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These Are The Questions ‘House Of The Dragon’ Finale Needs To Answer

Salva Mubarak
Senior Features Writer

We’re calling it. House of the Dragon has officially redeemed the Game of Thrones universe and it did it with Rhaenys Targaryen being an all-out badass and a total MVP in the last episode. Come to think of it, the Queen Who Never Was has been low-key the best character throughout the series and we were just too blinded by Daemon Targaryen’s blonde hair to notice. But it’s never too late to jump on the ‘Let Rhaenys Ride Her Dragon And Look After Her Grandchildren In Peace’ train.

If you haven’t seen the latest episode of House of The Dragon yet (what are you doing if you haven’t?! Don’t you know the Internet is dark and full of spoilers?), here’s a quick recap. The long-suffering King Viserys is finally dead and Queen Alicent is not budging from her belief that his last words to her were his wish to see their son Aegon on the throne, instead of his daughter and sister-in-law Rhaenyra. Alicent soon realises that she’s the last one to catch up on a castle-wide scheme to put Aegon on the throne that was being planned much before the King supposedly whispered it to the Queen. The schemers, including the King’s Hand and most of his Council, imprison and kill anyone who speaks up about their support for Rhaenyra and are actively searching for an MIA Prince Aegon to crown him the new king without any further ado. They also want to send soldiers to kill Rhaenyra and her family before she gets wind of their schemes.

The ‘We Support Rhaenyra’ team also include the aforementioned badass Rhaenys, who gets locked in her own room until she shows her support for Aegon as the new king. She sneaks out of the castle to fetch her dragon from the Dragon Pit and escapes to warn Rhaenyra. But not before gatecrashing Aegon’s coronation ceremony and *almost* burning the Hightowers to a crisp. She shares a pointed look with Alicent and flies away to Dragonstone to set the events of the promising finale in motion.

Next week’s finale has easily become the most-anticipated TV show episode in a long time, and not just because we didn’t get a glimpse of Daemon in this one. Naturally, there are many fan theories, based on what we know of the Targaryen history from author George R.R Martin’s Dance of the Dragons and clever details hidden amidst the last nine episodes.

But we have some pressing questions that the finale needs to answer for us to fully rest until the next season rolls by…

Will we see what’s beneath Aemond’s eye patch? TBH, we’re not very enthused at the prospect and most of us are still recovering from seeing what was behind King Viserys’ mask, but the trailer for the finale showed him ripping it off. Does that mean we’ll see his supposed sapphire eye?

Speaking of Aemond, will we see him and his dragon Vhagar in action? His dragon is supposed to be the most powerful dragon in the world. Surely he’ll bring it out to play to tilt the scales in Team Green’s favour during the civil war?

Will Rhaenyra survive the war? Anyone who has read Martin’s source material knows that the war doesn’t bode well for both Rhaenyra and Aegon. Will the show’s makers stick with the same end for her character? What we’ve seen of Prince, now King, Aegon so far doesn’t suggest that he’d be really enthused about taking on the responsibilities of being a king, which obviously includes holding onto the throne and fighting possible usurpers, but he did seem extremely into the cheers from the public at his coronation so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Will Daemon Targaryen please step up and fight? While he did slice open the head of a guy who insulted his wife and her sons in front of the entire court recently and singlehandedly defeated the grey-scale-ridden Pirate King earlier in the season, we haven’t seen Daemon in action for a while and a civil war that is threatening the lives (and birthright) of his wife and family is the perfect opportunity to jump on his dragon and, once and for all, kill Ser Cristen Cole for being the absolute worst.

Will we see Queen Alicent in the finale? The penultimate episode was focused only on Team Green, AKA the Hightowers. We got a good glimpse of what might be brewing inside the Queen’s mind but it also became abundantly clear that she’s not actually as harmless as most people, especially in her team, believe her to be. But will we see her in the finale? Or are we only going to see her in the next season? What role is she going to play in Rhaenyra’s, her step-daughter and former best friend, possible demise?