Characters! Some are more difficult to write for than others. And of all the players in House Of The Dragon, none seems more difficult to devise compelling business for than Alicent Hightower. As Archmaester Gyldayn writes in Fire & Blood, the former queen of Westeros spent most of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s reign imprisoned yet defiant in the Red Keep—hardly a thrilling arc for HOTD’s co-lead, Olivia Cooke. So the show’s brain trust has concocted increasingly curious interpretations of Alicent’s “defiance”: reasoning with her ruling stepdaughter; chugging moon tea brewed to rid Helaena of the Targaryen growing in her belly; attempting to flee through Maegor’s tunnels; and, in perhaps her wildest errand yet, riding to Harrenhal to murder her son, Prince Aemond. Alicent’s journey this season has been, to put it charitably, a mess.
I’d blame limited imagination, but this week’s episode suggests the “dragon effect,” a thematically evocative yet convenient justification for ridiculous things like Alicent’s Harrenhal detour. Much is made this week of the corrosive effect of dragons—the profane bond between dragon and rider and the intoxicating power House Targaryen wields over the realm through them. It’s the governing idea of the hour and remains the show’s most compelling story thread: Dragons are fire made flesh, and fire burns indiscriminately. When Alicent stumbles out of Harrenhal, presumably to return to King’s Landing (alone? On foot? During a war?), she seems almost dazed by that influence. After all, it was Rhaenyra’s threats that put the poison into Aemond’s mulled wine, right?
Alys Rivers, the castle’s current steward of sorts, chose a most inconvenient moment to seduce Aemond. Her bit of spectral burlesque, grinding atop him in his mother’s likeness before he saw through her illusion, casts a demented shadow over Alicent’s visit with her baby boy this week—and threatens to derail Alys’ designs on him. Later, Aemond warns her to keep her “dark thoughts” about his mother to herself. Relationships are difficult enough without your new boyfriend’s mom dropping by unannounced.
Beyond the obvious effects of the blood of the dragon—the silver hair, an enthusiastic commitment to keeping the gene pool shallow—lies a rarer inheritance: foresight. Dark dragon dreams led the Targaryens away from the Doom of Valyria and foretold the Long Night, an apocalyptic future in which the Northern winds consume the world in permanent winter. This week, visions become an obsession for Rhaenyra. Turns out her stepsister and hostage Helaena has been sleeping through some particularly vivid ones.
And what do we see in Helaena’s dreams? For one, a pale gray mare, perhaps signifying plague and death, which Rhae glosses over heedlessly; the loss of Helaena’s baby by Rhaenyra’s command; images of the family—and chickens—that fate and Targaryen dysfunction deny her; and Helaena herself astride Dreamfyre, incinerating all who stand before her. That last image is striking; Helaena has always been reluctant to ride her dragon. “It’s too much,” she admits. More importantly, she knows that dragons change their riders, pointedly noting that Rhae now commands six. “Have you yourself not… altered?” she asks her queen. Rhaenyra, not one for serious self-reflection and emboldened by prophecies, responds with typical Targaryen aggression, grabbing her sister and demanding she reveal all.
Helaena mostly keeps mum, but what she does say echoes their father’s sentiments: that proximity to dragons can warp desire, even fate itself. He “didn’t want to be changed,” she reminds her sister. Take, for instance, Rhaena and Sheepstealer: Rhaena’s lack of a dragon made her feel lessened in a house of ambitious, bold dragonriders. Her desperation to fly brought Sheepstealer into her life and transformed her into a feral wraith haunting the Vale. Her sister Baela, by contrast, is uninterested in dragonfates and other ill tidings. “You will be born anew,” Baela assures her, after Rhaenyra flies Rhaena back to King’s Landing, offering the reason and grace so often in short supply in their house. Surely, there’s some advantage to being the sensible dragonrider. If there is, it will be put to the test now that she’s caught in a Velaryon bastard love triangle. But that’s a dilemma for future days.
