Foot Fetishist Larys Strong Getting Off on Alicent Hightower’s Feet is ‘House of the Dragon’s Kinkiest Moment

The most shocking part of House of the Dragon Episode 9 “The Green Council” on HBO wasn’t Rhaenys (Eve Best) dragon-crashing Aegon II’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) coronation or even the fighting pit full of bestial children. No, it was the reveal that Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) was kicking off her shoes and socks so that Larys (Matthew Needham) could jerk off. Larys “The Clubfoot” Strong has a Tarantino-level foot fetish. It’s apparently such a thing that Alicent repays Larys for his devious kills and shameless spying by letting him get off when her stockings are off.

Yes, Larys Strong was masturbating to Queen Alicent Hightower’s feet. In a show that’s already shown uncles making love with nieces and folks getting it on in orgy rooms, this relatively tame sexual fetish threw us a curve ball. Is Alicent really showing Larys her feet in exchange for murdering her enemies? (And isn’t it like a little on the nose to give a character with a clubfoot a literal foot fetish???)

House of the Dragon Episode 9 “The Green Council” follows the immediate aftermath of Viserys’s (Paddy Considine) death. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), Daemon (Matt Smith), and their children are en route to Dragonstone. That means that they not only have no idea Viserys is dead, but don’t realize that Alicent believes Viserys’s dying words were to put their ne’er-do-well son Aegon on the Iron Throne. Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) seizes control of the situation and it’s revealed to Alicent that Otto has been working with the bulk of the Small Council on a plot to overthrow Rhaenyra anyway. When Aegon is missing from the castle, both Otto and Alicent send their own trusted agents after the would-be King, pitting father and daughter against each other like never before.

One character who seems to be playing both Hightower sides, though, is Larys Strong. He’s spent years cultivating a relationship with Alicent, which he quickly offers to sell to Otto. While it’s unclear what Otto will give Larys in exchange for his spy craft, we now know what favors Alicent has been doing for Lord Strong.

When Alicent and Larys first meet in this week’s episode, it’s unclear why Alicent is taking off her slippers. My first instinct was to think that she’s had a hard day. She wants to be comfortable. And she and Larys are now so close they can forget etiquette and just chill out in each other’s presence. I actually thought Larys might also take off his shoes and iron boot at some point. Alas, only Alicent lets her toes wiggle in the open air.

Eventually it becomes clear that Alicent is showing Larys her feet on purpose. More information emerges from the spymaster as she props first her socked feet on a low table and then her bare feet. When Larys suggests killing a rival spymaster, one who is watching Alicent, she doesn’t answer verbally in the affirmative. Rather, she rests her feet on a divan and turns away so Larys can masturbate to her regal heels.

On the one hand, this is just one of those random sexual proclivities we find all over Westeros. After all, there’s literal incest in this show! On the other, if you were going to give a foot fetish to one George R.R. Martin character, why did it have to be the one with a club foot? There’s something a bit too obvious about the choice. It calls attention, once more, to Larys’s physical state, drawing a line between the clubfoot and Larys’s character itself.

Larys’s foot fetish is by itself innocuous enough. However it becomes wild when you realize that he’s murdered his own father and brother, taken the tongues out of people, captured servants and questioned them, and hatched further deadly schemes all for…the chance to jerk off to Alicent’s feet? It’s unclear how else Alicent is paying Larys for his troubles. But perhaps in a medieval world without wikifeet, this is the only way poor Larys can get his rocks off to his chosen fetish. And this is the way Alicent pays him.