In this episode, the podcast delves into this week's episode of House of the Dragon titled "Rhaenyra the Cruel." Liz announces updates to the podcast website, including links to the newsletter and a poll for season 2 of the podcast. Listeners are encouraged to vote on the theme for next season. Options ranging from character essays to fan theories.
The discussion begins with the strained relationship between Aegon and Helaena. This emphasizes their disconnected marriage and individual grieving. Helaena's trauma from her son's death and Aegon's thirst for vengeance are highlighted. The public accusations against Rhaenyra and her emotional confrontation with Daemon are examined. Daemon's mission to Harrenhal and its implications for his loyalty and political strategy are also explored.
Next, the episode focuses on Otto Hightower's political maneuvers and his lack of genuine emotional connections with his family. Otto's manipulative tactics and their impact on Aegon's unsuitability as king are discussed. Alicent's questionable parenting, especially her favoritism toward Helaena, is scrutinized. The toxic affair between Alicent and Criston Cole is also highlighted, with the host expressing disdain for Criston.
The podcast then discusses the introduction of new characters Addam of Hull and a man named Hugh. Aemond's rare display of guilt over Lucerys's death is discussed, a conversation revealing the broader implications of war on common people. The mention of Daeron Targaryen sparks discussions on a fan theory. The tragic fate of the Cargyll twins is also covered.
The episode concludes with a review and an invitation for listeners to share their thoughts and feedback. The host encourages fans to leave reviews and stay connected through the podcast's website. The importance of listener participation in shaping future content is emphasized. Liz reminds listeners that their feedback is invaluable as the podcast navigates the epic world of Westeros.
00:01 - Liz (Host)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Westerosi Primer. For full show notes and more about all things Westeros, head to thewesterosiprimer.com. Before I start playing the intro music, check out this friend of the show, the. Welcome to another episode of the Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. Welcome to another episode of the Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. So before I get started to the heart of the episode, I just want to make a couple of housekeeping related announcements. So the first announcement I want to make is that I made some minor updates to the podcast website, which is thewesterosiprimer.com, the name of the podcast dot com. If you haven't already been visiting the website, I really suggest you do, because there's a lot of interesting information related to the podcast that is on the website. I had both a sign-up form to the newsletter and I also added a link to the navigation section of the homepage so that it's easier for visitors to the website to quickly find the newsletter in case they don't want to fill out the signup form. That is located lower down on the homepage. I also added a link to the poll which, as of this recording, unfortunately nobody has participated in the poll. I really hope that, even if some of you guys listening to this episode, don't actively send any comments or feedback directly to me. I hope you at least participate in the poll because it will heavily influence what I will be discussing in season two of the podcast, in season two of the podcast. So just to help you guys out.
Basically, on the poll, I ask two questions. The first question is, of course, required. The second question is optional, and it's optional because you're only expected to answer the second question if you pick a certain option in question one. So what do I mean by that? The first question that everybody participating in the poll must answer is what should the theme of season two be about? I give you five choices. Option number one character essays about various Game of Thrones characters and or their houses. If you select this option, that is when you need to answer the second question. Because the second question I list a bunch of different houses as options and the nice part is that in question number two you can actually select multiple answers. So depending on how many votes I get on choice number one in question one and then how many choices I see selected in the second question, that will influence again what I will be doing in season two.
However, if the majority of you guys don't pick option number one, option number two is you would like me to comment and do a compare and contrast of Game of Thrones versus the novels and I would be discussing what was similar to the books and what was different from the books. Option number three is explain more about the various fan theories that book readers were talking about that show watchers might not be aware of, so if you've listened to the earlier episodes of this podcast, I did mention on a few occasions that there were some fan theories that were heavily discussed amongst book readers that may or may not have any involvement with the TV show, because there were some things about the TV show that either skipped over or completely excluded characters and storylines that were in the novels. If you are actually curious about some of these fan theories, then I could do some episodes discussing those things in season two those things in season two. Option number four I could do some episodes discussing how George R.R. Martin used real world history and culture in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, because it's pretty well known that George actually does do that. A number of characters in the saga and also major plot points and some of the storylines were based off of actual history, particularly medieval history. I could do some research and get into more nitty-gritty details about some of the sources that he uses, and also I could include some of my own speculations as to what could have been some real-world influences that he used. Even if he didn't actually use those sources that I'm theorizing he did, it's still interesting connections worth mentioning.
