Relaxation in peace, Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who By no means Was. I’m nonetheless unsure why precisely you flew again towards Vhagar’s open jaws … I’m certain you had an excellent purpose. Apart from that slipup, you had been certainly one of this present’s wisest and most dignified characters, and your presence shall be missed.
At any charge, let’s break down “The Purple Dragon and the Gold,” Episode 4 of Season 2 of Home of the Dragon.
Deep Dive of the Week: Aemond, Daemon, and the Civil Wars Throughout the Civil Struggle
The showrunners had been organising a rift between Aemond and Aegon since final season, and the payoff was unbelievable. This week, Aemond betrayed Aegon, first by ready to hitch him in battle, then by recklessly hitting him with a blast of Vhagar’s dragonfire. Aemond has simply sufficient believable deniability to say he was making an attempt to take out Rhaenys—however it was fairly clear that he wouldn’t thoughts his older brother changing into a tragic casualty on this battle. Heck, when the battle was over and he was standing close to Aegon, he even had his sword out … for some purpose.
This isn’t fairly how the Battle of Rook’s Relaxation takes type in Hearth & Blood. Within the guide, Aegon and Aemond arrive on the maintain collectively—Criston Cole’s lure entails each brothers, not simply the youthful one. And within the tangle of wings, enamel, and claws, there isn’t a point out of Vhagar attacking the king. Right here’s the related passage:
Princess Rhaenys made no try and flee. With a glad cry and a crack of her whip, she turned Meleys towards the foe. Towards Vhagar alone she might need had some likelihood, however in opposition to Vhagar and Sunfyre collectively, doom was sure. The dragons met violently a thousand toes above the sector of battle, as balls of fireside burst and blossomed, so brilliant that males swore later that the sky was stuffed with suns. The crimson jaws of Meleys closed spherical Sunfyre’s golden neck for a second, until Vhagar fell upon them from above. All three beasts went spinning towards the bottom. They struck the bottom so exhausting that stones fell from the battlements of Rook’s Relaxation half a league away.
These closest to the dragons didn’t survive. These farther off couldn’t see for the flame and smoke. It was hours earlier than the fires guttered out. However from these ashes, solely Vhagar rose unhurt. Meleys was lifeless, damaged by the autumn and ripped to items upon the bottom. And Sunfyre, that splendid golden beast, had one wing half torn from his physique.
However the way in which it takes place within the present isn’t a lot a change from the guide as it’s a reinterpretation. Since Hearth & Blood is written as an in-universe historic account of the Targaryen dynasty penned some 150 years after the Dance of the Dragons, it’s awash in ambiguity. Some particulars have gotten misplaced over the many years, and a few had been by no means recognized. Aegon’s rash arrival at Rook’s Relaxation with no plan is one thing those that chronicled the Dance of the Dragons might have needed to obscure. Aemond attacking his brother amid the chaos is one thing they by no means might have recognized about.
It is a book-to-show adjustment that has added texture and complexity to the story. Rewind the clock, and it’s clear that Ryan Condal and the showrunners have been laying the groundwork for this second for fairly a while by, as an example, depicting how Aegon torments Aemond. Keep in mind the Pink Dread?
Or recall how, in Episode 9 of Season 1, Aemond coveted Aegon’s place as inheritor. As Aemond and Criston hunted for the previous’s deadbeat brother, Aemond complained: “Right here I’m, trawling the town, ever the great soldier, seeking a wastrel who’s by no means taken half an curiosity in his birthright. ’Tis I, the youthful brother, who research historical past and philosophy. It’s I who trains with the sword, who rides the most important dragon on the earth. It’s I who must be—”
He continued: “I’m subsequent in line to the throne. Ought to they arrive on the lookout for me, I intend to be discovered.”
Then, on this episode, we see not solely Criston and Aemond bypassing the king by working straight collectively, but additionally Aemond displaying off his Excessive Valyrian. The prince is aware of how one can say “sobriquet” in his household’s mom tongue, whereas Aegon can’t even conjugate his verbs. Embarrassing!
