What Are Children But A Weakness?

Josh H
9 min readSep 26, 2022

Discussing Season 1 Episode 6 of the House of the Dragon

Pictures provided by HBO/Max

There are a few things that really bothered me about this episode, but the good far outweighed the bad.

As always, spoilers ahead, if you have not watched this episode, you probably should stop now.

“I Am Cold in My Grave” — Queen Allicent

Pitcures Provided by HBO/Max

We have taken another time jump, to a time when a one-decade older Rhaenyra is giving birth to her third child, Prince Joffrey Valerion.

The Queen asks to see the child immediately, and it becomes apparent that Allicent wants to see the child in order to determine if the child has brown hair and eyes like Rhaenyra’s other children do. The speculation in the book, made much more known and obvious here, was that Ser Harwin Strong (Breakbones) is the father instead of Ser Laenor. After seeing the child, the Queen takes Laenor aside and says:

“Do keep trying Ser Laenor, sooner or later you will get one that looks like you”

Now, in the books, Ser Harwin showed up much earlier (in the same tournament celebrating the wedding of Rhaenyra and Laenor where Ser Criston Cole killed Ser…

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Josh H

Author, Criminal Justice Reform Advocate, Co-Host of the "Decarceration Nation" Podcast, Television critic and Movie Reviewer, OnPirateSatellite.com