After each episode of House of the Dragon, Slate writers will gather to answer a crucial question: Who is the worst person in Westeros? This week: senior editor Jenny G. Zhang and books and culture columnist Laura Miller answer the call.
Jenny G. Zhang: Hello, Laura! I’m pleased to be making my Worst Person in Westeros (which I keep accidentally typing as “West Person in Westeros”) debut with you. Last week, our colleagues anointed Ser Criston Cole with the honor of being the worst after he sent the Greens’ Cargyll twin to his grave. This week’s episode opens with members of two smaller houses, the Brackens and Blackwoods, going toe-to-toe in an extension of an age-old feud between the families that they are conveniently using the Dance of the Dragons to act upon. From the way they’re jostling up against each other, it almost, comically, looks like the setup of a musical between two rival gangs who are about to break into competing dance sequences—but we then cut to the aftermath, all impaled bodies and carnage strewn on the battlefield. It’s a sobering sight, and a reminder that, as Slate’s Sam Adams wrote earlier in June, this season in particular is really hammering home how this civil war between nobles carries terrible costs for the smallfolk, above all. I’m prematurely ready to declare someone—anyone!—the worst for this. What about you, Laura?
Laura Miller: This is a tricky episode for Worst Person in Westeros because a lot of it is about people, specifically Rhaenys and Rhaenyra, trying to prevent the war and other disasters. Does anyone do anything especially terrible? I think we get that opening scene to remind us of that invaluable truism that if you give boys or young men lethal weapons, they are going to want to use them. I was also reminded of the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story! So many of the men in this episode aren’t really thinking about the consequences of their lust for battle.
One scene that struck me is when Aegon, who has loaded up his Kingsguard with a bunch of lickspittle wastrels, is getting ready to fly out after Criston Cole on his dragon, against the advice of his council, and Larys Strong talks him out of it by telling him that rumor has it he has been tricked into doing this so his mother and advisers can run the war from King’s Landing. This is a lie, but it works. Aegon is always contemptible, but he’s like a 5-year-old. He has no idea what he’s doing, has no attention span or self-discipline. But he genuinely loved his little son, and it was sad in the last episode to see him grieving alone.
Zhang: Yes, this episode did show some new dimension to the pitiable Aegon, who is only on my list of potential nominees for worst person as part of the collective that allows the conflict to continue to escalate. But it’s hard to pin it all on one person in particular; as Rhaenys so wisely points out to Rhaenyra while they watch the twin Cargyll knights get buried—yet another casualty of the Dance—did the whole thing start when Daemon sent two thugs to murder a child, or when Aemond killed Lucerys, or when Luke blinded Aemond, and so on and so forth? The cycle of vengeance and tit-for-tat will never end, unless they put a stop to it, but as you point out, it’s primarily the men who are egging it on in this big game of chicken, justifying their acts of war by the logic of “the other side will do it first.”
One of the prime examples of that, I think, is Criston Cole. Can we talk about how quickly he’s switched up his knightly deference to Alicent now that he’s been made Hand of the King?
Miller: Criston is one of the most enigmatic characters in the show. He has some sense of honor, but he’s also deeply angry and mostly unable to show it. Like the feud between the Brackens and the Blackwoods, I guess the source of his hatred for Rhaenyra is that she wasn’t willing to abandon the throne to run off and be with him, but come on. And that somehow has metastasized into this vendetta. Obviously he sent the poor Cargyll twins to their graves because he felt guilty that a little boy was murdered on his watch while he was having sex with the child’s grandmother(!). He seems to have an issue with women exercising power. But because of the class difference between him and all the other players in this drama, he rarely speaks his mind. Alicent sends her cocky brother along with him on Criston’s campaign because clearly she doesn’t trust him, and thanks to Criston’s very real chops and sharp eyes, they are saved from being toasted by Baela’s dragon, when Gwayne would have gotten them all killed with his cockiness. This episode is full of men who are way too cocky, but I’d argue that Criston isn’t one of them. He’s smart and seasoned, but I still feel like I don’t know what really drives him besides hating Rhaenyra for jilting him.
You’re right, though, that he doesn’t seem to want to be led by Alicent. What do you think his deal is?
Zhang: Whatever fantasy he once held in his mind about Rhaenyra, I think he currently holds about Alicent. Now that he’s been elevated to a higher position and put on nearly equal footing with her, he can finally plausibly ask for her favor in public, and maybe even hopes to hold a real relationship with her outside the dark secrecy of the bedchamber. He’s quite traditional, and in his youth carried these notions of romance that I think have not been abandoned entirely, but have been twisted by this idea, informed by his history, that he can only get his heart’s desire by rising in station and proving dominant—even above the queen, the object of his longing now.
But yes, kudos to Ser Criston for spotting Baela on dragonback and saving Alicent’s brother, even while sporting his ugly new haircut. (By the way, the actor who portrays Gwayne, Freddie Fox, was on Apple TV+’s Slow Horses, on which Olivia Cooke also had a leading role in Season 1 before she decamped for House of the Dragon. I was absolutely thrilled to have a mini Slow Horses reunion here, of all places!)
