A volcano of lust erupts inside Rhaenyra as House of Dragon visits the Street of Silk.
A theme is emerging.
It tells us that the flesh and the realm cannot coexist.
Paddy Considine and Matt Smith as King Viserys and Daemon Targaryen.Ollie Upton/HBO
A want, after all, is a weakness; wants will not make you powerful.
A good leader chooses what benefits the realm, not himself.
As we see in this episode, it’s a dehumanizing way to live.
Milly Alcock and Matt Smith as Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen.Ollie Upton/HBO
The episode begins with Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) warily seeing contenders for her hand.
He is now King of the Narrow Sea, having conquered all but two of the islands.
He’s not here to taunt Viserys (Paddy Considine), however, but to bend the knee.
Emily Carey and Milly Alcock as young Alicent and Rhaenyra on ‘House of the Dragon’.Ollie Upton/HBO
He offers his brother theStepstones, a mea culpa.
Later, he and Rhaenyra reconnect and flirtily discuss how life as a royal differs for men and women.
Daemon doesn’t like that.
Disguised, they navigate alleys filled with magicians, tightrope walkers, and eyeless fortune tellers.
They drink and watch a bawdy and grotesque bit of theater satirizing the Targaryan dynasty.
He encourages his niece to not intertwine the act of sex and childbirth.
Lust overwhelms them, but only briefly.
Daemon retreats before they can have sex, leaving Rhaenyra alone and unfulfilled.
She’s flirtatious the next morning, but Criston is awkward.
All of this is juxtaposed with the sumptuous but unglamorous day-to-day life of Queen Alicent (Emily Carey).
As Rhaenyra’s world broadens, Alicent’s shrinks.
She laments her loss of close friends.
She spends her days with servants and crying children.
Viserys is in denial, decrying it as gossip, but Hightower cites numerous witnesses.
“Who will wed her now?”
The answer, Daemon poses, is himself.
Together, he says, they will “return the House of the Dragon to its proper glory.”
Alicent, who clearly feels defensive of Rhaenyra, encourages Viserys to go easy on his daughter.
Firstly, truth doesn’t matter, only perception.
Secondly, the responsibilities of leadership eclipse our wants and desires.
Viserys shows her that the song has been carved into the blade by Valyrian pyromancers.
The weight of this knowledge, he tells his daughter, is larger than her desires.
His history lesson builds to a demand: She is to marry Laenor Velaryon.
She’ll do it, she says, but she has a condition of her own.
Viserys, who has already grown suspect of Otto’s motivations, listens to her.
