Warning: This text comprises spoilers for “Home of the Dragon” Season 3, Episode 3.
By the third season of “Home of the Dragon,” it has been fairly clearly established that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) has each proper to function Queen of the realm and proceed the Targaryen dynasty unimpeded. The truth has confirmed fairly totally different to this point, in fact, and Staff Black has waged the Dance of the Dragons in response. However ruling from King’s Touchdown is barely extra complicated than merely invading it, and it is now beneath Rhaenyra’s management following a cold takeover. (Effectively, principally, as Rhys Ifans’ Otto Hightower would absolutely protest if solely he, uh, nonetheless had a head). And as she’s beset on all sides by points starting from famine to funds to social unrest and extra, Rhaenyra’s largest menace of all of them might have simply reared its ominous head.
One seemingly trivial dialog early in Episode 3 may pay dividends within the weeks to come back. Within the midst of her infinite issues, Rhaenyra is abruptly confronted — and simply as shortly rebuffed — by Excessive Septon Balman. Performed by Simon Chandler (reprising the function after first showing in Season 1), the non secular determine represents an important image of legitimacy. However, having beforehand topped Tom Glynn-Carney’s Aegon II as king, his refusal to do the identical for Rhaenyra is simply one other in an extended line of setbacks.
As e book readers might have realized, nonetheless, it is his excessive vehemence in direction of dragons and his thinly-veiled threats to the aristocracy that ought to increase eyebrows. George R.R. Martin’s “Fireplace & Blood,” a kind of patched-together historical past of Westeros on which this sequence is predicated, memorably depicts a beggar prophet identified solely because the Shepherd, who performs an enormous function within the story to come back. If our guess is true, “Home of the Dragon” might have begun organising its personal adaptation of the pivotal character.
Did Home of the Dragon simply introduce its model of Fireplace & Blood’s Shepherd?
Earlier than anybody is tempted to cry foul over yet one more change produced from the pages of George R.R. Martin’s “Fireplace & Blood” to “Home of the Dragon,” please maintain this in thoughts: Each adaptation has to take its personal distinctive path, and typically these deviations are fairly obligatory. On this case, it is truly fairly simple to grasp why sequence co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal and his writers would really feel the necessity to put their very own spin on the mysterious e book character known as the Shepherd — presuming that is precisely what’s occurring right here. Spoilers for “Fireplace & Blood” and potential occasions to come back in the remainder of Season 3, naturally, will comply with.
Readers know all too effectively that Rhaenyra’s reclaiming of King’s Touchdown does not precisely go in line with plan. As her grip on the town weakens, “Fireplace & Blood” exhibits the way it all comes down crashing across the would-be Queen … and far of it’s spurred on by the Shepherd. Origins and identification unknown, this beggar-turned-prophet rails towards Rhaenyra and her black-magic dragons within the public sq.. When dwelling situations worsen and the tides of struggle flip the opposite method, the Shepherd’s affect over the smallfolk grows, and shortly he instructions a complete mob of frightened, indignant, and murderous peasants able to do his bidding — culminating in a riot that results in the deaths of all of Rhaenyra’s dragons.
Is the present hinting that the self-righteous Excessive Septon could also be headed for this function? It actually seems seemingly, and it is a intelligent workaround for a personality who seems out of nowhere within the e book. All will probably be revealed, as new episodes of “Home of the Dragon” hit HBO each Sunday.
