House of the Dragon Season 2 is proving that the Dance of Dragons is about people just as much as it’s about dragons. The creatures are great for mutually assured destruction, but when it comes to conquering territory and raising an army, knowing how to be diplomatic and talk to people can be just as effective as a fire blast.
Warning: Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 5 follow!
In Episode 5, we see this up close and personal with the people both sides of the conflict have ignored: the smallfolk. It’s just a short scene, but it sets up a horrific future event that results in the demise of five dragons — and a key element of Game of Thrones.
The first scene of House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 5 shows the Greens coming back from the Battle of Rook’s Rest, toting the severed head of Rhaenys’ dragon Meleys behind her. As the smallfolk — including possible Targaryen bastard Ulf the White — look on, one of them says, “I thought the dragons was gods.” Ulf replies, “It’s just meat.”
In this scene, we see the attitude of the smallfolk completely change. Now, the lack of food and resources in King’s Landing isn’t just a temporary show of wartime austerity: it’s the price they’re paying so the rulers can run around and fight with dragons... and possibly lose.
Most importantly, this scene shows that dragons aren’t the mythical threat given by the gods to the Targaryens. They’re fallible, conquerable, and, up close, not that impressive. Maybe all this fighting is for nothing at all.
“It's always interesting to me to humanize the small folk, the ones that suffer the most when the nobles in their high castles go off to war,” House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal said in a roundtable interview Inverse attended. “They live a very hardscrabble life that's sort of hand-to-mouth in the best of times. And then certainly once the pressures at war come, that changes and does put pressure on the people who live in the foothills of King's Landing.”
Spoilers for future House of the Dragon episodes ahead!
In the book Fire and Blood, these thoughts and attitudes lead to the Storming of the Dragonpit a year after the events of this episode. A crazed mob of smallfolk break into the Dragonpit and manage to kill five dragons: Shrykos, the dragon intended for the beheaded Jaehaerys Targaryen; Morghul, the dragon of his surviving sister Jaehaera; Dreamfyre, the dragon of their mother Helaena Targaryen; Tyraxes, the dragon of Rhaenyra’s son Joffrey Targaryen; and Syrax, Rhaenyra’s dragon.
Joffrey actually managed to sneak out in an attempt to save his and his mother’s dragons, but unfortunately was killed after falling off the back of Syrax. All in all, it was a massive loss not for one side or another, but for the Targaryens as a whole. Much of the respect given to the royal family relies on the fact that Targaryens are the people chosen to ride dragons. When those dragons are slain by lowly peasants, that loses the mystique it once had.
This one line may be brief, but it’s the first domino that eventually leads to the Westeros we see in Game of Thrones, a world where the Targaryens have fallen and dragons are basically extinct. In this world, dragons may seem like the ultimate war machine, but even they are no match for a determined mob.
