House of the Dragon: Episode Seven
Are you caught up?
There is so much to talk about in this episode. For an episode that begins quietly with very little explicit conflict, lots of understated tension, it sure does become one of the most intense episodes of the whole show.
One of the things I love about House of the Dragon is that, for the most part, the whole show is just a Bottle Episode. Yes, there are times the story fans out to distant places and so on, but almost all of the show involves the entire primary cast stuck in the same place together. This episode is the most drastic version of this, as the bulk of the episode takes places over the course of just a few hours with everyone on screen together.
But this is interesting. This show about the fate of the realm, where thousands of lives hang in the balance, where things decided by these characters will ripples out to impact the millions of Westerosi spread over the continent, the show is locked inside palatial rooms and the fractious ugliness of a single family as it unravels.
While things begin sedately, they start unspooling rapidly.
But let’s take a moment to focus on the children.
We see the difference between Alicent and Rhaenyra as mothers most directly through their children, I think. Alicent stands apart from her children during Laena’s funeral reception. Aegon is getting shitfaced without anyone bothering to take him in hand. Aemond is awkwardly standing here and then there.
What we see, too, is how the animosity between these mothers has spilled into the children. Uncles and nephews can barely be near each other due to the tension that’s arisen between them in recent months. It was, after all, not so long ago that Aegon and Rhanyra’s older boys were playing cruel jokes on Aemond.
No one instructs Aegon or Aemond to go to their cousins who have just lost their mother. No one tells them anything, until Otto Hightower takes a drunk Aegon in hand with quiet violence.
Rhaenyra is close to her children, physically, if nothing else. She sees how they hurt and she goes to them. Then she instructs Jacaerys to go to his cousins (second cousins? first cousins once removed? how does genealogy work?) and comfort them in their grief. Which he does.
Such a simple thing, to show the contrast between these two mothers through their children.
Then, the center of the episode: Aemond attacks his cousins and nephews after taking Laena’s dragon, resulting in the loss of his eye.
Aemond seemed such a sweet boy, but gaining the dragon opens something vicious inside him. He has been a boy left alone to suffer beneath his indifferent and casually cruel brother, Aegon. No one to direct him in life or teach him to be the man he must be.
He has learned to be a man through watching the other men who surround him. And when he steals the dragon, he feels confidence, perhaps for the first time. Confidence in his ability to take and do as he feels.
So when Laena’s daughters confront him over the fact that he took their mother’s dragon at their mother’s funeral, he has no problem in insulting them, in physically beating them. When Rhaenyra’s boys come to defend their cousins, he has no problem beating them, too, and threatening to murder them.
As we saw in the previous episode, Ser Criston Cole has led Alicent’s sons to bully their younger nephews. Aegon, in that episode, at least a few years older than Jacaerys, casually beats Jacaerys up. Which, I mean - if a sixteen year old fights a twelve or thirteen year old and wins, who would be surprised?
Aemond stands over Jacaerys, calls him a bastard, and threatens death. I mean, this is pretty fucked up! And so when Lucerys slashes at Aemond’s face, he does it out of fear and desperation.
Fear and desperation. These sit at the heart of who Alicent has become. Her desperate fear over her belief that Rhaenyra will kill her son.
Fear and desperation. So much of this unfolding tragedy stems from these two words. Whether real or perceived or simply imagined, so many choices that ripple through this story are driven by fear and desperation.
Aemond’s lost eye forces even Viserys to finally deal with the fact that Rhaenyr’a children are obviously not Laenor’s children. And, as always, too late does he do something, and that something is too little. As always, he demands peace. He threatens in a way that no one believes or takes seriously. And so Alicent attempts to become the author of her own justice, only to be stopped by Rhaenyra.
Even the positioning of this scene is interesting. Rhaenyra stands with her children and positions them behind her when violence is promised. Alicent’s children stand apart from her. She offers no physical comfort or even kind words. She seeks only vengeance. Only Rhaenyra’s ruin.
Two mothers of such different temperament and disposition.
I keep saying that such and such moment seems to be the seed of the whole of the civil war, but this just shows my unfamiliarity with the source material! I mean, I read about it in that History of Westeros published seven or eight years ago. I’ve forgotten just about everything about what it said about The Dance of the Dragons, but I know it’s a civil war between parts of House Targaryen. And so when Daemon left for the stepstones, I thought: aha! Here it is.
When Alicent refused to bind her children to Rhaenyra’s, I thought: Aha! Here it is.
Over and over, I see the seeds And I am right each time! But there are so many more seeds than I expected! The writers have twisted such a knot that it’s eventual severing and all those violently frayed ends will feel inevitable and required based on such and such thing that happened between Alicent and Rhaenyra or even Otto Hightower and Daemon or Corlys and Daemon and on and on.
We sprint towards ruin and we know it. We’re just holding on.
When the children fought, I held my breath. When Alicent demanded an eye, I held it harder. When she grabbed Viserys’ knife (Aegon the Conqueror’s!), I choked on that held breath.
It looks like another time jump is coming at us next episode. The lines are so clearly drawn at this point that it’s almost uncomfortable that the armies haven’t lined up yet.
Though, I am curious where the Velaryon’s will end up. Laenor is assumed dead. Laena is dead. I’m guessing they’ll stand behind their true-born granddaughters for sure, which means also standing behind Rhaenyra’s children. Corlys has said as much already, but what people say can only be taken seriously up to a point in Westeros. Especially when it will be assumed that Daemon killed Laenor in order to take Rhaenyra as wife.
Oh, what a tangled web!
Stray observations:
Ser Criston is teetering on the edge of villainy, but his response to Alicent when she wants him to cut out Lacerys’ eye and she reminds him that he’s sworn to her: “As your defender.” I loved that.
Viserys calling Alicent by his dead wife’s name is something I missed. I thought he was letting her know that he is leaving her to her young handsome knight. I thought this was later related to his demand to know where the King’s Guard was when Aemond was getting knifed. But maybe only I’m making this leap between the handsome knight and the beautiful young queen.
Laenor getting a happyish ending is a sweet thing.
The above seems related to the fact that Rhaenyra is our heroine here. Whatever is coming out way, it’s safe to say that Rhaenyra has been positioned in a dozen different ways to be the sympathetic protagonist.
I honestly never expected Daemon and Rhaenyra to get together. Thought it would forever be hinted at, teased, but never consummated. Yet, here we are.
Viserys dying is definitely the season finale, yeah?
It's so sad to see Alicent become her father. I initially thought it was a mistake to spend so much time with them young, but seeing Alicent grow from a sweet, caring girl to a cold, distant mother and wife has been heartbreaking. She goes through the motions--somewhat--but her heart is never in it. Rhaenyra got to choose her children; Alicent had them foisted on her and was clearly struggling with them (compare Rhaenyra holding a quiet baby Joffrey to Alicent unhappily trying to soothe a crying Aegon).
There are many layers to the civil war, but--at least so far as the books are concerned--the actual point-of-no-return has yet to be reached, and is probably the season finale, I'd think. I do like how many points there are where things could've been settled, where the whole thing could have been averted if only someone would grab the lifeline.