Sunday night’s episode of House of the Dragon opens on an old feud. A group of Brackens and a group of Blackwoods argue over the border of their lands. One side has committed to Rhaenyra’s cause; the other, to Aegon’s. It seems likely that the only reason they’re supporting different sides is out of spite. Hotter heads prevail when it comes to a kingdom on the precipice of war, even if no bloodshed is as appalling to the gods as that of kin slaying kin.
This petty squabble ends with words and shoving. One young man draws his sword. Then the scene cuts to sometime later and the same field littered with the corpses of both Houses as far as the eye can see. The countryside is slick with blood and wreckage. The old windmill has seen better days.
So the first real battle of the Dance of Dragons has finally taken place, albeit offscreen (I think to great effect). It won’t be the last. It seems that much of Season 2, or at least its first half, will be devoted to the early rumblings of war rather than to the war itself, and to the cooler heads’ attempting to call the whole thing off. Daemon (Matt Smith) and Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) want war, clearly, but what about Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Allicent (Olivia Cooke)?
Rhaenyra discusses the coming bloodshed with her aunt, Rhaenys (Eve Best) and decides she must go to King’s Landing to meet with Allicent face-to-face. She asks Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) for help, and the White Worm gives her the one location the Queen Dowager visits without anyone watching: The Great Sept, where she goes to light candles and say her prayers.
Rhaenyra disguises herself as a nun and makes her way to the Sept where she finds Allicent and kneels beside her, much to her once-friend’s shock. She pleads with Allicent to do whatever she can to avoid war, and then the conversation turns to what exactly King Viserys I said in his dying moments. It’s a pretty big revelation to both of them when it turns out he was discussing “the prince that was promised” and the Song of Ice and Fire—not Aegon his son at all. But Allicent, though clearly shaken, says it’s too late. War is coming and there’s nothing she can—or will—do about it.
Allow me a moment to complain, not about this show but about Game Of Thrones. I’m reminded of just how desperately silly the ending was and the many foibles made especially in Season 8. I maintain, though I’m not sure George R.R. Martin will ever finish his books to prove me right, that Jon Snow is the Song of Ice and Fire. He is the prince that was promised—not Daenerys, as the show kept hinting at, stupidly, before making it clear she was anything but.
In fact, the show simply discarded all prophecy as gracelessly and clumsily as possible. Jon didn’t fight and kill the Night King. Arya swooped in at the 11th hour and managed that because the show gave her massive superpowers for no good reason whatsoever, making her far, far less interesting as a character in the process.
Then Jon kills Dany and is exiled, while Bran of all people becomes king! Jon was the heir to the Iron Throne! He was the blood of Stark (ice) and Targaryen (fire)! House of the Dragon makes it clear that this prophecy is a big enough deal to include in a prequel but it just reminds me of how badly Thrones screwed up.
Anyways . . . Rhaenyra’s attempt to avoid war was only a half-baked one at best. She never offered Allicent anything as a bargaining chip. All she did is insist that she was the rightful heir, that her father loved her and that Allicent was mistaken. Did she hope that simply stating her belief about the throne over again would somehow convince the Queen Dowager, and that she would then—empty-handed—be able to avert war? Convince Aegon to what—give up the throne? There was a time for that, when Aegon clearly didn’t want it, but that ship has sailed.
A few other very significant things happened this episode. Rhaenyra sends her youngest boys away with Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) Daemon’s daughter and younger sister to Beala, to go to the Vale. Rhaena, as you may recall, is the one family member who still doesn’t have her own dragon. This makes her feel very left out of all the fun, especially the “fly a dragon around patrolling for enemies” fun. But along with the children, Rhaenyra sends Rhaena off with a clutch of unhatched dragon eggs. This mollifies her to some degree.
Daemon, meanwhile, makes his way to a very wet, very dreary and mostly unoccupied Harrenhal where he meets with the steward, Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale) and takes up residence, eager to raise armies and rebuild the massive fortress. The Riverlands, it appears, are the key to the entire war and both Team Green and Team Black are making their preparations to bring the lords of the Riverlands to their respective sides. Old Grover Tully is ancient and infirm, however, and his bannermen fractious and unruly as a result.
At this dark castle, Daemon has a strange vision of a young Rhaenyra—Milly Alcock’s first appearance on the show since the first half of Season 1 and quite a surprise!—sewing young prince Jaehaerys’s head back on.
Side-note: I love you, George R.R. Martin, but if you had made these names easier to spell, you might have finished Winds of Winter by now. Sigh.
This is not a normal run-of-the-windmill vision, but one that a witch lends the taciturn prince—er, my pardon, your Grace—and mark my words, this particular witch will have a much larger part to play as this story progresses. “You will die in this castle,” she tells Daemon. Witches are always prophesying the dourest things in Westeros.
I don’t think the show conveys this well, but Daemon effectively just captured Harrenhal for Team Black without shedding a drop of blood. Landing his dragon, Caraxes, on the roof certainly helped. Strong’s dislike of his relative, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) doesn’t hurt. Larys, meanwhile, becomes Master of Whispers this same episode, thanks to his endless good advice for young Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney).
