I just finished watching season 3, episode 1 of House of the Dragon, and wow, what a way to start the new season.

So Jace is dead. I’ll start there, because that’s actually the last thing I wanted to see happen.

Knowing Lucerys died at the end of season 2 made me want to hold onto hope that Jace was going to be around alive for the long haul as Rhaenyra’s living son, who was old enough to be part of the story in a meaningful way.

But this episode closed out with Jace getting shot down with arrows after his dragon drowned to death.

Watching dragons die actually really bothers me and messes with my spirit.

Jace’s dragon was named Vermax, and watching him get shot down and drowned in the ocean literally devastated me and broke my heart.

I hate watching dragons die. They remind me of puppies. I know that sounds kind of crazy to say.

But this loss definitely hit me hard, reminding me of when we lost Robb Stark in Game of Thrones.

Robb represented hope as Ned Stark’s living son, who was diplomatic, charismatic, and super capable.

And I saw a lot of that energy in Jace, so losing Jace in this episode really bothers me a lot.

I know Rhaenyra has other kids. She actually has four other children.

But she was super close to Luke and Jace, so I’m curious to see what her reaction will be to finding out that Jace didn’t make it.

Coupled with the fact that Rhaenyra was super excited to fly her dragon onto the battlefield, but her son Jace made sure she’d be locked up for her own safety, which felt like overstepping for sure—but I get it.

I get that he wanted to protect his mother, but in doing that, he lost his own life.

I feel like this is going to turn her into a more ruthless and reckless individual who is 100% out for blood at this point.

Which leads me to my thoughts on Rhaenyra in this episode.

She was right to trust Alicent the whole time because Alicent really did have a change of heart, but she most definitely would have been riding her dragon into a problematic situation since Aegon dipped and Aemond stayed in King’s Landing.

I feel like this episode revealed Rhaenyra’s deepest desires and motivations of wanting to be taken seriously, respected, and revered.

She literally said something along the lines of, “I know I’m seen as a woman in a feeble and weak body, but I have the power and mentality of a king inside me.”

She said something along those lines.

And you could tell she was struggling internally with the fact that she was born a woman instead of a man.

Just the realization that sexism was always going to plague her.

The realization that no matter how much effort she puts forth, people will only ever see her as a woman.

And I know that is extremely frustrating for her because in my opinion, I think she would switch genders if it were up to her.

I think if it were her choice, she would have rather been born a man because the lack of respect she deals with has been insane since childhood.

Her own dad took forever before finally understanding she COULD be his rightful heir when she was a teenage girl, and you know that definitely psychologically damaged her.

When Jace made sure she was locked up in her bedroom, she was locked in there with Mysaria and one other servant girl.

I was hoping there would be an interesting moment between her and Mysaria based on their romantic connection from last season, but obviously that wasn’t possible because there was another servant girl locked in the room with them.

But one thing I do know for sure is I really liked seeing the relationship development between Rhaenyra and Mysaria because I feel they have a romantic connection that really suits Rhaenyra.

I love the hot and heavy toxicity between Rhaenyra and Daemon, of course, but there’s something more vulnerable and emotional about her connection with Mysaria.

Moving on to Alicent.

Alicent is scared of Aemond, and she secretly switched her loyalty to Rhaenyra, which I was happy to see because I feel it gives them a chance to lean back into the friendship they once had when they were younger.

They went through so much rage and trauma in their adulthood, especially when it came to their kids.

Like the moment Aemond lost his eye while play-fighting with Jace.

As two moms going into protective mode over their kids, they obviously took personal offense when they saw their boys beefing with each other.

It frustrates me that Alicent’s children exist in the first place.

I really like Helaena, but Aegon and Aemond are both the worst.

And they literally wouldn’t exist if Viserys didn’t feel the need to marry Alicent while she was still a young teenager and push the narrative of having sons so badly.

He should have just made peace with Rhaenyra being the heir to his throne.

Then none of Alicent’s kids would even be a factor right now.

But because of the sexist nature of royal legacies, Viserys did what he did.

I finally started liking Alicent again after seeing her change her loyalty to support Rhaenyra, because for a stretch there, Alicent was really pissing me off.

It was hard for me to empathize with her for the majority of the first two seasons, although I do have a soft spot for her, knowing her dad pushed her to seduce the king for his own political gain, and that’s not something she would have considered doing on her own if it weren’t for her father’s influence.

I never read the books this show is based on, so I actually don’t know what’s coming next.

I’m watching this and enjoying it as a first-time viewer without previous knowledge of the written text.

So I have some hope that the friendship connection between Rhaenyra and Alicent will actually go to a good place, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking because their greatest downfall is their inability to have quick communication with each other.

Things change so massively and rapidly, and getting messages sent to each other in time doesn’t always happen.

And that’s where some of their issues stem from.

Moving on to Rhaena.

