House of the Dragon | Season 2 Episode 3 

Helaena Targaryen reaction to things even in this episode make perfect sense to me. She basically lives in a constant state of seeing the past and future. That would make anyone seem numb and inhuman. She cant really feel real joy or sadness about things because highly emotional things are constantly presenting themselves to her. She's like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. If you live at every moment of your life at once you're experiencing every feel you have at once as well.

In the Helaena scene i thought it felt true to how an autistic person would cope. It’s how my mind would work in the situation. When it happened she was clearly distraught and traumatized. She loved her baby. But audhd minds often work like ‘out of sight out of mind.’ It’s a completely different grief journey than a neurotypical person would have

about Helena, that's not what i got from that scene. for me she seams like someone uncomfortable with overwhelming feelings and all of this was just trying to distance herself from all of it. the forgiveness and the grief, like purging it almost. to say i forgive, to push it away as fast as possible. the thing about the poor people, thinking that babies do often die. it was leaning into the logic side and away from feelings. away from touch as she always does. and how i read alicent was not shock at her being that way. cause helena has always processed things her own way and alicent knows this. i think it was more about feeling cut off from her daughter. she wants to connect to her in a way a mother and daughter would, a way she does not with her boys. her own mother dead, her father not someone she can get that kind of relationship out of, and once again she is being cut off from her daughter, because she is not acting in a way that alicent can relate to. they cannot grieve together. alicent cannot comfort her and be comforted through this action. its not quite her father telling her he does not want to hear about her sins, does not want to know because he is more happy keeping his own idea of who she is in his head, than the real life messy person. the greens go seem to all be isolated from each other.

Damon walking through Harrenhal was literally Dark Souls the movie

Helena felt like a different character in this episode

I actually loved the Helaena scene with Alicent. It highlights how numb Helaena has become over the years where she can't properly grief over her son. You said at the start of the video of adding nuance to these characters like Cole and Alicent but what about Helaena? She was force to marry Aegon due to tradition. Helaena never wanted to be queen and knew that war was coming. Everyone treats her like a outcast, a freak even by her husband. Helaena barely gets any screen time to showcase her personality. We barely seen Helaena's personality, her dreams or aspirations. She's the only one that doesn't seem like she's heading for a mental breakdown outright. If you compare Helaena's character development and screen time to Rhaenyra, a wide gap is apparent. The reason there is such a stark difference in reaction was Rhaenyra was able to marry the person she loved and had the freedom to choose her own path. Helaena did not as grew numb to her circumstances a long time ago. The third episode was far better than last week which was more of reaction to the first episode. The only thing that was foolish was the idea that Rhaenyra would sneak into kings landing to speak with Alicent. Even if Rhaenyra persuaded her to end the war, Alicent doesn't have any power. She wouldn't be able to stop it now.

Lady Liene stirring up some tea 😆

I could be wrong, but when Helaena said, "I forgive you,' I took it as her forgiving Alicent being a poor mother. It seems to be a big theme this season: how messed up the Green kids are from how their parents treated them. (For example, Aemond and his "mommy figure" prostitute.) Like someone else said, it's is understandable for Alicent given her own childhood, but it's still a big issue in all of these relationships. That's a big contrast with Rhaenyra, who seems like a pretty good parent.

I interpreted Helaena's behaviour as her questioning if she is allowed to mourn as queen both because of Otto taking away her right to mourn on her own terms by putting her in the parade and as a parallel to the "the mother mourns as the queen shirks her duties" line from Daemon. I don't disagree with you though about the scene being not quite as on point as everything else, but I wouldnt have thought about that on my own.

I think overall the episode was solid, up to and including the Alicent and Rhaenyra scene. However.....the repeated use of "solo character is going to sneak into enemy territory and do xyz" is just goofy at this point. Live action Beauty and the Beast catching strays tho 🤣

FINALLY a reviewer who understands the sept scene 😭 i feel so validated bc the consensus on twitter is just visceral hate towards that scene lol

These days I was audiobooking one of Tyrion's chapters, he hears the rumors about Daenerys and they are so unhinged. We as readers know that it's all absolute lies or half truths, maybe 10% truths, but you can easily see how a maester writing about her 200 years from there like it is all true. Especially if we get the whole mad queen thing.

This is the first episode where my confidence in this show wavered. Rhaenyra sneaking into King’s Landing was so farcical it made me roll my eyes. I also don’t buy this whole royals caring about the small folks angle. If they truly did, one of them would just bow out and let the other rule.

All I have to say is that it was a 4 star episode but the Alicent + Rhaenyra scene at the end added ten years to my life, this is real television!!!

The writers having rhaenys say "snallfolk will suffer the most" isnt the girlboss quote they think it is when shes murdered more smallfolk than anyone on the show

I want to talk about Rhaenys, because while I love her character I saw major flaws in this episode. I get that Rhaenys’ stand is how impressed she is with Rhaenyra’s slow to war attitude, and that she sees herself as the person who will foment this as long as she can; but I wonder if she would really be this slow to act if the throne was hers to defend. In this episode, she tells Rhaenyra that Otto Hightower would have not condoned the attempt on her life. Meanwhile we all know that was exactly what he wanted to do, immediately after the death of Vicerys. Rhaenys’ assessment of Otto is way off and very naive, specially when we take noticed that when she escaped Kings Landing and got to Dragonstone, she was very clear when she told Rhaenyra that the greens were coming for her and her children. Rhaenys is also who councils Rhaenyra about speaking to Alicent. To me, this is dumb advice, as in the same sentence, Rhaenys’ tells Rhae that Alicent has no power to stop the actions she permits. So, how exactly would Alicent help Rhae bring up peace? Besides, Rhaenys herself was unable to reason with Alicent, when the coup first started. I like Rhaenys, but she needs to start showing more resourcefulness for war time. Not like the rest of the overly eager council members, but something, because war is coming and if Rhaenyra loses, all of their lives are at stake, and the Kingdom gets to be ruled by an impulsive baby.

