An enticing House Of The Dragon crowns Westeros’ new ruler
House Of The Dragon's penultimate episode also features an intriguing showdown between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenys
TV Reviews Elliott
Being in line for the throne doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the one with the most clout. Far from it, in fact, as the penultimate episode of House of the Dragon’s first season makes clear. Aegon is called to take over the throne, but he literally has to be dragged kicking and screaming to his duty; meanwhile, Rhaenys, the spurned party of Westeros’ last succession dispute, proves to be the true heavy hitter of the hour.
“The Green Council” is a tense chess game of an episode, kicking off the power vacuum that we knew was coming the moment Viserys breathed his last. It’s telling that Otto Hightower dubs the late king “Viserys the Peaceful” because the flip side of his near-bloodless 26-year reign is the brutal civil war that will follow. Moments after learning of the king’s death, Otto springs into action. He’s spurred on by Alicent’s news that her husband’s final words to her were that he wanted Aegon, and not Rhaenyra, to succeed him on the throne. This is a radical interpretation of the text, of course: In his milk of the poppy–addled haze, he mistook Alicent for Rhaenyra, telling her that he believed Aegon the Conqueror’s prophecy of the Prince That Was Promised was about her. Alicent filled in what she wanted to hear in the empty spaces between Viserys’ words—which were, to be fair, extremely confusing sans context.
Otto assembles the Small Council in the predawn hours. It’s chilling how quickly most of the members accept this change in the line of succession, less than a day after Viserys publicly reinforced his choice of Rhaenyra as heir. Turns out the Hand has been conspiring with Master of Ships Tyland Lannister, Master of Laws Jasper Wylde (Paul Kennedy), and Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) to put Operation Usurp the Throne into action, right under the noses of the rest of the council—including Alicent.
Otto and company coldly lay out their plan to crown Aegon, which includes the swift assassination of Rhaenyra, Daemon, and their children. Loyal old Lord Beesbury (Bill Paterson) calls shenanigans, raising the question of regicide, and Ser Criston “Casual Public Homicide” Cole brutally murders him—making him the first casualty of the coming war. When Otto orders Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish) to dispatch the princess and her family, the longtime Lord Commander promptly resigns. And so exit the two people who were arguably the only purely good men in the Red Keep, leaving the proverbial crows to feast on the king’s corpse.
Director Clare Kilner’s camera returns over and over to Olivia Cooke’s face as Alicent watches events unfold with increasing horror and revulsion. Gray as her morals have become over the years, her devotion to Viserys was never an act—and she won’t let Otto order the death of the daughter her husband so dearly loved. (And it’s clear that, despite all the rancor between them, Alicent loves Rhaenyra, too.)
The first volley in this war isn’t between the Greens and the Blacks; it’s Hightower versus Hightower, as the queen finally sees how ruthless her father really is. Later in the episode, she’ll tell him that he’s been using her as a pawn from the moment he sent her to “comfort” Viserys all those years ago. But she’s a player now—and their game begins when Prince Aegon, the dirtbag teen who’s got a date with the Iron Throne, goes AWOL.
They each send their lieutenants out into the city to search for the wayward prince: Alicent enlists Ser Criston and Aemond, arguably the two biggest sociopaths in the Red Keep. And Otto turns to…Okay, look. George R.R. Martin was definitely messing with us when he named the Cargyll brothers, identical twins who are both knights of the Kingsguard, “Erryk” and “Arryk.” And since House of the Dragon screeners don’t have subtitles, I can’t tell you which is which. So let’s go ahead and call them Cargyll 1 and Cargyll 2.
The race is on to find Aegon in increasingly unsavory corners of the city. Apparently, the prince’s tastes are too fucked-up for the mainstream brothels, but he is into watching 10-year-olds with filed-down teeth and sharpened nails fighting to the death for sport. Yikes. The only thing that makes Aegon less of a monster than GOT’s Joffrey Baratheon is that, as he later tells Aemond, he knows he’s too sadistic and stupid to rule the Seven Kingdoms.
The twins get a lead from a girl who serves “the White Worm,” aka Daemon’s old flame, Mysaria. She’s forged an intricate chain of connections at every echelon of King’s Landing society, from Flea Bottom to the Red Keep. One of her chief informants is Alicent’s handmaiden Talya (Alexis Rabin), whose inside info runs so deep that she’s the first to catch wind of Viserys’ death. In exchange for a fat bag of coins and vague promises to aid the peasants, Mysaria tells Otto where Aegon is secreted away.
The Cargylls find the prince hiding beneath the altar of the Grand Sept, drunk and desperate to escape his birthright. Alicent’s crew intercede and try to grab the prince for themselves, Aemond restraining his fleeing brother while Criston crosses swords with Cargyll 1. That’s when Cargyll 2 moonwalks away, realizing that he wants no part of this royal shitshow.
It’s the queen’s side that nabs Aegon in the end, meaning Alicent has finally gained the upper hand over Otto. She confronts her father and lays out her terms: The new king will be crowned first thing in the morning, Criston will be named the new Lord Commander, and terms will be sent to Rhaenyra rather than long knives. A thoroughly licked Otto tries to play dear old dad, telling his daughter that she looks like her mother in certain lights. Alicent rolling her eyes at this feeble gambit and leaving without another word is the second-most badass moment in the episode.
The first, of course, belongs to the legendary Princess Rhaenys herself. She’s still in King’s Landing following the debate over the future Lord of the Tides, and she wakes to find the door to her room locked. It’s hours before Alicent comes in, bearing news and an attempt to win Rhaenys to her side. The queen may have outwitted Otto, but he’s small potatoes compared to a master opponent like the Lady of Driftmark. Cooke and Eve Best deliver a verbal showdown that’s twice as thrilling as the Kingsguard swordfight. Alicent brings out all the old saws: Supporting Rhaenyra has left Rhaenys with two dead children, bastards for grandsons, and a grievously wounded husband. “We do not rule, but we may guide the men who do,” the queen finishes.
The Queen Who Never Was isn’t having it. If the Hightowers respect her so much, she posits, then why are she and her dragon both locked up? And then she drops a piece of wisdom that’s also a trap: Though Alicent has become a true player in the game (of thrones), everything she does is “in the service of men.” “You desire not to be free,” Rhaenys says, “but to make a window in the wall of your prison.” One more man will sap Alicent’s dwindling energy before the night is out: Creepy Larys Strong, who has sniffed out Mysaria’s informers in the castle, including Talya. He offers to take out the White Worm just as he did his father and brother. Then we see the price of Larys’ favors: Indulging his foot fetish. This is the second time we’ve seen Alicent forced to put up with a dude masturbating in front of her when she has better things to do; “in the service of men” indeed.
Rhaenys won’t be in her cage for long, because a fed-up Cargyll 2 comes to spirit her out of the castle in disguise. But it’s a rough time to take to the streets of King’s Landing, as the Gold Cloaks are rounding up the smallfolk like cattle to funnel them into Aegon’s coronation. It’s as grand a spectacle as the Hightowers (and House of the Dragon’s VFX team) can cook up, as thousands of bodies are packed into the Dragonpit to await Aegon’s arrival. The king-to-be is sulking in a carriage beside his mother, who’s doing her level best to prepare her son for what’s to come. The prince says he knows his father never wanted this; Viserys had two decades to make him his heir, but he never did. So why would he change his mind on his deathbed? You know that when Aegon friggin’ Targaryen is the most reasonable voice in the room, things have gone extremely pear-shaped.
Tom Glynn-Carney does a lot to humanize his loathsome character as he proceeds to the dais beneath a canopy of raised swords, tears shining in his eyes. He’s a monster, but he’s also a scared kid forced to step into a role for which he’s massively unqualified. Miraculously, the whole thing goes off without a hitch: The Septon anoints him, newly minted Lord Commander Criston places the crown on his head, and the crowd breaks out in cheers so seemingly sincere that Aegon smiles for the first time in days.
But then, in House of the Dragon’s most spectacular moment to date, the stone floor beneath the onlookers explodes. Surprise, motherfuckers! It’s Rhaenys, in full armor, astride her dragon, Meleys. As Meleys’ gaze lands on the royal family, Alicent shields the just-crowned King Aegon II with her own body. The queen squeezes her eyes shut as she prepares to be incinerated, but the red dragon only roars—a display of both might and mercy. Fixing the queen with a stare that speaks volumes, Rhaenys wheels Meleys around and shoots off into the sky. Talk about a power move.
Stray observations
- “The Green Council” is the first HOTD installment without Rhaenyra or Daemon, and it drastically changes the energy of the episode. But considering next week’s season finale is called “The Black Queen,” they’ll certainly come roaring back.
- Early in the episode, Helaena repeats one of her cryptic statements: “Beware the beast beneath the boards.” Looks like our new queen consort is a prophetess.
- • Speaking of Helaena, she has her first one-on-one scene with Alicent this week, and they couldn’t look less like mother and daughter. That’s probably because the actors who play them, Cooke and Phia Saban, are only four years apart in age.
- One of Otto’s first moves after Viserys’ death is to make the lords and ladies of the Red Keep bend the knee to Aegon. The two holdouts are swiftly carted away by the guards, while the third, Rhaenyra’s faithful Lord Caswell (Paul Hickey), reluctantly kneels. He’ll later make a bid to escape to warn the princess, winding up at the end of a noose for his troubles.
- While twin brothers Jason and Tyland Lannister are played by the same actor (Jefferson Hall), Erryk and Arryk Cargyle are played by real-life twins Elliott and Luke Tittensor.
