Last night’s episode of House of the Dragon introduced us to a whole new status quo, with many new Targaryen family members making their debut, older actors taking over for key characters like Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, and a slew of new dragons taking wing. It was a lot…but from the looks of things, it’s only the beginning.
HBO has released a trailer for next week’s episode, and man does it look nuts. All that tension that was boiling under the surface during Episode 6 will reach a breaking point, and as Princess Rhaenys has previously warned, knives will come out.
We’re going to give a big old SPOILER WARNING up top, because I don’t think there’s any way to really talk about what we see in this trailer without giving stuff away. “Driftmark” will be making some changes from George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, as well as adapting one of the most important moments in the lead-up to the Dance of the Dragons. Let’s get into it.
A funeral at Driftmark
We begin with the funeral of Laena Velaryon on the isle of Driftmark, the seat of House Velaryon. Laena met her end in Episode 6, when her childbirth went awry and she commanded her dragon Vhagar to burn her to a crisp, rather than die in bed. It was a highlight of the episode, and from the looks of things, “Driftmark” will spend some time dealing with the fallout.
Note the ropes being attached to Laena’s gorgeous carved casket; we’ll talk more about them in a second. But first, let’s check out some of the attendees at the funeral:
From left to right, we have Rhaenyra with her children Lucerys and Jacaerys, Laenor Velaryon, Aegon Targaryen, Alicent Hightower, King Viserys, and Helaena Targaryen. There are a few notables in the background as well, including Otto Hightower off on the very left edge of the screen, as well as some other members of House Velaryon behind Laenor, likely Corlys’ brother Vaemond Velaryon’s family. This will be a big event, possibly one of the first times all these various characters are in the same place since Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding 10 years prior.
The Velaryons are a mariner family, and their funerals keep with that idea. Laena’s casket is launched off an ornate dais into the ocean:
We see it actually enter the water from above, in a shot which has appeared in numerous trailers for the series. Note the ridges on the dais; this is not a new fixture erected for Laena’s funeral.
It appears that this particular part of Driftmark is reserved for funerals for prominent members of the family. The trailer opens with Corlys Velaryon asking, “What is this brief mortal life, if not the pursuit of legacy?” As Laena’s casket sinks down to the bottom of the sea, we can just glimpse other caskets of her Velaryon ancestors in the background.
Next we see the grieving mother, Rhaenys Velaryon, dropping a ring onto a table. We didn’t get enough shots of Laena’s hands in previous episodes to be certain whether it was hers, but Rhaenys’ pain is plain to see:
Rhaenys and Corlys won’t be the only ones grieving Laena’s death in the new episode. We also see Laena’s dragon Vhagar taking flight. I would guess this happens during that same sequence.
A funeral is a time to grieve. But you can bet that when you get all these characters together in one place, things are bound to get ugly.
Trouble is brewing on Driftmark
Our next shot gives us a brief glimpse of Alicent Hightower aboard a Targaryen vessel, likely arriving at Driftmark for the funeral. This is the first time we’ve seen Alicent leave King’s Landing since House of the Dragon started.
Of course, Rhaenyra will be there too:
Next we have an ominous shot of what appears to be a dragon’s mouth, flames brewing down its gullet. It opens wide:
We can’t be sure about what dragon this is from the inside of its mouth alone. But my guess is that this is Vhagar, since we know the she-dragon will feature prominently in this episode. In particular, I’m betting this is part of an important scene where Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar come face to face.
We also get a shot of Aegon the Conqueror’s knife, which crops up every now and again:
Next, we have Daemon clutching young Lucerys to him, with Rhaenyra and Corlys Velaryon standing with several guards:
To discuss this shot properly, we have to get into one of the big events from Fire & Blood. When everyone gathers for the funeral, Aemond Targaryen mounts Laena’s dragon Vhagar (remember he didn’t have a dragon of his own in Episode 6). Despite the fact that Vhagar allows this to happen, it leads to a bloody brawl between Aemond and Rhaenyra’s sons which ends up permanently injuring Aemond.
The shot above almost certainly happens soon after that fight; take note of the blood on Lucerys’ face. This is likely when Alicent is demanding justice, in the form of an “eye for an eye.” We’re going to see a lot more of this sequence in the trailer.
Speaking of eyes, here’s a dragon’s:
Again, we can’t be 100% certain about which dragon this eye belongs to, but Vhagar is a safe guess.
Next, we see Laena’s twin daughters Baela and Rhaena watch from a window as their mother’s enormous dragon take flight:
They run to wake up their cousin Jacaerys, claiming “someone stole Vhagar.”
This is a slight difference from Fire & Blood, where Jacaerys’ younger brother Joffrey is the one who raises the alarm after Aemond shoves him into a pile of dragon poo. Since we just saw Joffrey being born last episode, the change makes sense. It also shows that Rhaenyra and Daemon’s children are close, since they thought to wake up Jace ahead of their father or anyone else.
Next, a very dark shot of Vhagar’s foot stomping onto the beach:
Vhagar and the fight between Aemond and Rhaenyra’s children will be one of the central events of “Driftmark,” but it won’t be the only thing going horribly wrong. There may be another death on the horizon.
The grief of House Velaryon
The shot above is perhaps one of the most intriguing and hardest to parse. We see two people wrestling in front of an altar of sorts inside High Tide. It’s hard to make out any details beyond the fact that one of these people has Targaryen platinum hair and the other dark hair. The Targaryen looks kind of like Daemon to me.
We see these two struggling again later in the trailer, though the details are still just as hard to make out:
I don’t recognize that dark-haired person. However, from the swift way the Targaryen catches them and then puts them in the chokehold we saw earlier in the previous image, I’m leaning toward it being Daemon. The movement just looks too skilled for one of the kids, plus the hair style is a match for Daemon.
