This is how House of the Dragon should end

BEWARE MASSIVE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON SPOILERS BELOW

HBO’s premiere television series House of the Dragon just pulled off a pretty good second season. Complete with death, dragons, murder, and mayhem, the flagship series has set itself up as one of the best shows to air in 2024 and likely a strong contender for next year’s Emmy awards. Salivating fans will now have to wait a year or two before they can see the resolution to the plotlines that this season built up to and recieve their next delectable bite of this saga. Hopefully next year’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms can keep us at least a little bit sated until it does.

While we suffer through the interminable wait for season 3, let’s take a look forward to how this series will end. House of the Dragon’s predecessor series Game of Thrones had one of the most controversial endings to a popular series in the history of television; if we want more prestige fantasy series to be made, it is very important that House of the Dragon not suffer a similar backlash.

Fans who have read the source material — Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin — or those unfortunate show-watchers who have had the end of House of the Dragon spoiled by Joffrey Baratheon while rewatching Game of Thrones, know there are several highly dramatic moments coming near the end of this story. We're going to get into some of them. Again, please beware SPOILERS AHEAD.

Perhaps the most dramatic of those moments will be the death of Rhaenyra Targaryen, at this point the show’s main character. For many fans of Game of Thrones with PTSD from Daenerys’ untimely demise in the series finale, Rhaenyra’s death will come as both an unwelcome shock and a callback to past traumas. While I have full faith in lead actor Emma D’Arcy’s ability to sell the hell out of Rhaenyra’s death scene, having another Targaryen heroine die at the series climax may be a bridge too far for many fans to digest and still come away liking the series overall.

To avoid the despondency and disgust with which many viewers treated Daenerys' death in the Game of Thrones finale, the final four episodes of House of the Dragon should be structured something like this:

Fourth to last episode

As Joffrey gleefully tells Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones, Rhaenyra Targaryen’s remains are not buried in the Great Sept of Baelor (which Joffrey's mother eventually blows up). They couldn’t be. Rhaenyra Targaryen, protagonist of House of the Dragon, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and the Realm’s Delight is eventually fed to a dragon by her little half-brother Aegon after being ambushed on her home base of Dragonstone, leaving no remains to bury.

For those of us who have come to care about Rhaenyra, her untimely demise will surely be devastating. Her centrality to the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons will make her demise highly tempting as a climax to the show. Few shows have the bravery to move past the death of its main character, with HBO’s Succession being a notable example.

However, there is so much more to the story after Rhaenyra’s death, as her war continues on without her. Could HBO really handle the fallout of another Targaryen queen dying in the final episode of a series? I doubt it. At the very least, the comparisons to the Game of Thrones finale would muddle the show’s reception. While it cannot be the series finale for several reasons, Rhaenyra’s death scene can serve as a heart-stopping mid-season jolt that gears up the audience for the rest of the series.

Tragically, Rhaenyra’s fourth son Aegon III is present for his mother’s execution; her death scars him for life but provides an opportunity for rich character moments. Besides Rhaenyra’s capture and death, the most important scenes that need to happen in the fourth-to-last episode will be her attempts to pass on knowledge of the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy. Knowing that she is now doomed, Rhaenyra will be desperate to pass on the knowledge of Aegon the Conqueror’s prophecy so that it is not forgotten when she is gone. Will she tell her young son Aegon III? If she can. Will she even stoop to passing the knowledge to her shitty younger brother, also named Aegon? Maybe, we shall see. Regardless, I think we all know that this episode will end with Rhaenyra’s last curse, a biting dragon, and a sudden fade to black.

Third to last episode

In the third-to-last episode of House of the Dragon, the audience and the characters should be allowed time to emotionally deal with Rhaenyra’s death (looking at you, Alicent). This episode will both pay tribute to the character and set the pieces for the final two episodes of the series. Reflections on Rhaenyra can come from several characters, including her brother Aegon, Corlys Velaryon, and her former best friend, Alicent Hightower.

But don’t worry, there will be plenty of drama and forward plot movement to accompany the sentimentality. The now seemingly uncontested King Aegon II will need to return to King’s Landing, his nephew Aegon III and cousin Baela Targaryen in tow as hostages. He will need to violently suppress the numerous little rebellions that broke out in both his and Rhaenyra’s absences. You could even have a 'Daemon and his gold cloaks’ style montage of Aegon’s men suppressing the small folk who took control of the city during the fall of the Dragonpit.

Elsewhere in Westeros, Cregan Stark and Rhaenyra’s other supporters will have to choose to keep fighting, even with their queen dead and her heir a hostage. For Game of Thrones fans, this will be strongly reminiscent of Robb Stark’s bannerman choosing to support him as a King after Ned Stark’s execution. Afterall, the show and the war must go on.

This episode will not be as dramatic as the ones immediately preceding or following, but is pivotal to the emotional state of the audience, letting them have a breather before the end of the show and reorienting their loyalties to the surviving characters. How do you make a show’s ending not feel rushed? Give the people time to grieve.