And then the final choice in the poll is doing a deep dive of House Targaryen, because of course House Targaryen seems to be a huge fascination with fans of the saga, in particular TV show fans who are not overly familiar with the books. I could do a deep dive of House Targaryen, which naturally will involve heavy spoilers of not only House of the Dragon but also potentially other spinoffs that Max may want to create in the future in relation to A Song of Ice and Fire. I really would appreciate if you guys participate in it. I'm hoping that some of you guys do, because it really would make a lot easier to figure out what am I going to record for the next season, because I don't want to disappoint listeners by producing content that you have very little interest in. So head to thewesterosiprimer.com, where I put a link that you can easily click to give you access to the poll so you can fill it out for me.
And the poll will be available until mid-August, when I'm going to tabulate the results and make a decision, which I will announce on the blog, on Twitter and on the newsletter. The newsletter is up and running. Over the course of this week I'm going to be hopefully adding a few more posts on there, and I'm really hoping that some of you guys listening to this episode will sign up to the newsletter, because I will be sharing news, essays, all sorts of content that can be delivered straight to your inbox, rather than you needing to go onto my website every single time, which, again, I would appreciate you guys checking out the website on a regular basis. It's another option for you. And on top of that, I want to mention that actually I have some goals I'm trying to hit in terms of subscriber numbers.
As a little connection to the Song of Ice and Fire saga, the number seven is a huge thing in the Ice and Fire saga because of the faith of the seven. Here's a little thing Seven times seven is 49. Most auspicious number. In the faith of the seven, you could say Seven times blessed. The moment that I hit hit the 49 number, then I will make a very cool little announcement. But I'm going to have to save that for at least another couple of months or so in the future, probably, at any rate. So now that I finished with some important housekeeping related announcements, let me go on.
Obviously, this is going to be a spoiler heavy episode if you have not already watched this week's episode of House of the Dragon. So if you haven't watched the episode yet, then feel free to come back after you have caught up. If you have, then so Of course, this week's episode follows up with the repercussions of what happened in that final scene last week. There's a lot of things to cover here. A few key points.
I'll start with Aegon and Helaena. So here's the thing it was already pretty obvious that Aegon and Helaena are not a loving couple. You can't really expect them to be a loving couple when, first off, they are brother and sister. And secondly, it's pretty obvious that their marriage is purely for political reasons. Marriage is purely for political reasons the keeping of power Aemondgst members of the family who are half Hightower.
It was really interesting to me to see how, even though the two of them are parents to little Jaehaerys and they're both grieving his death, they grieve in very different ways. Helaena is, of course, devastated and very much traumatized because not only did she witness her son die in front of her, she was also, in essence, the one who made a Sophie's Choice type of situation where she ended up choosing a child to be killed. Technically, she could have chosen to lie and sacrificed her daughter instead of her son, but regardless of which decision she made, she is still having to make the choice of which child is going to die, and that is undoubtedly very traumatizing for her. And we also see this in the later funeral procession scene. Aegon, of course, takes his son's death very hard and he demands immediate retribution, which I get it. I understand why he feels that way, but of course his thirst for vengeance does have very immediate effects.
But the one interesting thing I noticed was that throughout most of the episode, the two grieving parents are separate from each other, which is very different from the typical situation of parents grieving the loss of child, because naturally, parents would usually grieve together. In some way they would try to reconcile and grieve together. But again, because these two are not a loving couple and they seem to barely tolerate each other, even when they were just siblings and not actually married to each other. They clearly have no real connection in an emotional way with each other and that's pretty obvious when the one and only scene we see the two of them together in the same room, same vicinity as each other. They are in a hallway in the Red Keep, they happen to run into each other, they just look at each other and then they just pass each other by like they are just casual acquaintances, just saying hi to each other, kind of thing, which is really fascinating.
