Despite Viserys’ heartfelt plea for togetherness in the eighth episode, the royals are more divided than ever. The excellent, strained Targaryen supper scene revealed the many holes undermining the House of the Dragon’s foundations – one tremor and everything could come tumbling down. One tremor, for example, is Queen Alicent misreading King Viserys’ final words on the Iron Throne succession.
Alicent believed the King had preferred son Aegon in his dying breath, whereas Viserys also not only wanted Rhaenyra to inherit an Iron Throne but also believed Aegon the Conqueror had prophesied that his daughter would join forces of the Seven Kingdoms against the coming darkness.
The Green Council, the penultimate season episode one of House of the Dragon, depicts the beginnings of the quake caused by the succession issue. It was directed by Clare Kilner (who also directed episodes four and five, ‘Of King of the Narrow Sea’) and written by executive producer Sara Hess (who wrote episode six, ‘The Princess and the Queen’).
An Empty Throne
In episode eight, we see the empty Iron Throne after King Viserys I’s death. It’s a sad and foreboding sight because nothing is more dangerous in the game of thrones than just a power vacuum and those who seek to fill it…
The Green Council
…income Ser Otto Hightower, Queen Alicent, and Ser Criston Cole, to kick off the Small Council session known as “The Green Council” (House Hightower’s colors, as compared to Targaryen black). “The King is dead,” Otto declares, while (what appears to be) Ser Criston helps clean the blade of his sword. A distraught Alicent tells the council, “He told me he wished for Aegon to be king,” while later in the trailer, Otto orders that the door remains closed until their business is completed, their business being the fulfillment of Otto’s decades-long hope that his grandson Aegon inherit the Iron Throne.
The Peasants are Revolting
The gold cloaks (knights of the City Watch) push back a mass of people of smallfolk wandering the streets, causing public unrest in King’s Landing. By the end of the episode’s trailer, we see a crowd gathered outside the grand Sept of Baelor – the cathedral that Cersei Lannister will destroy two centuries later.
The Lords Bow Down
House of the Dragon’s first episode concluded with the Lords of Westeros pledging allegiance to Viserys’ selected heir Rhaenyra. It appears that a group of them (is that Lord Boremund Baratheon, who initially supported Princess Rhaenys’ claim to the Iron Throne over her cousin Viserys’?) are kneeling before Ser Otto Hightower, the King’s Hand.
Otto’s Secret Agent(s)
The House of the Dragon episode 9 ‘The Green Council’ premieres on HBO in the United States on October 16 and on Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom on October 17. ‘The Black Queen,’ the season finale, will air the very next week.
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