Last night marked the finale of the third season of House of the Dragon. Remarkable as it sounds, this may have been the show’s strongest one yet! With so much happening to move the narrative forward towards its inevitable conclusion, showrunner Ryan Condal and star Emma D’Arcy break down everything we saw in the conclusion of Season 3, and hint at future events to come for House Targaryen.
Recently, The Nerds of Color was invited to participate in a press conference with Condal and D’Arcy, following the debut of the show’s third season finale. D’Arcy, who has just done an incredible job this season, had a lot to say about Rhaenyra’s character trajectory this season, while Condal had much to say about the trajectory of the narrative. Together they painted a portrait of what the series is ultimately about: how the rise of totalitarianism can come from the most unlikely of sources.
As we breakdown what they both had to say, please note that there will be spoilers for this past season of House of the Dragon below. Be warned!
When asked about how he conceived of the arc of the entire season, Condal stated, “Well, we knew from the travails of trying to make The Battle of the Gullet that we were going to open with that once we finally engineered that and figured it out,” started Condal. “So it was more of a ‘where do we go from here?’ It was more of a question of where we ended it, and we were lucky enough in the breaking [down] of season three because we knew at that point that for sure it was going to be a four season show. That essentially when Sarah and I sat down with all the writers, we essentially broke the back of Season Three and Four together; at least in the sort of super-structure of it. So it was really planning out from here to the end, and trying to structure it in a way that had all the peaks and valleys of drama. And to keep pacing, and hit all the big set pieces that we have to hit that cover all the history in the book. So, once we kind of laid it all out, it felt like it would be really fun to bookend the season with the two biggest sequences we had ever done. So, episode one, Battle of the Gullet; episode eight, the Battle of Tumbleton… There are actually so many huge sequences at this point now that the Dance of the Dragons is sort of at its fever pitch… It’s really more of a question of how you knit them together. And who are your POV characters that are there? Sometimes in the book, this big thing happens, but it’s not apparent that any of the central POV characters in our show are there to witness it. So it’s more of like knitting things together and stitching them together… So it doesn’t feel like you know a didactic history. It feels like a narrative drama. But I would say Season Three certainly was more because you’re setting things up to pay off in Season Four. Season Four, I think, really for us… just kind of flowed once we knew where we were in it.”
D’Arcy was asked about the relationship between Alicent and Rhaenyra during Season Three and how it’ll progress in Season 4. “I think it’s hard. It’s hard for me to say whether Rhaenyra recognizes Alicent’s culpability because I’m not sure that Rhaenyra recognizes that her leadership is becoming increasingly tyrannical,” they started. “At least not for most of Season Three… I’ve really enjoyed their relationship this season. I think, in part, because there’s a nice thing where Rhaenyra’s constituent part got externalized this year in some way. You’ve got Daemon as the ego, and Mysaria as the conscience, and I think Alicent is the judge. And I really like the idea of locking your judge up in the basement or whatever, but then periodically going down to check in with them about how you’re doing. I think there’s something about that which feels very truthful. Although it’s kind of bizarre and abstract. I obviously can’t speak to how that relationship might develop next season.”
They were then also asked about Rhaenyra’s growing descent into a bit of madness. “I really wanted to make sure that journey was a legible one. I think broadly, if we’re to be more practiced at protecting democracy, which seems increasingly fragile at times, we have to be smarter about understanding the behaviors of dictatorial leaders. And I think, for Ryan and I both, this was an opportunity to attempt to try and make a certain type of behavior understood by an audience. And from an acting perspective, it felt much more playable to think about empathy and the empathetic machine, and how that gets damaged and affected by events than it did to solely think about her relationship with authoritarianism.”
Condal added, “This whole story, since the first episode, has always been about whether this realm can accept a woman as a leader. And what will it do when faced with that as, not just an eventuality, but [happening] now… And then for Rhaenyra and for Emma’s side of the story, how does that impact Rhaenyra’s ability to lead?… You know, we had always looked at Rhaenyra being torn between Viserys’s philosophy, which is somewhat embodied by Mysaria, and somewhat embodied by Alicent in her conversations with them. And then Daemon, which is the fire. Fire and blood, you know? Ruled by dragons. Uncompromising. It’s very, very black and white to him. And his empire building, and his dreams, and ambitions, and all the reasons that Viserys passed him over to be king. And Rhaenyra is torn between those two avenues. Asking herself, ‘Can I rule as a woman during a time of war and still be true to the reasons that Viserys chose me to rule? Or do I simply just have to become Daemon in order to win and to hold this whole thing together?’… Rhaenyra’s perspective wouldn’t be to be an authoritarian. It would just simply to be to keep control, to hold the center. And she has to make all these compromises as she goes along. Then finally she just literally casts Mysaria out, and throws in totally with Daemon in the end, thinking that that’s her only way to be seen as legitimate to all of the lords and the people that she’s still relying on.”
D’Arcy was then asked about the costume they wore in the finale. “In an amazing way, it transforms her. It changes everything. I think I was excited because I think this is the first time that we’ve seen Rhaenyra actively thinking about image making. But we know that a big part of the fascist machine is about iconography. And for me, at least, it felt like the first time that she asks the question… ‘what should a leader look like?’ And it bookends a longer journey that takes place over the season. As Ryan says, she, I think, begins Season Two still trying to carve out this space for herself as a ruling queen. That problem, her womanhood, has been a perpetual obstacle in her campaign. And I think in episode one, when she finds herself locked in and prevented from action, she attempts to kill that obstacle and instead takes up the mantle of king. Something… that is broadly accepted… We did fittings and fittings and fittings. And there’s this amazing kind of hood made of chainmail. And it’s just real, right? These are tiny pieces of interlaced nickel, and it has to fit me. And it has to work, and all of that is a process. And also with Amanda Knight, we had a conversation about wanting to do something with the makeup to make sure that it met the size of the costume image.”
