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Here’s one of the most frustrating things about Game of Thrones: the show introduced these absolutely magnificent creatures—direwolves, massive wolf-like beasts that were supposed to be spiritually connected to the Stark children and represent the family’s power and connection to the old ways of the North. They were in the opening scene of the entire series, they had a massive symbolic weight, and then… the show basically forgot about them for six seasons. The direwolves were one of Game of Thrones’ most significant running failures, a perfect example of how the show made grand promises about its mythology that it eventually couldn’t be bothered to keep.

The Promise That Started It All

The opening of Game of Thrones Season 1 introduces the direwolves when Bran and his brothers find the dead direwolf and her five pups beyond the Wall. This is not a random occurrence in the show’s own logic—these creatures are spiritually connected to House Stark. In the books, George R.R. Martin invests tremendous time in the bond between the Stark children and their direwolves. Each wolf has its own personality, its own arc, and serves as both a literal companion and a metaphorical extension of each Stark child’s journey.

The show’s opening visual of dead direwolf and her pups was supposed to establish this connection immediately. Winter was coming, the Starks were in for a hard time, and their wolves would be part of their journey through it. The direwolves became the symbol of the Stark house in a way that went beyond just heraldry—they were meant to be part of the family’s narrative identity. Yet almost immediately, the show started treating them as problems rather than story elements.

The first casualty was Sansa’s direwolf, Lady. The death happened in Season 1 and was supposed to be emotionally significant, showing how even getting your own mythical creature wasn’t enough to protect you in this world. Ned executing Lady was meant to be a moment of hard justice and broken faith, a sign that the world of Game of Thrones wasn’t kind to those who played by the rules. The show got that moment right, and it was devastating. But then everything after it was a downhill slide.

The Problem of Budget and Practical Effects

Let’s be honest about why the direwolves got sidelined: they were expensive to portray convincingly, and the show had limited resources. CGI direwolves were costly and time-consuming to create. As the show went on and budgets tightened (or rather, as the show’s priorities shifted), the direwolves became victims of production reality. They couldn’t be in every scene. They couldn’t be featured prominently in every episode. So instead of integrating them meaningfully into the narrative, the show just… pushed them to the background.

By Season 2, the direwolves had largely disappeared from the show. Jon Snow’s wolf, Ghost, would occasionally appear in the background or in brief scenes, but the connection that had been established in Season 1 was gone. Grey Wind, Robb Stark’s direwolf, was also sidelined despite being one of the most important elements of Robb’s storyline in the books. The show moved the Starks away from their wolves rather than figuring out how to make the wolves work within its narrative constraints.

This wasn’t an insurmountable problem. The show demonstrated that it could feature the direwolves effectively when it wanted to—Ghost had some genuinely good moments in later seasons, and Summer’s appearance in Season 6 was impactful. But what the show did instead was treat the direwolves as optional background elements rather than integral parts of the Stark children’s stories.

The Squandered Symbolic Potential

Here’s what makes the direwolves’ neglect so frustrating: they had enormous symbolic potential that the show never tapped into. In the books, each direwolf represents something about its corresponding Stark child. Lady’s death was supposed to represent Sansa’s connection to the harsh realities of the North being severed. Robb’s death in battle was supposed to be paralleled with Grey Wind’s death at the same moment (the Red Wedding, which brutally paralleled the direwolf’s murder). Bran’s connection to Summer was supposed to be tied to his greensight and his role as the heir to the North.

The show had all of this mythology built into the story, but it seemed increasingly unwilling to spend the time developing it. Ghost could have been a constant visual reminder of Jon Snow’s connection to the Starks and the North, a physical manifestation of his identity conflict. Instead, Ghost showed up occasionally and then disappeared. Arya’s direwolf, Nymeria, was killed early on, which was meant to be tragic, but because the show hadn’t invested enough in their relationship, it didn’t have the emotional resonance it was supposed to.

By moving the Stark children away from their direwolves, the show removed a visual and symbolic anchor that could have been used throughout the series to remind viewers of the Starks’ connection to each other, to their homeland, and to the magic and old power of the North. Without the direwolves, the Starks became just another family. With them, they were something more.

The Ghost of What Could Have Been

Ghost’s treatment in the show is particularly galling because it had potential until the very end. For most of the series, Ghost was Jon Snow’s faithful companion, a visual link to Jon’s Stark heritage and his place in the world. But as the show went on, Ghost appeared less and less frequently. In the final season, after Jon’s entire arc culminates in him joining the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch, Ghost gets a moment where he walks away from Jon without a goodbye. This scene is either heartbreaking or completely nonsensical depending on whether you think Ghost should have been more present throughout Jon’s journey.

The fact that this moment with Ghost in the final season generated so much fan discussion is actually a perfect example of the problem: fans had to debate whether the moment was meaningful because the direwolves had been so sidelined that we couldn’t be sure what the show’s actual intention was. If Ghost had been a constant presence throughout Jon’s arc, that final goodbye would have been earth-shattering. Instead, it felt like a moment the show was throwing in because it remembered Ghost existed.

What the Books Do Right

George R.R. Martin’s novels demonstrate repeatedly what the show left on the table. In the books, the direwolves are more present, more distinctive, and more integrated into their respective characters’ storylines. Each wolf has a name, a personality, and a connection to their human that’s constantly reinforced. Arya’s connection to Nymeria is particularly strong in the books and includes some genuinely mystical elements that the show never explored.

The books use the direwolves to explore themes of identity, legacy, and the connection between the people of the North and the magic of the land itself. The direwolves are not just cool creatures—they’re a fundamental part of what makes the Starks the Starks. By benching them, the show lost that entire thematic thread.

A Wasted Opportunity for Spectacle

Here’s another frustrating aspect: the show loved spectacle. It spent money on dragons, on elaborate battle scenes, on massive crowds and incredible cinematography. A direwolf doesn’t have to be present in every scene or even every episode, but it could have been featured more prominently in key moments. The show could have invested in showing the direwolves’ growth and character development. It could have used them as visual reminders of each Stark’s journey and development.

Instead, the direwolves became an afterthought, something the show acknowledged occasionally when fans complained about their absence. The show had proven it could do practical effects and CGI well—the dragons were excellent, the White Walkers were terrifying, the creatures beyond the Wall were convincing. A better prioritization of the show’s resources could have kept the direwolves as central to the Stark narrative as they were supposed to be.

The Legacy of Neglect

When you finish Game of Thrones and look back on it, the direwolves stand out as one of the show’s biggest missed opportunities. They represented a connection to the books’ mythology that the show seemed increasingly willing to abandon. They were supposed to be symbols of Stark power and heritage, but instead they became symbols of the show’s declining interest in exploring the deeper, more mythical elements of its world.

The direwolves deserved better. They deserved to be woven into their respective characters’ storylines. They deserved to grow and change as the Stark children grew and changed. They deserved to be present at crucial moments, not just background elements. And most importantly, they deserved to be treated as what they were supposed to be from the very beginning: an essential, integral part of what it means to be a Stark.

The fact that fans still talk about the direwolves, still wish the show had done more with them, still feel that absence keenly—that’s the real measure of this failure. The show introduced us to something magical and meaningful, and then gradually convinced us to care less about it. That’s not a small narrative misstep. That’s one of the show’s biggest running disappointments, a constant visual reminder of what Game of Thrones could have been if it had cared enough to follow through on its own mythology.

The Game of Thrones fandom was not just big—it was absolutely monumental. At its peak, it was arguably the largest, most passionate, most creative, and most chaotic fanbase on the internet. From the early seasons when people were just discovering the show and racing through the books, to the later seasons when the fandom was actively at war with itself over the direction of the series, Game of Thrones fandom basically invented modern internet culture as we know it. The problem is, it also very clearly demonstrated what happens when a fandom gets too big, too invested, and then feels genuinely betrayed by the creators they’ve been supporting.

The Theory Crafting Era: When the Fandom Was United

In the early seasons of Game of Thrones, the fandom was genuinely united in one major way: everyone was theorizing like crazy. Before the internet age, fans would have had to wait for the next book or season to see what happened next. Game of Thrones fandom didn’t wait. They analyzed every scene, every word of dialogue, every piece of symbolism. They crafted elaborate theories about what was coming next, who would die, who was secretly what, and what the endgame would be.

Reddit became the center of this activity. Massive threads on r/asoiaf (A Song of Ice and Fire) and r/gameofthrones would get thousands of comments debating whether Tyrion was a secret Targaryen, whether Jon Snow’s parents were really who everyone thought they were, whether there were secret Targaryen children scattered across the world. These weren’t casual conversations—these were detailed investigations with evidence cited from books and episodes, with users spending hours analyzing genealogies, heraldry, and magical properties.

