One of the best customs of ‘Game of Thrones’ was that the ninth episode of each season was the most powerful of all, serving to close several of the plots opened in previous chapters. In its own way it was the true end of the season, with the tenth working more to outline what would come to us in the next installment.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was curious to know if ‘The House of the Dragon’ was going to maintain that tradition with ‘The Green Council’, but once seen it seems that the great high point came with ‘The Lord of the Tides’ and that both this week’s episode and next week’s will serve to outline the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. Be careful, that does not mean that ‘The Green Council’ is great and that the HBO Max series has once again shown how great a series it is.
Beware of spoilers from here on out
The Viserys Succession
After some first bars marked by a more dramatic tone when Viserys’s death was discovered, ‘The Green Council’ goes on to show the different steps taken to carry out a Coup d’état based on the supposed desire of the character played by Paddy Considine shortly before losing his life. It only takes a few minutes for the tension to take over the episode, and if the music of ramin jawadi It already shone at the start of the episode, it will do so even more as the steps that must be taken to crown Aegon as the new king become evident.
Of course, the music is conspicuous by its absence until that meeting of the royal council ends abruptly with the decision of the commander of the Royal Guard to wash his hands until there is a new king. It had already been made clear earlier that he was not aligned with the claims of the majority of the council when Criston Cole brutally silences the only dissonant voice and it soon becomes clear that the rest had already been preparing to see themselves in this situation. Well, with the exception of Alicent, whose doubts about the advisability of executing Rhaenyra will clearly only serve to drag out the inevitable conflict further.
Everything that comes after is geared towards Aegon’s proclamation as the new king and the need to make sure it’s not going to be short-lived. That divides the main characters with different missions. On the one hand, it becomes clear again that the eldest son of Alicent and Viserys is far from the ideal option to be the new occupant of the Iron Throne. Not even he himself is convinced and in the end only Rhaenys’ unexpected decision not to raze everything allows her reign to last more than a few seconds.
Still, it makes sense that it should be. Just as Alicent wanted nothing to do with killing Rhaenyra in the initial council, here she sticks that the character with the face of Eve Best do not settle everything suddenly. After all, they could very well have executed her like other dissidents who didn’t want to acknowledge Aegon’s aspirations, not to mention the illuminating talk Rhaenys and Alicent have mid-episode.
In the end, the problem is that the two aspirants to the throne have good reasons to justify themselves and that at the same time there are very important drawbacks for both. Because let’s not forget that all of Rhaenyra’s children are bastards and that only a matter of genetics has led to everything being complicated to unsuspected limits. They get to have their mother’s hair and all the rumors about who their father is would have lost a lot of force.
Other details of ‘The Green Council’
Another striking aspect of ‘The Green Council’ is that, for the first time, people’s wishes have been given some voice. Not that it got too deep into it beyond Otto’s talk with White Worm or seeing a crowd gather and cheer for Aegon before a spectacular massacre breaks out, but this point was something ‘House of the Dragon’ marginalized in a notable way and that now acquires importance. After all, not everyone is going to end up supporting the same side. In many cases they will be nothing more than cannon fodder that will fall at the first opportunity, but there are also other players who surely in no case want to take over the Iron Throne, but who do want to continue prospering. And it has to be from there that unforgettable betrayals like the one in The Red Wedding of ‘Game of Thrones’ come from.
For the rest, ‘The Green Council’ has been an episode in which the most intimate conversations have shone above everything else. I think, for example, of that face to face between Alicent and Otto, with both wanting to impose opposing positions that can be summed up with the first wanting to achieve an impossible solution and the second defending one that is unacceptable to her. Yes, the character of Olivia Cooke then he has no problem with that borderline sexual dynamic that he has with Larys to get the information he needs.
For my part, I think that this chapter has been able to perfectly capture all the tendencies and aspirations of one of the sides of the inevitable war resulting from the succession of Viserys. The one from the following week will have to show the other one. And if this It has finished in style, who knows how the next one will do, which will already be the final closing of the season.