**Spoilers ahead!**
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FU-
I’m sorry, kittens, I normally try to asterisk out my f-bombs but I am simply too emotionally wrecked by this week’s fuckery to manage.
Rhaenys - dead.
Meleys - dead.
Aegon - dead? Maybe? What the hell happened there?
Sunfyre - possibly dead?
Criston Cole-Blooded - a welcome brain injury but rubbishly still alive.
Aemond and Vhagar - DON’T EVEN EFFING START ME ON THOSE TWO.
Although, to be fair, I probably can’t lay all the blame on Vhagar. Dragons be dragoning and all that. Plus she’d been Laena’s mount for years without incident, so really it comes down to THIS GUY:
Don’t get me wrong, the Battle of Rooks Rest and the slow build towards it was incredible, the episode was marvellous, and wow Alicent Hightower totally had a canary in the Cole mine there for a minute, but right now I need a moment to simply seethe.
Because I don’t think I’ve been as ANGRY at a character death in the Wester-verse since Oberyn Martell had his eyes thumb-punched by Ser Gregor Clegane.
Robb, Catelyn and Talisa at the Red Wedding? Sure, I was devastated.
My beloved Jon Snow taken out by his fellow Crows? Inconsolable (with the slight out-consolable of “Surely he’ll be back, he’s Jon effing Snow?!?!”).
But the frustratingly unnecessary-but-of-course-necessary-as-plot-driver death of the Red Viper made me see red.
Perhaps it’s fitting therefore that the death of Princess Rhaenys and her red dragon would make my blood rise once more.
Was there a match to Princess Rhaenys - keen-eyed and courageous, loyal and wise - in the world?
Corlys has lost his guiding light.
Baela and Rhaena have lost their inspiration.
Rhaenyra has lost her best counsel.
The timing is certainly darkly ironic: just a week ago I was heaping praises on The Queen Who Never Was, and now she’s become The Queen Who Never Will Be.
Sometimes there are those characters who exist to make your life better, and then they are removed from your life and you just want to burn down the stupid world.
Speaking of Stu, I couldn’t help but wonder, Carrie Bradshaw-style, what he would have made of all of this. Stu had read the Fire & Blood history, so he would have known this distressing turn of events was coming. Would he find delight in my rage? Or would he still have been caught up in those dreadful moments of dragon-on-dragon fighting, hoping against hope things might end differently?
Yeah, good point, Stu would have all ALL the thoughts and opinions. We’ve got a lot to cover, kittens.
Everytime I think the Rubicon has been crossed, the warring factions of House Targaryen cast another die.
But this time dragons were involved. The dance went from metaphorical to literal (but still, like, metaphorical because you’d have to have the romantic taste of the Marquis de Sade to call tearing scales off each other mid-flight “dancing”).
What we see all through this episode is the cutting off - not just of heads from bodies, or armies from lords, of supply lines and escape routes; but of options, pathways, and chances.
S2E4: The Red Dragon and the Gold
Daemon continues to trip the balls fantastic during his stay at Harrenhal.
The episode opens with the Prince - sorry, King Consort - walking through an almost-empty throne room, only to be confronted again by Young Rhaenyra, sitting on the Iron Throne, whispering in High Valyrian.
Her voice is distorted, irritating Daemon, but eventually she strides down the stairs to the throne to tell him “You want to destroy me, just because your brother loved me more than you.”
Wowser, the psycho-analysis runs deep. There is some real Skinner in the game here.
Dream Daemon draws Dark Sister and deftly decapitates the defiant delusion.
The body collapses into nothing, but we’re treated to the wonderful sight of Milly Alcock’s eyes blinking open on the severed head, and saying “There’s been a raven” to indicate the transition back to the waking world.
Daemon briefly sees blood on his hand before the light of day vanishes it away, as Sir Simon As Ser Simon informs him there’s been news of the Green army tearing up castles across the Crownlands.
A brief interlude here to sum up what Ser Criston “Dole It Out, Can’t Take it” Cole has been up to. We see him first telling the men of House Darklyn to bend the knee to Aegon or die. To prove the point, he cuts off the head of their lord, who bravely says “Yours will come in turn”. I hope that if I’m ever executed, I have the wherewithal to make a bold curse on those doing me in.
