House of the Dragon: Episode Five
or, pulped heart, pulped head
Catch up with me here:
Well, that ended dramatically!
In the history of Westeros, has a wedding ever gone well?
I suppose not.
And this is no different. Once again, Viserys has grand plans to be a good and gracious and beloved king, but it all shatters before him. Worse, he’s struggling with every breath in this episode. He looks ready to die, so before that happens, he’s trying to secure the future of his house. Marrying Rhaenyra to Laenor seems like it will solve everything.
The enmity that has grown between the Valyrian houses will end with a marriage and the intertwining of bloodlines. Seems like a good plan!
Rhaenyra and Laenor, though, have a frank discussion about their future relationship. Laenor has no interest in women and Rhaenyra tells him that’s not a problem because she has no interest in him but intends to take on her own lover(s). Satisfied, they’re not exactly excited about the impending nuptials, but they’re content enough to play it as straight (ha!) as they can.
This episode, to me, plants a dangerous seed. Yes, we see the rise of Alicent as a new fulcrum of power in the Red Keep, but the more interesting seed planted here is planted in the heart of Ser Criston Cole.
He’s been Rhaenyra’s sworn defender for a number of years. I think, at this point, it’s been about 3-5 years since the first episode. As we’ve seen from early on, they have chemistry. He’s a handsome gallant fella and she’s his pretty young princess. She even seduces him!
Not that he seemed to need much seduction. But their moment of illicit love is a gentle and long looked for kind of moment. They’re both inexperienced, though Ser Criston may have had previous lovers, and he’s been celibate since taking the White.
How long has he loved her?
What burns in his blood when he stands beside her all day, stands sentry at her door all night?
When they’re leaving Driftmark and Rhaenyra tells him of her arrangement with Laenor, she expects him to be excited the way she’s excited. She gets to have her cake and eat it!
But first he offers her a choice: take me, all of me, and let’s go.
She won’t, of course. Can’t, she supposes. The draw of the throne is unmistakable, inescapable. It belongs to her. She will be queen.
She tells him as much and let’s him know that they can be together.
Ser Criston’s face says so much as she offers this to him. She believes she’s found a way out. A way around the cage of royalty and political arrangements meant to spit out heirs.
He cannot. He will not.
It breaks his heart to have her even ask.
This is the key. What happens when a heart breaks? What happens when all the love you have turns sour and rots?
He must watch Rhaenyra marry Laenor, knowing it’s a convenient lie. He must watch her be with another.
He offered her everything. He’d give up all that he has, all that he is, if she would just come away with him. They could cross the narrow sea and start a new life as simple people. Not as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Ser Criston Cole of the Kingsguard, but as Criston and Rhaenyra. To nobodies in a world of nobodies, finding happiness, creating a life together.
It would have been enough for him. He wanted only her. Needed only her.
And so when this is shoved in his face by Laenor’s lover, Joffrey, Ser Criston loses his goddamned mind.
I love the way this is filmed. Chaos erupts in a crowded, celebratory room. No one can really tell what’s going on or where the screaming is coming from. A chaos of bodies, of voices. Some pushing to get away, some pushing to get closer. And when we finally see what’s happening, the coldness of Ser Criston is so quietly and efficiently brutal that it makes your heart stop.
The Red Wedding was shocking. Yes. It was brutal. But I knew it was coming. At least in the show. So this struck me more powerfully than that previously gasp-inducing phenomenon. The way he snaps Joffrey’s arm. The way he caves in his skull with his armored fists.
And then, when he returns to himself, to the moment and life he’s trapped in, he simply wanders away to kill himself.
There are many stories of women who fear what a man may do to them. There are countless stories of men doing brutal, vicious things because of spurned love or a misunderstanding. What will a man do when his heart is broken?
Well, it all depends on the man. But Ser Criston Cole…he seemed like a safe one, yes? Handsome and young and brave and chivalrous.
I thought their love would last at least a few more episodes at least!
Instead it dies. Rots. Festers.
And we’ll see what that broken heart results in. For now, he’s been given a way out by Alicent, the queen.
Queen Alicent. Friendless in King’s Landing, she begins recruiting allies while Rhaenyra and Laenor are quietly married in the ruins of their feast, while Viserys collapses in a heap once the ceremony is done.
The first season of a show like this must set up the conflicts that will rage on for however many seasons this goes, but it’s interesting how much is set up here, how knotty the web has become.
Next episode is a ten year time jump and we begin again, basically, with a partly new cast and a mostly new context.
And oh, am I excited.