Heavy lies the crown. Sunday night’s brutal, devastating episode of House of the Dragon certainly made that point abundantly clear. As Rhaenyra slowly descends into a pit of despair and desperation, Daemon and his armies run into some snags on their assault of Tumbleton thanks to the various tricks Lord Ormund has up his sleeves. A couple big problems persist, which I’ll get to below, but overall this was a tremendously entertaining episode of a series that often spends much more time in dramatic dialogue than in clashes of arms.
Spoilers ahead.
The Prince That Was Promised
Let’s dispense with my biggest gripes first. The prophecy remains at the center of my critique of this series, if not its biggest problem, then at least one of its most irksome. Even when House of the Dragon is at its best, the prophecy skitters in to make a muck of things. Tonight, Rhaenyra made it public for all to hear.
Rhaenyra decides she’ll go force the High Septon to anoint her queen, that way everyone will have to acknowledge her, or something. I’m not sure the logic here. Aegon was already crowned and anointed and all that hullabaloo and the High Septon has already told her that he won’t do it. Now that news has arrived that Aegon is alive (which leaves Rhaenyra weeping hysterically) she decides to march down to the High Sept anyways, and when he and his hangers-on protest, she orders Alyn and the rest of her guards to kill them all. Which they do, though Alyn doesn’t look happy about his murderous task. Surely this violence will not come back to haunt Rhaenyra later.
Out of the sept she goes to where a large crowd has gathered (rather calmly for a city so ill at ease). Wearing her crown and a suit of chainmail, Rhaenyra looks every bit the warrior queen, but she does not speak of the war she’s currently waging. She steps forward and delivers what can only be described as the most bizarre and unhinged speech anyone present has ever heard. She talks about the prophecy of Ice and Fire, of the sacred quest she and her lineage have been entrusted with to prevent a great and sinister evil from overwhelming the world. Even her supporters glance askance at one another during her rambling entreaties. She ends in Old Valyrian: “I am the prince that was promised.”
Along with the messy Rhaenyra/Alicent friendship and the overall lack of likable characters, it’s stuff like this that really bothers me about this show. For one thing, as with Daenerys in Game of Thrones, Rhaenyra is not a prince, and twisting around the source material so that the prophecy could mean “princess” is just silly. It was in that show and it’s possibly even sillier here since Rhaenyra has no reason to believe she’s this prince that was promised.
The prophecy detracts from the story of civil war and dynastic succession and could have been dispensed with altogether even in Season 1. Though it led to Alicent misunderstanding Viserys’s dying words, that could have been avoided altogether as well if the show had simply made Alicent ambitious and power-hungry, as she is in the book. It gives the main characters supernatural motives rather than human ones. In truth, the reason Rhaenyra wants the crown is because her father promised it to her and she feels enormous resentment toward the patriarchal system that would deny her her birthright. The reason many others don’t support her is because she’s a woman. They support Aegon because he is the first-born son.
Much of Otto’s plotting was to secure power for his House, but also because he firmly believed a woman could not rule and hoped to give Viserys a son (conveniently one who would also be Otto’s grandson). This is a dynastic struggle rooted in antiquated monarchical, patriarchal belief systems. Prophecies have nothing to do with any of it, and it makes an otherwise mature political drama feel like cheap television fantasy instead of the game of thrones it should be. Politics and ambition in all their ugliest manifestations.
Queen Rhaenyra the Ugly
After being warned that Helaena continues to refuse to eat, Rhaenyra tries to plead with her half-sister. When Helaena replies by telling her that she hates this place, that everything here is ugly, that Rhaenyra herself is ugly, Rhaenyra loses her cool. If Helaena won’t eat the easy way, she’ll have to do it the hard way. You force my hand, Rhaenyra tells her half-sister. Rhaenyra’s guards grab the young woman and begin to force-feed her as she screams in protest.
Rhaenyra also dismisses Mysaria, a wise move carried out in a very unwise manner, given the woman’s cunning. When exiling your master of spies, make sure she’s under guard until she arrives at wherever she’s going. But really, you don’t ever exile your spymaster. There’s dungeons or the headsman’s block for someone with that many secrets to spill. Or you load them on a ship to some faraway place and pay the captain to have her thrown overboard on the voyage. It’s incredibly foolish to just let her go free, and almost instantly she’s exacting her revenge. It’s Mysaria who tells Helaena that Aegon lives and that her baby will be a hostage. And Mysaria is present to hear at least some of Rhaenyra’s speech.
