The third episode of The House of the Dragonn went through three different places at once. At one extreme, the devastating and seemingly lost war on the Stone Steps, the hostile islands in the Narrow Sea. On the other, the debates of power, in which the children of Viserys I are just pieces on a larger board. In the center, the dilemma of the succession with Rhaenyra turned into a critical, uncomfortable and problematic issue.
The Targaryen regent managed to secure his offspring by marrying Alicent Hightower and fathering Aegon, a son. With intelligence, the script of The House of the Dragonn keeps details about the engagement and subsequent marriage off-screen. Two years have passed since the King took the daughter of his trusted Hand as his wife. The change in the seven kingdoms It is obvious. With one male heir and another in gestation, the shadow of weakness seems to have disappeared from the circle of the Iron Throne. At least, when it comes to the more specific points that are debated inside and outside the court.
But not all is so easy. The fissures in Viserys’ rule are clearer than ever, and the episode digs into them with ruthless clarity. Rhaenyra, a young woman of marriageable age and barely sustained by her father’s promise to reign, is a problem in the Kingdom’s stability. The obligation begins to be a weight on the princess of The House of the Dragonnwho insists on not obeying the inevitable mandates of his rank.
“Even I can’t defy tradition and the gods,” Viserys shouts when his daughter makes it clear that she doesn’t want to marry. But the phrase encompasses much more. The heir to the throne must secure her position however she can or, at best, with strategic political skill. In particular, at to be in such a precarious balance as for his future to depend on his father’s decisions. A man stunned by the hectic succession of events around him.
The House of the Dragon is the new series of the Game of Thrones universe
A turbulent reign in which the eye of the storm is a threat
Two years have passed since Viserys became a widower and made the decision to remove Daemon from his possible successor. A schism in the Targaryen family that does not go unnoticed by courtiers, nobles and the great leaders of the different Houses. Viserys I was forced to appoint a female heir which reassured the most immediate concerns, but offered no answers for the future.
He also married the discreet Alicent, something that only infuriated Corlys Velaryon and heightened tensions in the Seven Kingdoms. With the War of the Stone Steps becoming a greater and more poignant risk, the Regent made not cunning decisions, but emotional ones.
Without a doubt, he underpinned his position and sustained as best he could a complicated situation that allowed him to take a breather. But the seven kingdoms they waited impatiently and with an invisible pressure on the King’s shoulders. A female heiress linked the territories to a specific figure in a complicated circumstance. However, it was not a decision that could heal the cracks under Viserys’s feet: the succession compromises loyalty to the throne and the integrity of the realm. An undisputed heir is essential.
Now, with two children and one on the way, Viserys’s position is even more complicated in The House of the Dragonn. The Houses demand a decision according to tradition. “I don’t know what the journey will be, but the end is the same,” Otto Hightower insists with grim conviction: “Aegon will be King.” Even, The Hand maneuvers so that power is a line that knots the different links of power in one place. “Engage his son and daughter,” she suggests to Viserys. The long line of Targaryen incest would make the decision not only desirable, but imperative. Much more so with Daemon turned into a violent specter fighting on the periphery alongside a powerful adversary.
A timid King, a reluctant kingdom, a rebellious princess
But Viserys hesitates. His loyalty to Rhaenyra is an emotional weight that prevents him from making the decision that would prop him up on the Iron Throne and quell any rebellion. The crown princess is the face of all the problems that the regent goes through, becoming more and more confused, overwhelmed and clumsy. Her wobbles are the symbol of the spaces in which her name wobbles at different and complicated points.
Viserys’s inability to cope with the pressures around him is made abundantly clear in the third chapter of The House of the Dragon. The plot uses a court setting to detail the extent to which the monarch lacks the ability to deal with demands. Sitting on an iron throne carved with dragons, Viserys drinks while being overwhelmed with demands. When will the Princess, delight of the Kingdom, get married? When will the inevitable decision be made to give Aegon the chance to rule?
