House of the Dragon crossed a line, and episode 2 pushes it further

polygon.com:

Even for the work of George R.R. Martin, the tragedy du jour that sets season 2 of House of the Dragon in motion is a bracingly terrible moment. The casual beheading of Jaehaerys Targaryen — while off screen in the moment, grimly recalled this week via stitches on a corpse — is depicted as a bridge too far, even for the brutal world of Westeros. The people devoted to preserving the norms of the realm are losing their grip, as the bloody game of eye-for-an-eye has led to this race to the bottom.

It’s early in the game, but House of the Dragon season 2 seems devoted to mapping, in painstaking detail, how a war starts. It’s the Kübler-Ross model but for armed conflict instead of grief. If “A Son for a Son” is denial, this week’s episode is anger. Or more aptly, fury — power is, if nothing else, a force multiplier. As Madam Sylvi (Michelle Bonnard) tells Aemond when he curls up in her arms to express remorse over killing Jace, “When princes lose their temper it is often others who suffer.”

Doubly so, then, for kings: Aegon’s fury over his son’s death has rendered him virtually inert in his position, but that doesn’t mean his small council isn’t ready to use it as kindling for the coming conflict. Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) spins his grandchild’s death into powerful propaganda, sending the infant corpse in a funeral procession through King’s Landing to turn the public further against Rhaenyra, who stooped so low as to murder a child in their bed. “Jaehaerys will do more for us now than a thousand knights in battle,” Otto says of his grim spectacle.

This is, however, the last bit of savvy politicking within the Red Keep. Rage soon rebuilds the power structure in its image. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), in a decision that is sure to see blowback, orders all of the ratcatchers in King’s Landing killed, and dismisses Otto from his position of Hand, installing Ser Criston Cole — who sent Ser Arryk to assassinate Rhaenyra — instead. It’s a petty act from a boy-king who demands