‘driftmark’
Directed By: Miguel Sapochnik / Written By: Kevin Lau
Original Airdate: October 2, 2022
Runtime: 59 minutes
King Viserys Targaryen and his royal court attend Lady Laena Velaryon’s funeral in Driftmark. While there, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, secretly grieving Ser Harwin Strong's death, is reunited with Prince Daemon Targaryen. Daemon and Viserys are also reunited, though Daemon declines his brother's request to put aside their differences and return to King's Landing. After the funeral, Queen Alicent Hightower’s son, Prince Aemond, sneaks out and claims Laena's dragon Vhagar as his own, resulting in a brawl between the young children. Meanwhile, the reinstated Hand of the King, Ser Otto Hightower is impressed with his daughter Alicent's newly-displayed strength of character.
main cast
featuring
EVIE ALLEN as HELAENA TARGARYEN / SHANI SMETHURST as BAELA TARGARYEN / EVA OSSEI-GERNING as RHAENA TARGARYEN
WIL JOHNSON as VAEMOND VELARYON / ARTY FROUSHAN as QARL CORREY / ALEXIS RABEN as TALYA
PHIL DANIELS as MAESTER GERARDYS / HAQI ALI as MAESTER KELVYN and BIJAN DANESHMAND as HIGH PRIEST
DRIFTMARK
At Driftmark, King Viserys I Targaryen and his entire royal court attend the funeral of Laena Velaryon, along with the devastated members of House Velaryon. Laena's uncle Vaemond Velaryon delivers the eulogy in High Valyrian, in which he includes several pointed remarks about Velaryon blood remaining pure while glancing at Rhaenyra Targaryen's alleged sons with Laena's brother Laenor, who look nothing like him. While Laena's husband Daemon Targaryen is somber at her death, he cannot help but start giggling at Vaemond's pettiness in bringing this up now of all times. The ceremony ends with Laena's stone sarcophagus being dropped over a coastal cliff into the sea, to rest beside her ancestors. The bereaved court then gathers at a cliffside courtyard of High Tide castle for the wake, which is filled with long awkward silences and strained conversations: this event has forced Rhaenyra and Alicent Hightower's families to meet in one place again right after Rhaenyra removed herself from King's Landing to Dragonstone, due to the rumors surrounding her three sons, who are actually Harwin Strong's bastards. Alicent and her supporters are the only ones who have gained from recent events: after Larys Strong secretly had his own father Lyonel Strong and his brother Harwin killed in a fire, he has been made the new Lord of Harrenhal and Alicent's father Otto Hightower has returned to take Lyonel's place as Hand of the King. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra's eldest son Jacaerys Velaryon is old enough to realize that Harwin was his father, and privately tells his mother how upsetting it is that they can't openly mourn him without drawing suspicion to themselves. Laena's traumatized daughters, Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, meet their grandmother Rhaenys Targaryen for the first time and she consoles them. Laenor himself is stunned by his sister's death, and has waded out into the surf on the beach below to be closer to her resting place. His father Corlys Velaryon angrily tells Laenor's lover Qarl Correy to retrieve his "patron" from his embarrassing behavior. King Viserys then goes to speak with his brother Daemon, asking him to return home to King's Landing, and lay their prior differences aside. Daemon insists that his home is in Pentos. Viserys urges that there is still a place for Daemon in his court and offers anything Daemon might need, but Daemon cuts him off, bitterly stating that he needs nothing. Otto Hightower then offers token condolences as Daemon passes, but he just glares back and says that a leech's hunger is never satisfied. Viserys is exhausted, and Laena's death in childbirth clearly reminds him of his first wife Aemma Arryn's similar death years before. With her on his mind, he accidentally calls Alicent "Aemma," who is quietly unnerved by this. Gathering all the children to leave, Prince Aegon Targaryen has passed out drunk in a stairway from all the wine he has consumed, so his grandfather Otto wakes him with a stiff kick and drags him to his feet.
Afterwards, Corlys and Rhaenys have a tense discussion in private where Rhaenys complains that Laena wanted to return to Westeros to be with her family but Daemon opposed it. She wonders that if their own maesters had attended Laena's childbirth she might have survived. Corlys assures that the surgeons in Pentos are as well trained as they are at Driftmark, and she should not lay blame for an act of the gods. Rhaenys then wonders if the gods are punishing them for their “insatiable pride,” and calls Corlys out for his attempts to put a Velaryon on the Iron Throne. Corlys stares into the fireplace and gravely ponders “what is this brief mortal life, if not the pursuit of legacy?” Rhaenys then comes to the point: she wants rule of Driftmark to pass on to Laena's elder daughter Baela instead of Rhaenyra’s middle child Lucerys Velaryon. She then tells Corlys they should drop all pretense: they both know that Laenor isn't the real father of Rhaenyra's sons and that they are not of Velaryon blood. Before abruptly ending this discussion, Corlys firmly states that “history does not remember blood: it remembers names.”
