House of the Dragon Scorecard: Crown Roast

The House of the Dragon Scorecard is an accounting of the events of this week’s episode, in which points are awarded to characters on a scale of 0 to 10. Points will be awarded for any or no reason.

It took almost four hours and multiple flubbed land-based murder schemes, but we have a dragon fight. Multiple dragon fights. Finally. I forgot how much fun those are to watch, even when the results are a mixed bag of satisfaction. It was unavoidable, really. After last week’s revelation about the Aegon miscommunication and the realization that the events that took place in its aftermath were irreversible, there was nowhere to go but the skies. And Criston sure is dumb about it all. I know. You’re shocked.

The question here, for me, is this: Did Aemond actually set a fratricide in motion by goading Aegon into a fight he was never going to win? It seems like a stretch, but the only people he’d have to fool to pull it off are Aegon and Criston, and a reasonably intelligent horse could sell those two a used car. Or was it more a crime of opportunity? Did he see Aegon in the sky and figure he’d never get a better shot? Was last week’s humiliation in front of Sylvi the final straw? I suppose that’s four questions, technically. Don’t worry, I have more.

Elsewhere in the realm: Daemon is having visions again and is going to be so, so mad when he learns he missed a dragon fight; Alicent mopes around and pukes; and we have an Alyn-based mystery on our hands. I know, I should have mentioned Rhaenys by now. I will. I promise. I’m too sad to talk about it in the intro. Anyway …

…

…

It’s dragon time, baby.

Rhaenyra Targaryen: 7 points

Rhaenrya is trying. She is really trying. That’s more than you can say for most of the cretins on this show. She risked her life to go undercover and sneak into enemy territory to talk to Alicent. She tried for peace. She preached patience to the bloodthirsty council who talks down to her. She held back longer than anyone else would.

Even this week, right after learning that she would have been queen if not for an opiate-riddled fit of disjointed deathbed storytelling, she pulls her surviving son aside to teach him a history lesson instead of sending every dragon she can wrangle into the sky in a fit of justified rage. Daemon would have done that. Daemon would have done that in the season premiere, if not much, much earlier.

I worry about Rhaenyra. Things do not end well for the peacemakers around these parts. At least Criston called her “the Whore of Dragonstone.” He meant it as an insult, sure, but it’s still a pretty righteous nickname, as well as a great name for a heavy-metal album from 1988.

Alicent Hightower: 3 points

Alicent has been having the worst day of her life pretty much every single day of this season. She’s miserable in this episode, too, drinking contraceptive tea and getting sick from it, ripping open every bookshelf in the kingdom to investigate the stuff Rhaenyra dropped on her about Viserys and his stories, dealing with Larys snooping around, all of it.

And she hasn’t even found out the following yet:
• Her evil son and her dumb boyfriend have been conspiring behind everyone’s back to stage a booby-trap dragon showdown.
• Her idiot son got drunk and sad after she told him what a loser he is and flew off into battle on a dragon.
• The evil son used his dragon to roast the idiot son on purpose, and now the idiot son is either dead or horribly injured and the evil son is more powerful than ever.

She should ask the maester if there’s a tea for this, too.

Rhaenys Targaryen: 10 points

Rhaenys and her dragon get demolished in the sky by Aemond and his dragon at the end of this episode. This made me sad. Rhaenys was cool, all bravery and snark and dignity in the face of … well, everything that has ever happened in this show. It’s a bummer that she’s killed by freaking Aemond, too. That guy sucks. Rhaenys was one of the few characters on this show who deserves better.

Which is, probably, why she had to die here. There just are not many sympathetic people on this show, or at least people whose death would make you feel things. The show does not let likable characters stick around too long, as a rule, which is why I’d been worried about this kind of thing happening sooner rather than later. Rhaenys just got off too many good lines and did too many noble things, like sending herself into battle in place of Rhaenrya. I should have known she was a goner as soon as that happened.

I hope she starts haunting Daemon in his visions next.

