Redeem now - Warning: Spoilers ahead for season one, episode one of HBO's "House of the Dragon."
- Rhaenyra and Alicent are shown as best friends in the opening episode of the "Game of Thrones" prequel.
- The actors who play the two girls said the romantic subtext to their feelings "was purposeful."
In the first episode of HBO's "House of the Dragon," fans are introduced to two 14-year-old girls: Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower. The two teens are clearly closely bonded, spending their free time together studying or riding in horse-drawn carriages or even helping each other get dressed for a ceremony.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.At times, their relationship resembles something closer to young girlfriends instead of simply "best friends," a dynamic that Milly Alcock and Emily Carey — the two stars who play the younger versions of Rhaenyra and Alicent, respectively — say was intentionally there as subtext.
"I'm just actually in love with Emily and so I think that's it," Alcock joked during a roundtable press interview with Insider, Popsugar, and Metacritic.
"It's something we brought up with Clare Kilner, one of the directors we also work with for the younger version of the characters," Carey added. "It was something I was immediately conscious of when I read the script as a queer woman myself."
Carey said that her initial reaction to the script read-through was that Rhaenyra and Alicent are "in love a little bit," and so the actors played around with the idea of young girls having a special emotional closeness to their best friends.
"I think any woman could think back to the best friend that they had at 14 years old, and it's a relationship and a closeness unlike any other," Carey said. "You do toe the line between platonic and romantic."
"Milly always says it's like a tactile closeness and emotional closeness," Carey said. "Especially when it's put in the context of this world where they are the only two young girls in the Red Keep. It's 100% something we were conscious of. And so if it reads on screen, it was purposeful."
Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship ties into the larger themes of misogyny and a lack of choice given to women in Westeros
Alcock also sees the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent as indicative of the larger theme in "House of the Dragon" about the power dynamics between men and women and their respective roles in society. As Rhaenyra's mother tells her in the first episode, a princess has a "royal womb" and is therefore expected to show her strength through childbirth, not on a soldier's battlefield.
"These women aren't given the privilege to know what choices they have because of the world that they live in," Alcock said. "That's the theme that runs through this entire story, and Alicent and Rhaenyra's relationship is a prime example of it."
We've seen bisexual or pansexual characters in Westeros in "Game of Thrones" (notably Yara Greyjoy and Oberyn Martell), but no openly welcome queer relationships within HBO's adaptation of George R.R. Martin's fictional universe.
During the same press junket, Insider also asked Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke (who play the grown-up versions of Rhaenyra and Alicent, respectively) about the sexuality of their characters and how that dynamic operates within Westeros.
"I think there's erotic energy in most intense teenage relationships, because it's a period of trying to work out what one is and what one wants," D'Arcy said.
Cooke, who plays adult-Alicent, said she agreed with Carey's assessment of their character and how Alicent's relationship with Rhaenyra is a blend of platonic, romantic, and even sisterly.
"When you have your first intense friendship, you're throwing all these emotions at the other person and seeing which one sticks," she said. "And it's incredibly complex, but very passionate."
Fans of "House of the Dragon" will have to wait and see where Rhaenyra and Alicent's friendship goes next. New episodes air Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. ET.
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