Outside the castle, Rhaenyra and Daemon take a moonlit walk along the beach, talking through their recent mutual losses and their tension at being apart for a decade. Rhaenyra worries that Laenor is so bereaved he will be useless to her now: they both knew their marriage was a farce, but at least she put effort into maintaining appearances. Rhaenyra worries that she then should have forbidden Ser Harwin from returning to the Riverlands, as she believes in the curse said to have been over Harrenhal since the Targaryen Conquest. Daemon scoffs that the alleged curse is a superstition, one that Otto or Alicent would gladly exploit, though Rhaenyra says she doesn't think Alicent herself is capable of murder. Rhaenyra then moves on to accuse Daemon of abandoning her for ten years. Daemon asserts that he left because he was sparing her as a child. Rhaenyra, however, tells him to look at how her life has played out without him. She then asks if Daemon really loved Laena, and he painfully informs Rhaenyra that he was happy enough with Laena, which Rhaenyra admits is a great achievement in this world. She apologizes for his loss, but Daemon declares that at least he is allowed to publicly mourn Laena in a way that Rhaenyra can't mourn Ser Harwin. Consoling each ther in their shared grief, Rhaenyra pulls Daemon closer and asserts that she isn't a child anymore, and begins to kiss him. They take shelter in a nearby wrecked boat and disrobe each other by moonlight, and proceeding to tenderly make love to one another.
Meanwhile, on a different part of the beach, young Aemond Targaryen has snuck out of the castle and found Laena's dragon Vhagar asleep in the dunes. Nearly the size of a sand dune herself, Vhagar is the oldest and largest living dragon, twice the size of even Caraxes and last of the original three dragons from the Targaryen Conquest. Aemond approaches cautiously and puts a hand on the rope netting leading to her saddle. Vhagar awakens but senses that he is a prince of Targaryen blood and backs down. Aemond puts his hand on the rope again and starts to actually try to mount, Vhagar, however, at which she growls and starts building up fire in the back of her throat to immolate him with. Aemond bravely stands his ground, and like firmly giving commands to a horse, shouts verbal commands in High Valyrian for Vhagar to heel and obey. None can know the mind of a dragon, but after a mysterious moment she relents and allows him to climb to her saddle. He then gives her the order to fly, and she launches into the night sky. Aemond nearly falls off the saddle several times because he isn't properly secured but eventualy he manages to level out and master the flight, taking Vhagar on a circle around the castle before landing again, a bonded dragon-rider.
Baela and Rhaena, meanwhile, noticed that someone "stole" Vhagar and wake Jace and Luke to come and investigate. The four younger children intercept Aemond just as he is returning to the castle through the tunnel leading to the beach. Rhaena angrily says Vhagar was her mother's dragon and hers to claim, but Aemond says if she wanted her she should have claimed her already. Now filled with the boundless confidence of mastering not just any dragon but the largest in the world, Aemond insults Rhaena, and also calls both Jace and Luke “bastards,” much to young Luke’s confusion. A brawl then breaks out between the children, which ultimately results in Lucerys slashing Aemond in the face through his left eye with a knife. Ser Harrold Westerling then enters and breaks up the fight. He then immediately escorts the children to High Tide’s main hall where the royal court convenes as result. An angered King Viserys asks his Kingsguard how they allowed this to happen while Maester Kelvyn informs that Aemond’s left eye cannot not be salvaged. An irate Alicent slaps her eldest son Aegon for drinking throughout the wake instead of looking out for his brother. Rhaenyra and Daemon then enter the hall while the children begin to argue with one another. The king silences them and demands for Aemond to tell him of the truth of the incident.
