Last night’s episode of House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra Triumphant, explores the fact that being triumphant is perhaps not all that fun at all. Faced with stolen gold, a starving city and angry allies, the episode played out like a psychological horror movie for the new queen.
Daemon, meanwhile, was loving life. He won the war and is content to ignore the realm’s problems now that it seems possible to take over essentially the whole world with no one to oppose. Well, that’s not strictly true, it turned out.
There is at least one significant foe left, determined to undermine him and the new Targaryen on the throne. That is Ormund Hightower, introduced only this season, who dutifully surrenders to Daemon rather than have his army torched by three dragons. However, we later learn that he’s handed over a fake heir to the throne, not Alicent’s actual child, Daeron. Now, he’s taken over a local town that Rhaenyra or Daemon can’t just burn with dragons, lest her own subjects be turned to ash.
There is a “plot hole” here that House of the Dragon fans have been pointing out with this Daemon exchange. Why, if Daemon took Daeron, would he not also take his young dragon as well? While that is confusing, there are some explanations here, whether you think they’re good or not.
- One is that Daemon knows enough about dragons to know that separating a rider from a dragon effectively neuters that dragon. He was planning to kill Daeron anyway, permanently severing that bond. And it’s not like the junior high-age dragon was much of a threat to begin with.
- Daemon would also not want to kill a dragon, as even if he is rather heartless, he respects Targaryen tradition and the beasts themselves not to do that.
- But one thing that I think was missed was that Daemon actually was going to collect the dragon. The injured man at the end was a dragon handler, presumably sent to go collect the dragon and bring it back, assuming there would be no resistance after the surrender, rather than a bunch of random soldiers attempting to do so. It’s long been established that dealing with dragons is a special skill and process.
I do think this could have been better communicated, but I don’t think it’s some enormous plot hole that people seem to believe it is. There are ways to explain it, though perhaps not properly conveyed. Though don’ t underestimate the supreme confidence and arrogance of Daemon to think that relatively little actually poses a threat, in this instance, temporarily leaving behind a tiny riderless dragon. Still, we will see if that little guy comes back to bite him, literally.
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