The Seeds Of The Dragon

Sunday night’s episode of House Of The Dragon trades last week’s epic dragon battles for dense, meaty politicking and repositioning following the tragic death of Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys and the grave injuries sustained by King Aegon II and his dragon, Sunfyre.

So much happens in one hour that it’s almost impossible to follow it all in one viewing—which is why I watched this episode twice and took extensive notes. I can’t rely on my crackerjack memory this time around, it seems. House of the Dragon has foiled me. Thank goodness, I have help.

Instead of sticking to things chronologically this week, let’s hop on the back of our very own dragon—we’ll call her Rhaelyx, which means ‘Shadow Flame’ in High Valyrian; all anyone ever sees of her is shadow through the clouds, which is perhaps why she’s never mentioned in the chronicles. Let’s climb aboard her elegant back and make our way toward . . .

King’s Landing

The night is dark and full of terrors, but we fly high above the realms of men and the moon is silvery on our face and the wind is cool.

You can see the city racing into view as we plummet, as dawn breaks and the army of Ser Criston Cole marches along the road up toward the city gates. Before they spot us we’ll climb again, higher still. You can peak out over the red and black scales of Rhaelyx’s wings at the line of men and horses below. The long shadows and red rooftops of King’s Landing stretch out below. Cole’s armor glitters in the sunlight as he marches his men through the gates. Gwayne Hightower rides beside him, his green cloak muddied. On one cart, the head of the dragon Meleys rests, cleaved from her majestic body. “Behold!” a cryer shouts. “The traitor dragon, Meleys! Slain in battle by your king!”

The crowd recoils at the sight. Fearful murmurs ripple down the street. “Mark my words,” one man mutters darkly, “this is a black omen.” “I thought the dragons were gods,” another tells the blacksmith, Hugh Hammer. Women and children cry. It is a terrible sight, and one that soon inspires many of the citizens of King’s Landing to flee the city.

“Don’t they realize we won the battle,” Cole says.

“Strange victory,” Gwayne replies. “If it was one.”

There is another cart. It carries an unmarked box. There is no fanfare around this grim carriage. Perhaps it is nothing. Perhaps it is a casket.

Inside the Red Keep we discover that it carries what appears to be the body of young King Aegon. Servants lift him from the box and onto the bed. He’s alive, but only just barely. The maesters surround his still form and begin cutting away his Valyrian steel armor which has melted in broken patches to his ruined skin. The Grand Maester cannot tell the Queen Dowager if her son will liver or not.

Prince Aemond One-Eye comes to the foot of the bed, a smirk on his thin face. He casts a glance at his mother. “Someone will have to rule in his stead,” he tells her.

Alicent visits her paramour, Ser Criston Cole—general of the king’s armies, Hand of the King and Commander of the King’s Guard. The Dornish man-at-arms has risen high. Now he’s referred to scornfully as Kingmaker for breaking his vow to King Viserys and crowning Aegon instead of Rhaenyra. Alicent asks him what happened and he tells her they took the castle. “And Aemond? What was his part in this?” she asks. After a very long—one might say pregnant pause—Cole replies, “I could not say.”

Later, Aegon’s Small Council meets to discuss the war and the matter of succession. Alicent is clearly upset with Aemond who she suspects played some role in Aegon’s misfortune. She tells the council that he is too young and too rash to rule, but only the Grand Maester backs her. Ser Larys Strong sides with Aemond, as does Ser Criston Cole. “He is the heir,” Cole says, abashed. “Then it is settled,” Aemond says, matter-of-factly, and gets right down to matters of state. As the advisors speak, Alicent realizes that she has been, in every sense, cast aside. She may have ruled in all but name while Viserys was sickly, and with the support of her father Otto, the Hightowers loomed large in Westeros. But now, her star has fallen. Aegon was weak and foolish and could be easily manipulated. Aegon is a dragon of a different color.

Perhaps we will urge Rhaelyx to fly close by the window so that we can look in and see the Queen Dowager in her fine green dress, sitting at a table surrounded by men. Her son Aemond is telling them to shut the gates to the city. No one may come or go without royal approval. Alicent isn’t listening. She is panicking. The camera zooms slowly closer and closer as an ominous deep thrum plays. She is claustrophobic here. The walls are closing in.

