Sunday evening’s episode of House of the Dragon gave us a healthy mix of action and death and more of the slow unraveling of Queen Rhaenyra and her tenuous grasp on the Iron Throne. Not to mention one character death that many fans of the series have been eagerly awaiting, though I found myself oddly conflicted when it actually came. Spoilers ahead.
Ser Criston Cole has become one of the most hated characters in not just House of the Dragon, but all of Game of Thrones. He’s vain and petty, mistakes honor for ego, and once spurned by Rhaenyra made it his life’s quest to ruin hers. But I think the show has given Cole a bit more depth in Season 3. We’ve come to understand him a bit better, even if he remains an arrogant and ultimately self-serving bastard.
Still, when he and his remaining men are ambushed by Riverlanders pretending to be dead, he shows us that he is at least one of the greatest warriors in Westeros. The ensuing fight is brutal. Ser Criston moves from flail to sword to dagger, wearing nothing but his padded gambeson. No shield, no armor, almost like some warrior priest, fighting off one attacker after another, saving those of his men he could. He only drops the spiked flail because it’s lodged so deep into an enemy’s face. He scrambles for a blade, fends off another attacker, takes the final enemy down on the ground in the dirt, shanking him with almost an Aegon-like ferocity.
Then the real trap is sprung. What was known later as The Butcher’s Ball. The rest was all a diversion. Ser Roderick and Lord Tully arrive with their assembled forces. Cole, to his credit, tries to surrender. “If I strike my banners,” he says, “Will you spare my men?”
Oscar Tully replies that he’s been decorating with the bones of his enemies and he has far too few bones. So Cole makes another surprisingly honorable offer: Him against Roderick and Oscar, two against one. He wraps Alicent’s favor around the hilt of his blade. You think, as you watch this, that it’s still not a fair fight. This man is a champion. Against an old man and a boy, he’ll likely still prevail, even exhausted.
Then an arrow pierces his side. Another enters his gut. He gasps and a third takes him in the cheek. Ser Criston Cole, once Rhaenyra’s champion, once Alicent’s lover, once Captain of the King’s Guard and Hand of the King, son of the steward to Lord Dondarrion, a lowly knight who has risen high, is at last dead. The Starks and Riverlanders descend upon his meager forces. It’s hardly a fair fight. It’s hard to mourn Ser Criston, but it’s a terrible irony to see him slain by an archer from the trees. Then again, a man who traded his honor so freely because of his pettiness and jealousy and resentment deserved no better death, even if he was finally becoming the kind of knight he should have been all along.
Few will mourn his passing. I’m not sure Alicent will ever hear those heroic ballads he was so certain would be written about him. Heroic ballads often involve heroic duels to the death, and Cole was no Boromir.
Ser Gwayne Heads To Tumbleton
Wisely, Alicent’s brother, Gwayne, decided to part ways with Ser Criston and his deathwish. He makes his way to Tumbleton where his cousin and liege lord, Ormund Hightower, is none too pleased either with his cowardice or his smell. He’s traveled long and hard and you can tell that Gwayne has very little patience for his cousin’s chiding.
Ormund sends Daeron away with Gwayne (who is Daeron’s uncle, whereas Ormund would be his second cousin, though I start to get all turned around with these things and it always gets worse in Westeros). In any case, Daeron immediately confides in Gwayne that he hates being Ormund’s ward and feels betrayed that Gwayne left him. Alas, while Gwayne is certainly sympathetic – they’re both quite aware of how unhinged Ormund is – he has no intention of sticking around Tumbleton.
“I’m second in line,” he tells Daeron, referring to his place in the Hightower hierarchy. “I’ll head back to Oldtown and pick up the pieces.” We should perhaps start referring to the honorable Gwayne as Gwayne the Wise. Ormund makes insinuations that his cousin is gay, which makes Ormund at once the most outwardly homophobic and sexist character in the show presently. But James Norton is just so delightful in the role, you love to hate him.
Freddie Fox plays Gwayne, and as a huge fan of Slow Horses, I have to say I’m shocked at how much I like his character here. His character in Slow Horses is radically different and about as annoying as they come. (Please do watch Slow Horses on Apple TV if you haven’t already).