“We all assumed it would be inevitable,” says Jason Lannister, the first member of The House of the Lion to appear. Also in making it clear that Rhaenyra now needs to be understood as a lesser evil that she must be discreetly set aside. “In Casterly Rock she could endure what will come”, says the suitor to the hand of the Princess without disguising the intentions of her family. Viserys, overwhelmed, crushed, resists. He again shows his need to protect his daughter. But each time Rhaenyra is up for debate, Viserys’s power falters, becomes harder to bear. More difficult to hold.
The pain, the fear and the search for answers in The House of the Dragonn
Rhaenyra, knowing her fragile position, reacts rebelliously. The wound of marriage with her former confidant is unbearable. But beyond that, she must also face that she is just an element that gets in the way of a larger scenario. The heiress knows that Aegon is the ideal candidate for the Iron Throne.. Despite being two years old, he is a man and with that he surpasses all the possible virtues of his older sister. Injustice makes the Princess the victim of a fateful daring, heartbroken and sorrowful.
Can Viserys make the determination shown to be necessary to remove Rhaenyra from the Iron Throne? The episode of The House of the Dragon he focuses on the fact that his love for his eldest daughter makes the King ask himself uncomfortable questions. He has no answer for any of them, nor does he have a way of assuming the confrontation that will come or against which he will have to fight. Rhaenyra, who killed a boar with her bare hands and stumbled upon the mythical White Stag, is surrounded by the fortress of rage. Her father, who was barely able to kill a larger prey and who cannot help fearing for the future, is by contrast a fragile regent.
Much more when Otto Hightower presses from the shadows so that the succession happens. As fast as possible. In the most advantageous way. Perhaps, The Hand of the King is the only one who clearly knows what is coming, from the hands, of course, of Daemon Targaryen. Between the Houses, who loudly and openly debate that the dilemma of succession was resolved with the birth of Aegon. In the bosom of the royal family, in which a male heir and possibly the arrival of a second, resolves the monarch’s concerns. But even harder to bear is the fact that Viserys is a weak King. One who has a strong, violent and bloodthirsty brother, determined to win.
A war of fire over a violent sea
In Los Stepaños de Piedra the situation could not be worse. Daemon loses the war against the bloodthirsty Craghas Drahar, the so-called “crab feeder”. Corlys Velaryon fights alongside his son and brother, as well as Targaryen resources, but the battle seems lost. A breaking point that could put Viserys’ reign in an even weaker situation.
So the King makes a decision that he put off for two years. Supporting his brother in a merciless fight against a cunning enemy, who outwitted a prepared army. The script skillfully shows how what seems like a series of skirmishes away from the dense power of King’s Landing is a danger. Complicated enough that it could put the Kingdom’s supply network at risk. The regent makes a decision that he assumes to be magnanimous when in reality it is a show of compassion that Daemon will not accept.
Sending aid to a war it ignored for years is a sour and cruel gesture of goodwill. In fact, Viserys’ patronizing attitude towards Daemon is what makes the conflict the most urgent scenario going forward. The arrival of a royal letter, almost indulgent, pushes the dispossessed heir to confront the enemy with all his weapons and at the cost of his life.
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In the end, the fire will reign in The House of the Dragonn
The result is a violent triumph, formidable and that showed all the capacities – and the recklessness of Daemon -, in the middle of the pressure. In addition, the fact that Los Pedaños de Piedra went from being a remote point to a necessary space. One that will determine Daemon’s power going forward and his influence in King’s Landing.
Three scenarios now move on The House of the Dragon. That of the King who must make a decision without daring to do so. The one about the Princess who needs to find a way to hold on to her right. Finally, a formidable foe that has just been forged in fire and blood. Viserys, Daemon and Rhaenyra will fight for the Iron Throne. Only one will succeed. The big question is what weapons they will use to achieve this.