Some spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 can be found in this story.
The history of the Game of Thrones franchise is dark and filled with continuity (t)errors. Even most casual fans remember the day eagle-eyed viewers spotted a coffee cup in the back of a scene, and while House of the Dragon has not yet triggered a moment of such viral proportions, a fan did try to call out a mistake they caught while watching with a Max subscription. Of course, fans had a lot of thoughts.
After last week’s big scenes at Harrenhal featuring Daemon being haunted, or kind-of, sometimes losing his mind, a fan took to social media to express what they thought was a continuity error during Season 2 of the series. The post asking “Did Alys disappear here?” went viral and has more than 6,500 likes and has been viewed more than half a million times at the time of this writing.
Did Alys Rivers disappear here? 🧐#HouseOfTheDragon pic.twitter.com/dX8v79SBmbJuly 16, 2024
But fans were quick to point out that everything at Harrenhal has been odd since Daemon arrived. In fact, the real question might be “What is going on with Alys?” rather than “Did House of the Dragon have a continuity error?” A slew of fans shared their takes on this, revealing their theories.
- I believe she’s in His Head only. I don’t remember anyone talking to her.
- Daemon is in Harrenhal all by himself talking just to HIMSELF …and poor Caraxes is like “ broooooo we gotta go.'
- The fact that he didn't say anything like "excuse my intrusion" leads me to believe that she's not there.
While these possibilities may have merit, some fans had fun with the moment she seemed to disappear, as well, taking a more humorous bent.
- Goth girls just do that.
- Ay they did the girl disappearing behind ScarJo @ the red carpet thing
(If you are unclear what red carpet moment they are referencing, Scarlett Johansson's mom did seemingly disappear behind her in similar fashion.)
What’s clear about this whole thing is that something has seemed off about Alys Rivers since the moment Daemon saw her in Harrenhal. There's just something about the way she looks at him, and their interactions have clearly been all about trying to teach him things about himself.
Maybe that eccentricity is because Game Of Thrones' world is filled with weirdos and she's just the latest strange character inserted for a short run to help pull something new out of a main character. Or maybe she and her sleep teas are just a figment of his imagination and all those odd looks and mannerisms are because she's not a human being.
That mix of reality and fantasy has happened plenty of times in the franchise's past. For example, both Arya and Bran Stark spent multiple seasons seemingly detached from the rest of the plot, as they forged their own paths and wrestled with their own forms of oddities and the supernatural. Daemon, however, is much more relevant to the A-plot of what’s happening; so, I wouldn't expect whatever is going on here to carry on forever.
The show has dropped enough little clues in both directions that fans can reasonably argue either side. Since Season 2 is gaining momentum at a steady pace, we'll likely know where the Alys plotline is heading soon, and that may help us to figure out whether her disappearing was simply a perspective miss from House of the Dragon, or an intentional choice the director made to keep the creep factor up.
House of the Dragon hits the TV schedule on Sunday nights on HBO and Max.
