If there's one thing to be gleaned about the portrayal of women in the Game of Thrones universe, it's that they're often undermined and forced into roles where they must buck up against the will of the men around them. This point couldn't have been made more clear than by the events that occurred in the latest episode of House of the Dragon season two.
Episode three begins with a petty spat over land boundaries between two feuding families in the Riverlands: the Blackwoods and the Brackens. The feud stretches back for ages, but the houses have found a new way to vindicate the rivalry by choosing opposing sides in the brewing Targaryen civil war. Thus, what started as a squabble over farming perimeters quickly escalated into the first real battle in the Dance of the Dragons, referred to as the Battle of the Burning Mill.
At Dragonstone, Rhaenyra oversees the burial of the knight twins Erryk and Arryk, who fatally fought each other at the climax of the previous episode. Rhaenys laments the unnecessary deaths, observing that the scheme is unlikely to have been Otto Hightower's doing. “Hotter blood has prevailed, I think,” she tells Rhaenyra. “The young men have taken the bit in their teeth. They wish to punish, to avenge. Soon they will not even remember what it was that began the war in the first place.”
When Rhaenyra points out that the usurper king started this conflict, Rhaenys is quick to suggest otherwise, sagely reminding her that history may yet tell another story: “That is one answer. Or was it when the child was beheaded? Or when Aemond killed Luke? Or when Luke took Aemond's eye?” In other words, it doesn't really matter how or when the war started, especially when it's so easy to volley blame back and forth, claim the interim banner of victim then perpetrator. What only matters now is how many people will pay the price for it.
Rhaenys is so incisive here, it's hard to not still mourn over the queen we could've had. She embodies the voice of reason, not righteousness—when it comes to war, there's a clear difference.
Aegon has less insightful advisors at his side in King's Landing. In particular, Otto's absence is palpable at a council meeting, during which its members bicker childishly amongst each other until Alicent snaps them back to reality. Ser Criston, the newly anointed Hand of the King, hatches a plan to lead a company of men to claim Harrenhal for Aegon (as if his last brilliant plan didn't end in the dual deaths of Ser Arryk and Erryk). Alicent remarks on the hastiness of his strategy, but the council does not rear to her as it would to Otto. Aegon gleefully declares, “To war, then.” Eager to prove his own fearsomeness, he also volunteers to join Criston's company on dragonback, against the disapproval of literally everyone else.
As Aegon fails to heed the advice of his court, Rhaenyra adds an invaluable asset to hers. Surprise, surprise—Mysaria is still on Dragonstone. After saving Rhaenyra's life by warning of Arryk's deception in the last episode, the White Worm offers her services to the queen. She wants to punish the Hightowers, Mysaria reveals, and protect the smallfolk in King's Landing. To that latter end, she describes Rhaenyra as a more merciful ruler than Aegon ever would be. “I hope you do not confuse mercy with pliancy,” Rhaenyra warns.
The violence that war inevitably brings looms in Rhaenyra's mind, leading her to assign a mission to her cousin-stepdaughter, Rhaena. The youngest of Daemon's daughters is to accompany Rhaenyra's youngest sons as they temporarily ward with Lady Jeyne Arryn, and, later, seek refuge in Pentos, safely tucked away from the destruction of the impending civil war. Rhaena is also now responsible for watching over Team Black's baby dragons, Stormcloud and Tyraxes, as well as a clutch of dragon eggs (is this a wink at the eggs that eventually come into Daenerys's possession over a century from now?). Rhaena, who isn't bound to any dragon and is therefore of no use on a battlefield, is disappointed with being tasked as a glorified babysitter. She obliges anyway.
Daemon faces his own anti-climatic task as his takeover of Harrenhal is met with little to no fanfare. Ser Simon Strong, the great uncle of creepy Lord Larys Strong and the current castellan of Harrenhal, pretty much immediately bends the knee. Despite Larys serving Aegon, Simon tells Daemon that the family holds no loyalty to Larys, especially after the lord's plot to kill his father and brother in a fire back in season one. Simon also wonders what the usefulness of Harrenhal will be to Team Black's cause as the Riverlands have already begun to fight amongst each other. He notes the battle between the Blackwoods and Brackens, a rivalry with an origin that no one can now recall. “Sin begets sin begets sin,” Simon says, an echo of Rhaenys's warning earlier on in the episode.
That warning is further crystallized as Rhaenyra struggles to rein in the war hawks sitting at her council table. As they await Daemon to muster an army in the Riverlands, the councilmen encourage Rhaenyra to send her dragons into battle. Luckily, Rhaenyra isn't as trigger-happy as her usurper half-brother—and she doesn't relent as easily, either. But, men will be men, and when the queen refuses to escalate the war, her council members suggest she go into hiding while they continue to carry on battle strategies. Were they really stupid enough to think she would agree to such a transparent scheme? Would they ever suggest ruling in the absence of their monarch if the one wearing the crown was a man? With a sneer, Rhaenyra reminds them that conducting a war in her absence would be treason.
Rhaenys recounts the doings of the “wayward” council later on with Corlys. The showrunners really know what they're doing when they show these two onscreen—the chemistry and genuine romance between them is staggering, and comes across like a gust of fresh air in a series overrun with deceit. During this encounter, Rhaenys attempts to convince Corlys to name Rhaena as the heir to Driftmark, a title that currently belongs to Rhaenyra's son, Joffrey. Unless you forgot, this couple knows the pits of grief, having gruesomely lost two of their own children back in season one. Now, with life and death being even more uncertain in wartime, there is no time to wait when it comes to naming an heir, Rhaenys says. For his part, Corlys questions the thought of naming Rhaena the next Lord of the Tides, but he doesn't necessarily slam a door on the possibility, either.
