What an incredible and heartbreaking episode of House of the Dragon. The eighth episode, "The Lord of the Tides", made us all sure this brewing civil war is more than a team sport, but a deeply personal drama with the whole civilised world at stake.
You'd have to be pretty heartless to watch unmoved Viserys walking into the throne room one last time. You can tell how amazing this show is that it makes you cheer when Daemon suddenly kills a guy who happened to be absolutely right in his claim to inheritance.
But, alas for him, his brother was quite right when he said that history remembers names and not blood. The reality of the whole system is the game of thrones, not the story of peaceful negotiations and birthright floating thinly on top of it.
You could say this show belabours a point that a monarchical dynasty is no way to run a country, that it requires so much violence and delusion to make function. But, in a world where the truth is hard to see, people do need something to believe. How could they know this isn't their best option?
I was surprised Viserys was still alive at the beginning of this episode, which takes place six years after the previous, when he was already looking pretty bad, to put it lightly.
Now he's a horror show, which makes it even more painful watching him try to make this system work that he's never had a great knack for. Watching Alicent and Rhaenyra make a fragile little peace over the table--by the way, a beautifully laid supper--was all the more powerful because it was genuine and obviously doomed. But at least the old man got one last happy supper with the family. This show about a ruthless dragon family really does render a painfully honest portrait of the human condition.
House of the Dragon is available on HBOMax.
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