Recap / House of the Dragon S1 E7: "Driftmark"

"What is this brief, mortal life if not the pursuit of legacy?"

— Corlys Velaryon

The royal family has gathered at the Velaryon seat, Driftmark, to pay their respects to the deceased Laena. Tensions run high after the funeral, and it becomes apparent that the Velaryons too doubt the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's sons. Viserys asks Daemon to return to court, while Aegon expresses distaste at the idea of marrying Helaena.

Later that night, Rhaenys asks Corlys to give up his quest for the Iron Throne and to pass over Laenor and Lucerys for inheriting Driftmark in favor of Laena's daughter Baela, but Corlys disagrees. Rhaenyra reconnects with Daemon and sleeps with him on the beach. Meanwhile, Aemond sneaks outside and claims Laena's dragon Vhagar. Baela and Rhaena see Vhagar take flight from the window and inform Jace and Luke, who investigate alongside them. Aemond attacks the cousin and a fight breaks out. Aemond calls Jace and Luke bastards, and after Aemond threatens to crush Jace's head with a rock in the ensuing scuffle, Lucerys grabs a knife and slashes out Aemond's eye.

The children are brought before their parents while a maester tends to Aemond's eye. A furious Alicent demands retribution for her son, but Viserys tries to put the matter to bed. Rhaenyra tells her father that her sons' legitimacy was called into question; Aegon responds to Viserys's subsequent interrogation by saying the Velaryon boys' paternity is an open secret. Alicent refuses to back down, first demanding Lucerys's eye from the Kingsguard, then taking Viserys's dagger and attacking the family herself. Rhaenyra tries to hold her back and talk her down, and is slashed in the arm for her troubles. Aemond then says that an eye was a fair price to pay for gaining Vhagar, and the family bitterly disperses.

The next day, Alicent is visited by her father, who commends her on her mettle. Laenor comes to Rhaenyra and commits to being a better husband. In private, Rhaenyra suggests to Daemon that they marry and present a united front against Alicent and her supporters. This plan would require the death of her current husband, but Daemon arranges to have Laenor fake his death so he and his lover Qarl can run away to the Free Cities. The two men depart on an eastbound ship, and Rhaenyra and Daemon are wed in a Valyrian-style ceremony with only their respective children in attendance.

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Tropes in this episode:

• Adaptational Context Change: Aemond's "fair exchange" line is substantially reframed. The book took the line at face value; the show gives it pathos. In the book, the line goes: "Prince Aemond said later that he lost an eye and gained a dragon that day, and counted it a fair exchange." The implication is that he literally thought it was Worth It. It's different in the show. Alicent is demanding that Viserys care about their maimed son; Viserys has made it very clear that he doesn't and won't. This is a lost cause and perusing it further will not end well for them. So to get Alicent to stop, to defuse the situation, and to appear strong in front of the people who would wish him ill, Aemond says, "Do not mourn me, Mother. It was a fair exchange. I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon."
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Daemon and Rhaenyra always get together tactlessly soon after Laena's death, but the show dials up it even further. In the book they get together within 6 months. In the show Daemon has sex with another woman at his wife's funeral.
  • In the book Aemond claimed Vhagar at Laenor's funeral. Claiming Vhagar at the funeral of Laena, her previous rider, makes him seem more insensitive.
  • In the book Viserys made the children exchange perfunctory apologies. In the show he doesn't even do that, driving home the point of just how little he cares about Aemond.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • In the book Alicent did demand Luke lose an eye in repayment for Aemond's, but that was as far as it went. Here, she goes a little further by trying to enforce this personally when no one else will.