The beautiful thing about this era was that it felt like fans were in on something exclusive. The books hadn’t been finished, the show was ahead of the books in some storylines, and everyone was collaborating to piece together where things were heading. There was a genuine sense of community. Fans created intricate wiki pages, made elaborate charts, created art and fiction based on their theories. Some of the most detailed world-building discussions on the internet were happening in Game of Thrones fandom communities.

Part of what made this era so special was that it was collaborative. People weren’t fighting about what was good or bad—they were working together to understand what was. The show was still following the books closely enough that fans trusted that the show was moving toward something meaningful. Even when storylines diverged from the books, fans generally trusted that the show knew what it was doing.

The Meme Era: When Fandom Became Mainstream

As Game of Thrones grew in popularity, it became increasingly meme-able. The show’s iconic moments—from Ned Stark’s death to Tyrion’s trial, from the Red Wedding to Joffrey’s death—became part of broader internet culture. But more than that, the fandom created an absolutely staggering amount of content. Fan art, fan fiction, memes, merchandise, conventions dedicated to the show—Game of Thrones fandom became a machine that was constantly creating and circulating content.

The memes were particularly interesting because they evolved based on what was happening in the show. Early memes played with dramatic moments and character dynamics. As the show went on and started making more controversial decisions, the memes shifted to reflect fandom frustration. “The night is dark and full of terrors” became a ubiquitous phrase. “We don’t kneel” became a rallying cry. “Winter is coming” got applied to everything from weather to dreaded events in viewers’ real lives.

What’s important about the meme era is that it represented peak accessibility of the fandom. You didn’t have to spend hours reading theory threads to be part of Game of Thrones fandom culture—you could just appreciate a good meme and feel like you were part of something massive and shared. This is how Game of Thrones went from being a huge show to being a cultural phenomenon that transcended normal television fandom.

The memes also served an important function: they allowed fans to express criticism and frustration in a humorous way. When the show started making decisions that viewers weren’t sure about, memes became a way to collectively process those feelings without being too serious about it. They were simultaneously celebration and criticism, engagement and commentary.

The Theory War Years: When Fandom Started Fracturing

As the show progressed and started making decisions that diverged more significantly from fan theories, the fandom began to fracture. By Season 5, the show was definitively ahead of the books in some storylines, and it became clear that the show was going to conclude before George R.R. Martin finished the books. This created two major schisms in the fandom: people who thought the show was brilliant and the right adaptation of the source material, and people who thought it was deviating too much.

More importantly, though, it became clear that fan theories about the endgame were probably not going to be right. People had spent years building elaborate theories about secret Targaryens, about magical powers, about epic prophecies coming to fruition. The show started suggesting that some of these theories were wrong, or at least not central to where things were heading. The unified fandom that had been collaboratively theorizing started to splinter into people defending their favorite theories and dismissing ones they didn’t like.

Reddit threads that used to be about collaborative world-building became battlegrounds for fans arguing about what was actually going to happen. The beauty of the theory-crafting era had been that you could believe your theory and someone else could believe theirs, and you’d both be excited to find out who was right. But as the show got closer to its ending, theory disagreements became more heated. People took their theories personally. Your theory became your prediction about what the show should do, and when the show didn’t do it, it felt like a personal rejection.

The Shipping Wars and Character Conflicts

As fandom grew, so did the intensity of shipping wars—the conflicts between fans supporting different romantic relationships. Game of Thrones had multiple potential romantic endgames, and fans aligned themselves fiercely with their preferred ships. Jon and Daenerys? Jon and Sansa? Daenerys and nobody because she’s focused on her throne? These weren’t casual preferences—they were part of deeper theories about character trajectories and the ultimate meaning of the story.

The shipping wars became increasingly toxic in later seasons. People weren’t just preferring one ship over another—they were actively hostile to fans of other ships. Character hate escalated. Fans of one character would attack fans of another character. The unified collaborative spirit of earlier fandom gave way to a more competitive, winner-take-all mentality where your ship winning felt like validation and your ship losing felt like personal rejection.

The Final Seasons: When the Fandom Broke

Everything came to a head in Season 8. By this point, the fandom was no longer united or even friendly. It was a complex ecosystem of people who watched the show for different reasons, shipped different relationships, preferred different characters, and had completely different expectations for how things should end. The show had spent eight seasons building toward something, and almost no matter what that something was, a significant portion of the fandom was going to be disappointed.

What Season 8 actually delivered seemed to disappoint almost everyone simultaneously, just in different ways. People who wanted Daenerys and Jon together were upset. People who wanted Daenerys to claim her throne were devastated. People who wanted complex character arcs felt robbed. People who wanted a more optimistic ending felt betrayed by the bleakness. The show had made promises—implicitly and explicitly—that it failed to deliver on, and the fandom was not going to let that go quietly.

The Petition and the Reckoning

The ultimate symbol of fandom broken trust came with the Change.org petition asking HBO to remake Season 8 with different writers. That petition got over 1.7 million signatures. Think about that for a second: nearly 1.7 million people were so upset with the final season that they formally petitioned for it to be completely redone. This wasn’t just online grumbling—this was organized, collective action expressing fundamental dissatisfaction.

The petition became iconic for what it represented: a moment when a fandom that had been overwhelmingly positive and creative turned into something explicitly antagonistic. It wasn’t that fans didn’t like the show anymore—it’s that fans felt lied to by the creators, and they were going to make that feeling known. The fandom that had created elaborate wiki pages and thousands of fan theories had turned into a force that was actively calling for the show to be unmade.

The Internet Did Change

What’s important about the Game of Thrones fandom arc is not just that it shows what happens when a show disappoints its audience. It shows what happens when fandom gets big enough and organized enough to become a significant cultural force. The Game of Thrones fandom basically defined how modern, mainstream television fandoms work. It showed how to collaborate on theories, how to create shared content, how to organize around a show, and ultimately, how to express collective dissatisfaction.

The fandom didn’t just build internet culture—it revealed how fragile that culture could be. Fan commitment, it turns out, is conditional. It’s based on trust that the creators know what they’re doing and are making decisions in service of the story. When that trust breaks down, the same tools that fans used to celebrate and theorize become tools for criticism and rejection.

The Aftermath

What’s interesting about where the Game of Thrones fandom is now is that it never really recovered. Some fans still engage with the show, rewatching favorites, discussing alternative endings, creating fanfiction about how things should have gone. But the unified, massive fandom that was pushing Game of Thrones to the top of every trending topic is gone. The fandom exists now in fragments, with some people defending the later seasons, some people pretending they don’t exist, and some people still angry about what happened.

The Game of Thrones fandom built the internet’s infrastructure for how television fandoms organize and create. It demonstrated the power of collective fan engagement and the power of collective fan disappointment. It showed that internet fandom had grown from a niche hobby to a genuine cultural force capable of influencing how creators talk about their work and how networks plan their futures. But it also showed the darker side of that power—the way collective enthusiasm can become collective rage, the way creative community can become hostile conflict.

Game of Thrones fandom didn’t break the internet, but it certainly tested its limits and revealed some fundamental truths about how parasocial relationships between fans and creators actually work. It’s a lesson that will probably influence how fandoms develop and how creators approach their audiences for a very long time to come.

One of the most captivating elements of House of the Dragon is the way it treats dragons not as simple weapons or props, but as living, thinking creatures with personalities, temperaments, and relationships with their riders. The show goes deeper than Game of Thrones ever did in exploring the actual mechanics of how dragon bonding works, what makes a successful dragon rider, and why some people can claim dragons while others get roasted for even trying. If you’ve ever wondered why Lucerys can ride Arrax but couldn’t just hop on Vhagar, or why dragons have such fierce loyalty to their particular riders, this is the guide for you.

The Fundamental Rule: Dragons Choose Their Riders

This is perhaps the most important thing to understand about dragon bonding in House of the Dragon: dragons have agency. They’re not magical weapons that anyone can pick up and use. They’re intelligent creatures who form deep, almost spiritual bonds with their riders, and this bond is, fundamentally, the dragon’s choice. A person might try to claim a dragon, they might have the blood of Old Valyria running through their veins, they might be a Targaryen with centuries of dragon-riding history in their family, but if the dragon doesn’t want to bond with them, it’s not happening. The dragon might eat them instead, and that’s just how it goes.

This is why Aemond’s claiming of Vhagar is such a significant moment in the story. Vhagar is the largest living dragon in the world, an ancient beast who has known many riders throughout her long life. She’s not some young, wild dragon who might be desperate to bond with her first rider. She’s ancient, she’s experienced, and she’s seen riders come and go. The fact that she accepts Aemond is actually a mark of something special in him. It suggests that there’s something in Aemond’s nature—his determination, his desperation, his will—that resonates with Vhagar. The dragon sees something in the boy, and she chooses him.