It is also a bit of an interesting connection with Daemon and Rhaenyra which comes up in the episode a little bit when they have their argument on Dragonstone, when Rhaenyra, of course, confronts Daemon, because naturally the most obvious suspect as to who would harm this kid is Rhaenyra's camp, whether it was actually Rhaenyra directly or somebody on her team, ie Daemon. It just doesn't look good for her and that is a very significant thing in this episode, which is the fact that she gets publicly pronounced as being the one who orchestrated the senseless death of an innocent child, and, of course, Rhaenyra and Daemon's fight brings up the fact that Rhaenyra went through the ringer both in the previous episode and also in the season finale episode, when Rhaenyra has to deal with the death of two children. Because, if you will recall, she had a miscarriage when she gets told that her father died, gets told that her father died and then, not too long after she loses her unborn child, she loses her son and, as far as we could see, Daemon was not really involved in comforting her, in grieving with her, and she calls him out on it Because, beyond the fact that she is her father's chosen heir to the Iron Throne, she is still his wife and his niece and, as her spouse, he should be there to mourn with her and provide her with a literal and proverbial shoulder to cry on and proverbial shoulder to cry on.
But, as we've seen, he is not that type of person and it's pretty obvious even to the viewer that he did none of those things on camera or off camera, as it were, and she of course vents her frustration on him and he of course has his own things that he gripes about and he pushes back at her because he is ultimately one of her biggest supporters and has been so for a number of years at this point, and he feels resentful both the fact that she doesn't apparently appreciate his support. It's also very clear that he does retain some resentment towards Viserys over the fact that Daemon was actually a big factor as to why Viserys was chosen at the Grey Council of 101 at Heron Hall, which is something that doesn't really get addressed in the TV show, actually.
But he did have some involvement in the Grey Council vote and it's pretty clear that Daemon has a lot of resentment about all of this. So he chooses to leave Dragonstone and head off to parts unknown, although, based off of the preview for next week's episode, you can tell that he ends up at Harrenhal because, for one thing, Harrenhal comes up way too many darn times in this episode and in the previous episode. He does this because obviously he isn't a person of action, he's not just somebody who can just sit around and wait, but also him heading to Harrenhal to gather support for Rhaenyra is his own way of proving to her yet again that I am here to back you, to defend you and your rightful place on the throne.
So, circling back to Aegon, we have his supporters. We have, of course, his grandfather, otto Hightower. Otto of course demonstrates that he is the constant politician. He tries to play spin doctor by trying to take advantage of Rhaenyra and gain his grandson a lot of sympathy from the realm at large, and it's really fascinating to me. In a cynical way, I guess you could say, he discusses how much all of this tragedy matters to him, and yet he discusses this tragedy in a very matter-of-fact way, almost like he isn't actually related to any of the people involved.
It's just not very clear to me whether Otto is a stoic type of person or if it's really because, in truth, members of his own family are ultimately just tools for him to prop up his own legacy and his own pride as being the patriarch of this dynasty, of saying that it is my blood on the Iron Throne. Because up to this point in time, not too many families have married into House Targaryen. Precisely because House Targaryen maintains traditional Valyrian dragon lord values, which is to primarily marry only other Valyrians, only marry other dragon lords to maintain the bloodline necessary to become dragon riders. And I did mention this a little bit in some of the previous episodes of this podcast, if you haven't already listened to them, especially in some of the episodes related to the Vale, the Stormlands, a little bit of the Crownlands, and in the Dorne episode as well.
It really amused me in that final scene when Otto gets dismissed as Hand of the King, and it's also really interesting that he openly tells his grandson, Aegon, that perhaps it was true that Aegon really didn't have it in him to be a good king and that he really was never meant to be king and he shouldn't have been the king. The way that Viserys basically said that he didn't intend to disinherit Rhaenyra era, and it's like well, otto, this is exactly what happened. When you created this situation. You were the one who had this plan to make your grandson the one sitting on the Iron Throne, your own throne. In the meantime, you basically did very little to nothing to educate this kid on how to be a proper heir, to be a proper king, and it probably is because of the fact you thought that you were going to be the puppet master ruling through your grandchild, but related to the fact that he doesn't seem to have any real emotional connection to his relatives. It's pretty obvious that this was going to happen because there has been no indication that he ever had a real bond with Aegon, not just as Hand of the King and King, but just as grandfather to grandson.
