House of the Dragon' Episode 6

A spoiler-free deep dive into "The Princess and the Queen," featuring info on how to hatch and bond with a dragon, what we missed with Laena and the Strongs ...

Alicent and Rhaenyra are not formal members of the Small Council, but they sit in on the meetings all the same. While not typically a Small Council position, we saw Daemon sitting on the council early in the series, and this role is important regardless. As such, he’s able to arrange the release of several inmates from the Red Keep’s dungeon, on the condition that they help him with his family problems—and that they also give up their tongues. This line in the book is echoed by Alicent in this episode, when she tells Viserys, “It’s a wonder to me their eggs ever hatched.” But the logic in both the book and the show is bizarre. Laena, Daemon, and Rhaenyra would all frequently fly together in Fire & Blood, and Rhaenyra is actually present for the birth depicted in this episode, having flown to Laena to help attend to her through the pregnancy. He flies back to Runestone to lay claim to Rhea’s inheritance and is exiled from the Vale as well. “But the birth in turn of three young dragons gave the lie to their words.” The book says that during the reign of King Viserys, it became “customary for the fathers and mothers of newborn princelings to place a dragon’s egg in their cradles.” Yet the book also implies that Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond didn’t receive eggs in their cradles, as Aegon’s dragon, Sunfyre, hatches at Dragonmont. It isn’t until the account of how Rhaena Targaryen—the daughter of Aenys—placed eggs in the cradles of Jaehaerys and Alysanne that we learn of Targaryens getting matched with eggs, rather than dragons who had already hatched. Whatever the exact nature of the relationship between the Valyrians and dragons, that knowledge was lost after the Doom of Valyria, a cataclysmic event that completely destroyed the Valyrian Freehold within hours. The origins of the relationship between Targaryens and dragons is poorly understood. In A Dance With Dragons, Daenerys notes that to ride their dragons, the Valyrians of old would use “binding spells and sorcerous horns.” That explains only how Valyrians controlled their dragons in the air, not how they bonded with them.