Aemond Targaryen: 1 point

Say what you will about Aemond (devious little weasel, killed Lucerys because of dragon-based incompetence, kind of stole the dragon he now uses to enact revenge over every real and perceived slight, angry at the world in ways usually reserved for people who want to kill Batman, trying to do secret conspiracies with Criston Cole of all the damn people in the world, basically Daemon with an eyepatch, seems like the kind of guy who would cut in front of you at a breakfast buffet and take one bite out of the last sausage link in the tray while looking directly at you, etc.), but roasting his idiot brother with the flames of his dragon does represent the first reasonably successful attempt at an assassination by any character on this show in the first half of the second season.

So he gets one point.

Aegon Targaryen: 0 points

Okay, two possibilities here …

1) Aegon is dead. He was sad about his brother and mother telling him how stupid he is and how no one on the council respects him and so he threw a little tantrum and flew headlong into a massively stupid position where the brother who hates him — or anyone else, really! — could torch him out of the sky. Just classic petulant loser behavior, but with a dragon.

2) Same as everything in the first point but he survives with massive injuries. God, imagine how much worse he’ll be then. The whining will be incessant. I suppose you do deserve some level of grievance after your evil brother tries to turn you into a piece of brat jerky. Even then, it’s tough to feel sympathy for him.

I lean toward the second, for now, if only because people on this show are rarely dead unless we have irrefutable evidence. (Headless body, insides revealed to be ash, etc.) But I don’t know. It’s cleaner if he’s dead because Aemond and Criston can say Rhaenys did it and wring more sympathy out of the masses. If he lives, it’s gonna be a whole thing. We’ll add a fraternal war to the already bubbling and confusing inter- and intra-family chaos.

What I’m saying, I think, is this: Dying after getting flambéed midair by your eyepatch-wearing brother’s dragon and falling hundreds of feet to the ground somehow feels too convenient for a show that delights in making a mess.

Daemon Targaryen: 0 points

THERAPIST: How have things been going since our last visit?

DAEMON: Well, I’m having visions of my current wife as a teenager where she belittles me and I chop her head off with a sword and then the disembodied head continues to belittle me.

THERAPIST: Well, th—

DAEMON: And I’m having visions of my dead ex-wife — you remember, the one who committed suicide by dragon? — pouring drinks for me.

THERAPIST: Wait, wh—

DAEMON: Oh, and I also had a vision of my diabolical eyepatch-wearing nephew, but when he turned around it was me wearing the eyepatch.

THERAPIST: Okay, let’s st—

DAEMON: I do have some progress to report from our last session, though.

THERAPIST: We should circle back to the visions at some point. But yes, let’s open with the good news.

DAEMON: Remember how you told me I needed to work on my trust issues after I turned down a delicious free meal because I was paranoid about being poisoned?

THERAPIST: Yes.

DAEMON: Well, I met a spooky witch who licks blood off of her hands and I drank from a goblet she handed me without even asking what was in it!

THERAPIST: [sighs, pinches bridge of nose] Let’s go back to the visions.

Criston Cole: -500 points

I feel like I do not need to explain this.

Larys Strong: 3 points

I know he was mostly just fishing for information after seeing the maester’s mug and noticing Alicent’s sudden interest in history books, but it is really funny to be like, “Hey, you seem off lately. Everything okay?” to a lady whose grandson was just decapitated by assassins and whose father was just fired by her idiot son and who just had to ride through town with her daughter in a rickety cart as they grieved the aforementioned beheaded toddler. And that’s just the stuff everyone knows! That’s not even adding in the secrets about her affair with Criston or her meeting with Rhaenyra, which Larys probably knows or will figure out soon enough

Again, he’s just suspicious and fishing because that’s what Larys does, but I did laugh at the way he went about it. Yeah, dude. Maybe she’s a little off.

