Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 finale of House of the Dragon, called "The Queen Who Ever Was."
House of the Dragon has aired its last original episode of the 2024 TV schedule with the Season 2 finale, which ended in such a way that many fans may now be wishing that the second season wasn't shortened compared to Season 1. By the time the final credits rolled, armies were marching from all corners of Westeros while opposing forces were preparing for battle at sea, all with the addition of three dragons for the Blacks with Rhaenyra's dragonseeds. Some elements were quite similar to what George R.R. Martin wrote in Fire & Blood... as well as what he wrote in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga on which Game of Thrones was based.
The biggest reveals of the episode didn't really have to do with the Blacks vs. Greens conflict or even Alicent's daring move to visit Dragonstone and offer to sabotage her sons in order to escape with Helaena and Jaehaera, a.k.a. the less violent members of the Targaryen family tree. No, for me the biggest twist was that "The Queen Who Ever Was" delivered the strongest House of the Dragon tie back to Game of Thrones to date, and it was all courtesy of the last of Daemon's much-maligned Harrenhal visions.
Daemon's Vision Of Rhaenyra, Daenerys, And The Long Night
House of the Dragon continued to play coy with Daemon's loyalties through almost to the very end of the very last episode of Season 2, but one last visit to the spooky Harrenhal godswood with Alys Rivers led to a vision that showed Daemon exactly what his wife/niece/queen had tried to tell him about: the song of ice and fire. In a pretty creepy sequence directed by Geeta Vasant Patel in her post-Episode 3 return to House of the Dragon, he touched the bark of a weirwood tree and the sap that resembled blood for a trip that was... well, super trippy even by Season 2 Daemon standards!
The first shot of the vision undoubtedly means more to A Song of Ice and Fire readers than show-only fans for Game of Thrones and/or House of the Dragon, as none other than pre-tree Bloodraven made an appearance. Then, there were shots of the Night King (famously killed in one of GOT's most divisive final season twists) and dead dragons, a person walking through a field of blood and corpses, followed by what seemed to be another instance of foreshadowing Daemon's fate in this era of Targaryen history.
Things got more interesting from a Game of Thrones standpoint with the shot of a red comet followed by the naked back of a young woman with three baby dragons curled around her body, making it pretty clear that Daemon was getting a vision of Daenerys. It was so effectively shot that for a split second, I was expecting to see a cameo from Emilia Clarke as the woman sitting on the Iron Throne rather than Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra.
The vision ended with Daemon being confronted by a specter of Helaena, although it's not 100% clear if this was the real Helaena via on of her green dreams or Daemon continuing to be haunted by guilt of Blood and Cheese killing the wrong person. All in all, the sequence was as close to we've gotten as a shot-for-shot remake of part of Game of Thrones, and was also enough to convince Daemon that Rhaenyra was indeed the rightful queen and he intended to fight for her to his death or their story is complete.
The Blacks Have Bigger Problems
As much as Daemon was spooked by the vision – and as taken aback as I was that the Rogue Prince of all people was the one to utter "Winter is coming" in this episode – the final minutes of the finale made it clear that the Blacks have much more imminent problems than the White Walkers who will be battled by Dany and Jon more than a century in the future.
Because the final minutes of "The Queen Who Ever Was" checked in with the players who had been amassed over the course of Season 2 getting into place for all-out war in Season 3. Some of the reveals weren't too shocking, such as Daemon overlooking his army or Larys spiriting Aegon away from King's Landing.
Despite my status as a fan of Team Black, I'm primarily curious about what Otto Hightower has evidently been doing in captivity since Aegon dismissed him as Hand, and I'm already ready to see more of the blue dragon Tessarion now that Daeron Targaryen is leading an army from Oldtown. That said, seeing an army of Northmen marching across the Twins was a highlight of the finale for me. Once a Stark fan, always a Stark fan, I guess!
So while the Blacks had the huge Game of Thrones connection in the finale as well as the recent addition of three adult dragons (possibly with Rhaena adding a fourth in Season 3) and everybody except Aemond seems resigned to Rhaenyra taking King's Landing, armies marching and/or sailing from all over the Seven Kingdoms spells disaster for everybody. Aemond and Vhagar already laid waste to one city, and even Rhaenyra has come around to the idea of roasting some towns for the Blacks' vision of the greater good.
All in all, I think it's probably a safe bet that Season 3 could get off to an even bloodier start than Season 2, despite the second season premiere delivering Blood and Cheese. My only hope is just that the break between Seasons 2 and 3 isn't as long as the two years between Seasons 1 and 2.
As a Fire & Blood reader, I wouldn't have minded an in-universe time jump in order to age up some of the younger characters whose fates are likely to be important in Season 3, but the way Season 2 ended suggests that the story will need to pick up almost exactly where it left off. For now, fans can always revisit the full first two seasons of House of the Dragon streaming with a Max subscription, as well as all eight seasons of Game of Thrones.
I'm also considering a reread of Fire & Blood after I deliberately didn't reread it ahead of HOTD Season 2, and that book from George R.R. Martin is another option for anybody else who wants a fix of Westeros while waiting for new episodes... as long as the potential reader doesn't mind spoilers, at least.