  • The camerawork and editing frames Alicent as more violent than Rhaenyra. They both have lines in which they call for violence toward a child — "Aemond must be sharply questioned," and "I will have one of her sons eyes in return." But Alicent's line is lingered on, while Rhaenyra's is not. Rhaenyra also uses a euphemism that's established in the books as meaning "torture," but which hasn't been used in the show before and which not all viewers will understand. This together add up to Alicent's threat being framed as more dangerous than Rhaenyra's, when on paper they're much more analogous.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Alicent asks Criston to cut out Lucerys's eye. There's a tense moment when both the audience and the other characters aren't sure how he'll respond. Then he refuses, naming his role as protector as the reason. Does he mean he Wouldn't Hurt a Child because that's attacking rather than protecting? Or does he mean he is protecting Alicent — in this context, protecting her from her own impulsive rage because publicly asking for this can't end well for her?
    Alicent: No, you are sworn to me!
    Criston: [beat] As your protector, my Queen.
  • When Rhaenyra tasks Daemon with killing Laenor, it is unclear if faking his death was part of her plan all along, or if she really did want her husband dead (a level of ruthlessness never before seen in her). She does say that "sea is an escape", and Laenor and Qarl escape by sea. However, the dead of House Velaryon are given Burial at Sea, so she could have just as easily been referring to that.
• Ancestral Weapon: Played with. Rhaena feels that she — as Laena's daughter — should be Vhagar's next rider, and is enraged when Aemond claims the her. This isn't accurate; dragons are living creatures who pick their own riders.
  Rhaena: Vhagar is my mother's dragon.
  Aemond: Your mother's dead. And Vhagar has a new rider now.
  Rhaena: She was mine to claim.
  Aemond: Then you should've claimed her!
• Armor-Piercing Response: Rhaenyra gives a biting statement to Alicent when grappling over the Valyria dagger, provoked by Alicent's own Motive Rant, which was full of its own rhetorical questions and accusations. It causes the single minded Alicent to slash Rhaenyra with the knife in a moment of rage, before shocking her into dropping the knife with a My God, What Have I Done? look on her face; Rhaenyra's words hit a bit too close to the truth for Alicent.
  Rhaenyra: (with a Single Tear in her left eye) Exhausting, wasn't it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. But now they see you as you are.
• Arranged Marriage: As Viserys's eldest son, Aegon has been betrothed to his sister Helaena per Targaryen tradition, much to his dismay as he thinks she's a simpleton and they have no interests in common.
• Art Imitates Art: The artistic style of the horse toy Lucerys is seen playing with after the funeral of Laena looks Etruscan.
• Beach Kiss: Daemon and Rhaenyra's reunion ends up with them snogging, then having sex on, the beach.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Inverted. Elder brother Aegon is rude and dismissive about Helaena, while her younger brother Aemond is protective of her.
  • Sister variant. When Aemond slams Rhaena to the ground, Rhaena's sister Baela punches him in the face in retaliation.
• Bittersweet Ending: The episode ends with Laenor and Qarl free to be together, but Laenor had to break his parents' hearts by letting them think that not only did they lose a child, but their last surviving child. The two men can never see their families again, and they killed an innocent guard to pass off as a dead Laenor. As they leave Driftmark, they exchange glances knowing that their freedom came at a heavy cost.
• Blood Oath: Daemon and Rhaenyra's wedding is a Valyrian style ceremony that involves Palm Bloodletting and then clasping hands.
  Rhaenyra: Let us bind our blood, just as Aegon the Conqueror did with his sisters.
• Bloody Horror: Aemond's stitched eye and the stitched wound on Rhaenyra's arm are not pretty sights.
• Burial at Sea: Laena's remains are committed to the deep, as per House Velaryon tradition.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Implied. In the books, the phrase "questioned sharply" is used exclusively as a euphemism to refer to torture.
  Rhaenyra: My sons are in line to inherit the Iron Throne, Your Grace. This is the highest of treasons. Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders.
• Death Faked for You: Qarl and Laenor fake Laenor's death, after which they escape to the Free Cities together.
• Decoy Getaway: The burnt body in the fireplace is assumed to be Laenor's, but was actually that of a hapless guard whose neck Daemon snapped.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Aemond is still sore about the pig prank Jace and Luke pulled—something he viewed as cruel and something they merely viewed as funny. His response is threatening to feed them to Vhagar.
