Any psychologist will explain that traumatic events in childhood forever mark each person’s personality, regardless of social caste: whether elite or common people. Everything we experience during this period determines our entire relationship dynamics, and those who have suffered abuse may have difficulty trusting others, becoming insecure adults. Worse still, often even unconsciously, they can recreate dysfunctional relationship patterns that replicate the traumatic dynamics of the past. In other words: everyone from House of the Dragon. And this is what the third season highlights in all relationships, even more clearly in the third-to-last episode of the season.

Daemon’s Nightmare
Shall we get a myth out of the way? Alys Rivers is not a ghost, she is a strange woman with many powers, but of flesh and blood. In the LSD-based treatment that she is applying to Daemon, she made him intensely resolve his guilt and frustrations, leaving for last the only person she loved and who somehow wanted good: her brother, Viserys.

Daemon, as Rhaenyra later explains to Mysaria, wanted to have everything his wife-niece had: Viserys’s unconditional love. In fact, as I have analyzed several times here, it is the same problem as Alicent, who wanted to have what the princess had and it was not the Crown, but the affection and love of her parents. Rhaenyra, on the other hand – and we’ll get to that – wanted the freedom and respect reserved for men, who’s to blame?

After weeks (or months?) trapped in the hell that is Harrenhall, Daemon begs Alys to end the nightly therapeutic sessions and for help to end the soap opera and have his armies soon. Don’t say anything else, the owl/witch will solve everything, she guarantees. And she keeps her word.

From the trailer for the next episode, Daemon will still have to deal with conflict management, which is not his strong point, but after the internal journeys of his unconscious, he is more emotionally strengthened, at least I don’t doubt it.

And the men of Westeros really suffer from mommy issues: when Daemon leaves and Aemond enters, the fantasy of having sex with the maternal figure may be repeated, only in this case Alys will play the role of Alicent for the Prince Regent of the Greens.

I loved that Larys tells Aegon II that she was a woman who cursed him with clubfeet, making it clear that he knew Alys – technically his half-sister – and so didn’t even lift a finger to stop Daemon from taking the castle. He knew what awaited him. Likewise, after what he heard from Aemond, he will laugh and encourage the prince to go for a stay there too. I got the glue from the book, of course, but I NEVER underestimated Larys, and anyone who does will regret it. I love it.

Larys, the underrated
And since we’re talking about Larys, let’s get to him. After he was exchanged for Ser Criston Cole in Alicent’s privacy, Larys found her space with Aegon, but Rook’s Nest made him take a few steps back. He certainly made his attempt with Aemond, but he may have asked for a physically only eye that sees everything and everyone as if there were X-rays on what was left.

He understands his mother’s thing with Rhaenyra, with Criston Cole (in fact, EVERYONE has already noticed the romance) and obviously saw Larys’ strategy from afar, who was the one who managed to get Ser Otto fired from his role as Hand of the King by a second time. He makes it clear that he is abusive in his speech to the Master of Sighs whose revenge is immediate.

In one of the best scenes of the season and even the series to date, Larys forces a desperate Aegon to deal with the physical, moral, and psychological pain after Rooks Nest. Larys realized that the attack on the King did not come from Meleys or Rhaenys, but from Aemond. This truth ended the very brave Ser Criston Cole, who was left unconscious, but it gives Larys an advantage. He confesses to Aegon that he identifies with the King in his current form: a deformed man who will be isolated and ignored. However, being underestimated gives him the chance to plan revenge and Larys will help him, after all Aemond can kill him at any moment and therefore, even with the indescribable pain, Aegon needs to be conscious. This alliance formed without witnesses who can stop it is the deadliest in the entire House of the Dragon saga. “Who knows, knows”.

What the dialogue between Aegon and Larys also confirms is that Aemond deliberately attacked his brother to kill him and get the Crown, and he only didn’t finish the job because Ser Criston stopped him. Two doubts resolved in minutes and in Larys’ voice!

Alicent: karma doesn’t forgive
Everything Alicent has done so far is coming back in huge doses of disappointment: her children hate or ignore her, they are all crazy and sociopaths. Her lover abandoned her as soon as he was promoted, not even suspecting that she miscarried her son. There is a pervert still lurking behind her, and all the men of the Council, following Aemond’s tone, now not only despise her but humiliate her to the point of discussing marrying her to a pirate to solve the problem of the black blockade of King’s Landing. To close the session, she is “fired” by her son. It’s not easy!