Meanwhile, at the Red Keep, Alicent reconciles with Helaena, who—in her grief—is full of pithy observations like, “People die all the time, especially babes. They're so little, so they're taken so easily.” Alicent, mother of the year, attempts to comfort her daughter with, “Sadness is a condition of motherhood.” Very helpful! Ultimately, Helaena doesn't need advice, or anything really, from Alicent, but she does know what Alicent needs from her. She generously tells her mother that she forgives her. Though she doesn't specify what that forgiveness is for, we can probably assume it's for what Helaena walked in on the night of Jaeharys's murder.
Aegon is handling his fatherly grief less gracefully than his sister-wife. Preparing to fly out to meet Ser Criston's company en route to the Riverlands, he put on Aegon the Conqueror's armor, as if dressing up like his namesake will make him like his namesake. Larys appears and foments doubt in Aegon's mind by telling him of supposed rumors that Alicent had manipulated Aegon into flying into battle so that she and Aemond could rule in his absence. As much as Aegon pretends to not be his father, he's just as easily swayed, and he promptly decides to not ride into battle after all. Easy W for Larys here.
Instead, Aegon heads to a brothel. There, we get introduced to Ulf, a commoner who claims to be a bastard descendant of the Targaryens and a distant relative to Rhaenyra, who he secretly pledges allegiance to. Aegon tours the brothel with a young squire, pulling back curtains at his leisure until he accidentally pulls back one that reveals Aemond lying intimately with the same madame that took his virginity years ago. Aegon is enthralled by this, laughing over himself and making a mockery of his younger brother. For a second, it looks like Aemond might punch out Aegon's skull à la Ser Criston Cole style for making him endure this pageantry of public humiliation. But, he decides to go a more classy route, rising up to reveal all of himself and even offering up the madame to the squire.
Without Aegon's dragon protecting Criston's company, they are left defenseless when Baela and her dragon Moondancer come across the knights in an open field. She reports back what she has discovered to Rhaenyra, who now can no longer ignore the threat of incoming war. But, rather than arming her dragons, she decides to exhaust one last-ditch option.
Rhaenyra sneaks into King's Landing disguised as a septa. She makes her way to the Great Sept of Baelor, the only place in the city that Rhaenyra knows she can speak to Alicent safely. At last, the estranged friends reunite.
The sight of the two kneeling before the candles of the Great Sept just as they had years ago is sure to be an emotional one for Rhaenicent truthers (or, generally, girls who went through intense breakups with their best friend) everywhere. How many things had to go wrong, miscommunications gone unabsolved, for this once inseparable duo to stray so far away from each other? (RIP Rhaenyra and Alicent, you guys would have loved Charli XCX and Lorde.)
At knifepoint, Alicent is forced to hear out Rhaenyra, who starts off by recalling the knights’ tourney the two had watched together as young girls, a callback to the first episode of season one. If it wasn't obvious by now what the theme of this episode is, Rhaenyra pointedly tells Alicent, “We knew, even then, that men trained up for battle are eager to fight, to seek bloody and glory.”
Perhaps naively, Rhaenyra hopes to collaborate with Alicent to find terms that may put an end to the bloodshed before it begins. But, that proposition quickly turns into a game of who has been wounded by the other more, from Jaehaerys's beheading to Luke's slaughter. Sin begets sin begets sin. The bickering is unproductive. What good is it to sling their own tragedies at each other, especially when those senseless deaths were inflicted by the hands of the men now mongering war? Their conversation holds a mirror up to the ways women in Westeros live at the impulsive whim of patriarchy. No matter how high their seats, both of these women have still paid the ultimate price.
Rhaenyra is confounded by the righteousness of Alicent, who continues to claim that Viserys changed the line of succession on his deathbed. But for all of the bad blood between them, when Alicent swears on her late mother that she hasn't lied about Viserys's deathbed confession, Rhaenyra can't not take her word for it. The vow rattles her, understandably. For most of her childhood, Viserys had constantly overlooked Rhaenyra, forever chasing the male heir that would never come. Now, to be dismissed in favor of a son after all? The admission is surely dredging up past daddy issues that Rhaenyra probably thought she had resolved by now.
She asks her old friend what her father said before he died. “He was weary,” Alicent responds. “It was hard, at times, to understand. But he spoke Aegon's name. He said he was the prince that was promised to unite the realm.”
Finally! Rhaenyra, shaken out out of her devastation, informs Alicent that “the prince that was promised” is actually a phrase used in reference to Aegon the Conqueror in the Song of Ice and Fire, which she succinctly summarizes as “a story” Viserys once told. “The conquereor,” Alicent repeats, and it was at this moment she knew she fucked up.
Whatever her regrets now, Alicent knows she has no influence over the court at the Red Keep. Otto is gone, Criston is marching to Harrenhal, and Aemond is Aemond. There’s nothing she can do as a woman entrenched by men who belittle her—a woman who also entrenched herself in the system that enables those men. It's a heartbreaking epiphany, and a curious layer for writers to explore in her character for the rest of the season.
Overall, let's hope Alicent has learned a valuable lesson here in rooting with the forces that oppress you—and maybe the rest of the Targaryens should also take note to stop rotating the same five names around like a hot potato. Just to think, if Aegon was only named Frank or Herbert or Roger, all of his could have been so easily avoided.
As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset.
