I have a lot of different thoughts and feelings about House of the Dragon Season 2. I liked it a lot, but it sometimes feels like it was stuck in time. Of course things did happen, but by the end it seemed like Westeros’s most violent civil war had stopped moving at all. The sad ending really solidifies that feeling of not moving forward.
Take a look: Team Green and Team Black were about to start war at the end of Season 1. I remember thinking, “That season moved pretty slowly, but I liked how the characters grew and changed. Now it’s time for the big reveal!”
Team Black and Team Green are about to start a war whenHouse of the Dragon Season 2 ends. Once more. Now I’m thinking, “Well, that season moved pretty slowly. I liked all the buildup and character growth, but I thought more would actually happen!” I definitely didn’t think Season 2 would end the same way Season 1 did.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Daemon Targaryen in Harrenhal:
Aemond, Queen Rhaenyra’s half-brother, killed her son Lucerys at the end of the first season. The House of the Dragon Season 2 starts with Rhaenyra Targaryen in grief over her loss. There was already a threat of war between Rhaenyra and her other half-brother King Aegon, and Luke’s death makes it almost certain that it will happen.
Both in the book and the show, Rhaenyra’s husband Daemon leaves her fortress of Dragonstone and heads for Harrenhal, a huge, falling-apart castle in the Riverlands where he plans to set up a military base. But the times are different. Daemon leaves Dragonstone after Luke is killed on the show, but before Luke is killed in the book. That will be important when we talk about what happened at Blood and Cheese, but for now, let’s look at what Daemon does at Harrenhal.
On page 412 of my copy of Fire & Blood, Daemon shows up at Harrenhal. As in the show, he doesn’t run into any trouble; Ser Simon Strong, the castellan, is happy to see him. What he does at Harrenhal is very different between the book and the show. As an example:
- The show tells us that Larys Strong, who was officially the lord of Harrenhal, took a lot of the Strong family’s money out of the house and put it somewhere else. There is something different in the book about this. p. 413: “In addition to the castle, Prince Daemon at a stroke had captured the not-inconsiderable wealth of House Strong and a dozen valuable hostages, amongst them Ser Simon and his grandsons.”
- On the show, Daemon hangs out with doctor Alys Rivers a lot. She is a wet nurse in the book, and all we know about her so far is that she didn’t have much of an effect on Daemon. At 413: “Whatever her powers, it would seem Daemon Targaryen was immune to them, for little is heard of this supposed sorceress whilst the prince held Harrenhal.”
- Daemon has visions and dreams about people he hurt in the past on House of the Dragon. He sees the wars that are going to happen in the season end. It seems likely that Alys has something to do with these dreams. None of them are talked about in the book.
- In House of the Dragon, Daemon has a hard time getting the high lords and other river people to trust and follow him. He seems to have little to no trouble in Fire & Blood, especially with the smallfolk. They rose up all along the rivers when Prince Daemon called them to arms. They were knights, men-at-arms, and humble peasants who remembered the Realm’s Delight, Rhaenyra Targaryen, who was so loved by her father, and how she smiled and charmed them as she walked through the riverlands as a child. Hundreds and then thousands of people put on their metal and sword belts, or they grabbed a pitchfork, a hoe, or a simple wooden shield, and made their way to Harrenhal to fight for Viserys’s little girl.
- In the third episode of House of the Dragonseason 2, the same episode where Daemon Targaryen arrives at Harrenhal, we see Houses Blackwood and Bracken face off in the Battle of the Burning Mill, the first official battle of the Dance of the Dragons. In the book, this battle doesn’t happen until well after Daemon arrives in the Riverlands.
