This article incorporates spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 10, “The Black Queen.”
So eventually it involves this: House of the Dragon’s gradual procession towards battle lastly leads to open civil battle with the season finale. “The Black Queen” sees Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) studying about her father’s demise after which having to make the choice to battle for the throne whereas battling by a horrible untimely labor triggered by her shock on the information. Yet, like Alicent earlier than her, her needs about whether or not to move instantly into violence are fully overridden by the entire males round her.
I’m of two minds about this consequence. As a artistic work, House of the Dragon’s first season has suffered from pacing points and time jumps that always make the present really feel concurrently like a slog by infinite conversations about succession and a historical past lesson with many pages lacking. From that standpoint, the large conclusion might have occurred at any time throughout the earlier 4 or 5 episodes, and the one cause it didn’t is that the present needed to be 10 episodes lengthy. From this meta-perspective, it’s exhausting to not discover the entire thing anticlimactic, even when the episode does culminate in an explosive second that followers of George R.R. Martin’s e book sequence have been anticipating.
Within the present’s context, nevertheless, issues are a bit of extra complicated. I’ve argued all through this season (and at the very least one of many present’s writers has agreed with me) that House of the Dragon is each a present that’s in dialog with the yr 2022 and a present that’s actively engaged in deconstructing itself. From that standpoint, these 10 episodes haven’t merely been infinite conversations about who will get to take a seat on the Iron Throne in any respect, however reasonably repeated small checks alongside a protracted, darkish path that finally results in the query of whether or not to, primarily, stage a coup. The episode arrives at a political second in our personal world when understanding how these rebellions start feels much less like an summary thought train and extra like a sensible query. Yes, technically Alicent (Olivia Cooke) couped first, by putting Aegon on the throne earlier than Rhaenyra might be taught of her father’s demise and return to assert the title she’s been promised all her life. But with “The Black Queen,” the present’s focus returns as soon as extra to the query of who this battle is for and what the prices are.
The episode fixates on the person selections that result in the institution of energy, from second to second, in a approach that exhibits clearly how sexism will get reified and weaponized towards ladies, and the way particular person selections perform as tiny however essential cracks within the edifice of energy. It additionally pauses alongside the way in which to allow us to see that each option to affirm or deny the road of succession has a ripple impact, just like the surprising fallout of Alicent’s betrayal. This present is nearly procedural, in a approach, in that its concern is with incremental milestones reasonably than huge, sweeping narratives. We get these, too, however as we see on this episode, they come up from all these smaller choices — those that really feel inconsequential within the second however that may crystallize into decades-long grievances.
Rhaenyra, whereas in agony from her labor, declares that it’s Daemon’s battle, however this appears simply as willfully naive on her half as Alicent’s shock did within the earlier episode. Daemon (Matt Smith) strikes forward along with his plans to rally assist for Rhaenyra’s declare to the throne regardless of her specific directions on the contrary. Perhaps hoping to sound out Rhaenyra’s son Jace (Harry Collett) about how far he’ll be keen to disobey his mom, Daemon asks him to look at whereas he makes use of his enormous dragon Caraxes to extort loyalty from members of the King’s Guard. He’s sending Jace a transparent message about how one obtains and maintains energy. The political is at all times private, although, and thus we get a heavy-handed, grotesque cross-cut between Rhaenyra’s excruciating, graphic miscarriage and a close-up shot of the dragon’s jowls, emphasizing the muddy hyperlink between state energy and private ache.
Once once more, Rhaenyra has no time after her horrible labor to relaxation and barely any time to mourn and bury her stillborn little one; regardless of grappling together with her grief, she nonetheless appears to be contemplating her choices rigorously at the same time as Daemon barrels towards battle. When Otto (Rhys Ifans) arrives to ship peace treaty phrases, it’s Daemon who responds. Otto speaks, all too precisely, of Aegon acquiring an unearned legitimacy to the throne as a result of he has co-opted the symbols of energy. And what of the gents’s agreements uniting the clans of Westeros behind Rhaenyra, in respect to the needs of King Viserys? Otto hand-waves them away as “stale oaths.” Later within the episode, they be taught precisely how sage this statement is.
Daemon is clearly able to go to battle, and if this had been Game of Thrones, there could be no query that it wouldn’t solely be his battle: Rhaenyra has wished this an excessive amount of for too lengthy, and the stakes have simply turn into much more private. But that is House of the Dragon, and so Rhaenyra, as each she and Alicent have achieved all alongside, pauses to ask the exhausting questions: Is the throne value burning all of Westeros over? Is it value risking the lives of untrained and harmless dragons, not to mention numerous harmless individuals?
When Rhaenyra makes an attempt to current Daemon with these questions, he responds by abruptly choking her — a style of what awaits her if she hesitates for for much longer. We’re led to imagine that is the primary time he’s ever been violent together with her, given Rhaenyra’s shock, but it surely’s a second that feels inevitable reasonably than shocking. The viewers hasn’t forgotten, in spite of everything, that (as determined by co-showrunner Ryan Condal) he coldly murdered his first spouse. Daemon, whereas he places on a superb entrance, finally has at all times been violently self-serving.
The marriage between Rhaenys (Eve Best) and Corlyss Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) routinely reveals extra of a real and equal assembly of minds than any of the opposite marriages we’ve seen within the sequence; but even Corlyss acts on his personal whims and needs with out contemplating himself as one half of a partnership. Women universally wrestle on this sequence to easily be allowed to have a say in their very own destinies — Rhaenyra turns heads when she invitations Rhaenys and her granddaughters to take a seat on the battle council desk with all the lads; Rhaenys, who’s managed to wrest arguably probably the most private freedom for herself after being become a pawn as a woman, nonetheless can’t get her personal husband to see how his actions have an effect on her.
Then once more, everybody on this present has bother grappling with ripple results. Given that Rhaenyra and Alicent each spent a long time delaying the battle they’ve now arrived at, it’s hardly shocking that Rhaenyra additionally hasn’t absolutely realized how a lot of a wrestle will probably be to get the lads of the realm to honor their “stale oaths.” They’re each nonetheless making an attempt every little thing they will to delay battle — however as we’ve seen all season, the lads round them do what they need, usually resorting to violence or manipulation when their wives don’t play alongside.
What Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) needs is to lastly take his long-thirsted-for revenge towards a boy half his age, Rhaenyra’s son Luke (Elliot Grihault). He finds his alternative at House Baratheon, when Luke arrives hoping to curry a present of loyalty from a haughty Lord Borros. Instead, Lord Borros sneers at him for bringing nothing to cut price with, inadvertently giving Aemond, who arrived earlier than Luke, the chance to pursue his vendetta.
Aemond declares that he needs to take Luke’s eye in trade for the one he misplaced in episode 7. It’s unclear whether or not he actually intends to cease at Luke’s eye, but it surely appears extremely unlikely, particularly since Luke has sworn to his mom that he wouldn’t battle whereas on his mission as a messenger. But dragons have their very own wills, and as soon as Aemond engages his monumental dragon Vhagar in pursuit of tiny Arrax and Luke as they attempt to flee him, the cat-and-mouse sport simply turns deadly. Aemond appears horrified by this final result, although what he hoped to attain as a substitute by sending the largest dragon within the realm after one of many smallest is anybody’s guess.
Aemond, at the very least revealing a perspicacity most different characters on this present lack, instantly is aware of how far-reaching the results of this sport will probably be. Back at Dragonstone, Rhaenyra, studying of her son’s demise, lastly descends, psychologically, to the title that’s been awaiting her all this time: the Black Queen.
The battle is right here, and all of the gamers are lastly able to play their components.