Second to last episode

In the grand tradition of Game of Thrones, the penultimate episode of House of the Dragon season 4 needs to be a large battle episode. "The Watchers on the Wall," "Hardhome," and "Battle of the Bastards" all came later in their seasons and brought us awe-inspiring action and spectacle. The final battle of the Dance of Dragons, known to its participants as the Muddy Mess, is a massive battle that takes place on the road towards King’s Landing between the forces of Aegon II’s Baratheon vassals and Rhaenyra’s loyalists who refuse to give up, even with their leader dead and eaten. The Muddy Mess marks a gory end to the Dance of the Dragons, and ironically one in which no dragons take part, as almost all have perished.

House of the Dragon has been working especially hard to bring House Stark into the show, and I think it would be interesting to have Cregan Stark participate in this battle (he's not present in Fire & Blood), perhaps even leading the pro-Rhaenyra forces, fighting alongside various characters we were introduced to throughout the war. Would it be cool to see the Starks fighting the Baratheons on behalf of the Targaryens? I think so. Great characters such as Black Aly Blackwood and “the Lads” will also be able to participate.

Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, the battle in the field will have to be mirrored by Aegon’s increasing failure to bring the realm and city under his rule even without his sister to oppose him. He will be reunified with older wiser characters such as Corlys Velaryon, Tyland Lannister, his mother, and his new best friend, Larys Strong. Increasingly desperate with his armies being defeated on the battlefield, he will turn to threatening his hostages, his nephew Aegon and his cousin Baela, both of whom were captured on Dragonstone. With them as hostages, both Rhaenyra’s and Daemon’s bloodlines are at his mercy, and he could drive the eponymous House of the Dragon to near extinction. His advisors will try to moderate him and fail, setting up Aegon II as the final villain of the series.

Series Finale

The series finale should begin with the Green council hearing of their defeat in the battle and Aegon summoning Rhaenyra’s (apparently) last remaining son for execution. Aegons’ deranged brutality sets in motion the episode plot for the finale. Corlys Verlaryon and Larys Strong then orchestrate the coup of King’s Landing and the assassination of Aegon II. Cregan Stark and his army then take King’s Landing and the Red Keep. Disgusted by the maneuvering that always goes on in King’s Landing, Cregan takes power as Hand of the King so he can begin the trials of the Hour of the Wolf.

During the trials, Larys is executed but Corlys is spared due to the advocacy of his granddaughters Baela and Rhaena, as well as Aly Blackwood. Cregan meets Alicent Hightower. Corlys and Alicent share one last seen together, reflecting on the legacy of Viserys, Otto Hightower, Princess Rhaenys, and Rhaenyra. The show ends with Aegon III as a child king with Corlys, Baela, and Rhaena standing by him, along with a forgiven Tyland Lannister. Aegon III is betrothed to his cousin Jahaera (the daughter of Aegon II). Cregan Stark quits King’s Landing with Black Aly Blackwood and rides for the North. Alicent, all her children dead, looks out of a tower cell at the horizon, reflecting on her old friend Rhaenyra and what was. After all the death and destruction, one of Rhaenyra’s sons is on the Iron Throne and betrothed to Alicent’s granddaughter, something that Rhaenyra offered in season 1 only for Alicent to reject the idea.

This series has so far gone out of its way both to tie itself to its predecessor, and to front the Rhaenyra-Alicent relationship, so ending the series with a Stark victory and the continuation of the Targaryen line (without the dragons that gave them their power) while highlighting Rhaenyra’s original join her line with Alicent's idea would give the series emotional heft and end things on a forward-looking note. This would be much more emotionally satisfying than a ‘gotcha’ ending with Rhaenyra’s death and maybe only one episode afterwards. TV series are rightfully afraid of doing many episodes after the death of their main characters, but House of the Dragon will be better received if the writers and producers have the courage to take the story to its conclusion. Anything shorter will lead to the ‘rushed ending’ criticism that plagued Game of Thrones.

I understand that the showrunners probably tire of excited fans always talking about how they think a story should end, or which minor characters need to be included, but I am heartfelt in my belief that this story needs a long tail to conclude in a satisfying manner. HBO, George R.R. Martin, and the showrunners have a long-term vested interest in audience satisfaction with the end of this series; the Westeros-verse is possibly HBO’s and Max’s most valuable IP, and they have many more shows planned in this universe.

Peter Jackson’s movie The Return of the King has long been joked about for feeling like it has three (or more) endings. If I’m entirely honest, when I rewatch The Lord of the Rings movies, I don’t always watch fully to the end… but I do actually rewatch The Lord of the Rings movies. The ending of Game of Thrones gave it much less rewatch value, even now, five years later, I have only gone back to watch a couple of the best episodes over again, and I am someone that rewatches everything. To make your audience come back and want to rewatch your show — or your spinoff series — you have to end in a way that is emotionally satisfying. Giving House of the Dragon a long tail and allowing some of its side characters to move to the center and have happy endings is one way of doing that.

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