• Doting Grandparent: Rhaenys is very close with her granddaughters this episode. Most conspicuously, in the aftermath of the children's fight when all the parents come in, it's she — not Daemon — who acts like the twins' parent. Alicent is standing with her boys; Rhaenyra comes in and runs to her sons; Rhaenys and Corlys arrive and girls run to Rhaenys. It's her they hug, it's her they're talking to, it's she who stands with them throughout the whole scene. When Daemon arrives, he stands in the corner and makes no move to reach out to his daughters, nor them to him.
• Elopement: Downplayed, but Rhaenyra and Daemon have a small wedding with only their children and the officiant in attendance. Viserys certainly does not know this is happening.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Corlys knows full well that none of Rhaenyra's children are legitimate, but still refuses his wife's suggestion to name Baela heir to Driftmark over her cousin Luke. Although Corlys is heavily motivated by ambition as well, he points out that Rhaenyra's reputation is bad enough as it is; openly disinheriting Luke would put Rhaenyra's children in disgrace and potential danger for something they're entirely innocent of.
  • Criston Cole is deeply bitter against both Rhaenyra and her children, but balks when Alicent demands that he take Luke's eye, particularly against the King's express commands. He makes clear that he's sworn as her protector, but not about to defy his King and mutilate a child.
  • Even Otto, who later praises Alicent for her actions during the altercation, seems shocked by her demand of an eye for an eye.
• Eye Scream: Luke slashes Aemond's eye while defending Jace, Baela, and Rhaena. The eye proves damaged beyond repair.
• Family Disunion: The nascent feud between Aemond and the children of Rhaenyra and the Velaryons while the extended family is gathered at Laena's Burial at Sea extends to the adults, with Alicent reaching a boiling point against Rhaenyra and her side of the family.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Discussed by Rhaenyra. Her family is innately aligned with fire, but the Velaryons' element is water, and she ponders the meaning of both.
  Rhaenyra: Fire is such strange power. Everything that House Targaryen possesses is owed to it. Yet it has cost us both what we loved.
  Daemon: Perhaps the Velaryons knew the truth of it: the sea is the better ally.
  Rhaenyra: Fire is a prison. The sea offers an escape.
• Flames of Love:
  Rhaenyra: [to Daemon] You and I are made of fire. We have always been meant to burn together.
• Flynning: Invoked by Laenor and Qarl. Qarl slashes to the left, but hacks into a chair right after punching Laenor on the right, then repeatedly hits Laenor's sword despite him barely moving it. It's Bad "Bad Acting". These details let the audience see they are putting on a show rather than actually trying to hurt each other — something the witnessing pageboy is too freaked out to realize.
• Foil:
  • Jace complains to his mom that it's unfair Baela and Rhaena get to receive everyone's comfort at this funeral, while he, who also just lost a parent (Harwin Strong), does not. This is poignantly illustrated in the following scene where Rhaenys comes to hug her granddaughters, while Jace turns away and hides his face so no one can see how sad and alone he is.
  • In the big confrontation scene between families, the camerawork and choreography draws direct parallels between Criston and Daemon. When Alicent draws the blade, Criston moves to go to her and Daemon intercepts him to protect Rhaenyra. The two men are locked together for a moment, just as Alicent and Rhaenyra are, until Westerling has two other Kingsguards separate them. Then, after Viserys declares, "This proceeding is at an end," both men go to their ladies' sides. The scene ends with a Shot/Reverse Shot contrasting the trio of Rhaenyra, Luke, and Daemon with the trio of Alicent, Aemond, and Criston. An angry mom, an beat-up and overwhelmed son clinging to her, and a violent father-figure standing protectively beside them.
• Full Moon Silhouette: There's a shot of Aemond and Vhagar eclipsing the Frequently Full Moon on their flight.
