[COLUMN] In House of the Dragon, Nobody Controls the Beasts of War | by Darren Mooney

Note: This piece contains spoilers for the first episode of the third season of House of the Dragon, which premiered last night on HBO and is now streaming on HBO Max. If you’re looking for a quick review, I’ve seen the first four episodes and liked it a lot - it has a tighter focus and clearer narrative engine than the second season did, even if it’s not quite as compelling as the first season. So, if you want to check it out before reading this piece, which does discuss fairly significant beats, please feel free to bookmark and come back. Otherwise, I’ve let this intro dragon long enough.

As a franchise, Game of Thrones has always been preoccupied with the idea of power.

In particular, the idea of agency over power. Who holds power and who wields power? How much of an individual’s fate is a result of their own choices and decisions, and how much is a direct or indirect result of factors outside of their control and occasionally even awareness? The structure of Game of Thrones presented a world in which kings and queens seemed beholden to the butterfly effect. A dragon flaps its wings in Essos and the Iron Throne of Westeros lies in ruin a few years later.

As one might expect, this thematic anxiety carries over to the prequel series, House of the Dragon, which depicts the erosion and decay of House Targaryen as the royal dynasty collapses into disarray and the realm sinks into the civil war known as the Dance of Dragons, as two factions of the family vie for control of the kingdom. The show is a grand tragedy inspired by the historical conflict over the British throne that came to be known as “the Anarchy.” As the name implies, it seems like nobody holds control over power.

Of course, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are more than simple historical epics disguised by fantasy trappings. These are very pointed political allegories for contemporary America. For centuries, House Targaryen has asserted control of Westeros through its dragons, which are obvious stand-ins for weapons of mass destruction, to the point that author George R.R. Martin has described them as a “nuclear deterrent.”

In this context, it is perhaps worth acknowledging that contemporary pop culture has a very strong strain of nuclear paranoia running through it. Recent films like House of Dynamite, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Oppenheimer all brought nuclear anxieties back to the surface, after it felt like the fear of nuclear annihilation had actually been receding for a couple of decades. Indeed, in 2022, the American public’s fear of nuclear war hit highs not seen since the Cold War.

Some of this fear of nuclear apocalypse is literal. Global events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s attacks upon Iran have increased the possibility of an actual nuclear strike, and the language of leaders like Donald Trump threatening that “a whole civilization will die” don’t help relieve anxieties. However, that reawakened concern about the possibility of nuclear devastation is perhaps also an expression of a deeper underlying fear.

After all, so much of the classic nuclear horror in films like Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, through to House of Dynamite and Final Reckoning, is the fear that these systems have evolved in such a way as to render the human beings involved completely powerless. It is not simply the fear that the world will end, it is that the end of the world is the inevitable outcome of decisions that have already been made and systems already put in place.

In House of the Dragon, the dragons represent something beyond human reckoning. They are a power which House Targaryen has convinced themselves that they have tamed. However, the show suggests that this is comforting fiction. “The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion,” explains Viserys I (Paddy Considine). “They’re a power man should never have trifled with, one that brought Valyria its Doom. If we don’t mind our own histories, it will do the same to us.”

This idea is made manifest in the third season premiere. Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell), the daughter of Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), has long sought a dragon of her own. She finds such a creature, nicknamed “Sheepstealer”, hiding in the Vale, and seeks to tame it. It allows her to ride on its back. Convinced that she has mastery of the creature, Rhaena rides it into battle on behalf of her aunt and stepmother Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy).

A dragon is a devastating weapon. It lays waste to fleets of enemy vessels. However, the dragon is also uncontrollable. In the heat of battle, Sheepstealer catches sight of another dragon, Vermax, the steed of Prince Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett), Queen Rhaenyra’s son. Despite the fact that Rhaena is allied with Rhaenyra, Sheepstealer lashes out at Vermax, attacking the dragon and its rider. Rhaena screams frantically for Sheepstealer to obey her, but the dragon will not listen.

This is not the first time that the dragons have proven to have a mind of their own. In the first season, Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) claims the legendary and powerful dragon Vhagar for his own. At the season’s climax, Aemond uses Vhagar to target his cousin Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault), Jacaerys’ brother and Rhaenyra’s other son. The situation escalates, with Vhagar seemingly acting of his own volition and killing Lucerys, effectively starting the Dance of Dragons.

