When the newest episode of House of the Dragon opened, I was shocked to see a glimpse of greenery. We’ve spent so much of the show’s inaugural season in dusty King’s Landing, with only the War for the Stepstones’ grim seaside theatre as a visual reprieve. House of the Dragon is, so far, a show about power-mad blondes in their sepia-toned castle.
My relief was short-lived, of course. It quickly becomes clear that we’re in the Vale, home to Daemon’s neglected wife, Lady Rhea – or, as Daemon calls her in episode one, “my bronze bitch”. He greets her wordlessly from under a hooded cloak, looking more like Luke Skywalker in his soul-searching period than the hero who vanquished the Crabfeeder. Rhea taunts him: she’s not going to sleep with him, he’s been usurped by a teeny-tiny little girl, even his own brother hates him, etc. It’s unkind, but Daemon’s response is… disproportionate. He spooks Rhea’s horse, which throws her violently to the ground. When the fall doesn’t finish the job, he crushes his missus’s skull to death with a nearby stone.
