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After a long time of preparation for this second, the denizens of the Purple Hold have been in some way largely unprepared for the occasions of Home of the Dragon’s ninth episode, following the dying of King Viserys. “The Inexperienced Council” exhibits Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) realizing, to her horror, that her father Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) has spent years plotting with members of the king’s council to enact a coup the second her husband died — with out letting her in on any of it.
Home of the Dragon has however one episode remaining in its first season, and thus it had lots to perform in its penultimate providing. It might sound an odd narrative alternative, then, for the episode to take as a lot time because it does merely looking for one character (Aegon, Alicent’s son and the would-be rival to Rhaenyra’s throne, after it turns into obvious nobody is aware of the place he’s). However very like different episodes this season, lots is going on when it looks like little or no is going on onscreen. Right here we see the factions which have lengthy been creating now spring into motion — however with surprising friction between that allied father and daughter, because it turns into clear how very totally different their moral traces are.
This text comprises spoilers for Home of the Dragon, episode 9, “The Inexperienced Council.”
An episode stuffed with narrative non sequiturs
Episode 9 opens with the king’s small council assembly in secret to debate the dying of Viserys — at which level, to the shock and horror of a number of of the council members together with Alicent, different council members, together with Alicent’s father, brazenly start to map out the logistics of their well-planned coup. Neglect Princess Rhaenyra’s declare; it’s Aegon time.
When one member of the council, Lord Beesbury (Invoice Paterson), protests, he’s instantly horrifically dispatched by Ser Criston (Fabien Frankel). Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish), the pinnacle of the King’s Watch, objects as properly and is in the end caught and killed as he’s attempting to depart city, presumably hoping to alert Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon (Matt Smith) about what’s on the best way. The remaining council members transfer ahead with their plans to seize Dragonstone and imprison Rhaenyra there, over Alicent’s outraged objections.
This episode takes a whole lot of peculiar narrative leaps. One of many oddest is that for this coup to even work, Rhaenyra and Daemon need to be fully out of the town and well-ensconced at Dragonstone, despite the fact that they have been simply on the fortress the night time earlier than. Rhaenyra instructed Alicent in the earlier episode that she deliberate to depart instantly, see the youngsters residence, after which fly proper again once more. However did they actually hop on dragons and fly away simply after dinner, with their three youngsters and a whole entourage? Even when we assume a straightforward journey, it appears a stretch that Rhaenyra wouldn’t wait round until the morning no less than, to say goodbye to her father. Nonetheless odd, Rhaenyra and Daemon are immediately conveniently with none manner of listening to that Viserys has died.
Nonetheless, their proximity means time is just not on the aspect of the coup, so when it turns into clear Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) isn’t within the fortress, each Otto and Alicent ship their greatest males to discreetly search for him within the disreputable components of city. Alicent sends Criston and her way more succesful second son Aemond (Ewan Mitchell); Otto sends Arryk and Erryk Cargyll (Luke and Elliott Tittensor), two an identical twins whose musings about Aegon’s debauchery give us a view from the trenches of the battle for the throne. Finally, after all of them swordfight about it, Criston and Aemond haul a resisting, tantrum-throwing Aegon again to Alicent.
Right here once more, is one other bizarre leap: It’s unclear why it issues which ones finds Aegon first, since they each need to make him king. The reply in the end appears to be that whoever finds Aegon will be capable to management him, particularly what he’ll do to Rhaenyra and Daemon. Or no less than, that’s what Alicent appears to assume — that when her horrible son is on the throne, he’ll observe her recommendation and do no matter she suggests. For Alicent, which means making a peaceable treaty with Rhaenyra and Daemon and never doing something rash like imprisoning his half sister or worse.
This can be a fully delusional thought.
However then, maybe the largest narrative leap of all is that Alicent is so shocked and unprepared for the coup her father has been planning. We’ve joked repeatedly about how this present is actually Succession with Dragons, however that’s as a result of the query of who will succeed Viserys really is the whole present. The time jumps have coated a interval of 15–20 years or so. Excluding rousting the Crab Feeder, which took a grand whole of two episodes, throughout that total time, nothing else has occurred besides folks debating who ought to rule Westeros whereas maneuvering themselves into place for this very second.
