Well, hello there. It's been a long 22 months since we first gathered to crown the worst person in Westeros in the debut episode of House of the Dragon. Even in the age of streaming, that's quite a gap between seasons. So, I decided to experiment and watch the Season 2 premiere without any catch-up. Big mistake.
Right from the first scene, I was lost. We revisited the familiar courtyard of Winterfell and then moved to the Wall, where a conversation unfolded between two characters I couldn't recognize, despite the introductory recap. I ended up diving into the Dance of the Dragons article on the A Song of Ice and Fire Wiki to piece together what was happening.
This confusion brings up a bigger issue: How can we pick the worst person in Westeros if we don't even know who these people are? So, before we start nominating candidates, Nadira, how was your reintroduction to the world of House of the Dragon?
I tried to jump back in without any prep and lasted about four minutes before realizing I didn't even remember that Young Penn Badgley (aka Harry Collett) was actually Rhaenyra’s son, Jacaerys. So, I did what I always do in such situations: headed to YouTube for a thorough recap (shoutout to Man of Recaps for years of invaluable service). Now, I'm fully back in the game—and so is House of the Dragon, conveniently picking up right where we left off.
Just days have passed since Aemond accidentally killed Rhaenyra’s youngest son, Lucerys, crushing any hopes of avoiding a full-blown war of dragonfire and brimstone. Rhaenyra is now on a quest for proof of death, while her allies prepare for the inevitable conflict. Once she confirms Lucerys' demise, she demands Aemond's head. They've already taken one eye, what's one more (and the rest of him)? Daemon is ready to fulfill her request while Team Rhaenyra fortifies their alliances.
Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, Alicent is trying to manage her troublesome sons, who now hold the highest seats of power, while also enjoying some time with her sidepiece, Ser Criston Cole. Her father, Otto, who originally sparked the conflict by pitting Alicent and Rhaenyra against each other, is making sure the Hightowers remain uncontested rulers of the realm. Aemond, still in denial about his colossal mistake, adopts an "All’s fair in love and the war you created, Mom" attitude.
The takeaway? Most everyone in Westeros is terrible. I have little to no sympathy for anyone except the grieving Rhaenyra and, especially, young Jace, who just learned about his brother's manslaughter. But the upside of everyone being awful is that we have plenty of candidates for the worst person in Westeros. I have my pick, but let’s discuss our top suspects for the week. What did you think of Daemon and Aemond this episode? To me, they’re two sides of the same coin—both showing a level of callousness (Daemon towards Rhaenyra’s grief, Aemond towards his past wrongdoings) that was pretty icky.
Let's start with Aemond, shall we? He’s arguably the most thoroughly, almost comically, evil character in House of the Dragon—a sneering, one-eyed villain without a single redeeming quality. True, he didn’t mean to kill his nephew and push the realm to the brink of a devastating conflict, but he also doesn’t seem particularly remorseful about it. While he might actually be the worst person in Westeros, I don't think he claims that title this week. His worst act is barging into the small council unannounced and making it clear he's eager for war—a jerky move, but far from the truly heinous things he's capable of. So, strategically speaking, we should save him for a week when his monstrousness truly stands out.
I tend to view Daemon the same way—when someone is evil all the time, it starts to become mundane—although he does hatch a truly terrible plot this week. But before we get to him, let me propose another candidate from their bloodline: Aemond’s brother, the newly crowned King Aegon.
In a way, Aegon is trying his best. Named after Aegon the Conqueror, Aegon II is burdened with the far less intimidating nickname "Aegon the Magnanimous," though his generosity mainly stems from his weakness. (He's also not the brightest; he doesn't even know what "magnanimous" means.) When commoners present their petitions, his impulse is to grant their requests, but that's only because he's more concerned with being liked than being just. His father Viserys may not have been the most commanding ruler, but he had a moral compass. Aegon, on the other hand, seems to take his cues from whoever he last spoke to, making him an easily swayed monarch—a quality King’s Landing’s ambitious climbers love.
This week, Aegon is more of a scummy little weasel than an outright terror. All he does is invite a toddler into the small council and humiliate Tyland Lannister when the latter points out that the eve of war is not the best moment for Bring Your Princeling to Work Day. Obnoxious as hell, but I feel like his behavior is mostly setting the stage for future worstness.
What do you think, Nadira? Who’s your least favorite Targaryen this week?
God, if incompetence and the sniveling variety of annoyance were enough to make someone the worst, Aegon would undoubtedly take the crown. While it's entertaining to watch Tyland Lannister increasingly besieged by a toddler sporting a 613 lace-front 18-inch wig, Aegon being the world’s biggest pushover in the world’s biggest seat isn’t quite enough to make him the “worst.” So, we need to find another Westerosi baddie to crown. I’m inclined to vote for Otto, but most of his treachery, at this point, is residual. Alicent, hilariously enough, comes off like an exhausted mother just trying to do her best—who among us can’t relate? I have my eyes on a few characters on the sidelines. To me, the most entertaining schemer is Larys Strong, who proved his ruthlessness by orchestrating the deaths of his own father and brother last season, but he barely appears in this episode.
