House of the Dragon Episode 8 ending explained

House of the Dragon Episode 8 featured the heartbreaking final days of King Viserys I Targaryen…as well as our last reprieve before the Dance of the Dragons civil war truly begins. The greens and the blacks will soon gather their allies, and the realm will bleed.

But before “The Green Council” kicks things into high gear, you might be wondering what exactly happened in the final moments of Episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides.” As Viserys lies in his darkened bed chamber, high on milk of the poppy, he spills the beans on the biggest secret of the Targaryen dynasty to his wife. Unfortunately, Alicent doesn’t have all the information to understand him.

Episode 8 House of the Dragon explained

The final scene of “The Lord of the Tides” is a tragic misunderstanding that could shape the fate of Westeros. As Alicent tends to Viserys, he starts muttering about the Song of Ice and Fire, the prophetic dream of Aegon the Conqueror about the Prince Who Was Promised, a Targaryen leader who will unite the peoples of the world against the White Walkers. As we learned earlier this season, this secret prophecy is emblazoned onto Aegon’s dagger, and has been passed down through the Targaryen rulers since the dynasty’s founding.

As of Episode 8, the only characters in House of the Dragon who know about it are Viserys and his daughter Rhaenyra. Earlier in the episode Rhaenyra comes to Viserys at his bedside, asking if he truly believes in the prophecy and begging him to help her against the greens. It’s unclear at the time if Viserys hears her, but in the final scene of the episode he finally answers Rhaenyra’s question, claiming he does believe in the prophecy. Except it’s not Rhaenyra sitting beside him then, but Alicent.

Since Alicent doesn’t know anything about the Song of Ice and Fire, she only catches snippets of what Viserys says; among them, mutterings about “Aegon.” He’s speaking about Aegon the Conqueror and his prophetic dream, but Alicent thinks he’s referring to Prince Aegon, their son.

When Viserys says that the Prince Who Was Promised will unite the realm against a threat from the cold north and mentions the name Aegon, Alicent misinterprets his words as a deathbed confession that he wants their son Aegon II to be king. Why she thinks it’s a good idea to base the future of the realm on the ramblings of an old man who is high as a kite on milk of the poppy is a decent question, but there can be no doubt that it will better serve the greens’ ambitions.

House of the Dragon Episode 8 ending explained: Viserys’ last words

However important Viserys’ words to Alicent are, they aren’t quite the final moment of his life. After she leaves him to his rest, we get one last lingering scene with Viserys lying in his bed. He moans, reaching feebly into the air as a tear trickles down his cheek. With his last breath, Viserys murmurs “my love,” and the screen cuts to black.

Viserys is speaking here to his deceased wife Aemma Arryn. This was an improvised moment by actor Paddy Considine, as he recently explained:

"I always had an idea in my head, whether it was useful to the story or not, that the last thing Viserys sees before he dies is the person who comes to collect him from this mortal life. When he dies, he sees Aemma, and he says, “My love.”I just kind of improvised that line, and reached out a little bit, because this to me is a tragic love story, in many ways. But I kept that private; I never actually disclosed that in the end. I just thought, “If they use it, they use it,” and I hear it’s made the cut, so I’m really grateful, because it ends that story quite beautifully. The narrative I had in my mind was that he never really gets over Aemma, that he’s devastated for the rest of his life."

And so King Viserys, First of his Name, fades into Westerosi history. When the screen cuts to black in “The Lord of the Tides,” it is signifying not just the end of the episode, but of Viserys’ life. His last act as king is to unwittingly foment a war between the members of his own family; his last moment of life is spent with the memory of his dead wife, who he murdered in the season premiere by ordering the maesters perform a forced C-section birth. He was a flawed king, but he tried his best to be a decent person. If only those carefully laid plans didn’t backfire on him at the last moment.

House of the Dragon premieres new episodes Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

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