We also meet two other significant new characters. The first is Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox of Slow Horses who plays this type of character too well) Alicent’s brother who has apparently spent all this time in Oldtown rather than at court. I’d say he showed up offscreen in the past but since he’s only first introduced to Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) this episode, I suppose he’s just never been to King’s Landing before. He comes across as arrogant and spoiled, and even the Lord Commander is irritated with him—and I hate agreeing with the Dornishman about anything!
Speaking of Cole, he’s off with an army to the Riverlands and Harrenhal. He’s tired of all the talk, of all the hand-wringing. He wants action, and so he takes action. Ser Gwayne accompanies him and as they make their way west, Gwayne and his retainers leave the body of the army to find a nearby inn. Cole follows, annoyed at the young knight’s lackadaisical nonsense, and it’s at this point, in an open field, that he spots the dragon high above.
He urges his mount forward and tells the others to ride hard for the trees. Up in the sky, Baela (Bethany Antonia) is on her dragon, Moondancer. She spots the glint of armor and descends as the knights gallop for their lives. Later, we learn that she was close enough to identify Criston Cole, though the Hand and his men do make it into the cover of the forest before any harm can come to them, and Gwayne expresses his gratitude, earning the Lord Commander another loyalist.
The other new character we meet in this episode identifies himself as a Dragonseed—that is, a Targaryen or Valyrian (including House Velaryon) bastard fathered in the Blackwater Bay region. In this series and in Martin’s Fire and Blood, these include (and yes, this is spoilery but I think it will help to understand):
- Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) the blacksmith we’ve met earlier this season;
- Addam (Clinton Liberty) and his younger brother, Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) both Velaryon bastards, though their parentage remains in doubt.
- Ulf White (Tom Bennett) the man we meet at the brothel tavern in this latest episode, though we spotted him by the ratcatcher gallows last week. He exposits some on his lineage, which is why I thought it worth expounding upon in this post.
There are others we haven’t met yet who I will leave off the list, but these will all be very important characters as the war unfolds thanks to their unique lineage even as bastards. We also hear, once again, about young Daeron and his dragon Tessarion. Alicent’s youngest has yet to show his cherubic face on House of the Dragon, but he’s on his way.
In that same tavern that very same night, two brothers come to visit. One is loudmouthed and obnoxious; the other is cool as a cucumber. Neither really ought to be there.
We learn earlier that Aegon has replaced the dead Kingsguard with his lackeys, showing all the wisdom and foresight of a lump of coal. None of these slouching ingrates appear to have much training or discipline, another annoyance for Criston Cole, who I’m almost starting to feel empathy toward (yuck). As they dress him for battle—he insists on following after Cole’s army against the wishes of the Small Council—they mention going out to the brothels with a squire who has yet to lose his virginity. “But you swore vows of chastity,” Aegon tells them, sternly. They laugh at first, but are quickly quiet as their king seems to be totally serious. (This is just after Larys convinces the king not to go to battle, after all, through some clever little lies that play right into Aegon’s lack of self-confidence).
Perhaps he was serious about those vows, but hours later we see him stumble into the brothel drunk as a skunk, laughing and shouting, like some scrawny young Robert Baratheon. Perhaps he’s more like Robert than he is Joffrey, but either way he’s hardly acting the part of king, or grieving father. He finds his brother, Aemond, laying on the lap of the older prostitute and mocks him mercilessly. Aemond ends up leaving, a look of grim determination on his face, but not before we see him completely nude. It’s not the only somewhat shocking bit of nudity we get in this scene, as there’s a bit of (dare I say unnecessary) felatio just before. It’s almost as though HBO is trying to balance the scales when it comes to male and female anatomy shown across Game Of Thrones and House Of The Dragon. It’s perhaps mildly ironic that this season of The Boys is showing so much full-frontal male nudity at the same exact time.
In any case, lots and lots of moving pieces and characters both great and small this episode. Nothing quite so violent and shocking as the Blood and Cheese incident, or the battle of the Cargyll twins, Erryk and Arryk, but still a terrific episode that continues to build, however slowly, toward all-out war. It appears next week’s episode is called A Dance Of Dragons which suggests that the war will kick off in earnest soon enough.
Scattered Thoughts:
- The exchange between Alicent and poor Helaena (Phia Saban) was very interesting, especially when the daughter tells her mother she forgives her. “What?” Alicent asks, taken aback. “I forgive you,” Helaena says again, clearly of the mind that it needs no explanation.
- We see Seasmoke, Laenor’s dragon, and wonder “Who will claim this majestic beast as their own?” Hint: We’ve already met the character, but only just this season.
- I already miss Rhys Ifans even if Otto Hightower is a right bastard. Other characters I miss: Graham McTavish’s Ser Harrold and King Viserys I, played so perfectly by Paddy Considine.
- Both Aegon’s Small Council and Rhaenyra’s annoy me. I suppose they’re meant to since they annoy both Aegon and Rhaenyra to no end. The gall of Rhaenyra’s lords trying to shuffle her off to “safety” so they can lead the war planning. Then again, I’m not sure Rhaenyra is really up to the task, either.
- I’ll add more scattered thoughts as they come to me.
What did you think of this episode and how are you enjoying the season so far?
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