Aemond’s betrayal additionally ties right into a broader theme on this episode, which is how a lot a monarch trusts their council—and the way a lot their council trusts them. Daemon—at all times Aemond’s mirror picture, a lot in order that Matt Smith briefly dons an eyepatch on this episode—hasn’t hit Rhaenyra with a blast of dragonfire, however there’s a comparable rift between him and his queen.
Alys Rivers calls Daemon out on that: “So that you come right here after quarreling along with your spouse? You arrive right here alone to say the fort, and but ship no ravens.” She continues: “Do you now plan to make your personal declare?” After which, to drive all of it residence: “It’s a tough factor, I think about, to provide obeisance to at least one who changed you as inheritor. And a lady, too, a woman baby you bounced in your knee. Does it please you that her legitimacy is contested?”
Humorous sufficient, I don’t assume even Daemon is aware of the solutions to those questions. As we will see from the goals and/or visions he’s experiencing at Harrenhal, he’s stricken by guilt and self-doubt. Did he need his brother’s love, or simply his crown, or each? (Associated: Are we going to get Paddy Considine again on-screen this season?)
On paper, Aemond must be Aegon’s closest ally. Aegon calls him “my closest blood” within the first episode of this season, and the 2 have been by one another’s aspect since they had been youngsters. Equally, Daemon must be Rhaenyra’s closest ally. He’s her husband and thus the king consort—and he’s recognized her since she was a toddler (yuck). But Rhaenyra primarily needed to ship Daemon away after he engineered the Blood and Cheese debacle, and Aegon was simply violently betrayed by his brother. Each Aemond and Daemon have clearly dreamed of themselves on the Iron Throne—can both be trusted?
It’s not like Aegon or Rhaenyra have too many different trusted voices to fall again on. Aegon’s council doesn’t hearken to him. His mom has taken to virtually mocking him. Rhaenyra not less than had Rhaenys to assist her steer her rudderless, bloodthirsty lords. Now she’s with out the Queen Who By no means Was and can probably have to lean extra closely on Corlys (who might partially blame her for Rhaenys’s dying) and Jacaerys, whom she additionally wants to lift as a son. You’re not precisely in an incredible spot when Mysaria, who was about to be banished two episodes in the past, is certainly one of your most trusted advisers.
Aemond’s betrayal and Daemon’s sulking have added one other dimension to this battle and this present. As a civil struggle, the Dance of the Dragons is inherently about Targaryen infighting. However now there may be infighting on all sides of the battle as properly. These are civil wars inside a civil struggle.
Fast Hits
Valyrian Metal Armor
Final week, Aegon talked about that he was sporting the Valyrian metal armor of Aegon the Conqueror. This week, we see him trip to battle in it. The symbolism of Aegon being a bit too small for the armor of his namesake is simply too good:
All pictures by way of HBO
Valyrian metal armor is a principally new addition to the Thrones canon. Aegon the Conqueror’s Valyrian metal sword and crown are properly documented within the lore, however his armor is rarely talked about. In truth, just one go well with of Valyrian metal armor is detailed within the books, and it’s from a chapter of The Winds of Winter—yeah, a guide that has not been revealed. In 2016, George R.R. Martin learn a chapter of his forthcoming (?) guide at Balticon. The passage is from the angle of Aeron Greyjoy and describes his brother Euron, who claims to have visited Previous Valyria:
Euron Crow’s Eye stood upon the deck of Silence, clad in a go well with of black scale armor like nothing Aeron had ever seen earlier than. Darkish as smoke it was, however Euron wore it as simply as if it was the thinnest silk. The scales had been edged in pink gold, and gleamed and shimmered after they moved. Patterns may very well be seen throughout the metallic, whorls and glyphs and arcane symbols folded into the metal.
Valyrian metal, the Damphair knew. His armor is Valyrian metal. In all of the Seven Kingdoms, no man owned a go well with of Valyrian metal. Such issues had been recognized 400 years in the past, within the days earlier than the Doom, however even then, they might’ve value a kingdom.