• Gayngst: Laenor expresses discontent with his sexuality because he wasn't able to sire legitimate children or be the husband that he thought Rhaenyra deserved. Rhaenyra reassures him that he is a good man regardless.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: In the fight between the royal children, nobody comes off particularly well. First, Aemond sneaks out and claims Vhagar in the middle of the night. This is fair game, albeit somewhat impolite since they're at the funeral of her previous rider. Then Rhaena seeks Aemond out and accuses him (without grounds) of "stealing" Vhagar. Aemond dismisses her accusations with some cruel words. Rhaena rushes him and starts the physical fight. This escalates to Aemond threatening to feed all the others to his dragon. The rest all group up against Aemond, four to one, and beat him pretty ruthlessly and Kick Him While He's Down. When Aemond gets back up, he prepares to brain Luke with a rock — to which Jace responds by bringing out a knife. It's all pretty ugly. On top of that, they're all triggering each other's personal emotional pain points: Rhaena picking a fight with Aemond for a really impressive feat he's duly proud of; Aemond dismissing of Rhaena's grief at losing her mother and mocking her for not having a dragon; Aemond taunting the Strong boys both about being illegitimate and about losing their biological father. The mitigating factor for all involved is that they're children (an excuse that their parents do not have).
• A Handful for an Eye: Aemond loses the upper hand in the children's brawl when he gets sand thrown in his eyes.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Downplayed to the level of bulling amongst children, but last episode Aemond was the one being mocked for having no dragon. This episode he's the one mocking Rhaena for having no dragon.
• Hope Spot: During the wake, Jace and Aemond meet each other's eyes. It seems like they want to reach out to each other, that they might... but then they don't. This is made extra sad because it stands in such contrast to all the other scenes the two boys share. When Aegon wants to make fun of Aemond, Jace goes along with it. When Rhaena accuses Aemond of stealing Vhagar, Jace goes along with it. Jace is never going to stick up for Aemond, and yet — when it's just the two of them — he doesn't want to antagonize him. (For extra sad points, consider that they're the closest in age of all the boys, which might've set them up to be friends had things been different.)
• Hypocrite:
  • Corlys Velaryon is still outraged that Rhaenys was denied the throne specifically for being a woman — but in the exact same conversation — refuses his wife's request to give his own ancestral seat to his granddaughters.
  • As a girl, Rhaenyra was livid at the woman who rapidly remarried her widowed father immediately after her mother's death. Now she is the woman rapidly remarrying a man whose wife died very recently.
• Important Haircut: After faking his death, Laenor shaves off his distinct white locks so that he and Qarl can be anonymous in Essos.
• Ironic Juxtaposition: During the dagger showdown, Alicent accuses Rhaenyra of flippantly disregarding duty, while Alicent, in contrast, is "Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law." Those lines are spoken while the camera turns to the prophesy dagger, silhouetted against the fire—the symbol of the Targaryen duties that Rhaenyra knows about and is mindful of, and which Alicent knows nothing about.
• Irony: The young Aemond speaks of Aegon and Helaena's marriage as "keeping their Valyrian bloodline pure"—conveniently forgetting that by being descendants of a Hightower, they are not, strictly speaking, purely-Valyrian at all.
• It's All About Me: Rhaenys calls out Corlys on being Secretly Selfish. He is still sore about her getting passed over as queen regnant long after she herself has made peace with it, and she deduces that he's not upset on her behalf but because he wanted to be king consort. He also wants to name Rhaenyra and Laenor's secondborn son Luke as heir to Driftmark rather than Baela or Rhaena, his only biological grandchildren, because Luke would at least keep the Velaryon name alive, which matters more to Corlys than the actual bloodline. In fairness, Corlys does also bring up the point that disinheriting Luke is more or less publicly confirming his illegitimacy, which will put him and his siblings in danger.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • While Aemond is quite cruel to Rhaena after claiming Vhagar, he's not wrong that he has just as much a right to try to claim her as anyone. Dragons have never been treated as an inheritance and whom they'll accept as their rider is often a crapshoot. (Given Vhagar's rider prior to Laena was Aemond's own grandfather Baelon, arguing inheritance would get messy.)