Contrast this with other characters who attempt to claim dragons and fail. Throughout the show, we see several instances of would-be dragon riders approaching dragons they hope to bond with, and the dragons rejecting them. Sometimes this rejection is relatively gentle—the dragon simply ignores them. Other times it’s fatal. The point is always the same: the dragon decides, not the human. This creates a dynamic where dragon riders aren’t heroes who conquered beasts through strength or will; they’re partners in a relationship that the dragon had to agree to first.

The Hatching Bond: The Strongest Connection

The absolute strongest dragon bonds are the ones formed when a dragon hatches. When a young Targaryen, or a member of another dragonlord family, is present at the moment a dragon emerges from its egg, there’s a connection that forms that’s almost impossible to replicate. These dragons and their riders grow up together, they’re imprinted on each other, and their bond is often described as almost telepathic in its intimacy. This is why dragons who hatched with their riders are so extraordinarily protective of them and so devastating when something happens to them.

Think about characters like Daenerys and Drogon from Game of Thrones, or in House of the Dragon, the deep bonds between various young Targaryens and their dragons. These bonds formed at hatching are why some people in the world of Westeros have such casual, easy relationships with their dragons. They didn’t have to persuade the dragon to like them because the dragon has literally never known a world without them. The dragon doesn’t see its rider as a separate being who has to be convinced to cooperate; the rider is simply part of the dragon’s life, as essential as breathing.

This is also why some of the most tragic moments in House of the Dragon hit so hard. When a dragon and its rider have that kind of bond from hatching, an injury to one is felt like a physical wound by the other. The dragons grieve. They rage. They burn things in their sorrow. The vulnerability that comes with such a deep bond is part of what makes these creatures so powerful and so pitiable at the same time.

Claiming a Dragon: The Desperate Path to Bonding

Not everyone has the luxury of having a dragon hatch and imprint on them. Some dragonlord families had to deal with situations where they had more family members than dragons, or where political circumstances meant someone didn’t get the dragon that was “supposed” to be theirs. In those cases, claiming a dragon—approaching one directly and trying to form a bond with it after the fact—is an option, though it’s a risky one.

The process of claiming seems to involve a combination of elements: the potential rider has to have Targaryen blood or at least significant Valyrian heritage, they have to approach the dragon with the right mindset (there’s definitely a spiritual or magical component to this), and they have to be someone the dragon is willing to accept. Age plays a factor too—younger people seem to have more success with claiming wild or riderless dragons than older adults do, perhaps because young dragons respond to youth and potential, or because younger people are more flexible and less set in their ways.

When someone successfully claims a dragon after the fact, it’s typically a more transactional bond than a hatching bond, though it can still be quite strong. The dragon accepts the rider, and the rider accepts the dragon, but there’s less of that primal, intertwined connection that comes from growing up together. This might be why dragons with hatching bonds seem more fiercely protective and more willing to follow their riders into impossible situations. The dragon and rider with a hatching bond might literally die for each other. The dragon and rider with a claimed bond are partners, and partnerships, while strong, sometimes have limits.

The Bloodline Question: Why Targaryen Blood Matters

Throughout the lore and the show, there’s this persistent idea that you need Targaryen blood to ride a dragon. There are hints that the blood of Old Valyria confers some kind of advantage, some magical resonance that allows a person to communicate with or bond with dragons. But House of the Dragon complicates this by showing us that Targaryen blood alone isn’t sufficient. There are characters with Targaryen blood who are terrible with dragons, who get eaten when they try to claim them, who don’t have the temperament for bonding.

It seems that what you actually need is some combination of Valyrian blood and something else—determination, strength of will, perhaps a certain kind of magical affinity that you can’t quite define but you know it when you see it. Aemond has it. Daenerys has it. Even relatively minor Targaryen characters tend to have it if they’re going to be dragon riders. The blood of Valyria seems to be a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

What makes this interesting from a storytelling perspective is that it allows House of the Dragon to tell stories where blood alone doesn’t determine destiny. A Targaryen can have all the right genes but still fail spectacularly if they don’t have the right temperament. A bastard with a drop of Targaryen blood might theoretically have a better shot than a trueborn child of House Targaryen, if they have the strength of will and the magical resonance that the dragons respond to. It’s a system that rewards individual excellence over pure bloodline, which makes the characters’ choices and actions meaningful in a way pure genetic inheritance wouldn’t.

The Emotional Connection: Understanding Your Dragon

One of the most striking things about how House of the Dragon portrays dragon riding is the emphasis on emotional understanding between rider and dragon. It’s not just about sitting on top of the creature and pulling on its reins. The rider has to understand their dragon, has to recognize the dragon’s moods and desires, has to be the kind of person who can interpret what the dragon wants and work with it rather than against it.

This is where we see some riders excel and others fail. Lucerys with Arrax has a gentle, understanding bond. They communicate, they cooperate, they move together as a unit. Aemond with Vhagar has a bond that’s more about strength of will and mutual respect—he commands Vhagar and she obeys, but there’s also something almost tenderly fierce about their relationship. Other riders might struggle because they don’t understand their dragon, because they try to force the dragon to do something against its nature, or because they’re afraid of the creature they’re riding.

The dragon’s personality is hugely important here. A dragon that’s naturally aggressive and bloodthirsty will be a very different mount than a dragon that’s more reserved and selective about when it engages. A dragon that’s old and experienced will have different needs and behaviors than a young, energetic one. The successful rider is the one who understands their particular dragon, who knows how to communicate with it, who can read its moods and work with them rather than fighting against them.

The Limits of Dragon Riding: What Dragons Won’t Do

Despite all the talk of magic and bonding and the supposedly unbreakable connection between a dragon and its rider, House of the Dragon makes clear that dragons still have limits. A dragon might refuse to go somewhere, might refuse to attack a particular target, might balk at something that feels wrong to it. Dragons have their own opinions, their own desires, their own sense of what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

This creates genuine tension in the show because dragon riders can’t just force their dragons to do whatever they want, no matter how much they command or how strong their bond is. Alicent and others seem to have this fantasy that they can simply order the dragons around like soldiers, that the bonding creates absolute obedience. But the dragons are more complicated than that. A dragon might love its rider and still refuse to commit an atrocity. Or it might commit an atrocity because it wants to, regardless of its rider’s wishes.

This unpredictability is part of what makes dragons such powerful and dangerous weapons. They’re not tools that can be fully controlled. They’re partners who have their own agency, their own limits, their own moral boundaries, even if those boundaries are sometimes crossed. A rider can influence their dragon, can suggest actions, can encourage certain behaviors, but ultimately, the dragon decides what it’s willing to do.

Training and Experience: The Years Between Bonding and Battle

One detail that House of the Dragon emphasizes more than Game of Thrones is the gap between bonding with a dragon and actually being ready to use it in combat. Young dragon riders spend years training, learning how to communicate with their dragons, learning how to fight from dragonback, learning how to understand the creature’s moods and movements. It’s not something you can pick up in a few months of casual practice.

This is why young riders can sometimes seem almost undefeatable—they’ve been training with their dragons since childhood, they’ve spent years practicing maneuvers, they know their dragons better than they know their own bodies. Someone who claims a dragon for the first time as an adult, no matter how Targaryen they are, is going to be at a disadvantage compared to someone who’s been flying their dragon since they were old enough to sit in a saddle.

The training and experience also create a kind of muscle memory, a deep understanding of how a particular dragon responds to certain commands or prompts. A rider with years of experience can do things that a novice rider couldn’t possibly accomplish, not because the experienced rider has some magical gift the novice lacks, but because they understand their dragon so deeply that their movements are almost automatic.

Conclusion: Dragons as Characters, Not Weapons

The genius of how House of the Dragon handles dragon riding is that it treats dragons as characters rather than as weapons or tools. Yes, they’re extraordinarily destructive creatures that can burn down castles and kill armies. But they’re also individuals with personalities, preferences, and the capacity for genuine relationship with their riders. They’re not just mindlessly following orders; they’re choosing to cooperate with someone they’ve bonded with.

This approach makes the dragons feel real in a way that purely mechanical creatures wouldn’t. It makes the bonds between riders and dragons matter emotionally, not just tactically. And it creates real stakes because you’re never quite sure what a dragon is going to do. Will it obey its rider? Will it rebel? Will it do something unexpected? The uncertainty is part of what makes these creatures so fascinating to watch. They’re never quite predictable, even to the people who love them and ride them every day.