- Like most second sons, Aemond has a major chip on his shoulder. The prince tells Criston that he’d make a much better king than Aegon because, unlike his big bro, he’s hardworking, cunning, and deadly. It doesn’t hurt that he rides the largest dragon in the world. He’s right, but it begs the question: Is it worse to have a cruel, incompetent king, or a cruel, competent one?
- The Thrones-verse doesn’t often pay attention to the smallfolk, so it’s fascinating to watch Mysaria bring up class in her negotiations with Otto. She asks him to stop the barbaric child-fighting rings in Flea Bottom, which are allowed to thrive because the Gold Cloaks turn a blind eye. She also reminds the Hand that she could have easily killed Aegon rather than helping him. “There is no power but what the people allow you to take,” she warns.
- Alicent knew exactly what she was doing when she named her firstborn after Aegon the Conqueror. To further drive home the connection, she gives her son his namesake’s longsword, Blackfyre; his ancient iron crown, and that fateful Valyrian steel dagger.
- The massive building that Meleys blows a hole through is the same spot where, centuries later, the Great Council of 305 AC will gather to name Bran Stark Lord of the Six Kingdoms. By then, it’s a roofless ruin.
- In an example of art accidentally imitating life, King Aegon II’s hasty coronation is a strange echo of King Charles III’s ascension ceremony last month. No dragons showed up at St. James’s Palace, though.
- Look out for The A.V. Club’s interview with episode director Clare Kilner on Monday.
266 Comments
Larys being a foot fetishist is a little too on the nose, isn’t it? You don’t need to be Freud to figure that one out.
Right?! I don’t know what they’re doing with Laryss, but whether he’s 100% faithful to his depiction in the book or this is a new characterization for tv, it’s all kinds of wrong and frankly it’s hackneyed.
The “creepy/scary disabled person” trope is so dated it has more cobwebs on it than Viserys’ Old Valyria model. What’s most baffling is that GOT did so much to subvert this cliché with characters like Tyrion, Varys, Bran Stark (pre-3 Eyed Raven), and Hodor. Then HOTD goes and reinforces it with concrete.
Not really. When you consider the source material AND the show, they really didn’t. Bran being crippled leads to the loss of his humanity- this is the guy that told his own sister how “beautiful” she looked when she was raped by a sadist. In the books, he’s eating Jojen paste. That loss of humanity in Bran is what DIRECTLY CAUSES Hodor’s loss of faculties throughout nearly his entire life- a loss that occurred because the kid he’s sworn fealty to showed him his own grisly death. Tyrion- especially in the books- lives up to the “ugly, conniving dwarf” stereotype. Varys in the books orchestrates children stabbing Pycelle while he looks on in approval. Fire and Blood is partially recounted by a Dwarven fool, and Patches was very much in the ASOIAF lore with Shireen and Stannis.Larys DIDN’T go all foot fetish in the book, which is the outlier here, not some perceived “subversion” of disabled tropes.
The show really seems to want us to think he’s a sicko because he’s disabled and a foot fetishist, not because he’s a family-incinerating pyromaniac mass murderer.
You really think they were in the writers room and insisted that there was a close-up on his foot to remind the viewers that he’s disabled because they think it will reinforce to the viewers that he’s a weirdo?
Yes, because all torturers, murderers, manipulators, and committers of familicide should be fully-abled people, so as not to offend.
So you think they were in the writers room and thought to themselves if we show his foot they’ll really think he’s creepy. Everything about him has been creepy since he showed up and it has nothing to do with his foot. Maybe they’re trying to remind you that just because somebody can’t physically fight, kill or take part in war doesn’t mean they can’t play their part and have a great impact on the outcome.
We needed a few more shots of his club foot to really understand it, so I’m still confused.
I think he’s faking. “The Prestige” style…
He really overpaid when you think about it. He’s got all the hot gossip. Vital information and all he asks for is just to look at them before a rub? That info is at least worth asking her to drizzle them in oil or rub them with feathers
“And now my lady… p-please – if you would be so kind – s-slip your royal f-f-feet into these c-c-c- c-ca – c-c – forgive me – these c-c-c (ulp) these c-c-cuh… Crocs. Ohmigod yes. In they go. Ohmigod. Gah-ahrrrl (drools).”
I am really interested in the conversation the two of them had that started all of this.
Larys C.K.
I believe in Westeros they’re lizard-lion-shoes
Wouldn’t that be underpaid? Up until that scene I thought he had a thing for her not her feet or just feet. It’s just lazy and problematic.
There are certain days when you need a laugh. You have provided such a thing , take your damn star.
If you wanna wank at the Queens feet….there really is no other way. What else are you gonna do? Give her a sack of coin with her own face on it? She’s the friggin Queen!
My friends and I died laughing at that part. It was so absurd.
Honestly, it was one of the least weird things this show has done. “Oh, he has a foot fetish, and jerking it while Ali sits there is how he gets off? Okay, sure, at least he’s not marrying/fucking his sister or something.”
yeah, a foot fetish is quite wholesome in the context of this show.
Right like as far as fetishes go a foot fetish is pretty darn tame, I mean nothing wrong with taking care of your feet, but medieval feet ummm hard pass. Like you know those things were like hooves back then LOL.
She’s a queen though, not much walking around needed and lots of handmaidens to pamper her. And no high heels in this universe. Her feet would be glorious, if you’re into that kind of thing…
lol maybe so, and hey whatever floats your boat. As I said as far as fetishes go that’s on the tame side, at least he didn’t want her to drop a deuce on his chest LOL.
Yeah, I think they wanted to give Alicent an entanglement to Larys that isn’t a Cersei-like “she’s screwing him in return for his spy/assassination services” (which would make her a huge hypocrite given her religiosity and how she reacted to Rhaenyra having sex out of wedlock) but would still be intimate and shameful enough to awaken Criston Cole’s ire if he ever found out (just guessing—I haven’t read the books, but Alicent’s two top murder lieutenants seem on a collision course). The foot fetish, in the form shown here, is a no-contact kink that accomplishes that goal.Still, making the guy with a deformed foot a foot fetishist is a tough look.
My eyes rolled around like a tumble dryer. Oh come on now, are the writers going for a repulsive cliché bingo?
He wants the Queen’s toes. The heart wants what it wants. You saw him masturbating to her feet.
Whether it was intentional or not, I had no idea what was going to happen at that coronation. Was Alicent going to take Rahneys’ woman empowerment talk and crown herself, was Aegon going to stab himself with the dagger, was Aemond going to pull a fast one…..and then damn! It went without a hitch!ENTER THE DRAGON That was seriously badass. Did not see it coming even with the beast beneath the floor comment as I thought it meant the commoners of Westeros. Also who knew Larys was such a fan of Tarantino?
I’d forgotten about the “beneath the floor” comment, or whatever, but I still guessed it was going to happen exactly as it did. I was hoping I was wrong, because I was like, “surely they won’t have Rhaenys kill a bunch of innocent civilians.” *sigh*
Royals aren’t your friends lol they basically have no reason to give the peasants any regards, in case you haven’t been paying attention.
Yes, and here in the 21st century when you want characters to be sympathetic to the audience, you don’t have them murder innocent peasants. I liked Rhaenys a lot, and now I like her a lot less, because apparently she’s the kind of person who will casually murder peasants. (Although it’s more that I like the writers a lot less, because this is almost certainly a one-off thing that won’t be repeated.)
Playing Devil’s Advocate a little here, but she is still a member of a royal family on a Game of Thrones spin-off. She might have fine speeches and noble moments at times, but a certain level of callous twattishness and willingness to accept collateral damage from the little people in service of her goals isn’t to be entirely unexpected.
Sure, and that’s fine, insofar as if you make a show where the guiding principle is “all the characters are selfish elitist twats” then it’s entirely consistent to have them continually act like selfish elitist twats. I’m just finding that I don’t really like watching a bunch of selfish elitist twats, especially since most of them aren’t very interesting. Contrast with, like, Succession, a show about selfish elitist twats who are fun and interesting to watch.
Epic pearl clutching. Great job!
Yeah, I don’t think you know what that term means.
Yeah I do. You’re literary projectioning your expectations of the show and it’s writers and holding those projected expectations against them.
Even if I was doing that (which I’m not), that’s still not pearl-clutching.
It would’ve made more sense to have them bust through the floor from behind the dais, take out a couple of ancillary Kingsguard perhaps. That would also help Rhaenys’ decision make more sense. I feel like she should’ve/would’ve roasted the whole dais. But if it’s turned around and there are thousands of smallfolk right behind your target….
I was on one of that same thought processes.
I was really thinking as much as he was adamant he didn’t want to be king that he would end up slitting his own throat with the dagger in front of everyone or something weird along those lines, maybe slit his wrists but not bleed out so he still ends up being king just even more screwed in the head than before.
I totally thought/hoped Aegon was going to slit his own throat with that dagger.
The scene between Larys and Alicent was easily the hardest thing to watch all season.
I’ll take that scene 100x before having to watch the Ceserean section from the first episode again.
Larys and Alicent or The A-Train and Popclaw.Which would you rather watch if you were forced to pick one?
I thankfully forgot the A-Train and Popclaw scene, so probably that one.
“Hard” meaning “difficult”, I assume? Because your statement can be interpreted different ways.
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Claire Kilner has been a fantastic addition to the directing staff. She used music very well to build tension this episode. It was definitely a thriller.
Well here’s to hoping the second season is better than this one. Woof.
Hey, there’s still one more episode left for them to continue to make baffling decisions.
I’ve enjoyed it.
And yet you have so little going on in your life that you choose to still watch it.
Not quite, but nice try!