Now, Aeron is just not probably the most dependable narrator, and Euron (who’s a really totally different character within the books) is stuffed with dramatic boasts that will or is probably not true. So we will’t say for certain that Euron’s smoky black armor is made from Valyrian metal. What’s for certain: Sufficient Valyrian metal for a full set of plate armor would certainly value a kingdom, if no more.
Within the Season 4 premiere of Thrones, Tywin Lannister has the traditional Valyrian metal blade of Home Stark, Ice, melted down and made into two swords of his home (Oathkeeper, which works to Jaime, and Widow’s Wail, which works to Joffrey). It is a massive second not simply because it represents Tywin’s domination over the Starks, but additionally as a result of Home Lannister will get not one, however two Valyrian metal weapons out of it.
An archmaester as soon as counted 227 Valyrian metal weapons in Westeros, however a few of these “have since been misplaced or have disappeared from the annals of historical past,” per A World of Ice and Hearth. One which was misplaced was Brightroar, the traditional sword of Home Lannister. Brightroar went lacking when a Lannister king of outdated—Tommen II—sailed with it to Previous Valyria after the Doom to aim to plunder the town and by no means returned. (Tywin’s youthful brother Gerion as soon as went to Previous Valyria to search for the sword; he additionally by no means returned.) Regardless of Tywin’s try to purchase such blades from lesser homes, Home Lannister was with out Valyrian metal till it claimed the Starks’.
In Tywin’s day, Home Lannister was the wealthiest home in all of Westeros. But all that gold couldn’t purchase him even certainly one of these particular swords. Valyrian metal weapons are the NFL groups of Westeros—they’re virtually by no means on the market. So Aegon’s set of Valyrian metal armor might have value much more than a kingdom: It could be actually priceless.
And naturally, his first time sporting it, he instantly will get bested in battle and burned by dragonfire. No matter whether or not Aegon himself survived, let’s hope his armor did. It’s too valuable to lose.
Alys the Woods Witch
The black-haired lady who advised Daemon final week that he’d die at Harrenhal will get a reputation this week: Alys Rivers. She’s a bastard of the Riverlands and never a barn owl … not less than, I’m fairly certain she’s not really a barn owl. It’s exhausting to say something about Alys for certain.
Daemon calls her a witch, and with all of the potion brewing she’s doing, it’s probably she’s what many in Westeros would name a woods witch. Most woods witches can put together some easy medicines and work as midwives. They’re a go-to for younger maidens who discover themselves in want of moon tea. However the phrase “witch” oversells it—these girls aren’t working towards magic.
Effectively, most woods witches aren’t working towards magic. Some appear to. One story tells of an historic hero—Clarence Crabb—who would take the heads of the enemies he’d slain again to his spouse, a woods witch. The spouse would kiss the heads on the lips and convey them again to life, and the heads would give him counsel. One other legend says that two historic lords and brothers within the Attain—Harlon the Hunter and Herndon of the Horn—each married a woods witch and shared “her favors for 100 years (for the brothers didn’t age as long as they embraced her every time the moon was full).”
A lot later, Daenerys learns in A Dance With Dragons that her father, Aerys, and mom, Rhaella, had been married as a result of a woods witch prophesied that the Prince That Was Promised can be born from their line. In that very same guide, a wildling woods witch leads a number of freefolk to Hardhome, the place she says she’s foreseen them boarding ships and crusing south to flee the wights. Jon Snow sends ships to deliver the wildlings south … however the sea is simply too harmful for the ships to journey again.
And naturally, there may be Maggy the Frog from Thrones, who gave Cersei a prophecy that haunted her complete life. Whether or not that prophecy—which held that Cersei would marry the king, that she’d have three youngsters, that her youngsters would put on golden crowns and golden shrouds, {that a} youthful and extra stunning queen would forged her down, and that finally “the valonqar shall wrap his fingers about your pale white throat and choke the life from you”—got here true or not is a degree of rigorous debate within the fandom. It’s Thrones—prophecies are by no means simple.
