The Heirs Of The Dragon

House Of The Dragon takes place 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen during the reign of Viserys I Targaryen, the grandson of King Jaehaerys I whose rain spanned decades of peace and prosperity in Westeros.

Jaehaerys was a beloved king who had many children, but all of his male heirs died before he did and so the question of succession loomed large over the land and on the king’s conscience. The daughter of his firstborn son, Aemon, was the eldest of his grandchildren—but Rhaenys was a woman.

Viserys (Paddy Considine) was the son of Jaehaerys’s second son, Baelon, but even though he was younger and not the child of the firstborn male, he himself was a man and so became king when Jaehaerys died. Rhaenys (Eve Best)

Ultimately, a vote was held and Viserys won by a landslide, the cultural mores of a traditionalist patriarchal Medieval society carrying more weight than any other consideration.

If you’re a little lost on who all of these various characters are, or need a little brushing up on George R.R. Martin’s stories, I wrote a pretty detailed guide that goes over all of that, including helpful breakdowns of the main characters.

I also wrote a spoiler-free review of the first six episodes of House Of The Dragon and a follow-up piece breaking down some of my problems with the show.

House of the Dragon picks up nine years after Viserys I has ascended the Iron Throne. Westeros remains a peaceful land, though there is trouble in the Stepstones, a series of islands that forms a sort of chokepoint in the Narrow Sea.

An alliance of pirates and profiteers from the Free Cities known as the Triarchy has set up shop across these islands, plundering ships and slaughtering merchants and sailors, disrupting trade and commerce. This sets the stage for the first political crisis in House Of The Dragon.

Viserys & Daemon

Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) the Master of Ships on the Small Council, Lord of Driftmark and the wealthiest man in the Seven Kingdoms, comes to Viserys pleading for his help with the Triarchy. The looting and carnage is hitting Driftmark the hardest, but will soon impact the economy of all Westeros.

Viserys, however, is not particularly interested in going to war, especially if it means upsetting the lords of the Free Cities. Viserys, we quickly learn, is happy with the way things are save for one small problem: He and his wife Aemma (Sian Brooke) have not produced a male heir.

Viserys is a man who wishes to be loved, and who is generous in shows of affection. It is perhaps his greatest weakness. One of the major threads in this first episode that will carry on well beyond the premiere, is the relationship between Viserys and his younger brother, Daemon (Matt Smith) who is heir apparent when this story begins.

While Viserys wants only to be loved and to take care of his daughter, Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) the same cannot be said for Daemon.

Where Viserys is kind but soft, Daemon is cruel and hard-edged. Where Viserys walks with the weight of the world on his shoulders, stooped with responsibility and worries of the future, Daemon exists in the here and now. Daemon is charming, but his charm is little more than thinly veiled ruthlessness. Indeed, he seems to always wear a mask, hiding his true ambitions and thoughts behind a roguish veneer, and yet he still manages to come across as the least dishonest man in the room.

Tension between these two ebbs and flows. Viserys’s Small Council isn’t particularly fond of Daemon and he knows it. They’ve put him in charge of the city watch, and soon his Gold Cloaks become a fierce, highly-trained fighting force with unflinching loyalty not to the crown, but to Daemon himself.

Controversy arises when Daemon takes the Gold Cloaks into Flea Bottom one night to crack down on the criminal element (basically the Brute Squad from Princess Bride but with a lot more dismemberment and savagery). Daemon pulls no punches, slaughtering anyone accused of a heinous crime and lopping off arms and legs and hands of thieves and rapers and other unsavory types. It’s a show of force—and one not authorized by the King.

We find ourselves in Machiavellian territory at this point. Viserys believes, even if he does not say so, that it is better to be loved than feared. He wants feasts and tourneys. He’s a loving husband and father. He would rather put off unpleasant battles than confront them head on.

Daemon believes that it is better to be feared than to be loved, and makes no effort to be loved even by his wife who he refers to as ‘the bronze bitch.’ When confronted over the Flea Bottom massacre, Daemon rebukes his brother, telling him that outside the cloistered halls of the Red Keep, King’s Landing has become a place of fear where ordinary citizens live in terror for the lives and possessions. The actions of the Gold Cloaks were far from egregious, they were necessary given the lax attitude of the crown toward crime in the city.