Well, here you are, commenting on a show you hate. Either you watch it and hate, in which case you waste your time continuing to watch or you don’t watch it but feel the need to comment. Either way is very sad.
Your story has better structure and pacing than this show’s. You should be on the writing team!
Eve Best is such a wonderful actress and while she’s been great all season, I’ve been praying for her to have a pre-Rook’s Rest badass moment and BAM there it was.The pacing (and the “Long Night” lighting) haven’t been even, but the cast is absolutely stellar in a way I didn’t feel about the original GOT cast- hopefully there’s a SAG in their future.
Yeah, about that pacing. This episode should have buzzed as it involved machinations, arrests, executions, scheming, ten year old gladiator fights- but it didn’t. Other than the last scene, it wasn’t even really tense.
That’s why I particularly liked episodes 3, 4, 7, and last week’s episode. So far, they’ve been the better examples of pacing when the show slows down when it needs to. Particularly, Laena’s funeral party and everything after it was perfect- it really captured the awkwardness of this dysfunctional family being forced into existing civilly in a small space.Agreed, “let’s find Aegon” REALLY didn’t need an entire episode and as it dragged on, the tension just leaked out of it. Granted, this seems like it was written to be Olivia’s “Emmy” episode and everything outisde it except the ending seemed to suffer for it. Next week is very obviously the Matt and Emma show, and I have a little more confidence that episode will be better paced.
The chase in which everyone was looking for Aegon reflects other issues in the show in which the stakes weren’t laid out for us so there wasn’t much tension.
I think the challenge is that, with Rhaenyra out of King’s Landing, there’s simply no real urgency. The Greens have days to plot and prepare and do what they want to assure Aegon’s succession before Rhaenyra even learns of her father’s death, let alone rallies people to her cause. If there were two parallel plots hatching simultaneously, it would have been tense.
Or, they should have had more than a few people point out how crazy Alicent’s story was or how Aegon is clearly not meant to be the king. There should have been more debates and the conflict come from that. There was tension already baked into the plot but for whatever reason, they didn’t do anything with it.
Best is a great actor. I’ve been a big fan since she did that excellent Honourable Woman miniseries back in 2014.
So Mysaria’s dead, right? It seems like there’s very little wiggle room for interpretation with that (what… nameless brothel? God I feel like GOT did a better job of making recognizable landmarks in King’s Landing outside of the Red Keep) building up in flames. You can add her to the growing corpse pile of other characters that haven’t been built up enough so their deaths don’t have a proper impact along with Lord Beesbury, Vaemond Velaryon, Laenor’s boyfriend, Lady Rhea Royce, and The Crabfeeder.
I have no doubt that the show will introduce dozens of new side characters in season 2, but if we don’t spend time getting to know them as people, then their inevitable death will mean nothing while we continue to focus on the same 4-6 people. This insularity is a real problem for building tension.
Yeah, but a DRAGON BLEW THROUGH THE FLOOR DUDE EPICCCCCCCCC
Who needs character development, amirite?
Lol, it does seem like that’s a discussion that’s gone on in the writer’s room at points.
Fair’s fair to them though, Princess Rhaenys has been a steadily-growing force throughout the season and this was a high point. You never can tell which way she’s thinking (I can’t be the only one who got the feeling that, in the debate for the Driftwood Throne, she pivoted her allegiance on a dime at the moment of Viserys’ entrance).
She’s got some serious chaotic neutral energy (am I interpreting Alignment correctly?) and crashing the crowning ceremony and NOT charbroiling the Hightowers was a masterful look at the way her mind works.
I wonder if Rhaenys is still eyeing the throne for herself, so ending the war by roasting everyone isn’t the end goal she’s hoping for, as that would just mean Rhaenyra gets the throne.
No, I think she’s fine. The fire in the brothel was very clearly CGI, so there were likely few if any injuries.
I doubt very much she’s dead.They went out of their way to NOT show she was definitely in that building.We’re going to find out in season 2 that she got intel from one of her birds that there was a plot to kill her and she left a doppelganger to fool them into thinking it was her.
I hope that further down the line there will be a showdown between Mysaria and Larys, who are competing for ruling the spy world of Kings Landing. He’ll blackmail her into doing that foot thing with her, she complies but only to karate-chop off his d*ck with her feet in the moment he’s about to come. He’s then eaten alive by the kids with the filed teeth from this episode.
It feels to me that that’s what they’re building up to.The two “masters of information” and subterfuge in the Kingdom going head-to-head against each other.Evne HBO wouldn’t waste a plot line like that.Yeah, Myseria’s not dead.This is a show that will go out of its way to let you know a person is dead DEAD even if you have to watch their head getting sliced in half and have their tongue flapping about as the end result.We saw no body. (…..even with the Strongs, they made a deliberate point to show their burned corpses being carted out of Harrenhall)She ain’t dead.
So Mysaria’s dead, right? She’s not so dumb to as spend her time in a place where she could be caught unprepared. The White Worm lives until you can actually see a corpse.
Was that what the burning building implied? If so holy shit that’s lame.
I honestly don’t know if that was Mysaria’s brothel or the child-fighting arena. This is what I mean about GOT doing a better job of establishing landmarks. I just assume it was her place because fire is kind of Larys’ calling card… he might want to change it up, you don’t need to be Detective Ned Stark to notice a pattern.
Not to mention they introduce the ‘child fighting ring’ mere minutes before it’s considered a plot point. Status quo for this show and its story progression.
It was probably the fighting pit since she said it has to go away. But that was so poorly communicated.
Royal Guard, “As promised, we burned the child-fighting arena.”
Mysaria, “And you got the children out safely?”
Royal Guard, ”As promised, we burned the child-fighting arena.”
Even I could write that scene better. You just add a scene in another brothel where a couple of naked whores are talking about current events then a naked contortionist comes in and mentions that they are now the top brothel in town after the former was burnt down by ole clubby.
From what I’ve read she still has important parts to play so idk what’s going on. I’m glad you picked up on that being her brothel. I thought it was Rhaenys chambers just because she was running away when they showed but I really had no idea whose place was burning
The white worm is just getting started.
I was thinking that there’s no way Otto would not have had Mysaria killed.::shrugs::
I love that you’re still recapping a dead show.
Agreed, I’m confused about all the Rings of Power, Walking Dead and She-Hulk reviews as well.
After giving it much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that Ser Criston might have an anger issue.
Is it anger issues or just disappointment that Rhaenyra didn’t realize such a hot catch he really was. /s incase anyone needed to know.
I mean… yes that chip he’s been carrying on his epaulets does spring from Rhaenyra not making him her exclusive, but I doubt that specific slight what is what motivated him power bomb an octogenarian’s skull into the council table.
90% of his problem is simply being a world-class asshole with no consequences.
Sir Criston really is taking #niceguy a little too far though.
#sliceguy
I mean, he is hot. I don’t know if in-universe he is supposed to be super hot, but the actor definitely is. Character has developed a shit personality though.
When he was a kid they all called him “Ser Slaw” and he never got over it
Kids can be cruel.
Man they really amped up the I’m an asshole characteristic from the book. He mades Dameon seem reasonable.
Ser Incelot is still mad cause a girl dumped him like 20 years ago.
This was a really tense episode, but I had two huge issues with it. First, the this show seems determined to make Alicent sympathetic … which makes her come off as come off as wishy-washy and dumb. Watching her flip-flop from taking the hardest lines possible against Rhaenrya to all of a sudden, wanting to usurp the throne … but bloodlessly … it is just taking me out of the story. There was a very clear arc this character could have taken where she starts off not wanting to usurp the throne, but Otto convinces her that the succession crisis is inevitable, and she accepts that she’ll have to do ugly things to survive … and then she just goes and does those things, spurned on by a bit of personal resentment for Rhaenrya who has gotten away with flouting the traditions and norms Alicent was bound too. The episode ends with Rhaenys killing dozens of innocent people, but NOT killing Alicent and her kids when she had the chance. She could have ended the war right then. I can swallow leaps in logic for a cool scene … but that wasn’t one I could stomach.
The episode ends with Rhaenys killing dozens of innocent peopleI was rolling my eyes at this dumb show that wants us to be like “Yeah, Mysaria’s right — the kiddie fight club is terrible; the royals should look after the smallfolk!” and then immediately pivot to “Whoaaaa, badass dragon bursting up through the floor, maiming and killing everyone except the people who absolutely need maiming and killing! #bossbabe”
Whoa… it’s almost like the thing Mysaria said was then reinforced by Rhaenys‘ actions. I wish this show wasn’t soooo subtle otherwise this would all be clear!
Yeah, you’re absolutely right: it was shot from start to finish as something horrifying; there totally wasn’t a hero pose for Rhaenys at the end, thus demonstrating the show’s own incoherence vis-à-vis the point it was trying to make earlier. Reading and responding to what was actually written is hard 🙁
>a hero pose for Rhaenys at the endSo what you’re saying is… the thing Mysaria said was then reinforced by Rhaenys‘ actions? Damn this show is next level!!
>a hero pose for Rhaenys at the endSo what you’re saying is… the thing Mysaria said was then reinforced by Rhaenys‘ actions? Damn this show is next level!!
Yeah this whole scene struck me as really weird also. But I suppose it is useful to remember that Mysaria is of a lower caste so it makes sense for her to care about the little people. While the show forces us into vacillating rooting interests between the main characters, they are mostly entitled monarchs who care little for the common people they rule over, for the most part. I’m not sure that the showrunners were actually trying to drive home the theme of little people getting literally stomped beneath the conflict of uncaring lords (they probably cared more about showing some cool spectacle) but even though we may be manipulated into rooting for Rhaenys, she probably doesn’t care that she killed a bunch of commoners.
