“House of the Dragon” S2 E7 Recap: An Army of Bastards

I know the show is called House of the Dragon, but these mythical beasts of Old Valyria have thus far taken a backseat to the political machinations of the Targaryen family—until the seventh episode of season two. Here, the dragons finally take control of the narrative reins, unleashing their glorious but unpredictable power upon would-be dragonriders. Behold: the might of an actual dragon army.

The opening shot is visually stunning, with Rhaenyra and Addam confronting each other on a gray shoreline, Syrax and Seasmoke flanking each side. It doesn’t take much for Addam to bend the knee and offer his service to the queen, and you can almost see the wheels turning in Rhaenyra’s head, realizing how easy it was to finally get another dragon rider on her side. Addam skirts around his lineage, referring to his father, Corlys, as “no one of consequence.” (Indeed, when the two later meet each other on Dragonstone, they also promptly avoid the subject of Addam’s bastardy.)

Addam’s bond with Seasmoke is a complete miracle to Rhaenyra—and also an opening for her to presumably end this war. She returns to Dragonstone hellbent on finding others with more direct ancestral roots in the Targaryen family, but Mysaria offers another possibility. Having previously worked in a pleasure house, Mysaria knows that Targaryen princes were some of their most frequent customers, and that they’ve produced at least “four score of…bastard progeny.” It’s a preposterous idea—the smallfolk claiming dragons, the symbols of divine providence that have allowed Targaryens to rule the Seven Kingdoms since the days of Aegon the Conqueror? The optics simply don’t look good.

One of the more frustrating story arcs in season two has been Rhaenyra’s tendency to get backed into a corner and surrender to whatever limited options are presented to her. It’s a development that stands in high contrast to season one Rhaenyra, who often did as she wished when she wished it, at least more so than the other women orbiting her social circle. Now, over and over and over again, Rhaenyra toys with the question of, What choice do I have? Jace, still traumatized from the rumors of his own bastardy circulating at King Viserys’s court during his upbringing, begs his mother to consider any other option. If a platinum blonde Targaryen bastard can be elevated into the status of dragonrider, then who’s to say that his own future inheritance of the Iron Throne—as a brown-haired boy who is so evidently the son of Harwin Strong, and not Laenor Velaryon—won’t be threatened by one of the social-climbing lowborn?

Jace isn’t the only one who isn’t a fan of elevating the lowborn by desecrating the dragons (“The dragons are sacred; they are the last magic of Old Valyria in this sad world. They are not playthings for the games of men.”). But, it’s also not totally surprising, given that the entire premise of this show rests in humbling the Targaryens to the rest of Westeros.

Daemon, too, is continuing his ongoing humiliation ritual at Harrenhal. Finding himself in the awkward predicament of having to appease the lesser-ranking lords and ladies of the Riverlands, he reluctantly allows the new Lord Grover Tully to verbally flagellate him for committing war crimes in Rhaenyra’s name. The spirit of these houses isn’t easily broken, and the orders of the king consort matter less to them than the execution of justice. And justice is executed—with Daemon delivering his sword against the neck of Ser Willem Blackwood.

He doesn’t feel great about it, which, I think, goes to show how much character development he’s undergone since Alys unleashed an army of nightmare ghosts upon him. The old Daemon probably wouldn’t have hesitated to chop someone’s head off—even the head of a vassal who is only receiving punishment for following Daemon’s commands to begin with—but Daemon 2.0 seems to be experiencing feelings like guilt and empathy for the first time. Unfortunately for him, Alys’s nightmare ghosts haven’t quite loosened their grip yet. When he returns to his bed chambers at Harrenhal, he is greeted with a fresh haunting of King Viserys, who laments the weight of the crown and asks Daemon if he still wishes to wear it. Questions like these show that subtlety isn’t always favored in the House of the Dragon writers’ room.

After all, Who is worthy of the crown, the throne, and ultimate power? is one of the biggest quandaries propelling the show. Sometimes, it feels like the obvious answer is no one. Break the wheel, as Daenerys Targaryen would say. Even now, these idealistic remnants of the future Mother of Dragons can be found in Rhaenyra, who rallies the Targaryen bastards at Dragonstone by promising them an end to the various hardships that plague the smallfolk: poverty, starvation, and—now, worst of all—war.

Sure, that’s incentive enough—until the group of mixed blondes actually comes face to face with Vermithor, the biggest dragon alive after Vhagar. What was supposed to be a prospective dragon-claiming session immediately spun out into Vermithor getting a case of the munchies. The beast barbecues them up or gobbles them down his gigantic muzzle, making the Targaryen progeny scatter like cockroaches in the light. Hugh Hammer very nearly becomes an hors d’oeuvre, too, until he decides to go toe-to-toe with the creature. He stands at the ready, bracing his body for an inevitable torching, and—astoundingly—screams “Come on!” like an English coach yelling at his players during the Euro Cup finals. Vermithor is enchanted. I guess all he needed to get claimed was a dom!

Ulf has an easier time claiming the other dragon looming on the island. After he miraculously escapes Vermithor’s gullet, he finds himself in a separate wing of the dragon pit, where Silverwing camouflages herself against the rocky terrain. Ulf’s claiming is a lot more anti-climatic than Hugh’s, with Silverwing basically immediately acceding to the random silver-haired guy who showed up in her bedroom.

The winning case for Team Black keeps growing, as Team Green continues to overestimate their advantage. With Aegon indefinitely incapacitated and Alicent spending the entirety of this episode camping (cue the “Situationship so bad, I had to reconnect with nature” memes), Aemond doesn’t seem to realize how precarious his position of power really is.

Ulf and Silverwing remind him. Together, the new rider-and-dragon duo sweep over King’s Landing, a flashy public threat against the kinslayer, who immediately hops aboard Vhagar to chase Ulf all the way back to Dragonstone. The closing shot is even more epic than the opening, showing the queen triumphantly backed by Syrax, Vermithor, and Silverwing.