Known for her cruelty, Cersei was behind some of the most brutal, and often unnecessary, deaths in Game of Thrones. No child, woman, or animal was spared in her ruthless claim to the Iron Throne.
We witnessed her true character very early on in the first season after she ordered the execution of Sansa Stark’s dire wolf Lady - despite knowing the animal did not bite her son Joffrey Baratheon.
While certainly cruel, Cersei managed to do much worse as the season went on. She had her brother’s supposed lover killed in an act of revenge, beheaded Daenerys Targaryen’s best friend, and even blew up an entire building full of people.
She was calculated, ruthless and partial to reason if it interfered with her plans to see her children on the Iron Throne. She played the game of thrones to win, and she played it well.
And yet, fans still compare her to Alicent.
WATCH BELOW: TikToker explains why House of the Dragon’s Alicent is a “mess”
The second wife to King Viserys Targaryen, Alicent instantly become disliked by fans when she went behind her best friend, Rhaenyra Targaryen, and married her father.
As she grew older, so did her hatred and jealousy of Rhaenyra, resulting in decisions that further cemented her as one of the show’s “villains”.
From aligning herself with questionable characters such as Ser Criston Cole and Larys Strong to nearly having a child mutilated as a literal “eye-for-an-eye” moment, Alicent is certainly moving in the direction of Cersei.
But while her heinous acts are just as evil, Alicent lacks the same calculative and tactical nature that made Cersei one of the greatest TV villains we’ve ever seen.
TikToker Allyssa Ablon summed it up perfectly in her episode seven recap of House of the Dragon, which you can watch in the video player above, calling Alicent “messy, not smart, and not tactical”.
“I feel like my issue with Alicent at this point isn’t that the things she wants is bad or wrong, it’s that she’s a disaster person!” she explained. “How can you compare her to Cersei when she’s not even good at being Alicent?”
While Alicent has yet to prove herself as being on the same level as Cersei, or worse as some fans have declared, the two are still being compared. But they shouldn’t be.
Here’s what Twitter has had to say:
“I’m going to respectfully ask people to stop comparing Alicent to Cersei. Cersei was a lot of things, but she was always true to her nature, unlike little Ms. Holier than thou and all her self-righteous hypocrisy,” one user wrote.
“Alicent is intimately aware of how Westerosi patriarchy works and weaponises it against low born and high born women alike for the sake of her personal ambitions and societal biases. Her internalised misogyny and self-hatred is much different from Cersei’s,” another added.
“Yall draggin it. Cersei killed her husband, had kids with her brother, tormented a little girl, blew up a church and had a nun r***** to death. Alicent deplorable and a hater, but she ain’t that.”
So yes, while they are equally unlikeable at times and share uncanny similarities, Alicent is no Cersei. Or not yet at least.
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