I’m not sure that the showrunners were actually trying to drive home the theme of little people getting literally stomped beneath the conflict of uncaring lords (they probably cared more about showing some cool spectacle)Yeah, that’s what I was getting at: the writing on the show is often not good, and it’s incredibly stupid to me that they would take the time to highlight Mysaria’s (valid!) points, while also sacrificing the smallfolk for the standard “cool GoT moment”, so if they intended the Rhaenys scene as an extension of that (doubtful, in how it was staged), then they’re trying to eat their cake and have it, too.
You’re projecting.
I think that’s your interpretation, not the show’s. Rhaenys was just demonstrating that she’s the same character from episode one, rolling her eyes at the senseless slaughter during the tournament and doing nothing to stop it. The small folk mean very little to her. Par for the course for her.
The show is very much taking a Dany track with Rhaenyra – she’ll be remembered horribly in the future by people who didn’t see the villain origin story in real time. That natural comparison doesn’t exist for Alicent but her real-time story needs to have similar beats too to make the point.
I understand why they’re giving Alicent more shading and I think the actress did a good job of showing her dislike of the cynical maneuverings of her husband but it’s a little unclear as to what her motivations are or what sort of world she is envisioning. I also kind of wished she would at least acknowledge that her son shows no makings of being a good ruler or at least discuss that as almost every other character did
Writing Alicent this way makes no sense when I think of stuff like the whole “You are the challenge!” scene with her and Aegon.Alicent has already been characterized as someone who gets that this conflict has to end with either Rhaenrya or Aegon dead, and it feels ridiculous for her to be all “What about Rhaenrya? We can’t hurt Rhaenyra? Her dad would be sad.” When for years she’d been making moves that must logically end in Rhaenyra’s death. Once she put a crown on Aegon’s head, she was sentencing Rhaenyra to die.But I refuse to believe she’s that dumb, so it just looks like the writers are scared of making her look unsympathetic even if it might be what the plot demands to be coherent.They were okay with Rhaenys murdering a whole bunch of innocent people, they could have been okay with Alicent committing to the implications of crowning Aegon.
literally none of this show makes sense unless alicent was in love with rhaenyra growing up lol, it’s very annoying that they teased this in the first couple episodes but did not flesh out their relationship (even a non-romantic one) at all
It’s been pretty wishy-washy. But to the show’s credit, her outlook did seem to change a bit after she got the apology/toast/whatever that was from Rhaenyra at the dinner with Viserys. Now I still think it hasn’t been written well, but there is a tiny kernel of something they can point at to explain the change in demeanor.
I can sort of accept that Alicent was possibly swinging towards deescalation after the apology toast … but she also usurps Rhaenyra a few minutes later using the flimsy ramblings of Viserys as her pretext. The only logical way I can interpret that is “She’s using an excuse she can to seize power” but the show’s tone seems to want me to believe it was some kind of tragic misunderstanding, which is stupid.I refuse to believe Alicent is this stupid so I’m pulled out the narrative with the knowledge that the writer’s are trying to engineer sympathy for a character who must do ugly things for the story to happen
I would agree with you but the whole point of the banquet in the previous episode was that it showed that Alicent and Rhaenyra still had a bond after all these years. If that scene wouldn’t have happened, then Alicent’s sympathy would have made no sense.
Part of the issue is that the series is setting up a conflict that is going to last presumably for several seasons. A simple battle of good vs. evil could get a little boring, plus if Alicent is positioned as being a monster that would encourage everyone to overlook a ton of bad behavior from Daemon/Rhaenyra. But also, people can be complex. Alicent ultimately knows what she has to do, but she does have some lingering affection for Rhaenyra. So she’s trying to have it both ways – telling herself she is obeying Viserys’ true wishes and protecting her family, and that she isn’t a bad person, while setting up Rhaenyra’s family to be wiped out. It’s kind of the same thing she did with Larys – asking him to take care of a problem but then acting shocked when he killed his father and brother. And in this she’s kind of repeating Viserys’ mistakes – causing a lot of chaos, uncertainty and suffering for her people due to indecision. It’s a familiar lesson from GOT – good guys and honor are doomed to fail in this world.
The arc for her doesn’t have to be “Alicent is a monster” but “the reality of court politics have brought her to this point.”She can take a regretful “this is what has to be done” position towards the violence she’s doing to Rhaenrya that’s not mustache twirling, but also not as eye-rolling from a writing perspective than the high-road they try to have her take in this episode with stuff like trying to spare Rhaenrya and not being aware of the stuff the Green faction was obviously doing on her behalf.We can have her not actually want to kill Rhaenyra but remain realistic about that being the inevitable outcome of putting a crown on Aegon’s head. Making her stupid does not make me like her more.
Honestly, Cersei’s best moments were her acknowledgements of how terrible Joffrey was.
That’s exactly what I was thinking about. Also how Tywin refused to believe it because it would get in the way of his plans.
I think what they’re going for is that Alicent has spent decades believing that if Rhaenyra ever becomes queen, Alicent and her children will be executed. So, as a matter of survival, she must make sure that doesn’t happen. If Aegon becomes king, the threat goes away, she gets to live out her days as the queen mother. The governance of the realm is a distant concern to ensuring the safety of her kids, which is understandable.But even with full awareness of the stakes, she doesn’t quite have the stomach for indiscriminate slaughter. Alicent would have preferred for Rhaenyra to die in childbirth, or for her to be disinherited for having bastard children, or for Viserys to change his mind and name Aegon as his heir, or any of another bloodless eventualities.So when Viserys *finally* dies without any of those other things happening — and there was some hope of that, right up until his death — Alicent finds herself in a strong position, but one where she actually has to order the executions of her step-daughter and her children as a matter of survival.They’ve tried to show the difference between kinda sorta planning to do something for decades, and then finally having to do it.
I can definitely see that but I’m not quite sure that character work is there. She’s portrayed as not being that savvy or steely but a bit passive
I just can’t buy this, if anything until this point, coming to embrace that peace isn’t an option has been her entire character arc. Alicent has been “realistic” about the coming war while others have naively believed that a peaceful succession is possible. Alicent was blood-for-blood a couple episodes ago over a fight her own bratty kids had begun, and now it feels like the writer’s have stopped short of the logical conclusion of her character arc because they are scared she’ll be unlikable. She’d be a more interesting character if the show just let her be a villain. They been setting up effective survivalist motivations for her mechanizations and as well as personal resentment for the rule flouting Rhaenyra who was obviously favored by her father at the cost of the political stability of the entire kingdom
I do think the dinner also played an important role, reminding both women of the good relationship they used to have. However, their children have clearly been raised to hate or at least resent each other since birth (which very much includes resentment between Alicent’s own children) and any peace the two mothers could ever broker has no chance of lasting.Also, I am not a book person but have been wondering if part of why the actor playing Aemond looks so much older than the one playing Aegon is that Aegon is going to get wiped out fairly quickly while Aemond is going to remain on the series for years, making it important to cast someone who can play an adult. It’s kind of fun not knowing what’s going to happen this time around as I was definitely a book person for GOT!
*cynical manoeuvrings of her father
I hope we’ll get to see Rhaenys’ explanation next week. Perhaps she thinks there is a possibility of a peaceful compromise. After all, she was in the same position when she was the named heir, and she was able to survive and carve out a good life for herself.
Im still trying to figure out what was up with that Cristin Cole and that twin fight. It was poorly set up.
Yeah why did the other one just watch? To save VFX money or something? Even if he was the one who didn’t want Aegon crowned was he hoping Cole and his brother would kill each other and then he could kill both the blonde kids? Or was it for Cole’s plot armor? You could have sent him of screen for some reason.
Shades of the Dorne episode of which no one dares speak.
I think Alicent’s arc is great. Her core humanity is what separates her from just being Cersei 2.0
I kind of thought Alicent’s wishy-washy tendencies were intentional. She’d spent the last twenty years or so married to one of the most conflict averse kings to ever sit the iron throne so it makes a little sense some of that would rub off on her.
Makes more sense than Larys doing it.
Your last paragraph: That’s all I was thinking. She could have killed them all right then and there. She *should* have killed them all. But she didn’t. I mean, it’s not much a show if she does, but it’s an awfully big plot hole.
It feels like they’re really working overtime to try and make people sympathize more with Alicent.
I’m sure it was more like hundreds but maybe the point of the scene is to justify the decision not to let Rhaenys be queen because she couldn’t make the tough decisions.
I’m struck by how linear and predictable this first season has gone. I haven’t read the books, but one of the GoT show’s big selling points was how often it would pull the rug out from under the audience and you’d be left wondering WTF happens now at the end of an episode. This show set up competing claims to the throne in episode two, we spent seven episodes slow-walking to the point where that was relevant, and then the less developed faction appears to have won the kingship for a character who’s had maybe two dozen lines all season. Rhaenys could have literally and metaphorically flipped the table over in a couple of ways, but instead she just sort of walked out, leaving us with a conflict that has an apparently obvious loser already. Have a dragon fly in, break some furniture, and leave feels like a parody of Ned Stark’s death or the Red Wedding.
I had an issue with a dragon that seems to fill a room of that size somehow easily flapping out a comparatively narrow doorway.
Look, I understand the need for cool dragon moments whenever you can get them, but the Rhaenys scene at the end of the episode is just nonsensical. She has the power to end the war in an instant, and she just… Doesn’t? The Greens are apparently worthy of her mercy, but the hundreds of smallfolk she murdered in her escape are not? Rhaenys better be about to beg Rhaenyra to surrender unilaterally, because the blood of every single casualty from here on out is on Rhaenys’ hands.
