Why Executing Otto Hightower Could Be Rhaenyra's Worst Political Mistake in House of the Dragon

Watching Rhaenyra, soon to be coronated protector of the realm, take Otto Hightower's head in the great hall of the Red Keep at the tail end of season 3, episode 2, was deeply satisfying. A lot of black aligned fans, myself very much included, have waited a long time to see this old geezer brought to heel. But satisfying and smart are not the same thing, and the more I sat with it, the more convinced I became that this execution, however good it felt in the moment, could end up being the single worst political decision Rhaenyra has made all series.

Worse, I'd argue, than giving birth to the Strongs and further challenging her own claim to the throne, which was already hanging by a thread. Worse than leaving King's Landing for Dragonstone during the crucial shift that let the Greens easily consolidate power and usurp the throne, because had she been there when her father died, Aegon would not have so easily earned the title of usurper, nor would Alicent have misinterpreted the song of ice and fire. Worse, arguably, than trusting Alicent and ignoring strategic war council advice as a result. Maybe not worse than marrying her own uncle though. Nothing beats that one.

Otto Hightower's death comes across as a huge political mistake for Team Black, and I want to walk through why this so called victory might actually be the first domino in Rhaenyra's downfall.

George R. R. Martin's Book Account of Otto Hightower's Death Is Colder and Cleaner Than the Show's

In the books, Otto Hightower served three kings as Hand, Jaehaerys the Conciliator, Viserys the Peaceful and Aegon the Usurper, for roughly eighteen non-consecutive years, and he was simply the first to be beheaded as a traitor when Rhaenyra took King's Landing in late 130 AC, exactly as he predicted. He had foreseen that if Rhaenyra ever sat the Iron Throne, it would in truth be ruled by a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was, and that his own head would be the first cut off, with his daughter, the queen, soon to follow. His severed head went up on a pike above the city gates as a warning to Aegon II's supporters, and the book moves straight on to Lord Jasper Wylde. There is no mention of Rhaenyra swinging anything herself, only an executioner doing the deed as becomes the station.

The show wanted more than that, obviously. It wanted Emma D'Arcy wielding a sword, evoking Ned Stark's old creed that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword, except Ned had law and northern tradition backing that logic. Rhaenyra had confusion written all over her face as she sat the very throne that took the lives of her children, as she herself admitted: "The boys who clung to me, who hid their little faces in my skirts, dead so that I may sit upon a throne of swords." She had grief, rage and a taste for violence she never imagined coming to, and the result is a botched two-swing execution, messier than the source of the creed she was borrowing from. It reminded me of how Theon hacked his way through Ser Rodrik Cassel in Game of Thrones, and we all remember how that bad omen worked out for Theon's rule over Winterfell.

Otto Alive Was Leverage Rhaenyra Just Threw Away

The first reason I believe this execution was a grave mistake is the small matter of what Rhaenyra just threw away. Otto Hightower alive in a cell was leverage, a bargaining chip against the forces of the Reach marching up from Oldtown, a hostage to play on Alicent's feelings, and a name to use against whatever was left of the Green faction's cause, however unlikely that may seem. I doubt Ormund Hightower or even Daeron would keep marching if their grandfather's life hung in the balance, especially since Alicent had already halted their operations once under the disguise of the king's stamp.

But dead, all of that value goes up in smoke for one moment of excitement. If anything, Rhaenyra just handed the Greens a new martyr and closed the one door that could have ended the war with fewer bodies. Every ruler eventually learns the difference between the sentence and the sword, and the story the realm tells about it afterward. Ned Stark understood that trade in Game of Thrones, nearly one hundred and seventy years after these events, for whatever good it did him. Rhaenyra, ironically the realm's delight, only understands the sentence here.

She finally got her viral scene, her standing ovation from fans like me who have waited three seasons for Otto to get what's coming to him. But somewhere down the line, through riots that may yet surface in King's Landing and a nickname she has not yet earned from the small folk, I suspect this, much like Cersei beheading Missandei was for Daenerys, is the scene we will all look back on as the moment our queen started spending a currency she could never earn back.

