The Rhaenyra-Mysaria kiss wasn't in the script—Here's how the actors contributed

In the newest episode of House of the Dragon, "Smallfolk," Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) shares her frustrations with her mistress of whisperers Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), a common-born woman who has become a powerful information broker. Rhaenyra feels like she she's losing her war for the Iron Throne, and Mysaria helps her by sharing a personal story about her traumatic past and expressing her sincere belief in Rhaenyra's ability to win and rule. Rhaenyra goes in to hug Mysaria, both to comfort her and to thank her. The hug lingers and turns into a kiss.

This was a surprise to readers of George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, which doesn't mention a romance between Rhaenyra and Mysaria. In fact, at this point in the book, Mysaria is still based in King's Landing and hasn't even met Rhaenyra in person yet. The show has brought the characters together earlier. Speaking to TV Insider, Mizuno revealed that a romance was always a possibility, although it doesn't sound like it was always a sure thing.

"After I got the job and spoke to the showrunners, they said that this was a potentiality," Mizuno said. "They said the plan was definitely for Mysaria and Rhaenyra to start working together with a potential for romance. So I knew before we started Season 1. I think it was then we got the scripts for Season 2, and at the end of this episode, I remember it said, 'Their foreheads are touching. There’s just breath between them. And then what happens next is interrupted.' But it didn’t define what the thing was that happened, and we had many conversations about it in pre-production and during production, but both Emma and I felt very strongly that we didn’t want the moment to be queer-baiting in any way, so there was that. But there was also kind of finding the truth of that moment and their relationship, and it felt very right that was where it was going. It was kind of a collaborative decision to get where it got to."

As Mizuno hints, where there was an intimate moment for Rhaenyra and Mysaria in the script, a kiss was not specified. That evolved more organically in collaboration with the actors themselves. "[H]ow that moment happened, we didn’t actually plan until the day, and it was Emma who felt in that moment that Rhaenyra wanted to hold Mysaria and comfort her," Mizuno said. "She’d been so open with her and wanted to comfort her. I think the hug was so, in a way, enlightening for both of them because I don’t think either of them get hugged or have been hugged like that. I mean, when do you see people hug in House of the Dragon? You see people f**king, and you see people slapping each other on the back. There was something in that moment that felt so thrilling to be so intimately connected, and it felt then so organic to move into the kiss from there."

Emma D'Arcy and Sonoya Mizuno didn't want to "queer-bait" fans

Whether it was scripted or not, the kiss made a lot of sense in context; Rhaenyra and Mysaria had been building a good rapport from early in the season, and have quite a bit in common despite being born into very different circumstances.

One of those things in common is Daemon Targaryen, Rhaenyra's husband and Mysaria's ex-lover played by Matt Smith. Rhaenyra doesn't know where she stands with Daemon right now, so having someone who understands how difficult he can be is welcome. "We would kind of discuss it as though it was two women who had the same ex-boyfriend, and they’d be like, 'oh, yeah, when he does that thing …' and then it brings them closer together," Mizuno told TheWrap. "It’s a nice journey that they’ve gone on from when Rhaenyra realizes she has history with Daemon to this moment where they can speak about Daemon and find the common ground there. It helps them work together."

Apart from Daemon, Mysaria has been one of the few people on Dragonstone that Rhaenyra has been open with, perhaps because she wasn't noble-born and Rhaenyra feels less constricted around her. When you're open and honest around each other, you can't help but grow closer. "They feel like they are so different to the other, but they do approach each other from the offset a kind of frankness, I think, is just rare in this world," Mizuno said. "I think for both of them, what they grew to grow to understand about each other is they do have a lot of similarities, and they are both these women who have fought and fought in this patriarchal society and they are undoubtedly outsiders of their own rights, and they have more in common than not, and they also have empathy. When you are an emotional, intelligent person, you pick it up in another person and there aren’t that many people in this world who seem to hold emotional intelligence as something good."

