Is Daemon A Master Strategist Or Just Gross?

Last night on House of the Dragon, things got weird, as they tend to do in certain corners of Westeros. Though this time? This time felt a little different.

Spoilers follow.

While yes, Game of Thrones is a series that opened its first episode with a sex scene between twin siblings, and its final, sweeping love story was between a man and his aunt, what happened with Daemon and his niece Rhaenyra last night still feels extra weird. At the time, we were supposed to hate both Lannisters and think they were weirdos. And when Jon slept with Dany, they didn’t know they were related, with Jon’s past a mystery.

But here we have a character we’ve all very much been rooting for, Rhaenyra, and Daemon, who also has his own fanbase, and boy, that was just uncomfortable to watch.

I’m speaking of course, of the sequence where Dameon sneaks Rhaenyra out of the castle, gets her drunk and hooks up with her at a pleasure house, stopping short of actually having sex with her, but later she goes and sleeps with her handsome Kingsguardsman. While we met Rhaenyra at 15, the show makes it extra clear this episode it’s been four years since then, so she’s now at least 19 (while the actress is 22), and she’s into the hookup with Daemon at the time, and it’s him who pulls away. And yet, still, ew.

The question I had after this was mainly about Daemon himself. Was this a symptom of his reckless abandon, the type that would have him sprint through hundreds of archers to spite his brother rather than accept help, which we saw last week, or was this a calculated play for the throne? I’m leaning toward the latter.

I think Daemon’s plan was to sully the reputation of his niece in order to make her unappealing for suitors, and force an option like the idea that she should be married to him instead, solidifying Targaryen rule on the throne by keeping it extremely in the family.

While sure, I suppose it’s possible that Daemon is just a weirdo who wanted to make out with his niece, the fact that he purposefully shed both his and her disguises at the pleasure house, and hooked up with her in full view of dozens and dozens of potential witnesses makes me think that this was the plan all along. He knew that somehow, it would become a rumor spread around about her, and because she’s a woman, even a whisper of something that scandalous would be enough to destroy her reputation, leaving her with few options, him being one of them. He did not need to actually have sex with her because what they’d done was already enough to get the job done. This is why we had the whole scene with the play before this, where he talks about the opinion of the common people being important.

This plan gets a little muddy the next day where hungover Daemon essentially spells this out for the king, saying they should be married, which of course, Viserys rejects. But even after essentially admitting it all to Viserys he still doesn’t punish his brother in any meaningful way, as you would imagine this would be something that would be cause for an execution in any other royal family. But Viserys just isn’t strong enough to do that.

Rhaenyra actually made it out of this okay, for now. Clearly in a compromised position, she’s agreed to marry the son of the Sea Snake, and in the process, got the man who reported this rumor, Otto Hightower, fired as Hand of the King. But this is Westeros, and if you think that we’re now about to get a happy ending where Rhaenyra solidifies her rule with a key alliance and Daemon stays banished and content, you probably have another thing coming. I do think he has a plan, and that disturbing night out was a key part of it.

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