In his series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, the author George R.R. Martin has based a trio of men-at-arms on Curly, Moe and Larry, the Three Stooges. He has used the superheroes Blue Beetle and Green Arrow as the basis for noble houses’ emblematic sigils. During the events depicted in “House of the Dragon,” the important House Tully is variously ruled over by Lords Grover, Elmo, and Kermit, with a Ser Oscar thrown in for good measure, as if “Sesame Street” had come to the Seven Kingdoms.
So do I think it’s possible that in his book “Fire and Blood,” the basis of “House of the Dragon,” Martin put Prince Aemond Targaryen in control of Westeros just as a cheeky way to illustrate the maxim “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Compared to the all-out dragon warfare of last week’s outing, this week’s episode was a low-key affair, though not an inconsequential one. Aemond One-Eye’s ascension to the regency as his comatose brother, Aegon, clings to life in a burned and battered body is an alarming development in several respects. Already in possession of the Targaryen civil war’s deadliest weapon, the ancient dragon Vhagar, Aemond now has the political power to match his firepower. That sort of consolidation of control can’t bode well for any of the other prominent voices on the small council, particularly that of Aemond and Aegon’s increasingly marginalized mother, the dowager Queen Alicent.
Even his nominal supporters visibly chafe at their choice of regent, though they feel that choice is limited at best. Ser Criston Cole saw firsthand how Aemond tried to kill his brother, first with Vhagar and then up close and personal, but he tells none of this to Alicent. He goes along with Aemond’s rise not despite the horror he witnessed but because of it. This is now a war of dragons, he tells Alicent, and as such they must be led by a dragon rider.
The logic of Ser Larys Strong is more political than martial. How would it look, he asks, if they rejected the claim of Rhaenyra on the grounds of her sex, only to raise up another woman, Alicent, as Queen Regent? The legal and sociopolitical waters would be muddied considerably, and support put at risk. With the exception of Grandmaester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan), a habitual voice of reason, the men of the council all back the male candidate over the female.
The episode’s director, Clare Kilner, lets the camera linger on the face of the actor who plays Alicent, Olivia Cooke, at this point. As the music of the composer Ramin Djawadi strikes an ominously modern tone, the camera draws ever closer, as Queen Alicent struggles to contain her … anger? Embarrassment? Fear? Pain, especially over her abandonment by both her lover and her son? All of the above are visible in Cooke’s extraordinarily communicative eyes.
At least in Alicent’s case, lover and son are two separate people. The same cannot be said of Daemon Targaryen, the self-appointed King of Westeros, in his haunted Harrenhal dreams. (He spends much of the episode plotting to rule with or without his wife, Rhaenyra, by his side.) At one point we find him in the middle of a sex dream co-starring an unidentified, but unmistakably Targaryen, woman. Smearing blood on his face, she reveals herself to be his mother, Alyssa (Emeline Lambert). Whether her praise for her “favorite son” is being communicated from the spirit realm or is merely the product of wishful thinking by Daemon’s unconscious mind is left to the viewer to decide.
Daemon’s problems go beyond bizarre dreams — or waking visions of his dead wife Laena, for that matter, which appear elsewhere in the episode. Alys Rivers, Harrenhal’s resident witch, continues to hector him, and she appears to have a window into his dreams. Daemon’s plot to exploit the ancient Blackwood-Bracken family feud by giving Blackwoods license to commit war crimes breaks the Brackens, but it backfires among the other lords in the region, who recoil from Daemon’s wanton brutality.
Back home Rhaenyra grows increasingly frustrated with Daemon’s refusal to follow orders — even while she is stuck at home at the advice of all her councilors and family members. And his stepson Jacaerys is taking matters into his own hands, flying to the Riverlands himself to treat with the powerful but duplicitous House Frey in hopes of creating a power base free of Daemon’s influence.
Indeed, while the members of Team Green’s younger generation are largely up to no good, over on Team Black, the kids are all right. Jace is a smooth and charming negotiator; he breaks the letter of his mother’s commands while holding true to the spirit of her campaign, unlike his step dad. He makes up for his transgression, well-intentioned though it may have been, by coming up with a plan to find distant Targaryen descendants to ride the masterless dragons lurking around his mother’s fortress, Dragonstone. Jace’s fiancée, Baela Targaryen, meanwhile, seems to have successfully convinced her wise but grieving grandfather, Corlys, to stay true to the cause honored by his late wife, Rhaenys, by becoming Rhaenyra’s new hand.
And although Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) isn’t a dragon-rider like her sister Baela or stepbrother Jace, her vulnerability proves an asset. Sent to negotiate with Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin, who was brilliant in the sci-fi mind-bender “Raised by Wolves”), she encounters a wall of resistance. What good will the two baby dragons Rhaena brought to House Arryn’s mountain fortress, the Eyrie, do if the likes of Vhagar come calling, Lady Jeyne asks? “I mislike feeling powerless,” she says.
“So do I,” Rhaena replies. The comment appears to make the noblewoman see her guest differently, but only for a moment; she casually drops the news of the death of Rhaenys, the girl’s grandmother, as she leaves.
“Dragon” is increasingly adept at using its deep bench to drive the story and flesh out its big ideas. We’ve already seen minor players like the twin knights Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk pay dramatic dividends, so I think it pays to watch closely when the likes of Rhaena take center stage. Or Hugh the blacksmith, currently struggling to escape King’s Landing before starvation and deprivation claim his sick daughter. Or Rhaenyra’s lady-in-waiting Elinda (Jordon Stevens), dispatched back to the capital; she runs directly to Aegon’s former assault victim, the serving girl Dyanna (Maddie Evans), in a bid to rally the small folk to Rhaenyra’s cause.
This last bit may be easier than expected because of yet another unforced error by Ser Criston Cole. Taking a page from the playbook of Otto Hightower, the man he supplanted as the king’s hand, Cole stages a theatrical funeral procession for a beheaded scion of Old Valyria. But this time, instead of showing everyone Rhaenyra’s alleged brutality by displaying the mutilated corpse of Queen Helaena’s little boy, Cole is dragging the stinking severed head of Rhaenys’s dragon, Meleys, through the streets. In addition to being a ghastly visual, the people consider it an ill omen.
And why shouldn’t they? A dead dragon confirms that both the beasts and the people who ride them are not gods but rather creatures of flesh and blood, as mortal as any resident of Flea Bottom. Is this really the message either half of the divided House of the Dragon wants to send? Do they want people wondering how to kill a dragon?
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