Young Lucerys and Rhaenyra Targaryen in the season one finale of “House of the Dragon. “HBO Warning: Major spoilers ahead for “Fire and Blood,” the book “House of the Dragon” is adapted from. We’re here to make two spoiler-filled predictions about the season finale of “House of the Dragon.
” The episode will focus on Rhaenyra and her family as they try to salvage a claim to the Iron Throne. As we’ve outlined across our many deep dives into HBO’s “House of the Dragon” series over the last two months, the adaptation of George R. R.
Martin’s fictional history book “Fire and Blood” has included some surprising twists. As we edge closer to the finale, we’re here to predict two more key events from Martin’s book that will likely bring an emotional close to the TV show’s debut season. Before we get into the specifics, here’s one last warning for anyone who hasn’t read “Fire and Blood.
“There are major spoilers ahead about what’s in store for Rhaenyra and her children, according to Martin’s fictional history. Rhaenyra’s family in “House of the Dragon” season one, episode eight. HBOLucerys (“Luke”) will die in a dragonfight with AemondIn “Fire and Blood,” Aemond (the younger son of Alicent and Viserys) goes to Storm’s End to convince the Lord of House Baratheon to bend the knee to King Aegon II.
But Luke is sent there too, representing his mother, Rhaenyra — who they believe is the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The trailer for episode ten shows what looks like Luke running towards his dragon, Arrax, in a storm. Then we see Vhagar, the massive dragon claimed by Aemond, rearing her head.
This seems to be setting us up for the deadly facedown between Luke and Aemond in the sky. “Then the two beasts were locked together, lightning crackling around them,” the book says. “Vhagar was five times the size of her foe, the hardened survivor of a hundred battles.
If there was a fight, it could not have lasted long. “The book’s fictional histories say that one account claims Luke “survived his fall, swam to safety, but lost all memory of who he was. ” It’s possible “House of the Dragon” goes this route and surprises book readers like they did with Laenor’s fake-out death, but the likeliest option seems to be that he dies.
“The prince was thirteen years of age,” the book says. “His body was never found. And with his death, the war of ravens and envoys and marriage pacts came to an end, and the war of fire and blood began in earnest.
“Luke’s tragic death will set in motion a series of emotionally charged decisions now that blood has been spilled among the families. This also marks the first instance of “kinslaying” among the Greens and the Blacks. Rhaenyra will go into labor and experience a stillbirth for the first time, mirroring Daenerys Targaryen’s storyEmma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen in “House of the Dragon.
“HBOIn “Fire and Blood,” the passage describing King Aegon II’s coronation ceremony is immediately followed by an explanation of what Rhaenyra was doing at Dragonstone while all this had happened. “On Dragonstone, no cheers were heard. Instead, screams echoed through the halls and stairwells of Sea Dragon Tower, down from the queen’s apartments where Rhaenyra Targaryen strained and shuddered in her third day of labor,” the book says.
So far, “House of the Dragon” has deliberately shown three tragic scenes surrounding childbirth: the death of Aemma, by forced medieval C-section, that dragged King Viserys back with guilt for the rest of his life; the aftermath of Rhaenyra birthing Joffrey, a single-shot scene that looked unflinchingly at the physical trauma of bearing a child and immediately walking up stairs while trailing blood; and the death of Laena, who decided on a dragon fighter’s demise when faced with the choice Aemma had been denied. Now we know Rhaenyra is pregnant with her fourth child with Daemon, and it would make sense for the HBO adaptation to put a final childbirth endcap on the first season of the show. In “Fire and Blood,” the news of her father’s death was supposedly the reason why Rhaenyra into early labor.
“The child had not been due for another turn of the moon, but the tidings from King’s Landing had driven the princess into a black fury, and her rage seemed to bring on the birth, as if the babe inside her were angry too, and fighting to get out,” the book says. Then comes a neat parallel to the story of Daenerys TargaryenDaenerys was born in a thunderstorm on Dragonstone before she was exiled in Essos. HBOBack in the very first season of “Game of Thrones” (and in Martin’s “A Game of Thrones” novel), Dany gets pregnant for the first time with Khal Drogo and winds up losing her child in a ritual performed by Mirri Maz Duur.
Dany doesn’t remember giving birth, but was told the child was already dead. “Monstrous. Twisted.
I drew him forth myself,” Mirri Maz Duur tells Dany. “He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. “Dany lost her baby.
But in the season one finale of “Game of Thrones,” she birthed three dragons. Our prediction is that the “House of the Dragon” writers would have been keen to draw any connecting threads between the two shows whenever it’s narratively poetic within Martin’s stories. This seems like the perfect chance for it, especially since Rhaenyra’s child is also called a “monster” in “Fire and Blood.
“”When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, and a stubby, scaled tail,” the book reads. Rhaenyra named her daughter Visenya, and she was ceremonially burned like all Targaryens. This wrenching experience, along with losing Luke, are huge motivating factors in the way Rhaenyra chooses to fight back against Otto and Aegon and the rest of the Greens.
“She was my only daughter, and they killed her,” Rhaenyra said in the book. “They stole my crown and murdered my daughter, and they shall answer for it. “The season one finale of “House of the Dragon” airs Sunday on HBO at 9 p.
m. ET. For more, read our breakdown of the best details you might have missed in last week’s episode.
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From: insider
URL: https://www.insider.com/house-of-the-dragon-predictions-season-one-finale-hbo-2022-10