Understanding these rules of dragon bonding and riding enhances your appreciation of House of the Dragon immensely. When you see Aemond claiming Vhagar, you understand that he’s achieved something extraordinary. When you see a young rider with their dragon, you understand the years of trust and training behind that partnership. And when you see a dragon do something unexpected, you understand that the dragon is making a choice, not just following programming. The dragons in House of the Dragon are characters, and that’s what makes them so compelling.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Game of Thrones’ universe is the incredible diversity of military forces. You have the traditional knights and armies of Westeros, but you also have forces that come from completely different cultures with completely different approaches to warfare. The Unsullied are eunuch slave soldiers trained from birth in the ways of war. The Dothraki are nomadic horse warriors who scorn both walls and formal military structures. These forces represent different worldviews, different values, and different ways of organizing society. They should have been endlessly fascinating from a narrative and thematic perspective.

The problem is that Game of Thrones basically squandered its opportunity to really explore these armies in meaningful ways. The show brought these forces into Westeros, but then largely reduced them to spectacle and numbers rather than truly examining what their presence would mean for the societies they were entering. More frustratingly, in later seasons, the show seemed almost careless about how it used these armies, in ways that contradicted everything we’d been told about what they were and how they functioned.

The Unsullied: From Terrifying Force to Cannon Fodder

When we first encounter the Unsullied, they’re presented as something genuinely frightening and unique. These are soldiers who were trained from childhood to be perfectly obedient, emotionless killing machines. They’re disciplined in a way that normal soldiers aren’t. They’re worth their weight in gold because they’re the most reliable, most skilled warriors money can buy. Daenerys liberates them by basically telling them they can be free, and her gaining their allegiance becomes one of her most significant power moves.

For a while, the Unsullied actually function narratively as this incredible force. They’re professional soldiers in a world of nobles playing at war. They don’t have the arrogance of knights or the randomness of common soldiers—they’re trained, disciplined, effective. But here’s the problem: as the show goes on, the Unsullied become less and less distinctive. They’re still called the Unsullied, and they’re still supposed to be this elite, professional force, but they’re increasingly just… an army.

When they show up in the final season, particularly in the Battle of the Bastards and the assault on the final episodes, they’ve become indistinguishable from any other army. They die in the same ways, in the same numbers, taking the same losses as any other force. The thing that made them special—their discipline, their training, their professional approach to warfare—doesn’t really seem to matter anymore. They’re just a number on the board, a force that’s useful because they exist and can be deployed.

More frustratingly, by the final season, the Unsullied go from being Daenerys’s most reliable, most loyal force to being weirdly vulnerable to just about everything. Remember how they’re supposed to be incredibly skilled soldiers? In the final season, they’re getting destroyed by soldiers who have never trained a day in their lives. The show seemed to forget what the Unsullied actually were and just treated them as casualties who could be killed in large numbers to show that battles were serious.

The Dothraki: Noble Savages to Mindless Cavalry Charge

The Dothraki are even more problematic, honestly, because the show had to navigate some serious stereotypes and tropes about “noble savages” and “barbaric horse warriors.” The Dothraki have their own culture, their own values, their own way of organizing society. They scorn walls and buildings and formal military structures. They’re warriors, yes, but they’re warriors in a way that’s fundamentally different from the ways of Westeros.

When Daenerys gains the allegiance of the Dothraki, it’s supposed to be a major deal. These are warriors who answer to no one, who reject the formal structures of Westeros. Daenerys becoming their leader is supposed to represent something significant about her ability to inspire loyalty and respect across cultures. But as the show goes on, the Dothraki become increasingly one-dimensional. They’re shown primarily in scenes where they’re either committing atrocities or dying in large numbers.

The final season’s treatment of the Dothraki is basically unforgivable from a character standpoint. In the penultimate episode, they charge directly into darkness and get absolutely slaughtered by something they can’t even see. The Dothraki, who are supposed to be tactical and observant warriors, charge blindly into an enemy force. It’s supposed to show how overwhelming the Night King’s army is, but instead it shows the Dothraki as stupid and expendable. Everything we knew about them—their skill as warriors, their tactical flexibility, their refusal to be bound by traditional rules of warfare—gets thrown out in favor of a moment of spectacle.

Even more frustratingly, the show never really seems to grapple with what it means to have these non-Westerosi forces in Westeros. The cultures clash occasionally, but usually just for a scene or two before things move on. The Dothraki don’t fundamentally change how warfare in Westeros works because the show doesn’t want to spend time exploring that. It’s easier to just have them be occasional additions to Daenerys’s army rather than revolutionary forces that would upend how Westerosi knights fight.

The Thematic Failure

Here’s what really bothers me about how the show handled these armies: they represented an opportunity to explore how different cultures and different values intersect. The Unsullied are the ultimate product of oppression and control, yet they’re portrayed as heroic once they’re fighting for Daenerys. The Dothraki are valorized as warriors but shown as brutal and unsuitable for civilized society. These are actually interesting tensions to explore, but the show mostly ignored them in favor of just having cool-looking armies appear in battles.

The show repeatedly showed that it understood these forces were supposed to be distinctive. It spent time in earlier seasons establishing what the Unsullied were and what the Dothraki were. But as the show went on and seemed increasingly focused on just getting through the plot, these armies became less like distinct cultures and more like interchangeable military units. They served whatever narrative purpose the show needed in that moment, then went back to being mostly absent.

Think about how much interesting material there could have been: the trauma of the Unsullied, formerly slaves, learning to function as free soldiers. The culture clash between Dothraki raiding culture and Westerosi concepts of honor and nobility. The way these different forces would approach siege warfare, or leadership, or concepts of loyalty. The show barely touched any of this. The Unsullied became loyal because Daenerys freed them, and that was largely it. The Dothraki followed Daenerys because she impressed them, and they mostly just appeared when the show wanted an action scene.

Spectacle Over Substance

The real issue is that the show increasingly used these armies as spectacle rather than as meaningful military and cultural forces. They’re cool to watch! Dragons burning Dothraki? Unsullied soldiers moving in formation? These are visually impressive. But visual impressiveness doesn’t substitute for character work and cultural exploration.

By the final season, the show was deploying its armies like a video game. You have X number of Unsullied, Y number of Dothraki, some dragons, and you’re going to use them to solve military problems. The show calculated how many soldiers would make Daenerys seem powerful, and that number got deployed as needed. But there’s no consideration for what these soldiers actually are, what their presence means, or what their cultural values would actually be in these situations.

The show also increasingly ignored the logistical realities of these armies. The Dothraki are nomadic warriors—what are they doing sitting around castles? The Unsullied are highly trained soldiers—why would they be used in ways that contradict their entire identity? The show wanted to have these cool armies available, but didn’t want to do the work of actually integrating them into the narrative in ways that made sense.

What Could Have Been

The best version of Game of Thrones would have gone deeper with these forces. It would have explored what it means to transplant soldiers from one culture into a completely different context. It would have shown how the Unsullied, literally trained to follow orders, would develop their own sense of agency and identity. It would have shown how the Dothraki would approach Westerosi warfare and culture and what conflicts that would create.

The story of Daenerys bringing these forces to Westeros could have been as much about cultural collision and transformation as it was about her claiming her throne. The Unsullied and Dothraki could have been not just military assets, but representatives of a different way of being in the world. Their victories and defeats could have meant something beyond just numbers on a battlefield.

Instead, the show essentially decided that having established these distinct military cultures, it could just treat them as interchangeable units whenever it needed a battle scene. That’s a failure of imagination and character work. It’s one of the show’s clearest examples of not following through on the promise of its own world-building.

The Broader Problem

The problem with Game of Thrones’ armies in later seasons is really part of a broader problem with how the show handled its world-building. The show spent early seasons establishing rules, cultures, and systems. Then, in later seasons, it increasingly seemed to ignore those rules in favor of whatever would move the plot forward most dramatically. The Unsullied and Dothraki are just the most visible example of this. They’re unique, distinctive forces that the show promised us would be important, and then the show basically decided they didn’t have to think too hard about how to use them.

Both of these armies deserved better. They deserved to be treated as more than just visual spectacle and plot conveniences. They deserved to actually function as distinct military and cultural forces within the world. And the show deserved to take the time to explore what their presence in Westeros would actually mean for a society that had never encountered anything like them before. Instead, we got cool-looking scenes of dragons and cavalry charges, and not much else. That’s not a tragedy on the level of some of the show’s other failures, but it’s a missed opportunity all the same.

When Aegon II sits on the Iron Throne, it’s immediately clear that he’s not cut out for the job. He’s weak, he’s indecisive, he’s torn between competing advisors who all want different things, and he seems to constantly retreat into substance abuse and self-medication rather than actually dealing with the monumental responsibilities that come with ruling the Seven Kingdoms during wartime. In almost any other story, this would make him a boring character—a bumbling antagonist with no real agency or compelling motivation. But House of the Dragon takes Aegon II’s fundamental inadequacy as a ruler and makes him into one of the most compelling characters on the show precisely because of his failures. He’s the anti-king, the monarch who represents everything that goes wrong when someone unfit for power gets the crown anyway.

