Within the newest episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon, Daemon Targaryen’s (Matt Smith) taking of Harrenhal doesn’t go precisely as he deliberate. He efficiently takes the fort, however there’s little pleasure to be present in his conquest. He arrives atop the cursed fortress astride his dragon, Caraxes, solely to search out the fort largely abandoned — save for a number of staff and its castellan, Lord Simon Sturdy (Simon Russell Beale), who instantly surrenders Harrenhal to Daemon with out protest.
Whereas nonetheless at Harrenhal, Daemon experiences an unsettling imaginative and prescient. Drawn to a fire-lit room by the sound of a distant girl’s hums, Daemon finally finds himself nose to nose once more with a youthful model of Rhaenyra (returning season 1 star Milly Alcock). “All the time coming and going, aren’t you? And I’ve to scrub up afterwards,” Rhaenyra remarks, all whereas stitching the pinnacle of Prince Jaehaerys, the younger boy who was decapitated on account of Daemon’s orders within the House of the Dragon season 2 premiere, again onto his physique.
Awaking from his imaginative and prescient, Daemon finds himself standing outdoors of Harrenhal’s partitions close to the fort’s historic Weirwood tree. When he turns round, he then sees one in every of Home of the Dragon‘s strangest new characters, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), watching him, and the temporary interplay they share instantly foreshadows one in every of Home of the Dragon‘s greatest future moments.
Warning: Main Home of the Dragon spoilers forward.
Alys Rivers’ ominous prediction, defined
After observing him for a number of seconds in Home of the Dragon season 2’s third installment, Alys decides to abruptly inform Daemon, “You’ll die on this place.” She subsequently walks away with out uttering one other phrase — leaving Daemon understandably shaken. As followers of Hearth & Blood, the fictional Targaryen household historical past that Home of the Dragon is predicated on, will already know, he has purpose to be, too. Alys’ line isn’t only a flippant comment; it’s an correct prediction.
It’s revealed in Hearth & Blood that, close to the tip of Home of the Dragon‘s central Targaryen civil battle (often known as the Dance of the Dragons), Daemon does, certainly, die at Harrenhal. Disillusioned by the battle’s many bloody turns, Daemon decides to problem his bloodthirsty nephew, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), to a battle on the cursed fort. Aemond accepts his problem and, whereas driving their dragons, Caraxes and Vhagar, the 2 interact in a harmful battle within the sky above Harrenhal and its adjoining lake.
The legendary occasion, often known as the Battle Above the Gods Eye, ends with Caraxes locking its jaws into Vhagar’s neck and Daemon leaping from his saddle and driving his Valyrian metal sword, Darkish Sister, by Aemond’s blind eye.
All 4 combatants subsequently crash into Harrenhal’s adjoining lake, the Gods Eye, with Caraxes managing to crawl again to shore earlier than dying. Vhagar and Aemond’s our bodies are finally recovered years later, however Daemon’s by no means is. That truth has led some each inside and out of doors of Home of the Dragon‘s fictional world to imagine that he someway managed to outlive his impossibly harmful fall and escaped to reside an nameless life away from Westeros.
What occurs within the Battle Above the Gods Eye?
Assuming that Alys’ prediction in Home of the Dragon‘s newest episode is totally right, it doesn’t appear to be that’s the model of occasions the HBO sequence goes to go together with every time it will get to the Battle Above the Gods Eye. In all probability, the scene would be the finish for each Smith’s Daemon and Mitchell’s Aemond. E book readers received’t be disenchanted if that’s what occurs, both. It’s, in any case, typically agreed that Daemon did most likely die on the finish of his combat with Aemond.
Their battle, nonetheless, ranks excessive among the many moments that readers are most wanting ahead to seeing tailored in Home of the Dragon, and it’s simple to see why. Not solely are Daemon and Aemond two of the Dance of the Dragons’ finest characters, however the climax of their lethal combat can also be typically thought-about probably the most epic and poetic moments described in all of Hearth & Blood.
Along with organising Daemon’s eventual demise, Alys Rivers’ solely scene on this week’s Home of the Dragon episode subtly teases her future on the present. There may be, frankly, quite a bit that could possibly be written and speculated about on the subject of how the sequence will use her character, but it surely’s value noting above all else that she goes on to turn into the paramour of Daemon’s rival, Aemond, and is definitely current for the Battle Above the Gods Eye. In case viewers hadn’t already put it collectively, her witchy powers additionally make her the character who’s most probably answerable for Daemon’s unnerving imaginative and prescient of Rhaenyra and Jaehaerys.
All of that is to say that, whereas not quite a bit truly occurs in Home of the Dragon‘s latest episode, it does use Daemon’s arrival and keep at Harrenhal to arrange a number of noteworthy moments, most of which received’t even are available in the show’s current season. Whether or not that’s how Home of the Dragon must be spending its time proper now could be up for debate, however its choice to take action ought to solely make e book readers much more excited to see each Daemon and Aemond’s tales proceed to unfold transferring ahead.
New episodes of Home of the Dragon season 2 premiere Sunday nights on HBO and Max.
