Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood
Season 3
Episode 1
Editor’s Rating
4 stars
****
The long-overdue Battle of the Gullet justifies the nearly two years spent waiting for it.
Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO
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Dragon math is an abstruse branch of wartime arithmetic. More dragons means more fire; more fire means more dead enemies; more dead enemies means winning — or so you’d think. House of the Dragon’s season-three premiere upsets the conventional wisdom. Can a massive dragon in the rook, like Vhagar, be worth two in the air (say, Vermax and Moondancer)? What’s the strategic value of recently bonded dragonseed, like Addam of Hull or Hugh Hammer, versus the potential of an unbonded rider, like the Black Queen’s stepdaughter? Is a wild dragon better than no dragon at all?
“Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood” is directed by Loni Peristere, who oversaw last season’s exquisitely violent dragonseed olympics. I was optimistic that the Battle of the Gullet could justify the nearly two years we waited, and it basically does. Ships collide furiously in a gray and seething Narrow Sea. In one stunning shot, a dragon surges into battle, casually dragging a toe across the water. There are cool weapons, like a lethal surface-to-air dragon harpoon. There’s close combat between the Sea Snake, wielding a short-handled scythette, and Admiral Sharako Lohar, who prefers a hatchet. There are kills aplenty and deaths of profound significance.
And yet, the most gruesome naval battle in Westerosi history surely would have thrilled as a season finale. In that context, Jace’s betrayal of his mother, not to mention his death, would have felt like the tragic apotheosis of the Blacks’ infighting — the inevitable conclusion to a slow-built story. In fact, the battle could have cleared House of the Dragon of its reputation for sluggishness. Deployed as a season premiere, though, it approaches the opposite effect. I can hardly believe the words I’m typing, but did anyone else think the long-overdue Battle of the Gullet felt a little rushed?
Peristere does his best to re-establish the series’ rhythms before all watery hell breaks loose. The episode opens among the Mountains of the Moon, where Rhaena stalks the wild dragon Sheepstealer. She’s shocked when he relents, bowing his head and allowing her to board his back. But their bond is fragile. Rhaena may ride Sheepstealer, but she does not command him. Still, there is evidence of mutual concern: when Sheepstealer goes hunting, he brings back dinner for them both.
For the Greens, it’s the king himself who has absconded from home. Larys convinced Aegon to ride out the Dance of the Dragons in Essos, but the pair doesn’t make it as far as Duskendale before they’re intercepted by Rhaenyra’s soldiers. Aegon, reeling from his brother’s betrayal and, likely, the early stages of opiate withdrawal, refuses to pledge (pretend) fealty to the Blacks and so Larys reveals Aegon’s identity. The soldiers were poised to kill him, but for now they’re content to hold him hostage and deliver the enfeebled king to his enemy half-sister.
The season-two finale saw Alicent infiltrate Dragonstone to broker a peace with Rhaenyra, but by the time the Queen Mother returns to King’s Landing, the chess pieces are no longer where she left them. For example, Alicent offered up her son to save her daughter, but now she’s clueless as to Aegon’s whereabouts. Alicent additionally promised Rhaenyra that a march to the Red Keep would be uneventful, because Aemond and Vhagar were bound for the front at Harrenhal. But when Aemond learns that his brother has abdicated the Iron Throne, he decides to stick around and see what it feels like to sit in the big, pointy chair. It’s fiiiine, though, he assures Alicent. A mercenary fleet from the Triarchy is minutes from plowing through Rhaenyra’s blockade, and Lord Ormund (series newcomer James Norton) is about to arrive on the shores of God’s Eye with a colossal Hightower host. The situation is under control, ma, so could you please chill out?
We know Alicent to be resourceful, a master at manipulation and survival. She’s the reason her son ascended to the throne ahead of Rhaenyra in the first place. So even though Aemond just told her he’s going to kick it in the Red Keep for a sec, she sends word that Aemond will join Ormund in three days. Halaena can tell that something’s up with mummy, but that kook’s never been too concerned with matters of court. She senses that her brother is scared to die, and Alicent uses that fear to goad Aemond onto dragonback and into battle. She tells her second son that he should have been king all along. Turned on by her newfound pride, he kisses her on the mouth and unwittingly heads for the dragonpit.
Mysaria is skeptical of the generous terms of surrender that Alicent sets to Rhaenyra. Jacerys warns that it’s an outright trap. But Rhaenyra’s desire to rule has always outstripped her will to fight. She orders five ships from Corlys’s fleet to King’s Landing, and tells her small council that she will recall her husband from the Riverlands. Emma D’Arcy imbues Rhaenyra’s every line with a breathless giddiness that conveys the character’s reckless naivete. I keep finding myself nearly seduced into the idea that there are good Targaryens and bad Targareyans, when the reality is that they’re all blinded by myth and power-madness.
One has to wonder, if Daemon received his queen’s message, would he even heed her? The king consort’s enjoying himself now that he’s joined up with the rivermen and finally doing war stuff, making short work of House Lannister’s contribution to the Green’s efforts. In fact, when Roddy the Ruin shows up — his men still unsuitably cloaked in their Northern furs — and tosses Daemon the severed head of Jason Lannister, he looks almost disappointed. That’s one less lion left for Daemon to kill. (Though I remain curious about the fate of the actual menagerie that Jason carted across the Westerlands from Casterly Rock.)