Baela Targaryen: 6 points

ON ONE HAND: Ser Alfred does kind of have a point. She could have just cooked Criston Cole and his goon squadron when she swooped down on her dragon last week. I said as much in this very scorecard.

ON THE OTHER HAND: It’s nice to know that Baela will keep alive the strong tradition of women roasting the hell out of pushy dudes on the council.

Speaking of people roasting Alfred …

Corlys Velaryon: 2 points

Corlys has issues we have already discussed and will discuss further, but the part where he strolls in and shuts down Alfred mid-sentence in support of his family was a nice little moment.

Jacaerys Velaryon: 0 points

Jacaerys has accumulated a massive number of points in this Scorecard simply by being a sweet boy with an adorable mop of hair. All he had to do was be nice and quiet and keep brushing those beautiful locks of his and not be a little twerp who talks back and whines like every other royal teen on this show.

But noooooooooo.

Dammit.

I’m not angry. I swear I’m not angry. I’m just … disappointed.

Helaena Targaryen: 3 points

Helaena doesn’t even do anything in this episode. I’m giving her three points anyway because:

• She has been through a lot
• If Aegon is dead, she’ll go through more
• If Aegon is alive, he’s going to be soooooooooooo insufferable and she’s going to be stuck listening to it all

Poor Helaena.

Mysaria: 5 points

I like that Mysaria very literally lurks in the shadows this week. There is enough reading between the lines on this show. We’re going to do more of it in the next section. Sometimes it’s nice to be straight-up bashed in the head with a hammer. Metaphorically, I mean. Please do not bash me in the head with a hammer. Or anywhere else, really. I cannot stress this point in strong enough terms: No bashing Brian with a hammer. Thank you.

Alyn: 6 points

Corlys is Alyn’s father, yes? Is that what we’re getting at here? With Rhaenys telling Corlys that she knows who Alyn is and that Alyn doesn’t deserve to be hidden away? And that face she makes while she’s saying this? And the thing where she tells Alyn that his mother must have been very beautiful, which is … a certainly nice but extremely weird thing to say to someone you just met if there’s no subtext?!

I will be mad at Corlys if this turns out to be true. Maybe I’m just still sad about Rhaenys. Either way, this is why he only got two points this week. Actions have consequences, Corlys.

Oscar Tully: 7 points

Jaecerys being a whiny snot threw me a little, so it was nice that the show introduced a new scruffy little sweetheart pushover to cushion the blow. I have no clue if we’ll see him again. Maybe we will. But he’ll always have these seven points if not.

Simon Strong: 4 points

All we’ve seen Simon do this season is bumble around a leaky castle and eat dinner. He is the most relatable character on this show. It’s not even close, really.

Gwayne Hightower: 2 points

Gwayne is still a mostly unlikable dweeb, but:

• He remains skeptical of Criston’s leadership abilities and general intelligence, which is deserved.
• The other day, the phrase “Fountains of Gwayne” popped into my head and made me giggle at my desk.

Alys the Witch: 8 points

Just hanging out and being creepy and making potions to give to nefarious blonde visitors. A perfect television character.

Season Totals

• Rhaenys Targaryen: 32.5
• Mysaria: 28
• Rhaenyra Targaryen: 23
• Jacaerys Velaryon: 23
• Baela Targaryen: 22
• Larys Strong: 22
• Corlys Velaryon: 20
• Helaena Targaryen: 18
• Sylvi: 18
• Alicent Hightower: 17
• Hugh the Scorpion Maker: 16
• The Ratcatcher’s Dog: 15
• Alyn: 15
• Simon Strong: 12
• Alys the Witch: 8
• Oscar Tully: 7
• Erryk Cargyll: 6
• Arryk Cargyll: 6
• Ulf: 6
• Aegon Targaryen: 4
• Otto Hightower: 4
• Aemond Targaryen: 4
• Gwayne Hightower: 4
• Rhaena Targaryen: 3
• Various Ratcatcher Assassins: 0
• Daemon Targaryen: 0
• Criston Cole: -491