We see throughout the episode that Helaena is right about Rhaenyra. The queen really is ugly, as Helaena says, though not in terms of outward beauty. She is ugly because she has become so hellbent on gaining the throne that it’s the only thing she cares about anymore, and everyone around her is merely a stepping stone toward power or an obstacle to be dispatched. Baela calls her out on this, accusing her of simply using people as tools, and Baela and her dragon are confined to the Red Keep. Rhaenyra shows no affection whatsoever to her heir, Joffrey, and only shows signs of any warmth at all when speaking with Daemon about taking back Tumbleton from Lord Ormund and the Hightowers.
In the end, Helaena throws herself from her window, to her death, and when Rhaenyra finds out we see almost no regret or grief on her cold face. She walks to the window and looks out over the city but finds herself staring instead at the tapestry the once-queen and prophetic dreamer had been embroidering. It shows Helaena falling from the tower, weeping, and it shows Rhaenyra on the Iron Throne, surrounded by fire and blood.
So why does Helaena throw herself from the window? Is she worried at what she will become if she stays in King’s Landing much longer, a monster devoured by the ugliness all around her? Is that what she thinks when she finds herself walking into the scene from her vision, the one in which she sits atop her dragon and orders it to burn everyone?
Whatever the case, we are seeing a far more callous and bloodthirsty Rhaenyra than ever before. A more desperate monarch.
Rhaenyra is Even More Bloodthirsty in ‘Fire & Blood’
If anything, the actual book by George R.R. Martin makes Rhaenyra even more ruthless, and less . . . weepy. Rhaenyra returns to King’s Landing and swiftly imprisons or beheads her enemies, sends out “knights inquisitors” to find Larys and Aegon and her other enemies. Tyland Lannister is tortured to find the missing royal gold. Alicent, not at all her friend in the book, is chained up and not sent off on some silly assassination attempt to kill her son, Aemond. She’s confined and spared “for the sake of our father, who loved you once.” Orwyle is sent to the dungeons and replaced with a new Grand Maester.
And, of course, we are missing out on Maelor, Aegon and Helaena’s son who escapes the Red Keep with Ser Rickard Thorne in the books and is pursued from an inn, riding hard to reach Lord Ormund’s camp but ultimately brought down by crossbow bolts as they crossed a bridge. No two tales of what happened to Maelor after his knight protector was shot dead agree, but the young boy was also slain on the bridge, perhaps torn apart by the mob who assailed him, arguing over what to do with the young prince.
Accounts vary also on Rhaenyra’s reaction when the boy’s head was sent to her. “Mushroom, who loved the queen well, tells us that Rhaenyra wept when Maelor’s small head was placed before her as she sat the Iron Throne. Septon Eustace, who loved her little, says rather that she smiled, and commanded that the head be burned, ‘for he was the blood of the dragon.’”
Rumors were spread that Rhaenyra then sent the head of the boy to Helaena in a chamber-pot, though some suspect these were started by Larys Clubfoot.
The Battle of Tumbleton
Presumably, while much of the goings-on in King’s Landing occur, Daemon is on the march toward Tumbleton with his army where he will meet up with the Riverlanders and Northmen to make an all-out assault on the city, though avoiding as much use of dragon as possible to spare the innocents there.
Lord Ormund isn’t counting on the queen’s mercy. He lines the ramparts with children, using them as shields to deter any draconic attacks. Ser Gwayne and “King” Daeron – now made Ser Daeron the Daring by Lord Ormund – hatch a plan of their own, unaware of Ormund’s secret dealings with Ulf the White. Gwayne takes the prisoner, Lord Corlys, and meets with Daemon where he tries to make an offer of peace. Gwayne wants Daeron to be made King of the Reach and various other kingdoms loyal to the Greens, while Rhaenyra can claim the rest. Corlys agrees, though he suggests Daeron be made Warden of the Reach rather than king.
Daemon scoffs at this, takes Corlys prisoner and sends Gwayne running back with his answer. And so the battle begins. Roddy the Ruin and his wolfish northmen make the first charge amidst a hail of arrows, looking to climb the walls. Daemon cannot simply burn the defenders now that children are upon them, not because he’s morally against the idea but because the queen’s reputation must be protected.
The battle is massive, one of the most genuinely awesome I’ve seen put to screen, with the Northmen charge, a battering ram at the main gate eventually replaced with Caraxes, who burns through it (but not before a group of children are ordered to stand as human shields first, most of whom move out of the way at Daemon’s urging). There’s fighting in the streets, along the ramparts, hot oil poured on men climbing ladders. All seems lost for Ormund and the Hightowers.
