Oh, how low the men of Westeros stoop in their petty grasps for power. Sometimes low enough to touch the tops of their feet—or, ideally, the queen’s! House of the Dragon’s penultimate episode of season 1 gave us a bit of insight into why Lord Larys “Clubfoot” Strong has been so eager to serve Queen Alicent since her early ascent to power, way back in first half of the series. As it turns out, his interests are more stomach-churning than mere politicking would warrant: The man’s got a foot fetish, and he only agrees to slip Alicent valuable information if she’s willing to, in turn, slip off her stockings.
The scene immediately stirred up some powerful reactions amongst critics and fans, who took to social media to dissect (and meme-ify) the encounter between Larys and his queen.
The Game of Thrones franchise has never been queasy about the less-than-savory aspects of sexual power dynamics, and has often—rightly—been accused of glorifying sexual violence and female subjugation. The Larys-Alicent scene in episode 9, “The Green Council,” in which Alicent presents her feet while Larys masturbates and spills secrets about spies in the Red Keep, straddles a line between enlightening and dehumanizing. Of course, that’s precisely the point. Larys doesn’t merely seek to get off; he wants to see Alicent forced into submission, her power diminished at the—forgive me—foot of his knowledge and desire. He wants her to owe him, and to feel the weight of that debt.
The encounter is ugly and shameless, though not without narrative purpose. As Princess Rhaenys later points out, the queen continues to settle for a system built by men—not because it satisfies her but because she seems to imagine no other option. And even if she can picture a better reality, she remains convinced it is impractical, unstable, or impossible to execute. She is also tied down by the love of her children, who would benefit greatly from the status quo’s continuation. But by operating within the confines of Westeros’s power structure, she allows it to grow mightier and more wicked. And in the case of her rapist son, Aegon II, whom she sets upon the Iron Throne, well…she’s actively encouraging the cycle of violence. That’s a tragedy, given the humiliation and pain she herself has suffered.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Clare Kilner, who directed “The Green Council,” revealed that executive producer and writer Sara Hess came up with Larys’s fetish, which is not canon in author George R. R. Martin’s source material.
“Her mind is incredible. I mean, she really wrote us a wonderful episode, I have to say,” Kilner said. “But, yeah, that was an interesting scene actually… Funnily enough, you get the intimacy coordinators [for] all the nudity, but they don’t think about it for this…It’s so intrusive and invasive. It’s a really dirty scene.”
There’s only so much additional insight Martin’s book, Fire & Blood, is able to give us into Larys’s motivations. He does indeed ally himself with the greens in the book, but there’s no mention of a sexual dynamic between himself and Alicent. He is, of course, labeled as a schemer à la Littlefinger. Martin writes that Larys was “the most enigmatic and cunning member of the green council” and “though glib of tongue when need be, the master of whisperers hoarded his words like a miser hoarding coins, preferring to listen rather than talk.”
In other words, Larys understands Alicent’s weaknesses as surely as he recognizes the secrets of the Westerosi nobility who dance around him. It’s a cruel, twisted component of King’s Landing politics that he should be able to use those weaknesses against his queen. But then again, that’s the world these men are more than happy to uphold.
Lauren Puckett-Pope is an associate editor at ELLE, where she covers film, TV, books and fashion.