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alicent criticism often strikes me as having the same vibes as the people watching a horror movie and going "i would have never done that, the characters died because they made stupid choices, i would have easily survived". alicent had her life stolen from her when she was a teenager forced to marry an old man and have his children. it's something so horrible that i feel like a large amount of people (and some characters, like rhaenyra) simply can't fit it into their worldview that something like that can just happen to you and instead go "well if that was me then it wouldn't have fundamentally destroyed me as a person. in her situation i would've turned out fine and my poison wouldn't be dripping through. i would easily be a good mother". i saw some people found it a stupid writing choice that rhaenyra thought alicent could stop the war because it is "obvious" that alicent has no control over what is going on, but i think that failure to see the real horror of alicent's situation is what destroyed their friendship and drove them apart. from the beginning rhaenyra thought alicent was choosing to marry her father. in return alicent failed to see the way rhaenyra was being targeted for grooming by daemon. i think they both engaged in victim blaming because "my friend is acting hurtful towards me, so i'm mad" is actually easier to deal with emotionally than "my friend had her entire life and personhood stolen from her and so have i"