How Alicent Hightower Dies 'House of the Dragon' Spoilers
Plans this week: (1) binging America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and (2) waiting around for new episodes of House of the Dragon, which HBO is rudely rolling out one week at a time. But apparently absence makes the heart grow fonder, because we spent the past few days spoiling ourselves with George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood (an experience akin to reading a dictionary) and we've gathered around to talk about THE Alicent Hightower.
While Rhaenyra Targaryen and Aegon II Targaryen are the ones technically battling it out for the Iron Throne, there's no denying Alicent is all about securing power for her creepy bb boy. So...what happens next for House of the Dragon's resident momager?
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Alicent Gets Her Wish: King Aegon II Wins (Well, Kinda)
Gonna assume most of this won't take place in season 2, but ~Dance of the Dragons~ ends with Aegon II's dragon casually eating Rhaenyra in "six bites," making him the official "winner." Which is great news for Alicent! Not so great, however? King Aegon II is poisoned just two years into his reign and dies at age 24.
RIP, bud.
Ollie Upton/HBO
Ahem!
She Is Sidelined When Aegon III Becomes King
Rhaenyra's son Prince Aegon is crowned King Aegon III after his uncle's poisoning and ends up marrying his late uncle's daughter, Princess Jaehaera, "thereby uniting the two rival branches of House Targaryen and ending two years of treachery and carnage."
Where does that leave Alicent? Completely sidelined.
HBO
For those wondering how the Dowager Queen even manages to stay alive amid this power shift, apparently there's concern that putting her to death would rekindle a war. But she can't exactly be an official part of court because she keeps encouraging her granddaughter Princess Jaehaera to "cut her husband's throat." Classic grandma move! So Alicent spends her time confined in her apartments under house arrest, where she's completely isolated save for some "needles and thread." But she spends "more time weeping than reading or sewing."
Alicent Dies of a "Winter Fever"
Poor Alicent doesn't exactly meet an epic end. Instead of dying via dragon or even at the pointy end of a blade, Alicent passes away thanks to a bout of Winter Fever. As Fire & Blood puts it, "She had outlived all of her children and spent the last year of her life confined to her apartments, with no company but her septa, the serving girls who brought her food, and the guards outside her door." Yikes, bleak.
To make matters worse, Alicent's mental health deteriorates before her death, she starts "talking to herself," and she develops "a deep aversion to the color green." Though in the days before her death, she speaks about wanting to see her children again and is more lucid than usual, so...that's something?
We'll see if the show keeps this rather depressing ending for Alicent Hightower, but it seems like a pretty big bummer to have her die from a winter cold, so me personally? I support House of the Dragon switching things up. HBU?
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