Warning: This text accommodates main spoilers for “Home of the Dragon” Season 3, Episode 6.
When you’re ever going via an existential malaise and wish to embark on a maddeningly circuitous journey that in the end reaches an enormous payoff, think about staying on the ruined stronghold paradise of Harrenhal. In Season 2 of “Home of the Dragon,” Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) experiences a collection of weird nightmares and primarily sleepwalks his technique to that final reveal relating to the Tune of Ice and Hearth prophecy. In Season 3, it is his nephew Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) who finds himself repeating a really related plotline whereas recovering from accidents. The frequent strand linking each subplots collectively? The mysterious Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), a self-professed witch who’s clearly greater than she seems.
Episode 6 solely raises much more questions, nevertheless. About midway via, Aemond lastly calls for that Alys reveal the “sport” she’s been enjoying all alongside. What comes subsequent is as stunning because it will get — particularly as a result of none of that is to be discovered within the supply materials, “Hearth & Blood.” Alys reveals him a treasure of previous dragon eggs, left behind on the fort by the dragon Dreamfyre (presently bonded to Phia Saban’s Queen Helaena) centuries in the past within the years following Aegon’s Conquest. What is not instantly obvious is what she intends to do with these eggs. However then she makes her seductive overtures to younger Aemond and proposes a future the place each of them rule collectively — she because the “Woman of the Water” (seemingly referring to the close by lake often called the God’s Eye), and he because the dragonlord by her aspect.
With solely two episodes left within the season, “Home of the Dragon” is constructing to some form of an exclamation level on this storyline, and now we have a number of theories.
Is Home of the Dragon Season 3 lastly going to elucidate who Alys Rivers is?
Of all of the big-name gamers scattered all through Westeros in “Home of the Dragon,” probably the most enigmatic of all of them must be Alys Rivers. In “Hearth & Blood,” creator George R.R. Martin defines her totally by what we do not find out about her and the specifics which have been misplaced to historical past. Completely different sources within the guide alternately describe her as a “serving wench who dabbled in potions and spells,” a “woods witch,” a “malign enchantress who bathed within the blood of virgins to protect her youth,” and probably even the illegitimate daughter of the previous castellan Lyonel Sturdy (Gavin Spokes). The collection adaptation has taken a extra cautious route, implying that this can be a particular person of nice energy and talents who principally appears to take pleasure in enjoying thoughts video games with Targaryens (and not a hallucination or ghost, as prior theories steered).
Are we about to search out out precisely what Alys’ deal is? From the best way she talks, it is truthful to conclude that she’s a lot older than she seems and has an agenda identified solely to herself. The introduction of the dragon eggs provides one other wrinkle to the combo, certainly one of which she apparently awakens with blood magic, to Aemond’s shock. Is she someway linked to Rhaena Targaryen, the sister of Aegon the Conqueror and authentic rider of the dragon Dreamfyre? Or may she be one thing altogether extra elemental than that, maybe representing the cursed stays of Harrenhal itself and giving a voice to an historic fort that has seen greater than its justifiable share of fireplace and blood by the hands of ruthless Targaryens?
Regardless of the true reply could also be, these dragon eggs could also be a proof behind one of many guide’s most head-scratching passages.
Home of the Dragon might have simply make clear a lingering Hearth & Blood dragon thriller
Be warned: Spoilers observe for “Hearth & Blood” and doubtlessly future occasions in “Home of the Dragon.”
Informal “Home of the Dragon” viewers, possibly take this as your cue to look away. The place issues begin to get actually fascinating is within the aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons. All through “Hearth & Blood,” Alys Rivers solely performs a tertiary position within the precise conflict, remaining at Harrenhal for the majority of the motion earlier than flying away with Aemond on the dragon Vhagar when he abandons the fort. When he returns to participate in the epic Battle Above the God’s Eye, he does so together with his paramour Alys at his aspect — and visibly pregnant, apparently, with Aemond’s youngster.
The guide loses monitor of Alys Rivers after this, till years later when the Crown sends forces to analyze rumors of a “witch queen” who has apparently taken residence inside Harrenhal. In fact, Alys would not take kindly to those armed intruders and has her followers battle them off (after committing what might or is probably not probably the most supernatural homicide in the whole guide, supposedly inflicting a person’s head to blow up with a easy gesture). When a survivor limps again house, he studies that Alys calls for that they bend the knee to Aemond’s “trueborn son and inheritor” … and, inexplicably, that she additionally has a dragon.
Alys isn’t talked about in “Hearth & Blood” once more, however the questions surrounding her mysterious dragon stay. Perhaps the present simply offered us with that reply via these eggs. It is unlikely we’ll ever really see Alys raining fireplace from above, however at the least we all know she may.
New episodes of “Home of the Dragon” air on HBO each Sunday.