That castle is called Duskendale, and Ser Gwayne expects them now to swing west and take on Harrenhal. But Cole rallies his armies to the north-east instead, which is the first sign of the f***ery that’s to come.
I’ve done some doodling on the below map to work out where all the major players are at this time. Hopefully it helps the other hard-to-visualise-inside-your-mind folks out there.
Back to Harrenhal, where Lord Grover Tully remains incapacitated but has sent his cute-as-buttons grandson Oscar to parlay with the Prince.
GUYS. Grover and Oscar. Surely GRRM is messing with us?
I’m sad that Catelyn, Lysa and Edmure weren’t Fozzie, Kermit and Beaker now.
If we remember our house words, the Tullys are “Family, Duty, Honour”, and young Oscar is clearly a loving grandkid. He won’t make a decision for his incapacitated Grandad, and since Westeros doesn’t seem to have advanced care directives for the use of armies, the Tullys look set to remain on the sidelines.
But the Targaryens’ words are “Fire and Blood”, and of course Daemon has no patience for filial loyalty - well, in anybody’s family but his. He wants an army and he wants it now, so calls instead for the Blackwoods to come to Harrenhal.
Later that night, sword in hand, Daemon follows the sound of footsteps from his room. The figure he stalks seems to be Aemond - the longer hair, the eyepatch band, the same cocksure walk (which, as we know, Aemond proved last week).
Eventually, the figure turns, and it’s DAEMON HIMSELF. With the eyepatch and everything!
I mean, their names are anagrams of each other, and they’re both the chaos agents of the respective wings of their family, so it makes some sense that they would feel linked to each other.
Daemon swings his sword randomly around a room, only to realise it’s occupied by the random chickie babe we saw in his dream last episode.
Her name turns out to be Alys Rivers. I googled her name because I suspected George R.R. Martin would not tolerate a name as simple as “Alice” , but I didn’t look up anything further in order to avoid spoilers. And it wasn’t an American accent I thought I heard; it was more Scottish, I think.
Alys seems to be acting as a maester of sorts in the absence of the previous one, who apparently wasn’t keen enough to get on the Maester property ladder to stay in Westeros’ greatest House of Rising Damp.
But she also seems to be a cook/mental health facilitator - making portentous remarks about beds causing dreams and how hard it must have been to lose his claim to a wee girl as she brews up potions. Of course this leads Daemon to immediately calling her a witch, which is super on brand. I’m surprised he didn’t ask her where her cat is.
She offers him a potion saying he’ll need proper sleep if he’s going to round up the Riverlords and get himself a good army. And boy, does it seem like quite the potent mix, because he takes a sip and then wakes up, fully clothed, sitting at a table mid-meeting with Sir Simon As Ser Simon and Willem Blackwood, a spicy little number if I ever saw one.
Why, hello.
It turns out Willem was that cheeky little sausage who proposed to Rhaenyra as a kid. “I always liked her spirit,” he grins. Damn, maybe she should have married the little poppet; he definitely grew up into a nice-looking fellow. On top of that, he’s willing to offer the Blackwood armies to Daemon - as long as he meets out the Queen’s Justice to their hated enemy the Brackens first.
Daemon agrees, but he’s also slightly distracted by his former wife Laena pouring drinks for the table.
Yikes. Is wading into the Bracken/Blackwood beef worth the grind? But Daemon seems increasingly desperate. Even Alys had asked him why he hadn’t sent any ravens back to Dragonstone despite “taking” Harrenhal for the Blacks. Something about Harrenhal is yucking his yum, and it’s not just Alys’ Legless Lipton.
Speaking of magic tea, Alicent is in need of one to make something disappear. It seems she got the bum end of the deal in her dalliance with Ser Criston - although if it had been a bum deal it probably never would have happened.
She does the “I’ll make sure this is delivered discreetly to the girl who asked for it” dance with the Grand Maester, who clearly knows what is going on and reminds her to watch for any gut symptoms as a result of the treatment.
Alicent has clearly been pondering her meeting with Rhaenyra, and asks the Grandmaester if he really thinks Viserys would have wanted Aegon on the throne. “Oh, I’m noping out of this conversation,” he says politely, clearly having excelled in his “don’t put your head above the parapet” class at the Citadel.
