In its third chapter, The House of the Dragonthat can now be seen on HBO Max, announced that a schism in the royal family is inevitable. With Viserys becoming the first regent with an heiress, his situation is unstable. Much more, after having contracted a second marriage that allowed her to conceive the long-awaited male heir.
So that the right to the Iron Throne of his eldest daughter, Rhaenyra, is in the middle of a dangerous confrontation. One that makes it clear that, in the Westeros of The House of the Dragon, the gaze on women is not only a prejudice. It is also a way of understanding how power is transmitted in hostile successions and frequently marked by tumultuous political transitions.
Again, the perception of women in the fictional world of George RR Martin is at the center of the television debate. But this time, unlike the one that focused on the cruelty of Cersei Lannister or the fall into madness of Daenerys Targaryen, the question is different. What is the real point of the intrigue surrounding the Iron Throne and Viserys I’s successor? The answer does not refer only to the sex of the heiress. It also alludes to the implications that link the argument with a complicated reflection on control.
It’s not just misogyny, it’s ambition for the Iron Throne
Rhaenyra, entitled to the Iron Throne, is the right age, the right background, and the right character to become a respected queen. But the court and the Houses that uphold the stability of the Kingdom prefer the unfinished promise of Aegon II, barely two years old.
in the plot, everything seems to be concentrated in a type of traditional and ancestral discrimination. However, Martin’s story looks at the connections between the different members of the Targaryen family from the complexity of their family tree.
With a series of incests linking the family to a disturbing heritage, the decision of who occupies the Iron Throne is critical. Jaehaerys I established it by deciding by consensus of nobles on his successor. In fact, the great first sequence of the series ends with a devastating sentence. “The king knew that the strongest House of all could only be destroyed by itself,” Rhaenyra explains ruefully.
A vision of power, sex and fear that mimics reality
In Game of Thrones— whose conflict stemmed from a successional usurpation — the Targaryen dynastic line was feared. First Varys, the Hand of the King of the fearsome Aerys II, and then Cersei, made it clear that the House’s mental health was a problem. “Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin and the world holds its breath to see which way it falls.”. What seems like a colloquial phrase, or, in any case, a justification for betrayals and murders, is related to something else.
Particularly, with the family’s decision to marry very close members. That ensures that the line of heirs is always within the limits of blood control. Although, of course, it affects the mental and physical health of its members.
That George RR Martin described them as looking very similar to each other is no accident. It is a way of showing that the Targaryens, with their platinum hair and violet eyes, made the decision to create a closed group. As much as to affect their descendants in the future.
It is also about something else. In the first chapter of The House of the Dragon, the violent scene of the death of Aemma Targaryen during childbirth bothered and baffled the public. But the sequence was intentional. It could, in retrospect, explain the reason for the resistance to the arrival of a female heiress to the throne. It was a specific event that made it clear that the life of women in the era that imitates fiction was hard. So much so that the program emphasizes the subject in a brutal and bloody way.
The terrors of a kingdom divided in ‘The House of the Dragon’
A Targaryen queen could die during childbirth. Which would be a major upset, not only for the possible heir, but for the king consort, without real power. Much more, in between a hostile territory that maintains its stability due to the fear caused by the power of the reigning house.
Unless the queen married her brother or another very close relative, the battle for the Iron Throne could create factions. In fact, it is something that Otto Hightower mentions in the third chapter. The Hand of the King offered a possible solution to the divided succession between Rhaenyra and Aegon II. “Engage them, it’s the only way to keep the kingdom together,” the character suggested to a terrified Viserys.
More worrying still, the possibility of a queen in Westeros fuels the complicated tensions between the warring sides. The regent could produce a son who did not have the legitimacy of the father, as understood in Martin’s story. In other words, if the monarch were to marry a non-Targaryen man, she would elevate the latter’s position. In addition, she would put him in an advantageous position with respect to the rest of Las Casas and would cause a latent imbalance.
During the third episode of the series, Viserys I himself makes it clear. “I am buried in letters from families asking for your hand,” he explains to Rhaenyra. A delicate point that implies that the king would have to choose a candidate who does not pose a future danger to the crown. Both because of the ambition of the candidate and the weight of his inheritance in the succession. Something that, in the case of men, works completely differently.
The Iron Throne, power and its possibilities
Viserys I fathered a male heir with a woman who did not belong to his house. Even so, his son is considered legitimate by the nobles of Westeros. But if the same thing happened in the case of Rhaenyra, it would be considered a dangerous event.
Much more, by conceiving an heir who would be as much a part of his father’s House as his mother’s. Something that happened, although not directly or publicly, with the arrival of Joffrey Baratheon to power. Recognized as the son of Robert Baratheon, he was actually Jaime Lannister’s, giving his family considerable and dangerous power. In turn, it caused both Renly and Stanis to believe that they had a right to rule.
Sign up in hbo max and you will have access to the best series and exclusive movies What TheWire , The Sopranoseither Game of Thrones . It includes the entire Warner catalogue, the Cartoon Network classics and the big premieres like MatrixY dunes.
So Rhaenyra’s position is to become, almost unwittingly, a crucial threat to her family and Westeros. Something that the birth of his siblings only complicates even more and makes it harder to cope with. A war is about to begin and it will be one in which all the opponents have the same blood in their veins.