Alicent has had years to consider what would occur now, and how much violence must happen to ensure that her ickle son to sit down on the Iron Throne. But she reacts with clean astonishment to the unfolding playbook that she should, on some stage, have absolutely recognized was coming.
The query of how a lot Alicent knew and when she knew it carries over to a different unusual a part of this episode — the subplot involving Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), an underworld determine also called the White Worm. In episode eight, we noticed Alicent’s lady-in-waiting visiting Mysaria proper earlier than a scene of Alicent nursing the weak Viserys on his deathbed, providing him tea. Earlier within the episode, we noticed the identical maid ship one other kind of tea to her — an abortifacient she served to a lady who’d been sexually assaulted by Aegon. So Alicent’s maid is aware of the place to get illicit potions, and Alicent’s maid can also be in contact with Mysaria, King’s Touchdown superspy. On this week’s episode, pre-bludgeoning, Beesbury accused the opposite members of the council of conspiring to poison Viserys. Granted, Viserys may simply have died naturally, however the implication is that Alicent’s maid is working for somebody who wished Viserys lifeless, and Mysaria could or could not know who that somebody is.
However different occasions on this episode name all of that into query. One among them is that when Mysaria hears Otto is in search of Aegon, she arranges a gathering, and the 2 appear to have by no means met each other earlier than. Is {that a} fastidiously organized public charade, or are they honestly strangers?
Mysaria makes use of this assembly to barter Aegon’s handover to Otto in change for freedom for an enclave of orphans who, we be taught, are being bred as fighters for gladiator-style dying matches. Aegon, it appears, not solely attends these barbaric matches however has been secretly breeding youngsters of his personal to make use of as canine within the battle. Mysaria extracts a imprecise politician’s promise from Otto to look into the issue. (He received’t.)
However Mysaria has larger issues on her palms because of Larys Sturdy (Matthew Needham), who’s in some way solely gotten creepier and extra pathological since we final noticed him burning his father and brother alive. Informing Alicent that he has alternative data for her, he makes her take away her stockings right down to her naked toes. In a repulsive session that’s apparently an entire Factor between the 2 of them, the queen of Westeros topics herself to her personal Grasp of Whispers — or no matter you name it when a dude is extorting you for fetish materials — jerking off in entrance of her toes.
Larys’s data is bafflingly anticlimactic: He reveals to Alicent that her maid is working for Mysaria, however shares nothing in regards to the function she might need performed in Viserys’s dying. Alicent is as soon as once more shocked that there’s palace intrigue on this palace, however (maybe as a result of she’s in the midst of being sexually violated) doesn’t actually hyperlink any connection between Mysaria, her maid, and Viserys’s dying. As an alternative, she lets Larys deal with it his manner. Later, we see Mysaria’s swanky downtown institution, her spy command heart masked as a brothel, going up in flames.
Once more, we’re pressured to ask: Did Alicent actually do not know? If she didn’t, then was her maid’s go to to Mysaria only a large purple herring?
If Alicent have been a extra dependable narrator, we is likely to be on firmer floor when it got here to parsing this new data. However Alicent isn’t actually in command of her personal story. Even when she’s attempting to exert management, she’s inevitably restricted by the boys round her and the best way they understand her.
Males (okay, these 4 particular males) are monsters
Each episode of this present comprises a distinct thesis in regards to the methods misogyny undermines society, and this week that thesis is “look how misogyny turns love poisonous.” Every of the boys in Alicent’s life objectify her, and at each level on this episode, her efforts to rule and dictate her personal destiny get hampered, both subtly or overtly, by their profound lack of ability to acknowledge her as their equal.
The obvious occasion of this happens when Alicent lastly confronts her father about his plans for Rhaenyra. We’ve beforehand mentioned Alicent’s inconsistent sense of morality, however on this episode she acknowledges, for the primary time, that her father has used her all alongside to enact his personal amoral agenda. “I wished no matter you impressed upon me to need,” she tells him, “and now the debt involves you.”