Miller: Let’s face it, these characters are not as complex as the ones in Slow Horses, but with dragons, they don’t need to be. They’re all shaped so much by their designated roles. Even if you don’t want to be king or queen, if you have any claim on the Iron Throne, you’re a threat to whoever does want it, so you can’t just bow out and repair to a vineyard in Dorne like a retired movie director. Poor Helaena, who really doesn’t care about any of this stuff and is one of the only highborn characters to acknowledge that the women of the smallfolk have it rougher than the ladies of the court.
Let’s talk about Daemon, who fled to Harrenhal after a quarrel with his wife about his resentment that she was offered the throne instead of him. He’s supposed to be mustering forces there, but the place is a wreck and a spooky lady informs him that he’ll die there. It’s hard to tell if he’s dreaming all of this or if the ruined castle is actually haunted, which seems very likely. The place, the biggest castle in Westeros, was burned by Aegon the Conqueror, and so it’s no surprise that a Targaryen would meet plenty of vengeful ghosts there. He’s responsible for the murder of an innocent child, and he seems to be feeling remorse for the first time in his life. Daemon has often seemed like the worst person in Westeros to me. Definitely the fact that he’s sulking in a gothic pile while his wife is desperately trying to either rally her forces to avert the war entirely is bad. But at least he’s showing some sign of having a conscience? Even if his timing is really bad?
Zhang: There’s a debate I’ve seen cropping up more on social media—whatever is tracking my internet activity to inform my TikTok algorithm has probably seen that I’ve been looking up more HotD stuff—about Daemon’s relationship with Rhaenyra and whether or not he truly loves her or is just using her for her proximity to the throne. Obviously, in the first season, we saw him threaten her physically. But the counter, as I’ve seen some Rhaenyra/Daemon defenders point to, is that, as anyone who reads the book on which HBO’s series is based knows, he commits vengeance for her, he kills for her, and he does something else that I will not spoil here for non-book-readers. These dreams that Daemon is having in Harrenhal are further fodder for the “he loves her” crowd, and a useful way to add a little more dimension to his character. He’s definitely feeling guilt over his role in mucking up things for Rhaenyra—more so than his guilt over the murder of the child—as evidenced by his nightmare, which brings back fan favorite Milly Alcock as young Rhaenyra.
I think this week’s worst person might have to be someone a little closer to the action, though. We haven’t yet discussed the episode’s big event: Rhaenyra, dressed as a septa, sneaks into King’s Landing for a little one-on-one with Alicent to try to convince her to put an end to the escalating war. But the train has already left the station, as Alicent more or less responds. Although she and the other women want peace and restraint, it’s out of her hands now; neither Aegon nor Aemond nor Criston Cole nor any of the Small Council members are listening to her. So this whole endeavor was kind of a wash—except for one thing. Former besties Rhaenyra and Alicent finally touch on the thorn that still lies between them: Rhaenyra’s feeling that Alicent usurped the throne and lied about Viserys’ succession wishes. What did you make of their conversation and Alicent’s realization that she possibly made a mistake, even if she swears she didn’t? Is her refusal to walk it back completely with Aegon enough to make her a candidate for WPiW?
Miller: What Rhaenyra does is so much braver than anything anyone else does in this episode. Alicent could easily just have her killed and end the conflict (theoretically, as Daemon would obviously pursue it) right there. But Rhaenyra knows Alicent wouldn’t do that, and furthermore, each of them knows that the other did not intend or condone the killing of Luke or Alicent’s grandson Jaehaerys. I’d argue that Alicent is dug in enough that there’s no way that she’d simply reverse her position on the succession, but it’s also apparent that she is going to consider it, which is more than most people do when confronted with evidence contrary to a dearly held belief. But she is right that it doesn’t actually matter what she believes anymore, because the men around them are set on war. “You know what Aemond is,” she says of her own son, to Rhaenyra. Her father has been ejected from the council and the advisers are in chaos. Cooler heads are not going to prevail, but at least she’s not going to have Rhaenyra carted off to the dungeon.
To me, this feels like the lead-up to conflicts like World War I, where whatever bone the sides are contending over, they are hell-bent on getting into it. The guys are itching for a fight and they’ve got some cool weapons they want to take out for a spin. They’re not going to listen to the people who know what the real costs of this war will be, most of whom (but not all) are women. I’m going to go out on a limb here and nominate the men of Westeros collectively as the worst person in that unfortunate country. What do you say? Are you on my side, or are you my mortal enemy, Jenny?
Zhang: I had been racking my brain trying to find which guy I could pin it on—my money was on Ser Criston—but your solution is much more elegant. Yes, let us officially name the men as a whole—specifically, all these ruling men perched atop their cushioned chairs in their castles—this week’s worst person (people) in Westeros. Case closed.
