This post contains major spoilers for House of the Dragon season three, episode eight. If you want to avoid them for now you can instead check out our coverage of episode seven.
Alys Rivers has long been one of Blood and Fire’s most fascinating figures. Self-taught medicine woman? Woods witch? Greenseer? Enchanting servant with a knack for trickery and wooing Targaryen princes? Dark sorceress? In House of the Dragon‘s season three finale, we learned she is somehow all of that and so much more. She’s an immortal woman more than 150 years old who is also cursed to remain in the Riverlands for trying to cheat death. She tried to use very old magic to save her son from Aegon the Conqueror’s dragonflame.
While that makes her fascinating enough on her own, Alys’ relationship with Aemond One-Eye also suggests she will also play a role in saving the world of men. There’s reason to believe one of the most important players in the Game of Thrones is her son.
Who Was Alys Rivers Before Aegon the Conqueror Came to Westeros?
Alys Rivers has been a mysterious character since she first arrived in House of the Dragon to tell Daemon he will die at Harrenhal. Part de facto maester, part possible witch, and entirely unknowable, the “bastard” woman of Harrenhal has somehow been aware of events that should have been impossible to know. That included things that hadn’t happened yet. She also knew the castle, its grounds, and its history intimately. And she helped Daemon see the vision of the prophecy of Ice and Fire, one she also knows about, via the castle’s sacred weirwood tree.
You don’t have to be highborn to be a greenseer capable of seeing the past, present, and future through weirwood trees. But during season three, Alys also said she is cursed, and it did not seem to be knowledge that made her say that. In the finale, we found out exactly what she meant when she told Aemond why she’s so alone.
Her curse began roughly 130 years prior when Aegon the Conqueror burned Harrenhal and with it the last King of the Isles and the Rivers. The cruel ruler who built the Realm’s largest castle with torture and the wood of sacred weirwoods was Harren the Black of House Hoare. Aegon also killed all of Harren’s sons, ending the line of Harren entirely… but not right away. One of Harren’s sons survived for a little while after Aegon’s dragon burned him. Alys did everything she could to save the boy because it was her child. She was Harren’s wife and Harrenhal her home. Here’s what she told Aemond about her past:
When the dragon Balerion burned this place, it was to end Lord Harren’s line. But his line was not so easily ended. A child, a boy, lived on. Burned terribly, but alive. His mother would have given anything to save him. She summoned maesters from across the Seven Kingdoms, but to no avail. So, she turned to older cures. She uncovered incantations more ancient than the land. She treated with things that lived in the forest. But none of it could unmake what dragon fire made. And when the boy was gone……she…she tried to go with him.
And that is when she learned the cost. She discovered then she was cursed to live on, to remain within the bounds of the river kings of old, cursed for sharing in Harren’s avarice. Stripped of her name, her title, her castle. And sentenced to serve every ha’penny lord who came here to rule it.
The history of the Riverlands long predates the arrival of the First Men. When they moved into the region,
they warred with the Children of the Forest, whose own history in Westeros is much older than anyone will ever know.
When the First Men and the Children agreed to The Pact that ended their war, they did so at the God’s Eye lake. It sits near Harrenhal. The island in the middle of the God’s Eye where they signed it, the Isle of Faces, is full of weirwoods. The sacred order created to protect the Isle and its trees are known as the Green Men. They have lived there for thousands and thousands of years. Those strange little men with antlers have also kept eye on Harrenhal’s woods on House of the Dragon.
Read more about one of the most fascinating and important places in all of A Song of Ice and Fire with our History of Thrones: Gods Eye and the Isle of Faces.
The “incantations more ancient than the land” and the “things that lived in the forest” Alys treated with sound like the Green Men, the ageless Children of the Forest, and the deep lost magic that predates the arrival of men. But even those ancient powers weren’t enough to undo what dragon fire had done, and Alys lost her son. Only then—just as Daenerys will one day learn the price of trying to save her dying husband Khal Drogo with dark magic—did Alys learn “the cost.”
