House of the Dragon: King of the Narrow Sea
September 12, 2022 3:21 PM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe

After Rhaenyra cuts short her tour of Westeros, Daemon introduces the princess to the Street of Silk after dark.

This show is being sent to the horny brig.
posted by jeoc (30 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I’m a big Ser Cole fan so I like half of this episode.
posted by jeoc at 3:22 PM on September 12, 2022


Apparently Daemon's wife is the White Worm? I have no idea when or if this was revealed, but the NYT recap made it sound like something that happened. Did I nod off at some point, or is HotD just a show with some really opaque storytelling?

Viserys sucks (in a dramatically intentional way) and I'm looking forward to his no-doubt looming demise, even though that will obviously lead to something far worse, whatever it is. I absolutely believe that he just now realized Otto has been manipulating him, as I'm sure Viserys is the kind of guy who really believes that inside every teenaged girl is an immense and burning lust for a middle-aged man covered in weird sores, whose body parts are all turning black and falling off. Until now, I presumed he understood that Alicent was sucking up to him because he's the king, not because she has a real girl boner for him, but here we are, and here Viserys is, mad at being played literally three years after he married Alicent. "Why isn't Alicent2003 returning my DMs?" the Viserys of another world would probably be asking right now. "She said she was so lonely, just like me!"
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:14 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


Were Alicent and Rhaenyra lovers!? It kind of seems like they broke up when Alicent became engaged to Rhaenyra's father. Alicent seemed uh.. jealous on multiple levels.

That scene of Alicent and Viseyrs in bed.. wow, this is going to be super messy. Alicent isn't bedding Rhaenyra's disgusting father so her son can NOT be a king.

The Daemon/Rhaenyra thing I don't even know what to say about. If Daemon wasn't already married and everyone hadn't already decided he shouldn't be anywhere near the throne would Viserys had gone for them as a pairing?! Again, I don't even know what to say. Maybe he's just her uncle she had a juvenile crush on. Is that a thing? I don't even know. My RL sensibilities say this man is disgusting throw him in the fire... but House Targaryen has their own queer customs. I do think Mr. Snow from the other show should have done his duty, like these women are, for the good of the nation.

I was thinking it's kind of funny how other shows/movies/things will avoid having characters with names that begin with the same letter while here we have multiple characters that basically have the same name. Laenor, Laena, Rhaenys, Rhaenyra. (What's the male version? We know Rhaegar but that loses the 'n'. Rhaenon? Rhaenor? Or is the n not that important?)

It's hard to compare this show to Season 1 of GoT. At this point in season 1 we were still getting to know people, while this show 4 episodes in feels like it's establishing why these people are, I assume, shortly going to tear each other apart and drink each other's blood. There's layers of beef here, depth of beef, complexity of beef is what I'm saying. New beef and aged beef.
posted by yonega at 4:17 PM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Rhaenyra/Alicent also has beats of the Arya/Sansa vibe (with added did they fool around with each other? hints)
posted by kokaku at 5:25 PM on September 12, 2022


I'm not hate watching per se, more like disgusted watching. The incest angle just feels like too much, then add on the treating of women as tools and property and it just falls apart for me.

Add in Viserys repeated cutting Daemon breaks, 'cause he's family, yet clearly wants the throne and jesus, this show. Even the opening credits are all about the familial blood. There's so much ick here.

At least Jamie and Cersei were portrayed as doing a terrible thing, but HoD seems to be cheering on incest and my brain keeps going WHAT THE FUCK.

I may stop watching this and just rewatch Friday's Rings of Power episode in this time slot. That sounds much more enjoyable.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:47 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'll keep watching but GoT felt like too much meat for the sausage casing right from the first episode and this show, and to me this episode in particular, feels like they are stretching to make their hour
posted by shothotbot at 6:10 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


What bugged me most about this episode was the opening scene. An audience of suitors before the princess of the realm, and one dumbass drops the C-word right in front of her? And everyone just laughs, no one objects or says "Hey, let's keep the rude words down to a minimum in front of THE HEIR TO THE FREAKIN REALM!" And then a fight to the death between said dumbass and a kid breaks out and there's barely an effort to stop it before one dude gets killed? That's just stupid. This whole scene is just stupid. For all their insistence on tradition and ritual, you'd think the nobles of Westeros would manage to keep such an important event from turning into a drunken bar brawl. I know this is all to establish that tensions are high and the realm is on the verge of civil war, but it kind of beggars belief that they'd be so out of control as to just let heirs of noble houses kill each other willy-nilly.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:00 PM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Apparently Daemon's wife is the White Worm? I have no idea when or if this was revealed, but the NYT recap made it sound like something that happened. Did I nod off at some point, or is HotD just a show with some really opaque storytelling?

