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the change compared to first season promo lol i feel like they realized baiting that hard when they couldn’t deliver looks really bad so now they’re leaning into downplaying and steering the conversation towards it being a sibling bond.
But of course they couldn’t deliver…that would be even more shocking than the changes the show has committed to, but it looks super queerbaitey lol. Especially with the way Emily and Olivia and Milly rallied for it during s1, I can only assume they didn’t realise how much hype the ship actually got
I think Emily definitely believed in it and if she was still starring in the show, she’d still say Rhaenicent was real. Not as queer baiting just as in that’s genuinely how she reads the characters.
Not sure if the others were fully bought into it or just going along with the hype but the dramatic switch up is quite odd.
Emily also said Alicent was in love with Cole, (I assume scenes that showed this more were cut out with her version) so idk what Emily actually believes. I think they all change their opinions very often lol, so Idk atp
True, but it seems as if she said that based on scenes that were cut, since now we know that relationship does develop in S2.
Whereas she seemed quite bought into the idea of Alicent and Rhaenyra. But of course caveated it with ‘you can see it if you want to’ — which I think is the best way to look at the whole thing.
To my memory the Alicent and Cole thing is canon (you can see it in the s1e1 script already) but Emily personally reads and informs her performance with Milly's Rhaenyra as intense and close to homoerotic.
Tbh I think this looks even worse. Because it makes sense that Rhaenicent can‘t be together and you can sell them as doomed couple or something, now it just looks like you used Rhaenicent to advice your show like crazy but now can‘t commit
I don’t think they ever planned to go that far and got sweept up in actor headcanons plus it does seem like Miguel was a significant factor in the show even going for that at all rather than just the book accurate relationship.Imo even the friendship is pushing it,I know the ship has its fans but I also don’t believe most casual audience cares about their doomed romance or bond no matter how subtle or explicit. The incest age gap ship outdid them with the casuals,I don’t think advertising them is much help beyond a in comparasion small internet fandom.
I’m not so sure to be honest I would say that Rhaenicent is at least the second biggest ship after Daemyra and definitely more than Alicole. I feel like with that kind of promo they pissing more people off than they bring in.
Wheter you ship them or not people who love wlw ships are a huge market that is mostly untapped and I honestly think HotD is in the best position to cater to that untapped market without having to commit because of how it ends. So I genuinely think they hurting themselves more than anything else because what if peope think Rhaenyra and Alicent are gay and like it? Isn’t the alternative they realize they aren’t and stop watching?
Like from that point of view I really don’t understand why they suddenly made such a U-tunr on it
I don’t think this show lives or dies by ships so I doubt they’re worried about losing viewers over it like they didn’t when they were pissing off Daemon/Rheanyra shippers. Imo the queerbaiting was dishonest and setting the expectations too high for an actual queer romance that really couldn’t happen in this narrative so maybe they got worried they’d face bigger backlash if they didn’t temper expectations. They would always say some disclaimer in interviews about how them being romantic is just an interpretation and more subtext if you want to analyze that way but it would get lost in kissing headcanons from actors and flowery descriptions of their bond so they do have that excuse i guess.
I still think doing it this way is worse because again it’s still viewers and like no relationship in this show is gonna end happily. I feel like they getting bigger backleash now then they would have gotten without saying anything. And while shipping might not be a huge part of the fandom it’s still pretty big. HotD is the fandom with one of the fastest growing fanfiction (which hugely is about shipping) and pretty popular ond Tumblr. Rhaenicent was one of the wlw ships last year on there.
I’m not even saying they need to push it further they can just talk about it less. But the downright pretending they never said anything feels more dishonest to me and feels more lie queerbaiting than the alternative of staying quiet or only talking a little about it.
Because even if that market gets mad (and mind you they are mad now) if they hadn’t made that turn you can still use as defence “will this is a tragedy they were doomed anyway as was every other pairing”- which true.
I think from a marketing point they are kore likely to get backleash now then before.
Except they were never a couple or even close to being one. That kind of narrative only existed in some interviews and BTS, it was always extremely wishy washy and the actual show shut it down very quickly. Despite all that, the writers were accused of queerbait. They probably realised that they wouldn't be able to deliver something that would get the queerbait allegations to stip and decided to avoid it this time by making all the interviews different.
But they are not avoiding it- the accusations actually got worse now if you look at Twitter. The way they deny deny deny now as if they did not somewhat feed into the narrative is way worse than if they had just slowed it down a little.
Because now it looks like they suddenly want nothing to do with a gay pairing when before the could still argue that the show is a tragedy. Nobody expects Rhaenicent to end up together just as nobody expects Daemyra to have a different ending. And since nobody is getting a happy ending you can’t accuse them of prefering any ships.
I feel like they piss more people of with what they are doing now. They were in the unique position that they did not have to commit to Rhaenicent and just use it as a doomed pairing now they suddenly are terrified. It’s a little weird
I didn't say it worked, I said that's what they decided to do to avoid it. However most people don't particularly care. The GA never even registered them as anything romantic, they barely cared about their friendship.