Which brings me to my actual grievance with the show: Plenty of the villains are bad, but barely any of the villains are badass! Perhaps it’s in our best interest to delve into Daemon’s terrible plot that you mentioned and consider that this week’s worst person might not be a Targaryen at all. To satisfy his niece-wife, Daemon plots to kill Aemond by hiring two randos—the quintessential duo of infiltration: the muscle and the navigator—to sneak into the palace and kill the prince. And, well, things don’t go as planned. What do you make of the episode’s big snafu?
Adams: Gotta be honest: I kind of loved it. If memory serves, Daemon has historically been among the more competent, less obviously inbred Targaryens. But he makes a catastrophic error in judgment by assigning an extremely sensitive task to two miscellaneous guttersnipes. (According to the Wiki, they are known in the histories as Blood and Cheese, but here they’re just guys.) Despite grieving the loss of a son, Rhaenyra has the wisdom and/or restraint to hold back for a moment, gathering both her wits and her forces before deciding on her next move. But Daemon is intent on getting an eye for an eye—or rather, as the episode’s title puts it, “A Son for a Son.” (When Aemond Targaryen is around, it's probably best to avoid the subject of eyes altogether.) So he dons his sneakiest cloak, grabs a bag of gold, and slithers into King’s Landing, where he gives Blood, a disgraced ex-cop, and Cheese, a professional rat catcher, what seems like a simple enough task: Sneak into the palace, find the blond guy with an eyepatch, and kill him.
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Simple and, as vengeance goes, pretty direct. But you get what you pay for, and a fistful of coins is not enough for a properly executed royal assassination. Daemon’s new hires are skilled enough to sneak into the palace undetected, but not savvy enough to ensure they're targeting the right person. They stumble into the room occupied by Helaena, Aegon’s wife (and also his sister), and encounter his young children. Remembering only that the blond guy with the bag of gold mentioned a son, they proceed to decapitate 6-year-old Jaehaerys as proof of a job well done.
I love both the viciousness and randomness of this act. Game of Thrones was a show about schemers and elaborate plots that often culminated in unexpected, brutal outcomes. House of the Dragon, however, focuses more on unintended consequences—the terrible things that happen when weapons of mass destruction are placed in the hands of people with a boundless sense of entitlement and insufficient genetic diversity. Daemon’s scheme is crude and rash, but it succeeds in depriving the king of his male heir and pushing the realm closer to all-out war. (The fact that a kingdom on high alert doesn’t have a single guard stationed outside the queen’s bedroom is a plot convenience on the level of “Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet,” but we’ll let it slide.) Not since Tywin Lannister was crossbowed on the commode has a royal suffered such an ignominious end. Royal blood is all well and good, but it won’t protect you from getting your throat slit by the lowest of the low.
I’m right there with you, Sam. I found the final moments of the episode really stupid at first—but after thinking it over, I realized just how narratively delicious they are. The most torturous thing about the ending, besides the gruesome nature of the acts themselves, is that it locked me into watching a show I’ve been on the fence about since it began. When Daemon hires the two sneaks to kill Aemond, Cheese asks him point-blank, “Well, what if we can’t find him?” Daemon gives a pointed look that is up to our interpretation but reads, to me, as “Find him or else.” With that bit of foreshadowing, it was almost funny watching those two bicker about who they’re supposed to kill—until it became decidedly not funny. However, Daemon possibly made an offscreen mistake (besides trusting these two), which is uttering the words “a son for a son.” If Daemon did say that to Blood and Cheese—hilarious names given the havoc they will wreak—then Daemon gets docked another point for not making it clear that the deal is for a specific son, and that son only.
I love your distinction between the two shows, a distinction that, in House of the Dragon’s case, is proven by the fact that the show seems to reach new heights with its “d’oh!” moments. What’s also interesting to me about this specific violence is that it points to the underlying commonality among nearly all of House’s players: their childish nature. The rift between Rhaenyra and Alicent started and persisted because of childish grudges. Daemon and Aemond can’t help but act impulsively, Aegon has all the motivations of a spoiled brat, and all the children vying for the throne are acting on feuds that literally started on their version of the schoolyard playground—but have since, of course, grown fatal. Every move they strive to make is undermined by their naïveté or by whoever they trust to do the dirty work for them, and the shirking of duty itself does not bode well for maturity.
At the end of the day, this is a group of people who cannot, for the life of them, get their act together, yet they want so much more and much more fiercely than any of Game of Thrones’ players did at the start. So, of course, the ball gets fumbled at the most crucial moment. Now, it’s not a war of loyalty and duty, of rules and dying wishes and prophecies, but one purely of revenge—which is even more destructive, as vengeance across generations has no clear end. But you asked a good question: Which of the two dastardly infiltrators who beheaded a toddler is the worst one? I think we have to go with Blood, who is the one of the two that actually carried out the horrific act.
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