The same question comes up a bit later when Ser Larys Strong pays a visit. Alicent has missed the Small Council in order to vomit and make a heat bag out of charcoal, and as any gal with a heavy flow day can tell you, we feel that.
Now here’s a fun hint when you’re trying to secretly rid yourself of an illegal Cole-in-the-Hole - maybe don’t leave the medication sitting right there on the table.
Alicent says her illness is due to excessive lamprey consumption (fun fact: King John of England, you know, the bad one from the Robin Hood stories, reportedly died after eating too many lampreys), but Ser Larys immediately notices the pot of tea. Alicent notices him noticing, and Ser Larys notices her noticing him. “But I believe it is a sin to deny your appetites,” he drawls. As someone who’s huffin’ for some hoofin’, of course he’d say that.
Larys isn’t fussed by the loss of Harrenhal, he sees it as worth it for the greater good. He tries to get Alicent to admit being super worried about Ser Criston, but she lobs a return stroke, saying as Hand everyone should be praying for him.
Larys inquires as to her current interest in reading the histories, as Alicent has a number of books in her chambers. It makes me wonder if she’s searching the ancient tomes for mention of Aegon the Conqueror’s “Song of Ice and Fire” dream. If it’s information Viserys gave to Rhaenyra, it makes sense out of jealousy that she would want it for her son - even if she doesn’t seem to like him that much.
Larys has that innate creepy skill of knowing what people are thinking about, and so he presses Alicent on whether Viserys’ knowledge of history convinced him at the end that a woman should not be Queen.
“Bro, none of that matters anymore,” Alicent replies. “Greens be Greening, Blacks be Blacking, and whatever Viserys wanted has died with him.”
“Yes it has,” says Larys, literally closing the book on that subject.
“I’ll kill them myself if these cramps continue.”
It’s hard to reconcile this in hindsight given how this episode ends - but for a while I thought the running time would be mostly cross-cuts between the two warring councils.
It’s not that I don’t love a GIANT WAR ROOM TABLE MAP like the Blacks have, but I didn’t know how they were going to break the tension of parallel multiple Powerpoint presentations.
In the Green room, Aegon is upset that Daemon’s taken Harrenhal, but Ser Larys isn’t bothered. “That place is more crippled than I am,” he says.
Aemond is much more definite - instead of trying to retake Harrenhal, he explains the plan to head north-east instead. They have a pin-the-tail-on-the-castle fight on their whiteboard, but Aemond says it’s a moot point because Criston’s already planning the attack.
Aegon is incensed. His Hand and his brother plotting without him?
Aemond looks at his brother, then launches into a biting takedown of his brother’s abilities. The saving grace is that he does it in High Valyrian, so the rest of the Small Council doesn’t hear the humiliation. They probably understand enough from the tone though.
“You had better things to do, getting drunk and choosing a nickname and appointing your loser mates to the Kingsguard,” Aemond explains. “If you’ve got a better plan, speak up, dickhead.”
The very interesting thing about Aegon’s response was Aegon’s response.
“I can have to… make a.. war?”
THE KING CAN’T SPEAK HIGH VALYRIAN.
Not well, at least. We know Aemond was a nerd and paid attention to his studies, but Aegon never did. And I thought Valyrian was supposed to come naturally to Targaryens , but apparently not.
There’s a follow-up council meeting in which the other lords discuss trifling affairs of state such as supply lines, resourcing the treasury and keeping dragons fed. You point, the pointless stuff when there’s a proper war on. Aegon yells “You all bore me!” before storming out of the room; only to encounter his mother going through his stuff.
“Where are your father’s books?” Again with the books, Alicent. Now I really think she is looking for some Ice and Fire evidence.
Embarrassed to be lectured by Mom, Aegon sends his three stooges packing.
Alone, he vents to her, expressing his frustration that Cole and Aemond and the Council all plan but none are interested in what he has to say. Alicent has a chance to be sympathetic, but she’s had to self-administer an abortion so she’s all out of f***s.
“Do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom?”
Aegon doesn’t have a reply to that slap down, but we all know what he felt.
