Rhaenyra and Alicent are House of the Dragon’s most compelling, but underserved relationship

polygon.com:

In just nine episodes, the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon has covered a ton of ground and spanned decades. Some characters have aged up multiple times, half a dozen children have been born, and heir to the throne Rhaenyra has gotten married, fake widowed, and remarried all in a few hours of TV. To depict such large swaths of time and quickly lay the groundwork for the impending Targaryen succession struggle, the showrunners have made strategic choices about when to focus on character and relationship development.

As a result, Alicent and Rhaenyra — perhaps the central relationship of the show — have precious few scenes together after the first episode, making the reasons for their falling-out-turned-civil-war at times maddeningly unclear: What was Alicent’s deal with Rhaenyra? Why was she so mad about her former friend’s sexual exploits? Why didn’t Rhaenyra just tell Alicent the truth about sleeping with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel)? Are they in love? House of the Dragon succeeds in bringing the rote history of George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood to life, but it falls short in fleshing out the motivations of the two women at the center of the conflict.

The importance of this relationship and the intimacy between the young women is hammered home in the first 10 minutes of the show. We see Rhaenyra dismount from her dragon and walk to a carriage where Alicent waits to accompany her. Later, they stroll casually through the Red Keep arm-in-arm, and Rhaenyra fantasizes about flying together on dragonback while lying in Alicent’s lap under a weirwood tree. We come to clearly understand this relationship as more than one of just duty between handmaiden and princess. But as the season progresses and the next