At any charge, Alys matches someplace into this custom. She might be able to see the longer term. Or she could have entry to Westeros’s best magic mushrooms. We’ll have to attend to seek out out.
The Story Behind Alyn and Addam’s Mom
Talking of bastards, we get affirmation of Alyn and Addam Hull’s lineage this week. Rhaenys all however says it: They’re Corlys’s youngsters. She provides to Alyn, “Your mom will need to have been very stunning.”
It doesn’t appear probably that we’ll meet Alyn and Addam’s mom on Home of the Dragon (there was no casting information for her), however Hearth & Blood goes into some element about her. Marilda of Hull was the daughter of a shipwright and have become often called “Mouse” as a result of she was “small, fast, and at all times underfoot.” Her two sons—who within the guide have the basic silver hair and purple eyes of Valyrians—shortly proved themselves as succesful sailors. And when Marilda’s father died, Marilda offered his shipyards and used the proceeds to construct herself a buying and selling vessel she named Mouse. By the point of the outbreak of the struggle, Marilda had seven buying and selling ships that her sons helped her man.
Within the guide, Marilda says that her boys are the offspring of Laenor Velaryon. However Laenor’s fondness for males and disinterest in girls make this troublesome to imagine. And in Home of the Dragon, Alyn and Addam have been aged up sufficient that it appears just about not possible for Laenor to have been their father. As an alternative, the more likely concept that Corlys is their father is actually confirmed on this episode.
What’s subsequent for Alyn and Addam? Rhaenys says that Alyn—who saved Corlys from drowning off-screen—must be “raised in honor not hidden beneath the tides.” We’ll need to see if that’s the course Corlys takes after Rhaenys’s dying. The Sea Snake is shortly working out of household.
The Significance of Dragonstone’s Dragon Cranium
When Rhaenyra tells Jacaerys concerning the Track of Ice and Hearth, there’s a dragon cranium behind her:
We regularly hear concerning the dragon skulls in King’s Touchdown; just a few scenes happen in entrance of the cranium of Balerion, as an example. However on Dragonstone? I don’t know of a cranium that resides there.
After some digging, it’s clear that there are an honest variety of dragon skulls mendacity about. By the point of Tyrion, for instance, there are 19 of them in King’s Touchdown—and a few date again to lengthy earlier than Aegon’s Conquest. Right here’s how Tyrion describes the skulls in A Recreation of Thrones:
There have been nineteen skulls. The oldest was greater than three thousand years outdated; the youngest a mere century and a half. The latest had been additionally the smallest; a matched pair no larger than mastiff’s skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the final two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They had been the final of the Targaryen dragons, maybe the final dragons anyplace, and so they had not lived very lengthy.
From there the skulls ranged upward in dimension to the three nice monsters of music and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of outdated. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You can have ridden a horse down Vhaghar’s gullet, though you wouldn’t have ridden it out once more. Meraxes was even larger. And the best of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, may have swallowed an aurochs complete, and even one of many bushy mammoths stated to roam the chilly wastes past the Port of Ibben.
If it’s true that Targaryens have been gathering such skulls for 3,000 years, the one behind Rhaenyra may belong to simply about any dragon. But when I needed to guess, I’d say it’s the cranium of Meraxes—the dragon ridden by Rhaenys Targaryen (Aegon the Conqueror’s sister, and our Rhaenys’s namesake) through the Conquest. Take a more in-depth look, and you’ll see that the attention gap is disfigured and broken. That’s the signal that it is a dragon we all know.
On the time of the Conquest, Meraxes was probably across the dimension of Vhagar—which is to say she was monumental. She helped Aegon and his sister-wives, Rhaenys and Visenya, subdue the Crownlands, Stormlands, and Riverlands and was current when Torrhen Stark bent the knee and surrendered the North to the Targaryen king.
