Ormund Hightower – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 6 – Faceless Men

“He means to show the realm that I cannot even govern in my own seat. The great house watch while he humiliates me. Where is my army?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Rhaenyra and the Blacks may have taken King’s Landing, but the civil war continues apace in this week’s House of the Dragon. Well, I say “apace”, but it’s not exactly a fast pace; however, despite a lot of talky scenes, there is a surprising amount happening this week. We get a battle, an unsuccessful assassination attempt, and a successful kidnapping of one of the war’s most important players. And yet somehow, it still seems rather static.

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 4 – Tumbleton

“He dares me to rain fire down on a seat that raised my banner. And the realm would name me ‘Maegor Returned’. They’d rise up against me, and the same gods who delivered me to the throne would rightly cast me down.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After a fairly eventful first three episodes, this week sees House of the Dragon settle back into the more… sedate pace for which it’s become known. That figures, what with this originally having been planned as the second episode of the season, where traditionally the political wrangling holds sway. And so it does here. If you’d been hoping that Ormund Hightower’s surprise seizing of the town of Tumbleton would lead to another Great Big Battle, you’d have been disappointed (so far).

House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 3 – Rhaenyra Triumphant

“The air is thick with ghosts.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

As expected after the shuffling of episodes between seasons, this week’s House of the Dragon came across very like a season opener, complete with a rather unusual (for this show) pre-credits scene. Rhaenyra has successfully taken King’s Landing. She sits on the Iron Throne. She has everything she ever wanted. And this week showed that, like so many conquerors before her, she’s finding actually running a kingdom even harder work than conquering it.