House Of The Dragon - Every Main Character Ranked From Worst To Best

Olivia Cooke has been nothing short of masterful in her take on Alicent Hightower. While Emily Carey was excellent as the Queen's younger self, Cooke's performance is arguably the strongest on House of the Dragon to date.

Cooke's Alicent leads an utterly joyless existence, the actress expertly conveying this depressing status quo with every minor shift in tone and facial expression. She is endlessly used as a pawn by her devious father Otto in his political schemings, married off like a piece of cattle being sold at auction while her beloved childhood friend Rhaenyra morphs into her arch-enemy, with the enmity being carried down a generation by their children. When viewers discover that the price Alicent pays for Larys' loyalty is allowing him to sexually gratify himself, one can't help but feel sorry for a Queen who also happens to be the most downtrodden of women.

Fortunately for fans, this miserable status quo has created one of the more intriguing villains to make their Westerosi bow. Alicent's almost feral desperation to seat her son on the throne manifests itself throughout several sociopathic acts that have formed the basis of some of the show's most unnerving sequences, silently condoning Larys' abhorrent murder of his family and attempting to forcibly remove Lucerys' eye being notable examples of just how low the Queen is willing to stoop. The most remarkable thing? The war hasn't even started yet!

The notion that Alicent can spiral even deeper and darker is a terrifying one; audiences can look forward to another enthrallingly villainous turn next season in the wake of Aemond sparking the tinder pile of civil war.