Plus, Mysaria has broadened Rhaenyra's worldview when it comes to the plight of the smallfolk, whom Mysaria leverages in this episode to turn the war to their advantage, sparking a riot among the hungry people of King's Landing. "It’s quite a new type of relationship for Rhaenyra," Emma D'Arcy told Variety. "She is such a volatile person that she often allows herself to be led by her emotions — especially in the case of relationships. I think this marks something of a change. Their trust is one that grows creepingly. Initially, they don’t like each other at all. And I think there’s something interesting about seeing two women within such a patriarchal system who have both developed mechanisms for navigating, manipulating the systems of power. Those skill sets were not built to be used on other women so much. So certainly for Rhaenyra, she feels a great deal of threat, actually, from Mysaria — including, obviously, her history with Daemon."

"But as the as the series progresses, Mysaria really affects Rhaenyra’s politics. She has a powerful impact on Rhaenyra’s ability to see how a kingdom and its citizens are affected in the case of civil war. That was slightly abstract to Rhaenyra — until Mysaria somehow makes that more concrete. And I think speaks to different forms of power that, again, maybe Rhaenyra, in her eagerness for a masculine conflict-based power, sometimes overlooks. Gaining the will, and the belief of the people — I don’t know how much that was part of her political consciousness prior to Mysaria."

The Rhaenyra-Mysaria kiss is "thrilling" for both of them

D'Arcy notes that, unlike with Rhaenyra relationship with Daemon, Rhaenyra doesn't feel like she's in a power struggle with Mysaria. "Even in some of her other romantic relationships, there’s a lot of presentation, there’s a lot of bravado, often from both sides," D'Arcy said. "Certainly with Daemon, I think both parties struggle to reveal themselves in weakness, and that their eroticism is sort of predicated on power. Whereas with Mysaria, in this growing relationship — it’s remarkably honest. Initially, there’s huge feelings of empathy and gratitude toward this person. Rhaenyra is hugely affected by the life that Mysaria has lived so bravely. Then, they are two bodies completely overrun by touch. As soon as they embrace and their bodies are touching, I think it’s pure bodily desire.”

Mizuno agrees. She doesn't think either party was playing an angle with the kiss; they were as surprised by the moment as we were at home. “I don’t think either of them have been hugged like that in a long time, if not ever,” she said. “I think it was the hug — the intimate vulnerability of that hug — which which morphed into this very tender and passionate kiss, which was quite … amazing. I think it’s very thrilling in the moment for both of them.”

As Mizuno puts it, the kiss was a moment of "Oh yeah, of course. I’ve fancied that person for six months, and I didn’t realize," which is how it played to me. The question now is: what happens next?

How will Daemon react to the Rhaenyra-Mysaria kiss? Will they start a romance?

While the kiss could be the start of something new, Rhaenyra is engaged in a war for the Iron Throne against her half-brother King Aegon, so I doubt it will become the focus of the series. "What I will say is that there is a huge war brewing so feelings and sexy times aren’t really the priority," Mizuno said.

Still, you have to figure there will be some fallout. Sooner or later, Rhaenyra will reunite with her estranged husband Daemon, and I think we'd all love to see his reaction. “It’s going to be a bit of a shit show, isn’t it?” Mizuno said. “But I’m looking forward to it, whatever it’s going to be.”

D'Arcy doesn't actually think Rhaenyra will tell him at all: "I don’t expect that she will have any intention of telling him. But I imagine that she feels quite proud, and feels quite emboldened. I imagine she quite likes the idea of him finding out. There’s such a power struggle in their relationship, that hooking up with his ex, I can only think, would feel like a useful point on the board."

So maybe that bomb will drop later in the timeline. Longterm, Mizuno wonders if Mysaria the opportunist may find a way to use her intimacy with Rhaenyra to her advantage: "She will take the moment for what it is with her survivor mentality and make the most out of it. So whether that means she has to leave her at some point, who knows?"

We'll know more, at the least, when new episodes of House of the Dragon drop Sunday nights on HBO and Max.

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