I know from my own experience as an aunt that my relationship with my brother's children is pretty strong because of the fact that I spent a lot of time with them throughout their whole lives. So my brother's kids and I we do have a pretty good relationship for that reason, and you can't have any real control and influence with your grandson when you barely have a relationship at all with each other, and so I can't really feel that sorry for Otto, because you reap what you sow there. So Alicent and Criston Cole, these two characters are again still some of the biggest hypocrites on the show right now. Biggest hypocrites on the show right now. Alicent demonstrates that she is really not that great of a mom. It's pretty obvious, at least to me.
I can't really speak for you listeners, but for me it seems that Helaena, out of her children, seems to be her favorite one, and we've also got a little bit of this in episode 9 of the last season, when they are being confronted by Rhaenys, and Rhaenys had the opportunity to burn the whole lot of them in one stroke, and what's fascinating is that, even though her entire family is right in the line of fire, literal and proverbially speaking the one person she was most concerned about the one that she told Criston Cole to help get away was not her son, the newly crowned king, not her other son, not her father, it was her daughter, Helaena. Very fascinating and another thing is that there was also a scene where she enters a room where Aegon is crying and mourning over his child and for a very brief moment she looked like she was going to try to comfort him and yet she ultimately chooses to leave the room.
Not sure what that really says about their relationship. It seems like their relationship is okay. It's definitely better than Aegon's relationship with Otto. It really brings to question as to whether or not Alison really does have as much influence as she thinks she does over her son because of the fact that she can't even comfort her son. Now, whether that's because she has a feeling of guilt over indirectly being the reason why her grandson is dead, or whether she just doesn't know how to comfort him at this point is a little hard to say. I guess it could be the guilt speaking, but that doesn't really help the fact that she knows perfectly well that this affair she's having with Criston Cole is not only messy but frankly pretty toxic. And yet she still continues, as we see at the end of the episode.
And speaking of Criston Cole, before this show aired, and not just this season, but before episode one of season one started airing on TV, I, like many people familiar with the books, already came into this hating Criston Cole. Books already came into this hating Criston Cole. There are so many characters involved in the Dance of the Dragons. Some of them I liked, some of them I was okay with. Some of them I, on bAlynce, was ultimately neutral on because there were things about them I liked and some things I don't like about them. And then there are the characters that I straight up hated. And I would say that the two characters I came into this TV show already hating on from the very start was Otto Hightower and Criston Cole.
And if some of you were aware of this fact before the show started airing, you would probably be wondering, liz, why in the world do you hate Criston Cole so much? And the first few episodes of season one again, you would still be wondering why in the world do you hate this man so much? He seems like a really good guy, he seems really honorable, etc. And well, listeners, if you didn't already know from season one why I didn't like this character and I hated on him by this point, you definitely know now because this episode we continue to see more and more reasons why we all should not like Criston Cole and we should all be eagerly waiting for when he eventually does die.
And of course, naturally this is the Song of Ice and Fire. There are characters who die in these things. One way or another. These characters die, whether they actually die in battle. They die young or they die as wrinkly old people in their 80s or 90s. Eventually these characters die and, yes, eventually we will see Criston Cole die at some point, how he does. Of course I'm not going to spoil that, but yeah, I'm sure some of you guys are already counting down to when this happens, and you should also be like me in feeling that, naturally, Criston Cole being the Hand of the King is just going to make everything get a whole lot worse.
Undoubtedly because, out of all the people left at the Red Keep who could have been chosen as Hand of the King, he is probably one of the people who is least qualified for so many reasons, and I have no doubt that in the next few episodes we will see exactly why he is not the one who should be Hand of the King, who should be Hand of the King.