Because Ulf the White, the drunken tavern-dweller, cannot be found. He’s sleeping it off in a latrine, it turns out, and nothing could be more offensive to the Hightower lord. He berates Ulf, kicking him and hurling insults, sending him to fetch his dragon and do what he was told. Ulf complies, but he’s had enough with nobles telling him what to do when he’s the one with a dragon. He burns Daemon’s troops first, sending huge gouts of flame down upon those he had sworn to fight alongside. Then he turns his dragon toward Tumbleton, leaving the town in smouldering ruin, and Ormund along with it.
Of course, it’s Roddy the Ruin who actually deals the killing blow to the Hightower patriarch, after he and his wild Northmen rampage through the city. Even after losing an arm, the old warrior manages to stick the Hightower lord, just in time to have Ulf and Silverwing appear above them. Ormund looks on in horror as Roddy raises his arms – or what’s left of them – and bellows laughter. A good death, no doubt, for old Roddy. Not what Lord Ormund had in mind, however.
Daemon is very nearly slain as he battles his way through the city, outmatched by the rather large and heavily armored Ser Jon Roxton, Ormund’s right-hand man. Only a collapsing building, burned down by dragonfire, saves him, with Roxton on the other side of the collapse. Daemon struggles to his feet, dazed, and begins cleaving his way through the smouldering city. Ultimately, it’s Corlys who finds the queen’s consort and makes him flee the city. At this point, it appears only Ulf has turned coat, but Hugh finds his wife dead and weeps over her body. Ser Roxton finds Ormund’s corpse, while Gwayne searches among the rubble and ash for young Daeron.
We see three dragons fly in the sky above the city as the Blacks retreat, presumably Caraxes, Silverwing and Vermithor, though only Ulf is riding on one, since both Daemon and Hugh were on foot inside the city itself. Did Daeron take flight on Tessarion? Surely he’s alive or we’d have seen his body in the rubble.
There are so many changes from the book here that I will spend the next section discussing these (though not all of them, it would occupy far too much space) so if you’re not interested in comparisons and why I think they’re important, skip ahead to the final verdict below.
The Book Version of the Battle of Tumbleton
We’ll begin with Gwayne’s parlay with Daemon. This is similar to what Corlys urges Rhaenyra to do in the book, though the book version is more expansive and Corlys is never captured in the first place. It’s just advice given as Hand to the Queen.
He wants Alicent and Helaena to be handed over to the Faith, Aegon and Aemond sent to the wall, and various other provisions for peace but Rhaenyra, like Daemon in the show, denies him. Alicent makes similar entreaties to Rhaenyra, offering to divide the kingdom, with Aegon in charge of the stormlands, westerlands, the Reach and rule from Oldtown, with everything to the north going to Rhaenyra. “Your sons might have had places of honor at my court if they had kept faith,” Rhaenyra replied, “but they sought to rob me of my birthright, and the blood of my sweet sons is on their hands.”
“Bastard blood, shed at war,” Alicent replies in Martin’s book. “My son’s sons were innocent boys, cruelly murdered. How many more must die to slake your thirst for vengeance?” Rhaenyra responds by telling Alicent that any more talk of bastardy and she’ll have her tongue out. It’s quite . . . a different relationship between these two in the book than in the show, where Alicent is galavanting off to murder her own son. (In Mushroom’s telling, Rhaenyra ordered her tongue cut out at once, but Mysaria intervened and had both Alicent and Helaena sent to a brothel in chains where they were to remain until they were with child. “They speak of bastards so freely, let them each have one for their very own.”)
In any case, the battle in this episode is a condensed version of two battles in the book. In the original, Rhaenyra’s troops assemble at Tumbleton to stop the oncoming march of Lord Ormund and his 20,000 troops, and Daeron and his dragon Tessarion. It is here that both Ulf White and Hugh Hammer on their dragons Vermithor and Silverwing, betray Rhaenyra and her men, laying waste to the armies they were supposed to protect.
The book only speculates on their reasons for turning coat. They knew Aegon II was alive by this point and perhaps hoped he would reward them. Or Larys got to them. Or they were cowards and decided to pick the team they thought had the upper hand.
I actually like that they show Ormund setting up Ulf’s betrayal, but I’m really uncertain where they’re going with Hugh. Will he simply blame Rhaenyra for his wife’s death? Wouldn’t it make more sense to blame Ulf? Perhaps they will only make Ulf a betrayer in the series. Unlike Ulf, they’ve made Hugh into a respectable man in the show, whereas both men are vile and rather widely loathed in the book.