Who is this person, and what is going on exactly? Let’s get into a deep cut theory here. The next shot in the trailer shows someone taking a swing at Laenor Velaryon with a sword:
We can’t see who the attacker is, but we can tell that this scene is taking place indoors, in a setting that looks like it could be High Tide. In Fire & Blood, Laenor is killed by his lover Qarl Correy not long after Laena’s own death. Considering that another time jump is coming soon where Aegon, Aemond and the rest will be aged up to adult actors, Laenor’s final hour is likely coming in “Driftmark.”
Things start to get really intriguing when you look at the details, though. Fire & Blood leaves the cause of Laenor’s death ambiguous; was Qarl a jealous lover having a quarrel with him, or was he hired by someone to put an end to Laenor’s life? The murkiest possibility put forth in the novel is that Daemon Targaryen hired Qarl to kill Laenor so that Rhaenyra would then be free to marry him instead, with Daemon killing Qarl a short while later and pitching his body into the sea. In the book, Leanor’s death happens in a marketplace, not indoors, but I’d still expect Laenor to meet his end next weekend.
As for the mysterious struggle, I think Daemon is subduing one of Laenor’s attackers, thereby absolving himself of any suspicion.
Then there’s this shot. In the novel, Laenor is killed at a marketplace in Spicetown on Driftmark. While this doesn’t look like a town, exactly, it does have the look of a bustling dockside market.
The only really notable detail we can make out here is that the hooded person in the foreground has platinum-blonde Targaryen locks; you can just make them out at the bottom left corner of the hood as the person turns their head. And we did see Daemon wearing a pretty similar hooded cloak when he killed his wife Rhea Royce in Episode 5, and in Episode 4 when he took Rhaenyra out into King’s Landing.
Back to the drama with the kids, Alicent demands that “there is a debt to be paid,” no doubt over the injury done to Aemond:
That’s her older son Aegon behind her, looking abashed. In the novel Aegon has nothing to do with the misfortune that befalls Aemond, but hey, he stirs the pot enough that we can’t count him out of any trouble.
Next, Corlys Velaryon and a woman who could either be Rhaenyra Targaryen or Rhaenys Velaryon enter the Hall of Nine, where Laena’s children Baela and Rhaena await. A crowd has gathered. Presumably, this is when the news is first hitting that there’s been a tussle between the children:
Speaking of the tussle, the next shot shows Jacaerys Velaryon taking a punch to the face, which sends him sprawling onto the floor next to his younger brother Lucerys:
In the book, Aemond is older than Jace and Luke, and beats them both pretty soundly before Lucerys draws a dagger and slashes out Aemond’s eye. It’s going to get bloody.
Rhaena and Baela watch on in horror as the fight ensues. Note that they’re looking at different things; perhaps Rhaena is looking at Aemond and Baela is looking at Jace on the floor? It almost seems like Rhaena has a bruised lip here as well:
Daemon Targaryen, giving one of those Daemon Targaryen looks:
“This is the highest of treasons,” proclaims Rhaenyra Targaryen. This is from that same scene we saw earlier, where Daemon is holding Lucerys and Corlys Velaryon is at Rhaenyra’s side:
Episode 6 danced around the idea that various people knew that Rhaenyra’s children were bastards fathered by Harwin Strong; in Episode 7 that accusation will likely be made outright. There’s a good chance that’s what Rhaenyra is referring to here.
“Driftmark” will also bring back a familiar face:
Otto Hightower, still the smuggest man in Westeros
After sitting out last week’s episode, Otto Hightower will be back for his first appearance since the time jump in “Driftmark.” Otto is wearing the Hand of the King pin here, so we now know he’s been recalled to replace Lyonel Strong, who burned to death in a mysterious fire at Harrenhal…
And then there’s Larys Strong, the one who set that fire, watching Otto and Alicent interact with some other nobles:
Next, we get a dark but gorgeous shot of Vhagar in flight:
This is almost certainly Aemond’s flight on the dragon that causes so much trouble. It also lets us get a better of a look at Vhagar; I love how she has a sagging, fanned throat that almost looks like an iguana. The designers had a field day.
Next we get a few shots in quick succession that tell us an awful lot. Here Alicent reaches for Aegon the Conqueror’s dagger. Viserys was still wearing the dagger in Episode 6, and that hint of stringy white hair looks like it belongs to him. She pulls the dagger right out of its sheath on his belt:
And lunges forward with the blade raised, while Ser Harrold Westerling gasps in horror:
From there we get a brief glimpse of Otto Hightower yanking his errant grandson Aegon up and shaking him. You can tell this is Aegon by the shape of his nose; it’s slightly sharper than his younger brother Aemond’s. Aegon has been a spoiled princeling; it’ll be interesting to see if that changes at all now that Otto is back to exert some grandfatherly influence on him:
Rhaenyra walks discreetly behind some nobles, perhaps observing them interacting with Alicent or Otto? She’s certainly got a guarded look on her face. This white-bearded man was in the background at the funeral as well:
Otto, snugging up his Hand of the King pin. Bet he missed it these past 10 years:
“I promise you, in time, you and I together will prevail,” Otto says, while the camera lingers on Alicent:
Blood drips down Rhaenyra’s hand. Perhaps this is right after that big moment that’s been teased where Alicent comes for her with the dagger. We see Rhaenyra catch Alicent’s wrist, but it’s possibly she’s injured in the struggle:
“Now they see you as you are,” Rhaenyra whispers to Alicent as she holds the dagger away from her face. Yes, Rhaenyra. Yes we do.
House of the Dragon Episode 7 premieres this Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
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