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Team Black? Team Green? Or just Team Dragon? Join forces and sign up<\/a> for our subscriber-exclusive newsletter dissecting House of the Dragon season three.<\/p>\n The House of the Dragon Scorecard<\/a> is an accounting of the events of this week\u2019s episode<\/a>, in which points are awarded to characters on a scale of 0 to 10. Points will be awarded for any or no reason.<\/p>\n You have to give House of the Dragon credit for what it gets right about power. The overarching lesson of the show, and Game of Thrones before it, is that a lot of people want power until they actually get it, at which point they realize that wielding it is kind of a pain in the neck. Everyone wants something from you. A lot of them think they deserve the job and could do it better than you. Solving one problem causes two or three more. It\u2019s never quite what you expected, and you wish you could explain that to everyone else lusting after it, but they won\u2019t listen because they\u2019re too busy trying to kill you and take it for themselves. This is why your manager at work always looks so stressed out. Maybe not the part about getting murdered. Definitely the other stuff, though.<\/p>\n Rhaenyra gets that now. She got everything she thought she wanted, and she\u2019s miserable trying to deal with it. Half of the characters on the show want to replace her, even though they should know better. Ormund has, like, three schemes going at once to get more power, or at least take it away from a woman with a dragon. Aemond wants to be king mostly out of spite. Aegon hated being king and was terrible at it and even he\u2019s still trying to get back on the throne for some reason. Pretty much the only character who doesn\u2019t want more power is Alicent, who actually wielded it for a while and saw what it did and now just wants to flee with her secretly pregnant daughter and help her raise chickens in the countryside.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think everyone else would see that and learn something from it. I guess that would be a pretty boring show, though.<\/p>\n To the points.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s somewhat understandable given the circumstances (she had to chop off her friend\u2019s dad\u2019s head; her son locked her in her bedroom and then ran off and got himself and his dragon killed; her advisers hate each other; there is already a plot afoot to undermine her; someone is doing mean graffiti about her; no one will coronate her; the gold is gone; she had to flood the city with cats to try to control the rats; her husband would very much like to become a god and kind of won\u2019t stop talking about it; etc.), her speed-run from \u201cI want to be queen\u201d to \u201cperhaps the gods have conspired to sabotage my efforts\u201d is really quite impressive.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t decide if it\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing that she can now blame Ormund for a lot of her problems. Like, it\u2019ll be nice for her to have one enemy to focus on for a bit, you know? Probably. Maybe. Although she might get all paranoid about that, too. What I\u2019m saying is that there\u2019s a non-zero chance next week\u2019s episode opens with her tripping over one of the cats and deciding to have every feline in the kingdom killed because she\u2019s worried they\u2019re working for Ormund.<\/p>\n I will help make my former friend queen and escape with my daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Caught escaping and saw her dad\u2019s decapitated head on the floor.<\/p>\n Okay, I will bide my time until an escape becomes possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n Discovers her daughter is pregnant with a potential challenger to the throne, putting them in jeopardy.<\/p>\n Okay, I will use my last remaining connections to acquire contraceptive tea for her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Forced to drink it herself to try to trick Mysaria, who finds out anyway.<\/p>\n Okay, I will escape with my secretly pregnant daughter through this newly discovered secret passage.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ends up trapped in a pitch-black, rat-infested hallway.<\/p>\n If anyone on this show should be making an argument that the gods are conspiring against her, it\u2019s Alicent.<\/p>\n Daemon gets eight points for giving that rousing speech to his former men. I bet that felt incredible. Yes, sure, it appears that most of those men \u2014 including Ser Luthor, a loyal lieutenant who Daemon actually seemed to respect a little \u2014 ended up murdered and disemboweled and left either in the street or set up at a mock banquet for him to find, which is probably not the outcome he was looking for, all things considered.<\/p>\n But still, nice speech.