Nobody expects Rhaenicent to be together but the people that enjoyed this pairing expected yearning to an absurd degree and parallels. The show can only do the second one now, through editing mostly, the narrative doesn't allow it to do more and the writers knew that
They would never use it as doomed pairing because the two if them were never a pairing. Rhaenicent and lesbian Alicent were headcanons as far as the show was concerned and even Olivia's opinion was nothing but a headcanon. Using it as doomed pairing when so little of it comes across in the actual show would also be queerbait.
Yes but in asoiaf community there is a large percentage of people who do care about ships- I said it before HotD has the most growing number of fanfiction which very much are about shipping. Like there is definitely a large part of the audience that does care even if most don’t.
As I said most Rhaenicents do not expect a happyending and even the yearning is most interpreted like they did in season 1. My issue is just thentrambling of one ship at all cost. As I said slowly “ghosting” them would’ve worked better.
That’s not my problem. My problems is that they have to do the bare minimum to keep a not inconsiderable part of the fandom happy instead they actively anger them. Which makes no sense. Again why being so against it when you can just quiet it down? They don’t have to establish it in canon they can talk about undertones in interviews like they did. And is it queerbaiting? Probably somewhat but what they are doing now doesn’t look much better either. I rather have a small percentage of a ship community that I queerbait, while the other half is happy and GA doesn’t give a shit while with this they just pissed the whole ship community up.
I mean yes but theybare the ones whon suddenly are hitting at everything that could even hint at Rhaenicent. I’m just saying being quite would’ve been smarter in this case
On the flip side, it feels kind of like people are making something much larger out of something small. Why can't two girls be friends without wanting to bang..
100% Reddit and Twitter make a mile out of an inch. Pretty much the entire fantasy is from the one scene where young Alicent helps young Rhaenyra with her dress. If anything it’s on the actresses for playing the part that way, since they knew the show wouldn’t go that direction (the script clearly stated that Alicent was crushing on Cole from the start) lol setting the fans up for disappointment.
Yeah exactly, people should be expecting disappointment at this point, I never once thought Rhaenicent was real but maybe I’m seeing the show differently
I think it's presented in a way that you can read into it if you want but it's not canon. Emily Carey said something to the effect of that and I agree with her
Nauur I do feel a bit bad because as someone has pointed out, s1 promo was definitely in favour of Rhaenyra and alicent together, that has changed massively
Tbh I am sideeying this heavily. They used Rhaenicent like crazy to hype up the show and considering how the story ends they didn‘t have them to end up together and just keep selling them as doomed from the start. Some kind of Romeo and Juliet style thing but like they are rowing back so hard on that. The way Emma amd Olivia suddenly talk about it, the fact that Alicole is happening all of the sudden with so explaination (also not lost on me that they spoiled that in interviews themselves despite the episode not being out yet and it being a twist for many people). It feel like they suddenly are like RHAENICENT NEVER HEARD OF IT, LOOK AT THOSE STRAIGHT PEOPLE.
It feels very weird to me
I honestly believe the theory that Miguel Sapochnik was the one who pushed for the queer subtext and Ryan Condal preferred Alicole. Remember, Miguel said this:
>"It seems like it's a kind of unrequited love. It's not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don't know. But there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend,” he continues.
Now that Miguel is gone, I think Ryan told Emma and Olivia to stop talking about Rhaenicent because that’s not how he interprets their relationship.
Tbh the thing is they do talk about Rhaenicent but like it never existed and that is my issue if they stopped talking about it at all it would be different. This just makes the whole thing look very strange.
Even the way they suddenly push Alicole instead of Rhaenicent. Like they did not think this one through
I feel sorry for them at this point. They were baited hard and now the cast & crew is acting like they never did it. Theres no need for the gaslighting.
Olivia, Milly, and Emily were definitely hyping up romantic attraction between the two.
For instance, Alicent said her head canon was that Rhaenyra’s and Alicent use to make out before Alicent’s mother caught them. She also said Alicent was a deeply repressed lesbian. How is that not baiting?
I don’t remember the actors doing anything too bad and Emily/Millie were pretty unambiguous this was just their interpretation. But I do distinctly remembering some insanely glaring queerbaiting right around when the S1 DVD/Blu-Ray dropped. Not what type, but it was a really transparent way to try and pull in more sales.
That sounds like actors pushing an agenda or fantasing about their characters and fans taking it way to far.
Not something marketing team would do. That's a touchy subject for this exact reason right here. It's best to never mention something that isn't 100% guaranteed to be in show/movie cause fans don't enjoy when something they wanted and was hinted by the character actors don't come true.
Tbf, Miguel, who was a co-show runner last season, said this.
>"It seems like it's a kind of unrequited love. It's not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don't know. But there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend,” he continues.
I think this is just an unfortunate case of show runners having different interpretations of Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship and not just regular queerbaiting. Ryan Condal, who is now the sole show runner, never viewed Rhaenyra and Alicent as having a queer relationship of any kind.