What if it stopped there! Alicent can’t even pray in Peace, because she is attacked by the hungry people and barely escapes with her life from the crowd. When she returns to The Red Keep she bumps into her boyfriend and brother leaving for another battle and doesn’t even get to have a decent goodbye. Cole is on his way to Harrenhal and Aemond will only join them “when the time comes”.

Gwayne the lovers’ last conversation, even though the conversation with his sister is affectionate: he says that he was jealous of her having been chosen by her father to live in King’s Landing while he had to be alone in Oldtown, but he defends her saying that he “did the best what he can with what he had”, which seems to me to be saying that it could have been better, but once again it is one person wanting to have what the other had and concluding that no one is happy.

The importance of this conversation, however, is to highlight the son ignored in season 1, Daeron, who will be important in the next. I don’t sympathize or empathize with Alicent Hightower, I love every blow she receives: she was a terrible mother, daughter, friend, wife, Queen, and lover. A woman who only does nonsense.

Can we give up on Nettles?
The character Nettles would be essential to Daemon’s story, but apparently, House of the Dragon will cede its trajectory to Rhaena, his daughter. If it is confirmed, I am on the team that considers this an important loss.

In the book, there is a trend that argues that Nettles is Daemon’s daughter, but the most convincing one presents her as the only one who would truly tame the Rebel Prince’s heart. This relationship would bother Rhaenyra, fed by Mysaria, but we’ll see how they treat her. Still on Nettles, she would tame the wild dragon called Sheepstealer and she fights alongside Daemon. If it is indeed Rhaena, perhaps she hides her identity in some way and that is why what is reported in the book is historical “fiction” and the series will be the true story. Since Nettles didn’t appear while Ulf the White, Hugh Hammer, Alyn, and Addam of Hull did, it’s kind of obvious, but after Daeron, who knows?

Mysaria and Rhaenyra: “Rhaenaria”?
In the 1st season, many claimed that Alicent and Rhaenyra lived something more than friendship, which was denied in the 2nd, but the series decided to spice it up and bring Mysaria and Rhaenyra closer to the point where they exchanged kisses and caresses after opening their hearts to each other. In this case, “boldness” makes sense.

The two women came to an honest and hurtful understanding for Daemon, with Rhaenyra saving Mysaria’s life and giving her freedom, to be repaid in kind when the former prostitute immediately saves her back.

Since then, Mysaria has stayed in the corners, observing and gaining access to Rhaenyra, being transformed into her Master of Whispers. Mysaria establishes and executes the successful plan to send food to the inhabitants of King’s Landing, as a beneficial siege tactic that works perfectly.

The problem is that Rhaenyra continues to be put in her place, even though he is the Throne. For his wife (and Queen), he can’t do anything personally and doesn’t have the respect of the older men on the Council. Mysaria knows how to listen and talk to Rhaenyra, who is needy and isolated, sharing her sad life story to create another connection with the Queen. The two have a romantic moment that begins with a hug and turns into a cautious touch before turning into a passionate kiss, interrupted by the news that after the failed attempt to give the dragon Seasmoke to Ser Steffon Darklyn, there is a new knight riding. the beast. It is Addam, the bastard son of Ser Corlys Velaryon (but whom Rhaenyra does not know).

Earlier we saw that Addam is jealous of his older brother, Alyn, whom the Sea Serpent asked to be his quartermaster so being chosen by the dragon, and not the other way around, is very important. And Rhaenyra will confront him to find out whose side he is on. Do we start to see paranoid Rhaenyra?

Then…
It was a great episode and one with a sense of anticipatory nostalgia. We saw foreshadows of the fates of Aegon III and Viserys II, with the mention of the ship that will take them to Pentos, which makes my heart ache. Everyone shouted that the dragon was very baby, but we had to see how they would solve it.

I just think the grief in House of the Dragon is non-existent on both sides. I understand that the Greens don’t care about Viserys, but Helaena seems to be her “normal” self even though she witnessed the decapitation of her firstborn. Including saying that she can’t compare to the smallfolk mothers. I don’t agree with her…

And Rhaenyra? That she miscarried a daughter, lost a grown son, was usurped, lost her father, doesn’t know where her husband is, and keeps thinking about people’s hunger and how to be a silly Queen? No surprise Rhaenys’ death was just a fluke. Not even Corlys looks devastated anymore… If Cersei had been around she would have already blown everyone up (with green fire). Burn them all!

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