Let’s be honest: the smallfolk have never mattered. Not now, not 200 years from now. They’re always treated as kindling because the dramas of the royalty or the landed gentry are just SO much more important.
One does a lot of sympathy in any sort of power play when making a big statement for some sort of peace, you kill dozens of peasants along the way
I agree. That scene was terrible and misguided
Maybe she doesn’t want an end to conflict. War could benefit her.
One must watch next episode.
The Foot Fetish bit cracked me up pretty hard. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t quite realize what was going on for certain until near the end of it (and then of course him jerking off to it was the dead giveaway). I guess they thought it needed a bit of extra levity in the middle of it, given how tense the episode was. I loved that bit with the brothel lady, who all but snarked, “Nice disguise, guys – good to see you again, Prince Aemond”. The ending was really good. You can read multiple reasons into it, but for me at least it was about Alicent – about Rhaenys being grateful to Alicent for not having her killed or being as cruel as her father wanted to act, for saying that she should have had the Throne, and empathy for her now being on the Throne where she never could be (also dislike for Rhaenyra, which is obvious with Rhaenys even if she supports Rhaenyra because of her grand-daughters).
Had to scroll way too far for a decent take on this episode. Didn’t know that we were allowed to have those.
I was worried about Alicent’s characterization (particularly with episode 7), but I have to say I am pleased with what the writer’s and/or Olivia Cooke have done with her. I’m not saying I think she’s right/justified/blameless, but one thing that has to be said is that she isn’t a flat, one-note villain. That descriptor rightfully belongs to Larys Strong.For decades her meekness has allowed her to be led up and down the garden path by the machinations of men like her father, and all that strolling has created a trench that she can’t quite navigate out of; that’s why she’s so prepared to interpret Viserys’ contextless words as meaning her son should reign, despite the contrary nature of it all. But to see her be the only person in the room concerned for Rhaenyra… it honestly made me happy. She isn’t the same little girl we were introduced to at the beginning of the show, but there’s still traces of her. Maybe it was just the thrill of seeing her stand up to Otto. Last thought: I have to wonder what Alicent’s mother was really like. Was Alicent’s father just trying to to desperately win over some pity points as Jenna implies, or did the late Lady Hightower have an understated powerful streak that attracted a man like Otto to her?
How many lives could have been spared if Rhaenys had just uttered the words “Dracarys.” Alas…
She didn’t want to be a kinslayer. Only awful, depraved people choose to be a kinslayer. 😉
How many more lives could have been spared if she decided not to crush a bunch of innocent peasants and chose the front door instead?
That has to be the best ‘screw you guys, I’m going home’ scene ever.
I haven’t seen this brought up before, so now’s as good a time as any: how do Viserys and Alicent have such shit children? Not Helaena, she’s fine, but really now, Aegon and Aemond are almost cartoonishly abhorrent. Where does it come from?
Rhaenyra’s alright (shortsighted for most of her life I’ll grant you, but still I’d argue fundamentally good-ish), so Viserys can’t be all bad as a father. Or are you going to try and argue all of Rhaenyra’s good qualities come exclusively from Aemma?As for Alicent, I get that she was unprepared to be a mother, she was a teenager for God’s sake. That scene with Emily Carey of Alicent looking dead-eyed while rocking a screaming infant as the camera slowly pans in was effectively harrowing. But past that, when it actually came to raising the children, I don’t fully buy that she would be a bad mother. Wouldn’t she have made up for the lack of love her father afforded her growing up by pouring it onto her children? She was certainly doting and concerned for Aemond’s treatment. And while she clearly didn’t understand Helaena (whose condition is reminiscent of a child on the spectrum) she made the effort to spend time with and foster her daughter’s interests. She put too much pressure on Aegon with the “you’re the heir meant to rule” stuff, but does that really explain his or his brothers’ psychopathy? It all seems forced and arbitrary.Aegon says Viserys didn’t like him. Did we ever get one scene of Viserys interacting with his children before that final dinner? He wanted sons his whole life and finally got them… and never spent time with them? For all his interest in Targaryen dreamers, wouldn’t he have been the only one to recognize Helaena’s prophesying? I get how the toxic union of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister could’ve produced a monster like Joffrey, but this seems like a writer’s convenience.
The show seems to be implying that the kids spent a lot of quality time with Ser Criston Cole, which admittedly would fuck up almost anyone.
>>>>”I haven’t seen this brought up before, so now’s as good a time as any: how do Viserys and Alicent have such shit children? Not Helaena, she’s fine, but really now, Aegon and Aemond are almost cartoonishly abhorrent. Where does it come from?”I thought it was a point of the books that the TArgaryans are generally a shitty bloodline that produces generally shitty people, and on the odd generation or two they’ll produce a good Targaryan (like Viserys and Rhanerya), but that generally that coin usually flips on the “asshole” side to borrow a phrase from Varys.It might not have anything (or that much, really) to do with how they were brought up.Besides which, another side-point of this show so far has been that Alicent, seems not to be that great of a mother. She may have a good heart herself and possibly even be a good person, but when it comes to mothering she sucks at the job.Her son has been raping the staff and underlings, she knows this has been happening, and yet her solution is to pay them off and ensure there are no bastard babies born.That’s godawful parenting, if you ask me.
And yet, Aegon has still managed to sire countless bastards in the slums. Remember the slum kid with white hair, that the twins observed in the child fighting pit?
Which means she (Alicent) even sucks at being a sucky mother.
It’s a problem with translating a book that has the element of parable to the screen, where things necessarily need to be more literalized. Maybe we’re supposed to see Viserys as the fluke? We can’t forget that Daemon is his brother after all. But yeah, the boys’ unpleasantness doesn’t seem connected to the Targaryen coin toss do mostly they’re just terrible because the story needs them to be.
Isn’t weird how both HoTD and Lot prequels are loosely based on functional history books rather than novels? Gives the writers tons of creative interpretation. It’s why all the Tolkien nerds where mostly wrong about their predictions, and now hate that show for it. Still tons of white racists nerds unhappy about POC depiction in both shows to go round. Sorry if I got off topic
The problem with race in HOTD is that we’re watching a show about incest, which really does more or less lock the story into a limited racial profiling for certain plots to work (the question of Rhaenyra’s kids’ parentage is less certain in the book, for example; her foolishness is less of an issue because her foresight isn’t called into question in that way). But to then double down on the integrity of a story about incest…I just don’t buy that as a hill to die on.
“Every time a Targaryen is born the gods toss a coin and the world holds it breath.” ~ Varys
If this where Reddit, is give you an award.
I’ve always thought that was a lazy writer’s convenience to excuse bad character development.
I think Paddy put it best when he said that when Aemma died, so did Viserys. His illness was a lifelong penance walk for how she died, and he was essentially forced into his second marriage. He got his sons, but at the cost of losing one of the only two people he ever loved and of alienating the other.As for Alicent, it’s interesting how the show (and to a degree, the book) has contrasted the two families. In theory, Rhaenrya and Daemon’s family should be far more unstable but they all seem to genuinely love and support each other, and while they were stupid kids, Jace, Luke, Baela and Rhaela are pretty well adjusted (and Viserys also winds up pretty well regarded by history- even Tywin Lannister admires him). Maybe there’s less “Targaryen madness” and more to be said about “my parents actually love each other and are interested in my growth.”
I like this interpretation but the idea that he was forced into his second marriage doesn’t track.
Forced before he was ready? Absolutely. He was propositioned with a 12 year old, and a 15 year old just happened to be goaded by her father to “befriend” the grieving king. Viserys would have been expected to marry at some point- choosing Alicent was his way of saying “at least I know her.”If he had his druthers, he likely would have stayed single until or unless someone that connected with him like Aemma came along.
We have less influence, good or bad, on how children turn out than we tell ourselves. People can be raised by the best parents in the world and still turn out shit. Great people can come from shit parents.
I think the Game of Thrones universe in general has a muddled philosophy around “nature vs. nurture,” frequently including characters that act exactly like their parents with the same flaws, while also including anomalies who are the exact moral opposite of their parents. So like Jon Snow’s habit of making the same dangerous inflexible moral stands as Ned and Robb would seem to suggest his character is purely the result of Ned’s upbringing and has not been corrupted in any way by the Targaryen bloodline — but at the same time it’s suggested that becoming the Mad Queen was always just kind of baked into Daenerys’ DNA. I suppose being raised in a feudal caste system that shields the elite from any accountability would warp anyone’s sense of morality, and the principle of primogeniture is built to fuel resentments around birth order determining one’s lot in life, but there’s an element of randomness to which characters fully embrace Martin’s amoral worldview.With House of the Dragon, it’s suggested that all of Alicent’s kids are Evil due to their Targaryen bloodline, but it’s not clear why Rhaenyra’s kids are portrayed as Good. I guess Harwin Strong’s biological influence? But then why was Harwin’s brother Evil?
All very good points that I wish someone had considered. It goes to show what a bad idea it is to suggest that something like morality gets passed through genetics.
Aemond’s abhorrent behavior has mainly been confined to stuff we can trace to Otto/Alicent’s influence: he’s been told that the kingdom belongs to the Greens by right, and he’s convinced he’s in a kill-or-die conflict with Rhaenyra and her sons and her faction. The rest of it is the typical “second sons in Westeros” problem, where they don’t stand to inherit anything if their older brothers live, plus the added factor of his dragon egg not hatching and the other kids being mean to him about it. Under slightly different circumstances, though, he’s the kind of character you could see as the hero of the story: unlike his brother and half-sister, who’ve had everything handed to them, Aemond’s had to earn his dragon and whatever else he gets in this world.