“And somebody cut down the *&#^ing ratcatchers,” Aemond says as the meeting comes to a close.

When Alicent confronts Cole again, angry that he did not back her in the Small Council, he tells her of the carnage on the battlefield around Rook’s Rest. He’s clearly shaken. There is something changed about the man, some heavier burden on his shoulders. I admit, I’ve begun to not hate him so much over these last few episodes if only because he’s shown his worth as a leader, and a far more clever and sober leader than he was when he sent Ser Arryk off to his death. He describes the men dying in fire, flesh melting from their bones.

“We have given the war to the dragons,” he says, almost sadly. “The dragonriders should lead us.”

“What of justice?” she asks him, still angry. “Of temperance? Or is strength now to be our only god?” He says nothing. “So you just cast me aside?” she spits at him.

“Have I not spared you?” he replies. “What we must do now is terrible. Would you preside over it? Is this who you are, Alicent?”

“I did not ask to be spared,” she cuts back. “And I did not give you leave to speak my name.”

In the city, Hugh Hammer and his wife bicker over what they should do next, the money gone, their daughter sick. She wants to leave and he wants to stay. His pride keeps him from going to her family for help. “By all means, husband, stay and wait for the king’s promises,” she tells him. “With them you can feed the mouths of ghosts.” But when they try to leave, the gold cloaks are shutting the gates. The guards call out “By order of prince Aemond” and the peasants are confused. Do they mean the king? Nobody yet knows Aegon’s fate.

It is night when we find ourselves perched upon the ramparts, peering down into the throneroom of the Red Keep. Aemond One-Eye stands staring at the Iron Throne surrounded by countless melted blades, the jagged things that cut away at his grandfather for 60 long years. He is rigid and somber, deep in thought. Perhaps he imagines himself on that throne. Perhaps he is gloating, biding his time while his brother convalesces.

Then Helaena is there. He turns and their eyes meet. “Was it worth the price?” she asks. Aemond does not answer. Perhaps he is counting the cost in his head. Not just Aegon but also the death of Lucerys Velaryon and the revenge-killing of Helaena’s son, the prince Jaehaerys. Or he is thinking how the boy is no longer an impediment to Aemond’s succession.

But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is Aegon’s bedchamber, and at his side is the Dowager Queen grieving; is she more upset at her own undoing than at the pitiable state of her son? She stands and walks from the room, and as she does, Aegon whispers, “Mommy.”

Fie. Enough of this place. It’s too sad. Everyone here is wearing great, shaggy cloaks of despair. Fly, Rhaelyx, fly west and north over the Crownlands, to that black hoary ruins called . . .

Harrenhal

It is good that Caraxes is sleeping and that our own dragon is so very, very stealthy. We can find a perch and watch the most ambitious Targaryen of them all pace and dream. Daemon is slowly going mad, it seems, though we know it is this place that is seeping under his skin and the witch, Alys Rivers, who has wormed her way into his dreams with her strange, old magic.

He is not making very good headway with the lords of the Riverlands. The Brackens would not bend the knee even with the threat of dragonfire, though perhaps he should have burned a few of them if only just to make examples. When the Brackens refuse to yield, Daemon says “I did not think they would be so eager to die.”

Instead, he tells the Blackwoods to “persuade” the Brackens over to their side. They must not make it seem as though Targaryens have a hand in any of the brutality, however. This scheme does not go as planned. As a famous Westerosi poet once mused, even “the best-laid schemes of Dragons and Men, go oft awry, and leave us only grief and pain, for promised joy!”

Daemon day-dreams, sitting at the dinner table, of a beautiful woman. They are coupling in a dark place, their hair and skin white. She is clearly a Targaryen and she whispers sweet poison into his ear. “Viserys was unsuited for the crown,” she says, “But you, Daemon, were made to wear it.” As he caresses her, he sees blood beneath his fingers, smeared across her breast. “If only you’d been born first, my favorite son,” she says, and we realize that this is Alyssa Targaryen, mother of Viserys and Daemon, wife of her brother Baelon, daughter of Jaehaerys I.

