#hotd s3 analysis

[greenqueenhightower]

Aegon's Mythology

Aegon's mythology is spectacular in this episode. He decides to proceed and face the advancing army instead of fleeing once more or cowering, or having people and the histories tell that he was killed ingloriously by his brother, while Larys who had stayed by his side all this time finally reveals his true colors and abandons him, choosing himself and his own ascenscion rather than allegiance to the King, whereas Tyland Lannister who has saved his skin from the Gullet once before now chooses to pursue the same grand mythology and die alongside King Aegon Targaryen, as the two of them will be surely annihilated by the advancing army.

And just as the soldiers appear and ask Aegon to yield and bend the knee to Rhaenyra Targaryen, only then does he realize the magnitude of the sacrifice and the courage and bravery that he needs to become the legend that he intends to be, and he falters, but there is no turning back, and out of his own disgust for any other kind of death which he considers demeaning and belittling, he faces the army with a newfound courage and bravery, Aegon the daring, revealing his identity as Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and he sees the soldiers tremble before him, and incorrectly but proudly thinks that his bravery has inspired such fear and terror in them only to realize that his confidence and courage has actually awakened half-dead Sunfyre, who has heard him and made his way to stand behind him, and now at his command his dragon burns them all.

Name a grander mythology than this. In a world where Rhaenyra keeps searching for proof that history has chosen her, spending two seasons trying to grasp divinity, reaching for prophecy, invoking Viserys' dream, leaning on Daemon's visions, asking Helaena to reveal what fate has foretold about her, it is Aegon who's granted the grand mythology to support the legend he becomes. He doesn't have to tell the realm he is a legend, as the legend literally trails behind him.

[greenqueenhightower]

In the greater scheme of things, this episode did well in highlighting the polarity that still exists between the two factions (as it should), despite any attempts by Rhaenyra and Alicent to find a common ground, bridge the gap, and understand each other again. Broken after the death of her son, Rhaenyra relies on Daemon during her grief and anguish and does something she immediately regrets. I would argue it's at that moment when she comes closest to understanding Alicent, because she finds herself compromising her own principles, surrendering to a force stronger than her own resolve, just as she has watched Alicent do before, when she found herself in a position where she had to betray her own ideals and succumb to a will stronger than hers.

Alicent, on her part, spends the entire episode issuing commands under borrowed authority: Helaena's, and whatever influence she can still claim as Dowager Queen. In doing so, she is forced to confront the fragility of power when it's not truly your own. I would argue that it's here when she comes closest to understanding Rhaenyra and the impossible burden of legitimizing her rule as a woman, and the necessity of gathering every ally, every ounce of support, simply to remain standing.

In that sense, Rhaenyra becomes Alicent's foil, and Alicent becomes Rhaenyra's. More than either of them would care to admit, they have gradually become reflections of one another, each finding herself in the very position she once condemned the other for occupying. Their circumstances have eroded the certainty with which they once judged one another. And perhaps that realization, the recognition that they have become the very thing they once despised, is the deepest loss of all.

[greenqueenhightower]

Oh, the Dearon x Alicent parallels ATE in this episode. What if they were both taken away and grew up in castles that were never really homes. What if the adults around them called it an honor which was a prettier word for captivity. They both have red hair and soft hands and gentleness mistaken for weakness. They both believe that kindness is strength, mercy is strength, justice is strength. They both pray and believe the gods reward sacrifice. They both believe that if they are good enough, dutiful enough, obedient enough, the people they look up to will finally look at them with something that resembles love. They are instead rewarded with more duty, more sacrifice, more expectations. Alicent exists to preserve Otto's vision of the realm. Daeron exists to restore Ormund's vision of the past. Neither is asked who they want to become. Neither is allowed to want anything at all, because clay does not choose the shape of the potter's hands. And they let themselves be molded because children believe the people raising them know better, because children mistake control for care. Because if your father tells you that your purpose is larger than yourself, isn't refusing him the same as refusing your family, refusing your gods, refusing your duty? What if Alicent's greatest flaw was that she loved Otto too much. What if Daeron's greatest flaw was that he loved Ormund too much. What if neither of them ever realized they were being loved only insofar as they were useful. Two red-haired children who wanted fathers. They wanted someone to say "you are enough exactly as you are." Instead, they were told "you will be enough once you become what I need you to be". And somewhere along the way, the kind little girl disappeared, somewhere along the way, the kind little boy disappeared. They traded themselves for approval that never came. What if the tragedy of Alicent was that the son she wanted to save from herself became like herself. What if the tragedy of Daeron was that he inherited his mother's face and fate to become a pawn in House Hightower's hands.

