- Warning: Spoilers follow for House of the Dragon Season 1 Episode 9 “The Green Council”.
- HBO’s TV adaptation of Fire and Blood made some changes to the story of House Targaryen’s war.
- When Rhaenys killed a bunch of people in the dragon pit, there was sound strategy behind the bold move.
Loading Something is loading.
Thanks for registering!
Access your favorite topics on the go in a personalized feed. Download the app
At the end of the ninth episode of “House of the Dragon,” which aired Sunday, Rhaenys shocked everyone by crashing through the floor of the dragon pit on the back of Meleys (her dragon). Although Rhaenys killed hundreds of random citizens of King’s Landing who were herded into it without a choice, he chose not to kill the newly crowned King Aegon II and virtually every Hightower supporter of any power.
Rhaenys could have ended the war before it started, or that’s how some interpreted that scene.
But there’s a layer of strategy at play here that might not yet be clear if you don’t know the context of Fire and Blood, the book the series is based on. This entire Rhaenys sequence was created for the more omniscient narration of the events in the fictional history of House Targaryen.
“Fire and Blood” brings more character and nuance to the aftermath of Viserys’ death
King Viserys. Ollie Upton / HBO
In George RR Martin’s Fire and Blood, readers are told that the story comes from a variety of sources from either biased or unreliable witnesses. House of the Dragon presents a new, more nuanced series of events and decisions that will ultimately lead to tragedy. Anyone who has watched Game of Thrones knows that House Targaryen began to decay after its dragons became extinct – that’s all the magic and awe of Daenerys Targaryen’s feat in hatching not one but three dragons and the power of the to revive the Targaryen house in the previous HBO series.
So what does all this have to do with Rhaenys?
Throughout The Green Council episode, both Otto Hightower and Queen Alicent vie for control of the situation. Otto wants Rhaenyra, Daemon and all of their children killed immediately – before the people of King’s Landing even know King Viserys is dead.
Alicent, meanwhile, wants to send terms to Rhaenyra and crown Aegon (mistakingly believing this was Visery’s last wish) as soon as possible and hope for a bloodless truce between their families.
Both are fairly ambitious plans given the defenses Rhaenyra and Daemon have in Dragonstone and the bonus of Rhaenyra’s rightful claim to the Iron Throne by public decree of the late king.
Rhaenys is the only person who knows what is going on and can pass the true order of events down to Rhaenyra and Daemon and their children (who are also said to be in the true line of succession).
Rhaenys was imprisoned in the Red Keep while Otto executed Highborne like Lord Caswell for trying to tell Rhaenyra that her father had died. Rhaenys’ life was in real danger if she didn’t bend the knee to Aegon. So she needed a way out – and found it with her kite.
But guess what, who doesn’t know about it? The actual people who live in the Seven Kingdoms
A scene from “House of the Dragon” Season 1 Episode 9. HBO
Very few people knew that Viserys had died on the first full day after his last breath.
And as we’ve seen in talks about all the time jumps in previous episodes, the Lords and Ladies of the Court have either stayed true to the oath they swore to Viserys nearly 21 years ago, or decided that a son should, of course, inherit the throne about a daughter, for male rulers are all they have ever known.
The people of the Seven Kingdoms have no reason to doubt the report from the king himself that Viserys changed his mind and wanted Aegon to rule in place of Rhaenyra.
Rhaenys is the one challenging Aegon’s coronation – reminding people that dragons are the true power. The creatures are weapons capable of mass murder on a whim, and when bonded to a Targaryen, the dragons will serve their bidding.
By thus falling into the dragon pit and then sparing the lives of the newly ascended king and his family, Rhaenys brought the story of the family’s schism to the public. In her own way, Rhaenys set the tone for the people of the Seven Kingdoms: join the rightful Queen Rhaenyra or suffer the fate of our dragons.
But Rhaenys also makes the strategic choice not to kill the newly crowned King Aegon II or Alicent and Helaena and the other members of her own family through blood and marriage.
Rhaenys doesn’t want the public story to be, “Rhaenys is a Kinslayer and Rhaenyra just wanted power at any cost.” Rhaenys wants to show her power, give Alicent one more chance to do what’s right, and then get out of King’s Landing safely.
As passages in “Fire and Blood” also give context to the strategy surrounding Aegon’s coronation in the Dragonpit
A scene from “House of the Dragon” Season 1 Episode 9. HBO
We know that public perception is something that influences wars and political strategy. In Fire and Blood, Martin tells us that “riders on pale horses went out to bring the news to the people of King’s Landing, shouting ‘King Viserys is dead, long live King Aegon'” when the Hightowers decided that it was time to publicize the death of Viserys.
“When they heard the screams, Munkun writes, some wept while others cheered,” the book continues. “But most of the little people stared in silence, confused and suspicious, and every now and then a voice called out, ‘Long live our Queen.'”
Martin also says in this fictional history book that the Dragon Pit held 80,000 people (about four times the capacity in the real Madison Square Garden in New York City) and that the Hightowers thought the structure would protect them from outside “traitors”.
“The pit’s thick walls, strong roof, and soaring bronze doors made it defensible should traitors attempt to disrupt the ceremony,” the book states.
“House of the Dragon” drills a big hole in that logic with the shocking scene of Rhaenys bursting out of the ground, setting up the Greens and giving Team Rhaenyra another win.
The episode also goes out of its way to show us that Aegon is a disastrous candidate for the king’s job. He’s more interested in watching kids fight to the death and father bastards and get drunk than anything to do with domination.
His opponent, and the actual person Viserys wanted crowned, is Rhaenyra – a traditional Targaryen queen who attended meetings of the Small Council from a young age and was made heir at 14, giving her more than 20 years to live to prepare for domination.
Rhaenyra holding baby Viserys II. HBO
Rhaenyra has done much to turn public opinion against her, including fathering bastards in a much more public way than Aegon, and passing them off as trueborn (with the consent of all of her immediate family and husband). She is also rumored to have murdered her husband in order to marry her uncle in the tradition of incest that most believers in the faith believe to be wrong.
So if Rhaenys killed her own family members and shed first royal blood in the fight for the throne, it would sway opinion against Team Rhaenyra. Kinslaying is a special form of moral abuse in Westeros.
And yes, murdering hundreds of innocent citizens of your city, too. This was a major sticking point for many people who didn’t find the episode’s ending satisfying.
Without going into any Fire and Blood spoilers, I’ll just say this: don’t think that the deaths of all these people will go unnoticed until the end of the whole story.
The Season 1 finale of House of the Dragon airs Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. For more, check out our breakdown of the best details you may have missed from last week’s episode.