Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy and Matt Smith) have problems like any other couple. Sometimes it's weird that they're uncle and niece. She got mad when he hired assassins to try and kill her half-brother but they murdered the infant child of her other half-brother instead. And then he flew off to the crumbling castle of Harrenhal to purportedly raise an army in her name, but really he was thinking about using it to take King's Landing for himself and claim the Iron Throne. Who hasn't been there?
By the end of the second season of House of the Dragon, the two largely reconciled, and should be back on the same page when season 3 starts on HBO and Max sometime next year. But there is a lot of water under that bridge. Speaking on In Creative Company, D'Arcy talked about where they stand on the Rhaenyra-Daemon relationship now that we're in between seasons.
“I think they are quite profoundly connected characters, even when they're at a distance," D'Arcy said. "And they sort of live in strange counterpoint. And part of that is jealousy and part of it's envy and part of it’s pride. And I suppose something that I really noticed this season was that they are totally incapable of sharing their own weakness. This is not a sort of healthy relationship in which those parties are communicating. Their erotic energy, their strength, their sort of romance can only operate in quite specific circumstances. And we meet them both at the beginning of the series in a state of grief that they can't share; they're both sort of shut down. And I suppose what I noticed about that reunification at the end of the series is …[that] Rhaenyra certainly is sort of back inside her love language, or her erotic language, rather. She's finally moving towards a state of sort of political and personal emotional power."
As usual, D'Arcy is very articulate when talking about the show. But they don't know any more than we do what the future holds for Rhaenyra and Daemon; technically you could check the source material — George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood — to find out, but at this point the show has made so many changes that it's hard to say whether that would be a good guide.
“I'm sort of waiting also to find out how that now resolves, because in the series we see this moment where he confirms that he's raised an army in her name. Okay, great. I feel like there's more to say," D'Arcy continued. "There's a bigger conversation to be had. And I mean, I really like the shorthand of Rhaenyra sort of threatening that he better never leave again, and he sort of says, ‘I can't, I’ve tried.’ So I wonder what the quality of the reunification will be going forward. I don't know the answer to that yet. I'll be very curious to find out.”
D'Arcy has hinted at things they'd like to happen for Rheanyra in season 3, including her getting a weapon and becoming more unsympathetic, but nothing is certain as of yet. At least D'Arcy will find out the truth very soon, with season 3 set to go into production in short order. But we won't see new episodes until 2026. In the meanwhile, HBO will air a new Game of Thrones prequel series called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sometime this year.
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