Entertainment
‘House of the Dragon’ Is Finally Doing Justice to Its Two Best Characters
Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 3.For two seasons, House of the Dragon has positioned Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) as the series’ main romantic dynamic. Within the taboo context of their House, they’re made for each other: cut from the same elemental cloth, and just contradictory enough to be complementary. Yet twin flames destined to burn together can either fuse into a strengthened inferno or overpower and extinguish their closest ally. After hungrily circling each other during Season 1’s first half, when Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) was young, D’Arcy and Smith’s intense chemistry suggests their characters enjoyed a happy marriage offscreen after getting married.
However, the combined pressures of war, traumatic grief, and unresolved animosities swiftly fracture that harmony, until Daemon and Rhaenyra spend Season 2 separated by an emotional chasm as vast as their physical distance. Now, in Season 3, House of the Dragon gives us the payoff the Black Queen and her King Consort deserve as two halves of a unified whole.
Daemon’s Actions Back Up His Vow in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3
Rhaenyra grapples with her lingering insecurities throughout Season 2, but it’s Daemon who must be forced into a corner and psychologically shattered before he can reconcile with the vicious consequences of his impulsivity, let alone his major Achilles’ heel — how deeply he both resents his family’s judgment and craves their respect. Armed with stakes far bigger than a wounded ego or a guilty conscience, Season 3’s opening three episodes see Daemon putting his vow to serve Rhaenyra into practice.
No longer does he undermine her claim by accident or intent. With unquestionable commitment and absolute focus, he wholly supports Rhaenyra as her right hand, her loyal defender, and her obedient subject. He provides her with everything she requires — a sworn-sword, a brief laugh, a warm embrace when grief keeps her from sleeping in her father’s bedchambers — for no desire of his own, save ensuring her birthright. Daemon willingly walks in the length of her shadow, spurs her from staggering grief into decisive action, and is amply prepared to protect her until his death. And while an unconventional diplomat at best, he comprehends the political optics and hands over Otto Hightower’s (Rhys Ifans) execution — a kill the earlier Daemon would’ve seized with relish. In a rigged misogynistic game that no powerful woman can easily (if ever) win, Daemon becomes his wife’s Queenmaker.
Now, they’ll certainly continue to disagree on tactics. Their debate in Episode 3, with Rhaenyra advocating for securing King’s Landing while Daemon’s underlying predisposition for Targaryen supremacy gives him conquest eyeballs bigger than their dragons’ stomachs, proves as much. Nevertheless, they literally and figuratively move as a synchronized unit. They confer and confide, rely on and admire, make fair concessions and stand their ground with ferocious conviction. Daemon provides a stabilizing anchor and a warrior’s ruthless, countering perspective to Rhaenyra’s kinder ideals. The latter can’t survive in Westeros, no matter how much Rhaenyra resists the assertion that ruling means rescinding some of her fundamental values.
Rhaenyra and Daemon Are Their Most Unified in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3
Of course, it’s unlikely the reunited Targaryen power couple and their ascension into their healthiest, strongest, and most towering moment in the sun will last for long. Even if they avoid collapsing into direct conflict, House of the Dragon remains an inevitable tragedy. Too many forces conspire against them: Rhaenyra’s cumulative anguish, Ormund Hightower’s (James Norton) deception, tossing accelerant onto her volcanic wrath, the truth about Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) and Sheepstealer awaiting Daemon in the Vale. If Rhaenyra develops a degree of paranoia, justified or not, then Daemon may realize that protecting his daughter runs counter to carrying out his queen’s cries for vengeance. For now, at least, they’re aligned and blazing — stronger partners than ever before.
House of the Dragon
- Release Date
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August 21, 2022
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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George R.R. Martin
- Directors
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Clare Kilner, Geeta Patel
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Fabien Frankel
Ser Criston Cole
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