(Two thoughts on names: Alys is awfully close to Alyssa. Coincidence? Do you believe in such things? Also, if you take Daemon and remove the ‘D’ and place it on the end of the name instead you get Aemond. Coincidence? I think not!)

In any case, I’m not sure if this dream is simply Daemon’s own ambition manifesting itself into a sex dream thanks to Alys’s magic, or if she’s directly influencing his thoughts. Either way, his true colors show. Later, when the two speak, she chastises him for the brutal tactics his bannermen have employed in the Riverlands. “The realm will suffer if Aemond One-Eye rules,” he replies. “You should pray you never meet him. He will cut you down as soon as wish you good day.”

“I’d heard the same about you,” she retorts, “but I’ll cross you no further. I’m sure your tactics are after all approved by the queen.”

This is not the first time this episode, or even this season, that Daemon has bristled at comparisons to Rhaenyra, his niece-wife, whom he is sworn to support. Earlier, Ser Simon Strong referred to him as ‘Your Grace’ and he told him to refer to him now as ‘My King.’ “But you are a prince,” Strong argues, before admitting that he is “King Consort.” Daemon replies cooly, “That last bit seems unnecessary doesn’t it?”

Now, Daemon tells Arys his real plan. Rhaenyra, he says, “cannot succeed, Alys, even if I willed it to be so. The people who support her will not be led by her. They look to a man for strength. Who’s better suited to it? The Hightowers with their scheming or Viserys’ first true heir? When I take King’s Landing Rhaenyra’s welcome to join me there and take her place by my side. King and Queen. Ruling together.”

“It’s a pity don’t you think that you never knew your mother,” she tells him, and he thinks of his dream, of his mother in her youth, her long white hair and pale skin. It terrifies him.

When he learns the Brackens have finally bent the knee, Daemon is triumphant, but his victory is short-lived. Later, the assembled lords of the Riverlands—all of whom have an apparent death-wish—confront him at Harrenhal in the middle of the night. They are dismayed at what has transpired in the Riverlands since Daemon’s arrival.

The sacred septs on Bracken land have been burned, they tell him. Livestock has been stolen, farms burned, children taken. “These beasts proudly carried the banner of House Targaryen,” one of the lords tells him, much to the prince’s chagrin. They bring up the death of Jaehaerys and tell him they will never follow someone who murders babies.

“Know this, interloper,” one particularly brave and/or stupid Lady tells him, “the Riverlands are an ancient place watched closely by the old gods and the new. Dragon or no, we shall not raise our banners for a tyrant.”

Daemon is so stunned by all of this—and perhaps so rattled by all his hallucinations—that he has no words for the nobles as they leave him. Will he answer with blood and fire? What do you think, Rhaelyx?

Ah, our dragon is tired of the damp. It’s time we took back to the skies and left this dreary place behind. There is as much sadness here as there is in King’s Landing, but it’s an older sadness. You can smell it in the stones. It rises from the pavestones like mist.

East we’ll fly now. It’s not far the way the raven flies, east back over the Crownlands, over the smouldering shape of Sunfyre down by Rook’s Rest, and across the channel to . . .

Dragonstone

I lied. We’re going to fly right past Dragonstone, but only very briefly, and head due south to another island: Driftmark. Here, the Lord of Tides is in mourning. Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, grieves the death of his wife, Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was.

His granddaughter visits him at the request of Rhaenyra, bringing him a box with the clasp of the Hand inside. Rhaenyra would have him as her Hand of the Queen. “Even the death of my wife does not content her,” Corlys fumes. “Has she not asked enough from my House?”

Bella is unimpressed with her grandsire’s self-pity. It is a great honor to be asked to serve as Hand, she reminds him, and besides: “Rhaenys was not only your wife. Not a thing to be taken from you. She was a Targaryen princess, the Queen who never was, and she flew to Rook’s Rest of her own volition.” She died in fire, Bella says, like her own mother chose to die. “The way I myself wish to meet my end.” She tells the Sea Snake that she means to see Rhaenyra ascend the Iron Throne. “You may do as you see fit,” she says as she turns to leave.

“Granddaughter,” he calls after her. “I would make you my heir.”

“I am blood and fire,” she replies. “Driftmark must pass to salt and sea.” Bravo, Bella. Bravo.