Meanwhile, dragons. Without Vhagar, Aemond seems oddly content at Harrenhal, and Alys, exploiting the distance between rider and mount, seems determined to mount a dragon of her own. Even Mysaria’s closeness to Rhaenyra—one that grows by the day, as that scene in Rhae’s bedchambers reminds us—exerts its own distorting influence. Rhaenyra inadvertently perfumes Mysaria’s altruism with brimstone; she still believes she can reform the system from within, and wrapping the queen around her finger seems the surest way to do it. But as Sylvi (Michelle Bonnard) points out—quite obviously gesturing toward the throne room as they speak—what power does Misery actually have? “These people are not your own,” she warns. “You would do well to remember that.”
Then there’s Aegon, replenished by Sunfyre’s return. Previously, his exile was defined by doubt and despair, not aided in the least by Larys Strong. When the Mooten army marches onto their road to Essos, Aegon, Larys, and poor Tyland Lannister face yet another change of plans, with Larys suggesting that Tyland turn himself in to Rhaenyra. Aegon has a better idea. “Preserve your own [skins;] I shall run no more.” Tyland remains with his king, while Larys abruptly takes a powder. Thus ends this strange fellowship—a subplot laden with boot-kissing, bickering, and latrine duty that concludes with all the fanfare of a wet fart.
Yet it’s not all in vain. Aegon returns to Sunfyre’s presumed final resting place only to learn his suspicions were correct: The dragon lives, and the exiled king rejoices as the Mooten host melts before him. Aegon and Sunfyre have been burned by treachery yet remain very much alive. Their mutual resurrection offers a rare moment of harmony between dragon and dragonrider—that profane connection rearing its head again. At this moment, perhaps Aegon’s most defining moment, harmony looks like fire and madness.
The big question, however, is whether HOTD can turn this latest round of piece-setting into genuine tension for next week’s finale. After a blistering premiere, this season has shuffled its feet so much that its momentum and once-palpable dread feel distant, and it has worked around its adaptive shortcomings by taking the most salacious route available. The result is a series only too happy to bend its most interesting and ferocious characters to the needs of the plot to gin up stakes or, at least, stir the viewer from an imminent snooze. Take Corlys, Ormund’s newest hostage and deterrent against Driftmark’s forces marching to secure King’s Landing. Ormund overplays his hand with his new guest, badmouthing Rhaenys and her death (“that ended all too predictably”), and, when rebuffed, punishes the queen’s Hand by severing his finger. The only shock here is how transparently the show is straining for one.
Stray observations
- • The only person who hasn’t been much changed by dragons is Ulf. He much prefers the comfort of a decent ale and company to drink with. Ormund obliges him kindly, to the ruin of Rhaenyra’s defense.
- • The latest image in Helaena’s tapestry: a ship either arriving or departing.
- • “It’s as if I’ve been installed here as some sort of scapegoat!” Manderly complains to his queen, as Misery sips her wine.
- • Condal snuck a “nettles” reference in. The cheek!
- • Pressured to keep his secret, Daemon is forced to observe his princely courtesies, asking Lady Jeyne’s permission to find Rhaena with a “please” on top of it.
- • Maybe part of Daeron wants to embrace his forced-upon claim, after he said rather plainly last week to Gwayne that he knows he’ll never be king. Is he complaining to Gwayne about Ormund undermining this Hightower ruse—or Daeron’s rule?
- • “He gave himself to the dust.” Fitting epitaph for Ser Criston.
- • I try to ignore it, but the way everyone pauses just before saying each other’s names drives me nuts. Is this some kind of direction or production note? That everyone says their lines, pauses haltingly, then says the name of the person they’re addressing. Everyone does it!
- • I guess the dragontamers have made their peace with the likes of Sers Ulf, Hugh, and Addam flying dragons! Oh well, it was an interesting political wrinkle while it lasted.
- • Who offers a poisoned drink by saying, “I’ve brought you something”? Alicent sure ain’t no assassin.
- • Chucking that skull into the flames—it seems Rhaenyra is excited about that Ghost Rider news.
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