Home of the Dragon’s ninth episode was on the more silent and contemplative facet, ideal right up until it wasn’t. After Viserys’ dying, a castle lockdown, and the coronation of a new king, there ended up certain to be a couple of dissenting voices, and the loudest between them was Rhaenys Targaryen, the most recent Westerosian to declare her loyalties to Princess Rhaenyra and the Blacks.
But although the commitment of Rhaenys’ theatrical entrance to the new king’s coronation are not really hard to overlook, the motives guiding her cautiously overwhelming exit may possibly be. Even though she experienced the probability to make a fiery escape and finish a couple of conflicts in a flash, Rhaenys also knew that the fate of Westeros isn’t as uncomplicated as a handful of burned bodies.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon episode 9.]
King Aegon II’s reign began with a fewer than auspicious minute as, at the incredibly height of his praise from the people of King’s Landing, Rhaenys Targaryen smashed by the domed roof with her dragon Meleys, absolutely crushing dozens of peasants. Meleys then approached the stage that held the royal family members to stand menacingly in front of Aegon and the rest of them. Recreation of Thrones followers could expect the scene to conclude in swift death, but Rhaenys and her dragon basically leave rather than roasting the full get together. There’s a notable cause for the restraint.
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Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO
The major of these explanations is functional: An overall auditorium of men and women was cheering for the freshly crowned King, and murdering him and his host there would be regicide, no matter who the rightful or supposed heir really was. Confident, Rhaenyra could have stepped into the electrical power vacuum, but The Realm’s Delight would have instantaneously been witnessed as a terror, and the Queen Who Under no circumstances Was as a murderous accomplice devoid of even a shred of honor.
With a single act, Rhaenys would have thrown the whole Targaryen dynasty into a minute of profound weakness over the continent they rule. And an act of outright violence and treason could have sent King’s Landing (not to point out the relaxation of Westeros) into whole chaos. This form of conflict is why wars are fought, and winning is only supposed to be worth it if what you’re battling for is nevertheless all over when you’re the past just one standing.
Apart from the political ramifications of roasting the royal household, there’s also an similarly solid superstitious explanation Rhaenys didn’t kill Aegon: kinslaying. In accordance to Westerosi tradition, no a single is as cursed as a kinslayer, meaning that those who destroy members of their individual loved ones are typically beset by horrible tragedies and imagined of as monsters.
When the entire Targaryen civil war does crack out, kinslaying will be a almost unavoidable aspect effect, but for Rhaenys, it is achievable that the concept of killing so many of her possess family members, in these a quick time, in front of 1000’s of onlookers, was only way too a great deal to bear. When the eventual loss of life and outcomes of letting absolutely everyone are living might look noticeable, a simple act like this proves that Westeros’ traditions have not all fallen away just however, no subject who sits the throne — at the very least for now.
Even if we really do not know the correct causes for her momentary mercy, it is obvious that Rhaenys’ actions throughout Aegon II’s coronation had been a signal of defiance against the new crown and the perceived treason that Queen Alicent, her father, and her small children have committed. Even if no customers of the royal family died, Rhaenys’ slight (and her probable murder of numerous King’s Landing citizens) are the 1st true photographs of the Dance of the Dragons and the broader war to appear.