Sunday night’s episode of House Of The Dragon was one of the most intense so far, with a dragon sequence that rivaled even Season 1’s tragic finale. Like that scene, which saw the death of young Lucerys, it was once again Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and his monstrous dragon, Vhagar, that brought death swirling down.
Tonight’s dragon battle was a memorable scene in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, but once again the show’s version differs rather starkly, though as with Aemond and Lucerys, the change is one that I actually like quite a bit. We’ll get to that in a moment.
This was a very bad episode for King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) who realizes during a meeting of his Small Council, that Aemond and Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel) have been coordinating the war effort without him. Indignant, he attempts to order them to not carry out the attack on the castle Rook’s Rest. Harrenhal is the prize he wants. His Master of Whisperers, Ser Larys Strong—the lord of Harrenhal—tells him that the castle is “more crippled than I am” and will only serve to confound Daemon (Matt Smith). Aemond tells his older brother that it’s too late to call off the attack on Rook’s Rest. Cole is preparing to attack.
Aemond speaks to his brother in Valyrian so that nobody else in the room will understand them. He’s clearly fluent and well-practiced; his brother’s broken reply at the end shows that he is not. Aemond mocks his brother. While he was busy playing king, appointing lickspittle lackeys to the Kingsguard and so forth, Aemond was planning the war.
Petulant, Aegon runs to his mother for succor. “They won’t listen to me!” he exclaims. What could he possibly have to say that they should listen to, his mother replies derisively. “Do you think wearing the crown suddenly imbues you with wisdom?” she asks. Her words sting even more than his brother’s.
“What would you have me do?” he pleads. She tells him the one thing he can do: Nothing at all. It’s too much for the brash young king. Later, he stews over the indignity of it all before finally making up his mind to take his dragon Sunfyre and head to Rook’s Rest to aid his Hand in battle. What he doesn’t know is that Cole and Aemond have laid a careful trap for whatever dragons the Blacks send to thwart the Green assault on the seaside keep.
Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) returns to Dragonstone to her own Council of malcontents. Even her son, Jace (Harry Collett) is angry with her unexplained absence, and then shocked by her admission that she went to King’s Landing to meet with Alicent (Olivia Cooke) without telling anyone. When she says she will take her dragon Syrax to Rook’s Rest, she’s met with fierce opposition. Jace wants to go instead, but she forbids it. The Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best) says “You must send me.” Her dragon, Meleys—the Red Queen—is no stranger to battle. They would have been wiser to send more than just one.
Rhaenys and Meleys arrive over the battlefield not long after Cole’s assault on the keep begins. She douses the field in flame as men-at-arms run panicking from the field. But this is exactly what Critson Cole was hoping for. He orders signal arrows to be fired, and not far off we see Aemond and his ancient beast, Vhagar, hiding in the trees.
When Sunfyre appears over the forest, Cole is speechless. Ser Gwayne Hightower is outraged. “This was your plan! To risk the king’s life!”
“No,” Cole replies, curtly, before improvising. He rides out and gives a rousing speech to the men. They are blessed by the king’s presence he tells them.
Aemond’s reaction to his brother’s arrival is less eloquent. “Idiot,” he says bitterly in Valyrian.
Meleys and Sunfyre meet in the skies above Rook’s Rest, tooth and flame, and it’s quickly apparent that the older dragon and rider have the advantage. When Vhagar appears, the king let’s out a cry of joy. When Aemond approaches and says “Dracarys” and a huge gout of flame erupts from the dragon, Aegon’s relief turns to horror. Both Sunfyre and Meleys are engulfed in flame, but the golden dragon bears the brunt of it and dragon and rider topple from the sky, crashing into the earth below. Cole watches in horror, spurring his horse toward his fallen king.
Rhaenys flies away, but some kind of madness takes hold of her and she turns back to the fight, commanding her dragon to attack. Once again, the great hoary beast Vhagar and the far smaller Meleys grapple in the sky and once again, Rhaenys escapes largely unscathed. But Aemond decides to go in for the kill, ambushing her as she makes her way from the battle. The larger dragon locks his teeth around the smaller dragon’s neck and then Meleys is falling, and Rhaenys is falling.
Only Aemond emerges still on dragonback, on the oldest living dragon, the monster that Queen Visenya—sister-wife of Aegon the Conqueror—once rode into battle, whose breath is said to be so hot that it can melt a knight’s armor. The episode ends before we can say if Aegon or Rhaenys survived, but it’s not looking good for either one.
Briefly, I will discuss the book version. Spoiler warning for that version of events.
