All the characters vying for control of Westeros on the HBO spinoff have one thing in common: They keep making disastrous unforced errors. As we enter the back half of Season 2, let’s break down the show’s biggest bumblers.
House of the Dragon: what to say? True to its name, it features both dragons and houses. Tuning in every Sunday night satisfies a latent Game of Thrones need developed between the years of 2011-2019. A negroni sbagliato with prosecco in it? I’m charmed! However, now that we’re barreling through the second half of season two, I need to speak my truth.
There is far too much bumbling in House of the Dragon.
If Game of Thrones had one standout quality, it was neither the sprawling battle scenes nor the overt sexuality. It was the constant scheming. Those Westerosi were Real Plotters: Varys. Tyrion Lannister. Littlefinger. Margaery Tyrell and her bitchy grandma. House of the Dragon, on the other hand, is chock-full of idiots.
That’s not to say there isn’t any scheming in House of the Dragon—it’s just usually not particularly successful. And, of course, there were plenty of dummies scattered about Game of Thrones. (Edmure Tully, we salute you.) The ratio is just all off. In Game of Thrones, the characters wielded their competency like a Valyrian steel dagger. Their cleverness gave you someone to root for and flung the story forward. In House of the Dragon, the propulsive force seems to be an endless series of misunderstandings—Frasier, but in King’s Landing.
If Game of Thrones was four-dimensional chess, House of the Dragon is Go Fish. The people in charge are all shockingly bad at their whole deal. Considering how they all have the equivalent of nuclear weapons they can ride, this is a liability. With every wrong move—and there are many—these players are losing both the younger members of their families and the support of ordinary Westerosi. And they don’t even have a court eunuch!
Theo Whiteman
Ser Criston Cole
Oh, Criston Cole. His foolishness can be neatly summed up via jewelry choices: in one scene, he is reluctant to wear the pin that marks him as Hand of the King. By the next episode, he is wearing a whole necklace made up of interlocking king-hands. And he just cannot stop blundering. His absence when young Jaehaerys Targaryen was killed, in itself a failure, was compounded when he rashly sent Arryk Cargyll to his death. His most obvious public relations mistake to date came in episode five when, following The Battle of Rook’s Nest, he chose to parade the dragon Meleys’s severed head through the streets and immediately lost the people.
Alicent Hightower
Alicent is trying, I’ll give her that. But, then again, it was her big oopsie in the first place—misunderstanding her decrepit, dying husband’s mumblings about Aegon Targaryen’s great prophecy about saving the world and thinking he was talking about their idiot son, also named Aegon—that kind of kicked this whole thing off.
Aegon II Targaryen
Speaking of the idiot son, the whole first season was a prelude about how unfit he is to rule. He is simultaneously impetuous and disinterested. He can barely speak High Valyrian (embarrassing). To be fair, he didn’t even want to be king! But he is, and boy oh boy is it not going well. HBO is littered with failsons dying to be in charge; House of the Dragon shows us what happens when one actually is.
Aemond Targaryen
Aemond, I get it. Your brother sucks. Your eyepatch is sick. You’re well-versed in history and language and have a strong sense of duty. And, while Aegon is otherwise indisposed after Rook’s Nest, you’re pretty much in charge. But don’t think we won’t forget that your inability to control Vhagar, leading her to kill Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys, is the gaffe that took this war to the next level.
Rhaenyra Targaryen
The latest episode ends with her having the bright idea to recruit dragonseeds—or bastard Targaryens, who are capable of riding dragons—on the side of the Blacks, which like most ideas in House of the Dragon, I suspect will lead to crashing and burning. Figuratively and literally.
Daemon Targaryen
The worst for last. A couple of years ago, I wrote about how Matt Smith, who portrays Daemon, should be cast as the oafish Big Anthony in a live action Strega Nona movie. I was eerily prescient, though the bumbling that Daemon does is much worse and also more evil than making unlimited pasta flow from a magical pot. Most recently, he’s traipsing around the Spirit Halloween pop-up that is Harrenhal, revealing that he’s actually just backing Rhaenyra so that he can eventually usurp power from his wife/niece. Good luck with that one, buddy.
Now, is this all intentional to signify how an unfortunate alchemy of hubris and clumsiness would lead to eventual Targaryen downfall? Probably! But I still need them to get it together.
