House of the Dragon Season 3 ended with Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) taking a decisive and dark turn, one that has already drawn comparisons to her descendant Daenerys Targaryen’s infamous descent in the Game of Thrones series finale.
Showrunner Ryan Condal along with Emma D’Arcy have now addressed those parallels head-on, explaining both the intentional thematic connections and the key differences between the two queens.
Quick read:
- Showrunner says though parallels exist, there’s a vast difference between Rhaenyra and Daenerys’ descent
- He affirmed Daenerys got the throne at the very end but Rhaenyra’s chaos is coming from already having it
- At the end it’s just the price to pay for ultimate power
Credits: HBO
The draw of the Iron Throne
Speaking to Variety, Condal welcomed the comparisons.
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“I think that’s wonderful if people draw parallels between this and the original series. For sure, 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.”
Condal was careful to highlight a crucial distinction.
“The big difference between Rhaenyra and Daenerys is that Daenerys only got to the Iron Throne at the very end, after she had destroyed the city. But Rhaenyra goes through this experience of having the throne, trying to hold it and being, in a way, turned and changed by it; altered by the experience.”
He continued to comment on the power of having power:
“They’re very different things, but I think the parallels do call to the greater themes of the ASOIAF 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 other people, like Viserys, it can simply just destroy.”
Credits: HBO
Making Rhaenyra’s journey “legible”
Emma D’Arcy emphasized the importance of showing the gradual erosion of empathy that leads to authoritarianism.
“I really wanted to make sure that 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. I think Ryan and I both, this was an opportunity to attempt to try and make a certain type of behavior at least understood by an audience.”
By the end of the season, Rhaenyra has ordered the execution of the High Septon, force-fed a captive Helaena, and publicly declared herself the “prince that was promised” while standing outside the sept. Condal described the speech as a deliberate “seismic change” in her relationship with the people of King’s Landing; a moment of making self grand, rooted in Valyrian faith and prophecy that the common folk cannot fully comprehend.
Looking ahead to Season 4
The creative team has already broken the overall structure of the final season, and Condal has delivered a draft of the premiere episode to HBO. After taking time off during the airing of Season 3, he expressed clear excitement about what comes next.
“We have an incredible season coming. As crazy and big as Season 3 was, I think Season 4 is going to be even bigger… We’re very excited to get back in, and we have new characters, and new dragons and new locations all to come, that I think are gonna make it a very worthy, final season.”
With Rhaenyra’s transformation now fully underway and the Iron Throne continuing to exact its toll, the final chapter of House of the Dragon is set to explore just how far power can corrupt and how differently that corruption can unfold compared to the story of Daenerys Targaryen.
