Why didn't Rhaenys roast the Greens? Will Laenor ever row back home? "House of the Dragon" Season
1 left fans wanting more — with several burning questions still lingering after the finale.
Though he's conflict avoidant, frequently ill, and largely ineffectual as a leader,
much of the story in "House of the Dragon" Season 1 still revolves around Viserys Targaryen. He is,
to be fair, quite an interesting character — a man wholly unqualified to keep war at bay,
but who remains the only one in a real position to maintain peace.
Is he a hero? Certainly not. He let his delusions of foresight and his desire for
greatness push his wife to her deathbed. Is he a villain? Not necessarily. He does keep the peace,
after all, and he stays loyal to Rhaenyra until the very end. Viserys is undoubtedly
a sympathetic figure, but that doesn't make him a great king.
Repeatedly throughout "House of the Dragon" Season 1, we get scenes debating this question:
What does it mean to be a good king? What does it mean to leave a lasting legacy?
"What will they say of me when the histories are written?"
A lover of history, Viserys knows that his reign will never become a great song. In the end,
he only wishes for the feuds within his own house to be settled before his death. Of course,
that doesn't happen. Is Viserys the king who held the peace, or the king
whose inaction led to widespread bloodshed? Ultimately, that's up to the viewer to decide.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen plays a unique role in the story of "House of the Dragon."
As the so-called "Queen Who Never Was," she represents an alternate path that
Westeros could have gone down. Had she been given the Iron Throne instead of Viserys,
things might have gone quite differently for everyone involved.
She clearly would have been a stronger and more decisive ruler,
and she would have set the precedent that women can reign as well as men. Such a
precedent surely would have prevented the kind of schism that takes place in the show, right?
Well, that's hard to say. The truth is, even if Rhaenys had been selected as queen, she probably
would have faced the same kinds of challenges that Rhaenyra faces throughout Season 1.
"Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne."
Had she been named Jaehaerys' heir, Westeros might have fallen into chaos even sooner. In the end,
though, the great council may have only prolonged the inevitable.
Whether or not Rhaenys could have saved the realm from war as queen, she has a pretty clear chance
to stop further bloodshed when she escapes on Meleys from the Dragonpit. In other words,
"There is a beast beneath the boards!"
After bursting through the floor on her roaring mount, Rhaenys finds herself staring
down Rhaenyra's entire rival faction — Otto Hightower, Ser Criston Cole, Alicent, and all
three of her children. With a single "dracarys", Rhaenys could have burned the lot of them and
saved the realm from the conflict that now seems inevitable. But she refuses and simply flies away.
Why does Rhaenys show mercy at this moment when she already plans to ally herself with Rhaenyra?
There are a few possible explanations. While she disagrees with Alicent's conviction that
women must remain in the background, Rhaenys clearly has sympathy for the Green Queen.
Also, Rhaenys might not have fully chosen a side yet. Seeing Rhaenyra
with her crown and loyal followers is a powerful moment for the princess,
and it might have taken that extra push to convince her to take up arms.
Killing a whole royal family without a plan isn't necessarily a great call.
One thing that's for sure is that Rhaenys didn't spare the Greens simply because she
abhors violence. After all, she must have killed countless innocents while escaping the Dragonpit.
Vhagar is the largest living dragon in the world, and in the "House of the Dragon" Season 1 finale,
she shows just how terrifying and dangerous she can be. With a single bite,
she rips Arrax and the young Prince Lucerys to pieces, establishing herself as being in
an entirely different league from many of the show's other dragons.
Sure, Caraxes, Syrax, and Meleys are all fearsome dragons, but it might take all
three of them flying in tandem to even have a shot at taking Vhagar down. We're talking
about a dragon who survived Aegon's conquest and is still just as deadly over a century later.
Fortunately for the Blacks, Daemon is already hard at work recruiting the remaining riderless
dragons to their cause, beginning with the next largest beast after Vhagar.
"Dragonstone has 13 to their 4. I also have a score of eggs incubating in the Dragonmont."
During the final episode of "House of the Dragon" Season 1, Daemon Targaryen journeys deep into the
Dragonmont — the volcano of Dragonstone — in search of a new ally. Knowing that the coming
war between the Blacks and the Greens will likely come down to their respective dragons,
he aims to recruit the riderless dragons who nest on the island to his cause.
We see him approaching the lair of the old dragon Vermithor while singing a
Valyrian tune, and the dragon seems to respond quite positively to it,
belching fire throughout the cavern but leaving Daemon unburnt.
Establishing contact with Vermithor is great for the Blacks, especially since
the creature is one of the only dragons who might be able to challenge Vhagar. However,
there's one big question that no one knows the answer to yet: Who will ride him?
The only person in Rhaenyra's faction with Targaryen blood and no Dragon is
Daemon's young daughter Rhaena, who could be a suitable match. However,
it's also possible that a non-Targaryen could claim Vermithor.
Rhaenyra's relationship with her uncle Daemon is complicated, to say the
absolute least. Though she's repeatedly shown pursuing him throughout her life,
and though incestuous relationships are clearly not that taboo in the world of the show,
it's still hard not to see their early dynamic as deeply problematic.
