House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 6 Explained: Seasmoke Burns Steffon Darklyn, Addam of Hull Rises and Alicent Is Pushed Aside

Season 2 episode 6 of House of the Dragon plants a lot of seeds. Rhaenyra's blacks begin hunting for new dragon riders among Targaryen kin of uncertain birth, Seasmoke burns Ser Steffon Darklyn alive before choosing Addam of Hull, and the greens fall apart at the top while King's Landing riots below. I am going through the Easter eggs and how all of this compares to the book. The biggest book spoilers are saved for a final section at the end, and I flag them clearly before getting there.

The opening tapestry adds Vhagar's kill of Arrax and the Battle of Rook's Rest

The episode opens with more shots added to the intro. Baby Jaehaerys and the hanged ratcatchers had already been woven into the tapestry, and now there are a couple more. Vhagar tearing apart Lucerys and Arrax was originally in the first episode but was later taken out. Here we get a different render of it before it moves to Jaehaerys and the ratcatchers. After that comes the Battle of Rook's Rest, with two slain dragons and Aemond in the middle, holding up his sword while Vhagar flies overhead.

Before going further, it is worth taking stock of the dragons on each side. The blacks have lost Meleys and Arrax. The book explains that with Sunfyre wounded near Rook's Rest and unable to fly, and Tessarion with Prince Daeron in Oldtown, only two mature dragons remained to defend King's Landing. Dreamfyre's rider, Queen Helaena, spent her days weeping in darkness and could not be counted as a threat. That left Vhagar. No living dragon could match her for size or ferocity, but Jace reasoned that if Vermax, Syrax and Caraxes descended on King's Landing together, even she could not withstand them. Daeron has been touched upon by Otto in the series, and I come back to him later in this piece.

Jason Lannister summons Aemond, and the greens' plan comes from the book

The Lannister army has been talked about all season. We met Jason Lannister back in season 1, but season 2 has focused mainly on his brother Tyland, the master of coin, while Jason heads House Lannister. We see his army marching to the Golden Tooth, which sits along the River Road west of Riverrun. The Golden Tooth is home to House Lefford, who the book tells us were loyal to the greens. Their sigil is a sun in a blue sky with a golden triangle pointing up from the bottom. They are an ancient house descended from a union between the First Men and an Andal warlord. We also see lions in cages, the golden lion being the Lannister sigil.

Jason says he will send a raven summoning Aemond to accompany them in battle, which does not go down well at the council. The book tells it differently. There, the plan was to strike the riverlands from both east and west so the Lords of the Trident had to fight on two fronts. Jason had assembled a thousand armoured knights and seven times as many archers and men at arms in the western hills. They would cross the Red Fork while Ser Criston Cole marched from King's Landing with Aemond on Vhagar, and the two armies would converge on Harrenhal. If Daemon came out to oppose them, Vhagar would overcome Caraxes and Aemond would return with his uncle's head.

The book describes Aemond at this point as supremely confident in his own prowess and in Vhagar, and eager to take the battle to his foe. In that passage he dismisses the threat from Dragonstone and insists the real danger is his uncle: once Daemon is dead, everyone flying his sister's banners will run back to their castles. I love how, throughout the episode, Aegon is realising Aemond took his throne from him, just as Aegon took it from his sister. Aegon is now bed bound and burned to a crisp, and for two episodes he has lain there with his foot in the air. Larys is visiting him a lot, weirdly. Either way, Aemond is not happy about being summoned to provide an escort, and Caraxes still being in the area clearly worries the council.

Alicent is kicked from the council she helped build

Aemond talks about the Triarchy, and later, with Rhaena, there is a mention of the ship the Gay Abandon. Both become a big turning point in the war, and I explain how the ship and Otto intertwine in the spoiler section.

