This post contains major spoilers for House of the Dragon season three, episode four. If you want to avoid them until you watch, you can instead check out our coverage of episode three.
One of the funniest comments I ever got on a piece came almost exactly ten years ago during Game of Thrones‘ apex. In 2016 I wrote a “History of Thrones” about Rhaenyra Targaryen and what her story might tell us about the problems Cersei would face on the Iron Throne. It didn’t seem especially controversial in anyway because it wasn’t. One very angry reader did not agree. They accused me of writing Rhaenyra “propaganda.” Yes, propaganda. Propaganda about a fictional historical figure from a fantasy world. It was the best.
But while that person was wrong, in fairness they did pick up on something I never denied: my total support for Rhaenyra. The Dance of the Dragons should have never happened. King Viserys named his daughter his lawful heir. The lords of the Realm swore a sacred oath to uphold her claim. There was also no question who would make a better ruler between her and her loser half-brother Aegon.
And while Rhaenyra certainly wasn’t perfect, her greatest sins were nothing countless other highborn lords and Targaryen princes hadn’t done themselves. As a woman, she was simply held to a different standard. Besides, I didn’t back her despite her flaws. They were a big reason why I loved her. I was happy to serve as loyal bannerman to the rage-filled Queen who desperately loved her children and despised her enemies, the crown-stealing Greens.
Yeah, well, that’s all over. Just as I didn’t a decade ago, I feel no need to write Rhaenyra propaganda. The truth is still more than enough. And the truth is that House of the Dragon has done what I once thought was impossible: turn me against Rhaenyra Targaryen.
HBO’s Queen Rhaenyra has two main modes. One is crying and the other is doing the dumbest s**t in the world….which often leads to her crying. Both have long grown beyond tiresome and boring. She’s proven to be ineffective, unqualified, and she’s somehow getting worse at the job she claims she wants. Her actions are consistently not those of someone who should or even can rule the Realm. They’re certainly not the actions of anyone I’d want on the Iron Throne.
I’m not faulting Rhaenyra for mourning her children or for not hiding her feelings in general. I don’t have a problem with any of her emotions. This is not a case of “women are too emotional.” Her passion, which frequently manifested in self-destructive behavior, is the biggest reason I loved the Rhaenyra from George R.R. Martin’s history. She’s wonderfully human in all the best and worst ways the most compelling figures are.
Book Rhaenyra is impulsive and angry. She steadfastly refuses to adjust to the world as it is, much to her own detriment. She instead lives the way she wants regardless of how others will view it, both fairly and unfairly. She’s authentic, always herself, both good and bad. I don’t know how anyone could have wanted anyone else to succeed her father. I don’t know how anyone could not like her.
(I know Green loyalists reading this will be happy to explain why they very much hate her. Save your angry screeds. I promise I am very aware of all her shortcomings, mistakes, and the heinous things she did during the Dance. I’m not arguing against any of them. Rhaenyra’s failures are many, and many of them self-inflicted. I’m not even saying she would have been a good Queen. I just would have liked to see what kind of ruler the rightful heir would have become if the Greens had not murdered her children during an unjust civil war they started.)
What I am faulting Rhaenyra’s television counterpart for are the reasons she is constantly sobbing, where, and why. How many times did we see her wailing in front of others about how her small council wouldn’t listen to her? About how she wasn’t “allowed” to fight? I’m talking about how during her moment of triumph, when she claimed the Conqueror’s seat, she wept in front of the entire royal court because she had to behead Otto Hightower, the traitor who tried to steal the Iron Throne from her. She’s constantly complaining and letting her dominant emotion, sadness rather than rage, make her incapable of acting. TV Rhaenyra acts and speaks like she is a helpless bystander in her own fight. It’s not exactly inspiring.
Most of her other actions haven’t been, either. She mostly just sat around Dragonstone bemoaning her lot as though she were a helpless, delicate flower without agency. When she did act, it was to do something impossibly stupid. In season two, she snuck off to King’s Landing to secretly meet with Alicent, an act so idiotic and selfish it’s still hard to believe.
Rhaenyra put everyone she loved, along with everyone who supported her, in mortal danger. That kind of shortsighted decision-making hasn’t improved in season three. Since she claimed the Iron Throne, its gotten worse. Rather than work with King’s Landing’s highborn to help her feed the masses, she fed them rats. She turned potential allies into foes, showing a stunning lack of diplomacy.
Not that she had a plan to control the city in the first place. She took King’s Landing with no plan to feed it or keep order. Now she has her City Watch goons beating up Green supporters who write true things about her. The truth about her three oldest sons is also why her own powerful Hand doesn’t currently want to talk to speak with her. She angered Ser Corlys by refusing to legitimate his bastard children, Addam and Alyn.
Meanwhile, Rhaenyra has also done nothing to make her powerful dragonriders Ulf, Hugh, and Addam feel welcomed or wanted. She couldn’t even assign someone to find Hugh a house in a timely fashion. The Queen gave two commoners sentient nuclear bombs but won’t even promise them a castle to keep them happy. She won’t even give them names. Forget getting tough decisions right. Rhaenyra can’t even do obvious small things correctly like not be an a**hole to people she needs.
Some of these failures come straight from Martin’s history, but in Fire & Blood, her floundering as Queen followed some success. Book Rhaenyra was far more competent in ways we have never seen from HBO’s version. Book Rhaenyra was smart and competent enough to take King’s Landing on her own with little bloodshed. She didn’t need her enemy to hand her the Throne.
On the show, what was Rhaenyra’s plan if Alicent hadn’t offered her son’s head on a platter? Would she still be sitting in her room on Dragonstone crying that Lord Bartimos doubts her? That she “may appear to have the weak and feeble body of a woman” even though she may “possess the heart and spirit of a king,” a line so terrible it almost seems like a joke. Would she still be doing nothing to avenge her sons?
Fire & Blood tells us that the Dance of the Dragons “began in earnest” not with Aegon’s crowning but with the death of Lucerys high above Storm’s End. From that moment, Rhaenyra’s grief drove her rage. It guided her down a destructive path. On House of the Dragon, her grief led her nowhere until the woman who helped cause Luke’s death guided Rhaenyra to King’s Landing. And when she got there, Rhaenyra kept crying. When she finally stopped she did nothing to disprove why Otto Hightower and all of her enemies were right about her. She shouldn’t rule.
At this point I dislike show Rhaenyra so much I don’t care who sits on the Iron Throne. No one has proven themselves capable or worthy to rule. But I do care that House of the Dragon has given the world a Rhaenyra, one of my favorite tragic figures from Westeros, I can’t support.
Harsh, yes. It paints me to say any of this. But hey, at least no one will accuse me of writing propaganda about Rhaenyra this time.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He never liked Daeron so it’s fine he sold his soul for power. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Has Turned Me Against Rhaenyra appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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