Before Rhaenyra’s raven can be sent, though, Tyland Lannister arrives at the Gullet, with an armada only money can buy, to prise open Blackwater Bay and restore a shipping route to King’s Landing. Corlys is below deck on The Queen Who Never Was, telling a defiant Alyn about Rhaenyra’s new plan for peace, when the alarms sound. Scouts report upwards of 350 ships with more on the way, led by Admiral Lohar in the terrifically named Bitchfist. The Blacks’ defeat would be certain if not for dragons and subterfuge.
Upon sighting The Queen Who Never Was, Lohar reveals her true motivation. For the admiral, this has always been a revenge mission against the Sea Snake, the man who has ruled the Narrow and Summer Seas for far too long, killing her friends along the way. When Lohar should be punching a hole in the blockade, she tacks north to set the Velaryon family seat ablaze. You can’t buy good help these days.
How many dragons does it take to subdue a fleet of hundreds? Would Rhaenyra’s Syrax — a formidably sized dragon, albeit one raised in captivity — be able to torch them all? We’ll never know. Before the Queen can change into her jodhpurs and join Corlys in battle, Jace convinces Ser Lorent to confine her to her quarters, though she’ll surely have the knight killed for treason. The logic here is highly questionable — dying for your queen and dying by her hand are not equivalent sacrifices — but let’s blame Lorent’s lapse in judgment on the chaos of the moment. (Also questionable is the layout at Dragonstone Castle. Shouldn’t any royal quarters have at least two exits? Some trapdoor into a hidden tunnel? A fire ladder?)
So instead of Syrax, the Blacks get close air support from Jace on Vermax and Moondancer, ridden by Baela, who is easily seduced into battle by Jace’s unchecked hero complex. This is what gentle parenting gets you, Rhaenyra. By the time the kids make it to the Gullet, the situation is deteriorating. Even without dragons, everything’s on fire. Corlys resolves to scatter his flotilla and keep the enemy on the chase — until he learns that they’re led by the Bitchfist, that is. Then, he audaciously orders his men to sail toward the flagship as Moondancer and Vermax arrive to the melee.
Now, I was under the mistaken impression that the fire breath of two dragons — any two dragons — was worth more or less a zillion wooden ships. But the Battle of the Gullet isn’t some War of the Five Kings skirmish. This is the age of dragons; of course there’s effective anti-dragon tech designed to mitigate in-flight threats. Almost as soon as Vermax arrives to the theater, his wing gets punctured by a serrated spear attached to an anvil. Moondancer can’t rain fire on Blacks’ enemies from the sky, she has to go save Vermax from falling out of it. Two dragons, one stone.
Unable to outrun the Bitchfist, the Hand earns his reputation for cunning and courage. Corlys orders his men to thread the rocky Dragonstone pass at low tide, even relieving the helmsman of the ship’s wheel at the crucial moment. The assumption is that Lohar will either abandon pursuit or accidentally run the Bitchfist aground on the toothy shoals. But Lohar has been misunderstood and underestimated all her life. She navigates the treacherous channel, in part by jettisoning dead weight, including the boresome Tyland Lannister and his full suit of armor.
Corlys intends to rejoin the main battle, but when he sees smoke billowing from High Tide, he readies The Queen Who Never Was for the Bitchfist’s broadside attack. This is what naval combat once looked like: two ships would get themselves lined up real careful and shoot their anonymous cannons. But Lohar isn’t interested in conventional battle. She’s here for annihilation. She steers the prow of her ship into The Queen’s belly, slicing wide open the boat Corlys dedicated to his beloved wife. The combat that follows is intimate, chaotic, and bloody. Corlys and Lohar find each other in the scrum and both land powerful blows before Corlys is thrown into the sea, leaving Alyn of Hull to finish off his father’s enemy. Alyn was never going to inherit Driftmark, but he won’t see its sacking go unpunished. Lohar dies as she lived — boldly and at sea.
If you were confused about who was doing what at any point during the protracted fight, as I was, we can at least take comfort in the fact that we were no more confused than Sheepstealer. By chance, Baela arrives at the Gullet on dragonback just in time to make the same hubristic mistake as her sister and her cousin, all suffering from the delusion that the war needs them. Almost immediately, her half-feral dragon attacks Moondancer. Vermax, trying to protect Moondancer, takes another harpoon, and he and his rider succumb to the sea. Floating on a piece of driftwood, the prince is an easy target for the Triarchy’s arrows.
The Battle of the Gullet proves devastating for the Blacks, even if the blockade remains intact. The Queen Who Never Was is foundering; its captain is missing or maybe dead. Vermax is dead, his body lost to the depths. The heir to the throne is dead.
Locked in her room, Rhaenyra complains to Mysaria that she has the heart of a king, but when has that last mattered in Westeros? Her strength has never been her fighting heart; it’s that her mother’s compass points reliably toward peace. Now, Jace and Luke are both dead; she hasn’t seen her younger children since she parked them in the Eyrie last season. She will always be a mother, but today she has no sons to remind her.
As the episode ends, the gray skies are burning off and the sun is peeking out on a world that Rhaenyra will struggle to bear. She’s lost a dragon. She’s lost her Hand. She’s lost another child. Does she still have the will to fly to King’s Landing and peacefully usurp the throne? Perhaps she’d rather surprise Aemond at Harrenhal and join the ranks of Targaryens who lived and died by the dark family credo — “fire and blood.”
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