House of the Dragon recap, episode seven: (Fake) Death at a Funeral
SPOILER WARNING: Hardcore fans of George R.R. Martin thought they knew what was coming this week. Even they were fooled.
SPOILER WARNING: We shall be discussing episode seven of House of the Dragon in minute detail. If you have yet to catch up, stop reading now!
As is our custom, let’s review the state of affairs at the end of the previous episode.
King Viserys is somehow still alive, even though bits of him keep falling off. He just wants the two branches of his family – Princess Rhaenyra and her children, and Queen Alicent and her children – to get along. They are not getting along.
Alicent spent much of the previous episode trying to make Viserys recognise that Rhaenyra’s boys were bastards fathered by Harwin Strong, rather than her husband, Laenor Velaryon. Her aim was to get Rhaenyra disinherited, and her own son Aegon named heir in her place.
Frustrated with the king’s “wilful blindness”, Alicent vented to the shady Larys Strong, wishing that her father Otto was still Hand of the King.
Larys then took it upon himself to have the actual Hand, his own father Lyonel Strong, and his brother Harwin murdered. Larys told a shaken Alicent he was confident she would reward him “when the time is right”.
Meanwhile Rhaenyra and Laenor, sick of the capital’s politics and sensing they were no longer safe, decided to move to Dragonstone.
Across the sea, Daemon and his heavily pregnant wife Laena Velaryon were living it up as guests of the Prince of Pentos. That lifestyle came crashing down during Laena’s childbirth, where she suffered the same complication as Viserys’s first wife, Aemma.
Instead of dying on the birthing bed, Laena fled outside to her dragon, Vhagar, and ordered the beast to kill her.
It is Laena’s funeral that brings all the main players back together in one place for episode seven. For more on that, read on.
(We weren’t able to publish a recap last week for logistical reasons, but you can listen to my thoughts on episode six in the podcast below, should you so desire.)
Episode seven recap
This episode begins at the funeral. Everyone of importance has gathered on Driftmark, the island seat of House Velaryon, to farewell Laena.
Otto Hightower is among the mourners, and we see that he is once again wearing the badge that signifies he is Hand of the King. So, while Alicent may have been horrified by Larys’s methods, clearly she didn’t hesitate to fill the vacancy created by Lyonel Strong’s crispy demise by recalling her father to court.
Viserys, who appeared to be thoroughly fed up with being King last time we saw him, presumably rubber stamped Otto’s reappointment as Hand just to get another headache off his plate. He’s getting too old and grouchy to deal with lengthy hiring processes.
The man speaking at the funeral is Vaemond Velaryon, Corlys’s younger brother, who seems to think being perpetually furious is a substitute for having a personality. You might remember him from the Stepstones, where he was aptly labelled “master of complaints”.
Vaemond’s remarks here include a striking line, which he delivers while staring daggers at Rhaenyra: “Salt runs through Velaryon blood. Ours runs thick, ours runs true, and ours must never thin.”
At the word “true”, Rhaenyra is visibly taken aback and Viserys glances over at her uneasily. Both take it as an allusion to the truth about her sons’ parentage. The boys’ official father, Laenor, merely stares glumly at the ground.
Daemon, of course, laughs, as though Vaemond has told a particularly amusing joke.
The music swells as Laena’s coffin slides into the ocean. It’s not as emotional as it could have been, because Laena was among the biggest victims of the show’s time-jumping structure. The time we spent with her was enough to glean she was a badass, but little else.
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A short while later, Rhaenyra arrives at the wake to find Alicent glaring at her as though she were a walking, talking piece of excrement.
When she suggests to her eldest son, Jacaerys, that he comfort Laena’s daughters, he replies that he has “an equal claim to sympathy”. The kid knows Harwin Strong was his real father. But Jace can’t openly mourn him, as it would reveal the truth to everyone else.
A few metres away, Aegon is complaining about being betrothed to his sister Helaena. I think his issue is less with the incest and more with the fact that she’s a weird bug girl who speaks in (presumably prophetic) riddles. He stalks off to hit on waitresses and get plastered.
