House of the Dragon has been telegraphing Daemon and Rhaenyra’s attraction ever since he clasped that Valyrian metal necklace round her neck in the premiere. And anybody aware of what Game of Thrones confirmed us about the Targaryens is aware of that intrafamily romantic relationships — on this case between an uncle and his teenage niece — are par for the incestuous course for this silver-haired, dragon-loving household.
So this week’s main improvement isn’t a shock a lot as it’s an icky inevitability: Daemon will get sizzling and heavy together with his brother’s younger daughter, and afterward, there are penalties aplenty.
Read on for the highlights of Episode 4.
GUESS WHO’S BACK, BACK AGAIN | Since final we noticed Rhaenyra, Viserys has despatched her on a “Take Her to Wife… Please!” tour, during which potential hubbies in a number of places line as much as We open on Rhaenyra in a big corridor full of males who wish to be her husband. The first is an outdated man, the second a younger boy. Rhaenyra mocks them, then decides that she’s outta there. As she and Ser Criston go away the room, one very younger suitor from House Blackwood sticks his sword into the stomach of an onlooker who’d heckled him throughout his presentation. Even although they’re not purported to sail again to King’s Landing for fairly a while, she orders the knight to have her ship readied.
(*4*)They’re very near King’s Landing when a dragon buzzes the boat, knocking everybody down however not doing any actual harm. And the look on the princess’ face when she stands up is greater than a bit excited: The dragon is Caraxes, which implies Uncle Daemon is on the town.
Everyone swiftly information into the Throne Room, the place Viserys stands in entrance of his sharp-edged seat. Despite her makes an attempt to mix into the crowd, the king shortly notices the early return of his obstinate daughter, and he’s not happy. But now will not be the time, as a result of Daemon is strolling down the aisle towards his brother carrying a crown made of… is that bone? Driftwood? Bleached crab legs? Anyway, he’s additionally holding out the Crab Feeder’s sword. “Add it to the chair,” he says, dropping the weapon to the flooring with a clang.
Viserys asks about Daemon’s distinctive headwear. “Once we smashed the triarchy, they named me King of the Narrow Sea,” he replies. “But I know that there is only one true king, Your Grace.” AND THEN HE KNEELS. “My crown, and the Stepstones, are yours.” Well, that was surprising. Daemon provides that Corlys has sailed dwelling to Driftmark and that they left 2,000 of the Crab Feeder’s males staked to the sand to warn anybody who would possibly attempt to take over the space once more.
There’s a protracted, tense second during which Viserys takes Daemon’s crown, and Daemon shares a loaded look with Hightower. But then the king says, “Rise,” and embraces Daemon as everybody applauds. I ought to be aware right here that Daemon spent some of his time away at the salon, as a result of he’s sporting a brand new, quick haircut that jogs my memory of when This Is Us’ Rebecca determined to be impulsive.
And at a celebration to rejoice the prodigal’s return, a drunk Viserys is appearing as if he and his brother haven’t been estranged for literal years. Rhaenyra, nevertheless? Dead to him. Alicent takes pity on the princess and teases her about how romantic she imagines it’s to have hundreds of males line up for the likelihood at her hand. But Rhaenyra scoffs, “How romantic it must be to get imprisoned in a castle and squeeze out heirs…” realizing solely afterward that she’s simply completely described Alicent’s actuality. (She apologizes.) The ladies share a really candy second throughout which they acknowledge how a lot they’ve missed one another, and I’ve learn sufficient of Fire & Blood to know that I ought to savor this whereas it lasts.
THE ICKY PART | Now let’s get into the half of the episode that I actually, actually am not trying ahead to: Rhaeynra and Daemon almost making the dragon with two backs. She seeks him out to ask why he’s actually returned, however all he’ll say is that he missed the comforts of dwelling. She notes a brand new maturity in him. “You’ve matured yourself, these last four years, Princess,” he says, eyeing her in a manner that’s decidedly un-avuncular.
They slip into High Valyrian to debate Daemon’s spouse and the way a lot he hates her, and the way marriage might not be a life sentence for males, however it regularly — due to the dangers of childbirth — is a demise sentence for ladies. “You cannot live your life in fear, or you will forsake the best parts of it,” he counsels her as solely somebody who has by no means needed to face the idea of fatally hemorrhaging from a really treasured orifice may. She says she doesn’t need to reside in concern, “only solitude.”
At the small council assembly, Otto has phrase that Corlys — who’s nonetheless cheesed off that Viserys didn’t select his daughter, Laena, as a spouse — has allied with the Sea Lord of Braavos by promising Laena to the Sea Lord’s son. And if he does that, “we would have to seek our own marriage pact,” Otto says ominously.
Returning to her quarters for the night, Rhaeynra finds that somebody has left her a bag of commoners’ garments and a map indicating a secret door in her bed room wall. So she places on the drab outfit — which, I ought to be aware, consists of pants and a cap to hide her hair — and sneaks out. The secret path leads her to Daemon, who’s equally dressed besides his ensemble features a hooded cape, like some effed-up Obi-Wan. They take a stroll by King’s Landing’s seedy underbelly, which incorporates each public intercourse and (checks notes) tightrope-walking? They pause to observe a farce about the battle for the Iron Throne; the crowd is vocally anti-Rhaenyra. When Daemon factors out that the individuals need Aegon to succeed Viserys, she’s unbothered. “Their wants are of no consequence,” she says. “They’re of great consequence if you expect to rule one day,” he counters.