This is a small thing, a minor quarrel between brothers with sympathetic nobles on both sides. It’s not until later that Daemon crosses a line that he can’t un-cross for years to come.

The King And Queen

Unlike the unhappy marriage between Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, Viserys and his wife, Aemma, is actually quite sweet. They clearly both adore one another. Viserys is especially happy lately, as his wife is very pregnant with what he knows will be his long-awaited male heir.

So he has invited lords and ladies, knights and hedge knights, from all across the land to celebrate with feasts and a grand tourney to coincide with the child’s birth.

At this tourney, we see just how ruthless Daemon can be, even when jousting. He wins one joust by using his lance to trip up his opponent’s horse. Daemon is clearly one of the finest warriors in the land, a knight with real battle experience surrounded by knights who have lived their entire lives in peacetime, whose only training is just that: Training.

But there is one contender at the tourney who even Daemon cannot beat, though the fight is down to the bone. Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) is a son of the Dornish Marches, a hedge knight of sorts with little rank among the nobility and not much in the way of money or lands. But he has battle experience and it shows.

Daemon, who asked for the favor of Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey) very nearly bests Cole, but Cole emerges victorious in the 11th hour, victor of the entire tournament. Cole had asked the princess Rhaenyra for her favor in the fight, and despite her clear affection for her uncle, Rhaenyra is pleased with the outcome.

But all is not well. In the Red Keep, the Maesters and midwives are overseeing the Queen’s labor, and even after many hours the babe will not emerge. The infant is in breech and cannot be turned. Viserys is called away from the jousting and finds his wife exhausted and frightened in the tower.

Grand Maester Mellos gives Viserys a terrible choice: Do nothing and gamble with the life of the child, but save the life of the mother; or, cut the babe from her womb using a barbaric version of the Cesarean section, which will cause so much bleeding that Aemma will surely die.

Right away we know what the king will choose. And it’s heartbreaking. Viserys does love his wife, and she loves him, but he has become so consumed with the matter of succession and dynastic legacy that he gives the go-ahead to cut her open. What follows is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes I’ve ever watched on TV, including in Game Of Thrones.

Aemma, suddenly panicking as the midwives pin her to the bed, asks her husband what’s happening. She looks younger all of a sudden, like a frightened child. She pleads and begs and screams and we see the incision and then the blood gushing from her and as the baby emerges she lays still, quiet. The baby cries, but soon even he goes silent.

Aemma is dead and the king overcome with shame and guilt and grief. And young Baelon lived for less than a day, making Aemma’s horrific death meaningless.

That night, in a pleasure house in King’s Landing, Daemon and his officers throw a party. Whores and wine are passed around and Daemon’s men urge him to make a speech. We don’t hear what he says, but we learn soon enough.

Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) the dour Hand of the King finds Viserys and tells him the grim tale. Daemon, his brother, toasted his dead nephew and a raucous party, calling him ‘heir for a day.’ Viserys if livid. It’s a betrayal so flagrant, we have to assume that Daemon did it on purpose. Perhaps he really doesn’t want to be king, and knew that the best way to avoid remaining heir apparent is to douse his chances by spitting in his brother’s face.

“I have only ever defended you, yet everything I’ve given you you’ve thrown back in my face,” a furious Viserys spits at his brother when he confronts him about it.

“You’ve only ever tried to send me away,” Daemon replies, calm but clearly unhappy. “Anywhere but by my side…ten years you’ve been king but not once have you asked for me to be your Hand.”

Daemon argues that Otto Hightower is a schemer, playing the king for all he’s worth. “He doesn’t protect you, I would!” Daemon says.

“From what?” his brother asks.

“Yourself,” Daemon says. “You’re weak, Viserys, and that council of leaches knows it. They all prey on your for their own ends.”

Viserys sends him away, telling him to go to Runestone at once. The succession, it seems, will fall to a girl, after all.

Rhaenyra & Alicent

Not to bury the lede, but Alicent Hightower—daughter of Otto Hightower, the King’s Hand—and princess Rhaenyra may be the two most important characters in this show, though Viserys is clearly crucial to its beginning.