It is not just the dragons that prove themselves ungovernable. Throughout House of the Dragon, there is a grim irony as the leaders who would claim the right to rule Westeros prove consistently incapable of governing their own subjects. Rhaenyra positions herself as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, but at the climax of the season premiere she is undermined by a conspiracy orchestrated by her son Jacaerys and her Queensgaurd to lock her in her room while they run into battle.

The other side of the civil war is not any more organized. The opposing forces are ostensibly led by the horrifically scarred King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), but he has vacated the throne and fled King’s Landing. His mother, the Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), is attempting to govern in her son’s absence. Alicent has negotiated a peaceful transition of power to Rhaenyra, but the organs of government are not aligned to follow her wishes.

Alicent’s older brother, the idealistic Ser Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox), is horrified at the conduct of the soldier that he is marching across the realm. “We are not beasts, but knights – and soldiers of honor,” Gwayne insists to his more worldly and cynical companion Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). “Look around you, Ser Gwayne,” Cole replies. “Look to the sky, look to the horizon. Doom and ruin surround us. We’ll all become beasts at the far end.” There is perhaps little choice in the matter.

There is a sense that the war is being fought on autopilot, that the pieces have been set in motion and that they can no longer be stopped even by the wills of rulers. This is particularly true in the heat of battle. In the Battle of the Gullet, as Rhaenyra’s forces attempt to seize control of Blackwater Bay to grant access to the Red Keep in King’s Landing. Acting on behalf of Aegon II, Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) has enlisted the Pirates of the Triarchy, led by Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn).

However, much like the dragons, Lohar has a mind of her own. She has her own interests and priorities. In the heat of the battle, Lohar reveals that her primary objective is not aligned with Lannister. Lannister wants Lohar to protect Aegon II’s claim on the Iron Throne, but Lohar enlisted solely so that she might avenge herself on Rhaenyra’s father-in-law and subject, Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). She abandons the defense of King’s Landing to pursue Velaryon.

“Do you think I sailed across the Narrow Sea to win your king’s war for him?” Lohar challenges Lannister. Lannister objects, “Those were the terms of the contract.” Lohar explains the reality of the situation to the king’s representative, “The Sea Snake led the persecution and slaughter of my mates for more than twenty years. I sealed your contract for him.” In order to lighten her ship’s load as they pursue Velaryon, she throws all of the armored Lannister soldiers overboard to a watery grave.

There is a sense in House of the Dragon that the fragile peace maintained by King Viserys has been broken, and that the shattering of the existing systems and structures of governance has unleashed some sort of dark and chaotic force upon the realm that nobody – whether king or commoner, queen or sorcerer – can hope to control. Once the beast gets a taste of blood, it will follow no greater law than its own base instincts.

There is, perhaps, something very timely in this idea. After all, the past decade or so has seen a dismantling and unravelling of the established geopolitical order. This is particularly true of the United States of America, which The New York Times recently declared “an empire in decline”, and which has largely abandoned the understanding of international relations that have governed global politics since the end of the Second World War to become “a rogue superpower.”

Internally, norms and rules have been violated to the point that they are ultimately meaningless. The Capitol Building was stormed, with many of those involved later pardoned only to be charged with subsequent crimes. The President of the United States celebrated his birthday by building a combat sports arena on the front lawn of the White House like a Roman Emperor. Elected on the promise to “drain the swamp”, he has turned the water at the Washington Monument green.

The stated aims of the people in positions of power, often anchored in xenophobic and sexist rhetoric, are terrifying. However, even more unsettling is the understanding that even they may not be in complete control of the chaos that they have unleashed in their efforts to claim and hold power. Anti-vaccination rhetoric has seen a surge in childhood illnesses, spending cuts in agriculture led to an outbreak of screw worm, and American aggression caused a global oil crisis.

In some ways, House of the Dragon feels of a piece with the recent wave of historical and biographical films that interrogate the Great Man Theory of History, the argument summarized by Thomas Carlyle that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” Movies like Oppenheimer and Napoleon deconstruct that notion, suggesting that change is often driven by forces outside of human control. Pressure is a movie about how even D-Day depends on the weather.

The smarter characters in House of the Dragon seem to understand this. Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton), cousin to Alicent and Gwayne, acknowledges how pointless all this fixation on kings and queens ultimately is. Deducing that Aegon II is dead or deposed due to Aemond declaring himself king, Ormund is decidedly unbothered. “One king is as good as another,” he opines. He reflects on the day around him. “Mayhap the weather will hold.” That is all that really counts.

House of the Dragon understands that these larger forces dance to their own rhythm.