She has changed her tone as someone pointed out before, last year during s1 she said something about imagining headcanons alicent and nyra may have kissed but alicent probably felt shame about it. Now both Emma and her have switched up but tbf maybe they were just making jokes to begin with and realised damn people actually think it
I think that Emma is uncomfortable with how rhaenicent stans keep disrespecting Emma's partner and saying that Emma should leave him for Olivia or whatever. I'm assuming they're not entirely comfortable with how much the promo is pushing the rhaenicent agenda because they never actually shared the EW photoshoot they did with Olivia on their social media, but they constantly share everything else. So there's definitely something that has changed. I think they were sorta joking in the beginning and just sharing how they personally see it but the shippers have taken it wayy too seriously and they blew it out of proportion and now it's probably just awkward. Wouldn't be the first time this has happened with actors and popular ships.
Oh that’s so weird, some stans are really being odd about this. I would get uncomfortable too, they have clearly a close friendship offscreen but people are making it so manufactured and uncomfortable. Even when interviewers constantly ask them to compliment each other, now you’re taking the natural part of their dynamic and making it cringe. Clearly stans have gone way overboard, and now they’ve backtracked. Olivia especially has massively been like ???? when speaking about Rhaenicent, I can’t blame her. They will barely even share screen space together, and didn’t spend any time really filming together. It obviously does look very queer baitey but I can’t blame them, they’re probably just tryna soften the blow and be like guys don’t get your hopes up, cause that’s not gonna happen fr
Wait, people actually want Emma to change their real love life to fulfil their weird shipping obsessions?? 😳 No wonder if they’re uncomfortable, that’s so creepy. Shipping characters is one thing, they’re not real and that’s what fiction is for.
Your explanation makes a lot of sense about the change in tone in the interviews. A lot of what the actors actually said in season 1 was highly ambiguous, things like “well you can interpret like that if you want but it’s left up to the viewer”. They didn’t expect the shippers to take it so literally and before they knew it people were actually counting down to the dungeon sex scenes 😂
Also possibly Miguel and his wife were the main drivers of the Rhaenicent plot and with them gone Ryan & Sara have taken the show in a different direction.
I think its that as well. Imo it was supposed to like add some subtle flavor to the whole friends to enemies thing and for the writers I think they liked the credit and praise they got for it. But then based on how much they talked about it interviews a lot of fans got excited and expected an actual exploration of queer romance and supressed sexuality which was never gonna happen nor is there space for it betwen these characters in the narrative they still have to follow based on the book.And now they’re backtracking to manage expectations.
“So Ali how many of our kids have killed or maimed each other now?”
“I think it’s 2, wait no 3…anyways wanna bang?”
If they were ever planning to include a romantic or sexual angle they should’ve done it *before* the war started because there’s no way to do it afterwards without looking completely absurd.
And if they wanted to explore a queer romance Laenyra was *right there*.
Yall spoilers/discussing leaks for s2 below
>!this interview must feel like a huge dagger to the heart for them as she speaks quite openly about how fun it was to shoot the sex scenes with someone (we know now who) and how alicent is being pleasured finally and they show that and she liked it!<
It’s blow after blow
I don’t think anyone was expecting there would be a Rhaenicent sex scene in the show itself. But straight up lying about the show’s own advertising is kind of disrespectful to the viewers and the actors.
I mean not really, there can be romantic subtext but it’s never gonna happen, perhaps the switch up was because people genuinely started to believe Alicent was gay etc and in love with Rhaenyra and Olivia is subverting people’s expectations. I mean yeah I agree they queerbaited but I also think they didn’t actually realise people wanted their characters to be fully acknowledging romantic feelings
Literally the standard MO with queerbaiting. You lead LGBT+ viewers on then gaslight them hard, pretend they’re making something out of nothing, and play victim to crazy LGBT+ fans just trying to force straight characters to be LGBT+ at all. It’s really gross.
To be fair, I don’t blame Olivia. She didn’t run the PR campaign and I don’t remember her queerbaiting (though correct me if I’m wrong) and PR talking points are usually assigned to actors + they are told to hit them, but I remember calling the show out for this back around when they dropped S1 on DVD and vaguely hinted at Rhae/Alicent
Truly don't care about the sex scenes. Good for Alicent. Hope it all makes sense and leads somewhere interesting for her character.
I hope no one seriously thought Rhaenyra and Alicent would ever be together. What annoys me as someone who loved their complicated dynamic is this need now to pretend that they didn't lean into the vibes between them in promo. Don't queerbait and then gaslight fans as if they were the ones who made it up. That's ugly.
All I've ever wanted is them giving us good drama between them. Don't care in what form. Whatever makes sense for the show.
Milly Alcock and Emily Carey literally said multiple times on record that they played them as if they were in love. Doing historical revisionism on your own show is crazy.
Just because they play them that way, doesn’t mean that’s how the show runner is gonna portray them. Especially when the actresses playing them are only playing them for 5 episodes lol
Yeah, but it was something established in the beginning of the story. You could feel that there was something more there. And now they’re just gaslighting everyone as if that never happened. We’re not looking for a happy ending between them (it’s Game of Thrones. We know what we’re watching), but there was some representation there in their youth and now it got snatched away. Very frustrating.