[greenqueenhightower]

The Alicent I know and love is back. We have Alicent proving once again that, at her core, her driving motivation has always been her children and that she would do everything to help them. She has accepted that she may not be able to save everyone in her family, but no one can accuse her of not trying. No one can say she didn't exhaust every possibility or use every ounce of influence she still possessed to protect them. She once again got herself into machination gear and had them cogwheels turning in this episode when:

a) she got Orwyle to secretly deliver moon tea under the guise of a remedy for period cramps,

b) urged Helaena to take it because she didn't fall for Rhaenyra's "you know I would have spared him, right?" delulu narrative as she very well shouldn't because she knows all too well the brutal logic of power and that Rhaenyra and her council would be forced to eliminate all rival claimants to the throne regardless of their age to secure her position,

c) initially outwitted Mysaria by drinking the moon tea herself, sacrificing her own health, reputation, and safety to save her daughter, despite how violently ill it had made her before,

d) traded away the seven-pointed star necklace which she had been wearing since forever and which was synonymous with her faith and her own longing for her mother, to ensure safe passage for herself and Helaena,

e) once again did the impossible arithmetic of motherhood and decided that saving Helaena and her unborn baby's lives at the expense of Jaehaera was better than losing Helaena, the baby, and Jaehaera altogether in "a true MOTHER counts the cost to her CHILDREN" tragic calculus fashion she's been forced to make all her life,

f) wasted zero time in manipulating Mysaria once caught and used her wiles and any remnants of influence she could grapple with to appeal to Mysaria's opportunism and self-interest and entice her to exchange silence with the opportunity to play both sides,

g) as soon as she got another chance, she made a run for it with Helaena.

All she's been doing all the time is her best with the options that she has. She has NOT given up, she is not merely a prisoner who laments her fate, but she believes herself still actively responsible for her children's fate and survival, and so she continues to act and sacrifice pieces of herself as a real mother would.

[greenqueenhightower]

The Letter Scene Analysis—"One King Is As Good As Another"

Can I just say that (battle scenes included) THE LETTER SCENE was the most masterful scene of the entire episode:

There was so much unsaid conversation happening just from the letter being delivered to Ormund’s hands, written in what was supposed to be the hand of “King Aemond Targaryen, First of His Name,” but which Ormund recognized to be Alicent’s, sealed with the Green Targtower seal, the wax dripping ever so slightly, obviously molten by Alicent’s trembling hands, indicating the total mess of state the Greens are in, their uncertain future and their questionable choices, AND YET Ormund is ready to follow through with the supposed “King’s order” stating that “one King is as good as another,” having already realized that everyone in essence is fighting this war for their own ambitions and goals, and who gets to wear the crown becomes merely an excuse to pursue personal ideals.

(1) This tiny scene further builds on Season 2’s theme of the collapse of royal authority. Aemond is supposedly King, yet his will is being communicated through Alicent’s handwriting. Technically an order from the crown, the letter visually reveals the corrupted machinery of government as Princes can now easily proclaim themselves Kings, whose authority is nevertheless still dependent on intermediaries desperately trying to keep the realm together. Meant to convey strength, the letter does the complete opposite, as everything about it betrays the Greens’ weakened position: King Aegon is gone, a new King has risen, and he, too, is led.

(2) Alicent, once again, impersonates the authority she spent decades defending. Enough was enough with the “redemption arc” of Season 2, when Alicent was being sidelined by Aegon and the Green Council, and sought to reclaim her purpose elsewhere. Alicent, once again, is trying to preserve the only institution she has ever known: duty. In such an attempt, she is called to reconcile her duty to her family (her children + the Hightowers), with that to the dynasty and the Kingdom. There is something tragic in the image of Alicent writing in Aemond’s name. She is simultaneously exercising power and demonstrating that she does not truly possess it. She can issue commands, move armies, and influence events, but only through the borrowed voice of a son who increasingly refuses to be controlled. The letter itself becomes a symbol of Alicent’s entire political life, of what she was able to accomplish through the birth of her sons and by ruling during Viserys’ illness: she can exert immense influence, but she can never really wear the crown.

