Why Aemond's Big Injury In House Of The Dragon Was Satisfying For Rhaenyra
This post contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon."
Being a kid is hard, but it's even harder when you live in a medieval-inspired fantasy world and you're the only one in your incestuous family without a dragon. In the seventh episode of "House of the Dragon," titled "Driftmark," Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton) decides to take matters into his own hands. He sneaks out after dark and claims the dragon of the recently-deceased Laena Velayron, nearly falling to his death multiple times in the process.
Thrilled by his newfound success, Aemond returns to the castle and is immediately confronted by Rhaenyra and Laena's children. Could Aemond have chosen his words a bit more carefully during this argument? Probably, but we're not here to point fingers. Things get violent fast, and in the heat of the moment, Lucerys Velaryon (Harvey Sadler) ends up cutting open one of his eyes.
What followed is one of the tensest and messiest sequences of events in the entire show, as Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) finds out what happens and tries to get one Lucerys' eyes carved out as payment. Luckily for Lucerys, his grandfather Viserys (Paddy Considine) firmly takes Rhaenyra's side, leading to Alicent losing her composure and attacking Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) with a knife in front of the whole court. Most viewers firmly turned on Alicent at this point, but both D'Arcy and Cooke have taken Alicent's side.
"It's such an interesting scene, right?" said D'Arcy in an interview with Vulture. "My sympathy is fully with Alicent. On the page I was like, 'Well, she's f****** right." Cooke concurred, saying, "Alicent's being gaslit massively and she f****** explodes. In friendships or relationships, when it gets to the point where you feel you're going mad, there's no route out other than complete volcanic annihilation."
A good day for Rhaenyra
The events of "Driftmark" were tough on Alicent, but Rhaenyra came out of it all a clear winner. When she first enters the courtroom, it feels like Rhaenyra is trapped in a corner, but luckily she's got one incredibly effective strategy up her sleeve. "Rhaenyra is playing quite a basic game," Emma D'Arcy explained. "Lie hard, do not back down, and weaponize this word 'treason.'"
Rhaenyra isn't really trying to hurt anyone in this scene, but she knows that from Viserys' perspective, Aemond accusing her sons of being bastards is a far bigger deal than Lucerys cutting one of Aemond's eyes in the heat of the moment. It helps that Viserys has always loved Rhaenyra far more than he's ever loved the kids he's had with Alicent, so defending Rhaenyra's honor is always going to be his top priority.
In fact, Viserys' response in this episode, regardless of the actual outcome, is the biggest win for Rhaenyra in this episode. "She so rarely gets definitively the backing of her father," D'Arcy noted. "Early on, she loses both her best friend and her father because they get married. These moments where she gets publicly chosen, and chosen instead of [Alicent] — there's a really violent quality of vengeance for her."
Although Viserys' exact loyalties weren't always clear up until that point — he's certainly seems annoyed with Rhaenyra plenty of times — from that moment forward, it became obvious to everyone that he will always defend his first daughter no matter what. Even though he definitely knows those kids of hers aren't Velaryon, he loves her so much that he's more than happy to look past it.
Receiving Daemon's backing, too
Another satisfying aspect of this sequence for Rhaenyra is the way that her uncle-lover Daemon (Matt Smith) is also by her side. After all, Daemon has always been a shifty figure with unclear motives. He abandoned her at a brothel just a few episodes earlier, and it's always sort of seemed like he's only been interested in her for her throne. At least, Viserys has always assumed this to be the case.
But here, it's Daemon who steps in to stop Cristin Cole from cutting out Lucerys' eye, defending Rhaenrya's kids as if they were his own. It doesn't exactly disprove the argument that he's only into Rhaenyra for the pursuit of his own power, but it does show that he's willing to put his own safety on the line in order to help her out. His actions are likely a major factor in Rhaenyra's later decision to fake-kill her husband so she and Daemon can marry; after all, Daemon was there to protect her when her actual husband wasn't. In terms of ensuring Rhaenyra's future safety, Daemon's proven himself here as the smartest choice.
Rhaenyra's family goes through a lot in "Driftmark," but ultimately it's an episode where Rhaenyra receives some much-needed clarity over what she wants in life and how she's willing to get it. Now that she knows for certain that Alicent will never be an ally, that her father and Daemon will always have her back, and that blatantly lying in public is, in fact, a viable strategy, she now has a clear understanding of what to do next. She may have lost a childhood friend, but Rhaenyra gains a lot more in return.
"House of the Dragon" is streaming on HBO Max.