This article contains SPOILERS for House of the Dragon season 3 episode 2.
If the second episode of season 2 of House of the Dragon centered around the aftermath of the death of Prince Jaehaerys, the second episode of season 3 deals with the ripples that the death of Prince Jacaerys brings about. Curiously, both episodes were written by Sara Hess and directed by Clare Kilner.
HOTD's newest chapter has great cinematography but a weak script, with many moments coming across as inconsistent and unnecessary to the plot — one such gratuitous scene is Lord Jasper Wylde (Paul Kennedy) attempting to assault Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cook). The only consequence it has is landing Jasper in the dungeons and later being executed by Daemon, but there could have been a myriad of other ways to enact that that didn’t involve Alicent nearly getting raped.
How does episode 2 of season 3 of House of the Dragon compare to Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin? Most plotlines do not exist in the book, while some scenes that are described in detail by Martin are very different here, due to the show taking a different approach to the story. Let’s recap the episode and take a look.
Grieving Jace
After Jace’s (Harry Collett) death, Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seasmoke join the Battle of the Gullet and contribute to Team Black’s victory over the Triarchy, despite their losses. In book canon, they participated in the battle from the start, while Baela (Bethany Antonia) and Moondancer didn’t.
The show gifts us an excruciating scene when Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) sees Jace’s body — thankfully cleaned of blood and arrows. In full denial over what she is seeing, the Queen asks her dead son what he has done, like a mother scolding a young son for a mischievous prank. D’Arcy’s performance will pierce through every viewer’s heart.
Eaten up by guilt, feeling responsible for Jace’s death, Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) flies back to the Vale on Sheepstealer and begs Lady Jeyne Arryn (Amanda Collin) for asylum; Lady Jeyne grants Rhaena her blindness. Rhaena choosing a life of self-exile hiding in the Vale echoes her much more comfortable stay at the Eyrie in the book, where she is Lady Arryn’s ward for the entire duration of the civil war.
The episode’s only (much needed) comedic scene sees Daemon (Matt Smith), his Riverlands army and the Winter Wolves celebrating their victory with a funny little ballad called “Fish Feed” and it felt very A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms-coded. I would like to start a petition to HBO to release the full version of the ballad (and of the various songs from AKOTSK, while we’re at it). The levity of the moment is interrupted by the arrival of Daemon’s season 2 bestie and castellan of Harrenhal, Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale), who hands the Prince a message delivered by raven from Rhaenyra informing him of Jace’s passing, and summoning Daemon home. The Prince charges his men to march to King’s Landing and to leave a garrison at Harrenhal.
Before Daemon leaves the Riverlands, he has an ambiguous parting with Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) in which she asks to be granted Harrenhal. Daemon almost laughs at the absurdity of the request, but promises he may get the queen to grant Alys some other reward. I wonder, is this when Alys turns sour toward Daemon and switches side to the greens? From Fire & Blood, we do not know of Daemon and Alys interacting; their entire dynamic and Daemon’s arc from season 2 are original to the show.
Back At Dragonstone
Finally back on Dragonstone, Daemon has to contend with his former lover Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who is now Rhaenyra’s closest advisor — and lover, a fact that Daemon senses right away and that leads to two spoken sparring matches. Reunited with his wife, who is understandably harrowed in her grief over losing yet another child to this war, Daemon gives Rhaenyra exactly what she needs: not comfort, but a reason to get up and put an end to all this; a promise for the future, but also a way to avenge her children’s deaths; above all, his rock-solid support.
It’s enough to reinvigorate Rhaenyra, who dons Jace’s sword and announces the plan to what little remains of her Council. It’s ludicrous that Lord Celtigar still tries to caution her — even if Alicent’s plan is a trap, what better chance will Rhaenyra have than the present moment, with King’s Landing undefended, six grown dragons, and Daemon at her side? Why even write her council’s hesitation, at this point?