Otto, nevertheless, appears incapable of really processing that Alicent is declaring her want to act with out him, and if crucial in opposition to him. After repeatedly condescending to her, implying she’s weak for being unwilling to homicide the whole Velaryon clan — an act he minimizes as “unsavory” — he drops the final word patronizing insult: “You look a lot like your mom.” This isn’t sentiment, however Otto’s manner of reminding Alicent that her function is to be charming, horny, and produce youngsters, not get in the best way of political rebellions.
Alicent may feasibly counter this sexism through the use of her son as her mouthpiece — however Aegon, a drunk lecherous manbaby who actually says “I would like my mum” when he’s lastly dragged out of his hiding place, appears even much less more likely to take heed to his mother than Otto. This can be a man who appears to have by no means correctly thought-about for a single second that he may wind up ruling the throne, regardless of Alicent repeatedly warning him of this very chance. Whereas she’s in the midst of attempting to inform him how she desires him to cope with Rhaenyra, he cuts her off with a plaintive, “Do you’re keen on me?”
To Aegon, Alicent can solely ever be his mom — which suggests on this context that she offers, protects, pampers him, and shelters him from the results of his personal actions. Her horrified “you might be no son of mine” in response to discovering out that he raped a younger servant clearly fazed him under no circumstances; as an alternative of rethinking his methods, he’s been personally siring an orphan-fighting ring. The sheer undeniable fact that Alicent desires him to rule Westeros validates all of Aegon’s worst character traits whereas satirically giving him one of the best cause of all to query his mother’s judgment. He expects her to do what she’s at all times executed — come operating when he wants her, and look on, helpless however loving, when he doesn’t.
How a lot management can she presumably exert over him?
She runs into this downside of management, even with males who ostensibly serve her. Each Larys and Ser Criston objectify her in fully reverse however nonetheless grossly reductive ways in which in the end lure her right into a efficiency for them, at her expense. Since his one-time dalliance with Rhaenyra, Criston appears to have doubled down on his vow of virginity and changed his childhood love affair with whole veneration of Alicent. “Each lady is a picture of the mom, to be spoken of with reverence,” he tells Aemond after they’re out looking brothels for Aegon — forgetting he’s known as Rhaenyra each sort of sexist slur. Alicent is ready to transmute Criston’s loyalty into service, simply as she’s in a position to make use of Larys’s lust to barter data, however she will be able to do this solely so long as she stays on the Madonna aspect of Criston’s large Madonna/whore advanced.
Given the “unsavory” issues she’ll doubtless need to do to safe her son’s path to the throne, how lengthy will she be capable to do this?
Then once more, it is a lady who tells Rhaenys (Eve Finest) with a straight face that supporting her imbecilic serial rapist son will deliver peace to the realm. For all Rhaenys calls her clever, Alicent compartmentalizes simply as a lot as Viserys did. She ought to know that if she will be able to’t even hold the fortress’s creeper from masturbating to her toes, or get her personal father to deal with her like an equal, she’s not going to have the ability to hold her newly topped son from laying waste to Westeros.
Aemond is aware of this; he spends the time looking for Aegon muttering about how significantly better a king he’d be. However Aemond, whereas he is likely to be smarter and stronger and braver, can also be vengeful and violent. Alicent might need spent the final 20 years attempting to instill higher values in her youngsters, however it’s not clear if any of them have ever actually listened to her. “There’s a beast beneath the boards!” her daughter Helaena (Phia Saban) tells her urgently, simply as she did earlier. Aegon’s sister/spouse could possibly be referring to Rhaenys’s dragon, who later explodes out of the hold by means of the center of the fortress, demolishing a part of the nice corridor throughout Aegon’s coronation, letting Alicent and her youngsters go together with a warning.
Nevertheless it appears extra doubtless Helaena is referring each to this particular occasion and to one thing bigger and extra metaphorical — one thing rotten within the state of Westeros that started when Viserys positioned his son forward of his spouse, forcing her to turn into a brutal sacrifice.
Alicent, consequently, has spent her complete life placing males forward of her — the Westerosi equal of leaning in. If she’s ever to actually be freed from her royal jail, she might need to take a lesson from Rhaenys: Bust by means of the (stone) ceiling.
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