House of the Dragon Season Finale Open Thread

I have in general enjoyed this season of HOTD, even though for some reason the writers find it necessary to strand one major character at Harrenhal for the duration. I enjoyed the opening battle and also at least some of the politics of both the Green and Black factions; James Norton is a gift as Ormund Hightower in part because he finally gives the Greens something to do that doesn’t involve dragons and weird sexual cravings (although there’s some of both of that).

With respect to the Blacks I have enjoyed Rhaenyra’s struggles with governance while at the same time thinking about why precisely why she’s struggling so much. Rhaenyra Targaryen is not Daenerys; she was raised in the household of her father the King and for much of the latter part of his reign was expected to succeed him. It GoT it made sense that Daenrys would struggle with rulership over Meereen because her entire life had been one of exile; she did not form the habits of rulership or come to an understanding of how elite politics worked because she was distant from those politics. Rhaenyra, by contrast, has been enmeshed in them very nearly since birth, to the extent that she doesn’t have nearly as much excuse to make elementary political errors on both Dragonstone and at King’s Landing.

Key to this is the handling of her dragonriders. Dragons are effectively the nuclear weapons of Westeros, and the narrative treats them as such. Rhaenyra seems to have little interest in managing what amounts to her stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, to the extent that she (and her husband Daemon) take steps to actively alienate three of the riders. One needn’t have read Clausewitz and learned the deep theory behind centers of gravity to understand that Rhaenyra’s success as a Queen will depend upon her ability to use dragons for military and political advantage, and yet she treats taking care of the new dragonriders as one more annoyance in her daily routine. Daemon is of course little help in this regard, although the combination of his heavy hand with her light touch is if anything the worst of all worlds for the success of the Blacks.

Anyway… looking forward to some dragon-themed murder this evening. My favorite characters this season are the aforementioned Ormund Hightower and Oscar Tully and… well, let’s not spoil anything. Let this serve as an open thread for tonight’s episode.