It is also suggested that Alicent should offer her hand to secure the Greyjoys. It highlights how completely she has lost her agency. She says no, but she no longer holds power, and being kicked from the council is a devastating revelation for her. She is suddenly hit with the realisation that the club that does not want a woman to rule might not want her either. In the beginning it was her and Otto's scheming that put all of this in place, and now both have been ousted and betrayed by the people they gave power to.

Rubbing the scarred side of Aemond's face, she asks whether the indignities of his childhood have not yet been sufficiently avenged. Aemond still holds on to the bullying and cruelty that shaped him. Beyond that, the scar was caused by Rhaenyra's side. Alicent stepped up to try to get revenge and failed because of Viserys, and Aemond clearly still does not think things have been made right.

Corlys becomes Hand of the Queen after a quarrel the show skipped

Over on Dragonstone, Corlys becomes Hand of the Queen. The book has Jace bringing the Lord of the Tides back into the fold by naming him Hand, and together they plan an assault on King's Landing. The book also says Corlys and Rhaenyra came to blows before he took the position. Lucerys's death had crushed a woman already broken by pregnancy, labour and stillbirth, and when word arrived that Rhaenys had fallen, Corlys blamed Rhaenyra for his wife's death, shouting that it should have been her and that she had forbidden her sons from joining Rhaenys, even though Jace and Luke had been eager to fly to Rook's Rest with their own dragons.

I did really want to see that scene in the series because it has always stuck out to me in the book. I feel like the show may have wanted to handle things the opposite way last week and highlight his ties to Baela. Corlys was initially all about names, which is why he made the Strongs his heirs even though they were not his blood. We have seen him start to change that mentality, and he is slowly taking his real family under his wing.

He sits to Rhaenyra's right, the same position the Hand holds on the green council. It signals a trusted and esteemed seat, where the ruler needs the Hand close by. Shadier figures like the master of whisperers tend to sit at the foot, which is Larys's favourite place. Mysaria has no seat here because Rhaenyra is trying to seem dignified. Viserys never needed a master of whisperers, and Rhaenyra has not yet given Mysaria any official position.

Steffon Darklyn and the dark origins of the Dragonseeds

Ser Steffon Darklyn is then called in and asked whether he will try to tame a dragon for their side. They have looked back through the records and traced Targaryen blood in his family, so he could potentially ride one. Dragons were seen as gods, and the legend said only Targaryens and Velaryons could ride them, which kept the peasants in their place and stopped people rising up against their masters. Even Darklyn sees the dragons as gods, saying "I am but a man the dragons are Gods". That builds on the peasant's words last week, and it shows how the greens are starting to destroy that perception while the blacks keep up the illusion.

To make things easier, I am calling the people asked to ride dragons Dragonseeds, which is how the book refers to them. There it is a lengthy recruitment process. The term comes from the custom of the first night, practised for thousands of years, which allowed a lord or noble to spend the wedding night of a lesser house's bride with her. It is pretty messed up. It produced a lot of unwanted children among the poor, forced men to raise another man's son under their roof and added financial strain, so many of those children were cast out to die in the wild or killed outright. The book recounts one case from Jaehaerys's reign, a husband who beat the lord's child out of his wife, until she eventually made her way to Molestown.

Jaehaerys then explains that the tradition had endured on Dragonstone, where the children were called Dragonseeds and were cherished, and gifts were given. He notes that Orys Baratheon himself was a Dragonseed, fathered by Lord Aerion. That idea of gifts is what sets Alysanne off in the book, as she says she sees no honour in any of it and begs them to end the custom. The book explains that on Dragonstone such feelings were muted, because the Targaryens were regarded as closer to gods. Brides were envied, the children were esteemed above all others, and even after the right of the first night ended, certain Targaryens kept dallying with the daughters of innkeepers and the wives of fishermen, so seeds and the sons of seeds were plentiful on the island.