The Weakling King Nobody Wanted

The tragedy of Aegon II’s kingship is that it’s built on something he didn’t even really want. His mother, Alicent, made the decision for him. Otto Hightower pushed it forward for dynastic reasons. His brother Aemond goes along with it because he’s a loyal supporter of the Targaryen line, or perhaps because he hopes he can guide Aegon from behind the throne. But Aegon himself? There’s never a sense that he desperately wanted to be king, that he had some burning ambition that drove him to pursue the crown. He got the crown because he was born male, because his grandfather changed his mind at the last minute, because of a bunch of decisions made by other people that Aegon had no control over.

This is actually what makes him so relatable as a character. A lot of us know what it’s like to be pushed into a role we didn’t ask for, to be told we’re supposed to be something we’re not sure we can be, to feel the weight of expectations that far exceed our actual capabilities. Aegon II is that on a cosmic scale. He’s supposed to be king of the Seven Kingdoms, and he’s fundamentally unsuited for it. He knows it, the people around him know it, and the viewer knows it from the moment he sits on the throne.

What’s brilliant about House of the Dragon’s portrayal is that it doesn’t try to make Aegon II into something he’s not. He doesn’t rise to the occasion. He doesn’t find some hidden reserve of strength and wisdom that allows him to excel despite his apparent weaknesses. Instead, he’s just… a failing king. He makes bad decisions. He listens to the wrong advisors. He relies on substances to get through the day. He does things that seem cruel not because he’s inherently cruel, but because he’s panicking and lashing out at threats he doesn’t fully understand.

The Weight of Expectation vs. The Reality of Capability

One of the central tensions of Aegon II’s character is the gap between what he’s supposed to be and what he actually is. He’s supposed to be a king, a leader, a symbol of Targaryen power and Targaryen rule. He has the blood, he has the crown, he has the throne. But he doesn’t have the temperament, the intelligence, the moral clarity, or the strength of will that a king actually needs to lead a kingdom through a civil war.

We see this most clearly in his decision-making. When faced with difficult choices, Aegon frequently chooses poorly, and not always for reasons that are inherently morally wrong—he just lacks the wisdom or foresight to understand the consequences of his actions. He’s swayed by people around him who have their own agendas. He makes impulsive decisions and then has to live with the fallout. He’s reactive rather than proactive, responding to crises rather than anticipating them.

The most striking thing about Aegon II’s kingship is that it’s probably worse for the realm than Rhaenyra’s would have been, even though Rhaenyra is presented as somewhat incompetent herself. At least Rhaenyra has advisors who are relatively competent and who generally have the kingdom’s interests at heart. Aegon II’s small council is a disaster—Otto Hightower is serving his family’s interests above the realm’s, Alicent is emotionally driven and prone to poor decision-making, and various other members are all pulling in different directions.

The Sympathetic Despot: A Tyrant Who Doesn’t Want to Tyrannize

What makes Aegon II’s character work is that he’s not a scheming despot who actively wants to cause harm. He’s not Joffrey, who was cruel and capricious for the sheer joy of it. Aegon II’s cruelty, such as it is, emerges from weakness and desperation rather than genuine malice. He doesn’t want to be a tyrant, but he also doesn’t have the competence to be a good king, so he ends up trapped somewhere in the middle—making increasingly desperate and harmful decisions as he tries to maintain control of a situation he never wanted and doesn’t understand.

There are moments where you can see Aegon II wanting to do the right thing, wanting to be a good ruler, wanting to live up to the role he’s been placed in. But he keeps failing, keeps falling short, keeps making mistakes. And as the failures accumulate, he becomes more paranoid, more reliant on his inner circle for reassurance, more willing to make harsh decisions just to prove that he’s in control even when he clearly isn’t.

This is actually more interesting, from a character perspective, than if Aegon II were simply a villain. A villain is predictable. A villain wants things. Aegon II wants to not be failing, which is a much more complicated and human motivation. His desperation to not fail becomes almost as destructive as actual malice would be, because it drives him to overreach, to make statements of power that he doesn’t actually possess, to commit acts of violence that he might later regret if he had time for self-reflection.

The Dragon Rider, The King, and The Difference Between Them

Interestingly, Aegon II appears to be a reasonably competent dragon rider, which makes his failure as a king even more pointed. When he’s on his dragon Sunfyre, he has power and agency and a clear role to play in the world. He’s good at that. But when he’s on the throne trying to make decisions about troop movements and diplomacy and governance, he’s lost. The skills that make someone a good dragon rider—physical courage, decisiveness in the moment, the ability to command a powerful creature—don’t translate to being a good king. A king needs to think about consequences beyond the immediate moment, needs to understand politics and economics and human nature, needs to be able to listen to advisors and synthesize their input into coherent policy.

Aegon II can do none of those things particularly well. He can ride a dragon, and that’s what he’s good at. Everything else is a struggle. This creates a tragic dynamic where Aegon II would probably be much happier if he could just be a prince without responsibilities, a dragon rider without the throne. His unhappiness as king is palpable, and part of what makes his character work is that you can see him struggling against a role that doesn’t fit him.

Addiction, Self-Medication, and the Escape from Reality

As Aegon II’s kingship becomes increasingly difficult, he turns more and more to alcohol and other substances to escape the weight of his position. This isn’t presented as a character flaw so much as it is as a symptom of his fundamental unsuitability for the role he’s been forced into. He’s self-medicating because reality is too painful to face without some kind of chemical buffer.

The show handles this with surprising nuance. It doesn’t judge Aegon for his substance use so much as it presents it as a logical consequence of being a weak person placed in an impossible position. If you put someone who isn’t equipped to handle extreme stress into a situation with extreme stress, they’re going to find ways to cope, and not all of those coping mechanisms are healthy. Aegon II’s turn to the bottle isn’t presented as a character choice that he could simply choose to stop; it’s presented as the understandable result of being pushed past his breaking point.

This also serves a narrative function: as Aegon II becomes more impaired, his decision-making becomes more erratic, which drives the plot forward and creates more conflict. But it’s done in a way that makes sense for the character and doesn’t require you to believe that Aegon is somehow secretly cunning or strategic. He’s just a guy who’s in over his head and drowning.

The Problem of Legitimacy and the Weakness of the Crown

Aegon II’s failure as king also raises interesting questions about legitimacy and power in the world of Game of Thrones. He has the crown because a council voted to give it to him, because his grandfather changed his will in a way that’s ambiguous and contestable, because his mother and her allies were willing to seize power. But legitimacy in Westeros isn’t just about who has the strongest claim—it’s also about whether people accept that you have a right to rule.

Aegon II’s weakness as a king undermines his legitimacy in a way that Rhaenyra’s weakness doesn’t undermine hers, or at least not in the same way. Rhaenyra has centuries of precedent behind her claim—she was named heir by the king, she’s the firstborn child of a much more respected king. Aegon II has a council vote and an ambiguous change to a will. And as he proves himself to be a weak and ineffectual king, more and more people start to question whether he really should have the crown at all. His weakness becomes a threat to his own rule.

This is actually historically accurate to how medieval monarchies worked. A king who couldn’t project strength, who couldn’t make decisions, who seemed out of control, would quickly lose support. Lords would start to question his right to rule, would start to look for alternatives, would start to actively work against him. Aegon II’s weakness as a king is directly linked to the erosion of support that allows the war against him to continue so long.

Conclusion: The Interest of Inadequacy

The reason Aegon II is such a fascinating character is precisely because he’s a terrible king. If he were competent, if he were wise, if he could rally the lords and make decisive decisions and keep his small council working together, he’d be a boring protagonist—the rightful king defending his throne against a usurper. But instead he’s a terrified, inadequate man thrust into a role he never wanted, and watching him fail in real time, watching the toll it takes on him, watching the consequences of his failure ripple out across the realm, is endlessly compelling.

Aegon II represents something important about power and privilege: sometimes the people born to lead are the ones least equipped to do it. Sometimes the accident of birth gives you everything except the thing you actually need to succeed. And sometimes the most human response to that situation is not to rise up and prove yourself worthy, but to slowly fall apart under the weight of impossible expectations. That’s what Aegon II does, and that’s what makes him interesting. He’s not a good king, but he’s an honest king, and in his honesty—his inability to fake the competence he doesn’t possess—he becomes one of the most compelling characters in House of the Dragon.

