house of the dragon 01 x 06 // game of thrones 01 x 08

you have your honour and i have mine.

House of the Dragon

This week’s episode had lots going on and a few parallels to the very first episode. When we first see Rhaenyra she’s soaring on her dragon loving life and when she goes to visit her pregnant mother, Aemma tells her that the birthing bed will be her battlefield while Rhaenyra would rather have adventures on her dragon. So our first scene with the new adult Rhaenyra is her giving birth to her third healthy son in contrast to her mothers many stillborns and death in childbirth.

The Princess and The Queen was very much Rhaenyra vs Alicent with each trying to dominate any situation they are in. Alicent as the Queen demands to see Rhaenyra’s baby the moment he is born, forcing her to walk through the castle and up flights of stairs knowing she’ll be in agony and leaving a trail of blood in her wake to humiliate her. Then the situation shifts to Rhaenyra’s favour when Viserys fawns over his daughter and new grandson, Laenor is there to support her and cradle the son that he named after his dead lover and Viserys coos that he has his fathers nose. Alicent is so done because it’s blatantly obvious that none of Rhaenyra’s sons are fathered by her husband (even Daemon who’s spent the last 10 years in Pentos knows they’re Ser Harwin’s). I’m glad they kept her iconic line from the book, “do keep trying, Ser Laenor sooner or late you might get one that looks like you.” Then we see that Alicent and Ser Criston are the founding members of the I Hate Rhaenyra club, he just sounds like a bitter ex boyfriend and even Alicent glares at him when he calls the princess a spoiled cunt. When it comes to the small council meeting both Rhaenyra and Alicent have a seat at the table and seem to be the ones in charge. Alicent calls out Daemon leaving the Stepstones undefended for 10 years and now the Triarchy have allied with the Martell’s to retake the region, Viserys laments the situation and hoped that it would all resolve itself, Rhaenyra says the crown should’ve defended the region, built outposts and ships to guard from pirates. Then the dispute in the riverlands, Alicent wants to let House Tully sort out the fighting with the Brackens and Blackwoods but Rhaenyra disagrees and the council sides with her “of course.” Alicent dismisses the council but Rhaenyra tells them to wait so they obey, she holds out an olive branch to Alicent apologising for the bad blood with their children, reminds her that they used to be friends and are all one family, proposes a betrothal between her eldest son Jace and Princess Helaena and offers Aemond a dragon egg since he’s the only Targaryen without a dragon. Instead of replying Alicent just points out that Rhaenyra is leaking breast milk and embarrasses her, Viserys is more receptive to the idea but as soon as they leave Alicent basically says over her dead body will her daughter marry Rhaenyra’s bastard. Rhaenyra herself seems to realise that she should just cut her losses in Kings Landing, after Ser Criston encouraged Prince Aegon to beat up his defenceless nephew when they were sparring and baited Ser Harwin into attacking him the whispers about her kids parentage started to get out of hand. Poor Harwin, you can see how much he loves his sons and acts like their father even though he has to pretend he’s just a friend of their mother, Jace seemed to know who he really is to them which made it so much sadder when Harwin got sent to Harrenhal and they had to say goodbye, “I’ll return, I promise.” “We’ll exchange letters by Raven. Won’t that be fun.” So sad for Rhaenyra, she’s not just losing her baby daddy but one of the few men she can rely on and who loves her and her children. When she decides to go to Dragonstone after ordering Laenor earlier that he had to remain in Kingslanding with her she tells him to bring his new lover with him “we’ll need every sword.” She knows that Alicent will start a war over the succession when Viserys dies and she’s preparing for it. It seems like that is Alicent’s endgame since she’s telling Aegon that Rhaenyra will kill him if she ascends the throne to make him want to be king and having Criston Cole bully Rhaenyra’s sons in the training yard, getting them to fight their uncle even though they’re both kids under 10 while Aegon is a teenager.

