The first episode of the second season ended with one of the starkest moments of the entire saga.
The last shot of the first season of ‘The House of the Dragon’ showed a defiant look from Rhaenyra, who He had just found out about Lucerys’ death. Two years later, the reunion with Viserys Targaryen’s first-born daughter in the first chapter of the second season has not gone hand in hand with immediate revenge, since the legitimate queen has left Dragonstone to, in full mourning, search for the mortal remains of your son. However, when she has returned to the stronghold she does He has expressed his true desire with a single phrase: “I want Aemond Targaryen”.
The person in charge of carrying out these reprisals has been Daemon, who has taken advantage of the imprisonment of his ex-lover, Mysaria, to find a nook through which to stab the lords of King’s Landing. Immediately, the character played by Matt Smith has infiltrated the capital to contact the two men who were to undertake his task: a member of the City Watch and a rat catcher whom we had previously seen camping around the royal castle. We never get to hear his real names, but his nicknames, Blood and Cheeseand their atrocious acts are enough to never forget them.
Mark Stobbart and Sam C. Wilson in ‘House of the Dragon’
Daemon explains to them that their goal is to behead Aemond, the person responsible for Lucerys’ death. When asked about a backup plan in case Alicent’s second child is not present, We only see Daemon’s serious face, so both what he said and what will happen later are left in the air. As Cheese, who knows better than anyone the ins and outs of the Red Keep and the secret tunnels commissioned by Maegor the Cruel, Aemond is not in his chambers, so the tandem diverts its attention to another key figure in the line of succession: Jaehaerys, Aegon’s little successor.
Previously, we had been introduced to the heir along with his twin sister Jaehaera. In this brutal sequence, both are asleep, each in his bed, and Blood and Cheese threaten their mother, Queen Helaena, to reveal to them which of the two is the male. After revealing that information, Blood proceeds to dismember the creaturefulfilling the “child for child” objective, although not in the intended way.
Differences from the book
The brutal sequence of ‘The House of the Dragon’ differs in certain aspects from the chronicle captured in ‘Fire and Blood’, George RR Martin’s book focused on the Targaryens. On paper, Cheese and Blood began by gagging Alicent, since they knew that every night her grandchildren came to Helaena to say goodbye to her. Furthermore, in that narrative, the plural of grandchildren covers a broader lineagesince the kings had already had three children: the twins, six years old, and Maelor, who was only two years old.
At first, Helaena begged to be killed instead of any of her children, but The assailants rejected that proposal and they forced her to choose between her male offspring. The queen chose Maelor, trying to prevent her heir from dying, but Sangre ignored him and decapitated Jaehaerys with one blow.. Therefore, the result is similar to that of adaptation, but the path diverges substantially in certain aspects.
The showrunner of the series, Ryan Condal, has spoken about these differences, explaining that the main reason for the absence of some characters is none other than the temporal structure applied in the jump to the screen. During the first season, what was really happening in three decades was condensed into twenty years, so the ages of the characters have been altered and therefore the younger generation has not had time to grow up.
“Rhaenyra and Daemon’s children are much younger than in the book, as are Helaena and Aegon’s. They haven’t been together long enough to have several generations of children.so Maelor does not yet exist and there are only the twins,” reasons Condal in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Based on that, we wanted the plot of Blood and Cheese to be a visceral television sequence. We decided to tell it from his point of view and present it as a coup that goes wrong“.
