Rhaenyra Triumphant (HOTD 3x03)

Overall, this week's episode was a bit on the slower side in the sense that things were happening, but nothing super exciting was actually happening, unlike the first episode.

But this just fits with the general consensus that a lot of fandom have.

about how the first two episodes were likely intended to be part of the second season but due to the writer strike that happened a couple years back that ended up changing things so now we have a season that's going to feel like it's got some strange emotional roller coaster beats type of thing But I will say that there are some things that happened in the episode which I liked and I didn't like.

There is definitely plenty of setup for the future conflicts that we shall be seeing over the course of the season.

The episode starts off with Daemon confronting Ormond Hightower and basically expecting them to surrender, which on paper, they appear to do so.

And of course, naturally, they would demand Daeron be given to them.

which, based off of indications from episode one, the kid that we see was not Daeron, which I have to tell you right now still feels really bizarre to me because it is very clearly stated in the source material that Daeron definitely looks like a Targaryen, which is something I had actually discussed in the previous episode.

It's creating an interesting choice of conflict, which is the idea that they sent a fake Daeron as a hostage while having the real one with them, which truthfully is a goofy idea, if I'm being honest with you.

It completely doesn't make any logical sense.

Because dragons are very closely bonded to their riders and it doesn't make sense how it's possible that they would hypothetically separate Tesserion from the real Daeron.

It's all very strange and it doesn't make any logical sense.

Because allegedly they have Daeron sent back to King's Landing, and yet apparently the dragon didn't come with him to King's Landing as well.

It's fairly inconsistent with what I'm aware of how it's supposed to work between rider and dragon, which is one of those details that I am not a big fan of personally.

This is actually something that I brought up in earlier episodes of this podcast where it just was very strange to me how allegedly Laenor dies and yet the dragon just decided to go with a different rider despite the fact that Laenor never actually dies in the TV show, which is pretty inconsistent with how dragon-rider relationships act.

So this is one of those detailed things I'm not a big fan of.

This episode is entirely centered on Rhaenyra.

You're getting a majority of events from Rhaenyra's perspective because, as the title suggests...

This is a Rhaenyra episode, Rhaenyra Triumphant.

Over the course of the episode, we are supposed to see Rhaenyra finally on the throne, the Queen of Westeros, and yet things are not going as smoothly as she would like it to be.

You go in thinking one thing, but then once you get into the position that you wanted, things don't always turn out the way that you would expect they would.

Rhaenyra is forced into a position where she has to constantly be pulled in multiple directions.

She gets very conflicting advice.

And she's just struggling right now.

And you can very clearly see it throughout the episode.

It's going to be very rough going for her, no doubt.