At best, she chooses to be with a man who killed his first wife in order to advance
his own station. At worst, she was groomed from childhood to love a deeply dangerous
and treacherous person. Rhaenyra is too smart not to understand the kind
of person Daemon is — a person whose only real interest is his gaining more power.
However, she seems to believe that, for some reason, she's the one person who's
impervious to his dark side. She's different from Mysaria and Lady Rhea Royce; from her own father,
who Daemon constantly fought with. For whatever reason — be it ego or blindness
caused by "love" — she seems to think he's a weapon that could never be turned against her.
In the Season 1 finale, however, we see that this isn't true. Daemon shows a
viciousness toward Rhaenyra when she starts to question his warmongering,
and though he eventually defers to her authority, it's clear that he has his
own intentions. Can Rhaenyra really trust him to have her back when things start to heat up?
"Dreams didn't make us kings. Dragons did."
One of the larger mysteries in "House of the Dragon" Season 1 is what becomes of
Laenor Velaryon. Rhaenyra Targaryen's first husband is believed by most of the realm to
be dead after a fight with his lover Qarl, but that's far from the truth. In reality,
Laenor faked his death, shaved his unmistakable Valyrian] locks,
and set off for parts unknown with Qarl and a boatload of money courtesy of Daemon and Rhaenyra.
The implication is that the two Targaryens never intended to kill
Laenor, as faking his death serves multiple purposes. It allows him to set off on a life
of adventure with his real love, it allows Rhaenyra and Daemon to marry,
and it makes the realm fear Rhaenyra a bit more via the rumor that she had her husband murdered.
That's all confusing enough, and it doesn't even touch on the matter of where Laenor
might be. In all likelihood, he's partying it up with Qarl in some far-flung corner
of the Free Cities. But what if something happens? What if he and Qarl break up and
the good knight decides to reveal the truth to the world? It's possible that the former
prince is out of the story for good, but he could return under a number of circumstances.
An elusive-yet-powerful "House of the Dragon" character is Mysaria,
the King's Landing madam who sets up a spy network within the Red Keep itself. Though she lingers in
the background for much of Season 1, Mysaria is always present, and she steps back into
the spotlight late in the season to reveal the location of Prince Aegon upon King Viserys' death.
As Lord Larys Strong has a spy network of his own, he sees Mysaria as a dangerous rival and
moves to eliminate her at the end of Season 1. We see an agent of Larys' walking away from
Mysaria's burning brothel, presumably signaling her death. But is she actually out of the picture?
Surely someone with so much power in King's Landing can't be relegated to an off-screen
death. Mysaria has a whole system of agents and loyalists, and it's likely
that she would have known about Lord Larys' attack ahead of time. If Mysaria is alive,
she may not show her face any time soon — she's too smart for that.
Alicent Hightower is a curious case. At times both a tragic character and a vile villain,
she stands opposite Rhaenyra at nearly every turn. While it's easy to condemn
her for following her father's power-hungry schemes and defending her sons during their
many egregious crimes, Alicent isn't such a simple character.
From the time she was a child, her father pushed her into intimacy with King Viserys,
knowing full well that she might become his queen. Alicent hardly
had a say in this decision, and once she starts bearing the king's children,
her sense of duty to her family prevents her from even considering escape.
With her own son Aemond now the murderer of Rhaenyra's son Lucerys,
it seems unlikely that olive branches will ever be extended. And yet,
it's still easy to see the regret in Alicent's eyes. Her closest allies are Larys Strong,
who she seems to pay by gratifying his foot fetish, and Ser Criston Cole,
who's proven to be a violent, jealous, and unpredictable man. Perhaps Rhaenys is right.
"You desire not to be free, but to build a window in the wall of your prison."
Perhaps the Dowager Queen really is too far gone to ever find a life of real happiness. But maybe,
just maybe, Alicent Hightower still has some surprises up her sleeve.
Like her father before her, Rhaenyra is obsessed with the prophetic Song of Ice and Fire,
Aegon the Conqueror's dream foreseeing the invasion of Westeros by the White Walkers.
"From my blood, come the Prince That Was Promised, and his will be the Song of Ice and Fire."
The prophecy plays a huge part in "House of the Dragon,", as it gives Rhaenyra a
big-picture reason to believe she must be the one to sit the Iron Throne. However,
foresight is rarely a simple thing in fantasy,
and it remains to be seen exactly how the Song of Ice and Fire will play into the coming conflict.
"House of the Dragon" would seem to be set in the same canon as its predecessor, as it even shares
the same theme song. But in "Game of Thrones," the Targaryen prophecy doesn't really play out the way
you'd think. Arya Stark is the one who kills the Night King, Jon Snow proves largely ineffectual
(even after being brought back from the dead), and Daenerys goes crazy and burns down King's Landing.
A prophecy that plays out so chaotically hardly seems like a good reason to put
countless innocent lives at risk, but it may be the final push Rhaenyra needs to
declare war after her son's death. Of course, Daemon doesn't even believe in the prophecy,
and it's possible that it may be lost to history amidst all the fighting to come.