That was indeed Dan Fogler and I don’t know what his part in all this is yet.
It seems a little silly that he doesn’t consider his granddaughters as heirs given that his entire support of Rhaeneras claim is that women could be heirs. I had assumed that that was the reason that she refused to legitimize the sons. The scrutiny of her own bastards is a bit of a weak reason to piss off your main supporter. And I think even her main supporter refusing to name one of his daughters as his heir is more dramatically interesting. Rhaenyra can simply say that legitimizing his sons that he could have a male heir undermines the logic of her own claim. It’s so obvious that I’m a little bit confused why this point wasn’t even raised.
Perhaps the families just consider Baela and Rhaena to be Targaryens through their father Daemon rather than Velaryons through their mother. You’d think Daemon would want to expand his own line’s influence though. Agreed that Rhaenyra should be supporting women’s legitimacy as SenorBeef points out. Also seemed strange that when Corlys, Baela, Alan and Addam are together after the battle looking at the ruins of Driftmark, Corlys names Addam as his heir and Baela doesn’t have a problem with it. This show makes less and less sense with each passing episode. The dragons sure are pretty though.
I may be a little too critical. I guess he may prefer children rather than grandchildren - especially if the grandchildren are from a sort of competing house - to be his heirs to make them more clearly Velaryon. It’s still a tactical mistake on Rhaenyra’s part and quite frankly ungrateful – he’s right, he basically gave everything to Rhaenyra, sacrificed his town, risked his house, and asked for almost nothing - to ask for him to legitimize some sons is a very tiny ask. And how bad it looks for her is pretty mild. He’s right to be pissed off at her. I’m not sure if it’s bad writing or just a lack of savvy on her part. A lot of this episode was about how unprepared she was to do the day to day work as queen, so I guess it might fit that theme, but it seems like a hard decision on her part to justify.
He named Alyn, not Addam, his heir. Last season, after Corlys became Rhaenyra’s Hand, he offered to make Baela his heir. She turned him down saying that his heir needed to be salt and sea and that she was fire and blood. Of course, that was when she expected to be Queen at some point but she probably still prefers to be a dragonrider princess rather than a sailor like Alyn.
Yeah, Corlys ideally wants a sailor as heir and Addan definitely IS the best choice. Rhaenyra seriously fucked up, she also pissed off the nobles and I imagine Daemon is not thrilled either.
Oh, I retract my criticism re: Baela then. I remember that now. I didn’t remember that before. Probably because of the two years between seasons.
I’ll have to rewatch some of S2 first I think to catch up. Maybe the last episode is enough?
Torrhen Manderly
Boy the Hightowers really have some huevos. I hope the plan is more interesting than “delay until Aemond and Vhagar can kill like 7 dragons.”
Interested to see where Aemond is. Doesn’t seem like Alys told Cole anything that satisfied him.
Dude is crazy, if anything I think he expects Daeron and his little dragon to solo Vaghar. They keep teasing us with Sunfyre, last episode it was claimed he was rotting but Aegon claims he is alive now. I didn’t notice any obvious signs of rot.
Yeah I hate that as well. I get it that these streaming services are creating 10 hours of cinema-quality productions but it’s super-annoying to have to wait 2 years between each season.
They look cool but what are the chances of actually taking out a flying lizard the size of a jumbo jet with an unguided siege weapon? Seems like the greater danger would be taking out the rider with a hail of arrows.
Well a bigger dragon would probably need several, but the beauty of the system is that a single one massively slows them down and would make them easier to hit. If they’d had multiple balistas ready to go Vermax would have gone down on the first attempt. That said, a bigger dragon also probably does not need to get as close and personal as Vermax was to fry the ship.
The kid they got to play Daeron is a dead ringer for the girl that played young Alicent, great casting there.
I personally think it’s unlikely for a ballista to go very far with an anchors weight on it, which is enough to weigh down a dragon, would likely tear through the side of a ship and sink into the water. But hey, it’s a world with Dragons in it.
I just watched Episode 5 and I feel like I have no idea what’s going on any more.
- What is Cole’s army doing? They were Aegon’s/Alicent’s forces, correct? They seem to be wandering around randomly without any direction. What is their purpose?
-What is going on with Aemond? He’s been drugged/put under a spell/whatever by Alys, OK fine, but what happened to Vhagar? She (I thought it was a he, but they kept referring to it as she, huh, who knew) just flew away? That seems..weird. I don’t recall seeing that happen - is there any explanation for this?
-Who is Helena pregnant by? It seems like it’s been months since her husband/brother Aegon was burned/moved/kidnapped/disappeared, and she’s not showing yet. So who is the father? Someone in the castle? Doesn’t seem much like Helena to take a lover but the timeline seems off if Aegon is the father.
-What does Ormond (creepy Hightower guy, if that’s his name) think he’s doing? He wants to be kingmaker with Daeron as the king, that much is clear, and he thinks Aegon is dead but Aemond is still around somewhere. How does he think this is going to work?
I did like Larys telling Aegon off, though. That was fun to watch.
I’m curious about Ormond’s fate. I imagine it’s going to be quite grim. The GoT universe pays much heed to superstition; remember Walder Frey’s fate for violating the laws of hospitality? I imagine oath-breaking brings similar, or worse, fate. Possibly from the gods themselves.
They were SUPPOSED to meet up with Aemond and Vaghar and go wipe out the Tully/Stark army that joined Daemon, but when Aemond and Vaghar went missing they started doing guerilla warfare. They had some initial results, but after a bit the Tully’s knowledge of the land had him checkmated. At this point Gwayne has realized Cole just wants to die gloriously in battle and nothing more.
I don’t think she’s drugging him, one of the Strong guys stabbed him pretty badly while he was slaughtering them and he’s been recovering ever since. We haven’t had any explanation for what happened to Vaghar, but she (definitely a she) is not around
Is the half-wild army led by Ser Roderick Dustin (Tommy Flanagan) supposed to be from House Stark?
He flew on Vhagar to Harrenhal to confront Daemon. But when he got there, he found Daemon had left to join Rhaenera and take over King’s Landing. He slaughtered everyone at Harrenhal, but in his fervor for killing, he let one of the Strongs get behind him and was wounded badly in the lower back. Obviously he survived, but his incapacitation apparently prompted Vhagar to flee.
Similarly, Cole arrived at Harrenhal where he intended to meet up with Aemond, only to find that Aemond was no longer there, according to Alys. (He was there, apparently recovering, but Alys didn’t disclose this.) At this point, Cole believed himself abandoned by Aemond, so he set his own Quixotic course to take out as many of Rhaenera’s forces as he could with his meager army before being overcome and glorified as described by @DigitalC.
It was. 
Yeah, when Jace met with Cregan Stark he promised to send him an army of “greybeards” that had already seen too many winters. Basically a bunch of old veterans that don’t wanna stick around for another big winter. I believe they are called the winter wolves.
Sending the Winter Wolves serves the double purpose of less mouths to feed in the North during a long winter and has been a successful tradition for the Northern Houses.