I anticipated to emerge from “The Purple Dragon and the Gold,” the fourth episode of Home of the Dragon’s second season, feeling exhilarated. Primarily based on the episode’s title, final week’s preview, and book-reader data of what transpires at Rook’s Relaxation, I anticipated thrills, adrenaline, and Loot Practice Assault–degree spectacle from the primary mass dragon battle of this present.
However an hour later, after the credit had rolled, the battle had ended, and not less than one essential character had died, I as an alternative felt despondent. Not as a result of the episode failed, to be clear—however as a result of it succeeded in its effort to depict a special type of warfare: chaotic, uncontrollable, and, above all, tragic for everybody concerned. It’s as if Dragon have been making an attempt its finest to show Francois Truffaut’s “There’s no such factor as an anti-war movie” sentiment unsuitable.
For quite a few episodes, characters have promised that battle was coming; now, within the wake of Rhaenyra’s failed peace talks with Alicent in Episode 3, it’s lastly, irrevocably right here. Even the usurped queen is aware of it, stating, “Just one selection stays to me: Both I win my declare or die.”
As was the case with a lot of Recreation of Thrones’ most spectacular battle episodes, “The Purple Dragon and the Gold” devotes time to characters speaking in rooms earlier than climaxing with fireplace and blood. This episode’s early scenes flesh out sundry plot factors and character arcs: Daemon has a delightfully unusual dialog with Alys Rivers in Harrenhal; Jace learns the key “Tune of Ice and Hearth” prophecy; Alicent drinks moon tea to stave off a possible being pregnant with Criston Cole. However in the long run, the shortest episode of Season 2 to date is all concerning the battle.
Final week, Dragon didn’t present the precise Battle of the Burning Mill, simply the corpse-filled aftermath. That efficient selection left Rook’s Relaxation as the positioning of Dragon’s first large-scale depiction of battle—and a battle between dragons, at that, which hadn’t dueled in Westeros in additional than 80 years. (Vhagar versus little Arrax within the Season 1 finale was much less a pitched battle than a fast snack for the previous.)
A set of seemingly curious choices by Criston Cole units the stage for this conflict. The lord commander of the Kingsguard and hand of the king chooses to march his military to Rook’s Relaxation—a “pathetic prize,” scoffs Aegon—as an alternative of the extra apparent goal of Harrenhal, then assaults in broad daylight slightly than ready to put siege at night time. “Fucking insanity!” Gwayne Hightower exclaims.
However the hand hasn’t misplaced his wits; it’s a entice! By attacking Rook’s Relaxation, the mainland’s closest fort to Dragonstone, Cole can draw out one of many blacks’ dragons—after which Aemond and Vhagar, mendacity in wait in a close-by forest, can rise to fulfill the problem.
The primary a part of this design goes in accordance with plan, as Rhaenys straps on her armor, hops aboard Meleys, and flies into the fray. However to Aemond and Criston’s shock, so too does Aegon, nonetheless sulking after a dressing-down from his mom, who sneers on the king to “do merely what is required of you: nothing.”
Earlier than flying off to battle, each Rhaenys and Aegon partake in extremely candy reunions—or bittersweet ones, on reflection, after seeing what turns into of the dragons and riders. Rhaenys greets Meleys and Aegon greets Sunfyre with affection, and each take a second to nuzzle their mounts, emphasizing the bond between dragon and rider. Aegon even grins as he sees his attractive golden steed, the one creature ready to attract a smile from the king because the dying of his son.
However by doing one thing as an alternative of nothing, Aegon disrupts the greens’ entice. As a substitute of a one-on-one battle between Meleys and Vhagar, it’s a three-way aerial brawl. Aemond first hangs again as an alternative of going to his brother’s assist, after which, after becoming a member of the fray, orders a dracarys blast with out compunction or worry for Aegon’s well being. Hit full-on by the hearth blast, Sunfyre drops like a stone to crash within the forest beneath.
This betrayal—which notably doesn’t happen in Hearth & Blood, the place Aegon and Aemond seem to deliberately workforce up towards Rhaenys—receives the correct setup to fit into the story. Aegon rushes to battle as a result of he resents his brother for “plotting with out my authority,” whereas Aemond smarts from the king’s mockery on the brothel, and from the broader perception that he would function a superior chief. (When Aemond taunts Aegon with a powerful Excessive Valyrian vocabulary, the king can solely splutter “I can need to … make a … battle” in response. Later, Aegon speaks to his dragon within the frequent tongue, whereas each different rider makes use of Excessive Valyrian to offer instructions.)
With Sunfyre out of fee, Rhaenys and Meleys pivot to tackle Aemond and Vhagar. As the 2 dragons method each other, the digicam captures Vhagar and Meleys in silhouette from beneath, hauntingly lovely as they dance.
