‘House of the Dragon’ Season 1 Episode 7 Recap: How to Claim Your Dragon
“Fire cannot kill a dragon,” a Targaryen once said. But the same Targaryen lived her entire life with few other dragonmates in sight. if Emilia Clarke‘s Daenerys was born during the time of Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cook), she would know the truth: not only can fire kill one dragon, the mere smell of dragon smoke could threaten the entire species as a whole.
Indeed, it is dragon fire that spawns the cast house of the dragon all together under the same proverbial roof in this week’s episode “Driftmark,” and it’s dragon fire that threatens to bring the roof down on everyone’s heads. Set entirely on the titular island that House Velaryon calls home, in Driftmark the extended Targaryen royal family comes together for the funeral of one of their own: Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondel), who was killed during last week’s episode after choosing a fiery death in the maw of her dragon, Vhagar, rather than dying in childbirth. Some time later the men, women and children from different corners of their lives gather in Driftmark, none of them happy to be there, but some are unhappier than others.
In the immediate circle is the sea serpent Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and Rhaenys Targaryen (Eva Best), Laena’s grieving parents. Though she wouldn’t say it out loud to his face, Rhaeny’s prince blames Daemon, at least in part, for her daughter’s death (MattSmith), whose refusal to leave Pentos for Driftmark as Laena wanted, left her without proper medical attention. The Sea Serpent resists such a suggestion, believing that the Maesters of Pentos are as capable as those in Driftmark (as in, not terribly capable at all), though he has no such defense against Rhaenys’ other intimation: the boastful Corlys cannot allow the realm’s decision to reject Rhaenys as their queen, despite the fact that she let go of that pain long ago. Now the sea serpent’s hunt for the crown has her surviving child Laenor (John Macmillan) in grave danger, even more immediate than they realize.
The next layer of the circle: Daemon himself as well as his niece Rhaenyra. Widowed again, but this time not by his own hand, Daemon struggles with how to act as a father, let alone being back on Westeros soil. Despite urgings from his brother the King, ready to put their troubled past behind them, Daemon blisters at the prospect of returning to the Seven Kingdoms. That perception only changes when Daemon is alone with Rhaenyra for the first time in years, and herself silently mourns the fiery death of her children’s father, Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr). Unbeknownst to the rest of their family, Rhaenyra and Daemon sleep together on the beach, comforting each other in a way only Targaryens (and a certain pair of Lannister twins) know.
If you zoom out further you will see Viserys (Paddy Considine) and “the Greens,” the nickname given to Queen Alicent and those loyal to her family. Enough time has passed since the Harrenhal fires that Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) has claimed the castle ruins for himself and bought himself closer to the king’s inner circle. Furthermore, by murdering his own father, Larys Clubfoot paved the way for an old hand of the king to return to his post: Otto (Rhys Ifans), Alicent’s father, who again proudly wears the king’s pin. Even as old friends and new generations of old friends appear in his corner, Viserys cannot escape his own past. At one point, the ailing king refers to Alicent as “Aemma,” his late wife who has been dead for 14 years but is still as traumatic in his heart as ever. “The king shall not grow old,” Otto once said of Viserys. Well, the old king still stands, but for how much longer? Driftmark keeps that question in mind as Viserys free falls toward his inevitable conclusion.
While all adults sit in their slowly simmering drama, their children set out to create a new generation of trauma. With the Pink Dread prank in mind, Aemond Targaryen, the second son of King Viserys, tries to trade his fake pig dragon for a real one. And not any real one, but the most real First: Vhagar, the largest and oldest living dragon in all of the known world, the last survivor of Aegon’s conquest, and the only surviving creature to have seen Valyria at its peak. With Laena dead, Vhagar is riderless – until Aemond, brave or foolish or both, comes along and risks life and limb to claim the dragon as his mount. Against all odds, he manages to fly Vhagar high above Driftmark like Bastion on Falcor sweeping through Fantasia.