If there’s any show that merits the label of “problematic” for its content, it’s House of the Dragon, just like its progenitor Game of Thrones before it. George R.R. Martin’s source material gives no damns about the extremes he’ll go to depict medieval fantasy life as horrific. There’s sexual assault, incest, child harm and assault, murder, likable characters dying brutally and abruptly, and animal abuse, even above and beyond that of the obviously fictional dragons. Most mature viewers understand the difference between depiction and advocacy: the show is not telling you these things are good, and is in fact pretty clear they’re awful.
There will always be some fans drawn to the awful actions on screen for the wrong reasons, though. They also tend to be the loudest and most unashamed online. So even though some interactions don’t represent the entirety of fandom, it’s not entirely a surprise to hear Olivia Cooke, the actress who stars as Alicent, has experienced it as coming off misognyistic, as she tells GQ in a new feature.
House of the Dragon was always bound to draw some misogynist comments — it’s a show focused on two warring female leaders who are, to put it mildly, complicated. Sometimes our sympathies lie with Emma D’arcy’s Rhaenyra Targaryen; others, with Cooke’s Alicent Hightower. Content labeled for mature audiences doesn’t always just mean sex and violence; sometimes it means audiences need to have enough discernment to understand not everyone is all good or all bad. The show depicts ingrained misogyny as regards royal lines of succession, and you’re not meant to agree with that. But some fans seem to assume that in playing out the scenes she does, including those depicting incest, Cooke is being victimized. She denies that.
“I think some of those interpretations just catch fire, and they become something that bears no resemblance to what was shown on the screen at the time,” she says, adding that her dynamic with director Clare Kilner proves, “you don’t have to stomp around the set and exert testosterone. You can just handle each department with kindness and care.” Aside from the usual sexism aimed at any female star on the Internet, she also finds the notion that she’s being manipulated into icky scenes condescending. “There’s a lot of ugliness to that fandom as well. It’s steeped in misogyny,” she says. “There’s a lot of racism [aimed at others, one assumes]. I try to let it take up minimal mental real estate.” As such, she’s no longer on most social networks.
With the narrative of the series shifting in favor of Alicent after having been pretty strongly on Team Rhaenyra, Cooke may find more love in the future from the segment of fandom that thinks she must be like her character. As far as those who don’t think she has agency as an actress, though — they may need a reminder that there’s almost always something worse around the narrative corners of Westeros. And at this point, all the actors involved know it, and sign on for it. Unless it’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — that one actually occasionally holds hope and humor for its (notably male) leads.
Are you Team Rhaenyra or Team Alicent? Has that changed over the course of the show? Send us a raven in comments to declare your fealty.