Searched “Well, yeah” GIF and the Doctor turned up!
Alicent tells him he would be wise to listen to the people who earned their places on his council, so he might be half the king Viserys was. Alicent is retconning Viserys hard in this episode; she talked him up to Ser Larys earlier too. Nothing like a shit sandwich today to make you appreciate the boring regular sandwich you had yesterday.
Aegon tries to raise his status:
But Alicent is into the vino now, and only has time for veritas. “Or what? You’ll hang me, or banish me? You’re a knobhead.”
In the end, Aegon begs to know what she would have him do, and tells him the one answer he does not want to hear: nothing.
Aegon is chaos, but not like Aemond. Aemond is evil chaos. Aegon is… do D&D character alignment charts have the option of “Dickbag Chaos”?
We’ve been ignoring the Blacks for too long, so let’s head to Dragonstone to break down their GIANT WAR ROOM TABLE MAP meetings.
The first is frustration, as once again the Queen has disappeared and everyone’s freaking out over Criston Cole’s recruitment march.
Rhaenys is there to support Baela and Jase, who I love to see backing each other up like the MVP couple they are, but it’s only when Corlys strides in asking what has become of the council that they shush up.
Later in the episode, Rhaenyra finally returns from her secret mission to King’s Landing as the Blacks decide what to do about the move against Rooks Rest.
The exchange between her and Jase is so real. They love each other, but Jase is still a teenager (I think? 18 or 19?) and he is REAL MAD AT HIS MUM RIGHT NOW. The way he snarls “Your Grace” really throws Rhaenyra, and he’s even more pissed to hear she ran away to meet Alicent.
But Rhaenyra gives it straight back, and it’s here that we see the weight that has sat on her shoulders more than anyone else in this world. She inherited 80 years of peace, and she wasn’t going to end that without knowing there was no other way.
“Only one choice remains to me - either I win my claim or I die.”
NOW DOESN’T THAT LINE SOUND FAMILIAR.
Although I venture to say Rhaenyra is playing with true conviction compared with Cersei’s self-seeking power play.
“We stand at the ready,” says Jace, and guys I’m sorry, but I just love Jace. Not in a creepy way, but you must agree he is adorably cute. Like a baby Jon Snow with his curly hair and swish new outfits.
The council brief her on movements, and that’s when her poor guard - a Darklyn - finds out his home has fallen to the Greens and his father lost his head for his loyalty to the Blacks.
Rhaenyra is confused as to why Cole is marching on Rooks Rest, a relatively small keep by the sea. But its Lord is on her council (I knew there was a reason last week it was dropped into conversation that he wanted to go back and shore up his reserves), and by taking it, they cut the Blacks off by land.
“We need to send a dragon,” Jace urges.
But nobody likes her answer of FINE, I’LL GO.
“OMG MUM, you idiot! You’re the one everyone’s fighting for, you numpty! You get on the wrong end of an arrow and we’re all dead.”
Jace wants to go himself, but Rhaenyra refuses. She’s right, of course, he doesn’t have the experience, but also he’s the heir. If she can’t go, there’s no way she’s letting him. Besides, the memory of Lucerys’ fatal dragon ride is still fresh.
“You must send me, Your Grace.”
Rhaenys statement, firm and considered, silences the room. “Meleys is your largest dragon and no stranger to battle. I will meet Cole.”
Rhaenyra doesn’t want to let Rhaenys go, but she knows The Queen That Never Was is right. She is the best candidate for the job. At this stage they don’t know what trap is being set on the other side of the bay; so sending the fearsome Meleys to burn up a ground force is the most logical decision.
Oh! the way Rhaenys smiled at Corlys as she left the room to prepare for battle - I didn’t know, I didn’t suspect it might be the last time they stood side by side.
And then, Rhaenyra explains to Jacerys WHY all of this is necessary. The Targaryen who sits the Iron Throne is not just a king or a queen, they are a Protector. And Viserys chose HER for that role.
She has to have let her dragon loose for a greater reason than just mindless destruction, and that reason is Aegon the Conqueror’s dream. The Song of Ice and Fire. What she once thought was a story by the history-loving Viserys, is now the gospel truth. It is because it has to be.
All other options have been cut-off.
