Dragon in Winter (HOTD 3x07)

So we start the episode off with Helaena, so that's going to be the first storyline I discuss.

Helaena, we get to see her having her dreams, which are pretty interesting choices of what to include in those dreams.

I will say that one thing I am very happy about, and I'm sure a number of book readers are also pretty happy about, is that we got a glimpse of Helaena on Dreamfyre, and they even mention again that Dreamfyre is her dragon, which is something that I know frankly really annoyed a lot of book readers, that this entire time we never saw her on Dreamfyre, which is a little silly to those of us who are familiar with the lore because it does get mentioned that she used to ride Dreamfyre quite a bit before events happened.

They seem to indicate in the after credit behind the scenes feature that the use of dreams in this episode was intended to reflect the desires of some of the characters in the show, which is pretty interesting because this connects back to a previous episode where I was basically criticizing the show, and I think it's a fair criticism of how the writing team really seems to love using Freudian concepts in their writing choices for this show because it's just a lot of, "What the hell is this really?" And I'm not the only person who has criticized writing decisions on this show about this because it's like there's just a lot of people have been commenting about how the writing team seems a little too interested in having characters on the show being subconsciously, maybe sexually attracted is not really the right term, but they have a weird complex about their moms.

In particular, Daemon with his mom back in the second season, which is also very strange because he even says it in this episode that his mother died when he was only three.

So his connection with his mom wouldn't be particularly that strong because at three years old, you're not gonna remember as much about somebody when they're gone from your life at that age.

So it just makes the whole Season 2 thing really even more strange and nonsensical.

And then this is, like, the second time you had Aemond have a weird thing with Alicent, and then it turns out in this episode it's actually not really Alicent.

It was really him having some weird dream delusion thing happening where it's actually Alys.

But anyway, I was getting off track, so let me circle back to Helaena.

So Helaena, again, ends up being in a situation where she doesn't have a lot of control over what's happening to her, and she has her fears and concerns via the dreams.

And it's interesting that they also include a winter vision, although considering what they did with the whole winter imagery in Game of Thrones, it's very possible that, yes, it could be winter as in hinting back towards the whole long winter, long night concept that comes up later in the timeline via Game of Thrones.

But it also could actually be a reference to ashes.

But we will have to wait and see if either of my theories, quote-unquote, about that actually gets anywhere.

Who knows? It could just be just a weird vision, visual choice that the writing team decided on.

I don't know.

But we'll see.

So we see a further development of the relationship between Aemond and Alys, and it's interesting that, yes, Alicent does finally get to Harrenhal, which of course brings up criticisms about how this show also does a lot of teleporting again, but whatever.

That's not the point.

Anyway, so we get a new tension going on between Aemond, Alys, and Alicent, which again connects to their choice of making this all Freudian and Aemond having a weird complex about his mom and not having enough love from her versus her and Aegon and et cetera.

And it's pretty funny because this also links up to your stereotypical tension of a guy dealing with his mother and his spouse/life partner.

And you have that tension also where it's pretty clear that Alys is very interested in potentially getting a lot of gain out of a relationship with Aemond, and Alicent being his mother and longer term bond/relationship is in a strong position to completely disrupt this developing connection that she has with Aemond.

And it's pretty interesting that the situation is in a position where, yes, she is very skeptical of Alicent because Alicent is a threat to her plans, but then as it turns out, Alicent is genuinely a threat to Aemond because she tries to poison her son, which as a side note, this whole thing of Alicent seemingly going out of her way to screw over her own kids really does make her behavior in Season 1 just completely absurd.