Alicent angrily interjects that his son has been maimed and Rhaenyra's sons are responsible, and nothing else matters. Rhaenyra says Aemond's maiming was a regrettable accident, but Alicent says her sons brought a knife to the fight intending to kill Aemond, which Rhaenyra denies saying they were forced to defend themselves. Rhaenyra says that Aemond made "vile insults" against her sons that they are bastards and demands that Aemond be "sharply questioned" to find out where he heard these slanders. Viserys turns to Aemond and asks where he heard the accusation, but after a tense moment looking towards his mother, he says that he heard it from his other brother Aegon. Viserys turns to his eldest son and in a deft response, rather than blame his mother, Aegon implores Viserys that "We know father. Everyone knows," and it is obvious from just looking at them. Distraught, with his voice breaking Viserys orders them all to make their apologies and show good will to each other. Alicent, however, insists that this is insufficient, as apologies will not restore Aemond's eye - but the debt can still be paid by taking out the eye of one of Rhaenyra's sons. Viserys is aghast and asserts to Alicent that the matter is finished. Shaking with grief and fury, Alicent refuses to accept this. As Viserys turns to leave, she pulls the Valyrian dagger from his belt and rushes across the room towards Luke. Just before she can reach him, however, Rhaenyra blocks her and grabs both her wrists. Criston tries to support Alicent, only for Daemon to intercept him as Ser Harrold shouts at the other Kingsguard to hold the crowd back. Alicent shouts accusations at Rhaenyra which she has bottled up for years: upholding the law and her duties while Rhaenyra was always free to do as she pleases. Alicent shouts that Rhaenyra has no sense of duty or sacrifice, even as Viserys and Otto demand she put down the blade. Rhaenyra coldly answers back that it must have been exhausting for Alicent to hide beneath the cloak of her own righteousness, but by attacking her like this, everyone now sees Alicent as she truly is. Alicent makes a final push to break free of her grip, and ends up slashing Rhaenyra along her left arm. Seeing the blood, even Alicent is horrified at how out of control the situation has become. The room falls silent, then Aemond steps forward and despite the grievous injury to his face calmly tells his mother not to mourn him, for it was a fair exchange: he may have lost an eye, but he gained a dragon. Afterwards, Otto visits the regretful Alicent in her private chambers. She is humiliated and ashamed by her attempted attack on Rhaenyra and her son, which now guarantees Viserys will always side with Rhaenyra over her. Her father, however, is filled with pride in stating that they are playing an ugly game but up until this moment he didn't know if Alicent had the determination to win it. Otto states that her son Aemond was correct, because claiming the largest dragon in the world to their side was well worth the cost of his eye. Otto advises Alicent that Viserys will eventually forgive because it is all he can bring himself to do. For now, they will bide their time.
The following morning, in Rhaenyra's chamber, Laenor arrives as Maester Kelvyn finishes stitching the slash on Rhaenyra's arm. Laenor is ashamed, stating that he’s fought dreadful enemies in war but couldn't defend his own sister from death and could not defend Rhaenyra now. She informs him that Aemond called their sons bastards. Laenor then admits that he has failed Rhaenyra and tried to make their marriage work even though they both knew it was a shame. He then admits that while he truly loves their boys, maybe he has not loved them enough. Rhaenyra declares that she did hope that the few times she and Laenor lay together it would have produced a child, and then things may have been different. Laenor asserts his hatred of the gods for making him as he is, but Rhaenyra gently insists that he is an honorable man with a good heart, a rare thing which he shouldn't be ashamed about. Laenor insists that he will rededicate himself to Rhaenyra and strengthen her claim to the throne while helping to raise their sons. He promises he will be the husband she deserves.
Some time later, Viserys, Alicent, and their entourage leave on their ship back to King's Landing, while their children leave on the backs of their now three dragons: Aegon on Sunfyre, Helaena on Dreamfyre, and Aemond on Vhagar. On the coast of High Tide, Rhaenyra watches Viserys and Alicent's ship leave from the shore. While speaking to Daemon, she declares that their house owes everything to the power of fire, “yet it has cost us both what we love”. Daemon admits that perhaps the Velaryons knew the truth of things: that the sea is a better ally. Rhaenyra ponders that while fire is a prison, the sea offers an escape. Meanwhile, Larys Strong approaches Alicent on the deck of the ship and offers that if she still seeks revenge for Aemond's eye, he can easily arrange some sort of assassination through his spy network. Alicent politely declines, saying that his help has not gone unnoticed and she will have need of it in the future, but now is the time for patience and discretion, which he accepts. Back at High Tide, still overlooking the ocean, Rhaenyra has realized that conflict is now inevitable and asserts to Daemon that she needs him to strengthen her side. Daemon agrees but insists, however, that they could only marry if Laenor were dead. After a long pause, Rhaenyra vaguely declares her understanding of this. Daemon then discretely meets with Laenor's lover Ser Qarl on the docks of Driftmark. He remarks to him that he is a lowborn knight with a lord's expensive tastes, but there are places across the sea where the name a man was born with doesn't matter, only how much gold he has. Qarl asks what Daemon wants in return, to which he says, "a quick death, one with witnesses". Later on, inside the castle, Daemon sneaks up on one of the guards and snaps his neck. In the main hall, Qarl angrily approaches Laenor claiming he has always looked down on him. They then draw swords and begin to fight in front of Laenor's frightened servant, who rushes out tp summon the guards. When the guards return with Corlys and Rhaenys, they are horrified to find Laenor’s corpse shoved head-first into the fireplace, burned beyond recognition. Rhaenys howls in anguish while Corlys furiously berates his guards for allowing such an atrocity to happen. Some time later, Rhaenyra and Daemon then marry each other in a traditional Valyrian rite ceremony on a nearby beach, a small gathering witnessed by only their children and Maester Gerardys. Late at night, a cloaked figure runs out to shore on Driftmark where Qarl Correy is waiting for him with a rowboat. It is revealed to be a head-shaven Laenor, as Daemon and Qarl helped him fake his death, swapping his clothes with the guard that Daemon killed and then burned. Rhaenyra and Daemon released him from his arranged marriage so they could marry each other, leaving Laenor to pursue his own life adventuring with Ser Qarl.
