In Fire & Blood, Larys Strong is a mysterious figure who moves among the shadows helping the greens consolidate power in King’s Landing. He talks little, and his true motives are never revealed.
But thanks to House of the Dragon, we know that he killed his family and is helping usurp the throne cause he’s into foot stuff. Specifically, he serves Queen Alicent Hightower at least in part because she lets him ogle her feet, as we saw in one memorably grotesque scene from last night’s episode, “The Green Council.” As director Claire Kilner put it on Entertainment Weekly’s West of Westeros podcast, Larys was “Looking at her feet and then having a wank, basically.”
Here’s a fun sex fact for you: according to peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, foot fetishes are among the most common sexual fetishes in the world, so Larys has plenty of company. That said, it seemed a little…obvious to me? Like, he has a malformed foot so he’s into feet. I hope his character isn’t reduced to that. Surely he has motives like greed and ambition and hubris as well?
There were no intimacy coordinators present during the feet scene
According to Kilner, producer and episode writer Sara Hess came up with the idea for Larys to be a foot stan. “Her mind is incredible. I mean, she really wrote us a wonderful episode, I have to say,” Kilner said. “But, yeah, that was an interesting scene actually… Funnily enough, you get the intimacy coordinators [for] all the nudity, but they don’t think about it for this.”
It’s the job of an intimacy coordinator to make sure actors feel taken care of during intense or potentially uncomfortable scenes. Usually that means sex scenes, but I think I was more grossed out by Larys and Alicent’s scene than by any sex on the show so far, and that includes Daemon trying to seduce his niece. I want an intimacy coordinator after that. “It’s so intrusive and invasive,” Kilner said. “It’s a really dirty scene.”
The season finale of Feet of the Dragon airs this upcoming Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
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