Condal was then asked about how fans have drawn parallels between Rhaenyra and Daenerys Targaryen. “I think that’s wonderful if people draw parallels between this and the original series. For sure there are going to be mirrors. There’s going to be mirroring and echoes and reflections across the two series, and people will see things that are either intentional or subliminal. And I will just say that I think this is one of those existential themes that goes across this entire universe, which is the draw of the Iron Throne. What it does to a person in its thrall, or the people that are trying to get to it. The big difference between Rhaenyra and Daenerys is that Daenerys only got to the Iron Throne at the very end after she destroyed the city. Rhaenyra goes through this experience of having the throne and trying to hold it, and being turned and changed by it. Altered by the experience. So I think they’re very different things, but I think that the parallels do call to the greater themes of the A Song of Ice and Fire universe. Which is pride and power and how power corrupts and how far it corrupts. And it can change good people into corrupted people. It can take corrupted people and make them real villains. And for other people like Viserys it can simply just destroy and that’s where I think, to me, is where those reflections exist on a thematic level.”
A great part of this season took place in the iconic ghost castle of Harrenhal, where Alys Rivers tended to a wounded Aemond Targaryen. When asked about Alys’s character, Condal stated, “Well, we… in giving, Alys, and thus, you know, Gayle Rankin, who so delightfully plays her, across these two — and coming four — seasons, the idea was, you know, she’s the witch character that seems to know more than anybody else in the room. But how do we… how do we underpin that with an understandable humanity that grounds the character, and for sure, it’s a crazy story, but it fits into the lore of the A Song of Ice and Fire world, and we wanted to give Alys a real underlying motivation. This is something we actually broke for her going all the way back to Season 2, because we knew the role that we wanted her to play in the story as this kind of guru figure for both, the opposite sides of the Targaryen coin, Daemon in Season 2, and then Aemond in Season 3. And… and… but what does she actually, you know, want? And what does she want from them? And I think she approached Daemon in a totally different… a different way, but with Aemond, she gets this… it’s a much more intimate relationship. And they’re two cursed people, feeling left alone in the world, and they kind of bond… they bond over all of that, and Alys sees what Aemond — she saw what Daemon needed, too, and gave it to him — but she saw what Aemond needed, which is something… a similar kind of spiritual growth, but in a much different way. And it just felt like she herself, she wants Harrenhal, why? She needed this underpinning. And it just felt like the best card turn, that, that we had for her character. And if you go back and look at everything that happened in the past now, it all kind of falls into place and makes sense. It’s a very satisfying reveal.”
Another shocking event from the season was the fate of Helaena Targaryen, Alicent’s clairvoyant daughter. When asked about what that represented to the series, D’Arcy responded, “Helena is the sort of the moral heart of the show, I think. She’s maybe the only character who has a proximity to power, but remains kind of uncontaminated. And so, I think her death, sort of condemns Rhaenyra to the path she’s chosen. I think there’s sort of no way back after that. There’s certainly no route back to a kind of more moderate form of leadership. And, I mean, I don’t know where we go from here, but I imagine it’s likely to be impassable in her relationship with Alicent, which I think also means Helaena’s death kind of condemns Rhaenyra to be alone in her pursuit for power.”
Next, Condal was asked about putting together The Battle of Tumbleton. “Well, I mean, the Nazis have stormed into pastoral France, and taken it over. And you see that kind of in episode four, with this idea that Ormund is this really desperate guy who’s hoping that the biggest ‘Godzilla dragon’ in the realm is going to come to his aid and essentially make him the most powerful army on Earth. If only Aemond had come through. So he swears this oath to Rhaenyra that he doesn’t see it as an oath because you know she is a woman and thus not a legitimate sovereign. And then goes to ground essentially and digs in to this place that’s loyal to Rhaenyra. And daring her basically to choose the Daemon path and burn it out and make herself a villain in the process is kind of a brilliant move on his part. So all season long, we’re kind of setting up this classic medieval siege, which is really where we wanted to get to. And the fun of that, the concept of that battle was that Ormund had basically done all he could to blunt the threat of Rhaenyra’s greatest power, which is that she has or had six dragons under her command at that point. So how do I take the dragons off the board and make this an even fight, man to man? And he sees his army is better trained and better suited than the Rivermen that are coming to attack. He knows the ground. He’s inside the city. They have to come over the wall, sacrifice a bunch of their men. So that’s where we all started. And then it was like, ‘okay, well, we need to set this in a big location to build it on. And who are a few of your characters? It was a very complex thing to fold all together. But we just wanted to do a classic medieval siege was the elevator pitch for the finale.”
And boy did that pay off! This has been an explosive season of television, and hands down the best so far of the entire House of the Dragon series. From the very first episode the stakes were raised, but every consequence and character choice thereafter was a product of what occurred during the first two episodes of the season. The powder keg inevitably built up to a complete explosion that was The Battle of Tumbleton, where the characters are given choices to do the right things, but ultimately decline to do so in ways that will ultimately redefine who their characters are and the impact they will have on the Dance of Dragons. With one final season to go, it’s hard to believe House of the Dragon seems like it’s just getting warmed up. However, with Condal having planned out the trajectory of the remaining season already, we can go in with confidence that the best is yet to come!
All episodes of Season Three of House of the Dragon are now available to stream on HBO Max!
