Although set over the course of several decades, “House of the Dragon” can’t help but feel like an exercise in, “Well, that escalated quickly.” The big time-jump between episodes 5 and 6 of season 1 contributes to that, plunging viewers in a very different status quo now that Alicent and Rhaenyra have grown up and allowed a decade of unresolved anger between them to fester. (To be fair to Rhaenyra, her bestie marrying her own father Viserys, giving him sons, and thus becoming a constant threat to her claim to the Throne will inevitably have that effect.) But in no time at all, it becomes inescapably apparent that House Targaryen has a second dilemma of succession on its hands.
It all begins when Viserys and his wife Aemma (Sian Brooke) are unable to conceive of a son, giving the king a patriarchal successor. When Aemma tragically dies in childbirth and the baby along with her, Viserys finally smooths things over with his estranged daughter by naming her his official heir. Though the pair would continue to have their fair share of personal issues over the years, the king never once reneges on his royal decree. Of course, this is further complicated when Alicent gives birth to a number of strapping boys (firstborn Aegon and the vicious Aemond among them) who, in the eyes of the Seven Kingdom, make a much more obvious fit for the Throne than a woman like Rhaenyra or her own heirs, Jacaerys and Lucerys — both of whom fuel rumors of their mother’s extramarital affair, owing to their noticeably un-Targaryen-like appearances.
When the long-held grudge between Alicent and Rhaenyra spills over to their children in a brutal act of violence that costs Aemond his eye, the fuse has been officially lit.
