The following article contains major spoilers for episode 7 of House of the Dragon season 2.
There it is. Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) has gone full homicidal maniac. And you never go full homicidal maniac. But hey, what else would you expect of a Targaryen queen vying for the throne?
By the penultimate episode of this current season of House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra has faced mounting pressure not only from her foes in King's Landing, but also the people around her who purport to be her allies. The men in her counsel seem hellbent on undermining her at every turn. Her son, Jace (Harry Collett) grows more petulant by the day. Somewhere up the map, her uncle-husband-sort-of-ex Daemon (Matt Smith) gallivants around a castle playing king, like a kid in a Burger King crown.
So with allies dwindling and options limited in this stalemate civil war, it's no wonder that she would resort to desperate measures. The match that strikes the fuse? The divine gift of a smallfolk dragonrider, Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), who adds the dragon Seasmoke to Rhaenyra's ranks. It's hypothesized that he must be a forgotten higher-born bastard—inspiring the decision to call dozens of bastards of the Targaryen bloodline to Dragonstone for their own dragon-riding auditions.
Only, it goes horribly. The poor proles are commanded to tame the biggest, baddest beast of them all, who responds by incinerating and chomping virtually all of them to bits. He and the other free dragon are eventually mounted, but not before a massacre has taken place. Which Rhaenyra watches, unmoved.
With good reason, then, we wanted to get D'Arcy's take on such a barbaric left turn. So we jumped on a call to break down the episode and to catch up with them about the series more broadly, not least the implosion of Rhaenyra's relationship with Daemon, and her new fling with the one true ally she can really count on at Dragonstone, Mysaria (Sonora Mizuno). “I think she’s very bad at being alone, and so she tends to find someone [who] will fill the void,” D'Arcy says. “She’s never an autonomous operator. She requires someone to be in her orbit.”
GQ: Before we get to the fiery events of the latest episode, let’s touch base on the season so far. First off, the rupture in Rhaenyra and Daemon’s relationship.
Emma D’Arcy: Their chemistry, their eroticism, is, I think, completely predicated on power. Actually, their relationship exclusively works when they are powerful, when the blood is up, when the campaign is succeeding. At the start of the series, we meet them both in a state of mourning. Until we shot this season, I hadn’t realized that they are completely incapable, I think, of sharing weakness. There’s so much grandstanding that takes place within their relationship. So there’s a total communication breakdown.
And in the aftermath of that argument, there’s a sort of unsaid fear that she holds for a lot of the series that she has sent him away for good, finally. There are truths said in that argument that one can’t retract; sometimes we share [the] truth with someone we’re intimate with and it’s immediately evident that we’ve spoken from our soul, and no amount of “sorry”, there is no retraction that could undo that sharing.
I also think she misses him hugely, although she never says it. There is a slightly desperate sense of cyclically returning to one another, I think. But you know, they’re both incredibly proud. There’s a wonderful stalemate.
Do you think there is love between them?
Yeah, I do. I think it’s a really complicated relationship. There are periods where they behave like age-old colleagues or something, but I think there’s a loyalty, or there has been until now. There’s a sort of darkness, I think, that they understand in one another, that maybe they’re not able to share elsewhere.
As the season goes on, there’s this mounting pressure for Rhaenyra to bring Daemon back into the fold. How do you think that makes her feel?
I think she’s completely sick of any feeling in her that she needs him. When times are good, she can sort of be open to the idea of a biased power share, where she sits the throne, and he’s in close proximity, and I suppose receives some of that power by proxy. But she also recognises that she is patronised by him, and at a certain point, it’s exhausting.
I think there’s something that sometimes happens in relationships where there is such an extreme age difference… I think there’s a part of her that outgrew him, and could no longer countenance being patronized by this man, whose behaviour she recognizes increasingly to be erratic, immature, unpredictable.
The older she gets, I suppose, and the more experienced she becomes, the less willing I think she is to indulge him. And that’s a problem.
And how has her relationship with Mysaria evolved over time?
