This week’s House of the Dragon episode marks a major reversal for the series, and not just because Hugh the Hammer (Kieran Bew) decided to interrupt Vermithor’s lunch. After assuming a leading role in most episodes of Season 2 so far, the Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) is largely absent from showrunner Ryan Condal‘s latest glimpse into Westeros’s escalating civil war, appearing in only a handful of scenes outside Season 2, Episode 7’s main drama surrounding Targaryen dragonseeds. The appearances the queen does make are light on dialogue and devoid of any action related to the main plot, demonstrating how Alicent’s growing powerlessness in House of the Dragon has distanced her from relevant events, but her subtle arc in Episode 7 still culminates in a highly symbolic scene that sees her become Westeros’s own lady of the lake.
After being denied the position of regent and cast out of the small council by Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), Alicent goes her own way in House of the Dragon‘s newest episode, “The Red Sowing.” Reflecting on how her service to House Hightower and the realm feels meaningless from within her royal chambers, Alicent confesses that even the Red Keep feels unclean, afterward tasking her Kingsguard, Ser Rickard Thorne (Vincent Regan), with escorting her to the Kingswood where she might get some air alone. Once there, however, Alicent admits she doesn’t know if she’ll ever return to King’s Landing before wordlessly walking into the nearest lake. The tension of the scene is taut and jarring, keeping the viewer on edge by pondering whether Alicent will swim or let herself sink, but there’s actually an even deeper meaning behind Alicent’s darkest House of the Dragon moment to date.
Alicent’s Lake Scene in ‘House of the Dragon’ Is a Reference to a Tragic Shakespearean Heroine
As a medieval fantasy epic, House of the Dragon is only a stone’s throw away from resembling the culture of the real Middle Ages, and Season 2, Episode 7 of the series makes use of that shared aesthetic to call back to one of the most famous heroines of the Early Modern period. With her fiery red hair spreading out in the lake water over her translucent white gown, Alicent’s dip into the Kingswood’s waters gives her an eerie resemblance to John Everett Malais‘s oil painting of William Shakespeare‘s Ophelia, the courtly love interest in the playwright’s famous Hamlet. In the play, Ophelia drowns under ambiguous circumstances after Hamlet kills her father, Polonius, with Shakespeare allowing the audience to interpret whether Hamlet’s love took her own life.
Similarly, since Alicent’s lake scene contains no dialogue and relies solely on the legacy of its recognizable imagery, the character’s resemblance to Ophelia allows the audience to grasp the emotional truths implied by the creative team’s reference. Aside from a physical resemblance, both Alicent and Ophelia relate to one another on a deeper level. Just as Ophelia felt betrayed by Hamlet’s sudden violence towards her and was exploited by her father for social gain, Alicent is once again at the mercy of men in House of the Dragon Season 2. The fact that her own father, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) is responsible for her forced marriage is well-documented, but Alicent is also betrayed by her dashing Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) when he shoots down her regency. These parallels underscore how exploited and alone Alicent must feel as she carefully treads water, but unfortunately, her connection to Ophelia doesn’t solely serve to add depth to her character.
Alicent’s Swim Symbolizes Her Status in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2
There’s one thing missing from Ophelia’s connection to Alicent’s House of the Dragon scene — flowers. In both Millais’s painting and Shakespeare’s text, the scene of Ophelia’s death is almost obnoxiously flowery, described with gushing words and adorned with vibrant flourishes to capture the romantic tragedy of losing such a graceful young lady at court. The absence of this romantic symbolism in Alicent’s scene, however, signifies that House of the Dragon‘s Green queen is not undergoing some beautiful ritual of self-destruction. Stripped of her elegant dress and requisite social manners, the blunt reality of Alicent’s own lake is bare, leaving her with nothing but a tradition of courtly tragedy that is ultimately dehumanizing.
After a season of being discarded by House of the Dragon‘s male nobility in the name of preserving Alicent’s docile femininity, her symbolic swim in the Kingswood underscores how the dowager queen can no longer even cling to her own identity in private. Instead of screaming in frustration or seeking out a friend in her time of inner turmoil — similarly to how Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra has come to rely upon Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) — Alicent reverts to a wordless pose at her lowest point, demonstrating how her father’s courtly influence has interrupted her own ability to intimately mourn her losses. Ironically, just as Millais’s “Ophelia” exemplifies female beauty through the male gaze, with his Ophelia model, Elizabeth Siddal, suffering in bathtub water for days in order to serve the painter’s vision, Alicent can’t help but perform her assigned social role on the brink of death. With her skin glowing underneath the folds of her gown’s billowing fabric, Alicent’s angelic beauty in her lake scene almost overshadows the fact that nobody even realizes House of the Dragon‘s dowager queen is missing in the first place.
That said, there is still some hope to be found for Alicent in House of the Dragon Season 2. While her trip through the Kingswood most closely references Ophelia’s Shakespearean tragedy, bathing in water also symbolizes rebirth in a broader literary context, and Alicent’s brief glimpse at a bird flying overhead as she sinks into the water hints at the greater freedom she still can’t help but desire. Even though her similarities to Ophelia turn Alicent more into a hollow caricature of femininity than the queen she is, the fact that Alicent shows up in the trailer for House of the Dragon‘s finale confirms she’s still got some fight left in her. And with Rhaenyra’s Blacks more ready than ever to make their move on King’s Landing, who’s to say Alicent won’t emerge from her lake more than ready to rejoin the fray?
House of the Dragon is currently streaming on Max. New episodes air every Sunday night.
