House Of The Dragon's Best And Most Unhealthy Couple Need A Marriage Counselor
The following article contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" season 2, episode 2.
Healthy romantic relationships in Westeros are rarer than Valyrian steel and even more valuable, and in "House of the Dragon" season 2, they're almost non-existent. Instead, the various rulers all duking it out for control of the Seven Kingdoms are involved in passionate but potentially fraught romances, like Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Lord Commander Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), who are both supposed to be celibate. Then there's Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her uncle-husband Daemon (Matt Smith), who have one of the most interesting and complicated relationships in the whole franchise. They've been trading flirtations and barbs in High Valyrian since Rhaenyra was a child, eventually getting married after the deaths of Rhaenyra's first husband Laenor and Daemon's second wife Laena. They raise their children from those marriages together like a sort of extra-incestuous, dragon-riding "Brady Bunch" and have two kids together, Aegon III and Viserys II, which makes them a pretty impressive pair. Unfortunately, the stresses of war seem to be driving them apart.
After Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) killed Rhaenyra's son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) at the end of season 1, Rhaenyra had no qualms about going to war. Finding Luke's remains solidified her need for vengeance, but unfortunately Daemon acted on her behalf in order to sate his own bloodlust and things went very, very wrong.
Rhaenyra and Daemon seriously need marriage counseling
After Rhaenyra said in a small council meeting that she wanted Aemond killed in retribution for what he did to Luke, Daemon pays a butcher and former City Watch sergeant named Blood and a ratcatcher named Cheese to assassinate Aemond because he knows they can breach the Red Keep. Unfortunately, they're not too choosy when they can't find Aemond and end up killing King Aegon II's young son Jaehaerys instead, cutting off his head. The killing of a child in his bed is considerably more taboo than killing an adult who can fight back, and things are made worse when Rhaenyra is blamed for the act despite knowing nothing about it. This pushes some of her allies to change their allegiance and join King Aegon's side against her and even destabilizes her power among the allies who stay.
When she learns of the murder, Rhaenyra knows Daemon had something to do with it almost immediately. She's understandably furious and questions him, who laughs and says that he cannot be blamed if the assassins he sent murdered the wrong Targaryen. While the Targaryen family tree is impossible to understand and there are a lot of them, there's a pretty huge difference between a capable grown man and a young child. Daemon's reaction infuriates Rhaenyra further and brings her to the crux of it all: she cannot trust Daemon because he serves no one but himself.
There's bitterness going back decades between Rhaenyra and Daemon
There's an old saying that when a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin to see if the child will be a great leader or a dangerous one. This is perfectly represented in Rhaenyra and Daemon, who embrace polar opposite methods of approaching the oncoming war. The two get into a nasty argument that lays both of their core resentments bare: Rhaenyra believes that Daemon only wants to use her as a way to get power he believes he was owed, and knows that he used his influence on her as an adult while she was still a child. Meanhile, Daemon believes that her father Viserys (Daemon's brother) only ever gave Rhaenyra the throne as a way to spite Daemon and put him in his place. Rhaenyra knows better and reiterates that it was a matter of trust — just as she cannot trust him, neither could Viserys.
Daemon spits fury at her, hissing: "What a fool, who sought greatness but shrank from spilling blood to achieve it, and I see you will suffer the same fate." More than their age difference or Daemon's grooming of his niece, the real problem in their marriage now is that Rhaenyra does not dream of fire and blood, while it's clear that Daemon can only see the world through violence. Together, Rhaenyra and Daemon are a truly terrifying force of nature, but she needs his fury and he needs her temperance to succeed. In order to survive the oncoming war they're going to have to come together as a team, otherwise many more Targaryens are going to die.
New episodes of "House of the Dragon" season 2 drop Sundays on HBO and Max at 9 pm EST.