Alicent’s friendship with Larys the clubfoot took a dark turn. They’ve obviously shared many meals together over the years and he provides a sympathetic ear while she rages about the injustice of Rhaenyra getting to do whatever she wants, flaunting her illegitimate children at court, and everyone turning a blind eye to it while she wishes her father was Hand of the King since at least someone in authority would be on her side. Larys takes her words and spins a web of courtly intrigue by getting a group of prisoners from the black cells that are due to be executed, commuting their sentence if they agree to have their tongues cut out and set fire to Harrenhal, thereby killing his father and brother, making him Lord of Harrenhal, getting rid of Rhaenyra’s lover, creating a vacancy for Otto Hightower to return as Hand of the King and having the Queen in his debt. Fair play to Alicent she hasn’t went full villain yet since she was horrified with what the Clubfoot did even though he pointed out she got what she wanted she didn’t want anyone killed. This will be her walking a fine line with the “honour and decency” she spoke to Criston about earlier.

When it comes to the children, Alicent’s aren’t perfect compared to Rhaneryra’s: Aegon is a bully who doesn’t care about being king and would be at home in the street of silk, Aemond is an angry mama’s boy obsessed with claiming a dragon and Helaena is an adorable weird kid fascinated by insects. There really is no mother/daughter bond with Alicent and Helaena, you could see when she was a baby that Alicent couldn’t be bothered with her and always sent her off with the nannies whereas she’s very motherly and comforting to Aemond when he comes in after running through the dragon pit and upset about the prank Aegon and the boys pulled on him. This causes Alicent to complain to Viserys about Jace and Luce being beasts and bullies but Viserys rightfully guesses that it was Aegon’s idea even though he blames it on his nephews.

Then we get to Daemon who has been living in Essos with his wife Lady Laena and their twin daughters, enjoying being an honoured guests of the prince of Pentos who offers Daemon and his family a mansion, lands and livestock if they and their dragons will fight the triacrhy for him. Laena wants to go back home to Driftmark, see her family, give birth to her next child there and die the death of a dragon rider. She knows that Daemon is not happy there he’s just hiding from all his family troubles back home but he refuses to acknowledge it. We also get a glimpse of Daemon’s daughters, Baela is already a dragon rider and her father is teaching her to speak Valyrian whereas Rhaena fells left out because she only has an egg and Daemon ignores her, Laena comforts her by telling her she didn’t have a dragon until she was 15 and now she rides the oldest and biggest one of all: Vhagar. In a throwback to the first episode Daemon is put in the same position as Viserys, his wife is in labour but the baby won’t come out, the maester could cut it out but the mother wouldn’t live. Daemon’s main concern was his wife over the child but Laena made the choice herself, she staggered out to the yard with Daemon chasing after her and knelt at her dragons feet screaming “dracharys.” Vhagar knew what Laena was doing and was reluctant to obey but when they locked eyes it was like a moment of understanding between the two and Laena got to die by dragon fire instead of lying in the birthing bed. Such a bittersweet ending to a character we hardly got the time to know.

All the pieces are moving in the game now and they’ll all be together for Laena’s funeral. Daemon and his daughters will be back in Westeros putting him and Rhaenyra together again for the first time in over a decade but both as matured adults with children of their own. Viserys with his children, angry queen and failing health. The Sea Snake with his wife and their grief for their daughter, and war in the stepstones about to break out again.

a few (okay, maybe quite a few) scattered HOTD thoughts now that i’ve finally caught up: 

yay for having a sick day in bed to catch up 

the good: 

1. definitely a better written show than GOT even in its heyday, and that’s because a lot of the character moments are about showing vulnerability and conflict, not about seeing who gets to say the cleverest line. hotd falls into that sometimes too, but it pays more attention to character

2. the battle/action sequences - i rarely ever enjoyed them on GOT but they’re sparse and well done here, at least for now. the dragon scenes have also been pretty good

3. love the fact that we have so many unsettling/creepy/indefinable dynamics and that hotd dwells on them and doesn’t let you forget lol. i also think this show is doing a better job at depicting the “shades of grey” for every character in terms of morality. 