(3) Ormund almost certainly and immediately recognizes what the letter represents, but he decides that who wears the crown does not matter, as “one King is as good as another.” Ormund does not care whether the order is legitimate and whether the chain of authority has been compromised. Unlike idealistic Gwayne, who fights and acts with knightly honor as seen in the same episode, Ormund recognizes that the Dance of the Dragons is no longer about legal claims or playing by the rules. Under the ruse of legitimacy, anyone who joins the conflict is fighting for their own survival, ambition, vengeance; a theme further emphasized by the Dragonseeds’ POV in the same episode, as well as Larys and Aegon’s capture scene. “One King is as good as another” because the crown becomes the banner under which personal desires can march.

(4) What I love so much about the letter is that it becomes a microcosm of the Dance itself: a King’s authority is expressed through someone else’s hand, an impersonator of authority is desperately trying to hold together a collapsing political order, a vessel lord recognizes the fiction and participates anyway, and a war supposedly fought over legitimacy has long since ceased to be about legitimacy.

And the most ironic part? No one is actually deceived. Alicent knows she is only borrowing authority and that she could never resolve the conflict herself; Ormund knows the pretense under which he is called to aid the Greens; and the audience knows that neither exposing nor maintaining the pretense will make any difference to the deeper desires of those entangled in this conflict.

The letter is less than a military order and more of a quiet acknowledgement that the world Alicent spent her entire life weaving, worshipping, upholding, and trying to preserve is already gone. With its green Targtower seal, it is reminiscent of order and royal power, but the authority it represents is melting away just as visibly as the wax itself.

[greenqueenhightower]

The Blue Butterfly

The blue butterfly is a symbol of transformation, good fortune, and hope. Helaena becomes a blue butterfly upon her death, joining the others, and finds her way back to Alicent. And the fact that it's specifically blue makes Alicent notice it. It's the blue they've both been wearing since the end of last season. The color that has increasingly connected mother and daughter visually. The blue associated with House Florent—Alicent's mother's house—and therefore with Alicent's own lost maternal lineage. Has Alicent ever told Helaena that, ever since she was a little girl, she found comfort in imagining that her mother was near whenever a swarm of blue butterflies appeared? Does Helaena remember? Is this her final act as Alicent's daughter?

Alicent loses her mother as a child and spends the rest of her life searching for traces of her in Helaena. Helaena loses her life and chooses to leave behind exactly the kind of trace she knows her mother will understand. She becomes the sign, the comfort, the thing Alicent once looked toward when she needed to believe that someone she loved wasn't truly gone.

There's something so beautiful about Helaena's transformation being framed not simply as death, but as release. She wanted freedom, and now she finally has it. The girl who spent her entire life trapped by the Red Keep, by marriage, by motherhood, by prophecy, by other people's wars, is suddenly something weightless, something that can fly, and instead of flying away from everything that hurt her, she finds her way back to her mother.

The butterfly is Helaena saying goodbye, and Helaena trying to make her death survivable for Alicent. Helaena is saying, "Mummy, I might be gone, but you need to continue living, you need to go on, please find the hope and the comfort you need to move on. I'll always be with you, I'll always love you." Helaena's final gift to Alicent is hope. For once, Helaena isn't telling her mother what is going to happen. She's telling her that whatever happens next, she has to live through it.

As a blue butterfly, her daughter has returned to her and finally found the freedom she always wanted. As a blue butterfly, Helaena offers Alicent comfort, assuring her that she chose this for herself and that she is finally free. As a blue butterfly, Helaena tells Alicent that she is not to blame. As a blue butterfly, Helaena informs her mother of her own passing, reaching out to her one last time to lighten the burden of her grief so that Alicent won't spend the rest of her life blaming herself.

That is Helaena's final act as a daughter, trying to comfort her mother even in death. And Alicent sees the blue butterfly as a symbol and seems to understand.

[greenqueenhightower]

The Pyre Scene Analysis—"Your father lived in a world of his own construction. You and I have never set foot there"

The scene in front of the fire was profoundly allegorical and the perfect ending to an exceptionally strong episode:

Rhaenyra sees what fire does when one finally possesses power and Alicent sees what fire does when one spends a lifetime feeding power. In tending it, they have become its fuel and neither can escape being burned.

