The first episode of the second season of House of the Dragon has finally been released, marking the most recent adaptation of George RR Martin’s literary universe and serving as a prequel to the events of Game of Thrones.
This note is intended to explain one of the key scenes of this episode, or rather, more than explain it – we want to compare the events described in the book and what appears in the series. Because if you think what you saw on the screen was strong, the book is worse. WORSE!
So if you haven’t seen it yet, do so right now and come back to read us. If you’ve already seen it, this is the right place… or not. The scene we are referring to is that starring Queen Helaena Targaryen, sister and wife of King Aegon, and mother of his three children.
Do you already know which one? Before telling you about that episode in the book, we first have to do a very brief summary of where the first season of House of the Dragon ends and how this chapter and the scene in question develop.
Brief summary of the first season of House of the Dragon:
King Viserys I Targaryen decides that his first daughter, Rhaenyra, will be the heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms. A complicated decision, since in this way she will become the first woman to lead Westeros. Most Houses on the continent support the decision while others do so reluctantly.
However, a few years after Viserys assigns Rhaenyra as the heir, he takes as his wife Alicent Hightower, daughter of the Hand of the King and best friend of the princess. As a fact, in the book Alicent is much older than Rhaenyra and they are not friends. But we like the drama raised in the series.
What is this scene like in the book Fire & Blood? SPOILERS:
As we tell them, the scene is horrible. But in the book, the murderers are even more cruel and play with Helaena and the children. We find this part in the book Fire & Blood and the events are narrated by Mushroom, a dwarf and court jester of Viserys I, Aegon II, Rhaenyra, and Aegon III.
Daemon sends a raven from Harrenhal towards Dragonstone to say that Lucerys’ death will have retaliation: “An eye for an eye, a son for a son”. Among his allies in King’s Landing and Flea Bed, there are two characters whose “names have been lost to history“, but that they recognize as Blood and Cheese. The first is a huge and brutal guy. We are told that he was expelled from the Golden Cloaks after beating a prostitute to death while drunk. The second is a rat catcher who works in the Red Keep and knows the place better than the shape of your penis. Cheese knows how to navigate the tunnels that King Maegor the Cruel ordered to be built.
Without being seen by the guards, Cheese takes Blood through a forgotten passage and into the heart of the castle. They arrive at the Tower of the Hand where not only Otto resides, but Alicent one floor below (after Viserys’s death, Alicent abandons Maegor’s Hold for Aegon and Helaena to take.)
Blood and Cheese meet Alicent. Cheese ties her up while Blood kills her maid. They wait for the arrival of Queen Helaena, as it was her custom to taking their children Jaehaerys, Jaehaera (six years old) and Maelor (two years old), to see their grandmother before going to sleep.
Helaena enters her mother’s room and encounters Blood, who kills her guard. “If you scream, you die”, He tells. Cheese takes Maelor and presents himself to the queen as a debt collector. “An eye for an eye, son for son. We want the one who equalizes things. We won’t hurt the rest of you. Which one do you want to lose, his Majesty?” They ask Helaena.
The queen tells them to kill her instead of one of her sons. “A wife is not a child. She has to be one of the children” Blood tells him. Cheese tells the queen to hurry because Blood might lose his temper and rape Princess Jaehaera. “Choose one or we will kill them all”.