Ironically in their efforts to whitewash the leading Princess & Queen, HOTD's writers have made it so neither of them get to do much (or any really) manipulating - taking away their agency and making them much more boring characters than they were in the source material. If anything Rhaenyra and especially Alicent are now constantly being manipulated by the men around them, while doing almost nothing on their own, whereas Book-Rhaenyra was plenty proactive at combating threats to her claim and Book-Alicent was basically the co-leader of the Green faction.
I'm really trying hard to remember the last faithful book adaptation, it seems even with the books, Hollywood lost the talent to adapt it to film or tv years ago.
Ironically in their efforts to whitewash the leading Princess & Queen, HOTD's writers have made it so neither of them get to do much (or any really) manipulating - taking away their agency and making them much more boring characters than they were in the source material. If anything Rhaenyra and especially Alicent are now constantly being manipulated by the men around them, while doing almost nothing on their own, whereas Book-Rhaenyra was plenty proactive at combating threats to her claim and Book-Alicent was basically the co-leader of the Green faction.
I'm really trying hard to remember the last faithful book adaptation, it seems even with the books, Hollywood lost the talent to adapt it to film or tv years ago.
First they lost the talent to create, then the talent to mimic the creativity of others. All they can do now is destroy.