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\n It\u2019s the first days of Rhaenyra\u2019s reign, when she should be at her most optimistic, and already the project feels doomed.
\n Photo: HBO\n <\/p>\n
Team Black? Team Green? Or just Team Dragon? Join forces and sign up<\/a> for our subscriber-exclusive newsletter dissecting\u00a0House of the Dragon\u00a0season three.<\/p>\n \u201cThe air is thick with ghosts,\u201d Rhaenyra observes to Daemon. It\u2019s not as bad as it sounds, she assures him. (Needlessly, because he\u2019s barely listening to her.) She\u2019s spent most of her life in King\u2019s Landing; raised young boys in King\u2019s Landing. Her quest to be queen cost her sons their lives, and now that quest has taken her back to a place where she is close to them again. A place where the shadow of her father haunts her choices.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been a lot of discussion about HBO\u2019s decision to hold House of the Dragon\u2019s second season to eight episodes. (Originally, the Battle of the Gullet and its aftermath were meant to air in 2025.) So it makes sense that episode three feels like it could have worked as the season three premiere: it\u2019s the start of a new story. New characters that were namechecked in \u201cSalt and Sea, Fire and Blood\u201d finally collide with the plot in a way that makes them relevant. Rhaenyra is on a new arc in a new theater of an old war.<\/p>\n And that theater, her childhood home, is infested with rats. It\u2019s her brother\u2019s fault, because King Aegon had all the rat-catchers executed. Or it\u2019s her husband\u2019s fault, because Daemon had a rat-catcher assassinate Aegon\u2019s son, which in turn caused the executions. The rats are a nuisance and a metaphor for Aegon\u2019s massacrous reign. They\u2019re a motif in an episode that occasionally pulses like a psychological horror film. The rats eat away at Rhaenyra\u2019s sanity like they\u2019re eating away at her stores of tallow. The score drips with a sinister ostinato as the rats scurry into every corner of her castle. Against this bedlam, Rhaenyra tries to fashion herself a real queen.<\/p>\n She is determined to be a benevolent ruler, a protector of the vulnerable. Episode three opens with Daemon and Caraxes, flanked by Ulf on Silverwing and Hugh on Vermithor, meeting Lord Ormund Hightower\u2019s host in an open field. Ormund was unable to cart a ballista with him from Oldtown, and so he has no real choice but to begrudgingly pledge fealty to the Black Queen and even surrender his ward: Alicent\u2019s fourth-born child, a son called Daeron.<\/p>\n Daemon tells Rhaenyra that she needs to kill the mute and remorseless young boy, though, of course, Daemon\u2019s willingness to kill children is well-documented. Out of loyalty to her father, Rhaenyra refuses, eventually deciding to send him north to the Wall. It\u2019s a very small mercy, and yet still, the Hightowers immediately prove undeserving. The boy turns out to be an imposter. While Rhaenyra is busy fretting about how to most humanely punish this random son of Westeros, Lord Hightower and his army march on Tumbleton and take the city hostage. It\u2019s a dastardly scheme to nullify Blacks\u2019 dragons. To burn Ormund out, Rhaenyra would have to cremate her own subjects.<\/p>\n Rhaenyra also wants to be a queen of the people, who have been starving since she and Corlys conspired to blockade the mouth of Blackwater Bay. But the Blacks quickly learn there\u2019s no gold in the coffers with which to feed the smallfolk. Some of the money was spent on the war, but much of the Crown\u2019s gold was physically moved off-site by Tyland Lannister (RIP), back when he was Aegon\u2019s Master of Coin. There\u2019s enough cash on hand for Rhaenyra to administer the Seven Kingdoms for a fortnight, and no one remaining from the old regime \u2014 not Alicent, not Orwyle \u2014 knows where Lannister hid the rest of the ingots.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Lohar\u2019s surviving mercenaries are plundering villages. There aren\u2019t enough ships to protect the reopening trade routes from pirates. And the Crownlands farmers are on the verge of missing a planting season. To pay for the restoration of law and order, Rhaenyra decides to levy a tax on the great houses, which I doubt will make them fall in line. It\u2019s the first day of her reign, when Rhaenyra should be at her most optimistic, and already the project feels doomed. She has no ladies-in-waiting and no Queen\u2019s Guard. She has no Small Council. Rhaenyra has declared herself Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, but she lacks the trappings.