So it is a long way of saying that when Jace looked at the records and scrolls last week, there were a lot of candidates out there. In the book, Mushroom suggests that wherever the Targaryens had spilled their silver seed was a place to look for dragon riders. Mushroom is a character in the book who claims to have witnessed much of what happened; he is absent from the show, but his testimony gives a lot of insight. Darklyn bends down almost as if he is being knighted, and being offered a dragon is a huge honour, since they are basically weapons of mass destruction in a time of arrows and swords. The show scales down the number of people asked. The book has Jace sending a message across Westeros promising lands, riches, knighthoods and ennobled sons to any man who could master a dragon, which drew household knights, the Lord Commander of the Queensguard Ser Steffon Darklyn, squires, scullions, sailors, men at arms, mummers and two maidens. Munkun calls it the Sowing of the Seeds; others prefer the Red Sowing because of all the bloodshed.

Daemon's vision of Viserys reworks Paddy Considine's season 1 confrontation

At Harrenhal, Daemon is still tripping, seeing his brother Viserys in a reworking of their confrontation from the first episode of season 1. I love seeing Paddy Considine back, and this is a far more emotional performance than the original. It shows how Daemon remembers the moment differently from how it really was. You really get how heartbroken he is because he feels he failed his brother by not being there for him, something he later fantasises about, but in real life it is too late. Viserys also removes his crown, whereas in reality this is when he sliced his finger. That finger was later removed, and it is likely the disease he caught came from cutting himself on the throne, which was said to cut those unfit to lead. Here Viserys removes his crown instead, and we see him as a man rather than just the king.

When Daemon is unable to escape, he goes at Simon Strong. Unlike last week, when Simon mocked him by calling him the king consort, here he uses the full title. I did wonder if this was laying the groundwork for the Mad King. Aerys II was known by that nickname, and the show seemed to be playing off King Lear. The incest in the lineage was said to drive him mad, and Alys may be tapping into that too, as it is something Daenerys was said to possess and was used to explain her turn at King's Landing. Aerys was the last Targaryen to sit the throne, and his rule led to a civil war against Robert Baratheon. Daemon calls Simon a friend by day and an enemy by night and goes off on him for possibly being a green or loyal to the Tullys. He just needs to look a little further up the river.

Daemon plans to leave because the place is driving him mad, but Alys convinces him to stay. He runs into her at the weirwood tree, where she first haunted him in his dreams and where she said he would die. The book discusses the idea of Daemon leaving, saying he was too seasoned a battler to be penned up inside walls, even walls as massive as Harrenhal's. He still had friends in King's Landing, and when told Aemond and Ser Criston had left the city, he laughed, and a murder of ravens took flight from the castle's twisted towers.

Alys brings up the curse Harren the Black shouted about. Harren was killed by Aegon the Conqueror when he refused to yield, and in the lore Larys blamed the curse for the deaths of his father and brother. Daemon mentions sleeping on a weirwood bed. The paste within weirwoods had magical qualities and was used to give Bran his visions, so sleeping on one could explain Daemon's nightmares. Alys also says there are older things in this world than you or I. It is possible she is hundreds of years old, which would make her akin to Melisandre, and the book describes her as a witch who kept herself young by bathing in the blood of babies. There were theories she might not be real, because last week she seemed to vanish when she stepped behind Simon, but this episode debunks that when Simon says she tended to Grover Tully.

In this scene she stops Daemon leaving and predicts things will be handled. She is the one who later poisons Grover, which lets Daemon build an army, and that is how her predictions are so accurate. I feel like she is trying to change Daemon. He says Rhaenyra never even wanted the crown, which Alys says is why Viserys gave it to her. The idea that those who do not want to rule make the best rulers has come up before, and people thought it about Aegon II as well. Daemon is desperate for power, and I think she is trying to give him the epiphany that he does not really want to rule. I kind of wish he would realise it already, because we are around four weeks into these visions. I did love seeing Viserys back, but having them every single week, when they could have been resolved in one episode or half the time, feels like going in circles.