Martin writes of this moment:
"Broken by the loss of one son, Rhaenyra Targaryen seemed to find new strength after the loss of a second. Jace’s death hardened her, burning away her fears, leaving only her anger and her hatred. Still possessed of more dragons than her half- brother, Her Grace now resolved to use them, no matter the cost. She would rain down fire and death upon Aegon and all those who supported him, she told the black council, and either tear him from the Iron Throne or die in the attempt. "George R.R. Martin, Fire And Blood
Before Rhaenyra takes off on Syrax, it’s significant to note that it’s Mysaria herself who hands the Queen her crown, symbolically making her queen of the people, as the next episodes will show.
Rhaenyra (more or less) Triumphant: Taking King's Landing
In King’s Landing, Alicent orders the captain of the Gold Cloaks, Ser Luthor Largent (Tom Cullen), and the castle guards to allow Rhaenyra into the Red Keep and avoid bloodshed. In the book, the plan between Alicent and Rhaenyra does not exist and the exact opposite happens: Alicent closes the city gates; Rhaenyra enters King’s Landing thanks to her and Daemon’s strategy, and the Gold Cloaks choose to rebel against the Greens out of sheer loyalty for Daemon, who had been their captain two decades before. The show gives Alicent credit for merits of Team Black, missing out on this iconic scene:
Queen Alicent’s riders got no farther than the gates, where more gold cloaks took them into custody. Unbeknownst to Her Grace, the seven captains commanding the gates, chosen for their loyalty to King Aegon, had been imprisoned or murdered the moment Caraxes appeared in the sky above the Red Keep...for the rank and file of the City Watch still loved Daemon Targaryen, the Prince of the City who had commanded them of old.
Queen Alicent’s brother Ser Gwayne Hightower, second in command of the gold cloaks, rushed to the stables, intending to sound the warning; he was seized, disarmed, and dragged before his commander, Luthor Largent. When Hightower denounced him as a turncloak, Ser Luthor laughed. “Daemon gave us these cloaks,” he said, “and they’re gold no matter how you turn them.” Then he drove his sword through Ser Gwayne’s belly and ordered the city gates opened to the men pouring off the Sea Snake’s ships.
In the episode, when Rhaenyra and Daemon land in the capital, most guards surrender, and Daemon creates a path for Rhaenyra by killing anyone who stands in their way and opens the door to the throne room for her. In an image that the show keeps referring back to (think Rhaenyra in 1x01, or Alicent in 3x01, or even Daenerys in Game of Thrones), Rhaenyra starts walking towards the Iron Throne, when green loyalists come to stand between her and her destination. It’s then that the Gold Cloaks led by Ser Luthor arrive and declare for Rhaenyra. It’s not exactly underwhelming, but it would’ve hit harder if Alicent hadn’t ordered it.
If she is to officially seize her rightful throne, Rhaenyra must execute Aegon, the usurper. Of course, he is nowhere to be found, but in the Black Cells beneath the Red Keep, Daemon finds someone to execute in Aegon’s place: Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), Aegon’s grandfather, imprisoned in secret by duplicitous Larys as a gift to Daemon himself.
In Fire & Blood, Otto was not a prisoner but still part of the court, and the book makes no mention of Rhaenyra beheading him directly, only stating that Otto was the first traitor to be executed, followed by Lord Jasper the Ironrod.
On the show, Rhaenyra must behead Otto in front of the court as a proxy for Aegon, but the show writers decided she would need to hesitate: “I don’t know if I can.” While I’m generally in favor of showing nuance and humanity and empathy, this is the man responsible for every bad thing that ever happened to Rhaenyra, the man who schemed and plotted to take away her rightful throne ever since she was a girl. The show wrote Rhaenyra pitifully hesitating at the prospect of killing the very architect of all her life’s misfortunes. They had her husband remind her of the obvious fact that everyone is watching and that she must do this if she wants to truly become queen. It’s all a bit on the nose. A valid alternative would have been to have Rhaenyra simply command Daemon to behead the traitors, and her husband would have all too been happy to oblige. It would have reminded the court that she can be ruthless when necessary and that she commands the wildest dragon in the Seven Kingdoms, without exposing her hesitation, which will undoubtedly be seen as a weakness.
