What happened in House Of The Dragon Episode 6, “The Princess and The Queen”, Let’s break it down in nerdy detail. After the drama of Lenor and Rhaenyra’s wedding at the end of the last episode, we have now skipped forward about 10 years. Much has changed, though much remains the same. The introductory scene here shows us immediately how the power dynamics in King’s Landing have played out over the previous decade.
10 years previous in the wake of Rhaenyra lying to her face, her father telling her that Rhaenyra would kill her children, and discovering the truth of what happened with Criston Cole, Alicent had only just started her campaign against Rhaenyra. Now it is clear that she has been continuing it for 10 years, any remaining love for her former friend has gone, and she is willing to use all her power and influence to make her case.
House Of The Dragon Episode 6 Recap
At the start of House Of The Dragon Episode 6, we are in the middle of another birthing scene, it’s turning into quite a theme in this series. The moment, the very moment that Rhaenyra’s new son Joffrey is born (this is her third Son by this point) Queen Alicent demands to see him, before the afterbirth and the umbilical cord have even been cut (this is cruel). One of the few things Rhaenyra can do to stand her ground is to make it painfully obvious to everyone what Alicent is doing, forcing her to walk through Court while clearly in no condition, leaving a trail of her own blood.
To be clear from Alicent’s perspective and lots of other people’s, Rhaenyra’s children do not look like their father, they are clearly bastards but they will inherit the throne one day. The biting line to Rhaenyra’s husband “do keep trying Ser Laenor, soon or late you may get one that looks like you” comes straight from the book. Alicent is clearly exasperated that no one seems to be willing to acknowledge what everyone can see. But other than an outright public accusation what can she do? With her father gone she has few supporters in King’s Landing.
Viserys is still sticking with his choice of heir and clearly loves all these grandchildren being produced. His willful ignoring of it all is telling he’s not blind or stupid but he knows what the implications of an allegation like that would be and as a conflict avoider he just wants to stop all talk of it. And let’s not forget for Viserys keeping the realm together is not just a matter of good politics, he thinks the fate of humanity itself rests upon it.
The time Jump has not been kind to Viserys though, he looked unwell before but now he has seemingly lost an arm, his hair is thinning and he finds it hard to stand for any length of time. This deterioration is important, not just because it makes the issue of succession more real but because increasingly he is becoming reliant on those around him to rule and make decisions. It’s noticeable that on a couple of occasions this episode Alicent speaks for him, in front of him and he lets her get away with it. He’s becoming a weaker ruler every episode.
The Situation Is Still The Same
In summary, the situation regarding the succession is actually still the same, Rhaenyra is still heir and Viserys is not changing his mind but things are starting to look untenable in the longer term. Viserys is getting sicker, Rhaenyra’s children’s Non-Targaryen looks are becoming more and more obvious by the year and Laenor’s insistence that the new child be called Joffrey, after Joffrey Lonmouth is dead lover, is just the icing on the cake.
Alicent is growing more frustrated, and exasperated and is just being encouraged by Criston Cole, her new most loyal servant. And talking of Criston Cole we last saw him pummeling Joffrey Lonmouth, Laenor’s lover, to death in front of dozens of witnesses. It’s clear that he has now fully swapped his support for Rhaenyra to Alicent and for him, this is now personal, he hates Rhaenyra.
Behind the scenes it does seem that somehow Rhaenyra has managed to build a loving home for her children, their real father is Harwin Strong, who we last saw rescuing Rhaenyra from that brawl at the Wedding Feast. He’s now commander of the city watch and seems to be able to spend quite a bit of time with Rhaenyra and the children. The relationship with Laenor seems positive if quite distant, they had an agreement before they married and both have stuck to it.
The Children
At which point let’s talk about the children, these children will grow to be some of the most important characters in the conflict to come, so let’s see whom we have here. First Alicent’s children, we have Aegon the eldest who is immediately presented as a bully, entitled, and quite reminiscent of Joffrey Baratheon much later.
Interestingly the showrunner has been very clear that he wants Aegon’s character to be more nuanced than that. In another environment, he might have grown up to be a good man but his mother is clearly filling him with dark thoughts and it has to be said her parenting style of completely ignoring what he was doing in that castle window in order to shout in his face about being friends with his cousins, leaves a bit to be desired.
Aemond, Alicent’s second son, doesn’t come across particularly well here either. He alone of the older children doesn’t have a dragon yet, which will be a plot point later. Helaena, the third child seems quieter, though book readers will know that her line about how Aemond will eventually get a dragon seems quite prophetic, eerily so, not that anyone pays attention. Might the show be setting her up to be the next Targaryen dreamer? It seems likely.
The Strong boys, Jacaerys and Lucerys, are less defined here as they are both a bit younger, will get more on them soon I’m sure. But what is interesting is how even if they seem to be getting on not too badly as cousins, they are already being used as a proxy for others to work through their emotions, for example that sword training scene.
Criston clearly uses the moment to bait Harwin Strong and Harwin doesn’t hold back in beating Criston for the accusation, but it’s a wake-up call for Rhaenyra. Harwin as good as acknowledged the rumor in sight of the king and his own father.
Lyonel Wants To Resign
Lyonel, who has been the hand of the king for the whole 10-year time jump and we have to say has been probably the most sensible and fair-minded courtier of the entire show, reprimands his son in private. Harwin and Rhaenyra’s relationship isn’t just something for them to be concerned about, I mean perhaps it should be but it definitely isn’t in this world. If it gets exposed the entirety of House Strong will be damned. The only thing preventing that is Viserys’ willingness to look the other way.
