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Let House of the Dragon’s Women Be Evil
There’s gotta be a happy medium between legendary cruelty and benevolent naïveté.
The adaptation purports to show the objective truth, which necessitates a more nuanced approach: Each is now granted sympathetic shadings with Alicent and Rhaenyra, alongside the latter’s ally Princess Rhaenys, portrayed as the rare Westerosi leaders sensible enough to foresee the devastation of a dragon-on-dragon war. While I find her affair with Criston Cole deliciously tacky, her shame at being caughtin flagrante the night of Blood and Cheese has overshadowed any sort of anger over the fact that her young grandson was brutally slain in her own house. House of the Dragon ’s penchant for patchwork solutions to the problem of female aggression reaches peak silliness in “The Burning Mill.” The books tell us Rhaenyra “prepared for war” after the coronation of Aegon II, but the show pits her against a bevy of foolish male advisers who attempt to sideline her while ignoring her preference for peace.
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