We’ve very nearly reached the end of House Of The Dragon’s second season on HBO and Max, and I for one am not ready for the season to end. With A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms coming out in 2025, it’s unlikely we’ll see more of this show until 2026. Surely, by then George R.R. Martin will have finished The Winds Of Winter.
In any case, I thought we’d spend a bit of time talking about the finale to come. We have some images to examine and a trailer to watch. We also have to discuss the coming battle, which I’m hopeful is coming Sunday evening based on the trailer and comments from the showrunner. What I won’t discuss are the leaks, which I’ve avoided and so nothing about (which is why I’m able to make predictions!) or the book, so no spoilers.
What To Expect In The Season 2 Finale
As you can see in the above image, Rhaenyra’s emissary to her wayward husband, Ser Alfred Broome, has arrived at Harrenhal along with many other lords. “While you have mustered an army,” he tells Daemon, “Rhaenyra has faltered.” I’m not sure it was wise to send such an obviously spineless toadie to Daemon, but it’s also not as though he was much help to Rhaenyra.
Regardless, one can’t help but think that this wedge between Rhaenyra and Daemon will be Team Black’s downfall. The Greens don’t exactly get along, but they’re still fighting for one cause.
In the trailer we see Daemon rallying his assembled host. “For every one of us who falls,” he cries out, “a hundred of them. There will be no mercy!”
Meanwhile, in cheery Dragonstone, Rhaenyra toasts her dragonriders: Jace, Addam, Ulf, Hugh and Baela. One is missing—presumably Rhaena, who will fill the role of Nettles—but whether she finds her dragon and joins Rhaenyra, or finds her dragon and joins Daemon, remains to be seen.
“I entrust you now with a power only few have known,” the Queen tells the assembled. “We must strike now while we have the advantage.”
Ser Criston Cole plays a major role this season as the Green’s warlord, and in the preview trailer for the Season 2 finale we hear him speak grimly: “The dragons dance,” Cole says, “and men are like dust under their feet. We march now toward our annihilation.” Not quite the rousing speech Daemon gives, but a more honest one. Here we see him looking a bit low, but in the trailer things get worse when Ser Gwayne appears holding a sword to his neck. Clearly, some major disagreements are playing out on the way to Harrenhal.
In the Red Keep, the Greens are scheming and plotting as they do.
“The prince regent is angry,” Larys tells the miserable King Aegon. “There’s no telling what he will do.” Master of Whisperers? More like Master of the Obvious.
“You wish to rule the seven kingdoms but you rain ruin and death,” Alicent tells Aemond. I typed “rain” but the subtitles use “reign” and I think it could be either. Reigning is when you rule over something. He reigned over all of the Seven Kingdoms. He reined in his dragon and turned to flee. But if you’re on your dragon with enemies below you, you rain ruin and death upon them—as in the biblical “Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah”. I digress.
Lastly, we see Aemond and his sister, Helaena, who has thus far stayed out of the fight as has her dragon Dreamfyre, a dragon known for laying many of the realm’s eggs—though certainly a large and dangerous beast as well.
“Pretenders raise new riders against us,” Aemond tells her. “I need you to fly with Dreamfyre into battle. We will answer outrage, with outrage.”
A Massive Battle
Some other musings about the trailer:
- We see many marching hosts, including the Starks all in black with their direwolf banners, crossing the bridge at the Twins thanks to Jace’s diplomacy with the Freys.
- Another host is the Lannisters with their caged lions. I genuinely hope we see a lion eat a Lannister in this show. We know other armies gather and march, including Cole’s and Daemon’s.
- We see many, many dragons flying about. This is absolutely going to be an action-packed episode with more dragons than Game Of Thrones ever had.
- We catch a brief glimpse of Alyn of Hull looking very much ready for war in expensive looking plate armor with the Seahorse crest of House Velaryon. He’s on a ship. Will this finale include war on land, in the sky and on sea? If so . . . it could be the biggest battle (or series of battles) in all of HBO’s Thrones franchise.
- Aemond is on Vhagar staring down at a burning city on the edge of the sea when he says “We will answer outrage with outrage.” I’m not sure which city this is. But it’s burning.
- There’s a very large fleet sailing a bit later in the episode, and recall that earlier this season Aemond wanted to arrange an alliance with the pirates of the Triarchy. One of these ships has a very distinct sail, but I’m not sure what to make of it. Is this is Corlys’s fleet or the Triarchy:
That doesn’t look like the Sea Snake’s banner to me, though we also see him onboard a ship.
The one thing I don’t really understand in this trailer are all the very colorful looking pirate-types mud-wrestling. They don’t look like Triarchy “crab-eaters” but may still be part of that alliance.
But the number one reason I’m predicting that this episode will include a massive battle is this interview with showrunner Ryan Condal at Den Of Geek. In it, he talks about two major battle sequences bigger than anything in Season 1:
“The battles are episodes unto themselves,” Condal says. “We have two of the largest sequences that we’ve ever filmed on House of the Dragon. Both of them outstrip anything that we did in season one. They are episodes within episodes.”
One of these was presumably Rook’s Rest, with the three-way dragon battle in the sky and the massive fight down below at the castle itself.
But there has been no other battle this season that’s been shown on-screen. This means that unless Condal is lying here—or I’m badly misunderstanding his words—the other episode-within-an-episode sized battle has to take place in the Season 2 finale. So whatever you’ve heard from people saying that the finale will end without a big battle, or only build up to the battle, etc. is almost certainly just gossip with no lick of truth to it whatsoever. Words are wind.
P.S. The only way this could not come true, is if Condal is discussing battles for Season 2 and Season 3 which would still make the comment about “bigger than anything in Season 1” true. But it would be very odd to discuss a battle they haven’t filmed yet for a season that hasn’t begun production (and will certainly have more battles). So . . . I guess hope for the best, prepare fort the worst?
I’ll be reviewing the Season 2 finale here on this blog Sunday evening. I can’t wait to discuss the episode with you all!
“We shall fight him by land; we shall fight him by sea; we shall fight him in the air, until, with God’s help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its people from his yoke.”
~ Winston Churchill, but also me preparing myself for Sunday night’s episode.
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