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not vanity to want these things. To be effective, she needs to be seen as the rightful ruler of Westeros, with the same legitimacy as her father. When the Crown can\u2019t afford the pageantry of a lavish coronation, she asks the High Septon to at least anoint her, as he did for Aegon. At Alicent\u2019s suggestion, she even declares the Usurper dead, in part to facilitate it.<\/p>\n But the High Septon refuses. He can\u2019t declare God has yet another chosen vessel, he tells her, because it undermines the Faith of the Seven. To Rhaenyra, of course, the opposite is true. It undermines the Church to ignore the presence of the one true queen, who must be God\u2019s vessel, otherwise she wouldn\u2019t be here, surrounded by a menagerie of dragons. This is the part the Targaryens don\u2019t get. People are awed by the destructive force of their dragons, but they do not revere them or associate them with godliness. For his part, the High Septon fails to grasp the enormity of the Targaryens\u2019 power: we\u2019ve seen more smallfolk cower from Vhagar\u2019s shadow than drop to their knees in prayer.<\/p>\n The Septon isn\u2019t the last person Rhaenyra alienates. Alicent, who believes she held up her side of their deal as best she could, wants the freedom she was assured. It\u2019s a shame that Aegon wasn\u2019t at home as promised, Alicent argues, but he\u2019s a walking staph infection; given how much of his body is covered in third-degree burns, he\u2019s more likely to die of sepsis than stage a re-usurping. As she did over the fate of fake-Daeron, Rhaenyra fumbles for some psychological middle ground between what is true and what is prudent.<\/p>\n Did Alicent keep her commitments to Rhaenyra? Basically. Should Rhaenyra kill her? Absolutely. That\u2019s how you play this game. You kill enemies, you kill threats, you kill people you can\u2019t trust. Alicent is all of that, plus she\u2019s her evil stepmother. Killing her is the shrewd thing to do. Instead, Rhaenyra compromises. Alicent and Helaena will be held prisoner until Aemond is found and killed. She\u2019s willing to give her half-sister Heleana sporadic child visitation rights, a halfway solution that has the unique appeal of satisfying absolutely no one. Rhaenyra\u2019s a halfway queen.<\/p>\n Even amongst her closest allies, strife is appearing. Ulf, Addam, and Hugh are formally bestowed the title of Ser, but you can\u2019t eat a knighthood. Rhaenyra promises them houses on Visenya Hill, in the shadow of the Great Sept of Baelor\u2026 eventually. But how are you going to tell a man with a dragon to wait his turn? Hugh Hammer\u2019s wife grew so desperate in King\u2019s Landing that she fled to her brother\u2019s house in Tumbleton, where she\u2019s now either dead or living under Ormund\u2019s reign of terror.<\/p>\n What Rhaenyra needs is a sounding board \u2014 a trusted friend with insight, a ghost of her father, really. But after she jettisons the men who held her back on Dragonstone from her Small Council, all Rhaenyra\u2019s left with is her husband, yes-man Mysaria as Mistress of Whispers, and Ser Corlys as her Hand. By the end of the episode, the tiny group will shrink further.<\/p>\n Corlys invites the queen to meet the secret sons she already knows and hard-launches his plan to legitimize Addam and Alyn with the Velaryon name. Throughout the episode, we\u2019ve watched Rhaenyra grapple, over and over, with the \u201cright\u201d thing to do. But at dinner with her own family, she\u2019s decisive and wrong. Given the rumours about her own children, she contends, incomprehensively, that elevating those born outside the nobility could endanger Joffrey\u2019s claim to the throne. The Seasnake, who has lost his wife and his heir to her war, is justifiably livid. For all to hear, he shouts that Rhaeynyra\u2019s dead sons \u2014 his own grandchildren, kinda \u2014 are bastards, before storming out of the Red Keep. (To where? There\u2019s no way to be sure. Corlys has also lost his home to the Dance of the Dragons.)