History Recap / HouseOfTheDragonS1E6ThePrincessAndTheQueen

** Rhaenyra, as a highborn lady in Westeros, is not supposed to nurse her own baby. Joffrey will have a wet nurse. As a result of not nursing, Rhaenyra's breasts ache and she's leaking milk. In addition, as a noble mother so soon out of childbirth, she would be sequestered within her chambers, but is not and therefore must additionally endure the embarrassment of the lactation happening in the middle of a session of the small council, where no one is particularly sympathetic.

*** '''Rhaenyra:''' After initially knowing her as a teenager who was very afraid of childbirth, we're reintroduced to Rhaenyra ''in the midst of giving birth''. She's a mother now, and contrary to her adolescent fears, she doesn't she seem to find it terribly burdensome--she seems to adore her sons.

*** '''Aemond:''' Being bullied about not having a dragon, and this driving him down into the bowels of the Dragonpit where he hopes to find a dragon... but then run away afraid.

** Alicent has been seething about Rhaenyra and her family the entire episode, but is horrified when she learns Larys killed his father and brother for her benefit. It ''does'' benefit it--it takes out two people who were more inclined to support Rhaenyra over her and leaves the position of Hand open for someone more pro-Alicent such as her own father--but still, kinslaying is a ''big deal''.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: We're introduced to many Targaryen kiddos this episode.
** '''Aegon:''' Bullying his little brother Aemond. And standing naked on a window and masturbating.
** '''Aemond:''' Being bullied about not having a dragon, and this driving him down into the bowels of the Dragonpit where he hopes to find a dragon... but then run away afraid.
** '''Helaena:''' Waxing encyclopedically to her mother about her pet millipede.

** Alicent has been seething about Rhaenyra and her family the entire episode, but is horrified when she learns Larys killed his father and brother for her benefit. It ''does'' benefit her--it takes out two people who were more inclined to support Rhaenyra over her and leaves the position of Hand open for someone more pro-Alicent such as her own father--but still, kinslaying is a ''big deal''.

* HasAType: Rhaenyra has replaced her former lover Ser Criston with the not-too-dissimilar Harwin, a different tall brunet guard guy. He's also Commander of the City Watch--a job that used to be Daemon's.

** Alicent and Criston perceive Rhaenyra as having her flagrant adultery unfairly overlooked thanks to ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections.

* HasAType: Rhaenyra has replaced Ser Criston with the not-too-dissimilar Harwin, a different tall brunet guard guy. He's also Commander of the City Watch--a job that used to be Daemon's.

* HasAType: Rhaenyra has replaced Ser Criston with the not-too-dissimilar Harwin, a different tall brunet guard guy.

** Even if we are given enough grounding for it through the last minutes of Creator/EmilyCarey's Queen Alicent last episode, Creator/OliviaCooke's portrayal shows us just how exactly the years have turned Queen Alicent bitter, domineering and even hypocritical--saying with a straight face that she wants the Hand to be her father so that someone will be [[ItsAllAboutMe "partial to [her]"]], and flat our screaming at Aegon's face to get on the Hightower ambition (even as he doesn't want to).

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Alicent is surprisingly unfazed by the sight of her son masturbating naked while standing in an open window (implying it isn't the first time he's done this).

* PrematurelyBald: Viserys is Daemon's only-somewhat-older brother, and Daemon still has a full head of hair. Viserys isn't ''old'', really, just in poor health.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Alicent is surprisingly unfazed by the sight of her son masturbating naked while standing in an open window (implying it isn't the first time he's done this).

* {{Flynning}}: Invoked by Leanor and Qarl. Qarl slashes to the left to hack into a chair right after punching Leanor to the right, then repeatedly hits on Leanor's sword despite him barely moving it. These details let the audience see they are making show rather than actually trying to hurt each other, which the witnessing pageboy is understandably too scared to realize.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Alicent has been seething about Rhaenyra and her family the entire episode, but is horrified when she learns Larys killed his father and brother for her benefit. It ''does'' benefit her--it takes out two people who were more inclined to support Rhaenyra over her and leaves the position of Hand open for someone more pro-Alicent such as her own father--but still, kinslaying is a ''big deal''.

** When Harwin leaves, he says, "I'll be a stranger when we meet again." In the Faith of the Seven, ''the Stanger'' is a name for the TheGrimReaper, foreshadowing his death.

** [[spoiler:When Alicent reassures Aemond that he will have a dragon someday, Helaena murmurs "He'll have to close an eye." In the books, Aemond loses an eye as a result of a fight with his cousins while he tries to claim Vhagar.]]