*Episode descriptions from GOT Wiki
“Vhagar has a new rider now.”
“Mayhaps the gods have scorned us for our insatiable pride... Tonight of all nights, let us lay aside this falsehood. It is not justice for your wife that drives you. It is your own ambition... I gave up the idea of wearing a crown a generation ago. It is you who refuses to abandon this pursuit, even now, at the cost of our children.”
“Exhausting, wasn’t it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. But now they see you as you are.”
“What have I done but what was expected of me? Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law, while you flout all to do as you please. Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It’s trampled under your pretty foot again.”
“What is this brief mortal life if not the pursuit of legacy? ... History does not remember blood. It remembers names.”
“We play an ugly game. And now, for the first time, I see that you have the determination to win it... I promise you, in time, you and I together will prevail.”
INSIDE THE EPISODE
did you know?
The title of the episode refers to Driftmark, the island seat of House Velaryon and where both High Tide and Castle Driftmark are located. This is the first episode of House of the Dragon to be titled after an ancestral seat of a Westerosi noble house; two episodes of Game of Thrones shared titles with house seats: "Dragonstone" (House Targaryen) and "Winterfell" (House Stark).
The exteriors for High Tide castle on Driftmark are not CGI or a matte painting, but the famous castle of St Michael's Mount on the south coast of Cornwall, England. "High Tide" is so-called because it is a tidal island, with a land bridge connecting it to the main island at low tide which gets subsumed by the ocean when the tide rises. Rather than digitally add these elements, the production team simply found a castle that is actually located on a real-life tidal island which was willing to allow filming there. Extensive spy photos of Laena's funeral scene leaked out back when filming on the series began in May 2021. The scenes of Rhaenyra and Daemon alone on the beach, and Aemond finding Vhagar on a separate beach, were both filmed at Hollywell Beach on the north coast of Cornwall, about a 45 minute drive from St Michael's Mount.
The books don't give any specific details about funeral practices for House Velaryon. The TV show invented that they inter their remains in a sarcophagus, which they then drop into the ocean off a specific cliff on Driftmark, so that they can rest in the sea with their ancestors. The Targaryens typically burn their dead, and because they were married to Targaryens it appears that both Laena and Laenor were cremated in the books. Vaemond's eulogy prominently mentions the Merling King, a local mythological figure in the lands around the Narrow Sea. According to legend, the Velaryons were given the Driftwood Throne as a gift from the Merling King. This figure isn't from the Valyrian religion at all but is a local deity that got mixed in with the Velaryons' cultural practices, being located out on the fringes of the Valyrian domains.
Daemon bursts out laughing when the Velaryons' blood purity is mentioned at the eulogy; perhaps he finds that line funny because he (and many others) are aware that Harwin Strong, not Laenor, is the father of Rhaenyra's children.
Rhaenyra tells Daemon she needs his support, since she cannot face the greens alone. This is the first time the greens, the supporters of Alicent's son Aegon, have been identified by name. The opposing faction, the blacks, have not been named on-screen yet.
It is the second time Rhaenyra proposes to Daemon, following "We Light the Way"; while in the first time she said that sarcastically, suspecting that Daemon's real motive was to gain political power, this time she actually means it. Rhaenyra tells Daemon "Let us bind our blood, just as Aegon the Conqueror did with his sisters" - referring to the Targaryen custom of marrying family relatives, not to the aspect of polygamy (since both of them are currently unmarried).
Viserys calling Alicent by his deceased wife’s name "Aemma" may be an early sign of dementia. He is lucid for the rest of the episode. At the end of the episode, Viserys can be seen kissing a ring on his finger: it belonged to his wife Aemma Arryn, and has the Arryn falcon sigil on it.
