Oh my word. Thank the YouTube gods for having season 2 recap videos because I did NOT wanna have to rewatch the whole of season 2 and I’ve largely forgotten what happened except for Aemond being regent, the Battle of Rook’s Rest, and Rhaenyra doing absolutely nothing the entire season.

Just to clarify, I haven’t read up to the Dane of Dragons in Fire and Blood but I have been spoiled about who wins (sort of) and pretty much all the character deaths I think but let’s be honest, is this really an adaptation anymore??? The whole show has kind of gone so far off course that I doubt it’s ever gonna come back to the basics. It sort of seems like the major events involving everyone but Rhaenyra and Alicent are pretty accurate but everything to do with the two leading ladies is completely new. Don’t get me wrong, I am ALL for page-to-screen adaptations taking creative liberties to suit the medium and elevate the text and I really enjoyed season one and the way it strayed from the original text seemed so purposeful given the maester bias in the book (and I will write about season one at some point) but it does feel like we’ve lost the plot a little bit at this point. But I hate being negative about media meant for entertainment so let’s get into this episode because I am so glad House of the Dragon is back.

Jace had one job. One. Don’t make unnecessary journeys! Don’t take risks on treacherous roads! And don’t swim in the sea! And he absolutely failed. DJ Dragonstone has left the building. Jace ‘The Face’ Velaryon, you will be missed. I do love that he made the choice to take action because he’s so eager to prove himself but I won’t lie, I equally love and hate the crazy eyes he had when he was talking to Baela. On one hand, it’s just showing that he’s young and almost crazed with the idea of finally going to battle and proving to his mother that he can take an active part in this war. And on the other hand, I don’t like that he went a bit nuts locking his mother, the queen, in her room and only got killed because he was on some adrenaline high and it was one big mistake. And that also bleeds into the fact that I don’t like the change in motivation for the show because apparently in the books, he flies into the gullet to save his younger brothers, who I honestly forgot existed. If they kept that detail in, Jace would’ve gone out a hero but instead, he went out like a brainless teenager. Even through the whole of season 2, despite my favourite character being Aemond because of how complex (and beautiful) he is, I found myself latching onto Jace and wholeheartedly agreeing with everything he said and did. So I am very sad that my close personal friend Jaecerys Velaryon died because of an illogical and rebellious move that could have been avoided if Rhaenyra remembered she has a second door to her bedroom.

And just to be clear, I do not blame Rhaena for what happened. A wild dragon letting loose on any ship regardless of their banner definitely didn’t help matters but Jace’s death didn’t seem like it was directly caused by Sheepstealer. I love the detail that both Jace and Baela didn’t realise it was Rhaena until they were right up close because they both have relatively small dragons and in comparison, Sheepstealer is massive. And I do love that Jace and Baela kept defending each other against Sheepstealer and the ships. When Jace was convincing Baela to fly out with him, I was really hoping she’d not go and say she doesn’t think he’s making a good choice and he’d tell her that he was gonna prove he could do it, finally kiss her (because it makes his death more tragic) and then he goes and dies. But I like what they did better. They were so in sync and it makes me sad that one of the only Targaryen marriages that actually would’ve been happy never got to happen. Really hope that Baela doesn’t end up with Alyn in the show because she’s a girlboss who’s lost her love and doesn’t need to marry someone who I think is probably too old for her.

I still don’t understand how Rhaena was able to just wander off from the party leaving the Eerie because these are 3 Targaryens they have in their care and one of them just walked off the path and no one looked back to make sure she was there? And we haven’t seen anyone panicking or sending word to Daemon (or even Rhaenyra) that they’ve lowkey lost his daughter? I really respect Rhaena for absolutely roughing it being in the wild with Sheepstealer and eating the burned livestock to earn a friendship bracelet. I don’t mind the exclusion of Nettles and I really hope they they’re gonna completely ignore the plotline with Daemond because, as I heard someone say earlier this week, Targaryen incest goes horizontal and diagonal but NEVER vertical. I’m not sure what’s worse, Daemon involuntarily seeing a vision of him eating out his mother or Aemond genuinely making the decision to kiss his mother. You sort of need to wave off some Targaryen incest to get behind this show but this is absolutely pushing it off the edge. In fact, I willed myself to forget about Daemon and his mother until the awkward kiss this episode had people talking about it and I remembered why my brain erased it from my memory. I really liked the subtle undertones of Aemond having mommy issues in season one, and then they were out in the open in season two, and now it feels like he’s screaming it in my face so loud that I die of fright. I would say “what is his problem?” but we very much know by that display.