Rhaenyra is a girl who has long chafed at the restrictions placed upon her as a girl. Her father, while kind and doting, is also focused so entirely on producing a male heir that she has felt pushed aside most of her life. She’s a tomboy too eager for adventure to enjoy her schooling, though she’s clearly bright and observant.

She and the more traditional Alicent are fast friends—best friends, in fact—and spend most of their time together, though Rhaenyra also spends plenty of time riding dragon-back with her golden dragon Syrax.

There are other dragon-riders in this show, and dragons aplenty. Daemon rides Caraxes, a massive red dragon. Princess Rhaenys—the queen who never was—rides Meleys, another giant red dragon.

Much of this episode is spent establishing Rhaenyra’s character. She is fond of her uncle, Daemon, and of her father, though the death of her mother creates a divide between them. She wants more than this strict male-driven world can offer. And she’s heartbroken by the death of her mother, who she was very close with.

Alicent is also heartbroken over Aemma’s death, a tragedy that recalls her own mother’s passing. Now both these girls must be raised by powerful men who understand them not at all. After Aemma’s death, Alicent’s father sends Alicent to Viserys. “I thought you might go to him,” he says. “Offer him comfort.”

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” she replies. “He’ll be glad of a visitor,” he replies, before telling her to wear one of her mother’s dresses. This is no simple visit to comfort the king. Already, Otto is plotting Aemma’s replacement. She sits with him, and her sympathy for his grief is no less authentic despite it being part of a kingmaking ploy by her father.

“When my mother died, people only spoke to me in riddles,” she tells Viserys. “All I wanted was for someone to say for what happened to me. I’m very sorry your Grace.”

A seed is planted in the king’s heart.

Viserys, convinced now that he will never produce a male heir, names Rhaenyra as his successor and holds a ceremony in which all the powerful lords of the land come and swear fealty. (We get our first glimpse of the current Stark).

After, we get our first big nod to Game Of Thrones. In a hall of candles, beneath the terrible visage of Balerion’s massive skull, Viserys passes down a secret prophecy to his daughter. Each Targaryen king has passed not only the Iron Throne down to their heirs, but the Song of Ice and Fire, a vision Aegon the Conqueror had of a terrible magical threat in the north that will someday come down from the icy forests of myth and sweep across the land of the living. This is why the Targaryens had to unite the Seven Kingdoms in the first place, to stand as stalwart protectors of the realms of men against an existential threat so terrifying that . . .

Damnit. That they’d wrap it up in a single poorly lit episode in Game Of Thrones’ horribly disappointing 8th season. I can’t help but think of it. I’m sorry, but the whole time Viserys conveyed these crucial details to his daughter, all I could think of was how stupid it really was to have Arya Stark kill the Night King. Honestly, if the entire prophecy is about how a Targaryen is going to stand up to the great evil from the north, and Jon Snow is the two halves of Ice and Fire (Stark and Targaryen) why did the show’s creators think it would be a good idea to sweep him aside for a Surprise Twist? I love both Jon and Arya as characters but that was some serious nonsense.

It was also nonsense that this great, terrible White Walker threat was so truncated, when we were supposed to get a Long Winter and honestly needed a whole season of the armies of the undead sweeping the land and Jon and Daenerys fighting back in a desperate fight that left them bitter and broken, and sucked the last remaining goodness out of Dany, finally pitting Jon and Dany against one another for the next season of warfare and rebellion.

Yeah, I’m not over it, sorry. Not by a long shot.

In any case, this was a great series premiere. I’ve seen the first six episodes and this is one of the very best. Aemma’s death was so tragic and hard to watch, it has quickly jumped up to one of the most disturbing, shocking scenes in either show, right up there with Ned’s death and the Red Wedding—not because it was the surprise murder of someone by a terrible monster like Joffrey or Tywin, but the sacrifice of a good woman by the man who loved her.

I’m also really enjoying all the principal characters. Viserys is complex and layered and likeable despite his flaws (and the betrayal of his wife). Rhaenyra is the kind of strong-headed character you want to root for (and one of the only characters you want to root for). We have the schemers like Otto Hightower and the proud nobles and the various chess pieces—daughters, brothers, dragons. Daemon is a wonderful character even if he is a villain. I’m excited to keep writing these weekly recaps and I really want to hear what you all think, dear readers.

Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

Watch my video review of this episode below:

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