Robert Baratheon is presented in Game of Thrones as a failure. The man won a rebellion that toppled the Mad King, put himself on the Iron Throne, and then basically checked out for fifteen years. By the time the show starts, Robert is overweight, alcoholic, and clearly more interested in hunting, drinking, and philandering than in actually governing the realm. His death in Season 1 comes as a relief to everyone—nobody really expects his death to shake the kingdom, because it’s obvious that Robert has been failing as a king for his entire reign. But what if things had been different? What if Robert Baratheon had actually been competent at his job and cared about doing it well? How different would Westeros look?

The Beginning: A King with Potential

Let’s start with the fact that Robert wasn’t actually destined to be a failure. He was a legitimate war hero who had just defeated one of the most oppressive regimes in Westerosi history. The Mad King had driven the realm into chaos, burned people alive, and created a climate of fear and paranoia. Robert’s rebellion was framed as liberation. He had every opportunity to be seen as a reformer and a hero king.

The early period of Robert’s reign actually had potential. He had Ned Stark as his Hand—a man he clearly trusted and respected. He had capable people around him, or at least, he had people he could have relied on if he’d chosen to. He had a kingdom that was, by post-rebellion standards, relatively stable. Nobody was actively trying to overthrow him at the beginning. The realm was exhausted by war and would have been willing to accept his rule if he’d given them reason to.

But Robert checked out. Instead of using his position as king to build something, he basically used his position as an excuse to avoid responsibility. He went hunting, he drank, he slept with anyone willing. And he married for political reasons—marrying Cersei Lannister to secure the Lannister’s loyalty and their wealth. That marriage was specifically designed to be a political alliance that would strengthen his reign. What if it had worked? What if Robert and Cersei had actually tried to make it a real partnership?

The Lannister Question

If Robert had been a good king, one of the most significant changes would have been in his relationship with Cersei. Instead of checking out of his marriage and going off to hunt and drink, imagine if Robert had actually invested in his role as king and husband. Cersei is ambitious and manipulative, yes, but she’s also desperately unhappy in the show partly because Robert openly despises her and ignores her in favor of his various mistresses and hunting trips.

If Robert had treated Cersei with respect, taken his marriage seriously, and invested in building a partnership with her, things would have been very different. Cersei doesn’t hate Robert primarily for personal reasons—she hates him because he humiliated her by openly taking lovers, by showing no interest in her, by making it clear that his marriage to her was purely political. She hates him for being a bad husband, not for being intrinsically evil. If Robert had been a present, respectful partner, even if he didn’t love her, Cersei would have had no reason to betray him.

This means no affair with Jaime. No bastard children pretending to be legitimate Baratheon heirs. No justification for Cersei to conspire against Robert. The entire political crisis of Season 1 starts because Robert has bastard children with other women that he acknowledges, making it obvious that his legitimate children aren’t actually his. If Robert had kept his affairs discreet or, better yet, refrained from them out of respect for his marriage, then the succession would have looked legitimate to the realm, even if we in the audience might have wondered about the kids’ parentage.

The Stability Effect

Here’s what a competent Robert could have achieved: actual stability. Not total peace—there would still be conflicts, still be power struggles, still be people ambitious for the throne. But Robert could have prevented the specific cascading disasters that plague the realm throughout the series. He could have prevented the War of the Five Kings by not dying at a convenient moment when there was no clear, stable succession. He could have prevented his own descent into debt and desperation.

More importantly, a good king in Westeros would have been able to use his throne to make the realm actually function better. Robert had the opportunity to reform the system. He could have weakened the absolute power of the nobility while strengthening the crown. He could have invested in infrastructure, in agriculture, in building a more stable economy. He could have worked to reduce corruption and bribery. He could have strengthened the Night’s Watch and paid attention to threats beyond the Wall. He had the institutional power to do basically anything he wanted.

The realm was devastated by the Mad King’s reign and the rebellion that followed. There was literally a need for rebuilding and reform. Robert could have positioned himself as the king who fixed what the Mad King broke. Instead, he left the system in place, allowed it to fester with corruption, and basically hoped nobody would try to kill him or take his throne. This is not a governance strategy.

The North and the Starks

One of the interesting dynamics in the show is the relationship between Robert and Ned Stark. They’re friends, they won the rebellion together, but by the time the show starts, they’re living very different lives. Robert is throwing himself into excess while Ned is staying in the North, governing responsibly, and maintaining the old values of the land.

If Robert had actually been a good king, his relationship with Ned would have been a genuine partnership in governing the realm. Ned would have had a Hand’s role that actually mattered, where his counsel was genuinely valued. Robert could have trusted Ned not just as a friend but as a political partner. Instead, Robert treats his role as Hand as this thing that Ned has to do while Robert does the fun part of being king (which, in Robert’s mind, means not having to deal with the boring governance part).

A better Robert might have even listened to Ned’s warnings about threats in the North. He might have actually invested resources into strengthening the Wall and the Night’s Watch. He might have treated the ancient institutions that Ned cares about as actually important, rather than as relics of the past. The relationship could have been deeper and more genuinely equal.

The Tyrion Problem

Here’s something interesting: in a realm where Robert is actually governing and maintaining his marriage to Cersei, Tyrion’s position would be very different. Tyrion is in King’s Landing partly because Cersei feels insecure and threatened in her marriage, and partly because Tywin is trying to position the Lannisters for maximum power and influence. But if Cersei wasn’t driven by desperation and betrayal, and if the king was actually competent and commanding respect, the Lannisters might not have felt the need to make their power play.

This doesn’t mean Tyrion wouldn’t still end up in King’s Landing—his father would likely still position him there for influence. But the political situation would be very different. A competent Robert would have been much harder for Tywin to manipulate. Robert might not have allowed himself to be maneuvered into trusting Littlefinger implicitly. Robert might not have been desperate for money, so Littlefinger’s schemes to put him in debt wouldn’t have worked the same way.

The Broader Implications

When you actually think through how different things would be if Robert had been a good, engaged king, it becomes clear that basically everything that happens in the show flows from his refusal to govern. The War of the Five Kings happens because the realm is unstable and nobody is confident in the succession. Tyrion ends up being central to events partly because nobody else is governing effectively. The Lannisters make their power move partly because they can see that the crown is weak and vulnerable.

A competent Robert creates a very different political landscape. The realm would be more stable, more organized, more capable of resisting external threats. More importantly, Robert would be the king actually making decisions, rather than making way for other people to make decisions in his absence. This doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be conflicts—noble houses would still be ambitious, people would still want power. But the framework would be different.

The Missed Opportunity

What’s tragic about Robert Baratheon as a character is that he had everything he needed to be a great king, and he actively chose not to be. He had the position, the power, the respect of the people, allies in important places. He had just won a war and could have rebuilt the realm in whatever image he wanted. Instead, he abdicated his responsibility and spent his time hunting and drinking.

The show presents Robert as someone who’s good at winning wars but bad at peace. That’s certainly part of it—Robert is a warrior king, and he’s probably not naturally inclined toward the administrative work of governance. But he also never really tries. He delegates everything to Ned and then gets upset when Ned does things in a way that Robert doesn’t like. He surrounds himself with incompetent and corrupt people rather than seeking out the best people for the job.

If Robert had invested just a fraction of the effort into being king that he invested into avoiding the job, he would have been a genuinely great king. He had the personality to command respect, the resources to enforce his will, and the legitimacy to rule. He could have been a reformer. He could have been someone who actually fixed the systemic problems that were destroying the realm. Instead, he ran away from the job and hoped nobody would notice while he hunted and drank.

The Butterfly Effect

The fascinating thing about imagining a competent Robert is understanding how much of the entire plot of Game of Thrones is contingent on him being incompetent. The death of Jon Arryn happens partly because Jon is trying to actually do the Hand’s job and discovers secrets that Cersei doesn’t want discovered. The death of Robert himself happens partly because he’s out hunting, drunk, and not paying attention. The crisis of succession happens because he dies without a clear, stable line of succession that everyone believes in. Almost every major event of the series is somehow connected to Robert’s failure to actually be a king.

In a Westeros where Robert had been competent, engaged, and actually interested in governing, the story would be almost unrecognizably different. The Starks might not have come south. Daenerys might have faced a much stronger, more organized opposition when she eventually tried to claim the throne. The entire political landscape would have been reordered around a functioning central government rather than a power vacuum.

Robert Baratheon is one of the most important characters in Game of Thrones not because he does anything memorable—he doesn’t—but because his failure to govern creates all of the conditions that make the conflict happen. He’s the king that the realm didn’t deserve, not because he was evil or malicious, but because he was absent. He was given an opportunity to be great, and he threw it away in favor of hunting and drinking. That’s the real tragedy of Robert Baratheon: not that he was a bad man, but that he was a man who had everything and chose nothing.

