House of the Dragon

Credit: HBO

Season 2 of House of the Dragon ended where it began. Team Green (Aemond, Aegon, Allicent, the Hightowers, Ser Criston Cole etc.) and Team Black (Rhaenyra, Jace, Daemon, the new lowborn dragonriders etc.) on the eve of war. If I were to level but one accusation at the second season, it would be that very little happens betwixt its premiere and finale. A lot of table-setting for war, positioning of pieces on the board, setup for big exciting things to come. Season 1 was also a lot of laying of groundwork for the Dance of Dragons.

If I were to level a second accusation at Season 2, it would be the many baffling changes from George R.R. Martin’s book. The first season padded out a lot of stuff but it had a good reason to. The show spent time introducing us to Viserys I and his family in order to establish the overarching conflict, and it was done quite well. Season 2, on the other hand, made more egregious alterations.

One of these changes was the exclusion of Nettles, the teenage girl in the book who tames the wild dragon, Sheepstealer. In the show, Nettles is replaced with Rhaena Targaryen. This is at least an understandable change: Instead of introducing yet another new character to an already sprawling cast, they gave Rhaena – who doesn’t have a dragon – her own and something to do. I’m not saying I agree with this change, but I do understand its purpose.

Other changes were more inexplicable. The Blood & Cheese assassination was neutered entirely, and while still a horrific moment, lacked the genuinely brutal “Sophie’s Choice” that made the original scene so powerful. The relationship between Rhaenyra and Allicent became bloated and wore out its welcome and continues to drag the story down as we enter Season 3.

Rhaenyra’s character arc was likewise neutered, with the show’s creators insistent on making her the Good Guy when, in fact, she’s a lot more complicated and bloodthirsty and unhinged in the original story. Maybe they’re getting to that point, but I worry that this Rhaenyra / Allicent friendship has made them alter both characters for the worse (by making them both far more likable).

Some of these changes in focus have left important characters on the sidelines. Specifically, three of Rhaenyra’s sons – Joffrey, Aegon the Younger and Viserys – have spent so little time in the frame, it’s easy to forget they exist. And the absence of two of these in the Season 3 premiere is quite strange.

The Capture of the Gay Abandon

In Season 2 we learn that Aegon the Younger and Viserys are to be taken to safety in Pentos by Reggio Haratis, along with Rhaena, though she absconds to find and tame Sheepstealer. Joffrey and his young dragon remain at the Eyrie. The voyage is poorly timed, however, with the Triarchy fleet on the move.

The Season 3 premiere focuses on the Battle of the Gullet, the largest and most devastating naval battle in the history of Westeros, and in the books it begins when the ship transporting Rhaenyra’s children, the Gay Abandon, is seized by the Triarchy. Aegon escapes on the back of his small dragon, Stormcloud, though the dragon is pelted with arrows and later dies. He leaves his younger brother, Viserys behind, much to his shame. He also never flies on a dragon again. Viserys is taken prisoner by the enemy, but Aegon brings warning of the attack and Jace is able to lead an aerial assault against the Triarchy ships.

The show’s version of this battle is vastly changed from the books. We know it will be, given the fact that Aegon and his warning and his dead dragon are all absent from the episode. Perhaps Viserys is taken captive offscreen. Perhaps Aegon will show up after the battle to bring word of this. Perhaps they will all just be shuffled off to the sidelines until the show’s writers remember they exist. Here are the other big changes from the book version of this epic battle:

• In the book, Jace is joined by the other dragonriders for Team Black: Jace on his dragon Vermax; Ulf the White on Silverwing, Nettles on Sheepstealer, Addam Velaryon on Seasmoke and Hugh Hammer on Vermithor. Notably, Baela Targaryen, Jace’s betrothed, is not part of this battle because her dragon, Moondancer, was too small. In the show, only Jace and Baela fly to war. Hugh, Ulf and Addam are all stuck waiting to ambush Aemond who Rhaenyra thinks is heading to Harrenhal. (More on all that in a minute). Also, Rhaena and Sheepsteeler join the fray in a very different manner, with Sheepstealer not only attacking Valeryon ships, but the other two dragons as well. (More on that in a minute also).
• In the show, Jace orders the Kingsguard to confine Rhaenyra in her chambers in order to prevent her from going to the aid of the Valeryon ships blockading King’s Landing. This never happens in the books. As far as we know, Rhaenyra and Jacaerys worked together on battle plans and it was on her orders that he and the others joined the battle, not the brash and petulant impulsivity of the princeling. (I am also left wondering why they wouldn’t just all go, since three dragons is better than two, as Mushroom might say, and why they didn’t send for the other dragonriders immediately since the Triarchy fleet was a more clear and present danger than Aemond and Vhagar).
• Both book and show do clearly paint how devastating the battle was for both sides. I suspect we will see more fallout from the battle next week, but at least by the end of Episode 1 it’s not entirely clear that Team Black won and the Triarchy fleet nearly destroyed. Or what happened to Corlys.
• The show vastly dramatizes the conflict between Lord Corlys Velaryon and the Triarchy admiral, Lohar. There’s an entire “steer through a narrow rocky passage” sequence followed by a brutal battle aboard Corlys’s ship. Meanwhile, the actual sacking of Driftmark takes place offscreen. None of this happens in the book.

The Sheepstealer bit is my lesser of two big complaints about these changes. I don’t think it would have bothered me that much, but Sheepstealer is now directly responsible for the death of Jacaerys and Vermax. The problem with this is the fact that Lucerys died because Aemond’s dragon, Vhagar, defied his rider and killed Lucerys and his dragon Arrax. The two deaths are now strikingly similar. Both Rhaenyra’s eldest sons die because a large dragon defies its young rider and loses control. If the connection is meant to be profound – he who lives by the dragon dies by the dragon, or something – it misses the mark, and instead comes across as unimaginative, repetitive even.

Otherwise, the death of Jacaerys and Vermax happens pretty much like it does in the book: Vermax flies too low, is injured and crashes into the sea. Jace gets free but is shot to death by enemy crossbowmen. It’s a horrific and tragic death, though I think the show has largely treated Jacaerys rather poorly, making him a much less important and likable character than he deserved to be, ever in his mother’s shadow until he brashly defies her and goes to war and then dies; not a hero, but a fool.

Lohar The Lousiest

And now let’s talk about the worst character in House of the Dragon, and quite possibly the worst character in all of Game of Thrones television:

Lohar is one of those made-for-TV villains that has no place in a serious television program like House of the Dragon. She is a cartoon villain who, I suspect, we’re meant to like because she’s such a girlboss baddie. She commands the unwavering loyalty of her troops. She’s smarter and better at naval tactics and sailing and battle than the Sea Snake. When she meets him in battle, her ship splits his in twain in the first broadside. She then leads her troops against heavily armored knights and men-at-arms who they cut through with ease.

Lohar’s slashing blades apparently have the Ignore Armor perk, because she cuts through these heavily armored foes like butter. She kills half a dozen before meeting Corlys in battle, and she shows him who’s (girl)boss. When his son Alyn joins the fray, she fights them both off single-handedly despite wearing only cloth and leather, up against men in plate, both trained, one an actual legend.

It’s just so tiresome. I hate when characters are written this way. Lohar reminds me of a dimestore version of Euron Greyjoy from Game Of Thrones, he of the infamous magic fleet, but somehow even more annoying.

Characters like this show up late in the game but they’re just wildly good at everything they do. Great leaders, tacticians, perfect fighters, driven and ambitious and far more clever and ruthless. She even throws Tyland Lannister and his men overboard to lighten the ship, and of course those silly Lions don’t stand a chance against Lohar!