- The third episode of House of the Dragon Season 2is when Daemon Targaryen arrives at Harrenhal. That’s also when the fight of the Burning Mill takes place, which is the first official fight of the Dance of the Dragons. This fight doesn’t happen in the book until a long time after Daemon gets to the Riverlands.In the book, after the Battle of the Burning Mill, Daemon and an army of soldiers loyal to different Riverlords attack Stone Henge, the stronghold of the Bracken family, and take many of them prisoners. He gives up because he doesn’t want them to get hurt. This ends any real resistance to Daemon in the Riverlands. The show has a very different plot: Daemon and Lord Willem Blackwood plan to attack Bracken lands. Willem goes too far, and many of the lords who help Daemon attack the Brackens in the book—including the heads of Houses Piper and Mooton—scold Daemon for making the Riverlands more dangerous. In real life, they don’t offer their help, but in the book, they do, though not without some doubt. From page 414: “The lords of the Trident were slower to move because they had more to lose, but they soon joined the queen.” Ser Ferrest Frey rode from the Twins…Along with the Vances of Wayfarer’s Rest, the Pipers of Pinkmaiden Castle and the Mootons of Maidenpool all said they supported Rhaenyra. On the show, the lords only follow Daemon after the young Lord Oscar Tully gives a speech that rallies them and Daemon kills Willem. In the book, this doesn’t happen.
- On the show, Daemon is thinking about getting an army to support him and taking King’s Landing for himself instead of helping his wife, Rhaenyra, who is queen. In the season 2 finale, when she sees Harrenhal, he finally promises to be with her again after a vision of the future changes his mind. It’s never made clear in the book that Daemon isn’t working for Rhaenyra, and she doesn’t work for Harrenhal.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8: A Finale That Falls Flat:
Yes, there are now more dragon riders. Armies are moving. We’re more ready for war now than we were before. But there is still buildup. After 18 episodes, that may have been all we needed, but I think we needed two more episodes this season to really make it stick. We could have had the big fight in episode 9. When I say “big battle,” I don’t mean that they have to show us all the different armies fighting, all the dragons fighting in the sky, and all the ships in every fleet crashing into each other. A lot of that can happen away from the screen. We only need the most important parts.
In the finale, Episode 10, there could have been less action as the show dealt with the effects of the fight and set the stage for Season 3. Instead of having to wait two years, I think everyone would have been happy with that.
But wait! I buried the lede way too deep. I almost forgot why I was writing this post in the first place because I was thinking about how upset I am with how this season finished. This guy is to blame:
In the name of the Seven, why is Otto Hightower locked up? Is it really a cage? Is it a ship’s hold, a barn, or something else? Since he’s dirty, I think he’s being held captive, but by whom? Where is it? Why is that?
It was sneaky how this was added, and it’s probably the most awkward and strangest thing that has ever happened on the show. At the very end, as Alicent goes away from Dragonstone and the “episode is about to end” music plays (and what music!), we see Otto sitting here and looking sad for two seconds.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Blood and Cheese
Here we are again, back at the time after Luke died. In Fire & Blood, Daemon is already at Harrenhal when he learns that his brother has died. Rhaenyra, he writes, “An eye for an eye, a son for a son.” He swears to get even. Lucerys will be punished.” After this, Daemon calls Mysaria, who is still living in King’s Landing. We don’t get all the specifics, but it seems likely that she hires two assassins who have only been known as Blood and Cheese in the past. Cheese to catch rats in the Red Keep, so he knows a lot about it. They sneak up on King Aegon’s young son Prince Jaehaerys and kill him in front of his mother Helaena. They take the prince’s head and leave.
The main ideas of the event are kept in the show, but many of the details are changed. Daemon is still on Dragonstone when he hears that Luke has died. He doesn’t do anything until Rhaenyra comes back to the house in tears and says, “I want Aemond Targaryen.” Mysaria has already left King’s Landing since Larys Strong set fire to her manse. The Velaryon barrier picks her up and takes her to Dragonstone. Because Daemon wants her to, she tells him about two people named Blood and Cheese who might be able to sneak into the Red Keep and get back at Luke.
The show has Daemon go to King’s Landing by himself to meet Blood and Cheese instead of going through someone else. He tells them to kill Aemond, but it’s clear that he doesn’t mind if they get off track if they can’t find Aemond. That Blood and Cheese might not have been going after Jaehaerys in particular fits with a sentence from Fire & Blood (p. 424): “Some say the quarry was the king himself, but Aegon was accompanied by the Kingsguard wherever he went.” In fact, Blood and Cheese do walk through the Iron Throne room while King Aegon is sitting on the throne, but he’s too wary for them to try to kill him, even if they wanted to.
