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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Alicent Hightower and Ser Criston Cole are already having an affair when House of the Dragon Season 2 begins. The show does not reveal when it started. Olivia Cooke has described it as desire Alicent had repressed for years, surfacing amid grief after King Viserys’s death; that is Cooke’s interpretation, not a date or explanation established onscreen. The relationship is a television-series invention, according to showrunner Ryan Condal, and it gives Alicent intimacy as well as shame and political risk.
What does the Season 2 premiere show?
The premiere opens with Alicent and Criston together. Afterward, Alicent tells him, “we cannot again,” yet they are together again later in the episode. Their relationship is secret and already underway; the episode does not show its beginning or say how long it has lasted. In an interview with TVLine, Cooke and Fabien Frankel discussed the characters’ repression and the emotional charge of the scenes: TVLine’s interview with Olivia Cooke and Fabien Frankel.
The secret is especially consequential because Criston is Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, sworn to protect the royal family. Their intimacy therefore crosses the line between private desire and the duties of a senior royal guard.
Why does Alicent begin the affair?
The series leaves the cause and timing unstated. Cooke’s interpretation is that Alicent had fancied Criston since childhood and that her passionless marriage to Viserys, followed by his death, left her confronting feelings she had not permitted herself to act on. In Cooke’s account, grief and the shock of mortality help explain why Alicent reaches for a desire she had long denied. These are the actor’s reading of the character, not a confirmed account of an offscreen event. ELLE’s interview with Olivia Cooke discusses that interpretation.
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Condal says the creative team intended to explore the relationship even though it is absent from George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. He described Criston as someone who falls in love with people he is supposed to protect, and said the premiere’s intimate opening introduces two repressed characters through a secret they must keep. As Condal put it: “This is a guy who, despite his pious honor, always finds himself in the same pitfall, and he has this one core weakness, and it gets him into trouble.”
Why is the relationship tied to shame and guilt?
For Alicent, the affair brings a kind of intimacy she did not have in her marriage, but it does not simply free her. Cooke has described Alicent as feeling unclean afterward and read the lake scene as a baptism or coming-of-age moment. In her interpretation, Viserys’s death opened space for Alicent’s sexuality, but the closeness with Criston soon lost its initial promise. Desire gives Alicent a moment of liberation; it does not settle her family or political conflicts. Cooke discusses that arc in TIME’s interview about Alicent’s Season 2 journey.
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The affair also sharpens the characters’ guilt because Criston is supposed to be securing the castle while he is with Alicent. The Ringer’s premiere mailbag reports Cooke’s explanation of that tension: the timing makes their relationship a source of shame because he has neglected his protective responsibility. That connection creates dramatic irony, but the available reporting does not establish that the affair alone caused the security failure or the murder that follows. The Ringer’s Season 2 premiere mailbag addresses the question.
How does the affair affect Alicent’s Season 2 ending?
By the finale, Alicent is seeking room to make choices for herself and for her daughter Helaena, rather than continuing to serve as a political instrument. She agrees to let Rhaenyra enter King’s Landing and accepts the likely death of her son Aegon in exchange for a chance at safety for herself and Helaena. Cooke describes Alicent as isolated and trying to find a future beyond the role others have assigned her. These are Season 2 developments; they do not establish what a later season will do. TIME’s interview with Cooke discusses her account of Alicent’s position.
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The affair also makes Alicent’s reckoning with Rhaenyra more complicated. TIME’s finale analysis notes that Alicent recognizes she once shamed Rhaenyra for having a lover, despite later taking one herself. The show uses that contradiction as part of Alicent’s recognition that the political order and the men she supported have constrained her, too. The finale also changes the sequence of events from the book, including the women’s secret meetings and the timing of military conflict. TIME’s analysis of the Season 2 finale discusses the changes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is the affair in Fire & Blood?
No. Condal has said the Alicent-Criston relationship is not in Martin’s source book; it is a development created for the television series. Fire & Blood presents the Targaryen history through competing, biased accounts, while the show dramatizes events and fills narrative gaps. The book can help readers compare adaptation choices, but it does not establish the affair as a confirmed romance. ELLE’s interview with Condal and Cooke covers the showrunner’s comments, and TIME’s finale analysis describes broader changes from the book.
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