Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower started House of the Dragon as the best of friends, but have become bitter enemies. In Episode 7, Alicent comes at Rhaenyra with a knife, which is the kind of thing you figure you can’t come back from.
And yet, in Episode 8, it looked like the former friends might actually reconcile, and not a moment too soon, as Rhaenyra’s father the king is on his last legs and it’s more important than ever now that Rhaenyra have someone in the opposite camp willing to support her claim.
How did these two manage to mend fences? According to actors Olivia Cooke (Alicent) and Emma D’Arcy (Rhaenyra), the characters never stopped yearning for friendship, even as circumstance divided them. “Even in fury, there is still a desire to be as close to one another as possible,” Cooke told The New York Times. “They’ve not seen each other for such a long time, since Alicent attacked Rhaenyra [during Episode 7]. Alicent has been alone in that castle with all these men, and she’s probably been festering and thinking about that for a very, very long time.”
Alicent did indeed seem changed, as if she was willing to rethink her opposition to Rhaenyra taking the throne now that King Viserys was actually close to death and their eldest son Aegon had grown up to be an a**hole. “We had an amazing conversation, in advance of shooting the episode, about it being sort of set in a hospice [for the dying King Viserys],” D’Arcy said. “Proximity to death can alter your chain of priorities; it offers a canvas for forgiveness where there wasn’t one previously. Going in, we really wanted to make sure that that moment at the end felt honest, that we could buy that these two people get there. It’s not an ‘all is forgiven’ moment, but it’s a gesture to forgiveness.”
“They’re really seeing each other for the first time since they were children — probably since the first time Rhaenyra found out that Alicent was marrying her dad,” Cooke added. “It’s unification in grief, and recognizing each other’s inner child in this loss.”
Alicent Hightower actor would side with Rhaenyra in the Dance of the Dragons
But of course, this is TV and the good times can’t last. At the end of the episode, when Viserys is foggy from milk of the poppy, he babbles to Alicent about Aegon the Conquerer’s prophetic dream. He thinks he’s talking to Rhaenyra, who brought up the prophecy earlier in the episode, but Alicent doesn’t know that. She misinterprets his ramblings as a deathbed wish to seat their eldest son Aegon on the throne, which could have dire consequences.
“We spoke a lot about this,” Cooke said. “There was a massive amount of relief when Alicent told Rhaenyra, ‘You will make a great queen.’ She’s so over the fighting and having this ball of bitterness and anxiety in her stomach: Just let it go, Rhaenyra is the heir, this is fine.”
"When Viserys says that, I genuinely think she thinks he’s talking about Aegon, her son. And I think she’s furious. She’s like, “After all that?” But Viserys is on his deathbed; that’s what he requested, and so she must follow it through. Whether that’s unconscious wishful thinking, I don’t know, but that’s how I played it."
And now, Alicent will probably add her voice to the rest of the greens and support Aegon’s claim to the throne, which will mean war with Rhaenrya. But you wonder if Alicent won’t secretly be rooting for Rhaenyra just a little bit the whole time. Cooke sounds like like she might be. “It’s funny: The whole point of this story is that these two women have been split apart and people have been forced to take sides. Now the whole internet is doing the exact same thing, even though House of the Dragon is supposed to be a cautionary tale,” the actor said. “I’d like to think that I wouldn’t pit either of them against each other. [Pause.] But yeah, probably Rhaenyra.”
"@hbomax I’ll take one of each. #houseofthedragon ♬ a negroni sbagliato w prosecco l hbo max – hbomax"
Emma D’Arcy on her viral Negroni moment
And now for the most important part of the interview: What is Emma D’Arcy’s favorite drink? The actor went viral recently when she shared that she’s partial to a Negroni sbagliato with some prosecco in it. I mean, we’re talking millions of views and tons of articles about how to mix this drink at home. That little TikTok above went places.
“I thought it’d be quite funny to be drinking one right now, but I’m not,” laughed D’Arcy. “I keep thinking I should tell my mum that I’ve become a meme in the hope that she’ll be happy for me, but I’d have to explain what a meme is, and I’ve decided it’s too much effort.”
D’Arcy also said that then she and Cooke were doing those interviews, six hours in, she was just trying to make her costar laugh. So even if Alicent and Rhaenyra will soon be at each other’s throats, Cooke and D’Arcy are doing great.
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