At the end of episode 3, Rhaenyra stands before a fire that was once only an idea. She is finally Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and as the flames consume the Hightower banners and sigils, the fire strips away any illusion. Victory is no longer abstract but has become tangible, violent, and irreversible. The fire reveals the true cost of sovereignty as an endless series of sacrifices that cannot be undone. In that moment, she finally understands that ruling is carrying an unbearable weight. Her lifelong comparison to Viserys is therefore quietly devastating as she realizes that she inherited not only his claim but also his impossible burden and his failures. Only now does she see the real hard work and the emotional struggle it entails, which, having always equalized her own ruling vision to that of Viserys', she blinded herself to, just as he had done.

Viserys endowed Alicent with bearing the practical and emotional consequences of ruling. While he and Rhaenyra were dreaming of ruling, Alicent had already been doing the exhausting, invisible labor of governance, settling disputes, managing court, and preserving stability. The flames illuminate the invisible history of the impossible burden he passed on to Alicent, and Rhaenyra begins to acknowledge and admire the woman she once considered an obstacle, who had long carried the responsibilities she herself is only now beginning to comprehend.

There is something profoundly tragic about Alicent entering Rhaenyra's chambers and standing before the fire earlier in the episode, just as she once did when Viserys confided in her about his dream of a son upon the Iron Throne in 1x03. Before that fire, Viserys had acknowledged the strain of trying to fulfill that dream without stripping Rhaenyra of her birthright. It was one of the rare moments in which he admitted the contradiction at the heart of his reign. Before that fire, Alicent watched him do nothing to resolve it. And yet, that fire represented possibility, and every choice was capable of preserving order if she remained faithful enough, obedient enough, dutiful enough.

In more ways than one, Alicent has knowingly spent her life tending the fires that will one day consume her, believing that if she keeps feeding them, she'll finally get some warmth out of them in exchange for cruelty. She spends her life becoming everything the world told her a "good woman" should be, only to discover that obedience does not guarantee salvation after all. The system she once upheld and which she now is bound to doesn't reward loyalty, but like incense on the altar, it requires blood to be burned up and her self consumed whole. As she now approaches Rhaenyra in 3x03, the flames are no longer a promise but a reckoning, no longer the beginning of power but the end of an illusion.

In each case, the fire before the two women is almost liturgical. It transforms offerings into smoke until nothing remains. Every act of obedience simply requires another. Rhaenyra spent years believing that the throne would finally liberate her, while Alicent spent years believing that submission would protect her. Standing before the same flames, both illusions collapse. The crown cannot shield Rhaenyra from loss any more than obedience could shield Alicent from suffering. Fire is indifferent to whether one lights it or tends it. It consumes both the hand that kindles it and the hand that keeps it alive.

And that makes the image almost mythic. Fire has always symbolized the Targaryens, but in this scene, it ceases to be a symbol of triumph and instead becomes a symbol of history itself, an unstoppable force fed by generations of ambition, resentment, duty, and sacrifice. The fire does not distinguish between Queens. It consumes them both with equal indifference.

[greenqueenhightower]

I'm afraid this episode marked the point of no return for rhaenicent because... how do they trust each other again after that?

Rhaenyra really sent assassins disguised as Baratheon men to murder Daeron after insisting that she "would've spared him." And that's exactly why Alicent never believed her in the first place. Alicent understands that power demands impossible choices from everyone who comes near it. She knows that once the crown is at stake, mercy becomes a luxury and she can't hang on to Rhaenyra's words alone. Alicent herself has made impossible choices to sacrifice all she ever had and cared for to save those who could still be saved, and now Rhaenyra is forced to do the same. People keep acting as though Alicent was irrational for refusing to trust Rhaenyra's assurances and trying to escape yet again, but Alicent understands full well the logic of monarchy. Of course she would do everything she could to get herself, Helaena, and Helaena's unborn child out of KL. Of course she concluded that staying meant gambling their lives on fragile promises. Alicent was acting out of decades of experience with the weight of power, not out of paranoia.

And now she leaves the Red Keep knowing Helaena is still in danger. If Alicent returns only to discover that Helaena died in her absence... I genuinely don't see how there's any coming back from that. I'm afraid that this would be the point of no return for rhaenicent because there is no way Alicent will bring herself to kill Aemond as Rhaenyra has tasked her to do, and there is no way Alicent won't blame Rhaenyra for Helaena's death if she returns to KL and finds out that Helaena has committed su!c!de. Rhaenyra will see Alicent as a traitor, and so will Alicent. They will both feel betrayed by one another. And so dies the possibility of forgiving or further understanding each other, because there are some losses that love alone can't survive.