In the book, there is no indication that Aemond purposefully attacks Aegon. The three dragons meet in the sky and all three come crashing down to earth together. Only Aemond emerges. Aegon is found badly injured, his armor melted to his skin, barely holding on to life. A charred body believed to be Rhaenys’s is found next to the corpse of Meleys. Sunfyre has one wing completely torn off and is grievously wounded. Aegon was bedridden for the next year, sleeping most hours of the day. Aemond became Protector of the Realm in his stead.
What’s interesting here is how the death of Lucerys was changed. In the show, Aemond was clearly surprised when Vhagar killed his nephew and Lucerys’s dragon, Arrax. He was only trying to frighten the youth. He almost seemed to regret the killing of Lucerys. Now, above Rook’s Rest, he very purposefully attacks his own brother and is not in the least bit sorry. This makes sense. While all the boys teased Aemond as a child, Aegon was clearly the ringleader and chief bully. Aemond saw an opportunity to remove his brother once and for all and took it.
Thus begins the Dance of Dragons and the first of many of these awe-inspiring (and incredibly expensive) aerial dragon battles. It’s really sad to see Rhaenys—the Queen Who Never Was—fall in battle especially since she could have escaped. I even feel a little bit bad for Aegon who, while not a good king or a particularly good person, has suffered from a rather rotten upbringing, spoiled and neglected in ways only princes and princesses can be.
Visions, Prophecies And Muppets Oh My!
Other notable moments this episode:
Daemon’s Harrenhal troubles.
- Daemon has another dream of young Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) in which she speaks to him in what sounds like babble at first, but I believe is Valyrian. She mocks him, telling them that he resents her because her father loved her more than he loved Daemon. He lops off her head with this sword—the first, but not the last, beheading of this episode.
- After his vision, Daemon meets young Oscar Tully, the grandson of Grover Tully. There are, in this family tree, other Sesame Street characters: Elmo Tully, for instance. Cheeky George R.R. Martin. Very cheeky. Young Oscar is no help; despite his grandsire being an invalid, the young heir to River Run will not lead. “I need men of action,” Daemon tells him, sneeringly.
- Daemon also speaks with the witch, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) who seems jovial in a cryptic sort of way. She gives him a potion to drink and he finds himself meeting with a Blackwood lord, hallucinating that the cupbearer is one of his dead wives. Harrenhal has thus far been a rather discombobulating stop for the Queen’s consort.
Rhaenyra tells Jace about the Song of Ice and Fire.
- This is what Viserys tells his daughter in the very first episode of the show, when we also see the Catspaw Dagger that Aemond is holding at the end of this one. Aegon the Conqueror’s dream of a great evil that only a united Westeros could stand against. The prince who was promised. Rhaenyra needs to pass this prophecy on to her son, since nobody else knows about it. Will the prophecy survive the civil war that is already embroiling the kingdom? Did the Mad King Jaime Lannister killed know about it? Had he imparted it to his heir, Rhaegar? Would it have mattered, since Rhaegar died before his heir was old enough to speak. Daenerys certainly knew nothing about any of it by the time she rose to power.
Rhaenys learns that Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) is the bastard son of her husband Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint).
- At least, this seems heavily implied. “Your mother must be very beautiful,” she tells the young man when she meets him and realizes that the man who saved her husband looks a whole lot like him—and not many people do in Westeros. She tells Corlys that he should acknowledge the young man and raise him up rather than hide him in the tides. I really like Rhaenys and this scene made me like her more. It’s a stark contrast to Catelyn Stark and her hatred of Jon Snow.
Alicent has an abortion.
- The Queen Dowager has the Grand Maester make her a draft of what I realize now is an abortion potion (I originally mistook this for milk of the poppy and thought the stress was getting to her; readers helped set me straight). When Larys pays her a visit she lies about why she missed the Small Council meeting, but it’s clear he knows she’s lying. Is it a coincidence that Larys has almost the exact same name as Varys, our much less creepy Master of Whisperers from Game Of Thrones?
Ser Criston Cole is a genuinely talented commander and warlord.
- It is with the most grudging respect that I admit this, because Cole is a vile human being in just about every way, but he is clearly more than capable when it comes to leading men into battle. He’s no-nonsense, brave, confident and clever. His plan with Aemond was tactically sound. His efforts have put Team Black on the defensive.
All told, this was yet another terrific episode in what’s shaping up to be a great second season of House of the Dragon. I’m excited, and dreading, everything yet to come. This is not a very happy story. Then again, brutal civil wars between families rarely are. Aemond is really earning that Kinslayer sobriquet, isn’t he? What a very different war this would look like if Laena had lived and Aemond had never claimed Vhagar as a boy.
Easily one of the best episodes of the entire series so far and by far the most exciting and devastating of the second season, though there has been plenty of violence and death leading up to this battle in the skies.
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