I told you our journey to Driftmark would be brief, but I’m afraid the halls of Dragonstone are every bit as cold and unwelcoming as those of Harrenhal, though perhaps not so pungent with decay. And here, at least, it appears that mothers and sons have genuine fondness for one another. Rhaenyra and Jace don’t always agree, but she has a mother’s heart, or so we’re told. That cold, terrible distance we feel yawning out between Alicent and her children is nowhere to be found here.

Still, Jace chafes at his mother’s restrictions. He wants to help, but after the death of his brother Lucerys, Rhaenyra is loathe to let him fly the nest. Far to the north, Rhaena does her best in the Vale of Arryn, at the Eyrie with a much less crazy Lady Arryn than the one Sansa and Tyrion met in Game Of Thrones. Bella flies her scouting missions. But Jace is on house arrest, or may as well be.

He tells his cousin that he wants to go to Harrenhal to treat with her father, Daemon. Bella scoffs at the idea. If he would not play nice with Rhaenyra, what makes Jacerys think he’ll have any luck with the intractable prince? So Jace comes up with another idea, and it’s one—dear reader—that I’m afraid will require us to saddle back up on the back of Rhaelyx, for we shall have to follow this hot-headed but eminently likable young Targaryen north to . . .

The Twins

I have to pause this review for a moment to gush over the presentation of The Twins in House of the Dragon. We did not get such a lovely view of the twin towers and the bridge spanning between them in Game of Thrones, or we did but I was too busy hating Walder Frey to notice. Behold:

And look at this lovely aerial shot of our lords and ladies at tea, their table a door. Rhaelyx admires the near-symmetry of this scene—as I’m sure you’re aware that dragons often love beautifully flawed things the most (and Targaryens most of all).

Everything goes rather well for Jace during these pleasant negotiations. The Freys want the protection of Rhaenyra’s dragons, and Jace grants it to them—along with Daemon’s—but they point out that dragons cannot be everywhere at the same time. Vhagar might come for them when they are defenseless. What they would very much like is Harrenhal, that most-traded of castles. Jace agrees to their terms but tells them Rhaenyra will require one more thing for such a prize: Bent knees.

This may evoke a famous Targaryen queen and conqueror, but I’m thinking of another dark-haired, handsome young prince at the moment: Robb Stark. Robb once dealt with Freys and all seemed to go according to plan. Then the Rains of Castamere fell and all was lost. Alas, poor Robb. Is this, too, a black omen?

(Note: This season has been obsessed with twins. First, Jaehaerys was slain, the twin child of Aegon and Helaena. Then Erryk and Arryk both slain, twins once more. Now Jacerys flies to The Twins to treat with their masters).

For our last flight we shall return ever so briefly to Dragonstone. Here, Rhaenyra continues to battle her own council, who remind her that being a member of the “fairer sex” means she has no battle experience. And while she reminds them that they came up in a time of peace and have no more battle experience than she does, even she admits later to Mysaria, the White Worm, that the men were at least trained to fight and schooled in the art of war.

Mysaria tells her that there is more than one way to skin a dragon. Or, rather, more than one way to fight a war. She means to disrupt King’s Landing through spycraft, and sends one of Rhaenyra’s maids to the city under dark of night. What her mission is we’ve yet to discover, but the last time the White Worm lifted a finger was for Daemon, and that ended in blood and cheese.

Rhaenyra also sends the pompous Ser Alfred away, perhaps the most vocal and combative of her council. Whether it’s a terribly great idea to send the man into the clutches of her husband, Daemon, is another matter.

At last, the Queen meets with her son, who returns just after we do. Don’t worry, his dragon Vermax didn’t see us up ahead, cloaked in shadow as we were. Rhaenyra congratulates her son on his successes, but he can tell she’s still upset. She acknowledges that he chafes at her protectiveness, but she does, too. Doesn’t he know that she’s frustrated to send others to fight and be felled in my name?”

“You are the queen, the tie that binds us, no harm can come to you–” he begins, but she cuts him off. What if Aemond finds him while he’s out flying, she asks him. “Your dragon is young. Will you fly before Vhagar as Luke did?”

“I need dragons,” she admits, her voice heavy.

