Kids often fight. They don’t often actually try to kill each other. He almost strangled one of them. The other kids were just fighting. He showed murderous intent.
And the rock he was trying to brain them with too. When it came to escalation, even ignoring the fact he could burn them all with dragonfire, it was him who was actually trying to kill one or more of them.
I’m just not seeing it. I saw a kid getting jumped four on one and using a rock to try to defend himself as best he could when things started looking bad for him. He was an asshole to them but the violence was instigated and escalated by the other four.
Her father’s influence.
I am surprised that Cole kept his job after that scene. Just because he is pledged to Alicent doesn’t mean that Viserys can’t kick him out, I would have thought. But maybe that’s just part of Viserys’s unwillingness to take action?
Otto is an ambitious schemer. He doesn’t strike me as a sociopath. Anyway, wasn’t he banished to Oldtown until recently?
Totally. I noticed that the rules in GOT Westeros were a lot more rigid. It seemed like someone like Daenerys, Joffrey or even Ned Stark, would have had Cole disappear (one way another) just for risk management purposes. Regardless of his reason for killing the guy, it makes no sense to keep him on the King’s Guard. Wasn’t he only on the King’s Guard due to a young Rhaenyra selecting him? How was he vetted? Perhaps it was the lax way that these early Targaryens handled things led to the far more rigid structure of GOT Westeros. And there is no way that a Robert Baratheon or Joffrey, or even Cersei, would allow a queen consort to make that call of keeping Cole on the King’s Guard, or even keeping him alive for that matter.
Actually, the more I think about it, the “pledged to me” bit doesn’t make sense. The king would still have final say to countermand an order to enucleate his grandson.
I like watching this show, and I’ll probably see it through. But sometimes you just gotta bitch.
Aemond and the dragon scene could have been so great. But what took me out of it was him hanging on with one hand while Vhagar was taking off like a rocket. Like, this isn’t a super-hero movie… there is no way some kid could hang on to the saddle in any way during this ride. But he’s there like Harry Potter or Thor hanging on to this dragon like no human being should ever be able to do. It could have been done so much better. Why not have his arm or leg get caught up in the ropes and have Vhagar drag him along for the ride? And when Vhagar lands, Aemond can get himself free and feels all proud and because of the adrenaline gets into a fight. But the audience knows he didn’t really accomplish anything. Way more realistic and intriguing.
I thought the point of the scene WAS to make it look like a heroic feat, to tame Vhagar. Getting caught in the netting and being dragged along for the ride wouldn’t exactly accomplish that.
Well in GOT era, you had a Kingsguard member who literally killed the King he was supposed to be protecting (yes, he did it for a noble cause, but…). Also Joffrey elevated the Hound to Kingsguard, who deserts during the Battle of the Blackwater.
And in the books a few others of Joffrey’s Kingsguard aren’t exactly vetted or trustworthy (Boros Blount, Osmund Kettleblack).
So it seems the Kingsguard is a mess of politics whenever you go.
It just hit me this is leading to the dance of dragons, which i have read. I thought that would be a whole different show coming later, but this means the timeline is going to move significantly forward again and the story will move past all the current characters? at least the grown ups.
The dance of dragons is a conflict between Targaryen factions that this season is leading to. The Dance of Dragons book takes place hundreds of years later and strangely has nothing to do with the historical “Dance of Dragons”. It’s just the Song of Ice and Fire book 5.
I assumed the kingsguard are given a ton of latitude on their use of force. After he beat Joffrey to a bloody pulp, he could have just claimed he threatened someone in the royal family and that would be that. He was just doing his job, supposedly.
Well the conflict in this show is specifically called Dance of THE Dragons which distinguishes it from A Dance With Dragons the Song of Ice and Fire book. It’s those articles that get you! 
It’s an absolute monarchy. The king can decide whatever he wants, using his own judgment. It’s not that “Kingsguard are given a lot of latitude.” It’s that Viserys doesn’t seem to be good at making tough decisions.
Yep. Criston Cole continuing on the Kingsguard is just one of many times where Viserys doesn’t do what needs to be done because he doesn’t want to make a decision.
Or foresees all sorts of bad consequences from making that decision, and thus decides… not to take action.
I really enjoyed this episode - maybe the best of the season so far. A good mix of intrigue, drama, dragons, fighting, etc.
Do we know anything more about the servant Daemon killed to later be pushed into the fire and serve as the fake Prince Laenor? And how easily will Laenor be able to live with abandoning “his” sons (to whom he had just recommitted himself), and giving up his dragon, and letting his parents, already heartbroken over his sister’s death, grieve for him too?
Prince Aemond was definitely in the wrong in the fight among the kids, I’d say. He almost deserved to lose that eye. I don’t understand why the Velaryons wouldn’t object to him claiming the old dragon, though. He rode her once; would that necessarily mean he was entitled to keep her forever? Their family has much the better claim to her.
I’m not too surprised to see Prince Daemon and Crown Princess Rhaenyra end up wedded. I guess she was able to help him, in that tent on the beach, with his, uh, little problem. But how long until he thinks he ought to be King and not just King Consort? I wouldn’t put anything past him, even if (as I think he does) he truly loves her.
Dragons bond with their riders. Aemon, by being able to ride Vhagar has bonded with him.
Definitely a dick move to claim their mother’s dragon on the night of her funeral.
Right, it is up to the dragons I assume. Plus Vaghar was not a dragon that belonged to house velaryon, Laena hunted it down and claimed it after she and Daemon ran off to Pentos.
Dragons are not cars. They don’t have titles or property value. A rider bonds with them and then they become the rider’s dragon. They don’t belong to any particular family.