Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 2.The Dragon Queen finally sits the Iron Throne, but it hardly feels like a victory. In this week’s episode of House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) takes King’s Landing, as per her agreement with Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), and legitimizes her position by beheading Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the mastermind of all her misfortune, herself. It’s a superbly acted and conceived scene, and it sets the tone for what Rhaenyra’s “rule” will probably look like. It also significantly improves on the original story told in Fire & Blood by making a twisted callback to the very beginning of Game of Thrones, and subverting one of its most crucial principles.
Rhaenyra Beheading Otto Hightower Puts a Dark Twist on One of ‘Game of Thrones’ Key Principles
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” This is easily one of the most celebrated quotes in Game of Thrones, and is part of the lesson given by Ned Stark (Sean Bean) to his son, Bran (Isaac Hampstead-Wright), in the series premiere, when they must execute a deserter of the Night’s Watch. The idea is that whoever is powerful enough to deal out a death sentence should also be responsible enough to carry it out themselves; otherwise, there is hardly any legitimacy in the sentence, regardless of the dealer’s position.
Collider Exclusive · Game of Thrones Personality Quiz Which Game of Thrones House Do You Belong To? Stark · Lannister · Targaryen · Baratheon · Tyrell
Five great houses. Five completely different answers to the same question: how do you hold power in a world that will take it from you the moment you stop paying attention? Eight questions will determine where your loyalties — and your nature — truly lie.
🐺Stark
🦁Lannister
🐉Targaryen
🦌Baratheon
🌹Tyrell
01
Someone powerful is acting dishonourably and everyone knows it. What do you do? In Westeros, the answer to this question has ended more than one great house.
02
What is the source of your power? Every house endures because of something. What is it for yours?
03
Who do you truly fight for? Strip away the banners and the words. The straightforward answer tells you everything.
04
How do you deal with your enemies? A house’s method reveals its character as clearly as its words ever could.
05
What kind of ruler do you believe in? Westeros is full of answers to this question. Most of them end badly.
06
You suffer a devastating loss. How does your house respond? How a house handles defeat tells you more about it than how it handles victory.
07
Which of these truths about Westeros do you most believe? Every house has a philosophy. This is yours.
08
The Iron Throne is within reach. What do you do? The answer reveals not just your ambition — but your character.
The Maester Has Spoken Your House Is…
Your answers point to the great house whose words, values, and way of surviving in Westeros match your own. Bend the knee — or don’t. That’s very much up to you.
Winterfell · The North
🐺 House Stark
Winter is Coming — and you have always known it. You prepare not out of fear but out of duty, because the people who depend on you deserve someone who takes the long view.
You lead with honour even when it costs you, because you understand that a reputation built on integrity is the only one worth having.
Your loyalty to family and people runs deep — not as sentiment but as a code that doesn’t bend when things get challenging.
The North endures because Starks endure — not by being the cleverest players in the game, but by being the kind of people others are willing to follow into the frigid.
You are that kind of person. The pack survives. The lone wolf dies. You already know which one you are.
Casterly Rock · The Westerlands
🦁 House Lannister
You understand the game — its rules, its exceptions, and exactly when the rules become the exception. You play it without illusions and without apology.
You are sharper than most people realise, and you have learned to employ that gap to your advantage.
A Lannister always pays their debts — and you always keep your word, because your word is an instrument of power, and instruments must be kept in working order.
You love your family with a ferocity that sometimes blinds you, and you know it, and you do it anyway.
The lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep. Neither, in the end, do you.
Dragonstone · The Iron Throne
🐉 House Targaryen
You carry a sense of destiny that is challenging to explain and impossible to ignore — the feeling that you are not simply participating in the world but meant to reshape it.
You are capable of extraordinary things, and you know it, and that knowledge is both your greatest strength and your most perilous quality.
Fire and blood are not just words to you — they are a philosophy about what change requires and what it costs.
The Targaryens at their best were transformative rulers who broke chains and defied the limits of what anyone thought possible.
At your best, so are you. The dragon has three heads. You are one of them.
Storm’s End · The Stormlands
🦌 House Baratheon
You are a force — direct, powerful, and challenging to ignore when you enter a room or a conflict. You do not negotiate with challenges. You meet them.
Ours is the fury — and yours is a kind of intensity that commands attention, respect, and occasionally fear from those who underestimate what’s behind it.
You value strength and straight dealing. You’d rather know where you stand in a fight than navigate a web of courtly whispers.