Once again the show builds the tension beautifully, showing Rhaenys embracing Meleys with a sweet smile, telling her “back into battle again, old girl”, before taking off from Dragonstone. It shows Cole moving his men into position, and the Rooks Rest archers peering down at them.
So let’s venture forth into the breach, dear friends.
Ser Gwayne the Green Knight thinks Criston is mad for wanting to attack Rook’s Rest in daylight. Cole maintains it’s the unexpected thing to do.
We are Ser Gwayne in this scenario: we don’t have key information and we think Cole is burning through his brain cells.
The Rooks Rest archers are making reasonable work of Criston’s allied forces, loosing wave after wave of arrows at the advancing soldiers.
But the attackers keep attacking, until suddenly the call goes up. Meleys is sighted.
“Dragon!”
I really adored the way everybody turns and legs it. There is no soldier solidarity, no sense of pushing forward - simply run for your life.
“You absolutely f***ing knobheaded tosspot dickcrackle wankspout,” Ser Gwayne the Green Knight yells at Cole. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
But Cole is quite pleased. “It’s all going according to plan,” he says, instructing a sidekick to set off a signal.
Wait… what signal?
We see flaming arrows go up, a bugler toot his horn, then another.
Then there is a great rustling in the undergrowth; although given how much space is needed it’s also the growth and the overgrowth.
It’s Vhagar, the hoary old bitch, and in this instance, a very dog-like dragon. When Aemond calms her and says it’s not yet time, she flops her head back down on the ground and exhales like a puppy that’s been told no walkies today.
There’s only one spanner in the works, and it’s the biggest spanner of all - the King.
For Aegon has grown tired of sitting at a table in the Red Keep, nudging a wine jug off the table in both a) a more violent echo of his mother dropping a dragon toy earlier in the episode and b) his best impression of a cat.
Without any one of his Small Councillors noticing, he has donned his armour and taken Sunfyre out for a deadly spin.
As he makes his way towards Rooks Rest, with Meleys in his sights, he doesn’t realise Aemond has spotted him from he and Vhagar’s enormous hidey-hole.
“Idiot,” Aemond hisses in High Valyrian, knowing his brother probably won’t get him killed, but could definitely get himself killed.
There’s more proof that Aegon really isn’t very good at Valyrian, because instead of talking to his dragon in their ancient language, he issues a few more strident statements in the common tongue: “Forwards, Sunfyre! Faster!”
On the ground, Sunfyre is spotted, and Cole has a moment of panic. Ser Gwayne the Green Knight blasts him for this secret plot to risk the king’s life in battle - but this was not Ser Criston’s secret plot.
He turns the moment into a rallying cry, yelling to the troops that their King has joined them, and they have divine righteousness on their side.
Rhaenys, happily burning columns of soldiers, rounds about and sees Sunfyre approaching.
I didn’t think the confrontation between Rhaenys and Aegon at his coronation could be bested in intensity, but here we are. Back then Rhaenys said it was not her place to burn Aegon, before the war had truly begun. Since then she has lost her grandson Lucerys, and Rhaenyra has exhausted all avenues for a peaceful solution. The war is on, and so she calmly urges Meleys to attack.
Aegon does at least know ONE Valyrian word - but it happens to be “Dracarys”.
His initial blaze rushes over Meleys, and once out of the flame, Aegon and searches the skies for his opponent.
BANG!
The red dragon slams into Sunfyre from below, and tears into Sunfyre’s trunk with her ferocious claws. The smaller dragon screams, and drops close to the ground, its black blood drenching the dirt and soldiers beneath.
As Sunfyre regains height, Meleys attacks again from behind, Sunfyre screaming all the while.
Sunfyre manages to tear a spine from Meleys’ neck, but it’s not enough. Meleys has the size advantage and pushes it.
The pair tousle mid-air, while below on the keep’s battlement, Lord Staunton looks slowly to his right.
Quiet falls across the battlefield, soldiers stop moving, stop killing, stop breathing, as the gaping wings of Vhagar emerge from the woods and one of the greatest dragons to ever exist rises once more to do battle.
“Thank the gods!” Aegon yells, no doubt feeling rescue is at hand.
