10 bits from Fire & Blood they should have kept in House of the Dragon

3. Rhaenyra and Alicent should wear their iconic black and green dresses

This one bugged me. So in Fire & Blood, there’s a key scene set at a tournament that marks the point where Rhaenyra and Alicent really started becoming enemies. Alicent arrives resplendent in green, while Rhaenrya wears Targaryen black and red. People notice how frosty the two women are being to each other. Thereafter Alicent’s faction is known as the greens and Rhaenrya’s as the blacks.

On the show, the events of the tournament transpire during Rhaenyra’s wedding feast. Alicent does indeed make an entrance in a beautiful green dress, and thereafter her faction is referred to as the greens. But Rhaenyra is wearing a white wedding dress during the feast…but Episode 10 is still titled “The Black Queen,” a reference to Rhaenrya. Why is her faction called the blacks on the show? Without the green-and-black dress faceoff, it doesn’t make any sense.

While I loved Alicent’s entrance at Rhaenyra’s wedding feast, I wish the sartorial battle from the book had been preserved. It’s a really memorable incident that reverberates throughout the rest of the story.

And speaking of things that went wrong at Rhaenyra’s wedding feast…

4. Criston Cole kills should kill Joffrey Lonmouth by accident (and kill Lyman Beesbury on purpose)

Rhaenyra’s wedding feast comes to a bloody climax when Criston Cole, a knight of the Kingsguard, beats Ser Joffrey Lonmouth to death. Criston is torn up aside after breaking his Kingsguard vows to sleep with Rhaenyra, and then having her reject him when he asks her to run away with him. When Joffrey, who is the lover of Rhaenyra’s fiancee Ser Laenor Velaryon, implies that he and Criston should work together to protect their sidepieces, Criston snaps. The insult to his honor is too much.

I think there are a few problems with this. For one, it was never established before this how seriously Criston takes his Kingsguard vows, so his snap comes out of nowhere. Furthermore, Criston keeps his job on the Kingsguard after beating an anointed knight to death at a wedding, which raises all kinds of questions. How was this guy not executed, sent to the Wall, or at least fired.

In the book, all of this is much more believable. There, Criston kills Joffrey while fighting him in a tourney, rather than beating him viciously to death at a wedding. Criston gets a too hardcore during the fight, dents Joffrey’s helm with his morningstar, and then Joffrey dies some time later from the wound. It’s possible to imagine a scenario where Criston is let off the hook for this; they were fighting with weapons, after all, and accidents happen. It’s much harder to imagine him being excused for what he does on the show.

Later, in Episode 9, immediately after the death of King Viserys, Criston commits another murder: he kills Lyman Beesbury, the lone member of the king’s small council who wants to crown Rhaenyra (as the king wanted) rather than Aegon. In the show, it almost looks like Criston kills the elderly master of coin by accident; Criston shoves him back into his seat when Lyman rises in anger, smashing his head against one of those little marbles they use to take roll call. But in the book, Criston’s murder of Lyman Beesbury is very intentional; he does it to silence this voice of dissent. Criston doesn’t want Rhaenyra on the throne and makes it very clear to everyone in the room he will not tolerate any dissenting viewpoints.

I think this is much more compelling that the whoopsie-daisy death we get on the show. Basically, I think the should have preserved these scenes as they were in the book: Criston should kill Joffrey by accident and Lyman on purpose, not the other way around.

5. Harrold Westerling dies before Viserys dies

As long as we’re talking about that small council scene, here’s another weird thing about it: after Criston murders Lyman, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Harrold Westerling confronts him. And then he turns in his white cloak and walks out of the room, clearly displeased with what Viserys’ small council is doing in the wake of the king’s death.

And the small council just sort of…lets him go. Later, Alicent insists that Criston be named the new Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, so it sounds like they’ve written of Harrold Westerling as a lost cause. And that baffles me, because why would they all just let him walk of there? At the time of this scene, they’re trying to keep a lid on the fact that the king has died and that they intend to seat Aegon in his place. And here’s an influential guy who obviously disagrees with what they’re doing, and then they give his job to someone else rather than try and placate him. Are they trying to make an enemy out of this very dangerous man?

The whole thing just doesn’t make much sense, and in the books it never comes up: Ser Harrold Westerling has been dead for years by the time King Viserys dies. Criston Cole is already Lord Commender of the Kingsguard. I think I would have kept it this way. By keeping Lord Harrold around, the show only raises confusing questions. This would have made things simpler.