Last year, HBO premiered its long-awaited Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, and by pretty much any metric it was a huge success. Set nearly 200 years before the events of Thrones, the spinoff tells the story of a brutal Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, which was detailed in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. By the end of the season, blood was drawn and the dragons prepared to dance.
With the recent news that House of the Dragon season 2 has commenced filming, it’s the perfect time to look back on some of our favorite moments from season 1. Here are five moments from House of the Dragon which still haunt us to this day.
1. The final walk of King Viserys I Targaryen
House of the Dragon is an intergenerational family saga. We begin the story with King Viserys (Paddy Considine), a man who has fallen into the role of king and turns out to be less than ideally suited for it. Over the course of the season, we see Viserys strain to keep his various family members from each others’ throats, all while ruling the Seven Kingdoms.
It takes a toll on him. By the time Viserys meets his end in the season’s eighth episode, “The Lord of the Tides,” he’s deteriorated to the point where he’s missing limbs and organs and can barely walk. The episode features many different members of the Targaryen family, but spends extra time on Viserys since it’s his last day alive.
And what a day it is. While there are several showstopping moments in House of the Dragon season 1, Viserys’ last walk across the Red Keep throne room is easily the best. Not a dragon in sight, just a tired old man struggling to sit in a chair so he can defend the rights of his daughter and her children. The heartstrings get plucked all the harder when Viserys stumbles, his crown falling to the ground, only for his estranged brother Daemon (Matt Smith) to come out of the wings and help Viserys up the last few steps before placing the crown he’d so often coveted upon the king’s head.
By all the old gods and the new, I’m getting a little weepy just remembering it.
2. Laenor Velaryon faking his own death
One of the more fascinating adaptation choices made in House of the Dragon season 1 is that Rhaenyra Targaryen’s first husband, Laenor Velaryon, doesn’t die. Fire & Blood is constructed as a “fake history” book that leaves plenty up to the interpretation, but Laenor Velaryon’s death is set in stone. The show changed that up.
In the book, Laenor is stabbed to death in the middle of a bustling marketplace by his lover Ser Qarl Correy. There are a lot of witnesses and his body is recovered. No one knows exactly why Qarl Correy did the deed, but many of the theories put forth in Fire & Blood revolve around getting Laenor out of the way so that Rhaenyra is then free to marry her uncle Daemon.
By contrast, the show introduces an elaborate plot which Rhaenyra, Daemon, Laenor, and Ser Qarl seemingly hammered out together. Despite any issues their political marriage has caused, Rhaenyra and Laenor still care for one another. She doesn’t want to kill him, but needs him gone because his actions are starting to imperil her position at court.
So instead of ordering Laenor’s death, Rhaenyra and her allies fake it so that he and Ser Qarl can leave Westeros behind. The actual logistics of the act are a little confusing; how long does it take to burn a body to the point where it would be unrecognizable to the victim’s own parents, as the conspirators do in order to fool everyone into thinking Laenor died in a fire?
But the culmination of it all is still something I’m thinking about, both because it was a big swing for House of the Dragon to take, as well as one which could have larger plot implications down the line should Laenor ever return to the Seven Kingdoms.
3. Daemon singing to Vermithor
Another scene that lingers in the memory is the introduction of Vermithor the Bronze Fury. In the season finale, Daemon Targaryen approaches the old dragon and soothes him with a Valyrian lullaby. Vermithor was the dragon of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator, Daemon and Viserys’ grandfather. Following Jaehaerys’ death of old age, Vermithor refuses to take on any new riders and flies off to Dragonstone to live a life of seclusion.
But with civil war brewing, there will come a day in the not too distant future when Rhaenyra and her blacks will need all the dragons they can get. This is discussed in the season 1 finale and will likely become a major plot point in season 2.
While we don’t see any new dragonriders take flight in the finale, we get that scene with Daemon and Vermithor. The gargantuan bronze dragon is the second largest alive during the Dance, topped only by Aemond Targaryen’s mount Vhagar. Vermithor breathes fire across the ceiling of his cavern as Daemon approaches, before settling down at the sound of the Targaryen prince’s song.