Seasmoke burns Steffon Darklyn alive in a scene ripped from the book

In the Dragonpit there is an almost religious ceremony as someone tries to claim a dragon. The keepers sing almost like a hymn, which further places the dragons as gods, and Daemon sang similar songs in season 1 when he went down to the caves to see Vermithor. The scene with Steffon is ripped right from the book, where Munkun records that sixteen men lost their lives during the Sowing and three times that number were burned or maimed. Steffon Darklyn burned to death trying to mount Seasmoke, and Lord Gormon Massey suffered the same fate approaching Vermithor. A man called Silver Denys, who claimed descent from an illegitimate son of Maegor the Cruel, had an arm torn off by Sheepstealer, and as his sons tried to staunch the wound the Cannibal drove Sheepstealer off and devoured father and sons alike.

Gormon Massey is on the black council, but I did not think the show would kill him. I could not see him putting himself forward after this, and repeating the scene with different people would be redundant, unless they did all the deaths as a montage set to 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. Rhaenyra says to Mysaria that no one else would be foolish enough to try it, so I felt Massey was safe for the time being. Is it just me, or is there a lot of Jurassic Park imagery here? The first film opens at the raptor cage, and I was half expecting Darklyn to hold out his hand like Owen. I love the fake out, because you think Seasmoke has gone tame. I saw this one with my wife, and at the council scene I said it was not going to go well for him. When we got to this bit she told me I was wrong, and then she looked on in horror as he burned alive.

A dragonkeeper burns too, and he does something I would love to hear your thoughts on. I wondered whether that was simply because burning alive is painful or whether there was a ritual behind it. Ryan Condal and a colleague explained on a podcast that the keepers all carry dragonglass daggers for a specific reason that, at the time, was still to be revealed. I wondered if they see it as a sacrifice to the gods, since doing it when they are about to perish anyway does not seem like it would speed things up.

The book also has three wild dragons on Dragonstone that the show leaves out here. Sheepstealer was a mud brown dragon with a taste for mutton, Grey Ghost was a shy pale grey dragon who preferred fish and avoided men, and the Cannibal fed on dead dragons and raided hatcheries for eggs and hatchlings. Coal black with baleful green eyes, the Cannibal was said by some to have lived on Dragonstone even before the Targaryens arrived, and his lair was littered with the bones of would be tamers. The show skips him, and originally he was the dragon Addam tried to claim. In the book the call went far and wide and people came to the island, whereas the show keeps the candidates closer to home, but it is laying the groundwork.

Addam and Alyn of Hull's parentage is murkier in the book

At the shipyard, Corlys, Addam and Alyn are close to finishing the Sea Snake's vessel, and Corlys enlists Alyn as his first mate. Alyn is hiding his parentage, wearing a cloth over his head and later shaving it, which keeps the white hair of the Velaryons from view. The brothers talk about their parentage, which the book goes over at length, so here are the key points. Their mother was Marilda, a shipwright's daughter often found in her father's shipyard, nicknamed Mouse because she was small and quick. She had Addam at sixteen and Alyn at eighteen, and in the book they carried the long silver hair and purple eyes of the family. When her father died she sold the shipyard, bought a trading vessel named Mouse and built up a fleet, and her sons served in it. I feel that is how they got involved with Corlys, with Alyn saving his life, which is new to the show. In the book they simply appear when the Dragonseed call goes out.

In the book Marilda only broke her silence when Jace put out the call, claiming both boys were sons of the late Ser Laenor Velaryon. Many were sceptical, as Laenor's disinterest in women was well remembered, but none dared call her a liar, because Corlys himself brought the boys forward for the Sowing. When Addam mounted Seasmoke, it seemed to prove her claim. The show has not really moved away from Corlys being their father, while the book leaves ambiguity. Munkun and Septon Eustace both assert Laenor's parentage, but Mushroom suggests the Sea Snake himself fathered them, and that Corlys ended his visits to Mouse after Alyn's birth and kept the boys from court for fear of Rhaenys. That differs slightly in the show, where Rhaenys did figure it out.