Rhaena finally got her dragon.

Happy for her because I know she was on such a rough mission to make that happen.

But I also hate that she sort of caused chaos when she flew her dragon toward Baela and Jace.

I was initially excited she was headed their way because I thought she was going to be helpful, but she kind of just made the situation worse because she doesn’t have control over her dragon yet.

Her dragon is still wild.

The fact that she wasn’t given a dragon to raise domestically wasn’t her fault.

She deserved to grow up with a dragon of her own this entire time.

Since no one was willing to grant her that request, she had to go out on her own to bond with a wild dragon because the desire was so heavy on her heart, probably shouting at her internally and making her feel incomplete without being an official dragon rider.

Anyone who’s ever experienced having a deep and burning passion for something—something you constantly think about that feels impossible to let go of—should understand exactly her perspective and where she’s coming from.

She had to go out on her own to make her dreams of being a dragon rider come true.

However, the problem is that it’s going to take her time to tame her dragon and make sure it actually obeys her properly.

And in this episode, what we’ve seen is that she doesn’t have control over her dragon.

And her presence actually indirectly led to some of the chaos and confusion that ultimately led to Jace’s death.

I’m not trying to blame her at all, but indirectly, she was part of the problem.

I love the storyline of Corlys’s bastard sons, Addam and Alyn.

Both of his sons are two of my favorite characters.

Alyn killed Lohar in this episode, which was a relief to see because she had a personal vendetta against Corlys.

For her, it felt very personal.

In the episode, her exact quote is:

“Do you think I sailed across the Narrow Sea to win your king’s war for him? The Sea Snake led the persecution and slaughter of my mates for more than 20 years.”

So for her, she wanted to avenge the deaths of many of her friends across the last two decades by taking Corlys down.

Alyn was the one to take her down, though, and as of now, Corlys’s fate is kind of unknown.

Unless I missed it, and his actual death is 100% confirmed.

Because what I saw is that he fell overboard into the water.

But that doesn’t mean he’s officially dead.

So I guess we’ll have to wait until the next episode to find out if he is really dead.

But anyway, seeing the mutual respect between Corlys and Alyn was nice to see.

I love that Alyn called Corlys out for failing to give him a name since Alyn was raised as a bastard without any royal protection.

Corlys deserved to get called out for that because it was pretty unfair and messed up how he went about fathering children outside of marriage over the years.

But still, they were able to get to a place of mutual respect with each other, which I’m sure Alyn appreciated having in his adulthood, even though his childhood was clearly a lot more difficult.

And as far as Addam goes, Addam is probably my favorite character on the show entirely because he really reminds me of my younger brother.

More than anything, he cares about respecting orders from the queen, and he proved that in this episode.

His entire arc, watching him become a dragon rider, has been the best.

I sincerely hope we see him live through the entire season.

Moving on to Baela.

She is one of the strongest dragon riders on the show, so I felt confident in her abilities out in battle, but it sucks that she wasn’t able to save Jace and his dragon.

The second they started going down, I had a bad feeling.

She’s going to deal with some amount of guilt over the whole situation, even though it wasn’t her fault.

Jace is the man she has been deeply in love with since earlier in the show, and they had plans to eventually get married once they got older.

So the fact that he’s dead is definitely devastating for her.

I’m sure we’ll see her heartbreak and reaction in the next episode.

Something I noticed about a lot of couples in House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones is that many of their relationships aren’t based around love and attraction.

A lot of the marriages are arranged marriages for political reasons.

Like Corlys and Rhaenys, for example.

They had an arranged marriage that eventually ended with shared mutual respect for each other, but they weren’t initially with each other based on love and attraction.

Which is why he ended up fathering bastard children through affairs with other women.

Baela and Jace would have actually had a marriage based on love and attraction, which is a little rarer if you think about it.

So it definitely makes me sad for her that she’s never going to have that happily-ever-after moment with Jace despite her love for him.

Moving on to Daemon.

This episode showed Daemon in battle, effortlessly handling business with his loyalty still being for Rhaenyra.

He’s been hot and cold and unpredictable over the last two seasons, but based on the first episode of season three, his loyalty to Rhaenyra lives on.

She went from being his niece to the girl he seduced inside a brothel to his wife and the mother of three of his children.

His heart is with her.

And I like seeing him ride for her, so I just hope his loyalty to her remains the same since he does have a reputation for being so unpredictable and so hot and cold.

Lastly, my thoughts on Criston in this episode.

I literally hate him.

I can’t stand him. He is a loser with incel energy who never got over his ex-girlfriend.

He literally harbors resentment and rage against Rhaenyra over their one-night stand.

When he found out one of the men on his squad violated a village girl, he had zero reaction or empathy for her.

It just reminded me of how much I hate him because I quite literally hate him.

Anyway, I am excited to see what the rest of this season has in store.