And with the death of King Viserys at the close of the eighth episode of House of the Dragon, the Dance of the Dragons has begun. But before we get to that moment within “The Lord of the Tides” – an episode that handles a good deal of expositional work to lay the final bit of groundwork for the schism to come in light of another massive, six year time jump – we need to get a bit into the ins and outs of what worked and what was a bit harder to stomach (and I’m not just talking about Daemon’s sword skills) in the episode.
To begin, there’s the time jump. I’ve been pretty vocal about not loving that the series’ entire first season was, in a sense, on fast forward, in hopes of laying down all the necessary foundation to ensure the show could get into the meat of the Dance of the Dragons story by the second season. From a purely expositional standpoint, one could say that they have managed to do what they set out to accomplish – we have reached the necessary point in storytelling to begin the Targaryen epic. However, the constant recasting of key characters and the expanding of the cast has meant that we still don’t have a deep understanding of several of the key players. We know bits of characterization for several of the younger generation – Aegon follows his appetites and seems to have no real regard for his position or what his mother wants to achieve, Aemond is a schemer with the drive his older brother lacks, Helaena is a seer – but not much more, largely because the show has only given us the bare minimum of time with these characters – and only a single episode with them as actual adults. Aemond is more or less the only “child” we have a handle on, which isn’t great as the focus of the series begins to widen to sweep this group into a more central role. Heck, we know next to nothing about Rhaenyra and Laena’s children – and it doesn’t help that they are actually still children at this point, in contrast to the adults of Alicent’s brood.*
*Also, a minor issue – the actors playing Alicent’s three children are, more or less, the same age as Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy, who play Alicent and Rhaenyra. This is yet another issue that comes with multiple time jumps and keeping some of the actors the same throughout without major hair and make-up changes (like those that the poor Paddy Considine endured). I certainly understand not wanting to subject your stars to hours of make-up every day for the life of a series, so I guess we’ll just have to assume the skincare regimens within Westeros are exceptional.
Now, all of this harping on about time jumps providing us with characters we aren’t quite attuned to yet doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the episode – I did. I just wish so much of this expositional work hadn’t been done at such a fast clip. With a property like this one, where you have a built-in audience you know will tune in, you can afford to take some time to world build and introduce us to your characters. And this lack of time spent on character development really bit the show when it came to its use of Rhaenys within this episode. Eve Best, one of the best stage actresses in England, has been saddled with almost nothing to do this season while playing one of the more complex and interesting characters within the series. As the Queen Who Never Was, she was the one character who truly had a right to be bitter that her cousin was on the throne. Yet we spent precious little time with her in these eight episodes – only checking in periodically while she and her husband, Corlys – about whom this entire episode was centered, as everyone waited to hear (yet never did) if he would survive his wounds from the latest Stepstones skirmish (the continued fighting at the Stepstones is yet another plot point the series both wants us to care about and also doesn’t want to spend any time dealing with) – and how they might try to influence the game of thrones only for Rhaenys to shoot things down by saying she doesn’t want power. Good for her in her insistence that she’s content where she is (and I do believe she is telling the truth), I just wish we were able to see things more through her perspective. She’s a key outside observer and her insight would allow us as close to an unbiased view on the proceedings as we could hope to get, as she has reasons to distrust both sides. In addition to her unique perspective, she has a dragon, she’s (currently) on Team Black, and her granddaughters will be key players in the events to unfold – as will her seat at Driftmark, regardless of Corlys’ fate. All the more reason to give us more time with her.
But that’s just one example of where the writers’ insistence that we get to the start of war too quickly has hindered our understanding of key characters. My other bone to pick with the writers is in how they handled that final sequence with Viserys. Now, no complaints about Considine’s or Cooke’s performance – seriously, the casting of this series, with a few minor exceptions, has been just exceptional and the performances truly great in light of the often subpar dialogue the cast has been given to work with – but setting up the Dance of the Dragons as the result of Alicent’s misinterpretation of a dying man’s words was, a choice. Now, I haven’t read the source material, so this could be in line with that and in that case, my less than thrilled response should be directed at George RR Martin and not the series. But either way, really? It was already a stretch to shoehorn Aegon the Conqueror’s dream and The Song of Ice and Fire into this show – it made it feel like HBO was desperately trying to tie this series to their incredibly successful one right out of the gate – but to show us Rhaenyra and Alicent beginning to thaw their relationship only to have Alicent change course mere moments later because a dying man, mistaking her for his daughter, was babbling about Aegon’s dreams – which Alicent conveniently misinterpreted to be about her idiot son and not the Conqueror? Yeah, I know, wars have been fought for less than this, but still, it all feels so contrived.
Why not just have Alicent convinced her son should sit the throne because Rhaenyra’s are clearly illegitimate? That makes complete sense and one can certainly understand her position on it. Or have her adopt her father’s drive for power in full – she’s earned her right because she spent her life in service to a man old enough to be her father. This is her prize whilst Rhaenyra squandered all she was given. Again, makes sense. But to stake a war on the dying rambling of an old and broken man, especially after we saw Alicent openly tell Aegon that he was no son of hers based on his continued horrific actions? Yeah, that’s the Hollywood version of things and doesn’t feel nearly as organic. It also sets us up to side with Team Black over Team Green – especially now that each side is fully embracing Targaryen incest, so there’s nowhere to plant your flag if that’s a bridge too far for you. Rhaenyra has her claim – which, regardless of her children’s parentage, is legitimate. Alicent is building hers on a mistake that we, the audience, know was wrong, favoring a son we know she is disgusted with and who she thinks isn’t fit to rule. Now, I cannot stand the younger Targaryen children and the odius incel Ser Criston, so I was already ready to join Rhaenyra’s side of the story. But it feels as if the series is stacking the deck a bit when it doesn’t have to.
The remaining episodes of season one will complete the necessary expositional groundwork for the war that will start in earnest in season two. Is there enough runway left to make two clear and complex sides out of the cast of remaining characters? I think so. But we do need to spend additional time with Rhaenyra’s children – and Laena’s – to get the full picture of just what we’re dealing with here. They’re all still surprisingly young for what is to come, but as we saw with the kids in Game of Thrones, there’s plenty of time for them to grow up over the course of the longer story we’re about the embark on. Perhaps with the specter – literally and figuratively – of Viserys gone from the series, the writers will be able to let loose with the much more interesting – and vibrant – cast of characters in their arsenal. Seeing how cunning and vindictive Aemond can be, how much of a liability Aegon may become, or how calculating and focused Jace is growing to be will expand the development of the show’s key younger generation just in time for them to truly become crucial game pieces in season two. But the series still must do the work – which is something it has a more than spotty track record with thus far.
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