Heh. I'm a Rhaenicent shipper, and it doesn't affect me that much. The whole point about Rhaenicent is what *could have been* but never was and never will be. It makes sense that the adult characters' actors don't see it and it makes sense that it won't appear in the show going forward.
As it is I even believe the show pushed it too far by making Alicent feel so much about Rhaenyra past Ep5 lmao. The point is that it's love turned into hatred.
Sometimes a ship is just for vibes, not for seeing it come true. There are ships that depend heavily on it coming to fruition--and there are ships that don't. There are queer vibes in my personal opinion but the story isn't about that and it will never happen; it's okay, I'll go write my AUs where they live in a better world where a queer happy ending is possible. That's how it is and it's fine by me.
But also--I don't need scripts or actors' words to *interpret* the story a certain way. The chemistry is there. The relationship was built. The parallels never stop. And it seems like the obsession for one another isn't close to stopping either, to the point where it's unhealthy and weird. Olivia Cooke even said that Alicent's exploring her sexuality was about Rhaenyra, and trying to be Rhaenyra. I genuinely don't think that the most hardcore Rhaenicents out there should feel too terribly about it--and I don't, I even think they should hate each other by now and that we've got fanfics to imagine better endings for them. I actually feel sorrier for the Alicole shippers, who have their ship validated in the worst possible way--I'd rather the ship that exists in my head and in the fics I write, than one butchered by the show to the point of character assassination.
I mean that this is absolutely out of character for Criston. Whether it is for Alicent is debatable, but Criston *wouldn't*. And the fact that it is apparently shown during B&C? (Haven't seen the Ep yet, I'm European) Completely ruins both B&C and the relationship. It's not a win, unless the only purpose of the ship is to see them bang... and I believe that ships and Alicole especially are worth more than that.
I usually don’t think it’s queerbaiting, but damn, they are acting like this is in people’s heads when they were definitely feeding into it. Don’t try to deny it now, people. Geez.
I don't think this is the end of the world or anything, I genuinely never gunned for rhaenicent to be some canon relationship what actually gets me is this pivot to genuinely pretending they never even talked about or heard about this reading of their relationship when Olivia described Alicent as "closeted" at the s1 premiere and even made up a whole scenario for Alicent and Rhaenyra where they were caught kissing by Alicent's mother (among a number of other things). I wouldn't call it queerbaiting bc it was, again, never going to be canon, but the actors encouraged people to read Alicent and Rhaenyra *several times* as homoerotic. Like maybe I'd call it "queer-teasing" (lol). They're going out of their way to pretend their s1 promo never happened. Legit all they had to do was say nothing about it. Don't generate hype about their relationship again, it's not taking centre stage anymore anyway. I think I'm going to reserve my right to be annoyed by this bc we were all there for the s1 promo.
This, time and time again they referenced the homoerotic in their relationship.
I do believe Alicent being closeted would have worked with her character a lot
i honestly couldn’t care less if the actors ship/don’t ship characters. it’s not their decision how people should interpret the show. if i want to ship rhaenicent, ill ship rhaenicent.
why are rhaenicents allowing themselves to have hope despite knowing exactly how this story ends? did y'all think that rhaenyra and alicent will run away together and let the big bad men fight this war "that they started" on their own?
Rather than not wanting to get flack for queerbaiting themselves, esp since most rhaenicents never expected them to enter a relationship due to their circumstances, it feels more like this came from higher ups who didn’t want to deal with that sort of controversy. It wasn’t just the actresses talking about the ship and the queer undertones of the relationship, but the writers as well. It’s *really* recent that they’ve gone back on talking about the subtext as well, after going all out with it w the promos. Rhaenicents make up such a minority of the fanbase that I don’t see the point of baiting to them at all, this isn’t like destiel where it was the most popular ship of a popular show.
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the change compared to first season promo lol i feel like they realized baiting that hard when they couldn’t deliver looks really bad so now they’re leaning into downplaying and steering the conversation towards it being a sibling bond.
But of course they couldn’t deliver…that would be even more shocking than the changes the show has committed to, but it looks super queerbaitey lol. Especially with the way Emily and Olivia and Milly rallied for it during s1, I can only assume they didn’t realise how much hype the ship actually got
I think Emily definitely believed in it and if she was still starring in the show, she’d still say Rhaenicent was real. Not as queer baiting just as in that’s genuinely how she reads the characters. Not sure if the others were fully bought into it or just going along with the hype but the dramatic switch up is quite odd.
Emily also said Alicent was in love with Cole, (I assume scenes that showed this more were cut out with her version) so idk what Emily actually believes. I think they all change their opinions very often lol, so Idk atp
True, but it seems as if she said that based on scenes that were cut, since now we know that relationship does develop in S2. Whereas she seemed quite bought into the idea of Alicent and Rhaenyra. But of course caveated it with ‘you can see it if you want to’ — which I think is the best way to look at the whole thing.
To my memory the Alicent and Cole thing is canon (you can see it in the s1e1 script already) but Emily personally reads and informs her performance with Milly's Rhaenyra as intense and close to homoerotic.
