Season 3, Episode 3
The composer Ramin Djawadi has been working in Westeros since 2011. First on “Game of Thrones” and now on “House of the Dragon” — which now uses a souped-up version of its predecessor’s famously rousing opening theme — Djawadi has crafted hours of music tailored to the setting’s many disparate cultures, characters, environments and emotions. His work so far this season bears special attention: He has given each of the three episodes its own sonic signature.
In the season premiere, a low, threatening synth line conveyed the horror-movie horror of the Battle of the Gullet. In the second episode, insistent strings built in a swirling crescendo that never seemed to resolve, adding tension and dread to the fall of King’s Landing to Rhaenyra’s invading dragons.
Now Rhaenyra sits on the Iron Throne, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms … and her sonic signature is a repeated, percussive, distracting sound, an ominous bong halfway between a bell being struck and someone punching the strings of a piano. In this episode it can be heard again and again, when Rhaenyra is faced with an insurmountable challenge, an unexpected obstacle or a reminder of the fragility of her rule.
As if to reinforce that this “music” represents the tumult in her head, at several points we see that Rhaenyra is straight-up hearing things. Murmurs, whispers, the roar of a distant crowd or the low voices of a nearby one — these, too, provide an auditory window into the mind of the Black Queen. She even has a full-blown hallucination of her dead son Jacaerys, bong included.
… Is that good?
The final season of “Game of Thrones” was widely, vituperatively criticized for its perceived failure to appropriately telegraph the heel turn of its ostensible heroine, Daenerys Targaryen. (The observant reader may recall the character burning her enemies alive — as well as immuring them, crucifying them and dousing their noggins with molten gold — all the way back to Season 1, but many viewers apparently chalked this up to the price of doing hero business in the fake Middle Ages.)
Ending with Rhaenyra standing before a bonfire of her enemies’ banners, this episode gives the impression that if she is indeed headed down the mad queen route, the “House of the Dragon” co-creator and showrunner, Ryan Condal, is going to leave signposts you can’t help but see. Or hear, as it were.
Rhaenyra’s advent to power does not go off without a hitch. In fact, in the parlance of Cap’n Crunch cereal, her first few days on the throne are pretty much “Oops! All Hitches!” She starts at a disadvantage, abandoning her disloyal small council on Dragonstone for a skeleton crew of advisers: In addition to her husband, Daemon, and her mistress of whisperers, Mysaria (former lover to both), there is her master of ships, Lord Corlys Velaryon; Ser Luthor Largent (Tom Cullen), head of the City Watch and unofficial Queensguard until such time as a real bodyguard can be selected; Grand Maester Orwyle, previously a member of the Green council … and that’s it.
Her small council does little to counsel her. Daemon and Mysaria spar constantly over the restive small folk, for whom Mysaria is an outspoken champion. (Daemon thinks the little people should know their place.) Orwyle mostly scrambles to save his neck, protesting his innocence in various Green schemes. Alicent, the queen dowager, expresses similar ignorance when Rhaenyra grills her about her enemies’ plans after a fruitless council meeting. Has the queen forgotten the way men exclude wise advice if it comes from a woman?
Lord Corlys, licking his wounds from the loss of his wife and his home to Rhaenyra’s enemies, has surprisingly little to say in matters of governance — other than noting that her royal forebears would be appalled by her idea of opening up the royals’ own forest to starving peasant hunters and trappers. The trappings of legitimacy mean quite a lot to the Sea Snake. At an awkward dinner with Rhaenyra, Corlys asks her to officially declare his sons Alyn and Addam of Hull to be full Velaryons, legitimized and able to inherit his lands and titles.
But Rhaenyra has competing concerns. Her eldest surviving child, Joffrey, stands to inherit the Iron Throne upon her death. However, he is the last of the three children she had with her lover Ser Harwin Strong, and whispers about his conception out of wedlock are dangerous. As such, she cannot be seen to elevate Addam and Alyn because of their similar origins. So when the time comes to knight her three new dragon-riders, she dubs them Ulf the White, Hugh the Hammer, and … Alyn of Hull, with no “Velaryon” to be heard.
The hypocrisy outrages Corlys. He declares Rhaenyra’s three sons “bastards” at the top of his lungs — just as his brother Vaemond did before Daemon chopped off his head in Season 1.
… Is that good?
Avenging her dead sons is a priority for Rhaenyra. She orders Daemon, her best warrior and dragon-rider, off on a quest to hunt down and destroy Vhagar and Sheepstealer, the dragons she blames for the deaths, along with their riders, Aemond and an unknown. Little does she know she has dispatched her husband to kill his own daughter, Rhaena, whose dragon acted without her command or consent during the battle.
The other item at the top of the agenda is securing her position in the capital city. She asks for a grand coronation, only to discover that the crown’s money has been smuggled out of town, its current whereabouts unknown because she and Daemon have killed everyone that might know. She gets her period on her first day of hearing petitioners in the throne room, an inconvenience that leaves her cussing out of frustration.
Rhaenyra asks for anointment by the High Septon (Simon Chandler), who rejects Rhaenyra’s declaration — suggested by Alicent — that her half brother Aegon II is dead and lambastes dragons as abominations. Alicent and her daughter and granddaughter, Queen Helaena and Princess Jaehaera, meanwhile, are to be kept prisoner until Aegon and Aemond alike are brought to justice.
Rhaenyra serves the city’s one-percenters a banquet of rats — the rodents are everywhere thanks to Aegon II’s hanging of all the rat catchers — to punish them for hoarding. She also confiscates their stored food for redistribution. But taking the supplies will alienate her most powerful citizens, while the inevitable failure of this measure to meet the growing needs of a starving population will only rouse their anger further.
The situation is a primary driver of the split between Mysaria and Daemon, a man who has much grander plans for his wife than feeding the small folk. For one thing, she has to kill Daeron (Charlie Gordon), Alicent’s youngest son, who has been delivered to them as a hostage by the preening Lord Ormund Hightower. (Daeron’s dragon remains with the Hightower host, for some reason. Maybe Daemon wanted to keep Daeron apart from his dragon, in case he harbored any rebellious ideas? Not a decision I’d have made!)
For another, Daemon believes Rhaenyra is thinking way too small. Who cares about King’s Landing when you have twice as many dragons at your disposal as the conqueror who built it? The Rogue Prince has dreams of world conquest, with Rhaenyra casting the shadow of her dragons from here to faraway lands where men are rumored to have wings. The world is their oyster — or their charred sheep, as the case may be.
This episode’s focus on Rhaenyra is tight — literally so, with the periphery of the frame often blurry while her own body and face are rendered in stark relief.
As a result of this intense identification with Rhaenyra, the episode’s big reveal feels like a personal affront. Rhaenyra allows Alicent to meet with her son Daeron before he is to be sent off to the Wall to serve in the Night’s Watch, only to realize that this boy is not Alicent’s son at all, merely a decoy. The real Daeron, along with his dragon, are in the nearby city of Tumbleton, which has been invaded by Lord Ormund and the Hightower army.
It’s a city where Ser Hugh’s wife now dwells. A city full of the queen’s own supporters. A city defended now by at least one dragon, with six in play against it. A city the Blacks can’t burn without burning those they purport to protect.
I ask one last time: Is that good?
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