Larys is standing alone in a corner staring creepily at Alicent, like a 32-year-old virgin who’s just spotted a human female at a club and thinks he is successfully flirting. My dude wants to be the next Littlefinger, but has all the subtlety of Bronze Yohn Royce.
There are various other telling interactions: one of the Velaryon girls grasps Jacaerys’s hand; Rhaenys coldly ignores Rhaenyra; Aemond tries to give Jace a polite smile, only to receive a glare in return; Viserys tells Alicent he’s going to bed but accidentally calls her “Aemma”.
The notable absence from proceedings is Laenor, whom we find standing in the waves, shattered and inconsolable. It seems he was particularly close to Laena, though we never saw evidence of that on screen.
Back at the wake, Viserys approaches Daemon and attempts to reconcile.
“The gods can be cruel,” he says, referring to the death of Daemon’s latest wife.
“It seems they’ve been especially cruel to you,” Daemon replies. It’s harsh but true, given Viserys looks like a man who should have died three episodes ago.
The conversation ends with Daemon walking off, tears welling in his eyes, having rebuffed an offer to return to King’s Landing. Rhaenyra follows him. Otto notices.
As night falls, one more person sneaks away: Aemond.
Inside the castle, Rhaenys tells Corlys their daughter’s death may have been caused by the gods “scorning” them for their “insatiable pride”.
He repeats the line we’ve heard before, that Rhaenys should have been queen but was unfairly rejected by the Great Council, and that he wants justice for her.
“It is not justice for your wife that drives you, it is your own ambition,” she snaps back.
Rhaenys suggests naming Laena’s daughter, Baela, heir to Driftmark, which would mean disinheriting Laenor and his children. She speaks her logic plainly: Laena’s children are of Velaryon blood, and Laenor’s are not.
“History does not remember blood. It remembers names,” he responds. You might recall that line from the trailers; now we know the context. Corlys doesn’t care that Laenor’s children are bastards, as long as they bear his name.
Back outside, Rhaenyra and Daemon are strolling along a beach in the dark. I believe it’s the same shoreline on which she and Laenor once settled on their marriage agreement. Now she is telling Daemon that same marriage is a “farce”.
Of note here is the fact that Daemon does not believe the fire at Harrenhal was an accident, while Rhaenyra does not believe Alicent is capable of orchestrating a double murder.
Sex ensues. These two are still uncle and niece, but at least they’re both adults now, I guess? That makes it a bit better, right? ... Right??
While that’s happening, Aemond does something both stupid and incredibly brave: he tries to claim Laena’s old dragon, Vhagar. And succeeds! The little man forgets to wear his seatbelt, which almost leads him to a messy end, but you can’t deny he has guts.
Laena’s daughters, in bed at Driftmark, spot what he’s doing and wake Rhaenyra’s sons, telling them someone has “stolen” Vhagar. You can see why they’d be upset: this was their mother’s beloved dragon, and her corpse is barely cold.
The children confront each other after Aemond lands. He’s riding an adrenaline high, and has gone from quiet to cocky. Everyone’s a bit of a dick to each other (though he is certainly the worst of them), and a fight breaks out. It culminates with Aemond taunting Rhaenyra’s sons.
“You will die screaming in flames, just as your father did, bastards,” he says, grasping the younger boy Lucerys by the throat.
“My father is still alive,” Luke protests.
“He doesn’t know, does he, Lord Strong?” Aemond says, speaking directly to the eldest son Jacaerys (who as we saw earlier, knows Harwin was his father).
Jace pulls a knife. In the ensuing scuffle, Luke picks it up and swings at Aemond’s face, slicing out his left eye.
That brings us to the climax of the episode, and a scene that featured in a great deal of promotional material ahead of this season. Everyone (except Laenor) is gathered in the throne room, where Viserys is trying to discover what happened.
Alicent blames Rhaenyra’s children. Rhaenyra claims they were acting in self-defence. And she reveals Aemond’s “bastards” insult.
We know Viserys is sensitive to the rumours about his grandsons’ parentage. The King interrogates Aemond, wanting to know where he heard such “lies”. The boy looks first at his mother, Alicent, before pointing the finger at his brother, Aegon.
Viserys then turns to the elder brother, with the same question.