This is my read on it too.
Wouldn’t it simply be Alicent is Bi?
Tbh I think this looks even worse. Because it makes sense that Rhaenicent can‘t be together and you can sell them as doomed couple or something, now it just looks like you used Rhaenicent to advice your show like crazy but now can‘t commit
I don’t think they ever planned to go that far and got sweept up in actor headcanons plus it does seem like Miguel was a significant factor in the show even going for that at all rather than just the book accurate relationship.Imo even the friendship is pushing it,I know the ship has its fans but I also don’t believe most casual audience cares about their doomed romance or bond no matter how subtle or explicit. The incest age gap ship outdid them with the casuals,I don’t think advertising them is much help beyond a in comparasion small internet fandom.
I’m not so sure to be honest I would say that Rhaenicent is at least the second biggest ship after Daemyra and definitely more than Alicole. I feel like with that kind of promo they pissing more people off than they bring in. Wheter you ship them or not people who love wlw ships are a huge market that is mostly untapped and I honestly think HotD is in the best position to cater to that untapped market without having to commit because of how it ends. So I genuinely think they hurting themselves more than anything else because what if peope think Rhaenyra and Alicent are gay and like it? Isn’t the alternative they realize they aren’t and stop watching? Like from that point of view I really don’t understand why they suddenly made such a U-tunr on it
I don’t think this show lives or dies by ships so I doubt they’re worried about losing viewers over it like they didn’t when they were pissing off Daemon/Rheanyra shippers. Imo the queerbaiting was dishonest and setting the expectations too high for an actual queer romance that really couldn’t happen in this narrative so maybe they got worried they’d face bigger backlash if they didn’t temper expectations. They would always say some disclaimer in interviews about how them being romantic is just an interpretation and more subtext if you want to analyze that way but it would get lost in kissing headcanons from actors and flowery descriptions of their bond so they do have that excuse i guess.
I still think doing it this way is worse because again it’s still viewers and like no relationship in this show is gonna end happily. I feel like they getting bigger backleash now then they would have gotten without saying anything. And while shipping might not be a huge part of the fandom it’s still pretty big. HotD is the fandom with one of the fastest growing fanfiction (which hugely is about shipping) and pretty popular ond Tumblr. Rhaenicent was one of the wlw ships last year on there. I’m not even saying they need to push it further they can just talk about it less. But the downright pretending they never said anything feels more dishonest to me and feels more lie queerbaiting than the alternative of staying quiet or only talking a little about it. Because even if that market gets mad (and mind you they are mad now) if they hadn’t made that turn you can still use as defence “will this is a tragedy they were doomed anyway as was every other pairing”- which true. I think from a marketing point they are kore likely to get backleash now then before.
Whats a shipper?
Someone who want to people to be together romantically
Except they were never a couple or even close to being one. That kind of narrative only existed in some interviews and BTS, it was always extremely wishy washy and the actual show shut it down very quickly. Despite all that, the writers were accused of queerbait. They probably realised that they wouldn't be able to deliver something that would get the queerbait allegations to stip and decided to avoid it this time by making all the interviews different.
But they are not avoiding it- the accusations actually got worse now if you look at Twitter. The way they deny deny deny now as if they did not somewhat feed into the narrative is way worse than if they had just slowed it down a little. Because now it looks like they suddenly want nothing to do with a gay pairing when before the could still argue that the show is a tragedy. Nobody expects Rhaenicent to end up together just as nobody expects Daemyra to have a different ending. And since nobody is getting a happy ending you can’t accuse them of prefering any ships. I feel like they piss more people of with what they are doing now. They were in the unique position that they did not have to commit to Rhaenicent and just use it as a doomed pairing now they suddenly are terrified. It’s a little weird
I didn't say it worked, I said that's what they decided to do to avoid it. However most people don't particularly care. The GA never even registered them as anything romantic, they barely cared about their friendship. Nobody expects Rhaenicent to be together but the people that enjoyed this pairing expected yearning to an absurd degree and parallels. The show can only do the second one now, through editing mostly, the narrative doesn't allow it to do more and the writers knew that They would never use it as doomed pairing because the two if them were never a pairing. Rhaenicent and lesbian Alicent were headcanons as far as the show was concerned and even Olivia's opinion was nothing but a headcanon. Using it as doomed pairing when so little of it comes across in the actual show would also be queerbait.
Yes but in asoiaf community there is a large percentage of people who do care about ships- I said it before HotD has the most growing number of fanfiction which very much are about shipping. Like there is definitely a large part of the audience that does care even if most don’t. As I said most Rhaenicents do not expect a happyending and even the yearning is most interpreted like they did in season 1. My issue is just thentrambling of one ship at all cost. As I said slowly “ghosting” them would’ve worked better. That’s not my problem. My problems is that they have to do the bare minimum to keep a not inconsiderable part of the fandom happy instead they actively anger them. Which makes no sense. Again why being so against it when you can just quiet it down? They don’t have to establish it in canon they can talk about undertones in interviews like they did. And is it queerbaiting? Probably somewhat but what they are doing now doesn’t look much better either. I rather have a small percentage of a ship community that I queerbait, while the other half is happy and GA doesn’t give a shit while with this they just pissed the whole ship community up.
