Who does the White Worm really work for? And who was that literal child who killed a man
with a broadsword? "House of the Dragon" gets even soapier in Episode 4. Here's what you
missed in all that lather.
In Episode 3, King Viserys tried to make amends by telling his daughter to choose a husband
who makes her happy. Episode 4 starts with the end of the tour he's arranged to introduce
her to more suitors.
Rhaenyra isn't interested. She dreamily fiddles with the necklace Daemon gave her and sits
cozily next to Ser Criston. But around a dozen candidates line up to state their cases, the
first of whom is an old man, Lord Dondarrion. The Dondarrions are loyal to the Baratheons,
which might be why Boremond Baratheon admonishes Rhaenyra for making a joke about her suitor's
advanced age.
"That was unseemly, Princess."
Next is a boy from House Blackwood. He touts his ancient bloodline and promises that, with
him, her days will be easy and her nights will be safe. Rhaenyra likes the boy's bravado,
but she's not going to marry him. An unnamed knight from rival House Bracken taunts young
Blackwood and calls him craven, which compels the proud tween to slay his heckler by cutting
him open and spilling his guts.
The source material, George R. R. Martin's "Fire & Blood," alludes to a Samwell Blackwood,
who lost to a Bracken in a duel for Rhaenyra's hand. So this scene appears to be the show's
dramatic reinterpretation of the Blackwood/Bracken duel, with this Blackwood — named Willem,
per HBO — killing his rival, unlike his literary counterpart.
It's a scene that's ripped straight from the book-- Daemon returns to King's Landing wearing
a crown and calling himself King of the Narrow Sea.
"Add it to the chair."
But he offers up the crown to Viserys and swears fealty, marking the full circle of
their first estrangement and reconciliation. These brothers have always had a close but
complicated relationship, which comes to light during — what else — a feast the king
throws in his prodigal brother's honor.
"No no no no no. I will not revisit this debate. You were always mother's favorite."
The king's in a jolly mood, made jollier by wine, but there are decades worth of sibling
rivalry in his reminiscing. He says that their mother, Princess Alyssa, "had no regard for
custom, or traditional, rules," and that he, Viserys, was "no great warrior."
In the source material, it's true that Alyssa favored Daemon and took him dragon-riding
with her from the time of his infancy. Like her granddaughter Rhaenyra, she was a hot-blooded
and nontraditional woman who loved dragons, sometimes dressed in boys clothing, and preferred
swordplay and taverns to more ladylike endeavors.
She would've been proud of the dragonrider and fighter that Daemon became, and it's very
likely that Viserys feels self-conscious about the fact that he's a Targaryen without a dragon
or real combat experience.
However, in "Fire & Blood," Princess Alyssa dies in childbirth when both Viserys and Daemon
would've been too young to remember much of their time with her, so their conversation
is either a change from the book or the king's drunken rambling about a woman he barely remembers.
"Fire & Blood" is an in-universe history text with multiple sources, including clergyman
Septon Eustace and a three-foot-tall court fool named Mushroom. The events of the fourth
episode of "House of the Dragon" are a turning point in "Fire & Blood," but when it comes
to Rhaenyra and Daemon, the book's sources diverge.
According to Septon Eustace, the Princess had an enormous crush on her uncle and was
easily seduced. When a guard caught them, Rhaenyra told the King she was in love with
his brother and begged to marry him, which the king forbade as Daemon already had a wife.
Mushroom's version of events is "more depraved." He claimed Daemon took Rhaenyra to the pleasure
houses and fooled around with her — but did not deflower her — so that she could
learn how to be good in bed for Ser Criston.
"House of the Dragon" blends the two accounts. Daemon sneaks Rhaenyra out in pages' clothing,
as he does in the book, and he takes her to the Street of Silk. After their brief encounter
in the brothel, Daemon runs away, and Rhaenyra uses her newfound carnal knowledge to bed
her White Knight.
But when Rhaenyra and Daemon are accused, they tell different stories: She assures Queen
Alicent that her virtue is intact — at least when it comes to Daemon — while Daemon doesn't
deny anything, and tells his brother he wants to wed his niece.
In keeping with the spirit of the book, Viserys tells his daughter that the truth of what
occurred doesn't matter, only the perception, which is a shrewd way to read history, including
the fictional history of Westeros.
Otto Hightower enters the king's bedchamber at the crack of dawn with "discomforting news."
He tells Viserys that Rhaenyra was spied at the pleasure house with Daemon, and the two
were "coupling," as he puts it.
Viserys finally has the sense to question Otto's motives and loyalty to the Crown, but
the Hand insists this source has yet to lead him astray. That source is the White Worm,
who uses a boy spy and messenger to practice her trade. The White Worm is revealed to be
Mysaria when that same boy comes to her later with payment as she tends to a hungover Daemon.
She tells him she's gotten out of the skin trade since it could only take her so far.
Does Daemon know that she's actually gotten into the business of selling secrets? It's
possible she's still on his side, since getting caught might've been Daemon's plan all along.
If he marries his niece Rhaenyra, as he proposes once Viserys thinks he's "defiled" her, he'll
be closer to the throne than he ever could be otherwise.
"You Targaryens do have queer customs."
Viserys decides to move forward with Rhaenyra as his heir, and he decides to force her to
move forward with a politically advantageous marriage to Laenor Velaryon. But it's not
just the current divisions within the kingdom that worry the king.
He puts stock in dreams, and none more so than Aegon's. Viserys holds the catspaw dagger
to a flame and tells his daughter that the dagger belonged to Aegon the Conqueror, saying
that a pyromancer "hid his song in the steel." Rhaenyra picks it up and reads the blade's
inscription:
"From my blood, come the Prince That Was Promised, and his will be the Song of Ice and Fire."
Viserys has entrusted her with the knowledge of Aegon's dream. She knows that some threat
lies in wait in the North. But he also means that it may be her responsibility to give
birth to the Prince That Was Promised, or to continue a family line from which that
prince will come.
Her father the king needs her not just to marry for peace in their own time, but to
produce a strong, Valyrian, dragon-riding heir who could be the savior of the world.
When the Maester leaves Rhaenyra the abortifacient tea, it's not just an implication that he's
not sure whether to believe her. He wants to preserve her womb for the foretold Prince.