To answer the shit-children question, I think we (the viewers) are supposed to chalk it up to the Targaryan mythology that most of them are born mad due to centuries of inbreeding. The Hightower’s aren’t inbred, but I assume that the Targaryan’s inbreeding has already done its damage. On the other hand, it’s a show, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Decent parents with out of control kids?! So weird. Like that never happens.
There’s a certain amount of “power corrupts” here. I think we all know rich kids who were overly spoiled and effectively become sociopaths, believing they are better than other people and that no one matters except them. Now imagine being bred to be king in a world obsessed with bloodlines. Without some really great parenting, it would be easy for kids to have disdain for smallfolk and have no problem abusing them, while also cracking under the pressure of potentially having to rule. The problem for so many folks in this show is that they are given no choices – they can’t pick who they marry, where they live, what they do, etc. Rhaenyra is one major exception – although she didn’t pick her spouse, she certainly chose her true romantic partner as well as her second husband. She also chose to leave court and raise her kids at Dragonstone once she remarried. If she’s happier and her kids are under less scrutiny it’s not surprising they turned out better.
privilege and power warp most, and to grow up with those influences as well as watching people scrape and claw and scheme all around you, I think it’s fair to assume that growing into a decent human being is a less likely outcome.
how do Viserys and Alicent have such shit children? In the books (spoiler, I guess) they have a fourth child, who’s actually a decent guy.
It’s worth pointing out that Aegon is essentially a child of absolute privilege who was never given any duties prior to being pulled out of a marble hidey-hole and told he was going to be king. For his entire life, Rhaenyra has been heiress and he was just a spoiled brat who didn’t have to be prepared for anything, ever.
Things I learned this week:1. Olivia Cooke deserves Emmy talk as much if not more than Paddy Considine. She is playing Alicent with a lot of nuance; The character is complex, yet all her actions have internal consistency. It feels like she drives this show. Stepping in front of her shitty son, after everything we saw… THAT was more powerful to me than Rhaenys’ flex- which I’ll get to in a minute…2. Impaling a dude from a sitting position with a marble roughly the size of a pool ball doesn’t read as a kill that makes sense.3. Mysaria is a vampire. She’s back, baby, and after 16 years or something(?) she joins the list of characters who haven’t aged a day. The accent is still horrid. I didn’t miss her. 4. I should stop watching Inside the Episodes. When the creators talk, they make the show dumber. Because no, it is not “badass” or “triumphant” to slaughter completely innocent citizens with your dragon in the same episode you just preached to Otto about respecting the importance of the citizens.
I think it is less “impaling” and more “crushes skull.”
Maybe if the guy had some kind of disorder that gave him an eggshell skull, but Cole forcing him to sit down (by pushing down on his shoulders) would in no way produce enough force to smash through bone like that. Maybe if he’d slammed his head down directly, but he didn’t. His head would have bounced off and maybe given him a concussion. Instantly smashing through his skull and killing him? No.
It made more sense in the book. That guy gets imprisoned for disloyalty and they later find his throat cut.
The scene was dumb for another reason: Otto says “The doors stay closed until we’re done here!” and then they just let Westerling waltz out because, I guess, he has a sword and they were too dumb to make sure they only had loyal members of the Kingsguard in the room.
Old people sawdust bones, maybe?
I totally buy that someone could die that way. The ball hit him on the temple, which is one of the weakest spots on the human skull, and they did some nice Foley work earlier to give the impression that those balls are a lot heftier than we’ve been lead to think. But it strains credulity to think that Cole would kill someone that way. We’ve seen him kill before—he’s the kind of guy who’ll keep hitting to make sure his opponent doesn’t get up again.
Eh, it broke immersion for me. Smacking your temple on a rounded object, even pretty hard, is not going to smash through bone like it’s tissue paper, much less kill you instantaneously. I get what they were going for, but it was presented in a way that didn’t work for me, not to mention that it was yet another in a long line of “in this society, you can kill elder esteemed members of noble houses and there will be no consequences” moments. The worldbuilding here is for shit.
It was the olden days anyone over 50 has a skull with the strength of heavy pudding
Dragons aren’t real, either! This show is ridiculous.
See, I could roll with that explanation! But it just didn’t look like he implied enough force for that. I know old folks are fragile, but the human skull is still relatively tough. The sheer amount of blood flowing everywhere definitely suggests he was impaled. And for it to be a small blunt object that didn’t apply much depth/height from the table, makes the physics of it wonky to me. We’ll need Mythbusters on this one
If someone hurled a cue ball at your temple with that much force, yes, it could kill you.
Mysaria’s accent is awful. Sounds like Adrien Brody doing that Jamaican (?) accent on SNL.
Usually I try to give actors a lot of leeway on accents, especially if the rest of the performance is generally good, I tend not to be too picky over them. But man this one is a real doozy.
If Larys’s thing wasn’t burning people’s houses down, he could have just deported her to Sweden, along with Roman Maronie.
I don’t know; none of them are actually supposed to be real accents from real places, are they?
I have no idea what Sonoya Mizuno is going for there. From the stuff I’ve seen her in before, she’s a good actress. But this comically bad. Like someone that’s never acted before in their life
She’s British so should could have just done the classical English accent that fits with 90% of the cast. Not sure why they asked her to be more ‘exotic’. Even is she’s supposed to be from some ‘far away land’ she could have just adapted to the local accent.
I love her accent personally, just find it oddly alluring and she’s already stunningly attractive…
100% agree that she is stunningly attractive. Just as long as you turn the volume down…
Eh in a show with dragons a marble ball to the temple of a 80 something year old man is plausible in my mind.
I mean, the guy just said he was 76, in a world where 76 is much rougher than our world. You can’t toss old people around.
This is a civil war that’s eventually going to involve tens of thousands of the “little” people dying to determine which dynastic little shite is going to sit upon the throne.The hundreds of peasants who died after being forced to watch the coronation are just an appetizer for the carnage about to be let loose in this medieval hell-hole.
1. I wasn’t loving Cooke’s performance until this week. She was really leaning too heavily on eye rolls and exasperated looks in her dealings with Rhaenyra and Viserys and basically anyone else who opposed her. But this week it was her episode, front to back, and she did a good job.4. It’s a tough look when the showrunners kind of admit they did something just because they had to have something cool-looking happen in the episode, and/or to get a character a “win.” We’ve seen that the dragon pit has another entrance, out by the water, and Rhaenys could have taken her dragon out that way, with minimal loss of life. Also, I get that dragons are magical creatures who can burst through the floor of a building designed to contain them, but I don’t get how her dragon bursts through the floor without the fragile human riding on her back being crushed to paste. The only reason for Rhaenys to escape up through the floor is to end this conflict with a quick dracarys on the dais, roasting all the usurping Greens in one fell swoop. For her to murder countless innocents, but then spare the actual people who imprisoned her, who have already started killing dissenters, and who will eventually wage war on her family, and just sit there striking a pose instead of doing anything, goes beyond stupid. It’s morally repugnant. But…I guess it looked cool?What makes it worse is that regardless of GoT’s history of “the madness of mercy” at least those characters were established as being softhearted, weak, or naively honorable ahead of being suicidally merciful. The character they established for Rhaenys, the thing that made her “the rightful Queen…by temperament” was that she was always a realist. A few episodes ago, she was willing to throw Rhaenyra’s boys to the dogs by having Corlyss preemptively disinherit them. Nothing personal, it was just the right call. I can’t see how this makes sense to her now.
She was wearing armor, so it’s all good!
“Inside the Episode” has always been terrible. Just the showrunners explaining what you just watched. They need to get rid of it.
The horrible thing is that some of the time, “Inside the Episode” actually tells us stuff that they didn’t manage to convey in the episode. So you ask, “You two knew this, and you knew we’d be curious about it afterward…so why on earth didn’t you put that on screen?”
I should stop watching Inside the Episodes. When the creators talk, they make the show dumber. Because no, it is not “badass” or “triumphant” to slaughter completely innocent citizens with your dragon in the same episode you just preached to Otto about respecting the importance of the citizens.Totally agree. Absolutely makes it worse, especially the director’s reasoning on why Rhaenys didn’t just Dracarys the shit out of them and end the war before it really starts. “It’s not her war.” They just had a scene last week where she clearly threw her hat behind Rhaenyra, and these scumbags just imprisoned her for no reason. She’s most definitely part of this war, especially as the de facto head of Driftmark.Ryan Condal is especially hard to listen to. He really gives off a “my ideas are gold and you should love them” vibe and he looks like he’s a much smaller person living inside a latex suit of a larger person. Like he’s wearing an Edgar Suit.
Every time they explain that they needed to come up with something awesome or badass to end an episode it’s something dumb.
1. It’s a fictional world. How can Mysaria’s accent be wrong? 2. The creators described Rhaenys’ slaughter of innocent citizens as “badass” and “triumphant”? Geez, I’m glad I’m not watching their idiotic inside-the-episode takes. It allows me to give them more credit for intelligence than they actually have. 🙁
The coronation scene was the best of the season so far.That said, while I admire her restraint, Rhaenys’ mercy is going to cost a lot of lives. Of course, that would also have turned next weeks season finale into a series finale, and no one wants that.
Given how mediocre this show has been, I kind of want that.