** Alicent's kids and Rhaenyra's kids both have one brunette Westerosi parent and one white-blond Valyrian parent. That they look completely different is a testimony to the idea that which traits are dominant is very nebulous and inconsistent in this story.

* AdaptationalContextChange: The motivations for the burning of Harrenhal become explicitly different in contrast to the motivations listed upon in ''Literature/FireAndBlood''. While most of it is implied to be about disposing of Harwin for "dishonoring" Rhaenyra (and shaming House Strong itself, if Larys was the culprit) by being the father of her children, here it is explicitly about eliminating Lord Lyonel to enable Otto Hightower's return to service as Hand, as Larys's disturbing favor to the increasingly grasping Queen Alicent. It's made explicit that Larys was the one responsible, whereas the books give a list of suspects including him, Daemon, Corlys Velaryon, King Viserys or simply the Harrenhal curse.

* AdaptationalContextChange: The motivations for the burning of Harrenhal become explicitly different in contrast to the motivations listed upon in ''Literature/FireAndBlood''. While most of it is implied to be about disposing of Harwin for "dishonoring" Rhaenyra (and shaming House Strong itself, if Larys was the culprit) by being the father of her children, here it is explicitly about eliminating Lord Lyonel to enable Otto Hightower's return to service as Hand, as Larys's disturbing favor to the increasingly grasping Queen Alicent. It's made explicit that Larys was the one responsible, whereas the books gave a list of suspects including him, Daemon, Corlys Velaryon, King Viserys or simply the Harrenhal curse.

* FriendToBugs: Helaena is first seen holding a live millipede and also has a collection of bugs preserved in a box. While her mother is clearly not very interested in this topic, she makes an effort to listen politely while her daughter goes on about bugs.

* AdaptationalContextChange: The motivations for the burning of Harrenhal become explicitly different in contrast to the motivations listed upon in ''Literature/FireAndBlood''. While most of it is implied to be about disposing of Harwin for "dishonoring" Rhaenyra and being the father of her children, here it is explicitly about eliminating Lord Lyonel to enable Otto Hightower's return to service as Hand, as Larys's disturbing favor to the increasingly-grasping Queen Alicent.

* CountryMatters: Criston, still bitter ten years after Rhaenyra rejected his proposal, calls her a "spoiled cunt" in conversation with Alicent. The queen is slightly taken aback by the vehemence of the statement.

* AdaptationContextChange: The motivations for the burning of Harrenhal become explicitly different in contrast to the motivations listed upon in ''Literature/FireAndBlood''. While most of it is implied to be about disposing of Harwin for "dishonoring" Rhaenyra and being the father of her children, here it is explicitly about eliminating Lord Lyonel to enable Otto Hightower's return to service as Hand, as Larys's disturbing favor to the increasingly-grasping Queen Alicent.

** Laena professes to her husband that she wants to "die a dragonrider's death" one day. At the end of the episode, she commits suicide by dragon-fire immolation instead of waiting for inevitable, prolonged DeathByChildbirth fever, in a time without powerful antibiotics.

** Laena professes to her daughter that she wants to "die a dragonrider's death" one day. At the end of the episode, she commits suicide by dragon instead of waiting for whatever type of DeathByChildbirth the men around her decide on.

** The true paternity of the sons nominally of Laenor and Rhaenyra dominates the drama of the episode. They are the biological sons of Rhaenyra's lover, Ser Harwin Strong. Whether or not such an arrangement was the only way to have children in a marriage where the husband is homosexual, in Westeros, siring bastards is considered deeply disreputable, especially for a highborn woman. In addition, bastards are not entitled to inherit anything from their legitimate relatives, which would make them ineligible for the throne even though their claim would be through their mother, whose identity isn't in question. Because the consequences for his beloved daughter's reputation are so dire, King Viserys deliberately looks the other way, but to protect her, he also dismisses, gaslights, and implicitly threatens Alicent to shut up about it, even as evidence mounts over a decade that her suspicions are correct. When Rhaenyra later proposes a match with her eldest son Jacaerys to Alicent's daughter Helaena, the Queen is outraged: all three of ''her'' children are legitimate, while ''none'' of Rhaenyra's are, so the match appears less like an attempt at reconciliation, and more like yet another deception.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Harwin leaves, he says, "I'll be a stranger when we meet again." In the Faith of the Seven, ''the Stanger'' is a name for the TheGrimReaper, foreshadowing his death.

* {{Irony}}: When Rhaenyra was still on the marriage market, Lyonel Strong impressed Viserys by being the only advisor who ''didn't'' propose a marriage that would directly benefit himself e.g. with one of his own sons. A decade later Rhaenyra is having an affair with his heir Harwin.