How House Of The Dragon Fans Reacted To Larys And Alicent’s Shocking Feet Scene

This article contains spoilers for Episode 9 of House Of The Dragon. If you aren't caught up yet, you should consider bailing and coming back.

You never know what you’re going to get in the Game Of Thrones universe. House Of The Dragon has been proving that on a weekly basis since the start of the spinoff’s run, but it really took off its socks and dug in its heels this week with the latest Larys Strong revelation. Apparently the new Lord Of Harrenhal, who some think may be a greenseer like Bran Stark, has some kind of deal with Queen Alicent where he supplies her with information, and she umm… shows him her feet. 

We’ve seen Lord Larys provide Alicent with information in the past. We’ve also seen him carry out some wicked schemes on her behalf. He murdered his own father, the Hand of the King and his own brother, Rhaenyra’s baby daddy, to help her father return to court, as an example. It was assumed, at least by me, she was paying him in titles, money and/ or power, but it turns out they have some kind of arrangement where he provides information while she takes off her shoes and socks.

It was all revealed in a particularly disturbing scene this week. Larys revealed to Queen Alicent that her handmaiden Talia is providing information that eventually gets back to her father. As he told the story, Alicent removed her shoes and later her socks to put her feet on the table. After he volunteered to deal with the spy problem, Alicent propped her feet up and turned her head while Larys pleasured himself. It was obvious from the context that she didn’t enjoy doing it, but it was also clearly not the first time.

Of course social media exploded immediately. At first there was a lot of confused he-seems-really-interested-in-her-feet comments. Then, once it became clear what was going on, it turned into a steady stream of horrified gifs and WTF tweets. Here’s an example…

After the initial shock, there were also a ton of House Of The Dragon fans roasting Alicent for being a hypocrite. Earlier in the season, she tore into Princess Rhaenyra about her night out with Daemon and questioned whether she did anything with him. The incident and Rhaenyra’s sort of honest, sort of not denials ultimately caused a second major rift (after Alicent marrying her dad Viserys) between the two.

But the Queen isn’t exactly looking so morally righteous anymore to fans after this whole foot incident. Not surprisingly, Twitter users had a great time pointing that perceived hypocrisy out. There were numerous tweets talking about how religious and chaste she claims to be and/ or how unfair she was to Rhaneyra in light of this. Here’s an example…

38,000 likes speak for themselves. That’s a lot of middle fingers from House Of The Dragon fans, and it’s not hard to see why they’re so worked up. Alicent is a character who many have gone back-and-forth on. This episode, as an example, saw her finally stand up to her dad Otto Hightower. She was also one of the only ones trying to keep the other half of the Targaryen Family Tree and its dragons safe from the Small Council’s schemes, but this incident with Larys proves she’s out there playing the game herself and willing to go to some really creepy places for information.

As for Larys Strong himself, I’m not sure anyone’s opinion of him was really changed here. He’s rubbed most fans the wrong way for awhile now (pun very intended). There’s an expectation in the Game Of Thrones universe that characters are going to be scheming and potentially doing some bad things, but straight up murdering your family, who were great by the way, to gain some favor and apparently some foot glimpses is another level of sociopath stuff.

That fans already knew he was weird didn't stop him from being roasted on social though. Someone even turned the Hand Of The King sigil into a foot. Check out this masterwork…

House Of The Dragon has one more episode left in its first season. Most fans have been loving the show, and HBO has already announced it will return for a second season thanks to incredibly strong viewership numbers. Expect next week’s final episode to be wild.