Gwayne is not only wise, he is observant. Earlier in the episode, Rhaenyra is visited by representatives of Lord Baratheon. They make their apologies, but their lord, they tell her, is busy with a bandit insurgence and cannot lend his strength to her cause until all that’s settled. Similar excuses, we can presume, that the House of the Stag sent Ormund.
Rhaenyra makes threats, but ultimately ends up just taking the Baratheons’ clothing which she then gives to assassins, sending them to Tumbleton pretending to be from Lord Boros Baratheon. She makes them quite foul-smelling, too, having learned that Ormund detests foul odors. Ormund doesn’t spot the trap, and proudly presents young “King” Daeron. Gwayne, however, knows that these are imposters and moves quickly when they draw their blades. The fight is over quickly, though it’s a very near thing. Ormund is so distraught that he vomits all over the table.
Later, he tells Gwayne that he was wrong about him and that he will not stop him from leaving and heading to Oldtown.
The Humiliation of Ulf the White and Hugh the Hammer
How much can a man take? What’s his breaking point? For Ulf the White, it’s all about a lifestyle denied. Here was a man raised up high and put on the back of a dragon, only to discover that all the things he loved were taken from him in the process. In that sense, he’s much like young Rhaena, who says much the same thing to Lady Arryn at the Eyrie after the noblewoman slaps and chides her for being seen riding Sheepstealer.
Ulf wants what most men want, especially middle-aged single men with lots of friends at pubs. He wants to go be with his friends, drink ale and hopefully meet pretty women to bed. Now that he’s a dragon rider, a knight, and a key part of Rhaenyra’s military might, he understandably believes that all these good things and more ought to have come his way. If Rhaenyra and Daemon were more far-sighted and less consumed with their own worries, and less arrogant and had maybe a bit empathy and long-term strategy – the kind where you treat your most important allies well and earn their love and loyalty – they would have come up with some kind of compromise. How hard would it be to allow Ulf to invite some of his drinking buddies up to the Red Keep? Maybe pay for some ladies of the night to warm his bed. Perhaps, from time to time, encourage his loyalty by offering up some praise for his bravery and promises of the wonders to come.
But Rhaenyra and Daemon are arrogant and pigheaded and small-minded, filled with the ruthless and myopic arrogance of their Targaryen lineage, and they treat Ulf, one of their six dragon riders, like a dog. Rhaenyra keeps him chained, orders him to stay in the Red Keep with no way to blow off any steam. And when Daemon bumps into him in the streets, having just killed a would-be Gold Cloak assassin, he knocks him to the ground and threatens him, humiliating him in public. This is how you turn an ally into an enemy.
Much has been made of the fact that Rhaenyra’s power lies in her many dragons, even after losing both Jace and his dragon Vermax, and Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys. All that the Greens have are Aemond and his massive beast, Vhagar, and young Daeron and his young dragon Tessarion.
Rhaenyra still has Syrax and Daemon Ceraxes. Addam has Seasmoke. Baela rides the small, but still battle-ready (in the show) Moondancer. And they’d have Sheepstealer, too, if Rhaena had come back with Daemon, though I suspect she’s right and Rhaenyra would have her locked away or worse if she did return, accidentally culpable for Jace’s death.
Ulf has Silverwing and Hugh rides Vermithor, both formidable beasts. So let’s get the count as it stands:
Team Black
- Rhaenyra – Syrax
- Daemon – Ceraxes
- Addam – Seasmoke
- Baela – Moondancer
- Ulf – Silverwing
- Hugh – Vermithor
Joffrey has his own dragon, but Tyraxes is but a hatchling, too small to be of any use in war. And Rhaena, an obvious Black ally, has Sheepstealer, but they’re out of the fight.
Team Green
- Aemond – Vhagar (though the dragon is AWOL)\
- Daeron – Tessarion
Even with Vhagar’s size, it’s not a fair fight. But then how much humiliation can a man take? How much longer before Ulf takes his dragon and just . . . flies off?
Hugh is in a different position altogether. He’s been put off by Rhaenyra but not in any really humiliating way. His humiliation comes when he visits his wife in Tumbleton in secret, sneaking into the city and finding her, urging her to escape with him. She is unhappy with her husband and angry at him for leaving her alone and, quite frankly, she acts in a really bizarre way given the situation. It’s clear at this point that Ormund had her brother executed (or at least disappeared as far as she knows) and any sane person would want to get out of the city as quickly as possible and go to safety with her husband who is now, quite miraculously, oneo f the most powerful men in Westeros. Not only safety but future wealth and comfort await her.