And Alicent’s reaction - oh my word, Olivia Cooke can ACT. She looked absolutely terrified at the monster in front of her, the monster she raised (or rather, DIDN’T raise). I know she married Helaena to Aegon and I still don’t understand why she did that because if she didn’t, it’s not like the Rhaenyra’s kids were the only other option. People would have lined up to wed the king’s youngest daughter. But Alicent is not on the Targcest train and no amount of therapy will ever recover her from the trauma of her psycho son kissing her smack bang on the lips. Alicent was playing such a dangerous game manipulating Aemond to leave after he pulled her up on being out of office for multiple days. Her being brought into the throne room (by the way, SUCH a good chain of events with her thinking ‘king’ was referring to Aegon and then being confused why he’d be in the throne room) and the shot of Aemond on the iron throne and the whole interrogation between them seriously mirrors Viserys and Daemon in episode one when homeboy was called up on mocking the dead baby.

Aemond is such a smart character. He knows how power moves through the court, he’s studied up on history, he’s embodied a powerful Targaryen by claiming Vhagar, being fluent in High Valyrian, and I bet he knows what a trial of seven is (Maekar could never) but now that he has power, what will he do? We’ve seen that he knows how to rise to power, how to remove obstacles and take it from himself but maintaining power when everyone knows you’re at the top of the ladder is a different game altogether. There’s a Game of Thrones rewrite over on YouTube by Uniquenameosaurus (I’m being so serious when I say everyone who ever watched Game of Thrones should listen to it and see what he could’ve had) and there’s a line in the climax said by Varys to Petyr Baelish “chaos is a ladder, right? Tell me, in all that time, did you ever think about where you’d run next once you reached the top?” and that absolutely feels like what’s happening here. I haven’t seen any of the promos or trailers for this season so aside from the scattered rumours (and the leaks, which are half wrong so far), it could look like we’re going to see Aemond slowly lose it over the season like we did Daemon last season but hopefully with less repetitive visions. Maybe that’s how Alicent can manipulate him to fly out to Harrenhal. I know Aemond thinks he’s the biggest and baddest (and on Vhagar, he absolutely is) but taking Harrenhal with just him and what’s left of the army Crispy and Ser Gwayne have, leaving King’s Landing completely undefended from his enemy a 30 minute flight away seems like such an idiotic choice. I’m pretty sure that next episode, Rhaenyra is taking King’s Landing but even if Alicent didn’t conspire with her, Rhaenyra could’ve taken King’s Landing easily.

Alicent’s character, so I’ve been told, is such a huge change from the books with the way she’s portrayed as being innocent and pushed into her current position by the men in her life and was influenced by them to do the wrongful things we see and that in season two, she realises how wrong she was and how she basically set up the entire war and now feels super guilty about it. When season one first came out, Alicent felt like such a real character that I had absolutely no idea of the changes that had been made from the book and I really enjoyed that. I hate when book purists act like the only right way to portray things is exactly as it’s laid out in the source material, so when screenwriters make significant changes that work for the medium, elevate the story, or create another layer of depth, I love to see it done right. Even G.R.R Martin said that the show’s portrayal of Viserys was better than how he’d written him in the book. And in season one, Alicent being Rhaenyra’s childhood friend who was forced into politics and being influenced and pushed around by Otto, Viserys and Larys makes so much sense and feels like it was always part of the narrative. It adds another layer of conflict as it makes the war not just about politics or inheritance but about emotion as well, which is really needed to make it as tragic as possible because the more tragic, the better.

But all that said, the writers have definitely cornered Alicent’s character with how they wrote season two. I can get behind the concept of her realising how much damage she’s done but she really seems to have lost some of her character and at the moment, she really feels quite one-dimensional, which is sad because she’s obviously one of the writers’ favourite characters and it can really hurt the plot when one of the central characters isn’t living up to the mark they should be. In watching season two, I really felt like I had no idea what Alicent was up to or what she was feeling or thinking because she almost never talked. I love when the story can set up an emotional beat for a character and then when you see them in a scene where they don’t outright state what they’re feeling but they stay quiet and you can pick up on what they’re thinking about. But in season two, I had absolutely no clue. A particular scene that springs to mind is a scene where Alicent is in the bath and the maids are trying to tend to her and then she gets frustrated and starts washing herself and almost shouts at them to leave. We’re not getting an inner monologue of what’s going through Alicent’s mind and why she got so frustrated so it should be made clear before then but it isn’t. You could argue that she’s frustrated that there’s a civil war in the family and her children are therefore in danger but we already know that. We can see that in scenes that move the plot forward and in how she responds when others take political action. Either that scene is pausing the plot to remind us that Alicent’s not over the moon about the war and all, or there’s something in particular that’s eating away at her and because it wasn’t set up enough, we can’t connect the dots to explain her outburst. Anyway, went on a little season two tangent there but it seems like season three is trying to mend the damage done to Alicent’s character last season by making her more of a player since they’ve set her up as a central character and I really hope they continue picking it up because despite how interesting Alicent is given her history with Rhaenyra, the influence from her father and Larys, and her children being high up on the blacks’ hitlist, she’s been pretty flat for a whole season.

