House of the Dragon' episode 9

Normally, the penultimate 'Game of Thrones' episodes are packed with drama, but last night's 'Dragon' was mostly just packed with confusion.

She's suffered so much loss, and for her own sake and on behalf of so many others, the urge to destroy is so strong. So, we arrive to the point where Rhaenys is riding Meleys, facing Alicent and her family, with all the power in the world to burn them to a crisp and stop this war before it even begins. Aegon has been a (for lack of a better word) tool for the entirety of his existence on screen, and in this episode we learn even more information about the Prince that solidifies his awful character. Over the season, Alicent has turned from a naive girl to a cunning Queen, and if she is in on the lie, that move would fit into her new, Machiavellian persona. The episode came and went without so much of a shot of Rhaenyra and Daemon who, throughout the season, have become the Internet’s favorites, despite their odd incestual relationship. In the beginning of the episode, Alicent seems like a true believer in the fact that Viserys named their son, Aegon, his heir on his deathbed. Is this Otto upholding the end of his deal with Mysaria and burning down the child fighting ring? The latter seems more likely, but then, is that Larys leaving the scene of the crime? A cold open of the Prince drunkenly stumbling through King’s Landing before getting nabbed by one of the Worm’s “little spiders” would have helped, but instead, we’re just supposed to accept that she got him and, for some reason, placed him in the Sept where seemingly anyone going for a nice midday worship could have heard him screaming, right? In the book, this likely wasn’t a problem, as they are spelled differently, but in the show, they are seemingly both pronounced “Eric.” This means there is pretty much no way to tell these two apart. One of the steps they take is locking Rhaenys into her chamber. According to IMDB, the two of them have been in a total of five episodes this season (including next week’s finale), but I must have glanced over these duplicates, because as soon as I saw them in “The Green Council,” I got stressed out.

'House of the Dragon' Episode 6 | Did You Love the New Rhaenyra and Alicent? Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke made their first appearances as Rhaenyra and Alicent ...

[read a full recap here](https://tvline.com/2022/10/16/house-of-the-dragon-recap-season-1-episode-9-the-green-council/)). making it easy for a cloaked wannabe-commoner like herself to slip out a side door unnoticed by the gathered throng. If you need to get something done, ask a mother.

Much masonry was smashed and many smallfolk flattened, but it was a horribly predictable penultimate episode … aside from the foot fetish.

A marble in the brain, a rope round the neck, a spot of swordplay between two mismatched members of the Kingsguard and a gang of pox-ridden kids going at one another in a scene that even the director, Clare Kilner, clearly felt was too horrible to depict in any great detail. The visual parallels between this public crowning and a certain notorious beheading two centuries later are impossible to ignore, with Rhaenys in place of the terrified Arya Stark, being propelled through the streets and up the steps of the Sept. Turns out she’s a secret activist, using her woke mob of sex workers and palace informants to improve the lot of the little people by banning the practice of kid-fighting that we only just found out about. Still, the moral tug-of-war between the twins is nicely handled, Aemond’s potentially regicidal loathing of his unfit brother gets thrown into sharp relief, and it’s good to finally get a sense of what Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), AKA the White Worm, is up to. As the ancient rituals are carried out, up to the throne ascends the monarch’s first-born son, an heir whose fitness for the role many hold in doubt, and who must win the respect of his people if he is to ensure the survival of his line. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) was last seen bunking off into King’s Landing to indulge his filthy whims, so it’s up to the man-bun twins Ser Erryk (Elliott Tittensor) and Ser Arryk (Luke Tittensor) to track him down and drag him back to face Ser Otto, who wants to force the boy to issue the order for Rhaenyra’s head.

A spoiler-free deep dive into "The Green Council," featuring a civil war allegiance preview, a royal symbols explainer, a succession clarification, ...

Stannis wears a crown of “red gold with points fashioned in the shape of flames,” a clear homage to Melisandre and her Lord of Light (Melisandre also wears a red-gold choker). As Alicent says in this episode, “my son will take the crown of his namesake, the Conqueror, and carry Blackfyre, his sword. For example, when Joffrey ascends the throne in A Game of Thrones, he wears a golden crown encrusted with red rubies and black diamonds, symbolizing both House Lannister (whose colors are red and gold) and House Baratheon (black and yellow). The North is nearly as large as the rest of Westeros combined, so it takes a great deal of time for the Starks to assemble their banners and march south. This is still apparent in the period leading up to and during A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Whoever earns the support of the North will have to wait a while to see it come to fruition. They like to think of themselves as independent (before Aegon’s Conquest they even controlled the Riverlands) and have a habit of declaring themselves as such whenever there’s unrest in the realm. The Tyrells are one of the most powerful houses in the realm, because the Reach is the most fertile region in Westeros and provides much of the food for the continent. The Royces are sworn to House Arryn, the lords of the Vale, and the Arryns may follow their bannermen in positioning themselves against the blacks. She has no husband and rules the Vale in her own name, one of the but of course that would probably just push the Brackens to the greens in response. Outside of the Targaryens, the most important family in the Crownlands (the region located around where Aegon the Conqueror landed in Westeros) is clearly the Velaryons.