Instead, she yells at him and shoves him off and very nearly blows his cover. So now poor Hugh must decide between his oaths to Rhaenyra and his wife, who stubbornly (and rather stupidly) remains.
All of which is to say, the loyalty of both Ulf and Hugh seems tenuous at best at this point, and neither Rhaenyra or Daemon seem the least bit concerned. Rhaenyra really is a pretty terrible monarch at this point, not because she’s insanely cruel or anything, but because she cannot ever seem to grasp the bigger picture or the realities of cause and effect. And Daemon, however clever, has learned the hard way that it’s one thing to lead men when you have the upper hand and another altogether when you’re being outsmarted. His ambitions lie far beyond the current war, and he remains far too certain of his own side’s eventual success.
6 vs 2 can become 4 vs 4 rather quickly, and Vhagar already counts as two dragons in sheer size, with Vermithor not far behind.
Aemond and the Eggs
An interesting twist played out in Harrenhal this week, a castle I didn’t expect to spend so much time in over the past two seasons. Aemond is eager to leave, eager to find Vhagar and get back to the bloody business of war. Alys Rivers urges him to wait and heal and regain his strength. Have you not considered, she asks the prince, that Vhagar might be protecting you. Wherever Vhagar is seen, Rhaenyra and her people think that’s where Aemond must be. Meanwhile, he remains safe and sound under Alys’s care.
Alys has another surprise: A clutch of dragon eggs hidden there long ago. She promises Aemond a grand future. She the Lady of the Water and him Dragon Lord. New dragons, new dragon princes. The whole nine yards. She wants to keep this princeling all for herself, and she knows exactly how to wrap him around her witchy finger.
Elsewhere, Alicent and Helaena are caught trying to escape and Helaena learns of Alicent’s deceit. She never intended to leave with Helaena’s daughter. They are confined to their quarters and Alicent pleads with Rhaenyra to punish her and not her daughter, but Rhaenyra rightfully points out that if anyone sees she’s pregnant, things will get much worse. Of course, the way spies and gossip spread, there’s little chance it will remain a secret.
Many of the Gold Cloaks resign, which frustrates Daemon but also frustrates me, because I find the whole thing just a little over-the-top in terms of silliness. Ormund is clever, fine, he had some gruesome assassinations go off in King’s Landing, but he’s so effective at killing the city guard that they quite en masse? That just seems contrived to me.
Ormund is a great character but the writers are risking making him too powerful and sneaky and omniscient. At the end of the episode, after Lord Corlys has given Alyn the power to raise Velaryon troops for Rhaenyra and King’s Landing (after Alyn points out it took him much, much longer to offer to legitimize him than it has Rhaenyra) Ormund’s men show up and kidnap him. That sounds like it would be very difficult to do given Corlys is a warlord and seasoned veteran of numerous campaigns and is surrounded by his best knights and soldiers but really it’s no trouble at all. Barely an inconvenience. The episode is meant to end on a big “uh oh!” cliffhanger, but I just rolled my eyes.
The famous Sea Snake, hero of myriad perilous voyages, wise councilor and canny general, is outwitted and outplayed at every turn, whether it’s distant nobles who miraculously know of his whereabouts or idiotic pirates.
We only get a very little with Aegon and Larys and their new companion, Tyland Lannister, who digs a grave for the ruffian Aegon killed last week. Larys wants to sail to Essos while Tyland begs his king to go to Casterly Rock and set up a court in absentia.
Aegon, for perhaps the very first time in this entire show, displays wisdom for once. He asks Tyland “Would you call me a terrible man?”
Tyland stammers and babbles and hems and haws and tries to beat his way around this particularly prickly bush. But unlike Larys, he does not tell him the flat truth. Aegon, so accustomed to people telling him exactly what he wants to hear, so used to being the spoiled royal brat, has finally learned something truly useful. Sometimes the man you should trust is the one who tells you the things you least want to hear. He sides with Larys, much to Tyland’s chagrin.
All told, a very good episode. I’m a little confused by my own sense of regret over Ser Criston Cole, not that he died but that he didn’t get to go out fighting. He was a great warrior, a