To encourage Rhaenyra further, Daemon hands her his legendary sword Dark Sister, that once belonged to Queen Visenya herself. Justifiably, Rhaenyra is inexperienced at behading and it takes her two strikes to cut off Otto’s head, while Daemon kills the Ironrod in one quick motion. In a scene the show creators no doubt meant to be allegorical, Rhaenyra steps into Otto’s blood and drags red footprints all the way to the Iron Throne. As if the violence and the corruption stem from her and not Otto himself. When Rhaenyra finally sits the Iron Throne, she looks exhausted. Alicent and Helaena are brought in by guards and they see Otto’s head laying on the pavement.
In the book, their reunion goes very differently:
Upon seeing that resistance was hopeless, the Dowager Queen Alicent emerged from Maegor’s Holdfast with her father, Ser Otto Hightower; Ser Tyland Lannister; and Lord Jasper Wylde the Ironrod (Lord Larys Strong was not with them. The master of whisperers had somehow contrived to disappear). Septon Eustace, a witness to what followed, tells us that Queen Alicent attempted to treat with her stepdaughter. “Let us together summon a great council, as the Old King did in days of old,” said the Dowager Queen, “and lay the matter of succession before the lords of the realm.” But Queen Rhaenyra rejected the proposal with scorn. “Do you mistake me for Mushroom?” she asked. “We both know how this council would rule.” Then she bade her stepmother choose: yield or burn.
Bowing her head in defeat, Queen Alicent surrendered the keys to the castle and ordered her knights and men-at-arms to lay down their swords. “The city is yours, Princess,” she is reported to have said, “but you will not hold it long. The rats play when the cat is gone, but my son Aemond will return with fire and blood.”
Too bad that the literal rats are everywhere in the Red Keep because Alicent’s son Aegon had all the ratcatchers executed last season and didn’t think of introducing cats to do the job.
Thankfully, the show chose not to have Rhaenyra cut herself on the throne, an ill omen that all courtiers would interpret her as not being worthy.
How it goes with the Velaryons
At sea, Corlys’s family searches for him, refusing to believe him dead. No one is more desperate than Alyn (Abubakar Salim) who shares a heart to heart with Baela. Jace’s body is not even cold, and the show is already setting up a new bond for Baela. Spoilers from the book and (possibly) next season: Baela refuses to marry a suitable candidate and instead elopes with Alyn, who may have been born a bastard but is her kin. The two will have a stormy love story.
Addam (Clinton Liberty) at last finds Corlys (Steve Toussaint) and we get a lovely family portrait of the four of them (only Rhaena is missing); in this scene, Corlys speaks his line from the book, “If this be victory, I pray I never see another.”
How it goes with (the two factions of) Team Green
Predictably, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Larys (Matthew Needham) escape their captivity. This plotline is show-original.
Aemond arrives in Harrenhal on Vhagar and annihilates Daemon’s meek garrison there. With no hesitation or remorse, he kills Ser Simon Strong (RIP, sass king) and his sons — in the book, he gives the old man a sword, in the episode, he commands him to pick up one, which Ser Simon refuses to do. There is still time for a plot twist: before he dies, Simon’s son deals Aemond a deep blow and the self-proclaimed king collapses… before none other than Alys Rivers, and begs for help. Will she give it? Will she play mind games with Aemond the same way she did with Daemon?
This episode had its moments, despite the various inconsistencies — not with the source material, but with itself. I wouldn't rate it higher than a B, but I am actually curious to hear reactions from people who have not read Fire & Blood: what did you make of this episode?
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