🚨Warning: This story accommodates spoilers for “House of the Dragon” Season Two and George R. R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood.”
If we had a nickel for each time Matt Smith performed a begrudged consort to a queen studying to step into her energy … we’d have two nickels.
In “House of the Dragon” Season Two, tensions between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), queen of the Black faction in the Targaryen civil battle, and her husband, Daemon (Matt Smith), are ever rising.
In Episode Two, Daemon left Rhaenyra’s dwelling base of Dragonstone for Harrenhal in order to ascertain a number to wage battle in opposition to the Greens, led by King Aegon II. Before he left, the couple had an explosive struggle, with Rhaenyra accusing him of being unable to simply accept her as queen, as a substitute striving to take the throne himself.
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By Episode Five, Daemon’s intentions to say the throne for himself are clearer than ever. Will he ever become king? Here’s a fast recap of the occasions — and what the book materials might inform us about Daemon’s future.
Daemon’s historical past with the Iron Throne
In the starting of Season One, Daemon is the inheritor to his brother Viserys’ (Paddy Considine) throne, however the king is holding out hope for a son. In the present’s first episode, Viserys’ spouse, Aemma, dies in childbirth and their new child son dies shortly after.
In an effort to curb the unruly Daemon, Viserys names his oldest daughter, Rhaenyra, his inheritor. Viserys finally has a number of sons along with his second spouse, Alicent Hightower, however by no means reneges on his want for Rhaenyra to be queen (though Alicent would disagree).
Rhaenyra finally marries Daemon (sure, her uncle) after years of romantic pressure between them and to strengthen her place.
When Viserys dies, Rhaenyra fashions herself queen and Daemon her king consort, a title reserved for the partner of a royal and one distinct from the authority granted to a king. (Prince Philip, for instance, was Queen Elizabeth II’s consort, and in Netflix’s “The Crown,” he was depicted (also by Matt Smith) as reluctant to bow to his wife.
In Season Two, Episode Five, Daemon’s dissatisfaction along with his place in Rhaenyra’s camp escalates. As Daemon continues to muster assist for the Blacks in the Riverlands, he instructions troopers to bend the knee to him, not Rhaenyra. And when Simon Strong asks to work instantly with the queen, Daemon insists that Harrenhal is his to command.
“You should address me as ‘my king,’” he tells Simon, who counters that Daemon is a prince.
When requested what he would name the husband of the queen, Simon says, “Well, the king — consort.”
“That last bit seems unnecessary, don’t you think?” Daemon replies.
He additionally continues to spiral inside the cursed partitions of the stronghold, fantasizing about being informed by his mom that he’s stronger, braver and extra succesful of being king than his brother Viserys.
Meanwhile, Rhaenyra struggles to take care of authority as her husband is aware of she is inexperienced in the trivialities of battle. But she resolves to not ship for Daemon.
“For too long I have looked to him for strength,” she tells her informant Mysaria. “If I must be supplicant to my own husband, what does that make me?”
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In the present, there’s at the moment no mechanism for Daemon to become king. Rhaenyra’s inheritor is the eldest of her 5 sons, Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett). Jace can be already betrothed to his cousin, Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia), opening the door for the line of succession to get much more crowded.
But what does the supply materials say?
“House of the Dragon” is impressed by George R. R. Martin’s book “Fire & Blood,” which recounts the historical past of House Targaryen main as much as the occasions of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which impressed “Game of Thrones.” While the present has made some adjustments to the historical past laid out in “Fire & Blood,” it could actually level to what the future may maintain for the present.
Does Daemon ever become king?No, Daemon doesn’t ever become king in “Fire & Blood.”
Like in the present, Daemon fights for Rhaenyra in the Riverlands, establishing a stronghold at Harrenhal. But Aemond and Ser Criston Cole, who’re helming the Greens, quickly hatch a plot to march on the fortress, and Daemon abandons the submit. He later joins Rhaenyra on a siege of the Red Keep.
After they efficiently take the fortress, Daemon and a younger dragonrider named Nettles (who has not been introduced in the show) head again to the Riverlands to cease Aemond, who at this level has been laying waste to the land.
Daemon once more takes up residence away from Rhaenyra and doubtlessly strikes up an amorous relationship with Nettles, however as a result of “Fire & Blood” is written like a textbook, totally different sources supply totally different accounts.
What the historians seemingly agree on, although, is Daemon’s demise.
Daemon dies in an epic dragon struggle with Aemond in the Riverlands. His dragon, Caraxes, and Aemond’s Vhagar conflict in the sky earlier than Daemon jumps onto his nephew’s dragon and drives his sword by way of Aemond’s “blind eye, so hard the point came out the back of the young prince’s throat.” Both dragons crash right into a lake.
“Neither man nor dragon could have survived such an impact, the fisherfolk who saw it said,” Martin writes. “Nor did they.”