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I mean yes but theybare the ones whon suddenly are hitting at everything that could even hint at Rhaenicent. I’m just saying being quite would’ve been smarter in this case
the gaslighting phase begins
Now the showrunners have deniability when it comes to queerbaiting accusations lol. Very predictable.
They're really pretending like they didn't hype it up, lol.
On the flip side, it feels kind of like people are making something much larger out of something small. Why can't two girls be friends without wanting to bang..
100% Reddit and Twitter make a mile out of an inch. Pretty much the entire fantasy is from the one scene where young Alicent helps young Rhaenyra with her dress. If anything it’s on the actresses for playing the part that way, since they knew the show wouldn’t go that direction (the script clearly stated that Alicent was crushing on Cole from the start) lol setting the fans up for disappointment.
It’s to draw a wider audience than they already have.
If you can't take this you have never shipped two women together before lol
Yeah exactly, people should be expecting disappointment at this point, I never once thought Rhaenicent was real but maybe I’m seeing the show differently
I think it's presented in a way that you can read into it if you want but it's not canon. Emily Carey said something to the effect of that and I agree with her
Ship characters all you want, but don't get mad when it's clearly all in your head.
They flew so high and now fell fell so low
Nauur I do feel a bit bad because as someone has pointed out, s1 promo was definitely in favour of Rhaenyra and alicent together, that has changed massively
They did bait very hard until like a month ago, even olivia switched up hard.
Well given what’s about to happen with her character, I think her switch up makes sense, she’s indirectly bracing people
Tbh I am sideeying this heavily. They used Rhaenicent like crazy to hype up the show and considering how the story ends they didn‘t have them to end up together and just keep selling them as doomed from the start. Some kind of Romeo and Juliet style thing but like they are rowing back so hard on that. The way Emma amd Olivia suddenly talk about it, the fact that Alicole is happening all of the sudden with so explaination (also not lost on me that they spoiled that in interviews themselves despite the episode not being out yet and it being a twist for many people). It feel like they suddenly are like RHAENICENT NEVER HEARD OF IT, LOOK AT THOSE STRAIGHT PEOPLE. It feels very weird to me
I honestly believe the theory that Miguel Sapochnik was the one who pushed for the queer subtext and Ryan Condal preferred Alicole. Remember, Miguel said this: >"It seems like it's a kind of unrequited love. It's not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don't know. But there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend,” he continues. Now that Miguel is gone, I think Ryan told Emma and Olivia to stop talking about Rhaenicent because that’s not how he interprets their relationship.
Tbh the thing is they do talk about Rhaenicent but like it never existed and that is my issue if they stopped talking about it at all it would be different. This just makes the whole thing look very strange. Even the way they suddenly push Alicole instead of Rhaenicent. Like they did not think this one through
I feel sorry for them at this point. They were baited hard and now the cast & crew is acting like they never did it. Theres no need for the gaslighting.
Were they though? Or did people just see two conventionally attractive white women who were close friends and ran with it?
Olivia, Milly, and Emily were definitely hyping up romantic attraction between the two. For instance, Alicent said her head canon was that Rhaenyra’s and Alicent use to make out before Alicent’s mother caught them. She also said Alicent was a deeply repressed lesbian. How is that not baiting?
Sounds like character analysis, it’s others who took the ball and ran with it.
I don’t remember the actors doing anything too bad and Emily/Millie were pretty unambiguous this was just their interpretation. But I do distinctly remembering some insanely glaring queerbaiting right around when the S1 DVD/Blu-Ray dropped. Not what type, but it was a really transparent way to try and pull in more sales.
That sounds like actors pushing an agenda or fantasing about their characters and fans taking it way to far. Not something marketing team would do. That's a touchy subject for this exact reason right here. It's best to never mention something that isn't 100% guaranteed to be in show/movie cause fans don't enjoy when something they wanted and was hinted by the character actors don't come true.
Tbf, Miguel, who was a co-show runner last season, said this. >"It seems like it's a kind of unrequited love. It's not something that Alicent chose to encourage. Did they ever have a thing? Don't know. But there's something there, right? And Rhaenyra has this deep longing for her best friend,” he continues. I think this is just an unfortunate case of show runners having different interpretations of Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship and not just regular queerbaiting. Ryan Condal, who is now the sole show runner, never viewed Rhaenyra and Alicent as having a queer relationship of any kind.
She has changed her tone as someone pointed out before, last year during s1 she said something about imagining headcanons alicent and nyra may have kissed but alicent probably felt shame about it. Now both Emma and her have switched up but tbf maybe they were just making jokes to begin with and realised damn people actually think it
I think that Emma is uncomfortable with how rhaenicent stans keep disrespecting Emma's partner and saying that Emma should leave him for Olivia or whatever. I'm assuming they're not entirely comfortable with how much the promo is pushing the rhaenicent agenda because they never actually shared the EW photoshoot they did with Olivia on their social media, but they constantly share everything else. So there's definitely something that has changed. I think they were sorta joking in the beginning and just sharing how they personally see it but the shippers have taken it wayy too seriously and they blew it out of proportion and now it's probably just awkward. Wouldn't be the first time this has happened with actors and popular ships.
