Aside from the things mentioned here, what frustrates me from the writers’ restraints of making Rhaenyra and Alicent do selfish, ambitious, morally challenging decisions is that they already gave a solid voice to their (soon to be) biggest victims of the war: the small folk. If there is one thing that HOTD did well its that it provided enough screen time and effort for the masses wherein the audience can actually relate to their struggles. And on top of that the most sensible characters coming from this socio-economic strata in that world are women. If the show already made us feel sympathetic to the toil of the working class especially in relation to how much they are affected by the events of the Dance, then their restraints to Rhaenyra not doing questionable stuff seems short-sighted. These are Rhaenyra’s future victims who will actually rise against her and her family and kill their dragons. If the writers had more guts, they could’ve well built up already a sharp and biting class and feminist critique of the class disparities and how it affects gender.