Why did Seasmoke choose Addam?
Plus all the latest news and a recap of House of the Dragon episode 6!
In episode 6 we see Seasmoke chase Addam of Hull through the woods only to corner him and choose him as his new dragon rider.
Seasmoke has grown lonely without a rider. It's implied that Laenor may have even died offscreen, which could be why the dragon is feeling so moody lately.
For the record, in Fire & Blood, Laenor doesn't fake his own death but dies for real, which makes this all much cleaner.
Laenor was the son of Corlys Velaryon and the dragon-rider Rhaenys Targaryen.
The other half of this equation is Addam. It's been heavily implied throughout the season that Addam and his brother Alyn are actually the bastard sons of Corlys Velaryon, conceived out of wedlock. So Laenor and Addam are half-brothers, even if they never met each other.
Seasmoke most likely sought out Addam because he reminds the dragon of Laenor, his former rider whom he still misses.
Not only do Addam and Laenor share the same blood, but they even look a bit alike, except that Addam has black hair while Laenor has silver-white. While Seasmoke saw Steffon Darklyn as an interloper, he looks on Addam as someone familiar, which is how Addam was able to mount the great beast.
The Kiss wasn’t scripted?
In the newest episode of House of the Dragon, "Smallfolk," Rhaenyra Targaryen shares her frustrations with her mistress of whisperers Mysaria.
Rhaenyra feels like she she's losing her war for the Iron Throne, and Mysaria helps her by sharing a personal story about her traumatic past and expressing her sincere belief in Rhaenyra's ability to win and rule.
Rhaenyra goes in to hug Mysaria both to comfort her and to thank her. The hug lingers and turns into a kiss.
This was a surprise to readers of George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, which doesn't mention a romance between Rhaenyra and Mysaria.
In fact, at this point in the book, Mysaria is still based in King's Landing and hasn't even met Rhaenyra in person yet. The show has brought the characters together earlier. Speaking to TV Insider, Mizuno revealed that a romance was always a possibility, although it doesn't sound like it was always a sure thing.
"After I got the job and spoke to the showrunners, they said that this was a potentiality," Mizuno said.
"They said the plan was definitely for Mysaria and Rhaenyra to start working together with a potential for romance. So I knew before we started Season 1. I think it was then we got the scripts for Season 2, and at the end of this episode, I remember it said, 'Their foreheads are touching. There’s just breath between them. And then what happens next is interrupted.'
But it didn’t define what the thing was that happened and we had many conversations about it in pre-production and during production but both Emma and I felt very strongly that we didn’t want the moment to be queer-baiting in any way, so there was that.
But there was also kind of finding the truth of that moment and their relationship, and it felt very right that was where it was going. It was kind of a collaborative decision to get where it got to."
Whether it was scripted or not the kiss made a lot of sense in context.
Rhaenyra and Mysaria had been building a good rapport from early in the season, and have quite a bit in common despite being born into very different circumstances.
How was Ser Stefan Darkly related to House Targaryen?
When Rhaenyra summons Ser Steffon before her council she says that his "grandmother's grandmother, Arianna, was born a Targaryen princess."
Arianna married into House Darklyn and over the years that Targaryen blood became thinner and thinner as the great house of Duskendale continued growing its family line.
That gives us a pretty clear way to tell how Ser Steffon is related to the Targaryens in House of the Dragon: six generations back, a Targaryen princess married into the Darklyn family.
However this is solely an invention of HBO's television series. It's never said anywhere in the source material from George R.R. Martin that Ser Steffon or House Darklyn is related to House Targaryen.
Ser Steffon does still meet his end trying to mount the dragon Seasmoke, but he is one of several household knights pledged to Rhaenyra who offer to attempt to claim a dragon based solely on their loyalty and drive, rather than any familial relation to House Targaryen.
In the book it is not just Targaryen relations who try to mount dragons during this part of the Dance of the Dragons civil war, though Targaryen bastards, known as "Dragonseeds," do make up the bulk of the aspirants.
Looking through The World of Ice and Fire book and its related family tree for House Targaryen, there is no "Arianna Targaryen" who married into House Darklyn at all.
The fact that it's Ser Steffon's "grandmother's grandmother" means that Arianna Targaryen would have married into House Darklyn in the very earliest days of House Targaryen's reign, possibly even before Aegon's Conquest.
During the years where the Targaryens mainly resided on their island stronghold of Dragonstone. The family tree is a little murkier that far back, since most of the maesters of the Seven Kingdoms only started keeping track once Aegon and his sister-wives landed on Westeros. Arianna could well have been a close ancestor of Aegon I Targaryen, at least on House of the Dragon.
Overall, I thought episode 6 was solid. House of the Dragon has made some good changes from the book, but also some questionable ones.
I think we need to give the story time to play out before deciding whether some are good or bad.
Either way I am very excited for the final two episodes of season 2!
What did you think of episode 6?
I truly enjoy watching Daemon trip his balls and try to mask his vulnerability. I like how The owl Alys plays part into his hallucinations. The part where he sees Viscarys was probably my favorite part of this episode. Let’s be real Daemon acts like the middle child it seems. For once he couldn’t hold his head up high or up is ass per usual. I felt that he wished things were different with Viscarys.