The book says that Blood and Cheese also couldn’t get into Maegor’s Holdfast, which is where the royal family lived. They go to Alicent Hightower’s room in the Tower of the Hand instead. Alicent is not far away yet. Blood and Cheese choke Alicent’s maid and bind and gag the Queen Dowager before sitting down to wait for Queen Helaena. They knew that every night, Queen Helaena would bring her kids to Alicent’s room so the kids could see their grandma before bed. Helaena does show up with her kids and a guard, but Blood and Cheese kill him.
In real life, Blood and Cheese don’t seem to be as planned as they are on the show. In the show, they just go up to the royal apartments and walk around until they meet Helaena and her kids. They also don’t run into any guards who try to stop them. Lastly, Alicent isn’t with Helaena when they have their fight. She’s having sex with Criston Cole somewhere else, which is a new love element added for the show.
Helaena has two kids on the show. Their names are Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Blood and Cheese want to kill a son, so they make Helaena figure out which boy it is. Since both boys are young, it’s easy to tell which one it is. While Blood and Cheese cut off Jaehaerys’ head, Helaena grabs her and runs out of the room, where she finally sees her mother having sex with Criston Cole. “They killed the boy,” Raven says.
There are three kids in the book: twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, and a younger son named Maelor. Helaena has to pick which of her kids Blood and Cheese will kill. Helaena picks Maelor in the end, through tears. Then Blood and Cheese should kill Jaehaerys. Blood and Cheese leave Helaena, Maelor, Jaehaera, and Jaehaerys’s headless body in the room as they run away from the castle.
Blood is caught and brought into the Red Keep in both the book and the show. In the book, it says that he told them who hired him while being tortured and then died 13 days later. The show shows that he admits right away, and he seems to die quickly at Aegon’s hand. In the book, Cheese is never found, but in the show, his body is seen hanging among the ratcatchers that Aegon has hung from the walls of the Red Keep. This is something that Aegon does in both the book and the show, but we never hear about his grandpa Otto Hightower scolding him for the choice.
In the book, Queen Helaena goes through a deep sadness after seeing her son’s head cut off. What we don’t really know about her mood is from the show. In a few shows, she’ll decide that she doesn’t need to be upset because normal women lose their babies all the time.
As long as we’re talking about Helaena, we should note that the book doesn’t say anything about her being a seer or having dreams that tell the future. That’s something that was added for the show. In the book, she is portrayed as a nice, friendly woman who is liked by many but deeply affected by seeing her son’s murder.
From June 14, 2024, to August 4, 2024, the House of the Dragon Season 2 played on HBO and Max. This is HBO’s first major spinoff show based on Game of Thrones, which is one of the most popular TV shows of the last 20 years and one of the most popular fantasy shows of all time.
House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which is set in Westeros and is meant to be a historical account of this time. It is “written” by a man named Archmaester Gyldayn, who is putting together the story from a lot of different, sometimes sketchy sources. Since there are a lot of changes from the book to the show, reading the book before watching the show might not have helped you much. I thought it would be fun to read through the text, make a list of the changes the show made, and then talk about how well those changes were made.
The Clash at Rook’s Rest and Its Consequences in House of the Dragon Season 2:
The big fight scene of the season is the Battle of Rook’s Rest, and it’s very true to the book. One big difference is Aegon. In the show, Aegon leaves King’s Landing on his dragon Sunfyre without much thought, ready to join the fight and show how strong he is. There is nothing in Fire & Blood that makes us think he wasn’t involved in planning the fight from the start. We also don’t hear that Aemond tried to kill his brother to get the Iron Throne for himself, which would have been a big event on the show.
Aside from that, the fight on screen is pretty much the same as it is in the book. On the other hand, things start to change afterward. On the show, we are told more than once that Aegon’s dragon Sunfyre is dead, but the book makes it clear that the dragon lived and is slowly getting better near Rook’s Rest. There is still a lot of work to be done on Sunfyre in the book, so I wonder if the show isn’t lying to us by talking about his death so much. Most of the time, if a death doesn’t happen on TV, it doesn’t happen at all. The last time we saw Sunfyre, he was hurt but still living. Season 3 has more on that.