In Fire & Blood, Laenor's death is not faked. Qarl's motives and fate are unknown; according to Mushroom, Daemon bribed Qarl, and later disposed of him.
Helaena is one of the two Targaryens who have prophetical skills (alongside Viserys, who has dragon dreams): In the previous episode she said about Aemond "He'll have to close an eye" for having a dragon, which is exactly what happens in this episode. Her words: "Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black; dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread" are clearly about the bloody conflict between the greens and blacks, known as the Dance of the Dragons.
Rhaenyra refuses to believe that Alicent is capable of cold murder, regarding the deaths of Harwin and his father; during their fight, Rhaenyra apparently has changed her mind, in view of her whisper "but now they see you as you are" (though Alicent's attack is done in the heat of the moment, not in a calculated manner).
When Daemon is naked in the beach scene, it can be seen that his back has several burn scars. This continues to show that Targaryens are not actually invulnerable to fire, as seen earlier when Daemon himself took a wound to the shoulder from a flaming arrow in the third episode. Game of Thrones made a change in Season 6 that Daenerys Targaryen was always invulnerable to fire, even though George R.R. Martin himself has repeatedly said that her survival of Drogo's funeral pyre when she hatched her dragon eggs was a one-time, miraculous event due to a magical spell.
During the confrontation between Rhaenyra and Alicent at the climax of the episode, Alicent calls on Criston Cole as her sworn shield and personal protector. This is the only explanation given so far, even indirectly, for why Criston wasn't punished for killing Joffrey Lonmouth at Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding, or even dismissed from the Kingsguard. It was somewhat implied that he retained his position due to Alicent's political influence, as the final shot of him in that episode showed Alicent intervening to prevent his suicide, and they had now both turned against Rhaenyra. In the book, Criston killed Joffrey during the tournament held to celebrate the wedding, and killing a man in a tourney is not considered murder. Immediately afterward, Criston became Alicent's sworn shield just as he once was for Rhaenyra.
The behind the scenes video explains that this was actually the first episode filmed during production on the first season, and indeed the first for the entire series as a whole. TV series are filmed out of order, and a cast will inevitably be less familiar with each other in their first episode compared to later in filming when they've had time to refine how they play off each other. Recognizing this, the showrunners decided to work with it: people at a funeral often don't know what to say to each other and would be expected to have awkward interactions, so they made the funeral episode the first one they filmed in order to mask the cast's unfamiliarity with each other when they began. For example, Matt Smith (Daemon) and Paddy Considine's (Viserys) interaction at the wake is awkwardly paced compared to conversations they later filmed for earlier episodes, but it fits that Daemon would be at a loss for words at his wife's funeral.
In the books, Aemond actually got his right eye slashed out, but his left eye is slashed out in the TV series. This was possibly done for safety reasons: the adult actor playing Aemond is right-handed, and it would be more difficult for him to see where his sword is going if his right eye was covered.
After Viserys forbids Alicent's demand for Luke's eye to be taken out in reprisal, the entire sequence in which the enraged and grief-stricken Alicent grabs his dagger to charge Luke and Rhaenyra is an invention of the TV series, not present in the book.
This episode features the most dragons ever seen in a single shot so far in the franchise, with five shown perched on the cliffs next to High Tide castle between the funeral and the wake for Laena. Rhaenyra's Syrax and Daemon's Caraxes are flying overhead with a third dragon out of focus. Perched on the ground are two other dragons, one of which is the debut of Aegon's Sunfyre (but distant and out of focus). The dragon to the left of Sunfyre might be Laenor's Seasmoke or Helaena's Dreamfyre, and the third one in the sky might be Rhaenys's Meleys (all are the same "breed" of dragon with the same general body shape). Dreamfyre definitely does appear later, albeit in the distance, when Alicent's children leave Driftmark with three dragons. Vhagar isn't present during the wake scene but Aemond finds her later on the beach. Assuming that Dreamfyre wasn't in the wake shot but was on-screen when she left the island, a total of seven dragons appeared on-screen within the episode overall. In the book, historians accurately point out that this funeral was the largest gathering of dragons in a single place since the Doom of Valyria.
In Fire & Blood, Laenor Velaryon's death is not faked - this is a major departure from the source material. The book is framed as an in-universe history book, so by definition if a character successfully faked their own death the history books would not record it. George R.R. Martin is also fond of plot twists in which characters fake their own deaths or are reported to be dead only to reappear alive later. This seems unlikely, however, in this specific case: in the book Laenor was stabbed to death in the middle of a market, and no mention is made that the corpse was burned beyond recognition.