A prayer that's way more than just a prayer. A mysterious dragon "too big for this world."
"House of the Dragon" is heating up — here's what you may have missed in Episode 2.
Episode 2 begins with some gnarly images of sea life cleaning the
flesh off the bodies of sailors who appear to have washed ashore.
In the next scene, a furious Corlys Velaryon bursts into a small council meeting and says
something must be done about the Stepstones, the Free Cities, and the Crabfeeder.
"Four ships have now been lost! The last one was flying my banner."
Otto Hightower's solution is to pay off the families of the victims and refund Corlys
for his losses, but the Sea Snake doesn't think this course of action goes far enough.
In the premiere, Corlys speaks of the Triarchy and someone named Craghas Drahar.
In Episode 2, when Corlys asks Daemon if he's heard about the "trouble in
the Stepstones" in an attempt to recruit him into the war he wants,
Daemon replies that he has heard something about some Myrish prince. Craghas, the Crabfeeder, and
this prince are one and the same, and the Triarchy is the Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh.
The Crabfeeder came by his nickname honestly. Feeding sailors to the crabs might seem like a
metaphor for sea warfare, but Craghas literally feeds his victims to his namesakes by fixing
their bodies to stakes at low tide and letting the crabs do their thing. The source material,
George R.R. Martin's "Fire & Blood," leaves more to the imagination and simply explains
that the name was related to the inventive punishments he inflicted upon his enemies.
History buff King Viserys is building (or at least commissioning) an elaborate model of Valyria,
the home of the Targaryens and the other now-extinct dragon-riding families.
"The city of 1000 years, and all that men had learned.
The doom consumed it all alike. And neither of them turned."
During one of their visits in Episode 2, he explains his project to the young lady who's
obviously been sent to seduce him, Alicent Hightower, daughter of the Hand of the King.
Viserys waxes poetic about how Valyria was built into a volcano,
like Dragonstone, so its people could be close to the source of their magic and power.
He tells of blood mages and a civilization that was 1,000 dragons strong.
"Do you believe that Westeros could be another Valryia, your grace?"
The king answers that it depends on whether she means Valyria at its peak or at its fall,
referring to the Doom of Valyria. Though Martin has not yet written a definitive
account of exactly what happened, Valyria suffered some apocalyptic event about a
dozen years after the Targaryens fled, thanks to the prophetic vision of Daenys Targaryen.
Some characters speak of the Doom as if it was an unavoidable natural disaster,
but the strong implication is that the Valyrians brought collapse upon
themselves with their lust for magic and power.
Viserys considers his own kingdom with 10 dragons, already falling into disrepair after 100 years.
"The glory of Old Valyria will never be seen again."
Maybe not the glory, but perhaps the hubris and ruin. Viserys thinks ruling over peace
means throwing feasts and tourneys, not making difficult but necessary decisions.
Meanwhile, the seven hells are about to break loose.
It's incredibly symbolic when he drops and breaks a dragon figurine
and mistakes Alicent's ambition for kindness when she has it fixed.
"For thousands of years the Valyrians were best in the world at almost everything. And then…”
“And then they weren’t."
Episode 2 makes it clear that Alicent Hightower is a willing
participant and not just a pawn in the schemes that revolve around her,
though the nervous fingernail picking suggests she certainly has mixed feelings.
The main plotline revolves around Alicent and her father Otto's efforts to convince
Rhaenyra that her father the king should remarry, and to make sure he chooses the
teenage Alicent over the 12-year-old Laena Velaryon, who's the better candidate on paper.
To soften up her bestie, Alicent has to mediate the reconciliation between Rhaenyra
and her father, who've barely spoken since her mother and brother's traumatic deaths. Step one:
Alicent takes her to the Sept to pray to the Seven in an attempt to get some closure about it.
This scene is much more loaded with subtext and foreshadowing than it might seem upon first watch.
The Hightowers are the lords of Oldtown, where they were once the richest and most
powerful family in Westeros. The Faith of the Seven — the predominant religion
in Westeros — also calls Oldtown home, and the two entities are closely aligned.
The Hightowers support the Faith and vice versa, which increases both the
noble family and the new religion's political influence. In contrast, the Targaryens have a
tenuous relationship with the Seven. Publicly, they've converted, but really, they keep their
ancient customs and do their best to limit the Seven's role in the culture of Westeros.
By getting Rhaenyra to bend the knee in prayer, Alicent is flexing her own strength and using
the religion to which she's theoretically much more devoted than Rhaenyra for cynical purposes.
"What do I say?"
"Whatever you wish.
It's only for you and the gods to know."
Showrunners have promised that we'll see at least 17 dragons throughout the run of "House of the
Dragon," including at least 9 in the first season. So far, we've gotten glimpses of Rhaenyra's
elegant mount, Syrax, and Daemon's fierce red steed, Caraxes, also known as the Blood Wyrm.
We've also heard about Balerion, the Black Dread, whose skull now rests in the cellars of the Red
Keep, and Dreamfyre, whose egg was chosen for Rhaenyra's brother, then stolen by Daemon.
On his walk with Laena Velaryon, the tween Princess asks the King what it was like to ride
Balerion. Some backstory: Viserys was the last of the Targaryen kings to ride the Black Dread,
and he never bonded with or rode another dragon afterwards.
That means it's been quite some time since the King was on dragonback,
which is itself a symbol of his supposed weakness. Then, Laena inquires about Vhagar who she says was
too big for the dragonpit. Viserys retorts that she was perhaps too big for this world.
Vhagar was a female dragon, almost as large as Balerion, who was ridden by one of King Aegon's
sister-wives, Visenya. Long story short, Vhagar — the biggest dragon in the world — is still out
there, and no one knows for sure where she's nesting. This conversation isn't just scene
filler. Vhagar is basically Chekhov's dragon, sure to show up at some critical moment in the future.
After King Viserys slices his finger on the Iron Throne in Episode 1, we see in Episode
2 that what started out as a small cut has rotted into a serious health situation.
Though it occurs at a different point in the narrative, in "Fire & Blood," Viserys cuts
his digit so badly that it needs to be amputated. The incident scars him, physically and mentally,
so much so that, in the book, King Viserys never sits on the Iron Throne again.
In "House of the Dragon," the Maesters recommend maggots to eat away at the gangrene. Both
versions come to the same metaphorical conclusion: the wound will not heal.
Viserys himself utters this exact phrase in another context, later in the episode.
"Your mother's absence is a wound that will never heal."
He adds that in Queen Aemma's absence, the Red Keep "will never recover," and he's right. Had she
lived, Viserys would've remained married to her and probably wouldn't have produced another heir.
Rhaenyra's claim would be absolute, save for Daemon's insolence at being passed over.
With Aemma out of the picture, King Viserys has to choose between two factions:
one led by the Hightowers and one led by the Velaryons. Since neither side will
ever accept the promotion of the other over their own interests, civil war is inevitable.