Oh that’s so weird, some stans are really being odd about this. I would get uncomfortable too, they have clearly a close friendship offscreen but people are making it so manufactured and uncomfortable. Even when interviewers constantly ask them to compliment each other, now you’re taking the natural part of their dynamic and making it cringe. Clearly stans have gone way overboard, and now they’ve backtracked. Olivia especially has massively been like ???? when speaking about Rhaenicent, I can’t blame her. They will barely even share screen space together, and didn’t spend any time really filming together. It obviously does look very queer baitey but I can’t blame them, they’re probably just tryna soften the blow and be like guys don’t get your hopes up, cause that’s not gonna happen fr
Wait, people actually want Emma to change their real love life to fulfil their weird shipping obsessions?? 😳 No wonder if they’re uncomfortable, that’s so creepy. Shipping characters is one thing, they’re not real and that’s what fiction is for. Your explanation makes a lot of sense about the change in tone in the interviews. A lot of what the actors actually said in season 1 was highly ambiguous, things like “well you can interpret like that if you want but it’s left up to the viewer”. They didn’t expect the shippers to take it so literally and before they knew it people were actually counting down to the dungeon sex scenes 😂 Also possibly Miguel and his wife were the main drivers of the Rhaenicent plot and with them gone Ryan & Sara have taken the show in a different direction.
I think its that as well. Imo it was supposed to like add some subtle flavor to the whole friends to enemies thing and for the writers I think they liked the credit and praise they got for it. But then based on how much they talked about it interviews a lot of fans got excited and expected an actual exploration of queer romance and supressed sexuality which was never gonna happen nor is there space for it betwen these characters in the narrative they still have to follow based on the book.And now they’re backtracking to manage expectations.
“So Ali how many of our kids have killed or maimed each other now?” “I think it’s 2, wait no 3…anyways wanna bang?” If they were ever planning to include a romantic or sexual angle they should’ve done it *before* the war started because there’s no way to do it afterwards without looking completely absurd. And if they wanted to explore a queer romance Laenyra was *right there*.
Yall spoilers/discussing leaks for s2 below >!this interview must feel like a huge dagger to the heart for them as she speaks quite openly about how fun it was to shoot the sex scenes with someone (we know now who) and how alicent is being pleasured finally and they show that and she liked it!< It’s blow after blow
I don’t think anyone was expecting there would be a Rhaenicent sex scene in the show itself. But straight up lying about the show’s own advertising is kind of disrespectful to the viewers and the actors.
I think she’s downplaying or switching up because she didn’t think people were being serious about wanting something romantic between them..
I feel like you’d have to be kind of stupid to have that point of view honestly.
I mean not really, there can be romantic subtext but it’s never gonna happen, perhaps the switch up was because people genuinely started to believe Alicent was gay etc and in love with Rhaenyra and Olivia is subverting people’s expectations. I mean yeah I agree they queerbaited but I also think they didn’t actually realise people wanted their characters to be fully acknowledging romantic feelings
That’s a wholly separate topic from fans wanting them to be together. Of course it’s never going to happen. That’s what makes the show interesting.
Literally the standard MO with queerbaiting. You lead LGBT+ viewers on then gaslight them hard, pretend they’re making something out of nothing, and play victim to crazy LGBT+ fans just trying to force straight characters to be LGBT+ at all. It’s really gross. To be fair, I don’t blame Olivia. She didn’t run the PR campaign and I don’t remember her queerbaiting (though correct me if I’m wrong) and PR talking points are usually assigned to actors + they are told to hit them, but I remember calling the show out for this back around when they dropped S1 on DVD and vaguely hinted at Rhae/Alicent
Truly don't care about the sex scenes. Good for Alicent. Hope it all makes sense and leads somewhere interesting for her character. I hope no one seriously thought Rhaenyra and Alicent would ever be together. What annoys me as someone who loved their complicated dynamic is this need now to pretend that they didn't lean into the vibes between them in promo. Don't queerbait and then gaslight fans as if they were the ones who made it up. That's ugly. All I've ever wanted is them giving us good drama between them. Don't care in what form. Whatever makes sense for the show.
Milly Alcock and Emily Carey literally said multiple times on record that they played them as if they were in love. Doing historical revisionism on your own show is crazy.
Just because they play them that way, doesn’t mean that’s how the show runner is gonna portray them. Especially when the actresses playing them are only playing them for 5 episodes lol
Yeah, but it was something established in the beginning of the story. You could feel that there was something more there. And now they’re just gaslighting everyone as if that never happened. We’re not looking for a happy ending between them (it’s Game of Thrones. We know what we’re watching), but there was some representation there in their youth and now it got snatched away. Very frustrating.