As a lark, she steals from a vendor then takes off, with Daemon promising the man he’ll discover the “boy” that robbed him. Rhaenyra runs right into a knight who acknowledges her, however when he sees Daemon, he merely says, “Take care, boy,” and lets her go.
They wind up at a brothel, the place all method of nudity and sexual act is on straightforward show. “What is this place?” she wonders, all the writhing our bodies. “It’s where people come to take what they want,” Daemon solutions. As he explains in a creepy whisper that marriage doesn’t should hold an individual from doing what — or who — they need, he begins kissing her, proper there in the center of the fleshy, fleshy room.
Things get very heated — at one level, her shirt is undone they usually’re up towards a wall, however Daemon appears to come back to some inside resolution and pulls again abruptly. Then he leaves Rhaenyra there, alone, along with her pants round her knees and no thought of what’s occurred. At some level alongside the manner she additionally doffed her cap, so the princess could be very recognizable as she wanders the hallway, calling for her uncle by identify… and a boy sitting on the stairs takes explicit discover.
Meanwhile, again at the Red Keep, Alicent spends her night bathing Viserys and his many wounds, consuming by herself after which having a maid wake her in the center of the evening to let her know that the king requires her presence. Ugh, the scene of his outdated, lesioned self thrusting and grunting whereas she stares, dead-eyed and unmoving, at the ceiling is sort of as horrifying as all the pieces else that’s happening on this episode.
KNIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME | Rhaenyra by some means makes it again to the Red Keep and her room, the place Ser Criston is shocked to seek out out that the royal he’s been guarding all evening wasn’t truly in her chambers. She grabs his helmet and performs keep-away with it with the intention to get him in her chambers, then she kisses him. He doesn’t encourage, but additionally doesn’t cease, her as she begins eradicating his armor; when she will get to his white cloak — the image of the vows, together with to not marry, that he has sworn— he pauses a protracted second, observing it. Then, apparently, he’s all in. Eventually, they’re each as bare as their identify days, and fairly quickly, Princess Rhaenyra is a maiden no extra.
Unfortunately for Rhaenyra, that little boy who noticed her at the brothel finds Otto Hightower and tells him what he is aware of. Oh, and would you take a look at that — he works for Mysaria! Early the subsequent morning, Otto goes to Viserys’ chambers to let him know that Rhaenyra and Daemon have been at a pleasure home and “engaged in behaviors unbecoming of a maiden, of a princess.” Viserys asks for readability, and he will get it: “Coupling.”
Of course Viserys thinks it’s all lies, and assaults Otto for destroying Rhaenyra’s popularity in a bid to have his grandson sit the Iron Throne. He orders his Hand from the room, and Alicent overhears all. So she requires Rhaenyra and asks her point-blank if what Otto stated was true. Rhaenyra denies it. “I am the princess. To question my virtue is an act of treason,” Rhaenyra says, her voice climbing an octave.
When Alicent says she’s solely attempting to assist, Rhaenyra calms a bit and offers a extremely sanitized recounting of their night. “I was only a spectator. I didn’t do anything!” she claims. And when Daemon bought too drunk, he “abandoned me for some whore,” she says. Alicent appears a bit relieved. “So you did not…” she trails off. “Must I truly refute that?” Rhaenyra asks. And simply after I assume she’s the cagiest little factor I ever did see, she goes too far: “Daemon never touched me,” she point-blank lies. “I swear this to you, upon the memory of my mother.” Then Alicent clothes her down for even the chance that she may be “sullied,” and a contrite Rhaenyra apologizes.
HERE’S YOUR DRAGON, WHAT’S YOUR HURRY? | Elsewhere, the kingsguard grabs a hungover Daemon and hauls him earlier than the Iron Throne. Viserys accuses his brother of defiling Rhaenyra, and Daemon doesn’t deny it. In truth, he has an thought! “Wed her to me,” he says, nonetheless laid-out and sweating Dornish crimson throughout the flagstones. He cites historic and acquainted precedent. He makes a case for returning “the House of the Dragon to its proper glory.” But Viserys merely banishes him to The Vale for good.
Later, Alicent and Viserys focus on the matter. She thinks that Daemon lied, and Rhaenyra is telling the fact. “She swore to me that she remains a maiden, and I believe her,” the queen says. So Viserys summons his daughter to his room to announce that she’s going to marry Ser Laenor Velaryon, which is able to unite the dragons and the naval fleet. She factors out that Otto is a legal responsibility who solely desires Aegon to be king, and he’s the actual risk to the realm. She agrees to do her responsibility and marry Laenor, “but you must first do yours as king.”
So Viserys calls Otto to the small council room, calling Hightower out for orchestrating Alicent as a distraction in the darkish days after Aemma’s demise. “Your interests no longer align with those of the realm. Your judgment has been compromised,” Viserys spits. Then he removes Otto’s Hand of the King pin, tells him he can lon longer belief his judgment, then turns his again on his former adviser.
Rhaenyra is studying in her room that evening when the grasp reveals up with some tea, ordered by the king, that can “rid you of any unwanted consequences.” Looks like Dad’s not shopping for what you’re promoting, princess!
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