Otto Hightower

But at the end of the season, Alicent, the wife of King Viserys, Rhaenyra's childhood friend, is suspicious of these children's paternity.

She basically is probably listening to her dad out of Hightower, the hand whispering in her ear, saying, look, you have these children now who are clearly Targaryens with their white hair.

They are the children of Viserys.

And so she's suspicious of Rhaenyra.

What do we see historically? Did you see anything that lined up?

I mean, I think the one thing with the anarchy is that there's really only one battle, one set piece battle in the whole of the anarchy, and that's Lincoln in 1141.

But in season three, you get this problem that the Hightowers have encamped themselves within the walls of a town where there are innocent people and they're putting themselves in the households of all of these people to kind of... negate the ability to use a dragon just to burn the whole place and destroy them because it's such an imprecise weapon and the only battle that we get in the whole of the anarchy is the battle of lincoln in 1141 in which we get a battle kind of just outside the city walls but that that revolves around um The Earl of Chester seizing Lincoln Castle.

Stephen turns up there and lays siege to Lincoln Castle.

Let's look at the man who essentially poured the concrete foundation for the entire Dance of the Dragons.

Otto Hightower, Alicent's father and the Hand of the King.

Otto Hightower's demise is a fascinating case study in how the television adaptation can take a sterile historical fact and expand upon it to deliver intense emotional payoff.

Yeah, the contrast is crazy.

The source material tells us that Otto is executed by Rhaenyra following her successful siege of King's Landing, an event we see play out in season three.

It is entirely deliberate, and it serves as the ultimate shattering of Alicent's worldview

Right

Because for decades, Otto Hightower manipulated the royal court through polite whispers, coded letters, and incredibly civilized conversations in quiet sunlit rooms

But it's none other than Alicent Kibapa.

It's Otto Hightower.

Oh,

Otto.

Oh, boy.

Sweet, sweet Otto Hightower got his credit for a season three.

And I was like, good for you.

So he brings him to the throne room where Rhaenyra is like thanking all of her supporters and killing a bunch of people who are bad.

Oh, okay.

He is Lord Ormond Hightower, and he is the nephew of Otto Hightower.

So he's Allison's cousin.

Cousin.

Yikes.

It was one of those like when Rhaenyra was trying to kill Otto Hightower and she didn't get through on the first whack.

Yeah, I think she had a son though that got tortured too.

I don't know what the son did.

Uh, they always knew it was supposed to be Rhaenyra.

But Otto Hightower being the asshole that he was and sexist that he was, was like, "No, you need to have sons, even if it costs you your first lives, you know, wife's life," you know? Rhaenyra's, you know, mother.

And so I love seeing her, like, sloppily behead him.

I'm like, "Yeah, let's go." Also, I forgot, he was, um...

The, the Harry Potter movies? Or-

Yeah.

Uh, Otto Hightower's actor was in the Harry Potter movies.

Oh.

Um, so perhaps there's still time to redeem this character, but he is someone that just hasn't really been working for me throughout the series really, but especially the last two seasons, I feel like there hasn't been much there.

Um, other characters I wanna call out, Otto Hightower, uh, mostly 'cause I love, love, love Rhys Ifans and everything he brought to the character in previous seasons.

Um, but he was shuffled off screen essentially early in season two.

Um, seems like they didn't have any idea what to do with him, and then he was essentially brought back just to be killed off in the scene he's brought back in.

Yeah.

"I'm on all this shit," and he's, like, going in, and he's, like, the, the, the other Hightower that's with him is like, "Yo, we can't beat them.

We're outnumbered fucking 20 to one."

Yeah, it's a suicide mission, blatantly.

Yep.

They reverse all that shit.

Hightower guy's like, "Listen, they beat us.

It's time for us to roll out." Criston Cole was like, "No.