But his brother is bent on destroying the enemy, and in such situations, friendly fire cannot be helped.
“Dracarys,” orders Aemond, and Vhagar roars. “Noooo!” Aegon screams as the two dragons are enveloped in fire.
Meleys, uninjured, manages to bank out of danger, but already wounded, Sunfyre cannot pull himself out of a tailspin (although it’s pretty cool that he’s still able to bat the fire on his wings out).
Criston watches in disbelief as his King falls out of the sky.
“Your Grace!” he shouts, and kicks his horse towards the crash site.
At this stage of proceedings I was thinking “Holy crap holy crap holy crap, Rhaenys, that was lucky, get out of there now, bug out, bug ou!”
But if there’s one thing The Queen Who Never Was never was… it’s cowardly.
She sees Vhagar still flying, and a near-resigned-sort-of-smile plays at the corner of her mouth.
“Angos, Meleys.” Her delivery is deadpan, resolute. She knows the danger, and she’s flying into it anyway.
She rounds the dragon, clipping on an extra safety line, and tightening her harness. The two have become one fighting unit, a bond that will see victory or death together.
Meleys grazes the water then lifts up over Rooks Rest, and Aemond is almost stunned to see Rhaenys back for more. He turns Vhagar, and then there they are, these two colossal living weapons, bearing down on each other.
The music that underscores this moment is incredible, a deep, ominous brass coupled with intensifying drumming and urgent violin strokes (musicians, please correct me as I don’t know orchestra lingo particularly well!). It builds and builds as the pair fly towards each other, the view from the ground up showing just how much bigger Vhagar is.
Then WHACK! Vhagar lifts her great hind legs and latches onto Meleys, flipping the dragon in mid-air. The music stops as Meleys struggles valiantly against the bigger foe - the claws that so easily tore into Sunfyre barely make a dent in Vhagar’s solid trunk.
Vhagar spouts flame and oh! The sight of these two, locked together, spinning, spinning spinning… it’s unbelievable.
For one moment Meleys gets an upper hand - well, claw - as being lighter she is able to slip out of Vhagar’s grasp and fly off as the old girl crashes to the ground. The impact sends soldiers flying and Ser Criston thrown from his horse.
There’s an incredible slow motion sequence of soldiers running for their lives as Vhagar gets speed back up again for liftoff - one of her great feet crushes two fleeing soldiers underfoot.
Again, I was willing Rhaenys to BUG OUT at this point. Go, go, go! I yelled at the woman and her dragon. Poor Meleys was wounded too, groaning as Rhaenys steered her around to survey the battlefield.
Rhaenys looked up, looked down, looked around and then BAM!
Somehow Vhagar, the biggest creature in existence, was able to play hide and seek behind a relatively teeny castle. She launched out and WHAM! Grabbed Meleys’ neck in her huge jaw.
“STOP STOP STOP STOP!” I yelled without even realising I had started shouting.
Rhaenys hangs on as Vhagar twists them both higher, biting down without mercy.
The moment when poor Meleys turns her head to look back at Rhaenys broke me, and I wept.
That green eye, looking back at her dragonrider, full of pain, and sorrow and almost an apology as Vhagar chokes the final breath out of her.
And then, Vhagar lets go.
Rhaenys’ face is so calm and so resolved, as she and her dragon - one heartbeat between them now - plummet backwards to the earth. Rhaenys even lets her hands go, a final act of acceptance that she has met her end, but met it with honour.
The crash as Meleys hits the side of the Red Keep is sickening, and I won’t try to convince you that I retained a level of detached coolness. I sobbed like a bereft child.
The blackout at this point made me think the episode was over, but no! It was merely taking place inside Ser Criston Cole’s head as he slowly regains consciousness in a scene from Hell.
In the distance, we can hear Ser Gwayne leading ground troops into the keep, finishing the job.
Criston realises his horse is dead, but turns his attention to the King. He trudges up a very long hill - right past a riderless horse that was just standing there, proof he’s taken a well-deserved knock to the head - to find Aemond at the smoking wreck of Sunfyre, sword drawn.
I’m not sure what Aemond’s intention was - or whether he just had his sword drawn for protection. But he sheaths it, and squats down to pick up the Cat’s Paw dagger, which has fallen from Aegon’s belt.
