Season 1, Episode 4: “King of the Narrow Sea”
“You Targaryens have strange habits.”
It was Sunday night’s Alicent, which won the Understatement of the Week award. The Targaryen’s constant weirdness on TV dates back to the early days of “Game of Thrones.” When I heard the chatter about the Mad King, I saw another Viserys step in before marrying his naked sister to a barbarian horse lord. I have heard many times that the gods toss a coin whenever something new is born.
Sunday’s “House of the Dragon” kept the coins tossed for those who were already here. Daemon returned as the Conqueror with a new haircut, but seemed redeemed until he took Rhaenyra on a looting tour of the grimy Old Town. After winning sympathy, she thoughtlessly risked the lives of her closest allies and lured Ser Criston into her room to play a game of hiding the helmet. Viserys was lenient in his first pardon to the demons, and then demanded suppurative midnight desires. (“It’s quite late…” protested Aricent, but the king got what the king wanted.)
It all culminated in watching the physically corrupt ruler kick his hungover brother in the ribs for sleeping with his daughter in front of everyone in a brothel.
So… yeah. strange habits.
Granted, my untrained eyes couldn’t comprehend how far the incest had gone before Daemon had a crisis of conscience. Crabfeeder died, meaning Sea Snake is pouting in Driftmark, and got a full Targaryen this week. Hightower was kicked out in a lot of ways, but Viserys started the episode with two fingers and ended up losing an entire hand, and over an hour was devoted to dragon-flavoured psychodrama. .
This is more or less what we promised. Prior to the season, showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik (Sapochnik has since departed) said that “House of the Dragon” was a more straightforward melodrama compared to the revolving, territorial “Game of Thrones.” suggested that it would be (So far, I miss the structure of “Thrones” as much as I miss the humor I mentioned last week. It seems the strategy is to
Return to Westeros in “House of the Dragon”
HBO’s long-awaited ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel series is here.
Many of the scenes were tough to watch, but look, let me give you a disclaimer right now that applies to this week, the week before, and all weeks to come: This is objectively gross. “Coupling” with a niece is terrible. Old people who put teenagers to bed are terrible. Sex slavery is a terrible thing. Child brides are gross. For all of the squeaks fueled by age differences and the like, we’re all checking modern moral standards at the door to some extent if you want to go along with this story.
But roughness is also partly the point. The Targaryen rulers believe they are noblely motivated by Aegon’s prophecies about the coming darkness, although this is mentioned in the premiere (more on this later), ” House of the Dragon’ is ultimately about the decline of a complex and deeply inbred clan. Power is made possible by access to the world’s deadliest weapons. I doubt the show will take us all the way to the beginning of “Game of Thrones,” but this story will ultimately tell the story of a king who is so insane that he wants to burn everyone and is killed. heading to He is followed decades later by a daughter who eventually follows a similar path.
So it’s about the long fall of a dynasty (pending what Jon Snow, née Aegon Targaryen, will do) his planned sequel, although building an empire does not seem to suit him). And what undermines a dynasty includes ineffective leaders, infighting, and moral corruption allowed by unbridled power. Inbreeding is key to their downfall, perhaps as it is the main cause of the Targaryen madness explained in the coin-flipping maxim. (At least, it keeps the family insane.
Rhaenyra’s owl-time adventure finally forced her to bow to her own dynastic responsibilities. She apparently married Raynor Velarion, who was seen setting fire to a Crab Feeder soldier last week, thereby bringing more dragons to her family and possibly his Father, strengthens the rift with Sea Snake.
“I can be the cure for your political headaches,” Rhaenyra sneered at Viserys.
“You are that is My political headache! ‘ he replied. (Paddy Considine and Millie Alcock are acting veterans, relative newcomers, and very dynamic onscreen.)
The final indignation arrived in the form of the morning after-tea prepared by the Grand Maester. Awkward reminder that her womb still belongs to the realm.
As for Damon, he accepted the king’s kicks and insults without hesitation because that’s what he expects of himself. Daemon arrives in the throne room this week as the conquering hero, King of the Narrow Seas, as the court honored his success in the Stepstones. But his goodness fits him like a crown of bad bones (or driftwood, or whatever it’s made of). By the end of the episode, he’s face down, battered, exiled, and probably still half-drunk in the same room.
I don’t care where you go as long as you’re out of my sight forever. Let’s see how long it lasts.
But the biggest loser of the week was Daemon’s eternal rival Otto the Hand, who finally exaggerated himself. As we recall, the Targaryen Brothers don’t take bad news well.
Otto works steadily to alienate Daemon and Laenira in order to establish his grandson Aegon as heir. That said, he clearly knew that sharing information about his White-his worms with the King was a dangerous undertaking. To slander a man’s corrupt brother is to insult his daughter’s honor at the risk of it.
Sure enough, Otto’s “unpleasant truth” was blown in his face. “It’s only now that I realize how well calculated it was.”
All that remained was for the king to remove the pin and send his father-in-law on his way. (The next family name day party should be fun.) That means, despite her reckless sneaking, drinking, and fornication, Rhaenyra survived another week as heir to the Iron Throne.
The question is, can stripping Otto of responsibility neutralize his threat as an inveterate conspirator? Or do you give him time to tweak the plot? We all know about the trouble that idle hands cause. (OK, definitely the last one….)