4. the acting is pretty solid all around 

the bad (up to this point):

1. that whole wedding sequence in episode 5. started out promising. loved alicent’s bad bitch entrance. and then...??? ser criston cole just went nuts??? and it was so chaotic and confusing and unconvincing. i assume that we will return to that whole mess at some point? because it was not explained or fleshed out and it makes no sense why they just let criston get away with it. sure, we could argue that the two houses might’ve been relieved to see laenor’s paramour die....but they’d never do that to poor laenor and they wouldn’t have left the culprit go unpunished. was that whole sequence meant to be confusing and dissatisfying? maybe i’m just dumb and didn’t get it 

2. ser criston cole. is just. a cartoonish 2-dimensional villain now? i don’t get it. they’ve shown they can write characters with enough complexity and deftness that we both understand where they’re coming from and condemn some of their actions. but i guess they just gave up for ser criston? and decided to turn him into a weird incel. and how is he not dead or exiled after what he did??? what sorcery did alicent pull.

3. laena’s death. how did a pregnant woman manage to run past everyone, including daemon, and get down to the shore? why did no one stop her? what a waste of a character. i looked up her death in the book....and the changes they made are strange. i like the idea of her choosing to die like a dragon-rider, but everyone’s absolute negligence of her, and her sudden desire to die felt out of left field. laena struck me as someone who wanted to keep fighting, not give up.

ship stuff: 

- daemon/rhaenyra is solid and have plenty of chemistry, but maaaan, she should’ve been way more angry with him after episode 4. i feel like he got off far too easy (which i guess is a running theme with all his pretend exiles). he struck me as pretty callous and calculating, even if he was also conflicted and drawn to her. i’m srsly waiting for her to put him in his place when they’re married. i need that to be a “rhaenyra is boss” family. in general, daemon is fun but also...kind of obnoxious. i think we’re maybe making too much of him, but matt smith does play the asshole type well, what can i say. i guess what i am trying to say is that i see them less as romantic soulmates and more as "we love each other and use each other” kind of targaryen flavor. which frankly makes them more appealing to me

- harwin strong/rhaenyra - very sad and cute and wholesome. would definitely read smut 

- alicent/larys strong - deliciously creepy vibes, but more in the vein of cersei and qyburn. on board.

- alicent/otto - god, i love the fraught & repressed father/daughter relationship. we had too few scenes with them!! love the toxicity, love the devotion, love how otto pretends not to see alicent’s misery, love everything about them

- alicent/rhaenyra - liked them better as youngins, i feel like the tension between them as older women is somehow...less interesting? idk. i still hope they have more interactions in the future. (i loved that montage in ep 4 where rhaenyra was having a blast and alicent was staring at the ceiling in boredom and agony as viserys did his business. the queer longing alone!)

 - alicent/daemon - that one rarepair/crackship i’m probably going to obsess over. i already have an elaborate oneshot in mind. i love ppl who almost never interact but who would have such interesting one-on-one conversations. also the fraughtness of daemon/viserys, and how much daemon probably resents alicent for “taking” his brother. anyway! 

- alicent/criston - i could be down for this in the scenario where alicent just steps on him repeatedly and he thanks her for it. ugh. really bleh about ser criston. 

- alicent’s targ kids have interesting sibling dynamics.....i assume more incest is coming from that corner too lol 

(sorry yall, most of my ships are alicent ships because olivia cooke <3333)

- laena’s girls! baela and rhaena! i want them to have ridiculously complicated subplots & romances, i want them to take center-stage! least they can do after wasting laena/daemon 

i think that’s everything for now. i’m kind of wondering why we’re doing all these time jumps and why we’re not taking our time. have we not learned anything from GOT? anyway, i’ll probably share my final thoughts after all episodes air.