House of the Dragon episode 6 builds on Game of Thrones in the best way

It sucks to be a woman in Westeros. That’s no secret; it’s the reason many Game of Thrones women are hardened against the world, and the reason many viewers turned away from the original show in the first place. A Song of Ice and Fire is a cold, cruel place, and even colder and crueler if you’re not a man.

House of the Dragon has always united behind that banner as one of its main themes, but the second season – and particularly the sixth episode – sharpens the connection, twisting like a knife between two characters: Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke).

After a losing battle in last week’s small council meeting, Alicent begins episode 6 by being rudely dismissed—first metaphorically, as Aemond refuses to listen to her advice, and then more literally, when Aemond relieves her of her small council duties altogether. This is—in the sly, wily way her son can often be—a shrewd realization of the makeup of his small council, as we’ll learn later; he can have Otto on his council, or he can have Alicent, but he can’t (visually, politically, personally) have both. But it still stings Alicent deeply.

Which makes sense, since Alicent has had to work so hard to be seen, let alone heard, by the men around her, even the ones she birthed. When she made her big move to rule as Queen Regent in Episode 5, “Regent,” she was shot down. The reasons were pitifully good: That was peace, this is war. And yet the underlying message was clearer than that — this is the future she fought for, a future created by men. And now she’s found her place in it: on the outside looking in, wondering if her third child is any better simply because he grew up far away from her.

Rhaenyra, on the other hand, has the ability to fight back in ways that Alicent never does. Though her small council repeatedly undermines her (and Rhaenys and Baela), she commands the kind of respect that Alicent begs for. When a man questions her ability to fight in war, she reminds him that he has only ever known the same peaceful realm that she has. When a man follows her and secretly tries to make her doubt herself, she turns and punches him in the face. Though she repeatedly When she reminds people that it’s okay for their suggestions to cross the line into betrayal, the room falls silent after she does so.

House of the Dragon initially filtered its feminist rallying cry through the horrors of motherhood, but that was a distraction from a deeper argument. While “the childbed is our battlefield” has a ring to it, Rhaenyra’s story, the actual liberation she sought, could swell to include even the birth itself. The arc of the pilot is Rhaenyra discovering that she could be more; to present herself as a queen, not a princess. Everything she has done since has been in the service of the belief that she deserved it, or at least could handle it.

Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO

Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO

That’s exactly what makes the contrast between Alicent and Rhaenyra so interesting in House of the Dragon season 2. Neither has a Good time as a woman in Westeros, but their stories feel rich and compare well. Alicent is a woman of means; she is narrow-minded, closed-minded, and hard, just as often as she is kind and gentle, like the men around her. But she is not a woman of current. And her story is a series of successive attempts to claim it, whether by dressing up, commanding, misinterpreting, or doubling down. Her journey to authority is one marked by demeaning offers and desperate pleas to be heard. Rhaenyra’s journey has been largely the opposite, and while she spent the first half of her life undervalued as an heir because of her gender, this civil war is her first real taste of being undervalued because of her gender. The difference is that when Rhaenyra speaks, people listen, even when she asks them to stand before the dragon’s fire.

Though they could never know it, everyone in episode six is ​​struggling with similar issues. Across the realm, we see people not getting what they think they deserve. In the Vale, Rhaena wonders why she can’t ride a dragon yet. Alyn and Addam Hull chafe at their distant father’s lack of recognition, only to have Addam find himself haunted by it in the form of Seasmoke. Daemon stalks Harrenhal and finds his most terrifying ghost yet, that of his brother the king, who has passed him over in favor of Rhaenyra. Though it’s the least creepy these dream sequences have felt, the blow of Paddy Considine’s Viserys returning to where he was at the beginning of season 1—enraged, wounded, distant—helps to communicate how these emotional wounds can sear themselves into psyches.

A simpler story might let these things fester as mere resentment. But House of the Dragon (and indeed, the larger world of George R.R. Martin) is more interested in diving into the deeper depths of these considerations of power. Episode 6 feels much more like the original Game of Thrones than the show has been, with its musings on how those best suited to lead want nothing to do with it and its kaleidoscope of attempts to gain authority. But the show doesn’t just play the hits here; it makes the Dance of Dragons a war not of big battles but of small moments and attentive character work.

Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO

Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO

Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO

Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO

And nowhere is that more evident than in Alicent and Rhaenyra, even though they’ve only shared one scene together this season. House of the Dragon keeps them moving in tandem, shadows of each other as they each stake a claim to command the Iron Throne. Cooke’s performance as Alicent feels naturally opaque, while D’Arcy cleverly makes Rhaenyra seem almost too considered. In their hands, Rhaenyra feels emotionally gangly for her counsel, and yet she also reads as more firmly rooted than Alicent ever could be. These are two different perspectives on growing up at court, the former a careful modulation of subtlety born of defensiveness, the latter, privilege now having to prove itself.

And so Alicent becomes moody and defensive, attacking anyone who wrongs her, whether it’s her fuck buddy or her son. Rhaenyra, on the other hand, wavers—a move that may keep her from ever falling completely. She builds stronger alliances, inspiring people to join her cause by simply being human when so many might want to be gods, even if it means braving a dragon or killing their own brother. Through her questioning of her birthright and her abilities (and her marriage and her war chest), she’s found support, and she’s brought in Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), who’s developed a startlingly successful offensive tactic for delivering food to the starving citizens of King’s Landing while, apparently, winning Rhaenyra’s heart. In contrast to the pervasive, fluctuating inequality of her relationship with Alicent, Mysaria offers Rhaenyra something beyond advice. Here she expands on her own vulnerability, chronicles her own gendered struggles, and Rhaenyra finally gets someone who understands her, and doesn’t just see her. It’s something Mysaria and the late Steffon Darklyn have in common, following Rhaenyra wherever she takes them precisely because she asks rather than commands; it’s a quieter direction, a bold one, and far more classically feminine than anything Alicent attempts.

This being Westeros, Rhaenyra and Mysaria’s love story, as exciting as it may be, probably isn’t going to be free from the harshness of the realm. This isn’t a story about happy endings—at least not simple ones; time will tell whether Mysaria’s machinations or Rhaenyra’s royal status get in their way. Still, whether this is a fling or not is a revealing development. What little we’ve seen of Rhaenyra and Mysaria together shows us a relationship built on respect and care, far removed from the crude power struggles of Alicent and Cole. It can suck being a woman in Westeros, and you can get fucked sometimes. But House of the DragonThe parallels make it clear that there are some who can still get something out of it.