One of the great achievements of House of the Dragon is that it makes both sides of the civil war feel justified in their own eyes and in the eyes of the viewer. You can watch the show and come away thinking Rhaenyra was robbed and deserved the throne, or you can watch it and think the Greens had legitimate reasons to support Aegon’s claim. Both positions are defensible based on what actually happens in the story. Yet in popular discourse about the show, Team Green often gets painted as simply villainous, as if they were obviously wrong and morally bankrupt from the start. This is a disservice to the character work the show does and to the actual complexity of the legal and political arguments that drive the Dance of the Dragons. Let’s steelman the Greens’ case, because honestly, they’re not nearly as wrong as people think.

The Precedent Problem: Why Rhaenyra’s Claim Isn’t as Ironclad as It Seems

The fundamental issue that gives the Greens their opening is this: there is no clear precedent in the history of the Seven Kingdoms for a woman ruling in her own right. Daenerys doesn’t come along for hundreds of years, and by the time she does, she’s claiming thrones that were technically never hers and ruling in a place that isn’t the Seven Kingdoms. So when Viserys names Rhaenyra as his heir, he’s doing something without precedent, something that no king of the Seven Kingdoms has done before. This matters, because medieval and quasi-medieval monarchies rely heavily on precedent.

The Greens’ argument is essentially this: the realm has inherited laws and customs about succession, and those laws and customs strongly favor male heirs. Yes, Viserys named Rhaenyra as his heir, but a king can change his mind. More importantly, many would argue that a king doesn’t have the absolute right to overturn centuries of precedent for personal reasons. If Viserys wanted to break with tradition, he would need a compelling reason that the entire realm could accept, and “I have a daughter I like better than my son” isn’t quite that reason.

When Alicent claims that Viserys changed his mind on his deathbed and wanted Aegon to be king, is she definitely lying? Well, she might be. But there’s also a genuine possibility that Viserys was trying to find a way to break the succession deadlock he’d created. The show leaves this genuinely ambiguous, which is exactly what makes it so interesting. The Greens’ claim isn’t that Viserys definitely wanted Aegon to be king. It’s that the written succession law of the realm says that Aegon, as the male heir, has a legitimate claim, and that if there’s any doubt about what Viserys wanted, the realm’s established laws should take precedence over a deathbed deathbed that may or may not have happened.

This is actually a reasonable legal argument. If you’re a lord of the Seven Kingdoms and you believe that the succession law of the realm says that Aegon should be king, then supporting Aegon doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you someone who believes in the rule of law over the rule of personal preference.

The Stability Argument: Why the Realm Might Actually Be Better Off With Aegon

Here’s something that doesn’t get discussed enough in the Team Rhaenyra vs. Team Green discourse: the Greens have a legitimate argument that their version of the succession would have been more stable for the realm, at least in theory. A male king, even a weak one, is less likely to face challenges to his legitimacy than a female king would be, especially a female king who’s already controversial for other reasons (like being passed over for the throne once, then suddenly claiming it again).

The Greens could argue: yes, Rhaenyra was named heir. But she married Laenor Velaryon, a man with his own claim to House Targaryen through his mother. Her children are his children. Even though we know Laenor is probably not the father of her children, the lords of the realm wouldn’t know that, and it would create questions about the legitimacy of the line. Whereas Aegon, as a full Targaryen trueborn male, doesn’t have any of those complications. His children will be unquestionably legitimate. His line will be unquestionably Targaryen.

From a purely strategic standpoint, if you believe that the stability of the realm matters more than any individual person’s desires, the Greens’ position is defensible. They’re arguing for a king who will face fewer challenges, face fewer questions about legitimacy, face fewer opportunities for lords to rebel. And they’re right that in a medieval-style monarchy, legitimacy matters enormously. A king who’s questioned is a king who’s at risk.

The Personal Betrayal: Why Alicent Isn’t Just Being Crazy

A lot of people interpret Alicent’s decision to support Aegon’s claim as a betrayal based on a misunderstanding of Viserys’s last words. And maybe that’s true. But even if Alicent is completely sincere in her belief that Viserys changed his mind, there’s another layer to her motivation that’s worth examining. Alicent has been promised something her entire life: her son would be king. She married Viserys and had his children with the explicit understanding that her son would inherit the throne. And then Viserys decided to change the rules, to leave her son with nothing, to give everything to his daughter from a previous marriage.

From Alicent’s perspective, this is a betrayal of staggering proportions. She’s spent her entire life as a support system for Viserys. She’s had children with him. She’s bore a son who was supposed to be the future of the realm. And in the end, that all gets taken away because Viserys developed a preference for his daughter. You can argue that Alicent should have just accepted this, should have been gracious about being set aside, should have understood that Viserys has the right to change the succession as he sees fit. But you can also understand why she didn’t. She lost everything, and she wanted to save something for her children.

This isn’t an argument for Alicent’s actions being good or right. It’s an argument for them being understandable. She’s a woman who played by all the rules, who did everything right, and who got punished for it anyway when those rules changed. Is it any wonder that she decided to fight back?

The Problem of a Female King in a Patriarchal World

Let’s be blunt: the Seven Kingdoms is a patriarchal society. It’s not equal. Men hold more power, more prestige, more authority. The great houses are traditionally ruled by men. The history of the realm is the history of men making decisions and women supporting them. This doesn’t make it good, but it’s the world that both Team Green and Team Black are operating in.

The Greens could legitimately argue that putting a woman on the throne isn’t going to work in a world that’s fundamentally hostile to female authority. They could argue that Rhaenyra will face constant challenges to her authority, constant questions about whether she’s capable, constant resistance from lords who believe she shouldn’t be ruling at all. They could argue that Aegon, as a man, will be more readily accepted, will have an easier time commanding authority, will face fewer obstacles.

Is this sexist? Yes, absolutely. But it’s also a realistic assessment of how their patriarchal society functions. And if your goal is the stability and welfare of the realm, then choosing a king who will face fewer obstacles, even if those obstacles are rooted in sexism, could be seen as the pragmatic choice.

This is why the show’s treatment of Rhaenyra and female kingship is so interesting. It shows that yes, the Greens’ warnings about the difficulties of a female ruler do have some basis in reality. Rhaenyra does face constant challenges. She does have to work harder to command authority. She does have some lords who refuse to support her because of her gender. The Greens’ pessimism about her chances isn’t baseless; it’s rooted in how their world actually works.

The Disrespect Issue: Why the Greens Feel Legitimately Insulted

Part of the Greens’ case is also emotional and personal, and it’s worth acknowledging even if you don’t think it’s the most important factor. Rhaenyra, after being passed over for the throne, goes off to Dragonstone, has children with Laenor, builds her own power base, and essentially acts like a pretender to the throne. From the Greens’ perspective, she’s being disrespectful to Aegon, who is the legally crowned king. She’s not content to be a princess. She wants the crown.

The Greens feel like Rhaenyra is being ungrateful and disrespectful by not accepting the result of the council vote. They feel like she’s putting her personal desires above the good of the realm. They feel like she’s willing to tear the kingdom apart just because she didn’t get what she wanted. And these are fair feelings to have, even if we might disagree with how the Greens act on them.

This ties back to the precedent argument. The Greens could say: even if we’re sympathetic to Rhaenyra’s claim, she accepted Aegon as king. The council voted, and she accepted the result. Now she’s changing her mind and starting a war. From the Greens’ perspective, this is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the council’s decision. If they accept that the realm’s laws matter, then they have to support Aegon, even if they might have sympathy for Rhaenyra’s original claim.

The Military Reality: The Greens Had the Stronger Position Initially

Here’s something else that gets overlooked: at the start of the war, Team Green had the stronger military position. They had the throne. They had the capital. They had more of the major houses pledged to them. From a purely strategic standpoint, supporting Aegon was supporting the side that was more likely to win. The Greens weren’t crazy idealists fighting for a hopeless cause; they were supporting what seemed like the obviously stronger position.

This matters because it changes the nature of the Greens’ choice. They’re not fighting for an underdog who they believe in despite the odds. They’re supporting the side that’s already in power and has the advantage. This is actually the more pragmatic choice if you’re a lord trying to figure out which side to join. You join the side that’s more likely to win because that’s the side you want to be on when the war is over. The Greens can legitimately say that they’re supporting the king who’s already on the throne, the king who controls the capital, the king who has the most military support.

Conclusion: The Validity of the Greens’ Position

The point of this exercise isn’t to say that the Greens are actually right, or that they’re good people, or that their actions are justified. The point is that their position in the succession debate is far more defensible than popular discourse often acknowledges. They have legal arguments, they have precedent arguments, they have pragmatic arguments about stability and female rule in a patriarchal society. They’re not simply villains who are obviously wrong; they’re people operating with a different set of priorities and different interpretations of the law.