It was implied that the White Worm is Daemon's ex-prostitute-lover-cum-hostage-wife-cum-phantom-child-carrier, who has decided information is a lot better to sell than her own person is.

Were Alicent and Rhaenyra lovers!? It kind of seems like they broke up when Alicent became engaged to Rhaenyra's father. Alicent seemed uh.. jealous on multiple levels.

Yeah, definitely got vibes there for sure.
posted by coriolisdave at 7:48 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Daemon's wife is some noble, I don't think we've seen her.

to me this episode in particular, feels like they are stretching to make their hour

It's funny, I actually preferred the way they paced this episode. I found the episode compelling in a way I didn't the previous ones. ymmv on the incest (totally justifiably) but it didn't bother me, I guess partly because Jon and Daenerys (kind of) went there already? Daemon seeing Rhaenyra as a way back to the throne seems entirely within his character.

I know this is all to establish that tensions are high and the realm is on the verge of civil war, but it kind of beggars belief that they'd be so out of control as to just let heirs of noble houses kill each other willy-nilly.

I think you're right, but along with the shittiness of the suitors, it did seem to evoke an air of... weird brutal decay that seemed pretty effective at showing that courtly restraint is just not happening. Which is perhaps generous to the writers, but "petty squabbles that would otherwise be resolved peacefully are casually erupting into bloodshed" has a nice forboding quality that I like.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:59 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Daemon and Rhaenyra don't bother me, really, because we were basically introduced to them flirting and we know the deal with the Targaryens and all, so whatever; ironically, it probably helps that the show does not really present this as normal. (I checked out of The Flash some years ago in no small part because we were supposed to think it was cool that Barry was marrying Iris, raised as his sister, and I mean...no, just no.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:46 PM on September 12, 2022


This is the only episode so far that hasn’t left me bored. Very talky, no big ridiculous dragon fights that look amazing for about 20 seconds and then make me want to check my phone.
posted by skewed at 8:54 PM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


I’m a big Ser Cole fan so I like half of this episode.

Did it only take half the episode to unbuckle his armor? It felt longer.
posted by Gary at 10:24 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


ymmv on the incest (totally justifiably) but it didn't bother me, I guess partly because Jon and Daenerys (kind of) went there already?

The incest here bothers me way more than Jon and Dany, for a few reasons - there's a significant age difference that isn't there for J&D, Dany didn't grow up close with Jon, and their attraction (IIRC) largely happened prior to the secret-targ reveal.

So they didn't know they were incestin'.

This, tho? This is icky as hell. And I can't get past the whole feeling that this is a whole-ass fiction, so why you want to write about incest all the damned time when you could literally make anything else up??
posted by coriolisdave at 11:09 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


This, tho? This is icky as hell. And I can't get past the whole feeling that this is a whole-ass fiction, so why you want to write about incest all the damned time when you could literally make anything else up??

I mean, I don't think it's intended to be a nice story about good things happening to good people.
posted by yonega at 11:11 PM on September 12, 2022 [19 favorites]


The incest here bothers me way more than Jon and Dany, for a few reasons - there's a significant age difference that isn't there for J&D, Dany didn't grow up close with Jon, and their attraction (IIRC) largely happened prior to the secret-targ reveal.

Yeah, the incest here is very clearly For Real Incest, though it's also left veeeeeeery vague as to What Exactly Happened. Like - Daemon and Rhaenyra are clearly making out against a wall, and she is left without her pants, but are they actually sexing against the wall and is Hightower a reliable narrator? Or did they stop short of the sexing and is he exaggerating for effect? It's hard to tell because as this is not actually pornography no one is actually having sex, so it's hard to tell the difference between simulated actual sex and simulated not-actual-sex. What is the point at which Daemon breaks off? Clearly Rhaenyra is down to keep going. Or is this meant to be an unreliable-narrator patch? It's also a little weird that Daemon takes her to a public-fucking place and takes her cap off for this, when he could have just...not...unless his intent is to have her publicly exposed to pressure Viserys into letting him marry her.
posted by corb at 3:45 AM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]


I was frustrated about the brothel scene (incest aside!) because as soon as Daemon knocked her cap off to reveal the telltale hair, Rhaenyra should have figured out that he was trying to get her noticed for maximum scandal. She's supposed to be smarter than that. Like, banging your creepy uncle is gross, but definitely don't bang him in a brothel with scores of people available to watch!

