House of the Dragon episode 6

With a new cast, shock torchings and GoT-level villains, this is brutal, brilliant television that sets the stage for the wars to come.

It is a wonderfully auspicious ending to the most enjoyable episode of Alicent’s shock at this development is telling – she’s a schemer, sure, but she hasn’t gone full Cersei quite yet, and the fact that her closest collaborator has just knocked off his entire family is still a bracing bit of news. That is never going to happen, because not only is Aegon a bully, but his mother is behind him all the way. He has even got a family in tow: the redoubtable Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell) and their two daughters – one, Baela, a dragonrider; the other, Rhaena, hoping to be. This is the episode’s second and far grimmer nativity, as Laena realises that neither she nor her unborn infant are going to survive the birthing process and decides instead to die swiftly, by dragonfire. Alicent has become a mistress of whispers, spreading word around the court that Laenor is not the father of Rhaenyra’s children. And here is the boy in question: young Prince Jacaerys Velaryon (Leo Hart) with his little brother Lucerys (Harvey Sadler), escorted by a strapping swordsman with a distinct resemblance to both. It’s another superb scene of character-building, with the King’s presence on the battlements echoing that of Ned Stark in the very first episode of Thrones. After teasing his dragonless younger brother Prince Aemond (Leo Ashton) by fitting wings to a pig, Aegon next appears proudly masturbating from his bedroom window over the rooftops of King’s Landing. Rhaenyra is not about to let him out of her sight, so it’s off through the Red Keep, step by painful step, with the child in her arms and Laenor fussing by her side. Milly Alcock was a terrific young Rhaenyra but D’Arcy is a force of nature, determined and relentless. The producers didn’t exactly advertise the fact that a major time-jump was coming (10 years, as it turns out), or that key young cast members were about to be swapped out for older actors.

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.

Here are five short rants based on Episode 6, “The Princess and the Queen.” ... Most of the episode is centered around Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) being in a ...

One of them self-immolates so that she doesn’t die in bed of sepsis thanks to a stuck baby. The episode makes it very clear that Laenor, who is very gay, has not done this, despite literally the entire fate of the world hanging on it. There’s this whole extended conversation in one of the books about Cersie Lannister not getting pregnant by Sir Boring of Blandwood because he pulls out and ejaculates on her stomach. It’s the most awkward scene in a series that includes at least one drawn out conversation about sex with a bear. So, Alicent whines to her only two conspirators that no one is on her side. Also, she’s mad Rhaenyra was out having sex with people as a teenager while she had to stay home and have sex with her former best friend’s dad, a job she willingly signed up for.