Yep. At this point I’m only watching for Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith. As the reviewer pointed out, the only time there’s any energy to this show is when they’re on screen. Idk if it’s miscasting or direction or what but when I’m watching say Otto Hightower I find myself thinking how much better Hugh Dancy would have done the scene. Honestly the HOTD showrunners really do need to take some pages out of the GOT playbook.
I think an issue with the show is that Otto is not a compelling villain or all that interesting. If you turn his character up a bit and let the actor chew some scenery, things might be a bit better
I was using Otto as an example of what seems to be a systemic problem with the show. A lot of the characters on the show just aren’t compelling, but they’re written/directed by the same people who are writing/directing D’Arcy and Smith. So some it’s got to be on the actors too.
Those two actors are also given three dimensional characters with whom they can sink their teeth into. Otto has no dimensions so the actor has nothing to work with. That’s on the writers
It was really good and it was something this show really needed. It felt like a small show because it was just a bunch of people sitting around and talking without their being a sense of what the stakes are. And there you have it- stakes. People to be ruled, a crown, a huge building, cool architecture. The show desperately needed some grandeur and some spectacle and it finally delivered.
👆👆👆
That said, while I admire her restraint, Rhaenys’ mercy is going to cost a lot of lives. True, but at this point the players in charge of the game are still trying to prevent a wholesale war and win a relatively bloodless coup. If the Greens had been roasted here there would still have been a war and general unrest, though probably smaller in scale since only one side would’ve had dragons.
Mercy? She murdered a bunch of innocent bystanders by crushing them to death with stone debris. What an excellent character moment, yes yes.
Monarchy is murder. The Greens have been murdering people left and right all episode, including a building full of people; there are no heroes here.
I got the impression that dragons are reluctant to roast other Targaryens. You can force it like Laena did on herself but it isn’t easy.
I think Vhagar’s reluctance was because he was bonded to Laena as his rider, not because she was a Targaryen. As they established earlier in the season, once a dragon and rider are bonded, it won’t take orders from anyone else. Heck, in an earlier episode little kid Aemond almost got roasted by a dragon when he tried sneaking into the dragon pit, and he only survived approaching Vhagar because Vhagar’s rider was dead.
I am thinking to the end of GoT when the dragon chose not to roast Jon Snow after he killed Dany. Happy to forgot that season existed though.
Yeah, that was some shit right there. I like the season as a whole a little more than you do, but the end (and that moment in particular) was undercooked garbage.Even then, you can fanwank it on the idea that once Danny died, Drogon was a riderless dragon and Jon was a potential rider. Maybe the only potential rider left. I have a feeling that for what comes next in HotD, it isn’t going to work if dragons are unwilling to kill other Targaryens.I will also note, if the end of the episode was that Rhaenys says “dracarys” and her dragon refuses the order, that’s a much better ending than the one we got, where she just does nothing and leaves.
Really? That was the worst moment of the show to me. Laughably stupid. Rhaenys kills tons of innocents and then doesn’t wipe out the Hightowers. Just gives them a little scare, I guess that’s fun.Really seems to favor a stupid spectacle over logic. It wasn’t even in the book, I don’t see what the point of adding that was. She even outright said she was against them but doesn’t just end the war right there.
A thoroughly licked Otto tries to play dear old dad, telling his daughter that she looks like her mother in certain lights.I read that as a compliment: that Otto was impressed by her resolve, which he found reminiscent of the late Lady Hightower. I find it funny that not one person has been like “Are we sure Viserys was talking about this Aegon Targaryen? Like, assuming he wasn’t just fucked up on milk of the poppy, maybe he meant the baby one who hasn’t had a chance to be completely awful?”Anyway, Criston Cole sucks and the whole dragon sequence was a reminder that this show can be very dumb!
It came off as an insult to me, I interpreted it as “you’re not the cutthroat I thought you were”. I think nobody questioning the details of what viserys said is the point. They probably all assume Alicent is lying and are thrilled that it’s making the coup they were already planning slightly easier.
Or even, “So, uh, what exactly did Viserys say to you? Was he by any chance hopped up on milk of the poppy at the time?”
To be totally fair on this one, most of the people who learn about this have a vested interest in getting Teen Aegon on the throne, so aren’t going to be inclined to challenge a convenient figleaf that lets them do so too closely.
Otto basically says as much when he says that Viserys has “left them a gift”.
I imagine asking questions like that would get you murdered by Criston Cole
I’m starting to think there aren’t any questions you can ask him that don’t result in him smashing your head or drawing his sword.
To be totally fair on this one, most of the people who hear about Viserys’ last words are also people who have a vested interest in making sure that the Aegon in question ends up on the throne, so it stands to reason that they’re not going to interrogate what’s basically a very convenient figleaf for them to do what they wanted to do anyway too closely.
Allicent is giving the lords the excuse to do what they really want anyway. They probably assume she’s making the whole thing up — Aegon II says as much — but even so, the point is that it doesn’t matter. They want a dude on the throne.
Nobody’s going to question what they wanted to hear in the first place. Plus, even Aegon’s supporters think that Otto and Alicent are lying anyway.
>>>”The massive building that Meleys blows a hole through is the same spot where, centuries later, the Great Council of 305 AC will gather to name Bran Stark Lord of the Six Kingdoms. By then, it’s a roofless ruin.”Bran was named KING of the six Kingdoms.Bran the Broken, King of the Six Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.It makes literally no sense naming someone a “Lord” of a KINGdom.
I think the odd title is a contrivance of the weird political situation.As there are no other kings I assume The King is separately king of each of the seven kingdoms – so while there are technically seven kings, they’re all him – and each kingdom has no authority over the others as a result (like King Charles is separately king of all the Commonwealth realms), which is why the seven haven’t been unified in some way as usually happens when you have separate kingdoms with the same king that border each other – eg. Kingdom of Great Britain, United Kingdom of Spain and Portugal etc.So the solution would be either to call him Kings of the Seven Kingdoms, which sounds weird, or High King of the Seven Kingdoms, which is also weird when you’re the only king.Emperor would probably work, but I don’t know if the concept exists in this world. So Lord it is.
The Seven Kingdoms in game of Thrones do not have “kings”.They have Lords.The “Kingdoms” name is a legacy from when they used to be separate (actual) Kingdoms before Aegon the Conqueror, conquered and united them – just not as one Kingdom, but rather under one realm.This is actually how same ancient human kingdoms used to be formed and exist.
The (modern) United Kingdom for example, is not a great comparison per se, because the home nations are not referred to as “Kingdoms” But they used to be, back when Scotland, Wales and Ireland had separate kings and rulers but still recognized the King or Queen of England as the supreme sovereign.
GRR Martin most likely modeled Westeros on medieval and pre-medieval Great Britain, in this respect.
Tom Glynn-Carney looks a hell of a lot like Evan Peters is my biggest take from this episode.
Definitely.
You new. Jack White Targaryen?
Others have already covered the episode’s usual bizarre narrative and character choices: I’ll just say that I think this show’s storytelling mostly works except it keeps tripping over its own feet (when it’s not fetishizing them) in ways that undercut whatever they’re trying to do. I’m fine with sometimes throwing logic out the window for a badass moment… up to a point. But having a character who we are ostensibly meant to root for just casually murder dozens of civilians? What the fuck?So I’ll bring up my other major complaint: As ever, it remains fucking hideous to look at. Everything is desaturated brown and grey.
All of these people are terrible. You’re rooting for them to die. It’s just that some are more terrible than others, so you’re rooting for them to die before others.
I’d rather spend my time on shows I get enjoyment out of. This one is just miserable.
There were still baffling character decisions aplenty, but to me this felt like the first episode of this show that had the right pacing and quantity of plot in it. It had room to breathe and actually give various characters a chance to react to the events of their world. A minor victory I suppose, but oh well.
Anyone know what building was on fire or who was in it near the end of the episode?
I believe it was the White Worm’s HQ, implying Larys had taken care of the spy problem per Alicent’s request. I kinda doubt that storyline is over, though.
Ser Criston. Such a dick.
Im curious as to what they will do with Lord Commander Westerling. He is such a minor character in Fire and Blood that he just dies of natural causes. But since he’s played by an actor from Outlander I expect to see this role greatly expanded. I hope anyway, he’s one of the few likable people.
Maybe a Barristan Selmy kind of thing where he turns in his badge and pops up later helping the other team.
Not to mention Preacher (and seemingly a dozen other genre shows…). I like him, too, and hope they do expand his role.
I thought he was the one hanging towards the end. Glad I was mistaken.
Apparently, McTavish back on Outlander in the next season – no idea how, given Dougal died in season 2 and I stopped watching the show mid-season 4 because it got too rapey and boring – so I guess we’ll see the last of him pretty soon. He’s also on The Witcher now.
He came back a couple seasons ago as a descendant of Dougal but it was basically a cameo so I’m still stumped what this means.
My thought? “Why didn’t Rhaenys just kill ‘em all?” Rhaenys has always been the smartest person in every scene, the one who knows the truth. Maybe she’s known ever since her wishy washy cousin became king that civil war has to happen. Maybe she’s the real Targaryen seer in the family.
And maybe with civil war she sees a way to the throne for herself, which based off her talk with Alicent, she still clearly wants.
So there I was, just another day in King’s Landing, going about my business trying to make a living when a bunch of douchebag knights shuffle me into the dragon pit to watch the coronation of the new king. Like I give a shit about who the king is, it makes no difference in my day-to-day. Then a fricking dragon busts up out of the floor and kills a bunch of other schmoes like me. And then the knights try to shut us in there… the dragon broke through the floor. Do you think it is going to see the doors shut and give up? On top of that, my favorite brothel burned down.Anyway, another shitty day for a regular citizen of Westeros.
