House of the Dragon showrunner talks Larys Strong’s big turn

House of the Dragon’s latest episode had a number of shocking turns, not the least of which was the ending involving Larys Strong. SPOILERS for Episode 6 below!

After the 10-year time jump, we see that Lyonel Strong is still hand of the King and that his sons have taken leadership positions in King’s Landing, with Harwin commanding the City Watch and Larys working with the confessors in the dungeons, as well as serving as a kind of spymaster for Alicent Hightower.

The Strongs are in a bit of a jam as the longstanding love affair between Rhaenyra and Harwin threatens to come to light. After Criston Cole goads Harwin about him being the secret father of Rhaenyra’s children, Harwin beats him to a pulp and gets himself expelled from the City Watch. Lyonel then escorts Harwin back to Harrenhal, where they both perish in a fire.

And we find out that agents of Larys Strong set the blaze, making him responsible for killing his own father and brother, apparently just to ingratiate himself with Alicent, who seems horrified by his actions. House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal spoke with Entertainment Weekly about this shocking turn of events.

House of the Dragon showrunners talked to George R.R. Martin about Larys Strong

“He was fascinating in the book,” Condal said. “We just decided that Larys was smart enough in the history to never to get himself written down into many of the accounts too much, but we knew he was a schemer. We knew he was operating in those places, but he was wise. So nobody really knew what he was actually up to. Of course, you’re only looking at what’s in the historical records. So that doesn’t mean these things didn’t happen.”

"We looked at what George gave us in the text. We talked to him, of course. And then we took what we knew about the character and placed him into interesting dynamics, situations that had political things to be lost and gained. How is he going to play and what is this person actually gonna do? But that’s actually a place where we had a tremendous amount of latitude because he’s so present in the book and so interesting. You just want to turn the page and read more, but there’s not much there. Because the historians didn’t really get anything on him, it gave us tons of latitude to really draw on and invent with that character."

Although this act makes Larys the Lord of Harrenhal, the bigger picture is that Larys made Alicent Hightower feel like she was culpable for their deaths. This gives Larys a lot of power and influence over the Queen.

With this move, Larys has shown that he is cut from the same cloth as someone like Littlefinger or Varys. We do not know what his ultimate goals are, but if he was shamelessly willing to murder his closest family members, he could be capable of anything.

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