<\/p>\n Hey, where do we think Vhagar is? I had been operating from the assumption that Alys had her hidden away via witchcraft somewhere in Harrenhal. In hindsight, maybe I was just thinking that because I wanted it to be true. I\u2019m still kind of thinking it, to be honest. Call it naive if you will, but sometimes, in the absence of factual proof in the alternative, it\u2019s nice to just assume the funniest possible outcome is the correct one. I can\u2019t think of many things funnier than Alys joyriding on a dragon and cackling in the sky while the dragon\u2019s mopey rider pouts in a leaky castle.<\/p>\n On a show filled to the brim with characters who can\u2019t get a single plan to work as intended, Alys has a rogue prince \u2014 who may or may not have a powerful dragon in the near future \u2014 murdering goons for her with a sword and literally whimpering \u201cmother\u201d as he rests his head in her bosom.<\/p>\n Reasonable arguments can be made that she\u2019s the most competent character on the show. In fact, I think I just made one.<\/p>\n Three things to note about Ormund this week:<\/p>\n 1) He\u2019s pivoted nicely from relying on Aemond and Vhagar to a plan that involves sowing chaos and propping up a challenger by, among other things, printing new money with the challenger\u2019s face on it.<\/p>\n 2) When he flipped over that board after losing a game to a child, I laughed out loud.<\/p>\n 3) His hatred of dragons is slowly becoming one of my favorite parts of the show.<\/p>\n I still hate him. Obviously. It\u2019s just nice to have a proper villain around.<\/p>\n He\u2019s a sweet kid who doesn\u2019t want responsibility and hates doing homework. I am becoming dangerously attached to this young, doomed man.<\/p>\n I like Helaena. I do. She didn\u2019t ask for any of this and doesn\u2019t particularly want it and I really do feel for her in that regard. But\u2026 I mean\u2026 if you had told me before this episode that it would end with Helaena trapped in a secret chamber because she got tricked by a cat, I would have listened to you, paused for a second or two, and then said: \u201cYeah, that sounds about right.\u201d<\/p>\n Alicent hit her with one of those \u201cwe\u2019re not so different, you and I\u201d speeches and it left her questioning her entire position with Rhaenryra. I hate it. Alicent is probably right, but I hate it.<\/p>\n Aegon and Aemond both:<\/p>\n \u2022 Whined to a manipulative adviser that the other had it easier and was loved more and how it was all really just very unfair and mean<\/p>\n \u2022 Were promptly manipulated again by that adviser, with Larys giving Aegon tough love to be stronger and more resilient, and Alys giving Aemond the sympathy and comfort he craves to make him do her bidding<\/p>\n \u2022 Stabbed a guy or three<\/p>\n They\u2019re not so different, either.<\/p>\n Two great Larys moments this week:<\/p>\n 1) Chewed out Aegon in a way that had to feel incredible<\/p>\n 2) Watched Aegon kill a guy in the street and reacted with what I can only describe as an exaggerated Oh, brother<\/p>\n That\u2019ll get you 10 points.<\/p>\n [gritting teeth so hard they turn into dust]<\/p>\n I\u2026 I almost\u2026 I almost have to\u2026 respect\u2026 Criston\u2026 for choosing to go out\u2026 with\u2026 honor inst\u2014<\/p>\n [begins coughing on teeth dust]<\/p>\n \u2026 instead of ben\u2014<\/p>\n [coughing continues, face reddens]<\/p>\n \u2026 bending the kn\u2014<\/p>\n [passes out from lack of oxygen, wakes up five minutes later]<\/p>\n What was I saying? Eh, I bet it wasn\u2019t important. Moving on!<\/p>\n A sick part of me hopes the entire next episode is just Gwayne back at home, drunk on wine and moaning to anyone who will listen about how Criston wasted his time.<\/p>\n Baela isn\u2019t sleeping or eating and is frantically seeking redemption after blaming herself for Jace\u2019s death. Rhaenyra won\u2019t look her in the eye. There\u2019s going to come a point where she realizes it was her sister on Sheepstealer.<\/p>\n It is now my hope that she and Addam fly off on their dragons and start a family on a nice island far away from any of these people. It won\u2019t happen, obviously. I also want their dragons to have dragon babies, even though I don\u2019t even know if that\u2019s biologically possible. I\u2019m not going to look it up, either. I\u2019m just going to let myself have this thought for a week or so.<\/p>\n Addam just wants you to take a nap and have a snack. You need someone in your life like this. Addam is a good man.<\/p>\n Two notes on Torrhen:<\/p>\n 1) If all he ever does going forward is whisper the names and biographical information of every character as they walk into the room, theoretically to a new member of the Council but also to the audience at home, he will become the most important character on the show by a not-insignificant margin.<\/p>\n 2) For the record, this is the same service provided by The Rock in Fast Five, where he\u2019d meet one of the 500 characters in the franchise and promptly say, \u201cAh, I read your file\u201d before listing off biographical bullet points that served as a refresher for the viewing audience.<\/p>\n On that point, let\u2019s get to\u2026<\/p>\n