Review: House of the Dragon, "Rhaenyra Triumphant" | Season 3, Episode 3
Rhaenyra Targaryen's horrible, no good, very bad days on the Iron Throne
“The air is thick with ghosts.”
Until its final moments, “Rhaenyra Triumphant” is striking in its resistance of the grand, epic narrative that House of the Dragon has largely told up until this point. Aemond and Vhagar have gone into hiding; Aegon is basically declared dead even if he is with Larys; their brother Daeron becomes a captive as Ormund Hightower swears fealty to the new queen. The Greens have been taken care of, leaving Rhaenyra to rule over the Westeros they left behind.
The episode depicts this as an administratively difficult task. Tyland Lannister took all of the crown’s wealth out of King’s Landing before his death in the Gullet, and Rhaenyra killed the last man (Lord Jasper) who might have answers as to its whereabouts. The people are starving at least in part thanks to the blockade Rhaenyra herself ordered, and what supplies did get through were stored away by the wealthy elite to secure their own survival at the expense of the common folk. Rhaenyra may have finally followed through on her father’s wish for her to be queen, but she has inherited the throne at an auspicious time, set up to fail for reasons that extend beyond her gender or the debate surrounding Viserys’ intentions.
“Rhaenyra Triumphant” takes this bureaucratic scenario and embeds us within it, offering none of the usual escape that we’re used to in such a wide-ranging narrative. We don’t pull away to Aemond or Aegon, or to Baela’s search for them; there is talk of sending someone to the Vale, but we don’t check in on Rhaena and Sheepstealer. We are stuck in the claustrophobia of Rhaenyra’s first days on the Iron Throne, watching as she tries to navigate the politics of governance from an inherently compromised position. Even with the war ostensibly declared over, the episode needs us to understand the difficult path forward for Rhaenyra, and the difficult choices she’ll need to make in order to persevere.
And then, in those final moments, it reminds us that the Dance of Dragons does not end as easily as one might dream it to.
