House of the Dragon’s Identical-Face-Off Deserves a Second Look

Spoilers forward for episode two of the 2nd year of House of the Dragon.

There is a sure total of inevitability built into Residence of the Dragon. We’re viewing events that already have a definitive ending in George R.R. Martin’s Hearth & Blood, and that happened a few generations right before Game of Thrones. All the people we see on display screen in HotD will eventually die, the two due to the fact of the natural passage of time and since, you know, there’s a widespread, devastating war likely on that was notorious by the time Got arrived all around. Tragedy is to be envisioned.

But… can we snicker? Sure, HotD is gloomy. But this period, the series is extra pointedly applying humor to puncture its characters’ hubris and homicidal functions. Aegon’s vulgar rants against Rhaenyra are so full-chested that they veer into ludicrous. Otto telling his daughter Alicent to hold her intercourse confession to herself is chuckle-deserving. The Kingsguard possessing a split space in the Red Keep opens up all varieties of alternatives about the complaining they do in there when hunched about their brown-bag lunches. And twins Erryk and Arryk, whom no one particular can convey to aside, battling to the demise in a duel complete of pratfalls, baffled onlookers, and smashed home furnishings? Silly excellence.

There is a skinny line amongst tragedy and comedy, and the Cargylls swing and slash their swords throughout it this week. Of system it is unfortunate that they equally die. That they give their lives for masters who can not detect them on sight, although? There is a bleak, nihilistic pressure of comedy there that HotD is finding greater and much better at deploying. For your thought: Just after Otto phone calls Criston and Aegon’s assassination try on Rhaenyra a “prank,” but prior to the rival-Kingsguard members’ blood stains Rhaenyra’s ground, the seven silliest moments from Erryk and Arryk’s identical-confront-off.

We’re starting up with Looney Tunes stuff, individuals. Director Clare Kilner provides rigidity to this sequence by Arryk assuming his brother’s id and then having a long wander as a result of Dragonstone, past serving employees who ignore him and attendees who are hectic changing the map table’s candles. We know Arryk was presently manufactured by Mysaria back on the seaside, so theoretically he’ll get found out at some point. But there is a little something so amusing about Arryk recognizing Erryk and dodging around a corner to avoid him, like he’s taking part in conceal and find in opposition to a especially incurious opponent. If this is the variety of protection Erryk is giving this castle, maybe Staff Black was always doomed to have some thing main materialize on their premises! Why does this kingdom have such significant security complications?

How else to commence a combat than to scream at every single other? This is a moment straight out of the Highlander college of acting, and I approve.

Also, I think Arryk and Erryk do not contact every single other by their names since HotD desires to exacerbate our uncertainty about who is who in this scene, but you can keep track of the lads by their wounds, particularly Erryk’s scratch over his still left eyebrow.

We know that the Crimson Keep staff members leaked information to Mysaria back when she was a Flea Bottom electrical power player known as the White Worm education for and loyalty between those King’s Landing servants didn’t seem to be so very hot. But appear at Elinda, Rhaenyra’s girl in waiting. This lady is so fantastic at her work that she does not even drop the tray of Rhaenyra’s sleeping draught when an assassin bursts into the queen’s personal quarters. Elinda is horrified and flustered and still that tray does not slip, a minute of bodily commitment so absurd that I have rewound it three times to snicker. Is any person at Elinda’s amount?

In just about every David Attenborough-narrated wildlife documentary collection I’ve at any time viewed, there’s a scene where two animals of the very same species struggle each other for dominance. And typically in those people scenes, there are a several seconds in which the two opponents measurement each other up, choose in every other’s capabilities and foresee what they are heading to do, before ramming their horns, antlers, heads, claws, or bodies jointly. I say all this because: The split-2nd when Arryk and Erryk, who nevertheless share a bond in spite of their divided loyalties, pause in advance of attacking each individual other reminded me that their house sigil is a gold goose. We’re type of watching two birds slapping the shit out of each and every other, and now I’m guffawing.

As extended-standing customers of the Kingsguard, the Cargyll twins have theoretically drilled and trained for a long time in swordfighting and hand-to-hand combat. So why do they only have a person offensive transfer, the extensive overhand swing and grunt? Arryk does it, Erryk does it, and their mirroring makes a really hyperbolic We are preventing, and we detest it! vibe. Actually, it is nearly like these dudes are carrying out their have acquire on Challengers. (Did I just counsel additional incest in this by now incestuous globe? Oops.)

This appears to be like like a stone planter holding bouquets also carved out of stone, since all people concerned in decorating Dragonstone was tremendous-literal about its decor. Whatsoever it is, Arryk slipping, falling onto it, and shattering it into a million parts as Rhaenyra scurries absent is a strong physical gag. I don’t know if Westeros has bananas (what is their create-agriculture situation?), but I’m imagining a peel right here someplace.

Ser Lorent coming to Rhaenyra’s help is great. But the truth that he contributes basically almost nothing but this problem to his queen — for which she has no respond to! — is a actual indictment of them both of those as colleagues, allies, and friends to Erryk, the twin who place himself in danger defecting from King’s Landing, releasing Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys, and thieving Rhaenyra’s father Viserys’s crown so that Rhaenyra could be coronated with it. Staff Black, you seriously ought to have invested in nametags.