The only consolation prize is that Alyn stabs her in the throat, though I half-expected her to rise back up out of the waves when he turned his back. Lohar doesn’t die in the book, of course, nor is Lohar a woman. Or a pirate. Lohar is an admiral and tactician and brings the Triarchy to ruin with his loss, leading to The Daughters War.

So why do I focus on these changes? This is a TV show! It’s an adaptation! A critic ought to judge it based on its own merits, not be such a stickler over changes. Well, some changes work and others don’t. And there are plenty of critics you can read who haven’t read the book and don’t care one whit about the changes.

I am not one of theses, and so I present to you the alternate version of:

The Battle Of The Gullet, Actually Adapted From The Book

We open to the Gay Abandon sailing across the Narrow Sea. The waters are calm. Viserys and Aegon play at pirates, clanking practice swords on the deck of the ship, while Stormcloud lounges nearby watching. They seem like good kids. We get to know them a little bit in this opening sequence. The ship’s crew seems fond of them. One ship’s boy, we’ll call him Scully, seems to dislike the princelings, however. We see him watching them with hatred in his eyes. Maybe a noble burned his house down and killed his parents. Maybe he’s just a bad seed.

The sun is bright on the horizon, so bright that the crew doesn’t notice the enemy ships until it’s too late. Swords are drawn. Aegon tells Viserys to hide, to disguise himself as a ship’s boy and hide his white Targaryen hair. Scully tells Viserys to come with him, and they run belowdecks. Then, as battle breaks out across the ship, Aegon mounts his dragon for the very first time and, gripping it tightly, flies aloft. Tyroshi bowman fire at the dragon, catching it in the stomach and wings, but the young dragon manages to flap beyond their reach and Aegon escapes. Aboard the Gay Abandon, the battle is lost. Scully betrays Viserys to the enemy and the princeling is taken prisoner.

Meanwhile, the Velaryon fleet is taken by surprise and suddenly finds themselves greatly outnumbered. The Triarchy admiral, Lohar, is a canny leader and has the Velaryon ships in dire straits. Things aren’t looking good. Corlys bellows commands and Alyn rallies the troops.

Aegon flies to Dragonstone. Stormcloud collapses, bleeding from countless arrow wounds. Jace and Rhaenyra find the boy, sobbing over his dying dragon and begging forgiveness for leaving his little brother behind. He tells them of the Triarchy fleet and Rhaenyra quickly organizes her dragonriders, telling Jace to lead them to Lord Corlys’s rescue. “Burn them all!” she tells her son, “And find your brother.” She’s a queen, after all. She must make hard choices, including sending her eldest son into battle. She knows she must remain at Dragonstone to man its defenses in case Aegon has other tricks up his sleeve.

Off they fly, five dragons and their riders. Make it six if you want Baela and Moondancer there or, since in the show Rhaena has only just tamed Sheepstealer, leave that pair out. Whatever the case, off they go. Meanwhile, Triarchy corsairs have boarded Corlys’s ship (awkwardly renamed The Queen Who Never Was for Corlys’s dead wife, Rhaenys, in the TV show) and a desperate battle has ensued. Similar battles have broken out elsewhere, and other ships are engaged in crossbow fire. Sails burn. Sailors fall to the waves. We have to feel how desperate this fight is, not because Lohar has some personal grudge against Corlys, but because they’re badly outnumbered and so much is at stake.

At the same time, we see a dozen Triarchy ships land at Driftmark and begin burning and pillaging the village, making their way up to High Tide where they dispatch the few soldiers manning the castle. We watch as Corlys’s treasures, from all across the known world, are set to flame, and his servants slaughtered. (Maybe before all this happens, we establish a loyal and likable steward character who we get a scene with, bidding Corlys farewell, so that when the castle is burned we have a character to anchor our sorrows to).

We also see Lohar take Viserys aboard his ship. Lohar himself (or herself if they must gender-swap the character despite this being a show with lots of strong female protagonists) doesn’t enter the fray, and when things take a turn, he flees, taking the Targaryen prince with him. Oh no!

