House of the Dragon Season 2 official trailer
In the latest episode of House of the Dragon, Olivia Cooke's character, Queen Regent Alicent Hightower, embarks on a personal journey.
The seventh episode of the second season, titled The Red Sowing, sees Prince Aemond banishing his mother from the small council. Following this, she requests a quiet trip to the Kingswood with Ser Rickard Thorne, who accompanies her as she takes time to mentally recover.
During this time, she reveals to the knight that she may not return to King's Landing and eerily walks into a nearby lake.
This scene left viewers wondering if she was contemplating suicide, drawing parallels with Sir John Everett Millais's painting of Shakespeare's Ophelia.
The mid-19th Century painting, which divided public opinion, depicts Ophelia singing in a river before she drowns.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia drowns after Hamlet kills her father Polonius, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether she took her own life.
It's hard to ignore the similarities between Alicent's silent walk into the water and the tragic fate of Ophelia. Both characters have fiery red hair, are victims of male violence, and the overall mood of the scene is deeply melancholic, reports the Mirror.
The one aspect that contradicts this comparison is Alicent's choice to survive. After seeing a bird soaring while she was adrift in the lake, there's an undeniable suggestion of liberation to be achieved.
Could this possibly be a foreshadowing of what awaits the Queen Regent in the concluding episode set to air this weekend?
House of the Dragon season 2 concludes on HBO and Sky.