I think my favorite part of this episode was seeing someone online refer to Daemon's crown as an Etsy find and that thought has been making me laugh for two days now.
posted by TwoStride at 5:42 AM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]


Yeah, but, is Rhaenyra supposed to be smart? Rhaenyra is smarter than her father, but he is an idiot. Daemon is probably smart -- though not disciplined enough to be a truly good schemer. Rhaenyra had a good moment killing a boar, which suggests she is vicious when cornered (but still doesn't say much about her intelligence). And she chose a guard with real fight experience over a well-connected one, which suggests she is smart about physical danger but naive about political necessities. Otherwise...eh. To the show's credit, they seemed to be making the argument that their young heroine was basically just being horny (which is a situational stupidity, but still).
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:25 AM on September 13, 2022 [3 favorites]


The behind the scenes states that Daemon didn't go through with it. He thought he could "awaken" her sexual appetite on his terms (he seems to get off on this dominant-submissive thing?), but she started hungrily kissing him and taking control so he ran away from that - see him punching the wall and leaving.

But, as Viserys said, the truth doesn't matter anyway. All Daemon had to do was to damage her reputation and make it more appealing to Viserys to agree to marry Rhaenyra to him. So he doesn't deny it when Viserys is beating him up.

A more charitable read on it is that Daemon is Chaotic Neutral and really respects strength and self determination, and seems to relish getting into a fight with a worthy opponent. The way he loses to Criston Cole in the first episode seems really suspect too, where after finally "winning" - knocking him down - he then walks around exposing his back to him, giving Criston the chance to get up and strike the finishing blow on him - maybe to see if Criston really had the ruthless warrior spirit in him. As it turns out Criston is the only one with real combat experience, which leads Rhaenyra to pick him for the Kings Guard.

When Daemon later returns to Kings Landing in Ep 4 and hears her give the "I don't want to marry anyone, I am a strong independent princess" and complaining that women just exist to pop out heirs for their husband, or to be traded for political favors, he's probably thinking, this niece of mine needs some cultivation...

Regarding the incest thing, playing Crusader Kings 3 - which is literally, Game of Thrones but historically accurate to the Middle Ages - I realised just how crucial a role incest plays, it keeps power within the bloodlines, reduces risk of regicide, etc.
posted by xdvesper at 8:30 AM on September 13, 2022 [2 favorites]


is Rhaenyra supposed to be smart?

Well, we've certainly been told that she is, as we've been told that such-and-such is proud and so-and-so is self-interested and whats-his-face has a grudge and etc. etc. Less so on the showing, except with Daemon, although his character seems... muddled. Not in a "real people are contradictory" sort of way, but in a "the writers can't decide which side of the line the character falls on" sort of way. In my oh-so-humble opinion, at least :)

He thought he could "awaken" her sexual appetite on his terms (he seems to get off on this dominant-submissive thing?), but she started hungrily kissing him and taking control so he ran away from that - see him punching the wall and leaving.

That's pretty much how I read it. Also, she turned to face him after he had turned her around and pushed him against the wall.

The most ridiculous thing about the brothel scene to me was that they were just in a big orgy room. Is that what gets teenage girls in the mood, orgies? Well, whatever, that's fine. But like, I would imagine that people who go to brothels and/or have socially unacceptable (same sex, and I guess in this case same last name) sexual preferences would want to keep their activities on the down low, right? Getting together with a bunch of sex workers and their clients in a big orgy seems like it could cause some awkwardness if you happen to see someone you know. "Oh shit, Ser Dorkus saw me blowing that guy, this is going to be super embarrassing at the meeting on Monday morning..."
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:19 AM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]


Maybe it's intentional, but I don't think Rhaenyra is that smart. Or if not generally un-smart, she has a huge blind spot around politicking. It's been this way the whole time. She was dismissive and bored at the selection of the next kingsguard. She hung back from small talk with the ladies at the stag hunt, only to insult the rich and powerful woman with the pug. She insulted the suitors this episode and cut her tour short. She's slowly alienating her good friend, who's now the queen and mother to one of her biggest political rivals. What kind of training is this princess and heir to the throne actually getting? Is Viserys that bad of a father? Was her mother supposed to handle all this stuff?

It leads to a jarring experience where modern rebel princess sensibilities got plonked into a show where it doesn't fit at all. Why is she so resistant to the whole suitors process when she would have been literally raised from birth to know that her job is to form political alliances? What does she expect to be different when she becomes queen? She'll still need a husband and heirs. She should be chomping at the bit to be involved in the process and plan out who will be the most politically advantageous match, as long as he meets a reasonable threshold personality- and looks-wise. Instead she's in complete denial that she lives in a world that would hate to see a woman get to the throne, and where she's really not making herself any friends.

