Rhaenys Ruled Supreme over ‘House of the Dragon’ Episode 9

House of the Dragon Episode 9 “The Green Council” is technically Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) time to shine, but by the episode’s end, Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) steals the show. We’ve been told since Episode 1 that Rhaenys is a formidable figure in the Targaryen family. While she’s always been a favorite, “The Green Council” is the episode that finally communicates just how powerful Rhaenys truly is. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) might have been crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms, but Rhaenys — the Queen Who Never Was — was the character who ruled over HBO‘s House of the Dragon this week.

This week’s episode of House of the Dragon takes place in the aftermath of Viserys’s death. As the Hightowers maneuver to put Viserys’s delinquent eldest son on the Iron Throne, certain vicious moves must be made. Rhaenys, for instance, is locked in her room without an explanation while servants are cordoned off in the dungeons and rebel lords are hung for treason. When Alicent finally goes to Rhaenys to attempt to woo the elder Targaryen to House Hightower’s side, we get a fascinating scene where Rhaenys artfully dissects Alicent’s worldview.

After Alicent admits Rhaenys should have been queen, but that the two can help the realm by “gently” guiding the men on the Iron Throne, Rhaenys bursts Alicent’s bubble.

“[Y]ou toil still in service to men: your father, your husband, your son,” Rhaenys says. “You desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison. Have you never imagined yourself on the Iron Throne?”

Alicent is thrown by this exchange, showing how misplaced her own ambitions for herself have always been. She has the wits to be a great player in the proverbial “Game of Thrones,” but has backed herself into a position of being a pawn. Alicent has relinquished her innate power in favor of the unworthy men around her: her traitorous father, weak-willed husband, and rapist son.

Rhaenys, on the other hand, has relinquished nothing. As we see the next day…

Alicent steers the Hightower’s coronation plans. She insists that Aegon be crowned early the next day in the sept above the Dragonpit. In her mind, she will array her shifty little son in the trappings of Targaryen power and the people will accept Aegon II as their monarch. But Rhaenys does not.

After Ser Erryk Cargill (Luke Tittensor) spirits Rhaenys out of the Red Keep, she finds herself pulled by the crowd of smallfolk to Aegon’s coronation. Luckily for her, they’re at the Dragonpit, right where her beloved dragon Meleys is being kept. During the commotion, Rhaenys sneaks below, dons Targaryen battle armor, and crashes through the floor of the sept with Meleys. It is a moment of strength and defiance.

(I want to pause and say it’s also a moment in which Rhaenys shows little interest in the protection of the smallfolk. People died for her killer entrance. Once again — as with the Velaryon soldier squashed by Daemon — the Targaryens might be cool, but they aren’t interested in the people they rule.)

Rhaenys’s decision to crash Aegon’s coronation shows just how little she thinks of the Hightowers’ scheme. She may not kill them (yet), but she is definitely showing them that they are not the dragon lords she respects.

Not only that, but in this moment, we get a glimmer of the dragon queen Rhaenys Targaryen may have been. Not the soft pushover Viserys was or the morally vacant Aegon. She would have ruled with strength and righteousness. If she had the disposition of a tyrant, Rhaenys would have killed Alicent and her family with one burst of dragon flame. But she didn’t commit murder nor did she seize Aegon’s crown. She simply stared them down and let her dragon roar, warning them of the battles to come.

Rhaenys Targaryen exploded onto our screens in last night’s House of the Dragon, proving to both the Hightowers and us viewers at home that she is one warrior to watch in the wars to come.