If there is one thing we’ve come to expect from this season of House of the Dragon, it’s the unexpected, especially when it comes to Daemon Targaryen. I think it’s an understatement to say that House of the Dragon is wasting Daemon’s potential this season and that his scenes at Harrenhal are falling a bit flat and feel like a waste of Matt Smith’s talents and the complicated character he's playing.
Since making his way to Harrenhal, Daemon has been having strange dreams that have all been centered around important women in his life. It was fun getting to see Milly Alcock back as young Rhaenyra in these sequences, but we could have done without the dream scene in the latest episode, which featured an appearance from Daemon’s mother Alyssa Targaryen, who died when he was still very young.
Episode 5, “Regent,” found Daemon still at Harrenhal, which had us ready for a dream sequence. What we did not expect was for Daemon to be dreaming about graphic sex scene between him and his mother. Now, we know incest is nothing new to the Targaryen family, but that particular scene was a bit much even for House of the Dragon, and fans apparently aren’t the only ones who struggled with the scene.
“I struggled at the beginning,” House of the Dragon director Clare Kilner told The Wrap when asked about Daemon’s latest Harrenhal nightmare. “I just didn’t want it to feel voyeuristic, and I wanted there to be some deep connection with this woman. I started thinking about it like an artsy poem and that came because Emily Lambert, the actress, was just very intelligent and deep-thinking young woman and there was a lot of chemistry. We all were thinking about how we wanted to present this so that it’s not just a gag – there’s something happening to him deep inside.”
I can admit that the creative team succeeded in making sure the scene didn’t just feel voyeuristic, but we’re not so sure about its effectiveness as the show could have surely found a way to incorporate Alyssa without pushing the envelope quite as far as they did. It felt like a scene that was added for some shock value and to get fans talking. There is no doubt the writers could have found a way to work in the “favorite child” bit without Daemon bedding his own mother.
As needed as it might have been for character development and backstory, we’ll be happy when the writers finally stop wasting time on Daemon’s nightmares in Harrenhal and thrust him back into the heart of the action. It’s been a struggle to even invest in his scenes this season and they feel like an unneeded distraction from the bigger story, so let’s hope the show finally stops dreaming up weird sequences for Daemon and puts this character to good use before season's end.
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