Killing Otto Removes the Only Green Who Actually Understood How to Run a Kingdom

Lord Hightower served three separate kings as Hand, and his tenure was defined by decades of peace, fiscal responsibility and stable management. He understood, more than anyone currently living, the burden of a throne and the responsibilities of a king or queen. Even so, his own grandson King Aegon II saw Otto's diplomacy as slothful and cowardly at a time when Prince Daemon had captured Harrenhal and many houses had declared for the Blacks. According to Septon Eustace, when Aegon found Otto writing another letter, he knocked the ink pot into his grandfather's lap and told him to spill blood, not ink.

The young men and women of this realm will sooner see blood spilled than come to terms with their enemy, and of that I say Otto's treachery deserved to be resorted to rather than his immediate execution. With King's Landing facing an economic crisis, Blackwater Bay heavily blockaded by the Velaryon fleet and the city teetering on starvation, Rhaenyra desperately needed an experienced administrative brain to stabilize the capital in the aftermath. At the very least Otto should have stayed in chains, as a political hostage to force the Hightower army to halt its march from the Reach.

Parading the Execution in Front of Alicent Made a Bad Decision Even Worse

Killing Otto quietly, as a formality, tucked away and reported after the fact, would have been defensible, even smart. But letting Alicent stumble onto her father's severed head, still warm on the floor of the very throne room she used to command from, is about the most cruel thing she has had to witness, and I expect Alicent will be reeling for the rest of the series, that is if she survives her arrest. Once she saw her father's lifeless body and realized Helaena would not be getting her chickens, every word Otto had said to her as a maiden, long before she had children with Viserys, became clear: when Rhaenyra ascends the throne, her very life could be forfeit. And the peace treaty they struck in the season 2 finale meant nothing to Rhaenyra after all.

You could argue Rhaenyra's side of it too, since Otto, the usurper's bargaining chip, had fled, and how could she trust Alicent had not plotted his escape? But then how does Alicent trust that anything they agreed to in secret meant anything to Rhaenyra to begin with, except for that fearful expression on her face as she sits the throne, which could also be read otherwise. Remember, Alicent spent the entire premiere and half of episode two trying to broker something resembling peace, offering up Aegon, begging her other son to run, even permitting an uncomfortable kiss, and working the guards until King's Landing fell without a single sword drawn. The very city watch that saved Rhaenyra's life in the great hall owed to Alicent putting in a word.

That was the outcome Alicent so desperately sought, a bloodless transfer of power and some mercy she could point to later, something like "Look, I made this easier than it had to be, so I have to be spared at least." But Otto's execution severs whatever fragile trust remained between them in one swing or two. Whatever she thinks walking away from that room, it does not matter how satisfying it was to us as an audience, the only way she can reason through it is that she handed her father over to an executioner. Whatever complicated trust existed between two women who once gossiped as girls about which knight had the best looks dies right there on the floor with Otto.

The Small Folk Watching Could Turn Rhaenyra Into the Next Maegor the Cruel

Then there are the onlookers who matter more than anyone in that throne room seems to realize. In the books, Rhaenyra's reign collapses fast, and it does so for this specific reason: multiple executions of even some lowborns in the city, heads on spikes, taxes climbing to pay for a war nobody inside the capital wanted, until the small folk who once cheered her coronation started calling her King Maegor with teats. Maegor the First, also called Maegor the Cruel, was the third Targaryen king, son of Aegon the Conqueror and his sister wife Visenya. He was a hard, brutal man who craved violence, death and absolute mastery, quarrelsome, quick to take offense, slow to forgive and fearsome in his anger, a man who preferred fire and steel over discussion and, despite many companions in his youth, trusted no one.

That is the memory of the man the small folk, who once called Rhaenyra the realm's delight, were now comparing her to. Executing Otto Hightower is page one of that same ledger, and his head hanging from a spike is a spectacle that sends a cruel message not only to Rhaenyra's enemies but to her allies too, Lord Corlys most of all.

Otto Spent His Life Turning Mistakes Into Leverage, Even His Own Death

Otto spent his entire life turning other people's mistakes into leverage. It would be almost too poetic if his death also turns out to be his very last attempt at exactly that. That is why I believe he did not even resist it in the first place, but embraced it with honor, as becomes men of his caliber.

Do you think Rhaenyra's public execution of Otto Hightower will end up costing her the throne she just won?