  • Aemond calling Jace and Luke bastards is clearly a Kick the Dog moment, but as Aegon later points out when Viserys questions him, it's an Open Secret that anyone with eyes can figure out.
    Aegon: Father... we know. Everyone knows. Just look at them.
• Karma Houdini: Luke maimed Aemond for life, and doesn't any sort of punishment whatsoever, not even a perfunctory scolding. Alicent is so infuriated by this it becomes a Rage Breaking Point.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: During the fight between the kids, at one point Jace, Baela, and Rhaena are pummeling a downed Aemond all at once while Luke watches on.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: It's discussed how Rhaenyra and Laenor tried to conceive children together, but to no avail. It doesn't sound like they tried that much, though, and conceiving a child can sometimes take a while, so that makes it look Justified.
  Rhaenyra: I had hoped to bear your children, the few times we lay together.
• Literal Metaphor: When Aemond's eye is cut out by Lucerys, Alicent tries to order that his eye be cut out in exchange, literally demanding an eye for an eye.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Lucerys doesn't yet know that Harwin Strong is his biological father and not Laenor Velaryon; when Aemond taunts him about Harwin's death, Lucerys is confused and shouts back that his father is still alive.
• Longing Look: Daemon eyes up Rhaenyra at his own wife's funeral.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Discussed by Rhaenyra and Daemon.
  Rhaenyra: I will not be a tyrant and rule through terror.
  Daemon: A tyrant rules only through terror. If the king isn't feared, he is powerless. If you are to be a strong queen, you must cultivate love and respect, yes, but your subjects must fear you.
  Rhaenyra: [...] The realm will whisper that I was somehow responsible.
  Daemon: Let them whisper. We will know the truth of it, and our enemies won't.
  Rhaenyra: They will fear what else we might be capable of.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Even getting a scratch on the eye is incredibly painful, so much so that people often become delirious or pass out. Aemond's was basically sliced open, yet he's wide awake as the physician sews up his wound. In reality that would induce profuse sweating, uncontrollable shaking, and screaming, before eventually making him pass out. The lack of this—the fact that Aemond himself seems to be taking the loss pretty well—serves the show's pro-Rhaenyra framing. If we saw Aemond suffering like that, while Viserys dismisses it, it would be far harder to claim Alicent's being unreasonable.
• Mama Bear: The dispute over the fight focuses into a direct conflict between the two mothers of the aggrieved and even comes to blows.
• Motive Rant: Alicent lets out a stream of raw, rage-filled questions and accusations when trying to cut Luke's eye and grappling with Rhaenyra. It reveals a mix of sympathetic and less sympathetic motives; she's filled with a mix of anger at how Rhaenyra got to break or ignore traditions that have traumatized Alicent alongside a paranoia about her children's safety on top of some bitter jealousy, like how her marriage to Viserys took her youth away from her while Rhaenyra got to have love affairs resulting in love children whose existence Alicent feels rubs salt in the wound of the threat to her own children.
• Nominal Importance: The guard who dies in Laenor's stead has no name and thus no value.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During the eye-for-an-eye showdown, Aemond passes the hot potato of bastardy allegations to Aegon. The obvious next move here is for Aegon to pass it on to Alicent — but he doesn't. He defuses the allegation insofar as it can be; he confronts his father; he fulfills Alicent's teaching that "in the world we must defend our own." Under pressure, Aegon rises to the occasion and exhibits more bravery, composure, and loyalty than we've yet seen from him.
  Viserys: And you, boy? Where did you hear such calumnies? [yelling in his face] Aegon! Tell me the truth of it!
  Aegon: We know, Father. Everyone knows. Just look at them.