Then the Targaryens turned south, trying so as to add Dorne to the Conquest. There, warfare didn’t show really easy. Not like the kings in Westeros who helpfully lined up their armies in order that they may very well be burned by Balerion, Vhagar, and Merases, the Dornish engaged in guerrilla warfare. Aegon and his lords would lead their troops by treacherous mountain passes the place Dornishmen would ambush them, then disappear as quickly as a dragon took flight. Many Targaryen troopers died in Dornish assaults. Extra died from the desert warmth. And infrequently when the Targaryens arrived at Dornish castles, they discovered them deserted. The Targaryens would declare victory and depart, solely to see the Dornish return like Fremen rising from the sand to kill no matter Targaryen warden had been put in cost and take again their land. This went on for years.
Lastly, Aegon had had sufficient and unleashed the total may of his dragons on Dorne. The Conqueror descended on the Boneway with Balerion and burned watchtowers and retains. Visenya and Vhagar burned Sunspear, Lemonwood, Ghost Hill, and the Tor. And Rhaenys and Meraxes turned to Hellholt. That is the place the Dornish lastly landed a serious victory, as certainly one of their scorpion bolts hit Meraxes straight by her proper eye. The dragon got here crashing to the bottom, and each beast and rider had been killed—although it’s unclear whether or not Rhaenys was captured and tortured first or died from the autumn. Meraxes was the primary dragon to die in Westeros—the primary main blow to Targaryen energy.
However what occurred to the dragon’s cranium? A couple of years later, Prince Nymor Martell despatched it to King’s Touchdown as a part of a peace delegation that formally ended the First Dornish Struggle. And that’s the place it appears to have stayed, not less than based mostly on the truth that Tyrion noticed it there in A Recreation of Thrones. It’s not not possible that Meraxes’s cranium discovered its strategy to Dragonstone after which again to King’s Touchdown over the centuries. Alternatively, this might simply be a present change so as to add somewhat flourish to an essential scene. The symbolism is juicy. Dragons are typically regarded as almost invincible, however Meraxes’s cranium is a reminder that they aren’t. They are often killed—even by one thing apart from one other dragon. That we see this cranium as one other Rhaenys—our Rhaenys—is distributed to her doom is becoming.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out one small gap in my concept, which is that Hearth & Blood is obvious that Meraxes will get hit within the proper eye. The cranium we see within the present has harm to its left eye. But there’s already precedent for this switch-up: Within the books, Aemond loses his proper eye; within the present, it’s his left. Altering each eyes makes me assume that is intentional—that the present is telling us that it’s a mirrored image of the books, not a precise picture.
The Return of Willem Blackwood
Keep in mind this Blackwood boy from Season 1, who asks for Rhaenyra’s hand in marriage and settles for stabbing a Bracken?
It seems his identify is Willem Blackwood, and he returns this week:
What a glow-up!
There is no such thing as a Willem Blackwood in any of the books, or any character whose story resembles the one we see unfolding on-screen with Willem right here. In Hearth & Blood, Samwell Blackwood competes in a duel for Rhaenyra’s hand after which dies within the Battle of the Burning Mill. He’s succeeded as the top of his home by his son Benjicot Blackwood. On this episode, Willem says he’s ruling as regent till Benjicot comes of age. So Willem is a pure present creation.
RIP to the Muppet Tullys
This week we meet Oscar Tully, the grandson of Grover Tully and inheritor to the Riverlands. Oscar’s place as inheritor means the present has made a change from the books, through which each Oscar’s father, Elmo, and older brother, Kermit, stand forward of him within the Tully line of succession. It’s prudent for a TV present to merge a bunch of characters into one to hurry issues alongside, however it additionally means we gained’t get the names Grover, Oscar, Elmo, and Kermit all stated aloud in a single scene. An enormous loss for the overlapping Home of the Dragon and Sesame Road fan bases.
The Board Earlier than Us
With Rosby, Duskendale, and Rook’s Relaxation falling to the greens, the blacks are all however lower off from the mainland. It’s now much more essential for Daemon to lift a number within the Riverlands. Right here’s the map after Episode 4:
Subsequent Time On
Dragons have lastly danced. Struggle is now not simply inevitable—it has begun. And subsequent week, the main focus shall be on the theater within the Riverlands, the place Daemon continues to be having a grand outdated time: