House Of The Dragon Fans Are Distraught After Storm’s End Twist

This commodity contains


House of the Dragon


episode ten spoilers.

To call it David versus Goliath would be an understatement. When the mighty and aboriginal Vhagar, ridden past Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), flew above young Prince Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) and his mountain, the baby dragon Arrax, information technology was like Goliath towering over a puppy.
This will be over quick. Luke and Arrax valiantly strafed and soared, zigged and zagged, but in the end it was inevitable that Lucerys would find a new habitation in Vhagar’south abdomen.

Casual viewers likely had a premonition nigh this grisly fate from the moment Luke saw the shadow of Vhagar roaring in the distance beneath the nighttime clouds of Storm’southward End. But for fans of George R.R. Martin’s source material novel,

Fire & Blood
, it was the moment they both dreaded and greatly predictable. Poor sweetness Luke has gone to see his begetter, and in the backwash, any hopes of this simply being a war of words and alliance-building has vanished. To quote Martin in the corresponding chapter, “Then the tempest bankrupt, and the dragons danced.”

And yet, even book readers were surprised by

House of the Dragon
, a series which has cannily—and largely intelligently—made subtle changes and shifts to Martin’southward story to heighten the dramatic and thematic appeal. But in the instance of last night’s episode, “The Blackness Queen,” the changes fabricated to Aemond’s murder of Lucerys had the opposite effect. The ending of the episode dingy the dramatic and thematic power of the story for the slightly, however tangible, worse.

For in the serial, it turned out to not exist murder at all when Aemond led his dragon to the beheading of Arrax; it was bullying game gone awry—a mistake and misunderstanding that forces the realm into war. Once over again the writers room of

Firm of the Dragon

has shifted what was on the page cold, calculated actions by its characters into a tragi-comedy of errors. This is a error.

In the book, Aemond Targaryen knew exactly what he was doing when he sought Lord Baratheon’s leave to chase his nephew to the skies with the largest dragon in the world—even as the book is a historical text (so technically no i was up at that place simply the two Targaryens), Aemond never makes excuses or begs pardon for a fleck of horseplay. Aemond all the same thirsted for revenge over the eye that was taken from him, and if his sweet, strong nephew would not acquiesce and remove his own centre on the floor of Storm End’s great hall, and then he would have them both fed to his dragon and the waters of Shipbreaker Bay.

For the tape, this is entirely in keeping with how young adult Aemond has been sharply drawn by Mitchell in but 3 episodes. Leaning into the melodramatic imagery of his eye-patched appearance, the Goggle box show’s Aemond is the ultimate distillation of what Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best) said in the very kickoff episode: “It’due south been 70 years since Rex Maegor’south terminate. These knights are every bit green equally summer grass. None of them have known existent war.”

1 generation further removed from fifty-fifty that, Aemond is the final  culmination of this callow outgrowth of privilege and a fake sense of invulnerability. He hungers for state of war, even telling Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) in his first scene equally an adult that he doesn’t give a damn nigh jousting or tourneys; he wants to put real blood on his sword. And the contempt with which his one middle burrows into his “STRONG
nephews” afterward in that same episode tells us exactly whose blood he wants to wet the bract.

The

House of the Dragon

creators even enhance this fact by having Aemond literally pattern his entire way and hair after Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), a adolescent rogue’s re-create of a rogue. Although at to the lowest degree Daemon knows what it is to go to war and leave the safety of his castle, and fifty-fifty his dragon, along the Stepstones. Aemond never has, so when the opportunity to murder the target of his fury arises, he takes it with draconian disregard of the consequences.

… Only that is non how it plays out on the evidence. Instead Aemond is revealed to only be just joshing with Lucerys, presumably in an intended echo of Lucerys participating in the prank of gifting young Aemond a grunter and calling it the Pink Dread. When Vhagar gets ruddy in her eye considering Arrax tagged her, we hear Aemond repeatedly cry, “No, no, noooo, Vhagar!” as she pursues and slaughters his nephew.

This is a weak change from the source fabric that would perhaps non be so egregious if it didn’t repeat a growing trend in

House of the Dragon
’due south concluding two episodes. Because equally of right now, it seems this show has an unwillingness to let characters show their true colors or for anyone but Otto Hightower to ain their mistakes and vanities. On paper, I can understand the reason for the choice: It reminds the viewer that Aemond is still a male child, and indeed he is playing at war. It as well reminds us of a chilling truth that King Viserys (Paddy Considine) said in the show’due south first episode. The Targaryens’ control over the dragons is somewhat an illusion.

Mayhaps. Simply characters should exist in control of their deportment, and the choices to tear asunder the family that old Male monarch Viserys attempted to keep together during a fateful feast should not be treated as sitcom plotting. Nevertheless, the pivotal decisions by Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Aemond take at present been contextualized as a couple of
whoopsies. Misunderstandings and miscommunications that wouldn’t be out of identify on an episode of

Iii’s Company

if non for the body count.

All her life, or certainly since Rhaenyra’s wedding, Alicent has prepared herself and her sons for usurping Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and stealing the Iron Throne. We see her drive that bulletin into Aegon’s caput as a boy, and her unwillingness to see Aegon for the distressing rapist he’south become, fifty-fifty as she calls him her king. The hypocrisy of the character is cornerstone to who she is; it is her tragedy that she will use her children every bit political tools, just as her father did her.

And yet,

House of the Dragon

wants to have us believe that after decades of positioning her family to usurp Rhaenyra that she was so moved by Viserys and Rhaenyra’s words that she was set to curve the genu, and would take, likewise, if non for the silly misunderstanding of hearing an sometime, dying, and drugged up homo mutter something well-nigh “Aegon” and the “prince who was promised.”

If the testify wanted to lean into Alicent willfully deluding herself considering this gives her exactly what she wanted, it could exist a curious choice. However,

Business firm of the Dragon

would seem to suggest that she actually,
really
did not want to beguile Rhaenyra, only she’southward merely doing what she thinks Viserys wants—even though it manifestly isn’t what he wanted since only hours beforehand he was still defending his daughter’s claim.

Bluntly, it’s bad writing that attempts to alibi Alicent for her avarice and treason. She knew exactly what she was doing in the book, and in fact, had all of her husband’south servants ordered to tell her the minute Viserys was dead—she then permit him rot in his bed for a week as her family prepared the rise. Alicent’s hand is only every bit bloody equally her father’s, or Daemon for that matter, in escalating this tension to the signal of ceremonious state of war.

And Aemond’s is bloodier however since he crushed any hope of this war catastrophe without a large amount of family members dead (plus the tens of thousands they each command). Subsequently the death of Lucerys, in that location is no peace between Rhaenyra and Aegon where one bends the knee to the other. Only burn and blood is left to them. For such a awe-inspiring moment, the change to it being an accident feels pocket-size and chintzy. It is beneath the moral complexity of this world.

When Ned Stark was beheaded, Joffrey Baratheon did not say, “No, Ser Illyn, noooo!” Nor did Tywin Lannister reveal he only asked Lord Walder Frey to play “The Rains of Castaemere” at Edmure Tully’s hymeneals as a prank, simply then that rascal Walder took it too far and added crossbows.

Allow the characters own their actions, and if it reveals them to exist villains, then the show is stronger for it because Aemond’s motivations for villainy come up from a completely understandable identify. It stems from his general sense of aggrievement when his nephew took his eye and his male parent did cipher nigh it afterward, equally well every bit his own twisted sense of self-righteousness while palling around with “decent men” similar Criston Cole.

Angle over backward to forbid anyone from beingness the villain, and thereby robbing them of their bureau, stains what is otherwise an intricate and still dazzling tapestry that’s existence weaved. At the moment this problem is non a dealbreaker, either for the series or what was otherwise a compelling season finale. But we’ve seen in the by how pocket-size mistakes and changes tin grow into massive, gaping holes, and the tapestry that

House of the Dragon

is edifice is too precious a affair for that.