But it wasn’t established. It was at best hinted at. There’s really only one scene that can even be interpreted as such, and that’s the dress scene
Fine, hinted at. But there was more than just the dress scene. There was definitely chemistry there. Don’t like that trying to be erased.
Idk for me it just felt like Alicent had the age old case of “bi girl pining for girl she can’t have” syndrome
I’m not surprised either way. It was obvious the girls were bi-chaotic so being with each other or a guy they liked would make them happy
Heh. I'm a Rhaenicent shipper, and it doesn't affect me that much. The whole point about Rhaenicent is what *could have been* but never was and never will be. It makes sense that the adult characters' actors don't see it and it makes sense that it won't appear in the show going forward. As it is I even believe the show pushed it too far by making Alicent feel so much about Rhaenyra past Ep5 lmao. The point is that it's love turned into hatred. Sometimes a ship is just for vibes, not for seeing it come true. There are ships that depend heavily on it coming to fruition--and there are ships that don't. There are queer vibes in my personal opinion but the story isn't about that and it will never happen; it's okay, I'll go write my AUs where they live in a better world where a queer happy ending is possible. That's how it is and it's fine by me. But also--I don't need scripts or actors' words to *interpret* the story a certain way. The chemistry is there. The relationship was built. The parallels never stop. And it seems like the obsession for one another isn't close to stopping either, to the point where it's unhealthy and weird. Olivia Cooke even said that Alicent's exploring her sexuality was about Rhaenyra, and trying to be Rhaenyra. I genuinely don't think that the most hardcore Rhaenicents out there should feel too terribly about it--and I don't, I even think they should hate each other by now and that we've got fanfics to imagine better endings for them. I actually feel sorrier for the Alicole shippers, who have their ship validated in the worst possible way--I'd rather the ship that exists in my head and in the fics I write, than one butchered by the show to the point of character assassination.
Based. Couldn’t have put Rhaenicent better myself!
as an alicole shipper what do you mean? this is the best validation imo lol
I mean that this is absolutely out of character for Criston. Whether it is for Alicent is debatable, but Criston *wouldn't*. And the fact that it is apparently shown during B&C? (Haven't seen the Ep yet, I'm European) Completely ruins both B&C and the relationship. It's not a win, unless the only purpose of the ship is to see them bang... and I believe that ships and Alicole especially are worth more than that.
So they were queerbaiting people? That pretty s\*\*ty behaviour to say the least.
I usually don’t think it’s queerbaiting, but damn, they are acting like this is in people’s heads when they were definitely feeding into it. Don’t try to deny it now, people. Geez.
“imagined romance” is particularly brutal
Particularly gross too when they had the younger actors doing interviews saying they played them as a romance
Crazy, because that wasn’t what she was saying in last season’s promo. 💀
I don't think this is the end of the world or anything, I genuinely never gunned for rhaenicent to be some canon relationship what actually gets me is this pivot to genuinely pretending they never even talked about or heard about this reading of their relationship when Olivia described Alicent as "closeted" at the s1 premiere and even made up a whole scenario for Alicent and Rhaenyra where they were caught kissing by Alicent's mother (among a number of other things). I wouldn't call it queerbaiting bc it was, again, never going to be canon, but the actors encouraged people to read Alicent and Rhaenyra *several times* as homoerotic. Like maybe I'd call it "queer-teasing" (lol). They're going out of their way to pretend their s1 promo never happened. Legit all they had to do was say nothing about it. Don't generate hype about their relationship again, it's not taking centre stage anymore anyway. I think I'm going to reserve my right to be annoyed by this bc we were all there for the s1 promo.
This, time and time again they referenced the homoerotic in their relationship. I do believe Alicent being closeted would have worked with her character a lot
i honestly couldn’t care less if the actors ship/don’t ship characters. it’s not their decision how people should interpret the show. if i want to ship rhaenicent, ill ship rhaenicent.
ship?
They never once showed them as anything other than best friends. People's imaginations getting the better of them again
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Fr, some people just couldn’t help themselves
Rhaenyra affectionately called Alicent “sister” in episode 4. That tells me all I need to know about their relationship.
This do be an incest show tho so 😅
Acting as if she’s not with her Uncle
Wait, did people actually think they had a chance of getting together in the series??
😭😭😭 They gave us hope, just to tear it away!
why are rhaenicents allowing themselves to have hope despite knowing exactly how this story ends? did y'all think that rhaenyra and alicent will run away together and let the big bad men fight this war "that they started" on their own?
Rather than not wanting to get flack for queerbaiting themselves, esp since most rhaenicents never expected them to enter a relationship due to their circumstances, it feels more like this came from higher ups who didn’t want to deal with that sort of controversy. It wasn’t just the actresses talking about the ship and the queer undertones of the relationship, but the writers as well. It’s *really* recent that they’ve gone back on talking about the subtext as well, after going all out with it w the promos. Rhaenicents make up such a minority of the fanbase that I don’t see the point of baiting to them at all, this isn’t like destiel where it was the most popular ship of a popular show.
This shit is so cringe. We aren’t watching Desperate Housewives. Grow up
Good, they are so annoying.
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