Why Daemon is "hurt" after fighting with Rhaenyra on House of the Dragon

A lot happened in last night's new episode of House of the Dragon, "Rhaenyra the Cruel." One of the biggest was a blow-up fight between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her husband Daemon (Matt Smith). Daemon is also her uncle, so their marriage was built on weird ground right from the start. In the new episode, it started to teeter, as Rhaenyra confronted Daemon about his latest impulsive act: sending assassins into the Red Keep to kill Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) on her behalf, only things went awry and they killed the Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, a child, instead.

It's hard for Rhaenyra to trust a loose canon like Daemon, someone who's never fully given up the idea that it should be him on the Iron Throne rather than her. Daemon had some harsh words coming, but that doesn't mean he wasn't hurt. Matt Smith, who plays the rogue prince, shared his perspective with Digital Spy: "I think the idea that she doesn't trust him feels quite alien to him, because I think he feels like he's the most trustworthy person in the world for her. Genuinely. So I think that he's probably quite, in his Daemon-ness quite, hurt by that."

"The power dynamic between them in that scene, I think what was good about it was that it felt on some level – I think this show is good when it exists in this realm – is that it felt quite domestic, and so I liked it for that reason."

Speaking to Variety, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal also weighed in on this long-in-coming marital spat: "Rhaenyra desperately wants to have this intimate connection where she is very close to him and can trust him. But then she finds again and again that he doesn’t open himself enough or make himself accessible enough to be trusted. She really struggles with that. It’s the same frustration that Viserys always had about Daemon, that you can let him in only so far and then he lets people down because of the impulsiveness of his decision-making."

Where does Daemon go after he leaves Dragonstone?

After the fight, Daemon leaves Rhaenyra's island fortress of Dragonstone, maybe to go establish a military base at Harrenhal on her behalf, maybe to stand on a mountain to curse the heavens for not letting him be king; it's hard to tell with him. "The big lingering questions coming out of that scene is, where does Daemon go?" Condal asked. "Where do his allegiances lie and what’s going to happen to this marriage? The remainder of the season is very much a study of Daemon and Rhaenyra’s marriage."

If you've read George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood (or watched trailers for House of the Dragon season 2, or read interviews; this isn't exactly a big secret), then you know that Daemon does in fact go to Harrenhal, where he meets with lords in the Riverlands and tries to get them to bend the knee to Rhaenyra. He'll be on his dragon Caraxes, which is likely an excellent motivator.

But while he's there, he'll be doing some thinking; I imagine Rhaenyra's voice will be ringing in his head. What does he really want? Matt Smith thinks he knows: "People often ask me, 'Is Daemon after power?' and I've never thought he is," the actor said. "I think he's more interested and addicted to being a sort of agent of chaos, and the discourse that he can create. The ripples that he can manifest further down the line."

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sunday nights on HBO and Max.

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