In both the book and the show, Aemond sits on the Iron Throne while his brother Aegon is hurt. It takes place quickly on the page. From page 438: “Aemond the Kinslayer, who only had one eye, then took up Aegon the Conqueror’s iron-and-ruby crown.” The prince said, “It looks better on me than it ever did on him.”” That line doesn’t make sense to us. Instead, there is a plot twist in the show where Alicent tries to run for monarch but is turned down, which is not in the book.
Meanwhile, on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s advisors are upset about hearing that Rhaenys died at the Battle of Rook’s Rest. Corlys, Rhaenys’s husband, is very angry in the book. He and Rhaenyra get into a heated fight about it (p. 449): “When word got to Dragonstone that Princess Rhaenys had died, the queen and Lord Velaryon got angry with each other; he blamed her for his wife’s death.” The Sea Snake yelled at Her Grace, “It should have been you!” But you left it up to my wife to answer, and you told your sons they couldn’t go with her. Staunton sent you.”” Corlys is so mad that he almost leaves Rhaenyra’s side and takes his fleet of ships with him. But Rhaenyra’s son Jace talks him out of it and she keeps him as Rhaenyra’s hand.
Most of that changes in the show. There is no fight between Rhaenyra and Corlys, and it is Baela, not Jace, who helps Corlys decide to become a Hand of the Queen.
Other Stuff In House of the Dragon Season 2
A lot of changes were made to Fire & Blood in House of the Dragon season 2, and some of them don’t fit nicely into one category. Here are a few more in the form of short points:
- We meet Addam and Alyn’s mother, Marilda of Hull, in Fire & Blood. On page 443 we learn that she was “a clever trader and daring captain.” I think she’s dead in the world of House of the Dragon since she’s not on the show. The character in the book was interesting, and I would have liked to see her on TV.
- Rhaenyra, Aegon, and Aemond are fighting in the Crownlands and Riverlands. In the Reach, there is a fight starting between the Hightowers, who support Aegon and his greens, and other royal houses that support Rhaenyra and her blacks. On the show, we hear about these fights but don’t see them for ourselves. That could be something that House of the Dragon saves for season 3. In any case, it sounds like they’re going to meet Alicent’s youngest son Daeron, who was sent to the city of Oldtown in the Reach to be cared for when he was young. Daeron’s dragon Tessarion has flown away by the end of the season. In the book, he can already fly her at this point.
- In Fire & Blood, Otto Hightower comes up with the idea to try to get the Triarchy, which is a union of three cities on Essos that fought against Daemon and Corlys in season 1, to join the war on the side of good. This is a thought that Aemond has on House of the Dragon. The Triarchy is pretty much exactly what the book says it is, down to the fact that an envoy has to mud fight a pirate crew member to win their approval. However, there are a few changes. For one thing, we find out that Tyland Lannister is sent as the messenger on the show but not in the book. A Triarchy boss named Racallio Ryndoon is now merged into another Triarchy bigwig named Sharako Lohar. This makes things a little easier.
- Coming back to Otto Hightower, he stays in King’s Landing during the war in the book. After the second episode of the show, he leaves the city for unknown places. We find out that he’s in jail at the end of the season. There aren’t many people around here, so I have no idea where he could be.
- In Fire & Blood, Mysaria, an information dealer, helps Daemon plan the Blood and Cheese plot. She then stays in King’s Landing to help Rhaenyra with her war from the background. In House of the Dragon Season 2, Mysaria runs away from King’s Landing and ends up on Dragonstone, where she meets Rhaenyra and starts dating her much earlier than in the book. They even kiss in Episode 206, which was a surprise. I liked how Rhaenyra could talk to Mysaria about things and how well the two characters got along, so I wasn’t upset about this change.
- Furthermore, in the same episode, Rhaenyra and Mysaria plan to start a riot while people in King’s Landing are starving because Rhaenyra has blocked off the city. They send food to King’s Landing because they know the people there will fight over the limited supplies. The fight in question is made up for the show, but I thought it was a good idea and would make for an interesting scene.
I liked some of the changes that were made, but generally I think the House of the Dragon Season 2deviated too much from the source material. This was a surprise because the first season stayed mostly true to the book, with a few exceptions. This time, I didn’t like how many smart changes there were compared to foolish ones. Season 3 of the show will be on HBO and Max in 2026. I hope it goes in a different direction.
Also Read: Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2: Release Date & Story Predictions
