fantasy

Burn Mercy. Burn Obedience. Burn Justice. Burn the Faith. Burn Destiny.

The third season of House of the Dragon (HoD) was not its best for the main part. The action moved too slowly – so much that I fell asleep during episode 1 and its endless battle royale on the storming seas; the actors often seemed out of character; the new self-appointed Queen, Rhaenyra Targaryen, complained a lot about how ruling a penniless queendom with a starving population and a stubborn prince consort was tough. Also, where Game of Thrones (GoT) used its numerous characters to portray a gallery of ambiguous people that blurred the line between bad and good, HoD seems to be wasting its best characters in this third season. Alicent Hightower, the malicious queen dowager, is pretty much useless. Daemond, her cruelest son, is only interesting because he's still one-eyed. Sir Criston Cole is fighting on the field but its dedication to a seemingly lost cause makes no sense. As for Lors Corlys, he is pouting – again – alone at sea. Fortunately for us, Aegon II Targaryen, the fallen king, is still alive, and all evil.

And then comes episode 7 with a glorious fight of dragons of epic proportions. And then comes episode 8, the final one, and we’re rewarded for our patience after the previous tedious episodes, and we are reminded how and why HBO produces some of the best TV shows in the world. The final battle alone is a masterpiece, releasing all the tragic tension of the season, as we know that in the end everything will be reduced to blood and fire.

Burn Mercy. Burn Obedience. Burn Justice. Burn the Faith. burn Destiny. Burn it all. All that was announced at the beginning of season 3 adds up in that final episode.  In a way that makes us impatient to watch the next season, which is supposed to be the concluding one.

The season 3 of House of the Dragon, even with all its flaws, also made 3 powerful points that I want to reflect on in this review.

“You can’t own a dragon and not be transformed by that beast”
 
In other words: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Rhaenyra tries to fight that trend at the beginning of the season. But then we watch her transform into the monster she rides – a dragon capable of burning hundreds of people with a single breath - through every decision she takes to gain more dominance.
 
HoD is a world where ruling entails destruction, death, sorrow. On the contrary, King Viserys I Targaryen, Rhaenyra’s father, is deemed weak by most because he chose the peace of the realm above the desire to hold absolute power.
 
For the road to absolute power is a dark one, a road to perdition from which you can hardly come back. Rhaenyra slips into darkness, slowly but surely, and yet she blames everyone but herself for choosing that bleak path. Like so many other ruthless rulers in the history of Empires and Kingdoms, Rhaenyra refuses to be held accountable for the chaos she sows.
 
“You’re a woman longing for power: that is enough for people to hate you”
 
Whether the universe of GoT is feminist or not, remains a subject of strong debate. On the one hand, the shows portray strong and even fierce women such as Cersei Lannister, Sansa and Arya Stark, and of course the infamous Daenerys Targaryen. But in the end, all these women must either bow to the will of men, or disguise themselves as boys, or accept only pieces of kingdom or sovereignty.
 
Maybe the series’ point of view is simpler as it tries to be realistic: women, even when they are educated, determined, bold, will always be hindered when they’re perceived as threats to masculine power. Or they are expected to join the boy’s club if they want to have the slightest chance of making it to the top, where kings decide who may become queen.
 
HoD, as well as GoT, tell an eternal story: power games are ones where women are only tolerated by men. Women are welcome to try and challenge the status quo, but they must be willing to lose a lot, if not everything. 
 
“Being alive is not exactly the contrary of death" 

The kings and queens that are represented in this universe thus live in another reality, and in loneliness, precisely because everything to them is a matter of death or life: either you live and rule over everything and everyone, or you don’t deserve to keep breathing.
 
 
Few people show compassion or pity in the universe of GoT. and as a result, a lot of characters end up hurt, crippled, orphans, or widowed.
 
In their hubris, those who inflict the greatest pain deem themselves merciful when they let their victims live. But for most people, what is life worth, when your home has been shattered to the ground, your family is gone, and you know that you will be starving besides crying in many years to come?
 
The kings and queens that are represented in this universe thus live in another reality, and in loneliness, precisely because everything to them is a matter of death or life: either you live and rule over everything and everyone, or you don’t deserve to keep breathing.
 
GoT already made it clear: only those who see absolute power as the ultimate means and goal of their lives can embark on the mission to eventually sit on the Iron throne. As for the others, death is awaiting them.
 
Season 4 will tell us if Queen Rhaenyra, who has already lost most of her children in her quest for might and glory, is ready to destroy everyone that stands between her and The Iron Throne, even at the cost of her own life.