done is be adapted from the books, especially by HBO." ***Meanwhile with Queen Namehere Mary-Sue I Targaryen*** Team Black: "The one true heir!" Me: "Are we ignoring Rhaenys?" Team Black: "The defender of all that is good!" Me: "I know the blockade was a stupid idea for us but in universe thousands of people starved to death!" Team Black: "The god of all that is righteous made Mortal Flesh!" Me: "So we aren't acknowledging how she weaponized the blockade she started as a PR move against Team Green" Team Black: "In fact, anything that the One True Empress of the Universe has done with definite malicious intent should be excused because Team Green made her do it." Me: "So we are acknowledging how she starved a city with the population of New York for personal gain?" Team Black: "In fact burn all of Team Green, the world would be much better without the Pure Evil named Alicent Hightower!" Me: "The figurehead of team Black has over four hours of screentime and most of said screentime directly involves Alicent, Daemon, or Both!" Random person: "Why aren't you saying Rhaenyra's name?" Me: "Because if you combine the runner-ups for most screentime; Daemon and Alicent, the amount barely edges past the top screentime total of 4 hours and 14 minutes" Random person: "Wait really?!" Me: "Team Green Aegon only has one hour of screen time across both seasons!" Random person: "That can't be" Me: "In fact, I bet that none of the other characters can go more than five minutes without mentioning the name of Queen Namehere Mary-Sue I Targaryen!"

[@1992zorro]

Always love these type of analysis video trying to analyse these things while the answer is very simple. These 2 writers just suck

[@skipklauber1162]

Does Mr Meowington go by Alex, or is he only Alex to his friends?

[@LanaMarie]

alexander meowington is her online persona/stage name. irl, it's a she-cat 😅 but ofc, subbies are welcome to call her alex :)

[@skipklauber1162]

@@LanaMarie Ah, moj pozdrav ji!

[@randomcenturion7264]

I won't lie folks I am NOT looking forward to Season 3.

[@khfan4life365]

I’m not even gonna watch it. The writers have destroyed this show. At least D&D had four solid seasons before everything started going downhill. Hess and her cohorts reached season 8 lows in season two.

[@khfan4life365]

Twelve year old Sansa Stark is more complex and better written than most of the main adult female characters in HOTD season 2. I stand by what I said.

[@khfan4life365]

@ it’s terrible, isn’t it? 😔

[@austinmcminn719]

A like and comment for the algorithm.

[@nonoo346]

Honestly I don’t understand where this whole the show is team black bias comes from. Not when in the books grrm writes all them expect for Helena as villains and straight up evil. The show is a lot better…at sympathizing with them 😅

[@Adsper2000]

Yeah, they were written as bad people, but they were at least dignified and not humiliated in every single event in addition to being bad people like in the show.

[@garlantyrell6368]

Alicent Hightower is no mother nor a true queen. Her children are her victims rather than her babies and she nor Viserys deserved them.

[@queenxx1690]

YES THEY DID

[@0ussama01]

This is for HBO 🖕🏻

[@akashnagar8694]

For the algorithm

[@NdnxdidhhNndhxydh]

Thompson Betty Smith Karen Lopez Laura

[@MarcelaRitz]

Condal and Hess made a big mess. Bad writing through and through.

[@carastone3473]

Girl, stop. Alicent was even worse in the book. LOL

[@LanaMarie]

girl, stop. a bad character and a badly written character are two different things. LOL

[@Loki-g3k]

Her motivation in the book is completely different from the show: protecting her children and being an active participant in TG vs selling out her sons and having no political ambitious.

[@heorhii_veinapok]

Thank you for video :) Waiting for second season of rings of power 🥸