House of the Dragon’s latest episode turns gods into meat
A recurring theme in discussions around House of the Dragon — and Game of Thronesbefore it — concerns morality. George R.R. Martin’s world is so grimly amoral, just about every character is a bad person on some level. So who do you root for?
Generally speaking, this line of inquiry is reductive as hell and not terribly fruitful. The world of Westeros is full of complex characters who continually pose audiences the question of whether a person should be considered evil as their worst moment, or noble as their best. When the stories function at their peak, the answers are nuanced and interesting, offering a number of possible reads on the characters: There might be a lot of reasons to say “Fuck That Guy In Particular,” but even people who agree on the sentiment might have different reasons in mind. Others won’t feel that way at all.
House of the Dragon is a more specific show than Game of Thrones, however, and it’s about a narrower spectrum of people. It is almost exclusively about the ruling class. This changes the array of lenses available for viewing the characters. It surrounds the show’s drama with a different context. It fills every single scene with a massive elephant filling the corner of each frame: the public.
The everyday people of King’s Landing have almost no representation in the show’s cast of characters. The series is full of privileged bickerers squabbling about power and sending men to die because they believe they have a right to it. Yet in its fifth episode, House of the Dragon shows that the public has been very much on the writers’ minds, and their part in this sweeping tale may soon come to the fore.
Like just about every episode this season, this one starts with horror: Ser Criston Cole’s decision to parade the head of Rhaenys’ dragon Meleys through the streets is not met with the triumphant cheers he expected, but with shocked silence. As one onlooker says, the people of Westeros thought the creatures were gods. Criston has shown them
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