You're right, one of the things that this show is missing, that the original show had, that took from ASOIAF, is the mysteries, not knowing things that might be revealed later on, the Strongs death would have been a good one.

Helaena scene. I agree with someone else that that scene wasn’t her showing empathy just logic that commoners lose kids all the time so it is what it is. She is also someone who is having her dreams and nightmares come to life so I really see her as being in a kind of fugue state ever since that night.

Finally someone agrees ,the sept secene made this episode dumb

The expression you're looking for is "you can't unring that Bell."

How in gods name could anyone take a side when dealing with psychopathic feudal lords?! There’re all monsters.

The only problem i have with rhaenrya going to kings landing is how quickly it happened, game of thrones got a huge amount of flack when it started speeding up its travel times because in the earlier season it actually took time to travel anywhere but currently everyone seems to just be getting from A to B within the next scene, makes sense if you're on dragon back and only going from kings landing to dragon stone but on a ship it would still take more time than it did in this episode

they need the last scene with Rhaenyra and Alicent to level the ground, fix the communication mistakes and make clear both know what happened with Viserys last words, so they can go to war intentionally and not based in some misundertanding; however, it was absolutly unnecesary, they dont need to know the true, they going to war thinking they're right about the portion of reality would make it even more tragic, but I think this is the showrunners trying to adress all the changes they did with the plot from the book

Ooo I thought your one thing would be Rhaenyra going to KL. While watching I just couldn’t believe they had made that choice. I almost shed a tear when Helaena forgave Alicent so that scene worked for me.

That was a fun review

Mission Impossible: Sept Infiltration

I just like your summaries :D ...even though I just saw it, I need to hear someone who sum it up for me :D

The issue with Daemon being somehow involved with Harwins death would be a matter of motivation. Wasn’t he married to Laena raising their girls in another land? Why would he be concerned with killing Rhaenyras supposed lover? What would there be to gain? It’s not like he’d slip into the vacant spot. They are already kind of pulling that scenario with Laenor in which a lot of people think Daemon had a hand in killing him to replace him. The Harwin motivation wouldn’t make sense, imo. 😅

Why rheaneys escaping the dragon pit and killing hunderds of people was not in the book ? Like u said

Could Helaena be foreshadowing the three-eyed crow, which has not been seen yet?? Her bizarre behavior, foreshadowing, choosing her son instead of giving the assassins her daughter? Maybe she is our first clairvoyant

I enjoyed the episode, but it's definitely the weakest one of the season yet. It wasn't as well focused or strung together as we've previously seen.

I thought this was a little better than episode 2. I like good build up, but Im worried they are just padding things out and wasting time (which isn't a good sign). It's good so far, dont get me wrong, but Im worried they might mess it all up again.

You’ve said yourself that it’s more important that the show have a consistent narrative, so I’ll only list the inconsistencies of this episode with the show and not the book. It was apparent that the entire purpose of this episode was to permanently absolve all the women of any of the wrong doing to come, and while the misandry is appalling, I’m still inly going to address the inconsistency. At the Cargylls burial, I Rhaenys has a really good line, “There is no war so hateful as one between kin, and no war so bloody as one between dragons,” but then it quickly devolves into us women want to avoid bloodshed, but all men=bad and the everything bad is there fault. This especially doesn’t make sense coming from Rhaenys, because, in the show, she massacred a bunch of innocent common folk of King’s Landing at Aegon II’s coronation in the Dragon Pit, and then chose not to take the easy opportunity to eliminate the entirety of the Green Council, effectively ending the war with the less bloodshed she claims to want. Makes no f*cking sense. Septa Rhaenyra sequence was narratively stupid like you said, and my guess is that it was simple fan service to get Olivia and Emma on screen together. Also, again, we see the same narrative from the women that they want to avoid bloodshed, but the violent male jousters want more bloodshed (I’m in charge but nothing is ever my responsibility or my fault). This is contradictory again, because if “the women” are so hellbent on avoiding bloodshed, Alicent should’ve apprehended Rhaenyra right after the conversation. Boom, war averted, and things haven’t even escalated yet to the point where Rhaenyra would need to be executed.

Dude I honestly think people being silly about the nuance is a direct result of hollywoods uber girl-bossing over the last whatever years just being sooooo tiresome. It's understandable ppl are like oh no theyre doing it again but it's unfortunate i think - it seems to me, that whilst the show is painting all those 'war mongering men' as being the problem for the 'women of restraint' at the end of the day, we know how this ends. And every suggestion so far, would have helped prevent bloodshed in the end - i just think ppl dont understand what they are doing, either deliberately or not - the indecisiveness in the 'nuance' is now going to be a clear reason for a bunch of bloodshed that could have been avoided probably. Perhaps they are super smart and that is a theme, i dont know, but it is how it's playing out and i'm here for it, it's been excellent. Also Liene is the best, chuck out the rest.

Ya this one was a miss for me.. meh.

You can't close Pandoras box

Commenty comment

The fact that there is almost no team green support should tell you this show is one sided

who is this person saying the show is going easy on the greens?

i agree with RickBerman...how to pick a side? i cant stand anyone and want everybody to die asap....but instead we get yet another blondi introduced (even if hes not blond) If about 75% of the charakters die,, maybe i could remember the names of the rest of them and actually know who you are talking about ^^ I really hope the killing starts soon, bc its boring me to tears.