The Baratheons built their house on the back of one of the greatest military victories in Westerosi history — and then struggled with what came after.
The lesson of your house is that winning is not the end of the story. Governing is. You are learning that too.
Highgarden · The Reach
🌹 House Tyrell
You understand that power does not always announce itself — that sometimes it arrives with flowers, good wine, and a smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes.
Growing forceful is your house’s motto, and you live it: patiently, strategically, always investing in the relationships and resources that will matter most when it counts.
You are charming by choice and calculating by nature — a combination that makes you one of the most effective players in any room you enter.
The Tyrells fed King’s Landing and shaped its politics without ever sitting on the Iron Throne — and they were arguably more powerful for it.
You know that the person who controls the food controls the kingdom. And you always know where the food is.
Although this principle is usually connected to House Stark, House of the Dragon brings it back when Rhaenyra beheads Ser Otto herself, but with a gloomy twist. Instead of a matter of honor, leadership, and responsibility, Rhaenyra’s deed is all about displaying strength and resolve as the novel queen, especially after she is given Dark Sister by Daemon (Matt Smith) to do as a show of power. In this case, Rhaenyra has never killed anyone, unlike Ned or Daemon, and her hand is forced by the circumstances.
The result is basically a horrific scene. At her limit after losing yet another child earlier that episode, Rhaenyra botches her first attempt at Otto’s neck, hitting his back instead and drawing gasps from everyone present; only at the second attempt does she manage a tidy swing. It’s far from the triumphant scene it could be, and when Rhaenyra falters, it proves she isn’t really a killer, even though she has dealt a death sentence and, thus, bears the responsibility of seeing it through.
Rhaenyra’s Deed Makes Her Claiming the Iron Throne Purposefully Anticlimactic
As tough as it is to watch, Otto’s beheading is a significant improvement from his death in Fire & Blood, where he is simply mentioned to be among the first to be beheaded, with no mention of who does it. Having Rhaenyra do it adds an incredible weight to it, as it becomes the last in a string of bitter victories that have brought her to the Iron Throne. As Rhaenyra struggles to keep her composure while ascending to the throne, the moment feels anticlimactic. Although she’s seated on the Iron Throne, there is still much more to do, and just because she took King’s Landing, doesn’t mean she will be a forceful ruling queen. In the book, she even cuts herself on the throne — a classic indicator that the person sitting on the throne is not fit for it — but that has been left out so far.
Another aspect is how there isn’t anyone of note to witness this moment. Only the City Watch and the local minor lords who were arrested for not bending the knee to Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) are present. It’s a stark contrast to Aegon II’s own coronation in Season 1, when he had the Dragonpit packed as his witness. Considering the blockade that has been starving the people of King’s Landing, this moment is just the first sign that Rhaenyra’s return might not be the clear victory that she wants it to be.
With so much weighing on her, from the initial betrayal by the Greens to the more recent loss of her children, Rhaenyra’s ascension to the throne is meant to be a scene that feels uneasy. Regardless of where you stand concerning the legitimacy of her claim, it’s become nearly impossible to say that it has all been worth it. She may not have given it willingly, but who can weigh a son’s life against a throne? Now, Rhaenyra can.
Otto’s Death Is Strategic, but Makes Rhaenyra’s Victory Hollow
Rhaenyra Targaryen on the Iron Throne in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3.Image via HBO
Ned Stark’s quote has become so iconic for many reasons, but how it honestly approaches a life’s worth is probably what makes it so compelling. When this principle is applied to Rhaenyra’s position, there is a gloomy underlayer to it, because, as much as Otto Hightower had it coming, it wasn’t he whom Rhaenyra really needed to execute, but either Aegon II or Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the two who effectively led the Greens in the war and have claims of their own to the throne. Otto may have orchestrated the events that put Aegon and Aemond in their current positions, but, right now, he holds very little value as a player himself.
From a political standpoint, Otto’s death might have held some strategic value, considering his history, but, given the whole circumstances and context of when and where it happened, it’s tough to say that it will bear any fruit for Rhaenyra in King’s Landing. Not to mention the fact that it might have just turned one of her most valuable allies, Alicent, against her. She might at last be sitting on the Iron Throne, but there’s still a long and bumpy road ahead for Rhaenyra. The few subjects who witnessed her ascension have also seen firsthand the huge toll it has taken on her, making us wonder if it might have been better for Daemon to deal the killing blow instead.
House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones are available to stream on HBO Max.
COMMENTS