I think it’s completely unlike any other relationship Rhaenyra has. She tends to be very hot-blooded when it comes to all relationships or allyships. I think she sort of spots people she wants, and she goes for them … I think Rhaenyra feels deeply threatened by Mysaria when she first meets her. [Rhaenyra] has a skillset that was made to manipulate and navigate men, and male power. It wasn’t built to deal with other women who have power.
Obviously, the added ingredient that Mysaria is Daemon’s ex is also strangely charged. But I really like that their relationship, the trust that forms between them, happens creepingly. It’s really gradual. It’s incremental. It’s not the sort of impulsive honeymoon experience that I think Rhaenyra has had a lot in the past.
And I think Mysaria offers Rhaenyra a new perspective — this whole idea of smallfolk, of citizens, is quite abstract for Rhaenyra until Mysaria comes into her counsel.
Moving on to the latest episode, I think that we are starting to see a ruthlessness in Rhaenyra that hasn't always been there. She doesn't quite go full Daenerys, but it's close. What do you think has drawn that out of her?
I mean, I don't know if I… I'm obviously, like, resistant of the Daenerys comparison. I don't know why, but I am.
I understand. I'm not trying to trap you. It's just what came to mind when I watched the episode.
Totally. I think something that has been happening for Rhaenyra throughout the series is a growing religious fanaticism. After her father’s death, there is this desire to be connected to him in some way. And losing him happens at the same moment as having her throne usurped. And so that thing that would have been such a direct connection to him is also stolen. So in lieu of that, there’s that searching [through] the histories. I think imagining that at some point her name will feature next to her father’s is in some way comforting, and I find it very moving to see a person who in grief has committed themselves to the history books.
As the series goes on, I think we see her more and more invested in her faith. She returns to the old gods. I think all of these actions are in search of her right; the thing that she thought she had received from her father, she is looking for evidence again and again. And part of it, I’m sure, is a choice. I think sometimes in times of loss, we can choose the anchors that we are going to cling to, and her faith becomes one. But I think there’s a narcissism in it. I think her connection with her religion is about wanting to reinforce a divine right.
And I think, looking at [episode] seven when this miracle takes place, and this man claims Seasmoke, I think she feels that it’s a gift from the gods. I think it’s what allows her to ride roughshod over Jace’s very legitimate concerns about his own status. I think it’s what allows her to stage a massacre, essentially. She feels that she is riding on the wings of her faith. But her faith, and her belief that she is the ruler that is supposed to sit on that throne, are completely enmeshed.
Does she really hold onto the hope that the conflict can end without further bloodshed?
I think she does. I think Rhaenys’ counselling has had some effect on Rhaenyra, and was made all the more convincing at the point of Rhaenys’ death. I think there is a feeling of needing to honor her in some way. I think Rhaenys’ and Rhaenyra’s opinions are different; Rhaenys’ conviction that women alone can prevent all bloodshed, and that the sort of women’s duty is to do that, I am not sure that’s a feeling that Rhaenyra shares. But the sense that there is another approach to conflict, I think that resonates in a big way.
What is going through Rhaenyra’s mind as she watches the Targaryen bastards be devoured and torched alive?
I think she feels like a god. I think she feels super proud. I mean, I think it’s uncomfortable. I think there’s something, actually, also that ties into the religiosity — even being back in proximity to dragons, to that fire, is to somehow be living her birthright. To be soaking up the divine, somehow.
And do you think that she feels as though the decision to essentially stage a massacre, as you say, is vindicated when the two new bastard dragonriders are found?
Totally. Without a shadow of a doubt. I mean, it’s horrendous, but I think she is now this sort of emboldened fanatic, [and] I think she’s experiencing events within a far bigger timeline. She’s imagining the history books. And you know, what’s happening right in front of her is awful. But in 300-400 years, what will be documented is possibly a very short war; a huge civil war that was averted, that this was the first ruling queen, that this ruling Targaryen queen expanded the Targaryen’s ability to have dragons within their armoury.