Alicent Hightower/Rhaenyra Targaryen

Pairing
Pairing:	Alicent Hightower x Rhaenyra Targaryen
Alternative name(s):	rhaenicent/rhaecent (spelling pending)
Gender category:	Femslash
Fandom:	House of the Dragon
Canonical?:	No
Prevalence:
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Alicent/Rhaenyra is the femslash pairing of Alicent Hightower and Rhaenyra Targaryen in the House of the Dragon fandom.

[princeofstories, Aug 21st, 2022]
cant believe hotd showrunners read fire & blood and were like what if we make the dance of the dragons a lesbian divorce drama.

Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, the actors of the young versions of the characters, saw it in the script and leaned into it in their acting.

"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."

interview with actors Milly Alcock and Emily Carey

Fandom

Alicent/Rhaenyra quickly become a popular femslash ship on Archive of Our Own, joining the all time top 100 femslash pairings list gathered by Centreoftheselights at 75th in 2023.

Shipping Fuel

Season One

• Fans felt that some of the scenes between young Alicent and Rhaenyra were flirtatious, such as Rhaenyra telling Alicent that her dragon, Syrax, was nearly big enough to saddle two people for riding. A later scene, where Rhaenyra is lying with her head in Alicent's lap, talking about how what she wants to do in the future is fly around the world on dragonback with Alicent is also often referenced by fans.
• A script reveal included an acting direction for Rhaenyra to flirt with Alicent when asking her to accompany Rhaenyra to see her mother.
• Multiple cast members who played the teenage and adult versions of Alicent and Rhaenyra have stated in interviews that they saw suggestions for blurring the lines between platonic and romantic relationships in the scripts, and played the parts in places leaning into the possibility of romantic or sexual tension, while leaving much of the final interpretation up to the viewers.
• A line spoken by Otto Hightower near the end of season one is often referenced by Rhaenicent fans as him implying Alicent may carry affections for Rhaenyra that Otto considers unacceptable. When Alicent states, “My husband would have desired this mercy be shown to his daughter", Otto responds with “Your husband? Or you, his daughter’s childhood companion?”
• Related to the above, fans also point out that Otto happily uses the page Rhaenyra tore out of a book and gave to Alicent decades earlier as a means of trying to emotionally manipulate Rhaenyra, and some feel this also suggests he knows that Rhaenyra has equally strong feelings for Alicent. While most fans agree that the page as a device mechanism works because of the strong past relationship between the pair, fans of the romantic pairing specifically like to explore the romantic connotations, especially in light of keeping a torn out page for well over a decade.

Alicent keeping the page Rhaenyra gave her is the most gay this show has ever gotten. The only other thing that compares is Rhaenyra crying because of it.

itsfulcrum Tumblr 

Season Two

• Alicent's son Aemond states, "Alicent holds love for the enemy. That makes her a fool," while in discussion with Criston Cole. Fans of the pairing have drawn parallels to Otto's previous comment about her relationship with Rhaenyra.

“Alicent holds love for our enemy.” honey the kids are starting to become aware of our gay love affair

prideprejudce Tumblr 

• Rhaenyra was confirmed to be sapphic via scenes with Mysaria, which Rhaenicent fans felt added extra confirmation to the validity of romantic readings of Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship.
• There were two scenes where Rhaenyra and Alicent were reunited, both because one of them snuck into somewhere to meet with the other in an attempt to prevent the inevitable war that was due to erupt. Rhaenyra dressed as a septa to meet with Alicent in secret, while Alicent went to Dragonstone in the season finale to attempt to talk Rhaenyra out of war. These meetings were met with criticism from some fans of the show, who felt that they were contrived simply for the sake of getting Rhaenyra and Alicent in scenes together. Others felt that the scenes were somewhat on the illogical side, but understood the relationship dynamics between the pairing which underpinned the reason for the meetings.
• Fans of the pairing drew parallels between the finale scene between Rhaenyra and Alicent in season two, where Alicent asks Rhaenyra to run away with her, to the first episode where Rhaenyra declared she wished to fly on dragonback with Alicent. Other parallels between the characters, such as Alicent receiving a matching injury to her arm to the one she inflicted on Rhaenyra in season one are also discussed in meta for the pairing.

Common Tropes

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fanworks

Fanart

• Good While It Lasted by dianaiiz
• Rhaenyra and Alicent Screencap Redraw by feriderl
• Rhaenyra and Alicent (HotD Episode 2) by feriderl

Fanfiction

• Untouchable by mylordshesacactus - A canon compatible work set during the timeframe of the first few episodes of HotD.
• The Silver Queen and the Lady in Green by WanderingFan - An AU (described by the author as a "hybrid of high fantasy and sci-fi") with extensive world-building, with a long slow burn romance.

Fan vids

• Rhaenyra & Alicent - ❝ Set Fire To The Rain❞ by kingalicent
• Good Luck, Babe! || Alicent and Rhaenyra by 28 Films Later
• Rhaenyra and Alicent | loml by oretsxv

Manips

• Rhaenicent dungeon scene leaked by obcrack

TikTok Edits

• Somewhere only we know by prol_x
• they are my sun and moon by scatteredaffirmations
• they are the loss of my life by oretsxvs
• viserys and otto failed them in every way possible, they deserved to fly on dragon back and eat cake!! by vaeiyrian

Edits to Chappell Roan songs have also become very popular for the pairing on TikTok (as well as other fanworks like web weaving on Tumblr), in large part due to the common trope of Alicent experiencing internalised homophobia, comphet, or suppressing her feelings for Rhaenyra due to societal expectations.

• they are NOT casual by sxpphicedits
• I loved the part where they run away together by meiisandre
• good luck, alicent! by inventorycurse
• rip young rhaenicent you wouldve loved chappel roan. by editogy

Resources

• Archive of Our Own tag: Alicent Hightower/Rhaenyra Targaryen
• Tumblr tag: rhaenicent, rhaecent
• Twitter tag: rhaenicent, rhaecent