House of the Dragon returns for season two with its most horrific scene yet

After a hiatus of two years, the prequel to Game of Thrones has returned to our screens. And the horror has ratcheted up.

SPOILER ALERT

We’re about to discuss the season two premiere of House of the Dragon, and no critical detail shall be spared. If you’re yet to watch the episode, best turn back.

Still here? I mean, I can’t stop you from reading this, any more than poor, hapless old King Viserys could stop his family from squabbling (and eventually murdering each other).

To paraphrase our psychotic bestie, Daemon Targaryen, from the trailer: “I didn’t think they’d be so eager to spoil themselves.”

Seriously though, go away before you spoil it for yourself. Daemon’s wig game is absolutely NOT the biggest takeaway from this episode. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

OK, that’s enough warning.

The Game of Thrones prequel returned to our screens on Monday and almost immediately sought to jolt us into a traumatised stupor by chopping off a small child’s head. Well. Sawing off his head, actually, with admirably nauseating audio work from the show’s editors.

Remember the days when we beheaded characters cleanly instead of hacking away at them like a toddler trying to carve a chicken? And when said characters were older than six? What sweet summer children we were.

Anyway. For those who had read the source material for HOTD, George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the gruesome death of King Aegon’s son Jaehaerys was a keenly awaited moment, with the potential to be right up there with Thrones’ Red Wedding in the pantheon of horrifying television scenes.

The showrunners actually softened things, somewhat, as we shall discuss later. So on the “shock value” scale, we’re only at about a seven out of ten. Eight if you’re squeamish.

Blood and Cheese

First, though, a recap.

You’ll recall (at least, hopefully you will, it has been two years after all) that in the season one finale, Aemond Targaryen accidentally killed Queen Rhaenyra’s second son, Lucerys, by losing control of his grumpy old behemoth of a dragon, Vhagar.

There really are a lot of names in this show. Do stop to do a quick Google, should you require a refresher. We really should write a glossary – maybe that will be in place for the second episode next week.

We join season two with Rhaenyra shattered and hungry for vengeance. Indeed her only line of the episode, uttered to her council, is: “I want Aemond Targaryen.”

To that end, her husband Daemon (and uncle, don’t forget the incest) enlists two shady characters in the capital, King’s Landing: a disillusioned city watchman who hates the Hightowers, and a ratcatcher who knows all the hidden passageways of the Red Keep.

Rhaenyra not taking the death of her son, who WAS eaten by a dragon to be fair, particularly well. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

In Fire and Blood, these two characters are never named, and are known to history merely as “Blood” and “Cheese”, respectively. We’ll use those noms de meutre going forward.

Daemon tasks the pair with infiltrating the keep and assassinating Aemond. It’s Cheese who poses a pivotal question: “What if we can’t find him?”

The scene cuts before we hear Daemon’s answer, which means his precise level of culpability for what comes next remains, as always, conveniently ambiguous.

“Who are these randos in the trailer?” you may well have wondered. Now you know. Oh, how you know. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

His hired assassins do indeed gain entry to the keep, and stumble upon the bedchamber of King Aegon’s wife, Queen Helaena. Cheese holds her at knifepoint.

“A son for a son, he said. Does she look like a f***ing son to you?” Blood says, clearly referring to Daemon.

“Over there,” a laughing Cheese replies, indicating a pair of cots. Sleeping in them are two of Aegon and Helaena’s identical-looking children.

One of them’s a boy, the other a girl – though their characteristic long, silver Targaryen hair makes it hard to tell which is which.

“We need to get our head and get out,” Cheese says. “They both look the same. Which one’s the boy? Look for a c***.”

“The mother knows,” says Blood.

“Do anything but what I ask and I’ll bleed the whole lot of you,” Cheese tells Helaena. Then he asks her: “Which?”

Cheese holds a knife at Helaena’s throat. Knowing her husband, Aegon, this is likely the third-least pleasant moment of her day. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

Helaena tries to bribe the pair with a fancy necklace.

“That’s not a son,” Blood tells her. Though he does take the necklace.

Seeing no way out, she points to the boy, Jaehaerys. As Blood and Cheese set to work beheading the poor child, she grabs the girl, Jaehaera, and flees.

Helaena ends up in the bedroom of her mother, Alicent (who is caught having a rather nice time with the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, but that’s a plot line for another time).

“They killed the boy,” she says. And the episode ends.

It ... could have been worse?

Grim stuff, you might think. And yet, in Fire and Blood, it was arguably even worse.

The book is written as a sort of history text, with multiple unreliable sources cited by its fictional author, each recounting his own version of the supposed events. The TV show has been described as, essentially, the “true” version of the story.

In any case, Fire and Blood describes Daemon’s “terrible vengeance” upon King Aegon’s family a little differently. Blood and Cheese are said to have slipped into the chambers of Alicent, not Helaena. And the book includes a third, even younger child.

Alicent looking downcast. She has ample reason to, these days. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

“Once inside, Cheese bound and gagged the Dowager Queen whilst Blood strangled her bedmaid. Then they settled down to wait, for they knew it was the custom of Queen Helaena to bring her children to see their grandmother every evening before bed,” it says.

“Jaehaerys and Jaehaera were six, Maelor two. As they entered the apartments, Helaena was holding his little hand and calling out her mother’s name. Blood barred the door and slew the Queen’s guardsmen, whilst Cheese appeared to snatch up Maelor.

“‘Scream and you all die,’ Blood told Her Grace. Queen Helaena kept her calm, it is said. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded of the two. ‘Debt collectors,’ said Cheese. ‘An eye for an eye, a son for a son. We only want the one, t’square things. Won’t hurt the rest o’ you fine folks, not one lil’ hair. Which one you want t’lose, Your Grace?’

This is Aemond, by the way, the original target of Blood and Cheese, according to the show. Bit harder to kill than a kid in his cot. Picture: Foxtel/Binge

“Once she realised what he meant, Queen Helaena pleaded with the men to kill her instead. ‘A wife’s not a son,’ said Blood. ‘It has to be a boy.’ Cheese warned the Queen to make a choice soon, before Blood grew bored and raped her little girl. ‘Pick,’ he said, ‘or we kill them all.’

“On her knees, weeping, Helaena named her youngest, Maelor. Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand, or perhaps it was because the older boy, Jaehaerys, was King Aegon’s firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne.

“‘You hear that, little boy?’ Cheese whispered to Maelor. ‘Your momma wants you dead.’ Then he gave Blood a grin, and the hulking swordsman slew Prince Jaehaerys, striking off the boy’s head with a single blow. The Queen began to scream.”

As you can see, some tweaks have been made for the show. Blood and Cheese behead a six-year-old instead of a toddler, which is ... better, I guess? Alicent, who was said to be gagged and tied up in the book, is not even present for the incident here.

And the most shocking twist has been removed entirely: in the book, Blood and Cheese play an especially cruel trick on Helaena, forcing her to choose which of her children will die and then murdering the other instead. In the show they merely ask her which youngster is a boy, and then accept her answer.

So thank you, HOTD showrunners, for making your child murder that slight bit more palatable. Very generous of you. Goodness knows what we’ll endure next week.

Twitter: @SamClench

Originally published as House of the Dragon returns for season two with its most horrific scene yet