In the season 1 finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra loses a son, the latest casualty of an impending Targaryen war, and Daemon loses his cool.
“When dragons fly to war,” Rhaenyra cautions her husband, Prince Daemon, “everything burns.”
Throughout the season finale, only the newly crowned queen alone seems to understand the gravity of choosing to push back against the usurpation of her crown. She alone weighs diplomatic options up to and including capitulation rather than risk plunging Westeros into a war unlike anything it’s ever known. Against the warmongering of her bannermen and consort, the provocations of her old enemy Otto Hightower, and even the temptation of the godlike destructive power her faction’s dragons afford her, Rhaenyra stands firm. Emma D’Arcy brings a tremendous subtlety to Rhaenyra’s struggles throughout the episode, from their wry, wondering smile at Lucerys’ fear of his future responsibilities to their expression of mingled loss and hope at receiving proof of Alicent’s continued love in the form of a childhood memento. Peace holds the promise of love, of children, of honoring her father’s peaceful legacy and belief in the Conqueror’s Dream. War risks all.
Yet the world, as Rhaenyra tells her middle child, has no regard for our plans. First, a painful and draining miscarriage costs Rhaenyra her unborn daughter. Watching the sweat-soaked and bloody woman cradle the deformed body in her arms, it’s hard not to think of it as an omen of things to come, a shadow cast by all the innocents whose lives a war between the rival monarchs would undoubtedly cut short. The war also drives a wedge between Rhaenyra and her husband, exposing Daemon’s violent insecurities as he confronts both his own immaturity and his jealousy over his wife’s closeness with his late brother, the king.