Mysaria and Rhaenyra fight a war for hearts in King's Landing

In King's Landing we see the other side of Mysaria's mission. In the trailer breakdown we thought she might be there to cause civil unrest, and using Mysaria's people, they sow the seeds. The woman Aemond went to, and was kind of in love with, looks to have been scorned by his comments when his brother turned up talking about how lavish life is in the Red Keep. The girl Aegon assaulted is also stirring the pot. The book says Corlys's ships choked off the Gullet and stopped food reaching the city. Last week the fruit was rotting, and now Rhaenyra sends in supplies to win support. In the book, the royal fleet could not break the blockade and Aegon's overtures to Dalton Greyjoy had failed, so Otto offered the Triarchy exclusive trading rights in King's Landing, and even the Stepstones, if they cleared the Gullet.

I love how Ulf is here too, because he has some royal blood, and I feel he sees it as something he should be getting, which the line about it being no use wondering what might have been reinforces. Ulf and Hugh living in poverty becomes very important later. Back on Dragonstone, Rhaenyra wonders if she has played things too nicely when she should have ruled with fear. When Mysaria says the sword is becoming, she puts it on the table, but she toys with it and clearly doubts her style of leadership. I think seeing Visenya holding the sword in the book last week has made her second guess things. Visenya was her idol, and just as Aegon tried to be like the Conqueror, you can see why she would want to emulate her.

Mysaria plays her hand, wanting the people to feel the king has abandoned them. I love how they are fighting the war in more ways than one, and "it's a great way to depict a war playing out". Hugh begs for scraps while sheep are wheeled past to feed the dragons, and he ends up fighting for food. We know his child is very sick, and I felt at some point the child might die. His wife went to Jaehaerys's funeral and was compassionate toward the royals' loss, but I doubt the royals will care about their child, and this might be when the penny drops. I felt Hugh and his family might then flee King's Landing and join the blacks.

Aemond torments Aegon while Larys reaches out to him

At the council, Larys tells Aemond he needs to appoint a Hand, and Aemond puts Larys in charge of finding one. They also send word to Otto, which potentially alters things from the book, where Aemond had a different Hand; I cover that in the spoiler section. Aemond plays with a ball at the council table, which he later uses to inflict pain on Aegon, crushing him with the weight of what he has lost. It is really deep, and Aegon is clearly afraid of him, panicking as Aemond comes near. Aegon denies remembering anything, but we know he is lying out of fear.

Aemond sees challenging the enemy as Aegon did as a tactical error. He understands the strategy of war, but what he does not get is people, which is why he cannot understand why they are revolting. That puts him in opposition to Aegon, who was nice to the man with the sheep but tactically terrible, and in line with Viserys and Daemon, since Viserys was a diplomat and Daemon was built for war. The scene is shot very similarly to the one near the end of season 1, where Rhaenyra and Daemon comforted Viserys in his bed. Here Aemond cruelly taunts Aegon and just wants him out of the way.

The show plays off the book when it is said his grace sleeps nine hours of every ten. In the book, Aegon slept nine hours out of every ten, and only his mother and his Hand, Criston Cole, were allowed to disturb him. His wife never even made the attempt, so lost was Helaena in grief and madness, which is different from the show, where Helaena seems okay.

Rhaena, the burned sheep and the Nettles theory

Rhaena and Joffrey wander the Vale. She is down that she cannot ride a dragon, and then they come across the carcasses of burned sheep. Nettles is missing from the series, with the creative team saying some of her moments have gone to other characters. For a couple of weeks I have said I think Rhaena will get most of them, though I would have loved to see Nettles. In the book, Sheepstealer was brought to heel by a small brown girl of sixteen who brought him a freshly slaughtered sheep every morning until he learned to accept and expect her. Munkun records her name as Nettles, while Mushroom calls her a girl of uncertain birth.

