{"id":752988,"date":"2026-06-22T05:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/752988\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T05:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:22:16","slug":"house-of-the-dragon-season-3-episode-1-has-a-major-betrayal-and-devastating-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/752988\/","title":{"rendered":"House of the Dragon Season 3: Episode 1 has a major betrayal and devastating death."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Worst Person in Westeros! After each episode of House of the Dragon, Slate writers will gather to answer a crucial question: Who is the worst person in Westeros<\/a>? This week: staff writer Nadira Goffe and senior writer Rebecca Onion answer the call.<\/p>\n

Nadira Goffe: Rebecca! It\u2019s been two years since we last stepped foot in Westeros\u2014well, the Westeros of really yore, as last year\u2019s delightful Game of Thrones comedy, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms<\/a>, also takes place after House of the Dragon. To my sore memory of Season 2 (which I didn\u2019t love, don\u2019t know if you can tell), not much happened in that batch of episodes except a whole lot of dragon fightin\u2019.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all talked at length<\/a> about how this GoT prequel is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, turning mere chapters of George R. R. Martin\u2019s Fire & Blood into a multiseason television show. This endeavor would be a great feat, if the previous seasons weren\u2019t full of prolonged character development for characters we still don\u2019t care much about (Corlys \u2026 who?). It took Daemon (Matt Smith) six whole psychedelic episodes to finally boss up and bow to niece\u2013wife Rhaenyra (Emma D\u2019Arcy) as his chosen occupant of the Iron Throne, and it took practically the whole season to figure out why we kept hearing about Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew), Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), and Ulf White (Tom Bennett), who are now the lowborn Targaryen bastard dragonriders Rhaenyra recruited to flesh out her ranks in this impending war. By the end of Season 2, Sam Adams and I had crowned Rhaenyra the worst Westerosi<\/a> in the finale due to our suspicions that she certainly would renege on the deal she made with Alicent (Olivia Cooke)\u2014who had really grown tired and untrusting of her increasingly tyrannical sons\u2014to end the looming \u201cneedless war.\u201d The deal promised Rhaenyra the throne and the head of Alicent\u2019s incompetent bedridden eldest, the current king Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), in exchange for the safety of herself, her prophetic daughter Helaena (Phia Saban), and her grandchild. But that deal was compromised before it had even been made when Aegon, who took multiple episodes and a near-death experience to realize just how useless (and vulnerable to fratricide) he is, scampered away from the castle at the behest and guidance of Master of Whisperers Larys Strong (Matthew Needham).<\/p>\n

Clearly, all of that was setup for this Season 3 premiere, during which everything happens and a number of important lives are claimed in a massive battle at the end. But, first, let\u2019s back up to before the bloodshed: It\u2019s pure bedlam in the realm. Rhaenyra sends out orders to follow Alicent\u2019s plan while Alicent realizes the deal she struck might not come to fruition, thanks to pesky deviations from the plan. In the chaos of this season opener, there are many different people we could cast as the worst person in Westeros, but Rebecca, I\u2019m tired from looking up the proper spelling of all those names, so I\u2019m going to take a break and give you the first stab. Who do you have your eyes on as supreme villain?<\/p>\n

Rebecca Onion: Thank you, Nadira, for your service here. We took such a nice break focusing so tightly on Dunk and Egg in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it had me forgetting how the \u201cregular\u201d Game of Thrones shows insist on A, B, C, D, and E plots, all of them featuring characters with similar names! Luckily, we get to do Worst Person in Westeros, which rules, and makes up for some of the shock of reentry.<\/p>\n

My first candidate for this evil crown is Larys Strong, who spirits Aegon, a perennial Worst, a power-drunk braggart and a rapist, away from the castle and his murderous younger brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), thereby saving the boy for some future chess move, when every right-thinking person wishes Aegon would just succumb to his injuries (or get suffocated in bed). Larys then throws Aegon under the bus, revealing his identity to a couple of Rhaenyra loyalists who stop and search the wagon they\u2019re fleeing in. This may have been a considered choice, meant only to save these two in the moment, but Larys also got two wagon drivers killed and barely flinched, and I bet he\u2019s got something evil cooking. Do you think this deed was a betrayal, and is it enough to crown Larys this week\u2019s WPiW?<\/p>\n

Goffe: Ah, you know I wrote down Larys too, but not even for the betrayal as much as for getting those few innocent merchants killed. As for Aegon, this whole thing is kinda his fault. The Rhaenyra loyalists ask him and Larys to bend the knee to Rhaenyra, but Aegon\u2019s pride keeps him from doing so, which causes suspicion among their interrogators, who then demand their heads. So Larys\u2019 royal outing is definitely a betrayal, but it\u2019s one that kept them alive after Aegon\u2019s own pride almost got them killed.<\/p>\n