So to close out this episode, I'm going to go through a few interesting observations that I noticed in the episode. I thought it was really interesting that, just as last week we were briefly introduced to a new character, Alyn of Hull, we also met his brother, Addam of Hull, and I just thought it was particularly interesting that not only did we meet these two brothers, but also we got this interesting scene where Addam is on a beach, he is picking shellfish as you do. A beach, he is picking shellfish as you do and, interestingly, he sees a dragon flying around. Now, if you don't recognize which dragon it is, which I can't blame some of you listeners, necessarily, because it is quite possible that you're not overly familiar with all the dragons that are involved during this time period.
But if you notice very carefully the coloring of the dragon, it indicates, to me at least, that the dragon is Seasmoke me at least, that the dragon is Seasmoke. And, if you guys will recall, seasmoke was actually Laenor Velaryon's dragon. Very interesting scene we got there. I wonder why. I wonder why that scene exists. And another character we were also introduced to is a guy named Hugh. All I can say is that there are reasons why fairly innocuous-looking scenes get included in TV shows that have multi-million dollar budgets per episode. And I'll leave it at that.
Another interesting little scene we got was actually Aemond. In a bit of a contrast to what happened last week, it turns out Aemond actually does feel guilty about what happened to Lucerys, which admittedly we did see that in the season finale episode. I suppose in hindsight it actually makes sense that in last week's episode he didn't really express remorse because he was talking to Criston Cole and out of all the people he could be talking to, the one person he would never admit guilt about killing one of Rhaenyra's children to would be Criston Cole, who really has a lot of issues with Rhaenyra. That frankly makes him a complete and utter hypocrite, especially given his relationship with Alicent. But I'm not going to repeat that again.
It's also interesting that Aemond admits his feelings of guilt over it to a sex worker at a brothel, which is a little unexpected. But in truth maybe not really, because I've always had this belief that sometimes it's much easier for you to be honest about yourself and more willing to reveal things about yourself to complete strangers, rather than revealing it to your family or your friends. Processing needs to be done in front of somebody who does not have preconceived notions or knowledge of you and therefore is less likely to judge you in a way that will affect you in a longer-term sense, and clearly this is the situation that Aemond finds himself in.
The other interesting thing about that particular scene is the fact that this sex worker tells him that she is also concerned about the idea of war erupting, because, both as a reminder to Aemond and also to the audience who is watching this whole storyline, you need to be reminded that when war erupts between these two factions over the throne, it's ultimately the small folk, the common people of Westeros, who are the ones who are really going to suffer the most out of all of this. And it's very true, because we see this multiple times in Game of Thrones, and this is, of course, not a spoiler, but we are totally going to see this again in the Dance of the Dragons.
One other little interesting thing that actually amused me is that in the final scene between Alicent and Otto, we finally get a mention of Daeron Targaryen. Daeron Targaryen is the missing fourth child that Alicent had with Viserys, that Alicent had with Viserys, and I've already heard a couple of fan theories as to why Daeron was not mentioned and not included in the TV show. It's going to amuse me what people's reactions will be once we actually see Daeron show up. But yeah, if the writing team truly is keeping to the source material, then the fan theory that some TV watchers have about why Daeron has not been mentioned or appeared in the TV show up to this point is going to be totally wrong. But I'm not going to spoil it because it's going to be pretty obvious as to why this fan theory is completely wrong.
And I'm going to end this really long episode with the very sad event at the very towards the end of the episode where we bid farewell to the Cargyll twins or the Cargyll twins, I guess, is how you pronounce their surname Rhaenyra was nearly assassinated as revenge for the death of Jaehaerys, and this assassination plot was instigated by Criston Cole. You already know how I feel about that. But of course we see the Cargyll twins, who chose the opposite side of this conflict and they very sadly end up dead at the end of it. Sadly end up dead at the end of it. And, yeah, it's just a reminder that power and desire over who gets to sit on the throne will cause siblings, families, best friends to fight and a lot of blood to be shed.
If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to reach out on social media, send an email to me, leave reviews where you can and tune in next time as we talk about the next episode of House of the Dragon. So, valar Morghulis.
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