That is more my theory of what the scene sets up than a spoiler. In the book Rhaena's dragon was Morning, hatched from one of the eggs she took with her, and we see a baby dragon right after this moment, so the show could follow the book. But seeing the sheep here, and learning about Sheepstealer later, it just makes sense to me. People have got annoyed whenever I have said they might give Rhaena Nettles's story, but if you can combine the characters it makes the story swifter, since both are around the same age and trying to get dragons. Rhaena is also told she will be sent to Prince Reggio in Pentos, the character from season 1, but I thought she would claim the dragon before heading out.

Addam and Alyn have opposing goals. Addam wants riches and the Driftmark throne, and from the way things are left, I felt he would next say he will swear allegiance in return for a title. The blacks are clearly generous, as the next scene shows when, after Jace pleads with Rhaenyra to get Daemon back on side, the food arrives in King's Landing. I think it is a brilliant strategy. Politicians often promise better lives, but it is rare to get them before the election. People remember how good life was under Viserys and now know how bad it is under Aegon, so this is a reminder of the good times.

Alicent, Gwayne and the riot outside the sept

Alicent has reached out to her father and goes to her brother Gwayne. Daeron is mentioned heavily, and how he has not been corrupted by the Red Keep. He was the most popular of Alicent's children and welcome at court, and though he has been kept out of the show, I felt he would make a big entrance. You can see how war weary Gwayne is. Every soldier there other than Criston has known nothing but peace, and they are out of their league. Otto sent Alicent to court to be a wife for a noble while Gwayne stayed behind, and they wonder what would have happened had they swapped places. Likely neither would be stuck: Gwayne would not be riding to war and Alicent would not have created it. The power of the Red Keep is ultimately corrupting; Otto forced his daughter, and Alicent did it too. She cannot have what she really wants, and her glance to Criston says so much. I know these are some of the worst people around, but "I just hope they get a happy ending".

Helaena is playing with bugs again and says one stops singing. As always she speaks in riddles, and it is likely setting up a death, but I do not associate any character with singing. The only one who has done it is Daemon, and I think it is highly unlikely to be him. There were the dragonkeepers earlier too, but these visions normally point to something further down the line. Hugh is in the streets, and I was hoping that was Cheese's dog, but it is not.

The riots end with Alicent and Helaena being mobbed after leaving the sept, where they lit candles for the fallen, and they see the power of the people firsthand. The Kingsguard grab them and they barely make it back to their carriage. Alicent looks at the cut on her arm, akin to the one she gave Rhaenyra at Driftmark, which brings it full circle and carries on the idea of bloodshed flowing from that moment.

Larys's kinship with Aegon and Grover Tully's death

Larys visits Aegon. I wondered whether he was building a relationship with the king to manipulate him, as he has done with Alicent and Aegon before, but I feel the friendship and advice are genuine here. Aegon has issues with his leg, and I think Larys sees a kinship. He is telling him how to survive in this world because he had to learn it too, and it adds an extra dimension to the character. We hear about his birth. The book says his foot was twisted when he was born and he dragged it with a limp, and being stared at made him self conscious, so he rarely spoke, listened instead and improved his mind. It is a tragic story, and he warns that people will underestimate Aegon and agrees to help him.

That helping hand appears again in Daemon's next vision. In reality he never comforted his brother after Aemma's death, and now we see he wishes he had. All he saw then was someone keeping him from the throne, and it adds real depth to Daemon. I wondered whether this vision would make him see he needs to be there for Viserys's daughter, who is also his wife. Then we hear Grover is dead. In the book the aged Lord Grover died of apoplexy and his grandson Elmo called the Lords of the Trident to war. The show changes it so it is Alys's doing, and he goes out a bit like Renly. It is Oscar rather than Elmo, and I wondered if that was a Sesame Street reference. Oscar, whom we met earlier in the season, is in charge, and Daemon has an army, though his joy is cut short by what I took to be the pain from the vision.