Without spoiling too much, since it’s entirely possible that some of the events of the Second Battle of Tumbleton will still occur in Season 4, divisions in the Green camp between the dragon-riders and Hightowers lead to violence and infighting, and the bit where Ulf sleeps throughout the whole affair occurs in this battle rather than the first. I suspect we will get some version of this, because it is a pretty crucial moment in terms of loss of life, both human and otherwise.
Aegon and Aemond Reunited
While all this fighting is going on at Tumbleton and Aegon’s sister / wife is being force-fed in King’s Landing, the crippled and disfigured king-in-hiding flies Sunfyre to Harrenhal where he finds his brother, Aemond, much changed. The arrogant, brooding youth is gone almost entirely, and someone far more circumspect and humbled kneels before his older brother.
Aegon is infuriated. He wants a fight. He soon realizes that Aemond and his “betrothed” have been so isolated in the haunted old castle that they have no idea what’s going on in the wider world. Aemond begs his brother’s forgiveness and Aegon tells him that maybe, after they go and bring Daeron and Ormund into line, and after they give Rhaenyra and Daemon and the rest of her loyalists a good beating, maybe after all is said and done he’ll consider forgiving him for trying to burn him to death. Maybe.
It’s a great, if somewhat superfluous moment, between these estranged brothers. Aegon remains a delightful watch in every scene. It’s funny how one’s perspective can change so drastically on a character, though I suppose that’s pointing more toward a well-written arc than anything else. Rhaenyra has become far less sympathetic, while Aegon, for all his many flaws, has moved in the opposite direction. Aemond, too, for that matter, while Daemon’s arrogance continues to get Team Black into all sorts of predicaments.
Verdict
Changes from the source material have worked much better in the third season than in the second, though I think those “butterfly wings” Martin wrote about when he critiqued the changes last season have come back to haunt House of the Dragon.
I don’t think the Nettles/Rhaena changes have been a huge problem, surprisingly enough, but not having Sheepstealer around on Team Black could throw things off-kilter later on, especially in Daemon’s upcoming storyline. More problematic is Helaena’s suicide, which feels more contrived here.
In the book, as always, there is much speculation. Mushroom’s story of her being impregnated at the brothel against her will; horrors of war she witnesses; or Lady Mysaria waiting until that moment to tell her of her son Maelor’s death. I suppose here it is Mysaria telling her that her son will be a hostage forever, but it feels very unlike Helaena to kill herself while her daughter remained alive and in Rhaenyra’s clutches. I’m just not sure this segment worked as well as it could have.
The big changes to Tumbleton bother me less, simply because I understand that the needs of television and the kind of thing Martin’s Fire and Blood is trying to do vary in pretty significant ways. Ormund is given a great deal more character and power and cleverness in the show. Instead of Larys pulling strings, Ormund is the puppet master. We get ourselves a villain, or at least a foil, for Rhaenyra while Aegon and Aemond remain in the wind. The defense of Tumbleton switches from Black to Green but it makes little difference in the end (other than the big change to Hugh and his entire storyline).
Still, changes aside, this was an incredible episode of TV. The battle was astonishing, a scope and scale that we haven’t seen in this show. House of the Dragon likes to zoom in close, very close, cramped corridors and bedchambers, claustrophobic conversations. Now, at last, it zoomed way out instead, and soared.
Score: 9/10 Dragon Eggs
Tonight’s episode was directed by Andrij Parekh (Succession, Watchmen) and written by showrunner Ryan Condal and Ti Mikkel.
Read my past reviews of Season 3 below:
‘House of the Dragon’ Cast
House of the Dragon stars:
- Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen
- Emma D’Arcy as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen
- Olivia Cooke as Queen Dowager Alicent Hightower
- Rhys Ifans as Ser Otto Hightower
- Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon
- Ewan Mitchell as Prince Aemond Targaryen
- Tom Glynn-Carney as King Aegon II Targaryen
- Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole
- Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria
- Harry Collett as Prince Jacaerys Velaryon
- Bethany Antonia as Baela Targaryen
- Phoebe Campbell as Rhaena Targaryen
- Phia Saban as Queen Helaena Targaryen
- Matthew Needham as Larys Strong
- Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower
- Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull
- Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers
- Tom Bennett as Ulf the White
- Kieran Bew as Hugh Hammer
Newcomers include:
- James Norton as Ormund Hightower
- Tommy Flanagan as Roderick Dustin
- Dan Fogler as Torrhen Manderly
- Tom Cullen as Luthor Largent
- Joplin Sibtain as Jon Roxton
- Barry Sloane as Adrian Redfort
- Annie Shapero as Alysanne Blackwood