Warning: This episode contains spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 8.
House of the Dragon employed a six-year time-jump to age up Alicent and Rhaenyra’s children. Yet, as we’re introduced to fascinating new character dynamics, great performances, and some shocking final moments, it can’t help but circle back to the same sticking point that it already spent the past two episodes hovering around.
Ever since HOTD leapt forward 10 years between episodes 5 and 6, the biggest question plaguing the court of King’s Landing is who is the father of Rhaenyra’s three eldest sons? Officially, it’s Laenor Velaryon, Rhaenyra’s husband, as one would expect.
Unofficially (and more accurately), their father is Ser Harwin Strong, a fact everyone except Viserys is willing to admit. Rhaenyra herself even privately admitted as much to Daemon—and later acknowledged with Laenor—in “Driftmark.” But doing so publicly would lead to exile and the deaths of more than a few people. Everyone from Alicent and her children to other Westerosi lords knows it, but King Viserys will not entertain any talk outside the official story. He forbade Alicent from talking about it, and when her children started spreading the “rumors,” he threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who spoke of it again.
This time, Vaemond Velaryon is questioning the legitimacy of Rhaenyra’s children—and he is the one to experience the extent of the wrath that appears when he brings it back up (although, in the end, he technically gets to keep his tongue). It’s sparked when Vaemond’s older brother Corlys is close to death, bringing up the question of who will inherit Driftmark. Rhaenyra’s second-born Lucerys is Corlys’ heir after the “death” of Laenor, and that would be Corlys’ choice. But Vaemond doesn’t think Luke is actually a Velaryon, so he petitions the Crown to have the matter decided once and for all; if the young prince is ruled illegitimate, Vaemond would be the one to become the Lord of the Tides.
Rhaenys is the only one who knows what Corlys would want; Corlys knows that Luke is a Strong by blood, but he’s a Velaryon by name, and that’s what matters. But at first, Rhaenys is more than happy to ignore those to argue for giving her Driftmark; not even a marriage pact linking Rhaenyra’s sons and Rhaenys’ granddaughters that’d make one of them queen and give the other Driftmark can tempt her. It’s not until Viserys himself hobbles into the court that Rhaenys admits what Corlys told her and simultaneously accepts Rhaenyra’s proposal.
“You may run your house as you see fit, but you will not decide the future of mine,” Vaemond argues. “My House survived the Doom and a thousand tribulations besides. And gods be damned, I will not see it ended on the account of this.”
Daemon, the premiere chaos agent of HOTD, goads Vaemond into calling Rhaenyra’s sons bastards and the heir to the Iron Throne a whore. And Daemon swoops in and cuts off Vaemond’s head with his Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister. It’s a kinder death than his book counterpart (one of Corlys’ nephews instead of his younger brother), who was fed to Rhaenyra’s dragon Syrax after his beheading. Vaemond’s five nephews then went to argue their own claims to Driftmark and repeated rumors about the Velaryon boys, resulting in Viserys having all of their tongues cut out.
But, in a sense, we’ve seen that plot before: Someone fucks around by questioning the legitimacy of Rhaenyra’s and someone finds out. The details are much more interesting than the whole—our brief interactions with Laena Velaryon and Harwin Strong, King Viserys slowly turning into a member of the Walking Dead, the introduction of Rhaenyra and Daemon’s two children (Aegon and Viserys) into the mix, Alicent’s more religious redecoration of the Red Keep, and the show further cementing that Aegon is the worst by revealing he raped one of his sister-wife Helaena’s maids off-screen—but the whole takes up more space.
This time, both in the moment and what it sets up for the rest of the season, is what follows. In a scene that follows Fire & Blood’s lead, Viserys holds a dinner is hosted in an attempt to bridge both sides of his family together. He’s an old man who’s falling apart at the seams (to the point where he wears a Phantom of the Opera-like mask to cover holes in his face—and he knows he doesn’t have much time left, so he only wants to see his family get along. Whether genuine or a ploy, Rhaenyra and Alicent are happy to humor him; the rivals almost seem ready to start their friendship anew.
The kids, on the other hand… not so much. Aegon tries to provoke Jace by asking if he knows how to perform in the marriage bed and then propositioning Baela Targaryen in front of him. And the show takes cues from Mushroom’s version of events: Aemond, a burgeoning chaos agent in his own right, toasts “these three Strong boys” to provoke the Velaryons, leading Luke to try to fight the uncle whose eye he took out several years ago. Jace dances with Helaena, a move that pisses off Aegon.
But those more childish fights mean nothing compared to what the end of “The Lord of the Tides” sets up. Earlier, Rhaenyra asked Viserys if he believed Aegon’s dream—the Song of Ice and Fire—to be true when she begs him to defend her and her children against Vaemond’s petition. His response is more jumbled with how much milk of the poppy he’s consuming to alleviate his pain. But he inadvertently reveals some of the contents of Aegon’s dream to Alicent and she believes that Viserys is talking about their son, not Aegon the Conqueror.
With Viserys now dead, that leaves Alicent with quite the conundrum: With Viserys seemingly professing her son to be the ruler to unite the Seven Kingdoms, what will she do about it?