<\/p>\n In the end, Rhaenyra must settle for becoming queen simply by dint of doing the job. She\u2019s a bundle of nerves as she prepares to sit the Iron Throne and hear petitions from the smallfolk for the first time. She\u2019s not sure what to say or what to wear. In a particularly under-elucidated moment, Rhaenyra discovers she has her period just before taking the audience. The clunky discovery brims with nauseating narrative possibility: Is she too emotional to be a leader? Too soft? Too frail? Too female?<\/p>\n The smallfolk bring her more problems. There are sheep shortages and game shortages. Rhaenyra is unsteady in her responses but creative. She suggests that the hunting grounds could be extended to include the Kingswood. When her Hand suggests that might be an insult to previous rulers, she adapts on the fly. They can hunt hares, not stags. Easy-peasy.<\/p>\n But another petitioner, Sylvi, brings a troubling complaint against King\u2019s Landing\u2019s highborn, who filled their storehouses while the city\u2019s normies struggled to fill their dinner plates. Rhaenyra seems genuinely shocked, but also motivated. She can\u2019t find Sheepstealer from her post in the Red Keep. She can\u2019t kill Aemond or Vhagar or Aegon. But a small group of greedy families of middling significance? This is an enemy she can chew up and spit out.<\/p>\n Rhaenyra invites her new subjects over for a dinner party. At first, I thought the banquet was going to be a proxy for her coronation \u2014 a toned-down celebration of new alliances. Instead, the night plays more like The Menu. When guests pledge their allegiance, Rhaenyra tells them thank you, if only they\u2019d done it sooner. We miss the first course, but, for the entr\u00e9e, her honored guests are served the finest roast rat, captured rooting around the illustrious halls of the Red Keep. While the highborn have been entertained at the castle, she reveals to them that the Gold Cloaks have been repossessing their food surpluses.<\/p>\n All are aghast, save Ser Torrhen Manderly, who applauds the farce. The next day, the Queen and Mysaria take a cart into town and redistribute the food themselves. The people cheer, probably because they take this as a sign of things to come and not a photo op. People have been starving for months, and Rhaenyra just handed someone a half-loaf of sourdough and four apples. It\u2019s a goodwill gesture, but she\u2019ll need money and allies to maintain her rule. She\u2019ll need the support of the great houses, too, if she has a chance of ever commanding the realm as peacefully as her father did.<\/p>\n Episode three is preoccupied with the idea of what it would mean for Rhaneyra to rule like Viserys. To expansionist Daemon, it means to never reach the full expression of your power. With six dragons, Rhaenyra could rule Dorne, the Free Cities, the farflung Yi Ti. She shouldn\u2019t be raiding sheds in Westeros; she should be tithing from princes and sultans, taking from the men with wings who some say live at the edge of the map. The Septor won\u2019t anoint Rhaenyra because he worries she\u2019s not been chosen by God; Daemon believes the Targaryens are gods themselves. What else could it mean to harness the most powerful force on earth?<\/p>\n In one of their t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates, Alicent tells Rhaenyra that being queen will press her to be colder and harder than she\u2019s ever been. She will shut down the part of herself that was ever soft in the face of suffering. (Put in your moon cup and quit crying about it.) But Viserys ruled humanely, at least in his daughter\u2019s eyes. Is the air of the Red Keep thick with ghosts, or is Rhaenyra seeing what she longs to see? The son who oriented her, the father who guided her. Ghosts are the one enemy dragons can do nothing to vanquish.<\/p>\n Meet New York staffers in the comments section to discuss the same burning questions we\u2019re trying to answer in House of the Dragon Club<\/a>, our subscriber-exclusive newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> or enter your email below to get the latest editions. <\/p>\n Sign up for House of the Dragon Club<\/p>\n Watch and dissect House of the Dragon season three alongside New York\u2019s writers and editors.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n