no thoughts, just “where is duty, where is sacrifice” and the way that alicent clings to abstract constructs like religion, honor, duty and sacrifice because her material life is so concretely terrible and empty. to have loved someone so dearly, and watch them be what you perceive as free while your entire personhood is reduced to a womb and made to serve the realm, a vessel for the rotting king to use and abuse. to not exist as a person for yourself but in only in service to others as you are ordered by your father under a patriarchal structure……….and then the contrast of that quote, which summarizes all of alicent’s anguish and agony, to the classic, “what is honor compared to a woman’s love? what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms…we are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love.”……………..but alicent doesn’t have love, not anymore. duty, honor, these concepts - they’re all she’s got, and the lack of the very elements that make them meaningful has corroded her inside and out. so: honor, duty, sacrifice, all without love. and here we are.
no thoughts, just “where is duty, where is sacrifice” and the way that alicent clings to abstract constructs like religion, honor, duty and sacrifice because her material life is so concretely terrible and empty. to have loved someone so dearly, and watch them be what you perceive as free while your entire personhood is reduced to a womb and made to serve the realm, a vessel for the rotting king to use and abuse. to not exist as a person for yourself but in only in service to others as you are ordered by your father under a patriarchal structure……….and then the contrast of that quote, which summarizes all of alicent’s anguish and agony, to the classic, “what is honor compared to a woman’s love? what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms…we are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love.”……………..but alicent doesn’t have love, not anymore. duty, honor, these concepts - they’re all she’s got, and the lack of the very elements that make them meaningful has corroded her inside and out. so: honor, duty, sacrifice, all without love. and here we are.