Rhaenyra overhears that conversation, then her husband Laenor comes to her and says he wants to head away. Rhaenyra is forced to command him to stay, even her professional relationship with him is starting to break down. She has to find a solution because if it carries on like this it could all come crashing down around her ears very easily.
The solution she offers by marrying her eldest son to Alicent’s daughter Helaena and throwing a few dragon eggs into the mix is actually a very sensible one. But Alicent basically just rejects it, taking Viserys out of the situation before he could say anything more. Much might have been avoided if that idea had actually been pursued.
Rhaenyra wasn’t the only one who realized that the situation at court was untenable, Lyonel Strong offers to resign over the matter and tries to give Dark Rumors as his reason Viserys presses him on this “name the rumors”, but Lyonel will not. This is a clear contrast to the previous hand Otto who had heard Dark Rumors about Rhaenyra and was all too happy to spell them out to Viserys.
Viserys then decided to sack Otto for his conflict of interest, here he refuses to accept Lyonel’s resignation. But Lyonel tries another attack, the best he can do now is take Harwin out of the situation, he begs to leave to take him back to their family seat. Viserys can hardly refuse that, Alison storms out. Harwin is going to get away with it, with no real punishment.
Crazy Larys
Alicent heads to her lunch meeting with Larys, Harwin’s brother. We talked a bit last time about what might have been motivating Larys and here it seems to become a bit more obvious, ambition. In short, Alicent tells him that she wishes her father were still the king’s hand because then she would have allies and asks, “Is there no one who will take my side?” as she vents to him about what happened.
This has real-world resonances of Henry II of England, rhetorically saying will no one rid me of this troublesome priest, about the then Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas a Beckett, which was interpreted by some Knights as an invitation to murder the bishop to get the king’s favor, though technically the king never asked for it. The twist here is that Alicent it seems clear actually didn’t think she was telling Larys to do anything, but he does.
He frees some condemned men from The Dungeons, cuts out their tongues so they can’t tell on him, and gets them to set a fire in Harrenhal killing Lyonel and Harwin. This is brutal, arranging the murder of his own father and brother in return for a hoped-for and unspecified reward from the Queen. Yes, it achieves what she wanted, expecting Otto to return soon, but this was not what she had been hinting at in that conversation, Larys is clearly very very dangerous.
Just before we move on Larys’s approach to cutting the tongues out of his cronies is straight out of Varys’s Playbook and Eurons in the books. In an age where few can read or write it is a way of ensuring someone’s silence and the Bee symbol he uses here is interesting too.
It’s not the House Strong sigil, so like Littlefinger says “he has invented his own sign” and I do wonder whether it is a deliberate nodge to the flowers he keeps smelling. A couple of episodes ago he compares Alicent to a foreign flower in a garden, out of place in the Targaryen King’s Landing. Is he as the bee trying to put himself in a position to allow her to thrive there?
One other development happens in King’s Landing as Harwin leaves Jacaerys, the eldest son, and asks if Harwin is his father. Rhaenyra fobs him off with a line about him being a Targaryen and that’s all that matters, but if even her children have now heard the rumors and with her lover now banished from court, she decides she needs to get out of the toxic atmosphere. They head back to Dragonstone, Laenor with his lover a part of the group. Her language is increasingly becoming accepting of War, “will need all the swords we can get”.
Daemon And Laena
But of course, Daemon Targaryen’s shadow still hangs over proceedings, even in his absence from Westeros. Over the narrow sea Daemon and Laena Velarion, Laenor’s sister, now married with two children are in Pentos. It seems that they’ve been living an itinerant lifestyle, but now Daemon seems happy to settle down. He’s had enough of the endless politics and drama of the Seven Kingdoms. Yes people here want to use him and his dragons but it’s a transaction it’s not personal.
Laena is less keen, she doesn’t want to settle down, she wants to see her family again back on Driftmark and keep traveling. Laena doesn’t get huge amounts of screen time in this series, but she is quite a character. She now rides Vegar, the oldest and most powerful of all the dragons alive. You may remember her as a young child several episodes ago asking where Vegar was, she clearly found her and claimed her. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more.
There’s another traumatic childbirth scene and again we’re invited to make comparisons with similar scenes elsewhere in the show. Daemon is presented with the same decision Viserys was given back in episode one, they could try to save the child but that would mean killing the mother. Laena does not want to die like that and Daemon chooses differently from Viserys. In fact, to be more accurate, Laena heard the diagnosis and chooses it for herself.
Laena choosing instead to have Vegar kill her by fire is heartbreaking, but very much in keeping with her character. As I said it’s a shame we didn’t see more of her, but she has left us with two daughters who will both have a role to play later.
So things are now getting set for the next phase in the march to the Dance of the Dragons. King’s Landing will be increasingly on team Allison after this, Otto will return, Larys is an increasingly dangerous ally and Rhaenyra and her family have moved to Dragonstone. The only voices now whispering and Viscerys’s ear will be those supportive of Aegon’s claim. Viserys’ health is failing Rhaenyra’s lover is dead and so is Daemon’s wife, surely they’re strong but the weird connection will rekindle soon, and what about the Velarians, they still can’t be ignored. The drum beats of War are growing louder by the episode.
Also Read: How House Of The Dragons Is Learning From Game Of Thrones Mistakes
