I just finished watching season 3 episode 3 of House the Dragon, and I have a lot of thoughts. Starting with Rhaenyra Targaryen, who clearly was going through somewhat of a mental break in this episode.
The amount of stress and pressure she was under was causing her to go through some sort of psychosis. The music, the scurrying rats, the hallucinations of her son, Jace…
This episode made it abundantly clear that her mental health is in pure and utter chaos.
The end of the episode revealed that Ormond and his soldiers had infiltrated the area where the common folk lived, and she had recently connected with them by distributing food to gain their trust and loyalty.
The common folk look to her for protection, so the question is whether or not she’s willing to kill the common folk among Ormond and his soldiers to ensure she actually kills Ormond and his soldiers.
She’s obviously pissed at Ormond right now after realizing he lied to her about Daeron, but I thought her reaction to uncovering that lie was definitely interesting. She would’ve never discovered that he lied about Daeron if Alicent hadn’t asked to see the boy for herself. Rhaenyra was acting a bit shocked that she had been deceived, but she’s clearly in over her head in so many different areas, including this one.
I am really irritated by Rhaenyra right now for her unwillingness to legitimize Alyn and Addam. It actually really pisses me off and makes me angry. Corlys has been so loving and loyal towards her this entire time, and his one request was that she legitimize his two bastard sons, but she won’t do it because she’s concerned with reputation and optics. She cares more about how people will perceive her than about doing what’s right. And as much as I want to support Rhaenyra, I’m never going to be a true Rhaenyra apologist, because sometimes she does stupid things I simply can’t support. And this is one of them.
Alyn and Addam have been through the wringer. They were raised as bastards, and they had to claw their way out of impoverished situations to do better for themselves. The least that can be done for them is the honor of their namesake. And since Rhaenyra has a history of giving birth to illegitimate babies, she cares more about not drawing any attention to that topic than doing what’s right. It made my respect for her drop quite a bit in this episode, if I’m being honest.
Leave a Reply