Things do take a turn when the dragons show up and begin burning the Triarchy fleet. It’s a slaughter. The Triarchy doesn’t stand a chance against the combined might of the Velaryon fleet and Team Black’s dragons. But the Triarchy bowmen have learned a thing or two from their battles against Daemon and Caraxes. They know how to take down a dragon and, just as victory seems all but certain, Jace flies his dragon low, too low, looking for his brother, and Vermax is hit and brought down, crashing into the waves where he’s caught in a net, bleeding and struggling until he sinks below the surface and dies. Jace gets free of the harness and grabs onto some burning wreckage.

One of the other riders swoops down to rescue him. Baela if we decided to add her; Addam if not. Jace waves at the rider and all seems well as the dragon dives lower, a rope dangling for Jace to grab hold of – and then the first crossbow bolt hits him. Then another and another. When his rescuer gets there, Jace is already dead. The dragon burns the ship with the crossbowmen, but it’s too late.

Another of Rhaenyra’s sons is dead; and another, Viserys, is presumed dead since he’s not found and nobody knows what’s happened to him other than Lohar who has taken him prisoner and hostage.

In the aftermath of all this, Hugh and Ulf sit in a tavern drinking and boasting of their great victory. They’ve tasted blood and fire and it tastes good. While Rhaenyra and the others mourn, the two lowborn dragonriders drink and connive and think of their future. “After this, Hugh old chap," Ulf proclaims, "we deserve lordships! A knighthood just isn’t enough for dragonriders like us!" He grumbles about the queen and Hugh, thinking about his family, ponders in silence. This same conversation played out in the episode itself, but not in the same context. Here, Ulf and Hugh are tasting victory and power and their resentment toward an ungrateful queen has more fuel.

My version here is, of course, the one from the book with a few minor embellishments. The show’s version also missed something that I think is pretty important: A sense of scale. The few scenes of ships engaged in battle felt cramped. I never felt like this was the largest naval battle in the history of Westeros. There was no real flow to the battle, no way to assess what was going on. Corlys leading Lohar on a merry chase felt like time better spent showing more dragons descending on more ships, more knights battling against Triarchy raiders. Corlys sailing through the shallow passage, and his glimpse of High Tide in flames, was a wasted opportunity and a gimmick.

The Harrenhal Conspiracy

There are other changes here, both small and not-so-small. Rhaenyra and Allicent, because of their long, strange friendship, have agreed to a deal. Allicent will open King’s Landing to Rhaenyra’s forces and offer up her son, Aegon, as part of the bargain. Aemond is supposed to be off looking for Daemon.

In the book, Aegon is spirited away by Larys Strong only after Rhaenyra’s dragons appear in the skies over King’s Landing. Aemond is already gone, having boasted about going to find his uncle and kill him. In the show, Allicent returns to the Red Keep to find Aemond on the throne and Aegon already absconded, having fled his own brother rather than a wrathful Rhaenyra. Aegon and Larys are captured on the road in this episode, and Larys gives him up easily enough. They’re taken prisoner.

In the show, Allicent is part of a conspiracy to topple her own son, and sends Aemond off to fight Daemon, persuading him to go and take Harrenhal. It’s just one of many ways this ongoing Rhaenyra/Allicent friendship fundamentally alters this story. Aemond and Allicent also kiss, though Aemond is more into it than his mother. (Raise your hand if you’re a little bit tired of the whole Targaryen incest stuff!)

I don’t hate this change, necessarily, though I think they do Allicent something of a disservice by making her so much more pliable and likable in the show, when she was quite a lot more bitter and prickly in the book (and older than Rhaenyra, and not her friend).

Meanwhile, Ormund Hightower, head of his House and lord of Oldtown, Allicent’s cousin and nephew to Otto Hightower, is marching his armies to Team Green’s aid. See all that green on their shields and banners? That’s where the Green in Team Green comes from. Ormund is played by newcomer to the cast, James Norton, who will always be Tommy Lee Royce, from Happy Valley, to me – a villain who makes Ramsey Bolton look rather tame by comparison. He receives a note from Allicent and says they are to remain where they are, presumably as some part of her plan to help Rhaenyra.