• Old Flame: This episode plays the relationship between Daemon and Rhaenyra this way. Their feelings for each other are still there, and they still fall into each other's arms, but it's different now. The passage of time has tempered things a little bit. They're still just a crazy about each other as they were a decade ago, but the manner of it is less frenzied. Last time they almost had sex it was public, showy, and fevered, whereas now its private and solemn.
• Open Secret: Viserys demands to know the source of the ugly rumor about Rhaenyra's sons and is stunned to learn that everyone has been whispering about it.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Subverted; Laenor lives and runs away with Qarl to Essos, but leaves Rhaenys and Corlys believing that they have lost their last living child.
• Plot Parallel:
  • Both factions claim a formidable ally for their side: Aemond claims Vhagar for the Greens and Rhaenyra claims Daemon for the Blacks. Both Daemon and Vhagar were once Laena's. Both Daemon and Vhagar are someone, not something, and thus cannot be stolen—they're taken with their own consent. Still, there's a bit of a tactless, Robbing the Dead aspect to taking a dead woman's husband and dragon on the very night of her funeral. It would've been polite for both Rhaenyra and Aemond to wait a bit longer. As for the difference half of the foil, the degree of disrespect differs by a lot. On the "takers'" side, Aemond is just a kid and he'd never even met Laena, while Rhaenyra is an adult who actually knew her cousin. On the "takens'" side, Vhagar is a dragon and is not expected to obey human social customs, while Daemon is a human who is on the hook for being On the Rebound at his wife's funeral.
  • Putting aside the whole faked death thing for a moment, Rhaenyra wanting to widow herself in order to marry Daemon parallels Daemon widowing himself to try to marry Rhaenyra in episode 5. It's Divorce Requires Death and a willingness to actually do that. Add to this that Rhaenyra's proposal includes lines about how they should be together because they are alike.
  • Laenor running off to the Free Cities with Qarl was exactly what Criston wanted to do with Rhaenyra. It seems fitting that Laenor was the one to get this outcome considering Criston had killed Laenor's first lover.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Laenor getting Spared by the Adaptation avoids both the narrative redundancy as well as the problematic implications of another gay character (not to mention, one of the few people of color on the show) being killed by a jealous man in a fit of rage in the span of two episodes.
  • In Fire & Blood, the events that cost Aemond one of his eyes take place at Laenor's funeral rather than Laena's, the twins aren't involved, and it's a slightly-older Joffrey Velaryon who spots Aemond trying to claim Vhagar. The show adding the twins to this situation is a good change: The Strong boys had no reason to object to Aemond claiming Vhagar other than a generalized dislike for him, whereas it makes sense for Rhaena and Baela to want to hold onto Vhagar as a vestige of their late mother. The fight also serves as a chance for the four soon-to-be stepsiblings to stand by each other and bond.
• Reaction Shot: The framing of Daemon and Rhaenyra's wedding is romantic — shot lovingly, with a beautiful musical score. Then halfway through the ceremony, there's a shot of their kids. All four of them look angry and/or miserable. Jace, Baela, and Rhaena are glaring at their parents. Little Luke is staring at the ground and getting a side-hug from the maester.
• Ruling Couple: Invoked. Rhaenyra proposes to Daemon not only because she's crazy about him but also because she wants to rule together.
• Ship Tease:
  • Larys is looking at Alicent in what could be a Longing Look (albeit of the Kubrick Stare variety). Criston Lampshades it, and also acts like a bit of a jealous boyfriend himself in response.
    Criston: Lyonel Strong's son's been staring at you since the moment we arrived, Your Grace. Unabashedly.
  • Ser Harrold seems to be trying to tactfully suggest to Viserys that perhaps Alicent and Criston shouldn't spend so much time together, particularly at night. Viserys doesn't go for it.
    Ser Harrold: Shall I see after Queen Alicent, Your Grace?
    Viserys: No, Ser Harrold. You have the night's watch, Ser Criston.
  • Aemond says he would willingly marry Helaena. The phrase "if only" makes it sound wistful, more like a crush and less like duty.