Seasmoke chooses Addam, and Mysaria opens up to Rhaenyra

On the coast, Addam tames Seasmoke. Addam saw Seasmoke earlier in the season, so I felt the dragon might have spotted him and wanted to form a bond, and in this scene it is clear the dragon chooses him. He shares a bloodline with Laenor, the previous rider, and is his half brother, so there is a reason Seasmoke would go after him, and what a great scene.

On Dragonstone, Mysaria talks about the success of the gifts and opens up about how she got her scars. I had theorised that the one around her neck was likely from a slave collar, but she lays out that her father abused her. She also made sure she could not have children, which is why Daemon in episode 2 hurt so much: he took the dragon egg saying it would be for their child. I feel this scene flips how Alicent treated the girl Aegon assaulted. Where Alicent forced her to drink the tea, Rhaenyra comforts Mysaria. It ends in a kiss, which is new for the show, and I felt it was set to build a love triangle between Mysaria, Daemon and Rhaenyra, since they have all been together. We close with Seasmoke siding with his rider and Rhaenyra flying out from Dragonstone to meet him.

Book spoilers: the Gay Abandon, Ulf and Hugh, and Daemon's fate at the Gods Eye

From here on are book spoilers, including two major deaths. Otto is still out there, and his plans cause a lot of trouble for the blacks. The book says his schemes bore fruit when the Triarchy accepted his alliance in Tyrosh, and ninety warships swept from the Stepstones toward the Gullet, while the Pentoshi cog Gay Abandon, carrying two Targaryen princes, sailed straight into them. Those are the little ones we saw playing with dragon toys, and they are captured. Season 1 ended with Luke being killed, so I felt it would make sense for the season to end with this. I also thought we were going to see Otto's arc fleshed out soon as he puts the pieces together for this, and hopefully see Daeron as well. As for Aemond's Hand, in the book it remained Criston Cole, which I thought the show was doing automatically, though they might change things. Either way, Alicent, I would not bother applying.

Ulf and Hugh do put themselves forward as Dragonseeds. In the book everyone travels to the island, while the show plays it differently, but we know roughly what happens when Alyn tries his luck. After failing to find Grey Ghost, he approached Sheepstealer and stumbled out with his cloak aflame, saved only when Seasmoke drove the wild dragon off and Addam beat out the flames. Alyn carried the scars on his back and legs for the rest of his long life but counted himself fortunate. Seasmoke, Vermithor and Silverwing were more accepting of new riders because they had been ridden before. Vermithor bent his neck to a towering blacksmith's son called Hugh the Hammer, Silverwing took Ulf the White, also called Ulf the Sot, and Seasmoke took Addam of Hull. Not long after, Corlys petitioned Rhaenyra to legitimise Addam and his brother, Jace backed the request, and Addam became Addam Velaryon, heir to Driftmark; Baela had turned it down last week. Despite the deaths, the Sowing was seen as largely successful, with four new dragon riders found, and Jace planned to attack King's Landing on the first full moon of the new year.

Daemon goes down to the weirwood tree, where his showdown with Aemond begins. The book says he waited there two weeks, slashing at the tree, until Aemond arrived on Vhagar with Alys riding as his paramour. She said this would be where Daemon died, and I feel she can see her future with Aemond, which is why she has been tormenting him, trying to break him mentally and fracturing the blacks from within. I also feel she could be someone who influences Melisandre, sowing the seeds of the prince that was promised prophecy, perhaps learning of it through Aemond having the dagger. Daemon stabs Aemond in his blind eye, and both dragons tumble into the Gods Eye. It is believed they all perished. The scholars do not confirm whether Daemon did, but we know this kills Aemond. The show might change things with Daemon, since we have seen with Laenor that characters said to die in the book can survive and live anonymously. I felt that might be what they would do with him, and he is still a wild card, which is why he is nicknamed the Rogue Prince.

So where do you stand: were Daemon's Harrenhal visions worth returning to week after week, or did they leave the story going in circles?