Her hubris in trying to cheat death meant she couldn’t die, and despite being at least 150 years old she hasn’t aged since Aegon the Conqueror burned her sons. But eternal life didn’t just stop her from joining her son. Her attempts to cheat the Stranger also cost “Alys” her real name, her title, and “her castle.” Instead of being Harren’s wife (someone we know nothing about) she became Alys Rivers, an immortal with incredible powers bound to the Riverlands she cannot leave. Instead of ruling in her family’s castle, she must atone for trying to defeat death. Part of her punishment for using ancient magic that belonged to the Children of the Forest is serving every lord who comes through the cursed castle. (All of whom die.)
Alys wanted Rhaenyra to grant her Harrenhal because Alys believes it’s rightful hers. But she doesn’t want to be alone when she reclaims it. She wants Aemond to be her dragonlord and she is Lady of the Water. Even if she can’t leave, she can still rule from there. And they have the dragon eggs, and now it seems the knowledge of the magic needed to hatch them, to do exactly that.
But it might be a different kind of dragon Alys will give birth to who will carry on her legacy.
Warning: We’re going to get into some future spoilers from Fire & Blood. There is no guarantee they will happen on House of the Dragon. But just in case, if you want to avoid them entirely skip ahead.
Is One of the Most Important Figures in Westeros’ History The Offspring of Alys Rivers and Aemond Targaryen?
When Daemon saw the vision of Aegon the Conqueror’s prophecy,vd he saw a descendent of House Targaryen. He saw the Three-Eyed Raven. (He’s called the Three-Eyed Crow in the books, but we’re dealing with HBO’s Westeros, so he’s a Raven for now.)
Read more about one of the most fascinating and important places in all of A Song of Ice and Fire with our History of Thrones: Brynden Rivers, The Three-Eyed Raven of King’s Landing
Before his body was overtaken by the roots of a weirwood tree beyond the Wall, the Three-Eyed Raven was known as Lord Brynden Rivers, also called Bloodraven. Brynden Rivers was a Great Bastard of House Targaryen who remained loyal to the crown during the family’s second civil war. He served as Hand to multiple Kings and went on to become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Many also believed him to be a dark sorcerer who knew things he shouldn’t. That was partly true because he was a greenseer who could also disguise himself with magic.
He also far outlived his mortal life, living long enough to train Bran Stark so he could help stop the Night King. The albino Bloodraven also lost an eye to a family member and wielded the Targaryen ancestral sword Dark Sister, which currently belongs to the man who might actually be his father.
Now that we know Alys Rivers’ past, everything we know about Brynden Rivers—who developed a sacred bond with the Children—makes him sound like the child of Alys and Aemond. At the very least, he sounds like their direct descendent. His mother was a woman of the Riverlands, but she spent many years in King’s Landing where Brynden was born. Or was he? Was the baby swapped out? Did Alys learn how to leave her cursed chains, take on the form of a Blackwood woman, and head to King’s Landing?
There are many specifics that seem to make it impossible for her to be Brynden’s actual mother. But not really. When you’re dealing with ancient magic, rules and logic don’t apply. Who is to say what’s possible for a baby born decades earlier to an immortal woman? And this seems even more possible since Fire & Blood tells us Alys gave birth to Aemond’s son, ruled over Harrenhal, was said to have a dragon, and then disappeared from history entirely.
What happened to the boy? What happened to Alys Rivers? We don’t know. But the Three-Eyed Raven—the man who Alys helped Daemon see in his vision—certainly does.
Aemond will one day say Alys “sees much and more.” Just as people will whisper Lord Bloodraven has a “thousand eyes and one.” They will fear his powers that let him see across time and space. They will be right about him just as Aemond was right about Alys.
Is House of the Dragon‘s Alys Rivers Revelation Canon?
Nothing on the show is canon to the books. But this revelation about Alys Rivers doesn’t conflict with the tale told in Fire & Blood. If true, it actually answers many questions raised by the in-world history. It has also raised even more about the real legacy Alys will leave behind when she is lost to history. None are bigger than the child she had with Aemond. Is it possible she bore a powerful, strange Targaryen bastard we already know? Because if she did, he sounds just like his mother and father.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post Does HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’s Alys Revelation Connect to a GOT Character? appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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