It is a great happiness that my neighbour from my smallholding beside the mushroom croft was smashed to entrails by the tail of the serpent this day also, as I had a wrath most fever’d toward him for allowing his stoutest mare to sully my cobblepath that morn.
You forgot to mention that your 10 year old had a 4 fight winning streak going but they went and shut down the fighting pits.
Last thing I thought House of Dragon was gonna introduce into the plot was a foot fetish 🤣
Lots of really stupid, go nowhere moments in this episode that I just do not understand the praise of it.Alicent Hightower, plotting the ascension of her son since basically the moment he was born is suddenly all ‘no, there will be no blood, we will respect the person I have been calling a whore and oh yea tried to fucking stab just… 2 episodes ago. Sure that was like 6 years ago, but the time skips have been meaningless.’.What the hell was the point of Aemonds entire ‘I should be the one to be king’ ranting throughout the entire episode if, when it comes right down to it he just… what brings his brother in? Ranting to the point where you are hoping for a dead brother, having one kings guard member attack another while your brother screams I don’t want the throne let me leave while you attack him and then… brothers in the carriage on his way to coronation. Okay…. I am rebelling against you Greens! Says the lady of driftmark, see me rebel. By… crushing several meaningless peasants and when I have you completely at my mercy, giving you my very best #EPIC, #GIRLBOSS stare on my dragon and then flying away. Yea! That’ll show you. Dear gods, everyone in this show is dumber and pointless than Season 8 Game of Thrones.
“But then, in House of the Dragon’s most spectacular moment to date,”
I lost it, reading that in the review. Your feedback is lost on those who will themselves into enjoying this show lol.
I don’t remember anybody complaining about all the jokes they made about Theon’s disability or Alicent being grossed out while having sex with her disabled husband.
Do NOT tell Sir Criston you don’t like pepperoni on your pizza….
The sound in this production is not good. Amazing that some of the critical dialogue went to final publishing without an edit or re-do.
The CGI is absolutely amazing (except for exterior approach shot of that arena) That’s the only thing that jarringly fake to me in this entire run so far. The rest of this is crazy impressive -from basic backgrounds to full-on pissed off dragons.
Weird that after she castigates women serving violent men she casually wipes out about a thousand or more common folk with her dragon slayer routine – but spares the violent men!
1. This is the second time Criston Cole murders a nobleman in full view of other people. This time it’s, I assume, the lord of his house and one of the few close advisors to the king and most nobles in the kingdom know who he is. It’s OK, his family will probably be told he slipped and fell down the stairs and died because he was six-and-seventy years old. In a show full of characters I dislike, he’s the first on the list. Looks like casually murdering nobles in front of a lot of people is OK in Westeros.2. Rhaenys gets her badass moment of murdering tens or even hundreds of innocent people, only to let her dragon roar in the faces of people who will obviously try to murder her, Rhaenyra, Daemon and all their children, servants and pets. Then she just leaves to Dragonstone, I assume, to plan the inevitable confrontation with people whom she could murder but didn’t because the rest of the plot needs to happen. We are obviously supposed to cheer for her and ignore the fact she just MURDERED A LOT OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. Good strategy, noble princess!3. Every line said by the actress who plays White Worm sounded like she was reading the script phonetically, without understanding the words, which is weird considering I saw her in few things and it’s not how she speaks. Anyway, I hope she’s gone for good, because this accent is painful to hear.4. There should be a law stating that if you cast Matt Smith on your show, there should never be an episode where he does not appear. Matt Smith is the best thing about this show.In general, this show is what happens when you try to write historical drama set in a fantasy world, but all you know about the history of middle ages is what you read in Shakespeare’s historical plays 30 years ago and all you remember is that a lot of people died there, but not why they died or any of the intricacies of the plot of any of those plays.
In general, this show is what happens when you try to write historical drama set in a fantasy world, but all you know about the history of middle ages is what you read in Shakespeare’s historical plays 30 years ago and all you remember is that a lot of people died there, but not why they died or any of the intricacies of the plot of any of those plays.A large part of that feeling comes from what the show has decided to change from the books. The books are dry as hell, and by no means what I’d call good, but the characters motivations and actions make more sense. When it comes to Alicent, the changes seem motivated to make her seem more sympathetic. In the books, she and her council (except Beesbury who is also killed by Cole in the books) had always intended to put Aegon on the throne, but there was never a plan to try and murder Rhaenyra and her entire family from the start, and certainly not one concocted behind Alicent’s back. When Aegon is coronated he wants to declare the blacks to be traitors and have them all executed but Alicent and others note that isn’t practical and instead send a retinue to Dragonstone to offer peace and give Dragonstone and Driftmark to Rhaenyra and her family. After the war gets started in earnest Alicent goes so far to make another peace offering that would divide the south into two separate kingdoms.The show hasn’t gotten across what the scale of the coming civil war would entail. It’s massive ground war involving a hundred thousand troops of houses that are worried about their own interests. The characters in the books are more cognizant of how bad things could get. The show has kept everything on such a personal level that it would lead the viewer to think that a couple murders would end the conflict, because it hasn’t setup the broader political environment at all.
Rhaenys’ Great Escape had some very GoT-Season-8 vibes to me. It felt like the writers wanted a big ending set-piece, and in creating it they put this character in a situation where she had to make a choice that doesn’t make a ton of narrative sense.Rhaenys has been the one trying to tell people this whole time that the knives are going to come out sooner than later. She’s the one telling Alicent that they need to get control of this situation somehow. And then that character has all of Team Green within roasting distance, can end the war [that she knows is coming] before it starts, but doesn’t.I can appreciate the argument that she’s seen so much death already in her immediate and extended family, but she’s also been 100% realistic about what’s about to go down. I think that after what was mostly a bottle episode, everyone was feelin’ the itch for a big pre-finale OH SH*T moment, and it put Rhaenys in a position where her only choice was the one that keeps the show going.
I would’ve had the coronation proceed, and as the crowd is applauding, they hear Meleys roar, and look outside to see Rhaenys doing a lap around the Dragon Pit before heading off. The crowd thinks it’s part of the show, but everyone on the dais knows exactly what’s going down. It’s still a good, dramatic ending, and it doesn’t put Rhaenys in the unnecessary position of being able end the show three seasons too early.
Rhaenys was not in a position, political or practical, to just kill everyone. The greens have most of the largest houses behind them. Killing the group at the coronation would have still resulted in those houses still moving to install someone of their choosing. They wouldn’t all just say, eh, fine, Rhaenyra can be queen after all. It would also make Rhaenys a kinslayer and perceived kingslayer and target number one. On top of all that she doesn’t even know what Rhaenyra will necessarily do when she gets the news about the coronation, the offer of peace, or if she would even be happy about a large portion of her extended family getting summarily turned to ash. Hell, Rhaenys doesn’t even know if Rhaenyra has enough backing to even try to take the throne.
You’re correct in that killing Alicent, Otto, Aegon, Aemond, Larys and Cole would not automatically force all the lords loyal to them to suddenly bend the knee to Rhaenyra.But it would sure as hell make the coming civil war a lot less destructive, and easier for the Blacks to win, if the Queen, her royal son, her scheming father, her murderous enforcer, her sociopathic spymaster, and the spare all died at the same time.Even if the Green lords didn’t want to accept Rhaenyra, they’d be left with precious few options in term of who to support. Whose banner would they rally around? Who would be able to unite their disparate causes and interests when they’re not bound together in service of a king? There’d be way more infighting amongst all the Green supporters.On top of all that, killing Aegon and Aemond would take out two dragonriders, which would also help tip the scales in Rhaenyra’s favour.Rhaenys’s decision NOT to kill Alicent et al is a massive contradiction from what we’ve seen of that character thus far. She’s savvy and unflinching, and her scene with Alicent this week confirms as much if we didn’t already know it. As other commenters have said, it would have worked better if she’d escaped on Meleys away from the coronation, so we could see her fly away but she doesn’t have the same shot at killing the Greens.
King Charles III has not been officially coronated. This site has so many minor but important mistakes in their recaps. If I had them in my job I would have been fired a long time ago.
The greatness of early GoT was that it a fantasy show that subverted my expectations of what a Fantasy Epic tale is whereas HotD is so formulaic that not only does it follow every fantasy story note for note but the writing is so horrendous that you can not understand what any of the characters motivations are. Why does Alicent want her son on the throne so badly? Is it for the protection the throne provides him or does she secretly want to rule the land through him? Don’t know because the characters are so underdeveloped that it no longer matters at this point in the show. The very first episode of GoT I was hooked inside that world and wanted to know who all the characters were and where the stories would lead to, but HotD it’s hard to keep up with everyone, what do they represent and for whom do they ally with. S1 would’ve been better served if they spread it out over 2 seasons but the lust to quickly get to the dragon fighting has left me bored with it all completely.
I just watched the episode and came here for the commentary w/o reading the above recap.Holy shite, Rhaenys. Her scene w/Alicent, when she talks about power and Alicent just being a sideline sitter and supporter of male power and creating a window in her own jail cell. Spot on.And her exit on Meleys? That was bad ass. I really want someone to off Otto Hightower. (and please, if you’ve read the book, don’t tell me of his fate.)Surprising, but not really…Larys having a foot fetish.
So, Rhaenys decided not to burn the whole royal family and stop a civil war because…?
What was Otto’s intention with Aegon?
I did not think that her feet were anything to write home about.
You should see her feet write home!
I don’t really get how Rhaenys can fly up seated on her dragon without getting nailed by stones.