Contains spoilers for “House of the Dragon” Season 2 Episode 8
In the season finale of “House of the Dragon,” two old friends meet in the middle of a devastating, bloody war fought between family members — and the reunion takes a very unexpected turn that could set up something extremely shocking down the line.
Cloaked and downtrodden, the dowager queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) secretly makes her way to Dragonstone to meet with her childhood friend turned enemy Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), who has declared herself queen — as the eldest heir of Alicent’s late husband King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) — in direct opposition to Alicent’s son King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney). As Alicent’s Team Green wages an all-out war against Rhaenyra’s Team Black, the Hightower heiress starts to realize she might be in over her head … especially after watching Aegon get attacked and disfigured by her other child, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) in a battle that wiped out Rhaenyra’s fierce ally Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best). So why is this meeting in the finale so important? Because Alicent offers to have her own son, the king, killed in order to appease Rhaenyra.
No, really. When Alicent claims she can talk Aegon into surrendering the kingdom to Rhaenyra, the younger queen is furious, telling her that the only way the war can truly end is with Aegon’s head delivered to her door. Alicent nods, telling Rhaenyra she’ll return to King’s Landing and do what must be done so that Rhaenyra can swoop in and conquer the Westerosi capital. It’s shocking — and it doesn’t happen in the source material, George R.R. Martin’s novel “Fire & Blood.”
Alicent Hightower’s massive heel turn doesn’t take place in the source material
In “Fire & Blood,” George R.R. Martin describes the Fall of King’s Landing as … sort of anti-climactic, to be perfectly frank. It seems, from his telling, that the city was easy to conquer, especially considering that Rhaenyra has discovered and enlisted brand new dragonriders to fight atop a few of her fire-breathing beasts. He does say that Alicent tried to reason with Rhaenyra:
“Septon Eustace, a witness to what followed, tells us that Queen Alicent attempted to treat with her stepdaughter,” the text reads. “‘Let us together summon a great council, as the Old King did in days of old,’ said the Dowager Queen, ‘and lay the matter of succession before the lords of the realm.’ But Queen Rhaenyra rejected the proposal with scorn. […] ‘We both know how this council would rule.’ Then she bade her stepmother choose: yield or burn.”
After ceding the city to Rhaenyra, Alicent certainly does not offer to behead her eldest son and heir in exchange for peace — according to Martin, she does the opposite and essentially threatens Rhaenyra, making it clear that Team Green will ensure that her reign is short. “Bowing her head in defeat, Queen Alicent surrendered the keys to the castle and ordered her knights and men-at-arms to lay down their swords,” Martin’s text says. ‘”The city is yours, Princess,’ [Alicent] is reported to have said, ‘but you will not hold it long. The rats play when the cat is gone, but my son Aemond will return with fire and blood.'”
Unfortunately for Alicent and Rhaenyra, the dowager queen’s plan is doomed
The on-screen version of Alicent is clearly ready to commit the darkest possible act in order to end the war and, as she says, escape the kingdom entirely with her daughter Queen Helaena (Phia Saban) and grandchildren. As viewers learn at the end of the episode, though, Aegon has his own plan, and it involves running away from King’s Landing entirely.
Early in the season finale, Aegon is visited by Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), likely the most cunning and conniving player on Team Green, who tells the young and devastatingly injured king that they need to vacate the capital for Aegon’s safety. As Aegon points out, he’s already injured beyond repair, left impotent and broken by his brother’s attack atop his enormous dragon Vhagar, but Larys counters; if Aemond and Rhaenyra are left to fight each other without Aegon in the picture, they’ll wear each others’ armies and resources out and both falter, giving Aegon the opportunity to return and reclaim his throne as a peacemaker and rebuilder. Clearly, Aegon is swayed by this, as he and Larys are seen leaving King’s Landing in a private carriage, and most importantly, Alicent has no idea. It will, it should go without saying, be pretty hard to kill her own kid if she can’t find him first.
What does this mean for Season 3 of House of the Dragon?
The implications of Alicent’s deal with the devil — here meaning her stepdaughter — are absolutely enormous, and those implications will almost certainly be a huge part of the show’s eventual third season. Alicent offering Aegon’s head to Rhaenyra shows just how desperate she really is to stop the bloodshed between warring members of the Targaryen family, and it’s easy to understand that she wants the war to come to an end by any means necessary. Within the show’s narrative, Alicent is also visibly wary of her second-eldest son Aemond and his more violent impulses; as the acting regent in Aegon’s absence, Aemond removes his mother from the Small Council, so he also takes away any lingering power she has left. Aemond likely thinks that his mother will back him no matter what, but this move makes it quite clear that Alicent will betray both of her children if she has to in order to end the war.
The biggest question mark regarding Alicent’s intended betrayal is whether or not Aegon or Aemond will find out in Season 3, and based on the way secrets travel throughout Westeros, it feels inevitable that one or both of them will hear about it. Aegon might not be capable of fighting anymore, but Aemond is a pretty formidable warrior in Westeros, and he may want to punish his mother for her treason. Fans will have to wait and see just how this pans out for the dowager queen, but offering her kingdom to Rhaenyra certainly won’t sit well with her sons.
“House of the Dragon” is streaming on Max now.