The latest episode of House of the Dragon turns gods into flesh

A recurring theme in discussions about House of the Dragon – And Game of Thrones before it — is about morality. George R. R. Martin’s world is so starkly amoral that almost every character is a bad person on some level. So who are you rooting for?

Overall, this line of inquiry is reductive as hell and not particularly fruitful. The world of Westeros is full of complex characters who constantly challenge the audience as to whether a person should be considered evil at their worst, or noble at their best. When the stories are at their peak, the answers are nuanced and interesting, and offer a number of possible interpretations of the characters: There may be many reasons to say “Fuck That Guy In Particular,” but even people who agree with the sentiment may have other reasons in mind. Others may not see it that way at all.

House of the Dragon is a more specific show than Game of ThronesHowever, and it’s about a narrower spectrum of people. It’s almost exclusively about the ruling class. This changes the range of lenses available to view the characters. It surrounds the drama of the show with a different context. It fills every scene with a giant elephant filling the corner of every frame: the audience.

The common people of King’s Landing are almost completely unrepresented in the show’s cast of characters. The show is filled with privileged bickerers who squabble over power and send men to their deaths because they think they are entitled to it. Yet, in the fifth episode, House of the Dragon shows that the writers are very involved with the audience and that their role in this compelling story may soon become clear.

Like nearly every episode this season, this one opens with horror: Ser Criston Cole’s decision to parade the head of Rhaenys’ dragon Meleys through the streets is met not with the triumphant cheers he’d expected, but with stunned silence. As one audience member puts it, the people of Westeros thought the creatures were gods. Instead, Criston has shown them that they’re just flesh, like everything else. The implicit follow-up question is a powerful and destabilizing one: What does all this say about the people who use dragons as proof of their innate right to rule?

Attempts to appease the public may be too little, too late. Aemond, in his first official act as King Regent, cuts down the rat catchers hanging from the rafters since his nephew’s murder, a reminder of the tone of Aegon’s short reign thus far. But despite this attempt at better visuals, Aemond’s true interest lies in war: an angry mob soon learns of their new ruler when they discover that they are now prisoners in their own city, unable to leave in search of food or better opportunities. To those in power, they are more useful at home, paying their taxes and keeping the outside world from learning how hard the blockades are hitting them.

Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO

This all ties into Rhaenyra’s efforts on Dragonstone Isle. Frustrated by her warriors’ constitutional inability to accept female leadership, she turns once again to her unlikely advisor Mysaria, who suggests that there are other ways to fight the war. She’s voicing the unrest felt in King’s Landing, the cumulative tensions that a growing civil war has caused in a population that has only known peace. And those people are eager to find someone to blame for ending that peace. Will they ultimately sympathize with Rhaenyra, even as it’s her blockade that’s starving them to death? Or is Mysaria’s instinct that they’ll detest the warmongers and the rat-catchers more accurate? Or was Otto’s decision to parade the corpse of a prince through the streets a powerful enough argument to brand the invisible wannabe queen as a terror worth keeping at bay?

Here, House of the Dragon seems to draw a clear ideological line between its sides, regardless of how sympathetic we may be to its various aspirations: some of these rulers see their people as individuals with a will worth influencing, while others see that will as a nuisance to be kept in check. For both sides, the masses are merely an additional resource to be deployed in whatever way they can to help the powerful maintain their rule. But in a tale of palace intrigue and political struggle, the audience is not powerless. Woe betide those who forget that.