I did appreciate that the sex scenes advanced the story and showed how the women really felt during the process. The episode was directed by a woman and it shows. I am also uncomfortable that Rhaenyra had more chemistry with her uncle than with Criston Cole, who is a beautiful man but that scene also had real sketchy power dynamics, this time in Rhaenyra's favor!
posted by j.r at 9:55 AM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]


I think they're definitely developing Rhaenyra as naive to the political realities of her situation, and not doing the things that more sophisticated/cunning aspirants might (imagine what Olenna Tyrell, or even just Maergary Tyrell would be doing in Rhaenyra's position). She's a dragonrider, but hasn't tried to leverage that to her advantage thus far. They went out of their way for her to witness the crowd in King's Landing's antipathy toward a female monarch, and her not giving a fuck what the common folk think, and they even had a scene suggesting she doesn't understand that the things she wants might have a price (when she's sampling the vendor's stuff in alley). I'd imagine this is all laying the groundwork for her arc, I'm sure we'll see a much more calculating Rhaenyra as her character ages.
posted by skewed at 11:24 AM on September 13, 2022 [4 favorites]


Yonega, for what it's worth the similarities in names (not to mention the dynastic tradition of naming children after grandparents or other illustrious family members) made it VERY hard to remain engaged while reading the book. So, I'm not surprised to hear show-watchers saying the same. When every character's name is like 1-3 letters off from another, and 15-20 characters spanning multiple generations across a story's arc all share the same name, it becomes a confusing slurry of mental chaos (for me, at least).

I'm all for agency and choosing who you'd like to lose your, uh, virtue to, especially for a lioness living as a caged bird like Rhaenyra. But there was a very manipulative and unsavory power dynamic between Daemon and Rhaenyra in the brothel, and yet another one shown in her tryst with Ser Cristan Cole.

That said, imagine being the girl they sent to deliver the "u up?" text to Alicent. Poor kid!

Daemon clearly set that whole thing up so Viserys would have to agree to let him marry Rhaenyra and stake his claim to the throne. Even if we know that nothing actually happened, the smallfolk will hear this scandalous gossip about the two of them soon enough.

I love that Viserys sent some Plan B tea over to her room post-haste "just in case." Good move, dad!
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:39 PM on September 13, 2022


I have a lot of questions about the economics of the orgy brothel.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:07 PM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]


50 silvers, same as in town
posted by kokaku at 4:55 PM on September 13, 2022 [8 favorites]


Why is she so resistant to the whole suitors process when she would have been literally raised from birth to know that her job is to form political alliances?

It worked with Arya in GoT because she had Sansa as an older sister to take up the burden of being a future Lady of The House, and so clearly had been allowed greater freedom to be a "tomboy" by her family. It doesn't make as much sense with Rhaenyra because she has no older sister, and as the first-born child of Viserys would no doubt have had a lot of training in etiquette etc. Although perhaps we are meant to think that because Daemon was official heir, Viserys just let his daughter do as she pleased. *shrug*
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:53 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


In general, Viserys seems to be a crappy and inattentive parent (and a worse king), and I can imagine how his slacker tendencies might have extended to raising Rhaenyra. Her mother tried to impress the importance of being a proper lady upon her, but Rhaenyra hails a little more from the dracarys side of the family and probably just blew it all off. I haven't read the book beyond the first few hundred pages (at which point I felt ridiculous for spending hours of my life reading a fake history book when I could have been reading a history of a place that exists in real life), but I imagine her eventual marriage to Daemon will lead to a fairly terrifying power couple.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:10 AM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


Wincest, shmincest, the costuming in this show continues to rock!
posted by lalochezia at 6:03 PM on September 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


I loved that it took 20 minutes to get Criston's armour off. That kind of tedious realism genuinely charms me.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:42 PM on September 17, 2022 [3 favorites]


Possible parenting tip for those with carefully chaperoned teenage daughters: beware when posting her choice of a literal knight in shining armour as a guard on her bed chamber.
Also... some joke about never having tin-opener when you need one.
posted by rongorongo at 4:42 AM on October 21, 2022


This is the first episode where I gotta say, it feels like the show is rushing to get somewhere and just blowing past the stories it's setting up and knocking down between episodes. Gah. Hopefully the destination is worth it, but it feels like the destination is "succession crisis" and yeah ok fine great.
posted by Kyol at 6:33 AM on November 29, 2022


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