“We have no dearth of dragons,” Jacerys replies. “We have two large enough to stand against Vhagar. They are called have Vermithor and Silverwing and they sleep beneath our feet.”

“And if only they had riders, none would stand against me,” Rhaenyra replies. Jace asks about Rhaena, but his mother reminds him that the last time she tried to mount her father’s dragon, Silverwing, she nearly died. What about other Targaryens, Jace asks. Or, rather, the children of Targaryens, those who have been born into other families but still have blood of the dragon in their veins.

“A dragon will only accept a dragon lord to ride it,” Rhaenyra says. “Or so say the histories.”

“Valyrian histories,” Jace counters. Histories written to glorify the Valyrian people. Histories that perhaps should not be trusted.

“Are you suggesting we put a Mallister on a dragon? A Tarly?” she asks.

“It’s better than death and defeat,” he answers, a grin on his face. Rhaenyra warms to the idea. There are surely records of all these Targaryen-adjacent folk in Dragonstone, she realizes.

“There could be scores of them,” Jace says. “It’s a mad thought,” she replies.

So mad it just might work.

Verdict

What House of the Dragon does very, very well is somehow stuff this insane amount of story into a single episode, hopping from one character or group of characters to the next, so effortlessly. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s never hard to understand or follow. This wasn’t an action-packed episode like last week’s, but a ton of really important things took place as the Greens and Blacks left Rook’s Rest licking their wounds and preparing for whatever comes next.

It’s very interesting to see Daemon so blatantly spell out his own selfish plans. Despite marrying Rhaenyra and staking his post to her’s, going so far as to send assassins into the Red Keep to avenge the death of Lucerys, he’s now striking out on his own. Of course, he’s welcoming Rhaenyra to join him but not as his Queen, but as his equal. I suppose that’s better than supplanting her altogether, but not by much.

This is something of a departure from the book, and I’m curious if they’re doing this to cast Rhaenyra in a better light and Daemon in a worse one. I’m still a little nervous that HBO intends to pull its punches when it comes to our Queen. Indeed, having Aemond call for the gates of King’s Landing to be closed rather than Alicent makes me wonder if this show is determined to make both our female leads more sympathetic than they are in Martin’s Blood & Fire, which I think only works if it’s temporary. Robbing them of their arcs would be a shame.

Everything else was grand. The Twins were lovely to behold. That scene at the Small Council with Alicent losing her cool was as tense as they come. Watching Aemond grow into this terrifying but somehow still admirable leader is a testament both to the writing and to the sheer presence that Ewan Mitchell brings to the role. Truly, he is yin to Daemon’s yang. Or something.

The rest of the cast is phenomenal as well. Matt Smith’s Daemon is so inscrutable. Even here, it’s hard to pin him down exactly. Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke continue to bring these two powerful queens to life each week, each sympathetic and infuriating in their own way. More shows could learn how to craft compelling leading women by studying this one.

If I have one complaint it is simply that the whole thing is so utterly humorless. Game Of Thrones made us care about its characters through two things: Their acts of humanity, nobility and heroism and through their humor. Tyrion is one of the most beloved characters in Westeros because he is both very brave and compassionate and very funny. Humor runs throughout that show like wine, balancing out all the grim, bleak and awful things that happen. It’s easier to lose a head here and there, or suffer through a bad wedding, if there’s a bit of comic relief to salve one’s grief in the end.

Not so in House of the Dragon. Heaven forbid anyone should ever crack a joke or share a bawdy tune. Aemond’s smirk is about the closest thing to smiling we get. I think Jace’s little goofy grin in that final scene with his mother threw me off because it’s just so rare. We desperately needed the jester, Mushroom, from Martin’s book, to make this visit to Westeros a bit less dreary.

Alas, dearest readers, you’ll simply have to settle for Rhaelyx and I. I’m not sure where we’ll fly to next week. Perhaps the North, to visit the dour old Starks. Not a joke for a thousand miles up there, except for the odd Bolton and his gallows humor. Maybe back to the Vale. Most likely to Harrenhal, King’s Landing and Dragonstone. The lot of them together about as funny as Stannis Baratheon at a barbecue. Barrels and barrels of laughter.

Read my previous House Of The Dragon Season 2 reviews below:

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