Rhaenyra is also suffering from the same issue but I guess you could blame the problem with Rhaenyra on the way they stretched out season two so that apart from blood and cheese, one battle, and dragon speed-dating, nothing happened and the plot barely moved forward. I feel like they’re leaning so heavily into the idea of Rhaenyra trying to hold back on initiating battles that although she’s the queen and leader of the blacks, she’s doing absolutely nothing. I was so sick and tired of almost every single scene with Rhaenyra just being her council, who are complete strangers to us, talking about the ravens they sent and the responses they got from smaller houses and I couldn’t even tell you what else because those scenes were so insignificant. In the finale of season one, Rhaenyra was firm in not attacking the greens because she wanted to avoid bloodshed and Rhaenys spelled it out to Corlys that she was the only one holding everyone back until the war was triggered and Luke was killed and she turned back to face the council, enraged. It really feels like the writers said “ooh that was great, let’s do it again” and suddenly in season two, Rhaenyra’s back to not wanting violence and sitting around arguing with her council. When she went to Harrenhal to confront Daemon about gathering an army, it felt like she was finally doing something and taking a stand because there’s no going back and there’s no shirking away from violence now but Rhaenyra doesn’t appear to see it that way. She still thinks that violence and loss can be avoided and so she’s sitting back and refusing to take part, causing the greens to lay down whatever plan they like. I thought that her going to confront Daemon was the final sign that she was ready to take part in the war but then Alicent showed up on Dragonstone and told Rhaenyra her preposterous idea of just waltzing through the gates on her word alone. I very much appreciate that Rhaenyra’s entire council immediately spoke against blinding trusting Alicent but, like Jace, she seemed like she was a child who was so excitedly by the idea that she couldn’t think straight. I mean, she quite literally ignored Mysaria asking the obvious question of whether Alicent can be trusted. It’s so sad but I hope Jace’s death brings back the Rhaenyra from season one, who had lost her son and was ready to take action, cut down her enemies, and sit on the throne to protect the realm from the prophecy only she knows. Sometimes you’ve gotta nip problems in the bud and unfortunately, the bud has sprouted and made Rhaenyra’s goal of uniting the realm against the long night that much more unattainable.

I also quickly wanna mention Daeron because we’ve been told he’s squiring for Ormund, I’m pretty sure, and forgive me if I’m wrong but wouldn’t that mean he was the William Ransom look-alike with the reddish-brownish hair? We don’t even have a proper in-focus shot of this guy and with all the confusion online, I can’t find an actual credible statement on who’s playing Daeron. I have heard rumours that he’s in disguise but isn’t it known that he’s squiring for Ormund? Is he wearing a wig? If he isn’t, who’s to say he’s not a bastard (as per the greens’ logic)? Is this someone else pretending to be Daeron? So many questions.

I don’t really have much to say about the Sea Snake and Alyn other than everything to do with them was exceptional and you can tell how much thought was put into both their relationship in this episode and their story in the Battle of the Gullet. FINALLY we saw that damn ship in action after spending literally the entirety of last season being repaired in the docks. I know this episode was technically meant to be in season two and they were only given a limited number of episodes so it was pushed to this season but even Game of Thrones wasn’t that slow of developing a plotline, especially given the amount of screentime it had across the whole season. Sorry, I keep going back to season two but it was just so boring that I’m not even gonna write about each episode of it but I’m so glad season three is picking up and moving things along. I am just sad that we got to see this ship more when it was being fixed than in the actual sea. And Corlys directing it through a dangerously shallow and rocky passage because he’s just that good of a sailor was just incredible to see and I’m so annoyed that Lohar was able to copy him and get through to ram into his ship. And the fight scene that ensued was just amazing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode and it definitely felt more like I was watching for entertainment than obligation like in season two. It’s no A Knight of the Seven (nine) Kingdoms but it immediately rose to HotD season one standards and it feels like we’re back in Westeros again. If only we didn’t lose another noble dark-haired Targaryen prince so soon after Baelor.

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