Ser Criston Cole the Never Aging (seriously, not even a little grey around the temples guys?) is on the march with Ser Gwayne Hightower, Allicent’s older brother. Gwayne, an honorable man, sees a village girl crying and running, naked, from one of the knight’s tents. He confronts Ser Criston about this, telling him that something must be done. They are knights and must uphold chivalry and honor. “Hang him if you want,” Ser Criston says, uninterested, but Gwayne says that’s not enough. Ser Criston must make a statement, must take a stand. Ser Criston has no interest in honor, however. He’s convinced that it’s all a farce. In a world with dragons that can simply destroy anything they please, what use is honor?

Meanwhile, in the Riverlands, we see the aftermath of Daemon’s latest military victory. As they discuss what to do, another force joins the field, bedecked in grey and black, wolf banners flying. The Starks have arrived and Roddy the Ruin (aka Lord Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton) tosses Daemon the head of the other Lannister twin. “We’ve come to kill for the Dragon Queen,” he says. (Roddy is played by Tommy Flanagan of Sons of Anarchy fame).

Rhaenyra spends most of the episode locked in her chambers, complaining that “while I have the frail body of a woman, I have the heart of a king” and being generally useless, which is an odd choice for this show to make. I’d have preferred to see her decisive, sending her warriors to battle.

None of this is to say I didn’t enjoy the episode. I think I might have enjoyed it more had I not read the book. The bits of battle we do get are fun, if a little lackluster. It was great to see Alyn get such an awesome kill, and I’m so very happy that we don’t have to suffer another Lohar appearance. It’s cool to see the Starks arrive and join forces with Daemon.

As is so often the case with this show, there’s lots to look forward to, including Aemond heading toward Harrenhal; Rhaenyra’s rage when she discovers her son’s death and how this will impact her choices going forward; and the war itself, as the Hightowers and Starks join the battle and Aemond and Daemon square off. There’s plenty of twists and turns and bloody betrayals to come, and more dragons, including Allicent’s so-far-invisible son, Daeron, and his cobalt dragon, Tessarion. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for all the exciting bits to come, and hopefully these won’t be too terribly altered, though at this point so many changes have been made that I’m not sure we can ever really get the story as it happened in the book. I’m no longer holding out hope for Mushroom to make an appearance, more’s the pity. More than anything, I just want the changes to make sense, to flesh out the story or give us some surprises, rather than pull another Blood & Cheese incident.

The Battle of the Gullet was originally intended as a capstone for Season 2, but HBO cut the episodes down from 10 to 8 for Seasons 2 and 3. As a finisher for Season 2, this would have worked quite well, which isn’t to say it doesn’t work for a Season 3 opener, but the cadence feels off for a reason.

In the end, they’ll make Bran king. So there’s that. What did you think of the House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

P.S. I’ve watched the first four episodes of Season 3 and I’m mostly optimistic. This feels a lot stronger than Season 2 so far and while I clearly do have nits to pick, I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the season.

House of the Dragon stars:

• Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen
• Emma D'Arcy as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen
• Olivia Cooke as Queen Dowager Alicent Hightower
• Rhys Ifans as Ser Otto Hightower
• Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon
• Ewan Mitchell as Prince Aemond Targaryen
• Tom Glynn-Carney as King Aegon II Targaryen
• Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole
• Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria
• Harry Collett as Prince Jacaerys Velaryon
• Bethany Antonia as Baela Targaryen
• Phoebe Campbell as Rhaena Targaryen
• Phia Saban as Queen Helaena Targaryen
• Matthew Needham as Larys Strong
• Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower
• Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull
• Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers

And many, many more.

The first episode of Season 3 was written by showrunner, Ryan Condal, and directed by Loni Peristere.