House of the Dragon S1E04 Explained

This video has no spoilers for House of the Dragon beyond S1E04. It does have spoilers for the original Game of Thrones show.

Images and video from Game of Thrones used under fair use.
Images from The World of Ice and Fire used with permission from Random House.
Vhagar by John McCambridge.

0:00 Storm’s End
02:14 Blackwoods and Brackens
03:58 House Mudd
04:40 Daemon
11:10 Night out
14:58 Alicent
16:13 Afterparty
19:23 Mysaria
21:16 Otto
22:05 Lie
24:02 Exile again
25:13 Prophecy
28:49 Unhanded
30:07 Plan tea
30:51 Unwanted consequences

Special thanks to Patrons Cameron Weiss, Michael Appell, Ryan Steele, Harry, Shane Veglia, Jason Rattray, NotGac, Tim Cunniff, T. Ledoux, Tessa Campbell-Kelly, Ilhuilkamina Urdiana, Ord X, Doctor Folter.

#HotD

[AltShiftX]

In fairness to the Brackens, they did originally support the Starks before submitting to Joffrey. They still suck though.

[silentsnake-qdxi]

Even when I fully understand what happened I still look forward to these videos. I can tell you put a lot of work into these!

[kauanfranca]

It's so nostalgic to see Alt shift X having good things to say about something Got related.

[Dinx]

I felt the disturbance in the force and found this 34 seconds after it went public searching for it. Thank you for your impeccable timing and hard work. 🙏

[Wolfeson]

22:06 An interesting point here: Rhaenyra doesn't *technically* lie to Alicent. As you said, Daemon doesn't actually sleep with Rhaenyra - he planned and intended to do it, but at the last moment he couldn't go through with it.

One can quibble over the exact meaning of "touched" (obviously Daemon did touch her in both the most literal and a romantic sense), but it seems clear from context that when Rhaenyra says "he (Daemon) never touched me", she means it specifically in the sense of "we didn't have sex", which is true. That's also how Alicent interprets those words, though she mistakenly expands them to mean that Rhaenyra didn't have sex with *anyone* - this of course isn't true, but Rhaenrya never actually claimed that.

Naturally, Rhaenyra isn't telling Alicent the whole truth, but nothing she said to Alicent during their conversation is an out-and-out lie. It's the best sort of deception: never technically saying anything untrue, but still deliberately deceiving through omission and allowing someone to draw false conclusions from those statements. Certainly Alicent will view Rhaenrya's words as a lie if/when she finds out everything that actually happened.

[madmonk]

I love the whole meta textual discussion they're adding with this show. The little bits to show the young men are ready for war, playing with the differences between the different accounts in the books, etc

[darknight]

I’m really enjoying that two people watching the same show can come to two completely different opinions as to who is in the right, who is acting in their self interests etc.

They’re doing brilliantly with setting up viewer camps of Greens Vs Blacks and it’s almost artful how they’re using the ‘unreliable narrators’ in Fire and Blood.

[Jackerco]

i read it as Rhaenya saying she could learn to like the blackwood boy, not the bracken. You could see her smiling while the Blackwood was speaking and to me came off as her thinking he was cute and admired him for coming forward, after the Bracken comment she said 'I could learn to like that one' while speaking about the Blackwood who she was smiling at previously. She was also looking at the Blackwood the entire time while saying her line.

[chrismurrayguitar]

interesting tie in that Rheanyra uses the phrase "of no consequence" and the final words of the episode are "unwanted consequences".

[natepepin]

There was a metaphor is the brother forgiveness scene where Viserys walked to Deamon by using the sword as a cane and dragging it too. I think it means he's weak and feeble, is dragged into being a king, and that he uses his power as King as a crutch.

[soufian]

This show is truly amazing so far and we’ve really only scratched the surface of the story. I can’t wait for the big time jump

[liv-bvpl]

Something that is left out is that if R drinks the moon tea, she will basically be admitting to having lost her virginity when mellos finds the empty bottle. So even if she wants to end her hypothetical pregnancy in order to protect her reputation, she cant do it by drinking the moon tea.

[RockSmithStudio]

Storm’s End’s origin sounds a lot like a Monty Python skit “I built a second one. That one got destroyed by the gods. So I built a third one. That one burnt down fell over and then was destroyed by the gods, but the 4th one stayed up”

[marx]

Honestly, I just love how the official shorthand for this show is “Hot D”.

[Magiya]

I don’t think Viserys was accusing Otto of killing his father, just pointing out how one person’s tragedy is another’s opportunity, and how he feels that Otto has been corrupted by his rapid rise in station.

[aaronlinton-chambers]

I loved how the king fired his hand and told exposed his deceptive ways. Normally in these types of shows victims of deception are normally completely unaware of what’s happening to them. The acting in the show is top notch.

[bncbcbbc]

Daemon’s sexual failure is 100% related to his political prowess/power. each time we have seen dameon having sex he has been unable to continue, both times in the wake of being less powerful than viserys, or not being able to get what he wants.
In episode 1, he can’t keep going because he is bothered by viserys choosing a new heir.
In episode 4, it seems he can’t keep going because he wants rhanerya, but knows he can’t have her due to viserys.

guarantee we will be seeing some climax to the daemon sex scenes if he wins this power struggle

[bram_]

The rope effigy of a phallus during the play was foreshadowing how Daemon is pushing rope

[TheLastEgg]

What I love the most is the gray area that the show evolves in, every character is gray, no hero or villain anywhere.

[patraprateek]

Appreciate you taking the time and bringing out truly quality content all these years.