“We know, father. Everyone knows. Just look at them,” Aegon says.
Viserys, in typically toothless fashion, responds merely by ordering his children and grandchildren to apologise to each other and make up, as though that’s a real option.
Alicent feels this is “not sufficient”. She demands that Luke lose an eye as justice for taking Aemond’s. When Viserys shuts her down, she orders Criston to do the deed.
In a rare moment of independence, Criston points out that he is the Queen’s sworn “protector”, a job which does not include gouging out children’s eyes.
Viserys declares that anyone who questions the parentage of Jace, Luke and Joffrey will have their tongue removed as punishment.
At this point Alicent loses it. She steals the Valyrian steel dagger from her husband’s waist and charges at Rhaenyra’s children with it. The princess stops her, telling her she’s gone “too far”.
“Too far? What have I ever done but what was expected of me? Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law? While you flout yours as you please. Where is duty, where is sacrifice? It’s trampled under your pretty foot again. And now you take my son’s eye, and to even that you feel entitled,” a distraught Alicent says.
(Full credit to her for maintaining proper grammar during her mental breakdown.)
“Exhausting, wasn’t it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. And now they see you as you are,” Rhaenyra responds.
We’ve written before about the simmering tension between these two characters. Here it is out in the open. Alicent has long resented Rhaenyra for doing whatever she wanted without facing any real consequences, while she was stuck doing her (often awful) duty as Queen.
But Rhaenyra sees through Alicent’s hypocrisy, her claims to represent all that is good and moral. The Queen’s hands are not clean. And now, after years of careful cultivation, her mask has fallen away in front of pretty much everyone.
As the two women finally recoil from each other, Alicent cuts Rhaenyra with the knife. A stunned silence follows; none of the adults know what to do or say.
It is Aemond, of all people, who calms the situation, telling his mother an eye was a “fair trade” for a dragon.
Viserys, as is his wont, declares the “proceeding” over without actually resolving anything.
In the aftermath, Otto visits his daughter, who concedes she “lost composure” and “disgraced” herself, ensuring the King will always favour Rhaenyra. Otto, however, is positively thrilled by her public breakdown.
“It was an ugly thing, I regret it,” Alicent tells him.
“We play an ugly game. And now, for the first time, I see that you have the determination to win it,” her father replies.
He promises Alicent the pair of them, together, will “prevail” in time. And he highlights how crucial it is that Aemond claimed Vhagar for their side of the looming conflict.
On the ship back to King’s Landing, Larys approaches Alicent and asks whether she wants him to take someone’s eye, because of course he does.
All that remains for this episode is the resolution of Rhaenyra’s marriage. Laenor is no longer useful to her; she wants to marry Daemon.
It seems the pair are planning to pay Laenor’s paramour, Qarl Correy, to murder him, which would certainly constitute a step up in ruthlessness for Rhaenyra.
Instead, Qarl and Laenor fake his death – sympathies to the poor sod who gets chucked in the fireplace and burned beyond recognition in his place – and then sail off together, presumably never to be seen again. Laenor always wanted to be free. Now he is.
(This death fake out will have surprised even book readers, as it’s a deviation from the source material. In the books, Qarl does kill Laenor, in a public setting, and is never seen again. It is speculated that Daemon paid Qarl to do the deed, and then murdered him to ensure his silence.)
Rhaenyra weds Daemon (as their respective children watch on awkwardly), fully aware that people will believe she killed her husband. In her view, this is a good thing: it means they will fear what she’s capable of doing next.
MVP of the episode
An argument could be made for Rhaenyra, who handled the situation deftly enough to expose Alicent’s true nature, but as Otto pointed out, Aemond’s claiming of Vhagar, on top of being a baller move, shifts the balance of power significantly. The oldest, most battle-hardened dragon in Westeros has changed sides because of him.
Rhaenys also deserves a shoutout for acknowledging how self-destructive her family’s ambition has been.
Villain of the episode
Also Aemond, perhaps? His treatment of the other children may have been rooted in the years of bullying he’d suffered, but it was still shocking. The other contender is Alicent, for obvious reasons.
Twitter: @SamClench
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