Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Episodes 1-9 of House of the Dragon.Inthe gripping penultimate episodeof the first season ofHouse of the Dragon, we have begun to witness the first dominos beginning to fall which will soon dash any remaining hope for peace. The death of King Viserys Targaryen, played to perfection from beginning to end byPaddy Considine, has sent a Kingdom that was already teetering on the edge of turmoil into outright chaos. A strong opening sequence with a simple yet stunning score byRamin Djawadishows the dark stillness of the castle and serves as the haunting quiet before the storm when no one has yet realized the King is dead. When it becomes clear his illness has ripped the last breath from his lungs a greater sickness starts to take hold of all that is left.
The loss of Viserys is a devastating one as he had been the sole person both giving warning of the looming threat that we all know will come inGame of Thronesand trying to cling to a fragile peace in the present moment. He had been attempting to bring his fractured family together only to, unintentionally and tragically, doom any hope for unity. A dinner had made more progress in bringing Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) closer than they had been in years. However, the troubling truth underpinning it all was that neither was fully candid with the other. Their distrust kept the other in the dark and set the stage for a misunderstanding that will bring war. Viserys,wrongly believing that he was speaking to Rhaenyra, divulges parts of Aegon the Conqueror’s dream to Alicent. She, mistakenly, interprets this to mean that her son of the same name is meant to take the throne. Despitethe King’s repeatedly clear intentions that Rhaenyra be heir to the throne, Alicent heard what it is that she wanted to hear and, not having the context of what Viserys had told Rhaenyra when both were children, arrived at a disastrous conclusion.
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A Coup Is Launched After Alicent Reveals Viserys' Final Words
When she brings to the council what she desperately believed had been communicated to her the situation immediately begins to spiral out of her control when a coup is launched. Like most of the characters, her utter obliviousness and arrogance clouded her judgment. While it was a delirious Viserys who accidentally set in motion a sequence of events that will spell death for those he loved, the greatest malady facing the realm lies in the minds of each of the major players. The inevitable death of a King need not have caused them to go for each other’s throats. They could have come together with a simple conversation to clear up past wrongs. This was not to be as something far more sinister and sweeping continues to plague all the characters: hubris. Each, in their own way, has been swept up in their own overconfidence and subsequent carelessness. This is the fatal flaw to all of them that has proved to be the most dangerous to all they hold dear. Each is the unknowing architect of their impending downfall.
Viserys was not immune from this as he, for all his attempts to redeem himselfafter sentencing his wife to death in the first episode, wrongly believed he could calm the coming storm. Yet he did not fully appreciate the gravity of what was happening. He did not act with the urgency the situation required and unwittingly has set his family against each other. For all the ways the characters believe they are using their intelligence to outwit each other, there are many more moments where they are signing their own death warrants. The show has exposed how their greatest failings lie in the ignorance that they all share. This episode, as well as the one prior to it, taps into something both infuriating and incisive in laying this bare. We can see how all it would take is one conversation between Alicent and Rhaenyra where they put aside their own egos to completely fix the misunderstanding. They could avert the coming calamity.
Without Viserys, The Conflict Between Rhaenyra and Alicent Grows
Instead, their respective isolation and distrust of the other have now created unnecessary peril that will soon plunge the entire world as they know it into open conflict. Each believes the other to be an enemy and distrusts them so thoroughly that they will ensure their families are now at greater risk than ever before. Their own inability to see the grim reality which is right in front of them makes them far more alike than either fully realizes. Every glimmer of understanding or hint that things could take a different path has been repeatedly dashed. All are standing on the edge of their own oblivion, not because of the sickness that befell Viserys. They each had years to prepare for his death and still could not bring themselves to come together. A steely stubbornness has not softened as each is ignorant of how they are pushing everyone further to the edge of a cliff. Once they have fallen there will be no coming back.
This comes to a head in the final scene where King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) is crowned. Even though he did not initially want it, we see him already become drunk with power once the role has been thrust upon him and the crowd begins cheering. There is no joy to this moment as Djawadi’s somber score once again cuts through the silence and instills everything with an overwhelming bleakness. It helps to mark the point of no return where all the cheers are undercut by what we can feel is coming. In the most immediate moment, it is a dragon who breaks through the floor, but in the longer term, there are even far greater dangers. The winged creatures that have the power to rain fire down upon the world are nothing without the imperious riders to pilot them. Armies will not march into battle without the command of cruel leaders who remain hopelessly obtuse about how they may be overstepping. Death does not pay a visit without those who falsely believe they are immune to its reach. All of these moments are how suffering takes shape and form. However, all are preceded by the painful lack of humility and suffocating sense of vanity that put them in motion. The greatest loss following the death of Viserys, even more than the deeply flawed man himself, is that any semblance of serenity is now slipping away with no one left even trying to catch it.
