“A Dance of Dragons,” the fourth episode of House of the Dragon’s second season, was the series’ most grandiose yet. The first half of the show was filled with strategizing, heart-to-heart conversations (especially Alicent and Aegon’s mother-son talk!), and political machinations, which gave way to a second half full of anxious thrills and visual spectacle. Among the spectacle? The genuine beginning of war between the Greens and the Blacks, a fire-breathing dragon combat, and (potential) character fatalities with serious consequences.
The most heartbreaking of them fatalities occurred during the fight at Rook’s Rest, where Princess Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) and her dragon Meleys were supposed to be a trump card against the charging Green army led by Ser Criston Cole, but things didn’t go as expected. Rhaenys and Meleys did their damage, but after Aemond (Ewen Mitchell) arrived aboard Vhagar and Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) arrived aboard Sunfyre, the outcome was practically set.
Rather than fleeing, Rhaenys chose to confront fate—and became Aemond and Vhagar’s second victims (after taking out Aegon and Sunfyre in a moment of smart friendly fire). Rhaenys, like her grandson, Lucerys Velaryon, falls as a result of Vhagar’s aerial onslaught. The main difference this time is that Aemond did not lose control; his actions were completely purposeful.
In House of the Dragon, the HBO television drama, Rhaenys Targaryen is dead as of the end of “A Dance of Dragons.”
She has a really dramatic death scene, including a terrible moment—that Eve Best absolutely crushes—in which we see a resigned acceptance on her face after realising she was about to die and there was nothing she could do. We then witness a tremendous crash and a fiery explosion. Outside of anything incredibly strange, she is dead.
The programme provides a considerably more definitive solution to Rhaenys’s death than George R. R. Martin’s source material novel Fire & Blood, which delivers as strong an implication as possible without explicitly spelling it out. But nevertheless things go a little differently in Fire & Blood, George R. R. Martin’s textbook-style source material for House of the Dragon. The only thing confirmed in that text is Meleys’ death. But, close to Meleys’ body, another burned and charred body was discovered, which was commonly assumed to be Rhaenys’.
Not quite the same closure as in the show (and the programme has previously experimented with this type of Fire & Blood uncertainty), but it’s about gathering as much proof as possible without being completely confident.
We’ll see how House of the Dragon handles things from here. However, in Fire & Blood, Rhaenys’ death at Rook’s Rest causes a schism between Rhaenyra and Lord Corlys, who is enraged and grieved by his wife’s death, feeling Rhaenyra should have gone herself or sent one of her sons.