Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 5 of House of the Dragon Season 3.
With a nearly unrecognizable Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) hidden away at Rook’s Rest and a severely-wounded Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) slowly recovering at Harrenhal, the Greens have been on a downward slide in Season 3 of House of the Dragon. But as Episode 5 made abundantly clear, that doesn’t mean Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) has a peaceful rule to look forward to now that she’s finally claimed the Iron Throne—especially if Ormund Hightower (James Norton) has anything to say about it.
As the Lord of Oldtown, head of House Hightower, and guardian of Prince Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth)—the youngest son of the late King Viserys (Paddy Considine) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke)—Ormund has emerged as the latest threat to Team Black’s royal takeover. After falsely bending the knee to Daemon (Matt Smith), pretending to swear fealty to Rhaenyra, and handing over a decoy Daeron, Ormund decamped with his army to the unfortified market town of Tumbleton. From there, he’s begun calmly waging war against Rhaenyra from afar.
In Episode 4, we learned from Alicent that Ormund considers himself a scholar of history and raised now-16-year-old Daeron like a son, meaning Daeron was instilled with Hightower values rather than Targaryen ones (although he still retains a strong attachment to his dragon, Tessarion). Ormund believes the Targaryens are foreign usurpers who have corrupted Westeros and violated the teachings of the Faith of the Seven, of which he fancies himself a pious follower. “The way to describe him is like a zealot or religious [fanatic],” Norton told TV Insider of his character. “He’s sort of fascistic in his view of the superiority of the Hightowers. It’s almost like eugenics. He says to Daeron, ‘Your blood is tainted.’ He sees the Targaryens, the dragons, and their riders as savages and that it is a crime to the Iron Throne that they should be sitting there.”
Ormund views dragons as blood-magic abominations and wants Daeron to sit on the throne as a puppet king, under Hightower control, who will correct the rightful order of the realm. In order to accomplish that, Ormund has put a plan in place to hit Rhaenyra and Daemon where it hurts: from inside their own city. Capitalizing on the tide of anti-Rhaenyra sentiment rising among the peasants of King’s Landing, Ormund plots to sow further unrest by paying off a band of smallfolk to brutally torture and kill members of the City Watch. As he frames his strategy in a lesson to Daeron in Episode 5, “A cunning mind can resist the most savage of beasts.”
By the end of the episode, while Daemon has figured out that Ormund is the source of the violence against the Gold Cloaks, he certainly hasn’t managed to put an end to it. And Rhaenyra has realized there are forces moving against her that she didn’t anticipate. “Something stirs against me: something crouched, something formless,” she tells Daemon. “I feel the dread of it. A cold presentiment.”
Meanwhile, the majority of both Team Green and Team Black’s ground forces are converging on Tumbleton, where Rhaenyra has also sent Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) and his dragon Vermithor to keep Ormund’s army from attempting to flee. Although the show is handling this storyline somewhat differently, if you’re familiar with George R. R. Martin‘s Fire & Blood, the Song of Ice and Fire companion novel on which House of the Dragon is based, you already know what’s coming next: the Battle of Tumbleton.
We won’t spoil exactly what goes down at Tumbleton for those who haven’t read the book. But suffice it to say the battle serves as one of the deadliest and most defining confrontations of the Targaryen civil war, permanently shifting the balance of power as the Dance of Dragons careens toward its fiery end. Bloodshed, burnings, and betrayals await. Buckle up, Westeros!
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