Another candidate this week could be Ser Criston (Fabien Frankel), who was named the Hand to the King last season. Here, he\u2019s stationed with Alicent\u2019s brother, Gwayne (Freddie Fox), waiting for Aemond, who was supposed to join them to try and take over Harrenhal, where Daemon is currently head honcho. While at camp, Gwayne asks Criston to punish a member of their army who raped a village girl. Criston, who seems fairly checked out after seasons of nakedly fraternizing with both hopeful queens and flying off the handle at a number of innocent men, uncaringly suggests that Gwayne hang the perpetrator. When Gwayne retorts that Criston must do it to send a message to their men that they \u201care not beasts, but knights and soldiers of honor,\u201d Criston merely says that \u201cdoom and gloom surround them\u201d and it will turn them all into beasts eventually.<\/p>\n

But, though Criston\u2019s blas\u00e9 attitude toward sexual assault only furthers my assessment of him as pathetic and gross, I don\u2019t think his indifference is as bad as some other decisions made here. Rebecca, we\u2019ve gotta talk about Captain Lohar (Abigail Thorn).<\/p>\n

Onion: Yeah, I\u2019ve soured so much on Criston, pretty much starting when he tried to get Rhaenyra to give up her queenly destiny and run away with his sorry ass in Season 1. But this interaction with Gwayne was just a moment, and in this episode, Captain Lohar, an admiral and naval commander for the Triarchy who we saw mud-wrestle Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) before agreeing to sail with him to the aid of the Greens in Season 2, does a real series of Worst things.<\/p>\n

In her first scene in this episode, as everyone prepares for battle, Lohar teases Tyland for wearing such heavy armor, which could drag him down into the drink if he happens to go overboard. \u201cYou will be glad of our armor, when the fighting starts,\u201d he says. \u201cI know I will,\u201d she smiles\u2014and she is, because after she betrays the contract she signed with Lannister, she directs some of her ships to burn the castle of the Sea Snake (Steve Toussaint), and goes on a full revenge ride, steering her flagship after his ship into a narrow and treacherous pass, abandoning the wider battle for her own purposes\u2014after all of that, looking to shed ballast, she kicks Tyland and the other Lannisters into the sea, where they sink and drown.<\/p>\n

(Side note, this is a thrilling sea battle, full of split-open ships, anti-dragon harpoons, and plenty of blood and gristle. Game of Thrones is back, baby.)<\/p>\n

Lohar ends up dying in the course of the battle, which is sad for those of us who enjoy watching feisty female sea-captains yell directions at their crews. But, although she betrays her contract and kills Tyland and many of her own men, Lohar was also acting out of a sense of righteous resistance. By Game of Thrones standards, I see her as almost a hero.<\/p>\n

Three last to consider: Aemond Targaryen, who, in the course of a tense conversation, kisses his mother, Alicent, on the lips, to psych her out\u2014creepy behavior, even for him. Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell), who rides an untamed dragon into battle and ends up causing the death of Rhaenyra\u2019s heir, Jace Velaryon (Harry Collett), as well as many a poor, hapless ally of the Blacks. And finally, Jace himself, whose disobedient behavior in this episode irks the maternal heart. Any of these strike your fancy as a candidate?<\/p>\n

Goffe: I enjoyed Lohar, but I also have an aversion to characters who have a specific kind of egoistic, boring, battle-ready hubris. Still, I will miss her outmuscling the men around her. RIP to, as the kids would say, a real one.<\/p>\n

As for the rest: Aemond\u2019s kiss is certainly disconcerting, but it\u2019s not nearly as bad as anything the power-hungry prince has done and will, I assume, do. Poor Rhaena, meanwhile, was banished to the Vale and wanted to feel useful by doing something very brave and dangerous: taming a wild dragon. She does that in the very first scene of the episode (rejoice!), only for her to bring her wild dragon, Sheepstealer, into the fray before it\u2019s been housetrained. She was only trying to help, and I can\u2019t overlook her feat in taming Sheepstealer to begin with.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Nadira Goffe
\n A Cult-Favorite Show Is Back With Some Major Changes. Not Everyone Is Happy With Them.
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Jace was one of my favorite characters in the show, on account of him being, well, good. When Rhaenyra learns of the battle in the Gullet, realizing her deal with Alicent could be for naught, she wants to go check out the damage herself. Instead, Jace convinces a member of the Queensguard to lock Rhaenyra in her room to keep her safe, while he charges into the muck himself with Baela (Bethany Antonia), his cousin and betrothed, in tow. Alas, stopping Sheepstealer from attacking Baela\u2019s dragon, Moondancer, causes him to fly too low to the enemy ships that then attack and drown his dragon, Vermax. Jace manages to free himself from Vermax and float to the surface, only to have two arrows shot through his chest.<\/p>\n

I really loved Jace. He was annoying at times, but he was one of the only few characters in the show left worth rooting for. Plus, he reminded me of the fan-favorite Starks from Game of Thrones. I\u2019m gonna miss him, but not before offering up his juvenile bout of treason as a condition to crown him the worst this week. His heart was in the right place, but only disaster ensued. What say you, Rebecca?<\/p>\n

Onion: I am sad that Jace is dead. I also am angry Jace decided to add his name onto the long list of men who don\u2019t trust their mother to make her own decisions, like a king would do. This was quite the betrayal, and I can only imagine the mental fallout for Rhaenyra will be huge. All of this accounted for, the choice is clear: Jace Velaryon, posthumously, you are the Worst Person in Westeros!<\/p>\n

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