House of the Dragon: Extended scene of Alicent attacking Rhaenyra

The trailer for HBO’s new Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon came out last week, and sent fans into overdrive. It’s been three years since Game of Thrones ended, and we’re finally about to return to Westeros for a new tale of power, ambitious, betrayal, fire and blood.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood and set around 200 years before Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the story of a civil war fought between rival factions of the Targaryen dynasty. On one side is Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), the eldest living child and chosen heir of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine). When her father dies, Rhaenrya is pretty damn sure that she’s the best person to replace him on the Iron Throne.

That is, if not for her step-mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), who would prefer her eldest son by the king, Aegon, to succeed him. As on Game of Thrones, there are a ton of characters on House of the Dragon, but the conflict between these two is what drives the story.

Rhaenrya and Alicent begin their relationship on good terms, but as it becomes clear that they have different ideas about who should succeed Viserys, things degrade. Their children also have rivalries with each other, and the conflict really heats up when one of Rhaenrya’s kids, Lucerys Velaryon, slashes the eye out of one of Alicent’s kids, Aemon, in a fight.

Alicent goes to her husband and demands that one of Lucerys’ eyes be taken in penance; King Viserys refuses — remember, this is a situation where one of the king’s own grandsons maimed one of his sons after an ugly fight, so he’s conflicted.

In the book, that’s all we hear. But in the trailer, we see a bit where Alicent lunges at Rhaenyra with a dagger, presumably the same one that dashed out her son’s eye. We’ve seen snatches of this scene in different teasers released over the past half-year, and Redditor Teamkhaleesi has kindly cut them together so we get a full idea of what the scene will look like:

"Extended scene of Alice holding the dagger. from HouseOfTheDragon"

Redditors have also caught interesting details. In the first shot, for example, we can see that Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish) starts to move to stop Alicent — he has to protect the king’s daughter, after all. But notice how Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), another knight of the Kingsguard, doesn’t do anything.

Cristin Cole has his own history in this story. He and Rhaenyra were once very close, but had a falling out; by this point in the story, he may be rooting for Alicent to follow through on the job.

It’s encouraging to see all these details; it gives the impression that the producers are thinking carefully about their choices.

HBO logo in House of the Dragon trailer is made from Valyrian steel

One more detail for you: the HBO logo from the trailer is made of Valyrian steel.

"The HBO logo in the trailer is made of Valyrian Steel. from HouseOfTheDragon"

House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max on August 21.

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