Vermithor’s appearance was a very cool easter egg for fans, but it’s also one of the more enduring mysteries of the season 1 finale. Until we actually see season 2, I’ll be wondering about how the show will build on this epic moment.
4. Rhaenys and Meleys interrupt Aegon II’s coronation
Next up, we have what is probably the single most divisive moment from House of the Dragon season 1. Episode 9, “The Green Council,” focuses on a coup in King’s Landing. Following the death of King Viserys, Alicent and Otto Hightower plot for the Iron Throne go to Alicent’s son Aegon instead of Viserys’ chosen successor Rhaenyra.
Over the course of an hour, we see various players lay their cards on the table, sending ravens to make arrangements in other parts of the Seven Kingdoms and vying for influence over Aegon during the lead-up to his coronation. And while House of the Dragon was generally a tightly written show, there were enough plot holes in “The Green Council” that some fans flashed back to the worst moments from Game of Thrones. It was a reminder that while House of the Dragon was solid, there was also the potential for things to go off the rails.
Thankfully, the season finale ended things on a high note. But before we got there, we watched a big dragon scene that divided viewers: as Aegon II Targaryen is crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms in the Dragonpit, his cousin Rhaenys bursts from the floor astride her mighty red dragon Meleys. Meleys rampages about stomping on peasants before ultimately taking off with little more than a roar in Aegon and Alicent’s face.
Should Rhaenys have just incinerated the entire green faction right then and ended the war before it began? Is it realistic that someone pegged as a conscientious leader wouldn’t think twice about trampling hundreds of smallfolk beneath her dragon’s scaly feet?
We don’t have answers to these questions, and neither does House of the Dragon. But we’re certainly still thinking about it months later.
5. Storm’s End and Rhaenyra Targaryen putting on her war face
We end where House of the Dragon season 1 ended: with the tragedy at Storm’s End. After learning of the greens’ coup, Rhaenyra dispatches her sons Jacaerys and Lucerys on their young dragons to make alliances in her name. Being the older of the pair, Jace takes the more dangerous journey to the North, where he’ll parley with the leaders of the Vale and Winterfell.
Younger brother Lucerys is given the seemingly easier task of going to Storm’s End to remind Lord Borros Baratheon of his oath to Rhaenyra. Except that when Luke arrives, he finds his uncle Aemond already there. Aemond has long harbored a grudge against Luke for slicing out his eye when they were children, and we see that simmering hatred boil over when Aemond takes to the sky on Vhagar to chase down Luke and his fledgeling dragon Arrax.
The chase through the storm is one of the best dragon moments so far; Vhagar is terrifyingly enormous, especially when she swoops out of darkened clouds to snap at Arrax.
It all goes tragically wrong when Arrax tries to fight back, breathing fire on Vhagar’s face. In a moment of rage, the old dragon disobeys her rider Aemond and chomps Arrax — and Lucerys — to bits. Despite any animosity Aemond harbored for his nephew, it’s clear from his final reaction that he didn’t intend to kill him in this moment. But whatever his intentions, he drew first blood in the war.
Yet as epic and memorable as the dragon chase above Storm’s End is, the part of this sequence that has most emblazoned itself in my memory is the final scene, where we watch as Rhaenyra Targaryen receives news of her son’s death. Season 1 ends with Rhaenyra turning slowly toward the camera, her face transforming into a grim mask of determination to mete out retribution on those who have wronged her and harmed her family.
If only those people weren’t also her family. There are a lot of tragic events ahead in the story of the Dance of the Dragons, and Rhaenyra’s final glare is a promise that we’ll see them. This is only the beginning of the larger conflict, and the question of what Rhaenyra will do next looms large.
We’ll find out when House of the Dragon season 2 premieres on HBO, most likely sometime in 2024!
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