(The one main quibble I’ve with this episode is the inscrutability of Rhaenys’s choice to show round to struggle Vhagar, slightly than fleeing on Meleys, whom Hearth & Blood calls “as swift a dragon as Westeros had ever seen.” Did she return to struggle due to her roiling private life, after she confronts Corlys over his indiscretions and bastard youngsters? Did she imagine her dragon had an opportunity towards Vhagar? Did she wish to salvage the battle, even going through lengthy odds? This selection is particularly confounding as a result of Rhaenys didn’t take the chance to assault with Meleys throughout Aegon’s crowning in Season 1, when she may have ended the battle earlier than it started. “It is best to’ve burned them whenever you had the prospect,” one in every of workforce black’s advisors tells Baela on this episode, referring to her chase of Criston and Gwayne. However that sentiment applies much more to Rhaenys on the dragonpit.)
The ensuing dragon duel is depicted like a tragedy for everybody on the battlefield. Earlier within the episode, Aemond notes, “This battle won’t be gained with dragons alone, however with dragons flying behind armies of males.” That’s true within the context of a protracted battle, however within the (literal) warmth of battle, it’s troublesome to think about the lads mattering all that a lot. The troopers appear to be helpless little playthings the dimensions of dolls, in comparison with the behemoths respiratory fireplace above them. Vhagar is so huge that when she goes to the bottom, the shockwave knocks Criston from his horse. Then the episode makes use of sluggish movement to emphasise the immense injury she casually wreaks, as she crushes two males with the only stomp of a claw.
The soundscape contributes to this sense of overwhelming violence, from the panicked cries of nameless foot troopers to the dragons’ shrieks and squeals of ache. At numerous factors within the battle, music and background sounds fade out to emphasise the central characters’ beleaguered breaths.
Smoke fills the display. Screams fill the air. And Meleys’s blood finally fills Vhagar’s stomach, as Aemond’s mighty mount, the oldest residing dragon within the recognized world, claims one other scalp for her assortment.
This climactic dying seems to be stunning within the second, however how may a conflict this intense not outcome within the dying of not less than one distinguished character? Face clouded by soot, eyes rimmed pink, Rhaenys seems to be out on the discipline of blood and fireplace she so wished to keep away from—and that’s practically the very last thing she ever sees, as a result of Vhagar rises as much as seize Meleys’s neck in her jaws. The smaller dragon is unable to interrupt free, and because the mild leaves her eyes, she seems to be again at her rider—who’d ridden the Purple Queen for half a century; who’d arrived at her wedding ceremony to Corlys on Meleys’s again—one closing time. Then the top breaks free, and the headless dragon and her human plummet to the earth beneath.
After Meleys and Rhaenys die, the digicam finds Criston, who for some time is the one residing individual on display; everybody else is a corpse or a pile of ash. At one level, he makes an attempt to recruit a comrade to assist him discover Aegon, just for the armor he touches to fall to the bottom because the physique inside crumples to mud. Ultimately, Criston staggers into view of the crater shaped when Sunfyre smashed into the forest, however because the episode ends, it stays to be seen whether or not Aegon continues to be alive.
From a plot perspective, it’s unclear—as was the case with the Battle of the Burning Mill—whether or not both aspect can declare victory at Rook’s Relaxation, given the untold carnage on each side. The dragon is each the image of and cause for Targaryen rule in Westeros, so each dragon dying serves as a strike towards unified Targaryen hegemony. As Rhaenyra stated within the present’s pilot episode, with out the dragons, the royal household could be “identical to everybody else.”
Hearth & Blood describes Viserys’s reign as “the apex of Targaryen energy in Westeros,” with “extra dragons than ever earlier than.” However within the brief span since Viserys’s dying, that quantity has now dwindled by not less than two (Arrax and Meleys), possibly three (Sunfyre). Vhagar and Aemond are the culprits in each dying—proving their very own dominance, certainly, however concurrently weakening the broader energy that Aemond’s household wields. It’s no coincidence that, earlier within the episode, Alicent drops and breaks the dragon figurine she’d as soon as repaired for Viserys.
And from a storytelling perspective, that Dragon would stage its first full-scale (pun supposed) battle like such a hopeless catastrophe story units the tone for the remainder of the sequence to return. This portrayal is not like any earlier dragon battle within the Thrones universe. Throughout most dragon assaults within the unique sequence, Daenerys and her youngsters have been the heroes, so audiences cheered on their rampages towards the slave masters in Astapor, the Lannister troops on the Goldroad, and the wights past the Wall. Whilst individuals burned alive, these scenes weren’t depicted as horrors; they have been triumphs.
However the Battle of Rook’s Relaxation brings solely devastation, destruction, and dying—the success of Rhaenys’s prediction that there’s “no battle so bloody as a battle between dragons.” Aside from Aemond and maybe Vhagar, no person escapes unscathed. Even Criston, an architect of the profitable battle plan, is knocked out, injured, and witness to the potential demise of his king.
“Now I’ve barely had the hours to grieve one tragedy earlier than struggling the following,” Alicent laments on this episode, earlier than one in every of her sons doubtlessly kills one other. That problem may translate to viewers as nicely—as a result of Dragon is positioning itself as a cinematic commentary on the horrors of battle, and the battle in query is simply getting began.