“Where is His Grace?” limps Cole, as Aemond angles the dagger forward.
And there, as Sunfyre lies gurgling and spitting his death throes, we briefly see the body of Aegon Targaryen, Second of His Name, known to history as “The Magnanimous”.
At least I THINK we see his body? Is that really what happened?
Can Aegon really be dead? This early in proceedings? He’s only been on the throne for a month, maybe two.
I mean, I guess it’s on brand for George R.R. Martin to kill off sons not long after their fathers (Ned and Robb Stark, anyone?), but I’m still surprised.
Will Aemond be the new King? Or will Aegon’s surviving daughter, the twin of the murdered Jaehaerys - whom I believe is creatively named Jaehaera - be next in line?
Surely it would be wholly ridiculous to start a continent-wide war to stop a woman inheriting the throne - only to then name a baby girl as the next monarch?
Or is that the whole point?
I think the fallout from this might test my heartstrings, friends. Let’s gird our loins for next time!
Yay! Best Moments.
Clearly, that battle was the stuff of legend. It should win all the awards.
But there was one tiny little moment that I wanted to highlight here - and surprisingly it’s a moment between Aegon and Sunfyre, as they’re getting ready to fly out.
Sunfyre nudges his nose into Aegon’s chest, and Aegon smiles perhaps the only genuine smile we’ve ever seen from him. It is a sweet moment between a boy and his big, scaly puppy, and it made me many things for Aegon. He’s selfish, boorish, stupid, impulsive, irrational, and unlikeable - but that’s not all his own fault. He should never have been king. Otto and Alicent are far more responsible for the events of this episode than Aegon was.
Zing! Best Lines.
Daemon being sensitive when asking Oscar about Grover Tully’s poor health:
Daemon: Well my time is short and I have need of an army. Perhaps you might place a feather pillow over his head and speed along your inheritance?
Also I just want to give a shout out to the frequent use of the word “grouse” and “grousing” in this episode. I can’t remember a previous use of that word in the Wester-verse, but I do recall it as a very 1980s/90s, possibly New Zealand in origin, term of endearment.
“That’s grouse!” the kids used to say, before they went on to say “sick” or “wicked” and then “amazeballs” and “lit” and now “fire” and “drip”.
Ew, gross
There was a lovely moment of real horror when the slightly concussed Ser Criston asked a nearby soldier to help him find the King - only to realise the guy had been cooked to ask in his own armour.
Boo sucks
Clearly the death of Rhaenys and Meleys hits harder than a truck on meth.
I wanted to touch on how her last moments on Driftmark, the island home she shared with Corlys, she acted with dignity and selflessness. The way she looked at Alan, the dude who saved Corlys from the sea, suddenly made the penny drop. I’d been wondering what the hell his story was, and now it seems pretty obvious from the “Your mother must have been very beautiful” line that Alan is a bastard son of Corlys.
But rather than shun him, as the Sea Snake seems to have wanted to do, she urges him to raise Alan up as a reward for his bravery. Alan is not her blood, but he has Corlys’, and in this time that means something.
And so to soothe my anger at losing one of my favourite characters, and one of the best women, I felt inspired to write a plaintive cry as tribute, using the song of another brilliant woman.
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
I’m beggin’ of you please have escape plan
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
Please don’t be an egg gone splat in pan
Your toughness is beyond compare
With shining locks of silver hair
The greatest counsel to your headstrong niece
You ruled the heart of the Sea Snake
That dreadlocked sailing boss beefcake
And they will feel the loss of you, Rhaenys
They passed you over for the crown
You could’ve brought the family down
But you upheld a century of peace
And somehow you retained your class
When Daemon acted like an arse
To your fiery, fiesty daughter, oh Rhaenys
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
Please think how much those girls will miss their gran
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
You know you can’t outrun Vhagar’s wingspan
You blasted out the Dragon Pit
The Greens their pants they did all shit
Left Aegon stunned and shame-faced in caprice
You’ve gone again to score a goal
Against that fucking Criston Cole
But you could not have wanted death, Rhaenys
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
I saw you and Meleys exchange a glance
Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys, Rhaenys
You both knew you were in your final dance
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