Discussion Season 1 Episode 5 of the House Of The Dragon
Discussing Season 1 Episode 5 of the House of the Dragon
Wow, folks, this was QUITE an episode with the most significant changes from the source material to date (I think mostly in good ways).
As always, spoilers ahead, if you have not watched this episode, you probably should stop now.
“The Leechings Have Always Brought His Grace Relief” — Maester Orwyle
Okay, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on Viserys. But this episode certainly was brutally emasculating for him.
First, he goes “crown in hand” to Corlys to set the wedding of Rhaenyra and Laenor (who everyone on the show keeps correctly referring to as Ser Laenor but which is several times confusingly enunciated like “Selena” multiple times). Then Corlys humiliates the King first by not meeting him when he arrives and second by being seated on the throne and standing above him as Viserys enters his chamber.
Viserys is also visibly sick and increasingly weak throughout the episode but when he returns from High Tide his wife Queen Allicent doesn’t meet him or attend to him at all despite his illness. And then she further humiliates him by purposefully interrupting his speech at the wedding dinner. Finally, his desire to have a hugely ornate and impressive wedding is disrupted by someone committing actual deadly violence in the great hall. After bearing all of this, he collapses in a heap during the hastily arranged alternative wedding ceremony held right after all of the guests have been escorted from the premises.
Not a good week for the King.
As Otto Hightower put it on his way out of the Red Keep:
“The king will die, it may be months or years, but he’ll not live to be an old man. If Rhaenyra succeeds him war will follow. You understand? The realm will not accept her and to secure her claim she will have to put your children to the sword. She will have no choice…The time is coming, either you prepare Aegon for rule or you cleave to Rhaenyra and pray for her mercy.”
