For most of House of the Dragon's terrific first season finale, Rhaenyra—now a queen, albeit a disputed one—shows remarkable calm and poise. She tempers her vassals' passions and warns her sons not to start any fights. She even restrains her husband, Prince Daemon—or tries to, at any rate.
Rhaenyra's refusal to use her side's superior firepower (vis a vis dragons) to obliterate her enemies feels like a deliberate echo of Daenerys from the original series, Game of Thrones. Daeny, too, initially refused to simply burn down everything that stood between her and the Iron Throne. But we all know how that turned out: GOT's writers became lazy and bored with the story, and decided to make Daeny go insane with insufficient setup, spoiling six seasons' worth of solid character development. (And Daeny got off easy, compared with Jon Snow, Tyrion, Jaime, Cersei, and a dozen others who deserved more satisfying endings.)
