So here we are again to witness the violence of the dragons. The first episode of House of the Dragon Season 2, aptly titled “A Son for a Son,” is going to leave a dark mark on the history of Westeros. In the last episode of Season 1, Prince Aemond lost control of his mighty dragon, Vhagar, and ended up killing the young prince, Lucerys “Luke,” thereby inciting the war of fire and blood between the two rival houses, the Blacks and the Greens. The exact phrase used by the Daemon after losing his young son was “An eye for an eye, a son for a son.” Earlier, Alicent had said the first part of that very line when one of Rhaenyra’s sons damaged Aemond’s eye and the mother demanded justice from her king. However, her plea was never entertained. Now, the entirety of Westeros has gone wild. The peace-loving Viserys lives no more. There isn’t anyone left to suppress the violent ambitions of Daemon, and hence the rogue prince will finally be able to realize his ambitious dream of taking part in a war, and “A Son for a Son” is just the beginning.
Book Spoilers Ahead
As already established in the first season, Daemon, often hailed as the Prince of Flea Bottom, had a lot of friends and followers in the dark underbelly of King’s Landing. He also knew the secret passages to the Red Keep, which was created by Maegor the Cruel for strategic purposes. This particular knowledge gave Daemon an upper hand in the dirty war against the Greens. As per the book, he hired two men for a secret operation to take revenge for what Aemond had done to his son. One of the assassins is a ratcatcher named Cheese, who knows the secret tunnels and hidden doors like the back of his hand. And why wouldn’t he? The entire Red Keep got infested with rats during Viserys’ reign, and that has a symbolic meaning of its own. And the other assassin, Blood, happens to be a disgraced sergeant of Daemon’s City Watch who lost his position for killing a sex worker under the influence of alcohol. Basically, Cheese was the brain, and Blood was the brawn of the secret operation–hired to kill one of Aegon II’s sons to balance the scales.
Through the secret tunnels, the two assassins slipped into Aegon’s room and waited for Helaena’s arrival so that they could finish Daemon’s task at hand. At that time, Helaena and Aegon had three children: two six-year-old twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, and a newly born Maelor who had turned two. As soon as the new queen entered her room, the two assassins captured her by surprise and told her that they were the debt collectors sent by their nemesis to even the scores between the two houses. Cheese made it clear to her that he wouldn’t hurt all her sons and just wanted to take one away. The cruel assassin even gave her the option to choose which of her three children she wanted to sacrifice. Helaena was distraught. She couldn’t sentence one of her own children to be killed, yet she gathered enough courage to pick Maelor’s name in the end. But it seemed like the gods turned a blind eye that day, as the assassin didn’t think twice before beheading Aegon’s eldest son and heir to his throne, Jaehaerys. And as soon as the queen started screaming at the top of her lungs to mourn the loss of her son, the two assassins made their escape out of the Red Keep through the tunnels they had sneaked into.
Now, many great philosophers have often advocated the fact that violence is not always an option, but for men like Daemon and Aemond, it is the only solution. True to his words, Daemon took one of Aegon’s sons, just like his younger brother had taken his. And the effect of such a revenge was that it made Aegon more cruel and distant from his family. Helaena, on the other hand, completely lost her mind and stopped eating, drinking, and doing the daily chores. She locked herself in her chambers and burdened herself with the guilt of naming her son Maelor to be killed by the assassins. His face often reminded her of her sins, because of which Aegon had to ask his mother to raise his only surviving son and heir to the throne.
Coming back to the assassins, Blood was arrested two days later while he was trying to flee from King’s Landing. As per the book, he had been carrying Jaehaerys’ head in a sack, which he intended to hand over to Daemon so that he could collect the reward for his achievement. During the interrogation, Blood confessed that he was hired by a mysterious woman dressed in a white cloak. It was none other than Daemon’s mistress from the old times, Mysaria, who often goes by the name Lady Misery. And Blood’s confession connects all the missing dots on how Daemon could have pulled off such a murderous assassination. Nevertheless, Blood was locked in the Red Keep’s dark prison cell and he was executed for his crimes. The King and his mother wanted to punish the man’s family as well, but even Larys Strong, aka, the Clubfoot couldn’t find any trace of it. In the meantime, both Cheese and Mysaria disappeared from King’s Landing, never to be heard of or found again.
You see what Daemon did here? He not only made Aegon look like a weak king but also like an incompetent father who couldn’t protect his own sons. And this attack didn’t even take place in an open field but behind the heavily guarded walls of his palace. What good is a king who can’t protect his own? Daemon just sent out a message to all the lords in Westeros about what true Targaryens are capable of, and if they won’t bend the knee in front of the new queen, then her escort would be obliged to scorch King’s Landing just to make her victorious. But will Rhaenyra let Daemon taint her morals just so that he can fulfill his own desires? I hope not. But after Jaehaerys’ murder, Alicent is sure to lose her sanity a bit and she might look to Clubfoot for help because he is someone who knows nothing else but blood and revenge. As said by Gandhi in Attenborough’s film, an eye for an eye wouldn’t make the world a better place. It would only turn the whole world “blind.”
