House of the Dragon: Did Alys Rivers cripple the foot of Larys Strong?

The sixth episode of House of the Dragon season 2 is here, and it contained revelations and developments galore. From the austere halls of Dragonstone to the Small Council chamber of the Red Keep to the streets of King's Landing, "Smallfolk" shifted the playing field for just about every character currently wrapped up in the Dance of the Dragons civil war.

That's especially true in the case of Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) and King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney). Aegon spent the first half of the season adjusting to the idea of being king, only to have it brutally ripped away from him when his own brother, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), ordered him burned in dragonfire and rose to become Prince Regent in King's Landing. Larys, meanwhile, spent much of the season cozying up to Aegon, which resulted in him being named Master of Whiserpers. But now Aemond has made it clear that Larys is on the outs, ordering him to call back Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) so that the Prince Regent might actually get advice he trusts.

It puts Larys in an odd position, and in "Smallfolk" he makes his choice. Rather than keep trying to suck up to Aemond, he goes to meet with the recovering King Aegon and gets brutally honest about what it's like to live with a disability in Westeros, so that Aegon might better prepare himself for his own ordeal. This also served as a great way for Larys to discuss how his leg was injured in the first place...and who his family held accountable for it.

"I came screaming into the world, in the bowels of one of Harren's great towers," Larys tells Aegon. "My lungs were strong, but my foot so twisted that my father named it sorcery. Accusing a member of our household of casting maligned spells."

I don't know about you, but the mention of someone accused of practicing "maligned spells" at Harrenhal immediately caught my interest. Whoever do we know that might fit that description?

Is Alys Rivers responsible for Larys "Clubfoot" Strong's condition?

Yes, I'm talking about Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), the woods witch who has been messing with Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) throughout his stay at Harrenhal. My immediate question on hearing this conversation between Aegon and Larys was whether Alys might have been the person that Larys' father, Lyonel Strong, tried to blame for his twisted foot.

House of the Dragon doesn't answer the question outright, but there's more than enough evidence to support the idea that it could have been Alys. For starters, there's her indeterminate age. In the show as in the source book — Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin — no one knows exactly how old Alys is or how long she's been working for the Strongs at Harrenhal. Actor Gayle Rankin has hinted Alys may have been around for as long as 400 years. Meanwhile, in Fire & Blood, it's speculated that she was the wet nurse to Larys and his older brother, Harwin "Breakbones" Strong, or "perhaps even to their father a generation earlier." The book says that she was at least 40 years old during the Dance, but her actual age is unknown.

The idea that Alys might have been involved in Larys Strong's birth doesn't feel like much of a stretch, considering all the other mysteries about her. The big question though, is if she was accused of some sort of foul sorcery that resulted in Larys' twisted foot, why would she still be serving at Harrenhal? Perhaps that's a testament to just how strong her hold is on House Strong in that accursed place.

Another possibility is that the person accused of casting "maligned curses" on Larys was actually the maester who preceded Alys. During Episode 204, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," Alys tells Daemon that that unnamed previous maester "never settled in" at Harrenhal. Maybe she was putting it gently and the maester was actually ejected from Harrenhal amid accusations of witchcraft.

Whether any actual witchcraft was done is still a pretty big question, though. Was anyone truly to blame, or was it simply nature's decree that Larys be born with his malady? Or perhaps the haunted ruins of Harrenhal themselves played a part. Unless House of the Dragon explores it more, Larys' origins and how he might have come by his twisted foot remain a mystery. But no matter how you look at it, we know more about him now than we ever have.

Two more episodes of House of the Dragon season 2 remain. They air Sunday nights on HBO and Max.

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