    Aegon: You marry her, then.
    Aemond: I would perform my duty, if Mother had only betrothed us.
• Shoot the Dog: The feud between Rhaenyra and Alicent's children reaches a boiling point, and so to quell the crisis, Viserys decrees that anyone who questions the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's sons will have their tongues removed. While this may quickly dispel the spread of the rumors, the problem is at this point, everyone at court — including Viserys himself — knows the rumors are true. This not only predictably worsens the relationship between his two families, but also makes his Parental Favoritism towards Rhaenyra obvious and arguably tyrannical.
• Skyward Scream: Rhaenys lets out a howl of anguish when she discovers what she believes to be the corpse of her son Laenor.
• So Proud of You: Otto praises his daughter Alicent for her determination in seeking justice for her son's lost eye, telling her that he saw a side of her he had doubted she possessed and that Alicent may have what it takes to win the game of thrones after all. It's in the flavor of Teach Him Anger, except that it was something that happened spontaneously and without prompting.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Instead of being killed by Qarl, Laenor fakes his death and escapes with him to the Free Cities. One source in Fire & Blood claims that Qarl was bribed by Daemon to dispose of Laenor and then murdered to conceal the truth, but here he definitely survives as well.
• Stealth Insult: Vaemond Velaryon spends a good chunk of his speech at Laena's funeral speaking about the importance of the Velaryon bloodline, and about how Laena left two trueborn daughters (the keyword here being true), in a clear attempt to bash Rhaenyra and her sons.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Viserys notes to Daemon that Baela and Rhaena are the spitting image of their mother Laena and likens that to how Rhaenyra reminds him of his own first wife Aemma.
  Viserys: Your girls are the very image of their mother. A comfort and an anguish, as I well remember.
• Suicide by Sea: When Laenor is seen crying in the sea at Laena's funeral, it Implies this could be on the table. To Defy that, Corlys sends Qarl to bring him back safely.
• Tongue Trauma: Viserys threatens to inflict this on anyone who accuses his grandsons of being bastards.
  Viserys: Let it be known: anyone whose tongue dares to question the birth of Princess Rhaenyra's sons should have it removed.
• Took a Level in Badass: After being the Butt-Monkey in the prior episode, Aemond claims a dragon, and the biggest dragon in the world at that. It fills him with a newfound confidence, and he's suddenly unwilling to take any shit or let himself be pushed around anymore. This plays out as him lashing out and bite back at other children in pretty harsh ways.
• Ultimate Job Security: Aemond, Jace, and Luke are all able to sneak away without any adults' knowledge. Viserys asks the Kingsguard, "Who had the watch?" but the question is never directly answered. While there are 7 knights, the only ones we know of during the episode are Harrold and Criston, making them the only real options from a Rule of Perception standpoint. We explicitly hear Criston be assigned to guard Alicent for the night, so it can't be him. So it appears either Harrold was on guard and he let his guard down when he thought the boys were asleep, or he made some sort of scheduling oversight as Commander and didn't post anyone on guard. While Viserys is momentarily angry, there are no consequences for any of the Kingsguard. In Real Life, child caretakers easily lose their jobs over considerably milder injuries happening under their watch. Justified since Viserys has a track record for not taking appropriately strong action in response to… almost anything, really. In this case he clearly wanted to brush the whole incident under the rug as quickly as possible, and casting for a new Kingsguard has been shown to be a high-profile event. Viserys's lack of action in response to his son's maiming could also be considered Played for Drama.
  Viserys: How could you allow such a thing to happen? I will have answers.
  Harrold: The princes were supposed to be abed, my king.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: While leaving Laena's wake, shortly after attempting to console Daemon by bringing up his own experience with losing a wife, Viserys accidentally calls his second wife Alicent by his late first wife's name, Aemma. Ser Harrold tries to indirectly correct him.
  Viserys: I'm going to bed, Aemma.
  Ser Harrold: Shall I see after Queen Alicent, Your Grace?

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