This is what makes House of the Dragon work so well. Both sides feel like they could be right, depending on which principles you prioritize. If you believe the rule of law matters more than individual preference, Team Green has a point. If you believe that Viserys’s explicit choice to name Rhaenyra as his heir should be respected, then Team Red has a point. If you believe that stability is more important than justice, Team Green’s position is defensible. If you believe that justice is more important than stability, then Team Red’s position is defensible.

The Greens aren’t heroes, but they’re not simply villains either. They’re people with legitimate grievances and defensible positions who make increasingly bad choices in pursuit of those positions. That complexity is what makes them interesting, and it’s also what makes the entire story of House of the Dragon richer and more compelling than it would be if one side was obviously right and the other was obviously wrong.

There’s something deeply romantic about the idea of a tournament, isn’t there? The pageantry, the clash of lances, the roar of the crowd, the chance for a nobody to become a somebody in a single afternoon of glory. George R.R. Martin knows this, which is exactly why he chose the Ashford Tourney as the setting for his Dunk and Egg novellas. This tournament isn’t just the backdrop for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — it’s the entire reason the story exists, the catalyst that throws our unlikely protagonist into a world he’s barely equipped to handle. So let’s break down what makes the Ashford Tourney such a crucial and compelling event in the Game of Thrones universe.

A Tournament Like No Other

The Ashford Tourney is held to celebrate the marriage of Lord Ashford’s daughter, Alysanne, to one Ser Elyas Swann. It’s the kind of social event where the entire nobility of the Reach gathers to show off their finest knights, their best armor, their most impressive horses, and generally demonstrate their place in the feudal hierarchy. These tournaments serve a practical purpose beyond mere entertainment — they’re where young knights make their names, where established lords flex their military muscles, and where political alliances are forged or broken depending on who wins and who loses.

What makes the Ashford Tourney special, though, is that it’s structured as a traditional competition with the champion of each day facing a fresh challenger from a pool of increasingly impressive knights. This isn’t just a standard joust where everyone pairs off. This is a grinding, day-after-day battle of attrition where the same knight might face four or five opponents before getting a chance to rest. It’s exhausting, it’s brutal, and it’s perfect for testing the mettle of the competitors. For Dunk, an essentially unknown knight with a squire young enough to be his son, it’s an absolutely daunting challenge. He’s not competing against one or two skilled opponents. He’s going to face the cream of chivalry, the most respected knights in all of Westeros.

The Lineup: Who Shows Up and Why

What makes the tournament so compelling from a narrative standpoint is the incredible lineup of knights who show up to compete. This isn’t some regional tournament where a few decent lords bring their household knights. This is a major event that attracts genuine legends of the realm. We’re talking about Ser Barristan Selmy, who would go on to become one of the greatest knights who ever lived. We’re talking about the Kingsguard, including Ser Oswell Whent. We’ve got Prince Baelor Targaryen himself, the heir to the throne, showing up to prove his chivalry. There’s Ser Steffon Seaworth, the father of the famous Davos Seaworth from the main Game of Thrones timeline.

The roster is so loaded with talent that it seems almost impossible for someone like Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight with more muscle than experience, to have any chance whatsoever. And that’s exactly the point. The tournament isn’t really about Dunk’s realistic chances of winning. It’s about his audacity in entering at all, his determination to prove that birth and lineage don’t determine worth, and his willingness to take on genuinely legendary opponents in the pursuit of becoming a true knight.

Each knight who enters brings their own story, their own agenda, their own connection to the broader politics of Westeros. Some are there to support the crown. Some are there to demonstrate their power in the Reach. Some are there for glory, some for honor, and some just because their lords ordered them to show up. The tournament becomes a microcosm of the political tensions that would eventually tear Westeros apart.

The Reality of Medieval Combat

One of the things that makes Martin’s portrayal of the Ashford Tourney so effective is how grounded he keeps the combat. These aren’t fantasy battles with magic and dragons. These are men in heavy armor, mounted on horses, trying to either knock each other off those horses or smash their way through plate steel with lances and swords. By modern standards, it sounds clunky and almost comical, but the actual danger and difficulty of tournament combat becomes abundantly clear through Dunk’s eyes.

The physical toll is real. A full day of jousting, where a knight might face three or four different opponents, leaves a person absolutely battered. Even winning a joust can leave you nursing broken ribs or a separated shoulder. Lose, and you might suffer a concussion, a shattered collarbone, or in the worst cases, a lance through the throat. Martin doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of this violence. Knights retire from competition because they’re simply too injured to continue. Some die. The tournament’s glory has a price paid in pain and sometimes in blood.

For Dunk, the physical challenge is compounded by the fact that he’s facing knights with far more experience, better equipment, and horses that are probably worth more than everything Dunk owns combined. Yet there’s something beautiful about watching him compete anyway. He’s not going to win through superior skill or knowledge. He’s going to win, if he wins at all, through sheer determination, strength, and heart. It’s the underdog narrative that Martin does so well, and the Ashford Tourney is where he establishes that Dunk’s heart is genuinely genuine.

The Political Stage

Beyond the fighting itself, the Ashford Tourney serves as an essential political event. The king is present. The heir to the throne is competing. Great lords from across the realm are watching and assessing. Marriages are being discussed, alliances are being formed or strained, and the balance of power in Westeros is being subtly adjusted through conversations at feasts and in private pavilions.

For viewers of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the tournament provides essential context for understanding the state of the realm during this era. We can see how the Targaryen monarchy functions, who the great powers are, what the tensions are between different regions and houses. We can understand the prestige of knighthood because we’re watching genuinely worthy men compete for honor and renown. The tournament isn’t just action and excitement. It’s a chance to understand the politics, culture, and values of Westeros through the lens of one of its most important social institutions.

The Human Element

What ultimately makes the Ashford Tourney so memorable isn’t just the combat or the politics, though. It’s the human element. We get to know the squires, the servants, the lesser knights who are hoping for their big chance. We get to see how Egg, Dunk’s young squire, interacts with the world and grows throughout the tournament. We get to understand what it means to Dunk personally to compete at this level, to prove himself, to carve out a place for himself in a world that didn’t necessarily invite him in.

The tournament is also where Dunk meets the woman he’s fascinated by, where he makes enemies, where he gains respect from unexpected quarters. The tournament changes him, not because he wins — though his accomplishments are impressive — but because he experiences something greater than himself. He’s part of something historic, something that matters, and that transforms his understanding of who he is and what he’s capable of.

A Timeless Template

The Ashford Tourney endures as a centerpiece of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms because it combines everything that makes the Dunk and Egg stories so appealing. It’s got combat and physical challenge. It’s got political intrigue and grand themes. It’s got character development and emotional resonance. It’s got the clash between idealism and harsh reality. Most importantly, it’s got a genuine sense of stakes. Bad things happen. Good people die. The consequences matter.

For fans of Game of Thrones, the Ashford Tourney also provides a fascinating window into a different era of Westeros. This is the realm before the Targaryen decline, before the Rebellion that toppled the dynasty, before most of the events of the main series. Watching how the kingdom functions during this relatively stable period makes the eventual collapse feel even more tragic.

The Ashford Tourney isn’t just an event in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It’s the beating heart of the entire novella series, and understanding what makes it work is essential to understanding why these stories have captivated readers and audiences for years. It’s a tournament like any other, and it’s a tournament unlike anything else in Westeros. It’s where legends are made and where a hedge knight named Duncan finds his place in history.

Criston Cole is one of House of the Dragon’s most compelling characters precisely because he’s so easy to hate. He’s the man who started out as an honorable knight and gradually transformed himself into something far darker—not through one dramatic moment of betrayal, but through a series of small compromises and self-deceptions that added up until the decent man was completely unrecognizable. He’s the guy you can’t take your eyes off of even though you desperately want to look away, because watching him spiral is genuinely fascinating in its tragedy.

What makes Criston Cole work as a character is that his transformation feels inevitable but not predetermined. We understand every step of his decline. We can see the logic behind his choices even when we’re horrified by them. He’s not born evil; he becomes evil through the accumulation of hurt, betrayal, and his own terrible decision-making. And somehow, against all odds, the show manages to make us sympathize with him while also making it clear that he doesn’t deserve our sympathy.

The Honorable Knight in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Criston Cole starts out as a genuinely decent person. He’s the son of a steward, not a lord, which means he has no claim to any power or prestige. He earned his position through talent and hard work. He becomes a knight through merit, through being good at what he does. He’s honorable, principled, and he takes his vows seriously. When he takes an oath as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, he means it. When he swears to protect the king, he’s not swearing to something he plans to betray the moment something better comes along.

The problem is that Criston Cole is too principled, too rigid in his honor code, too unwilling to bend for practical considerations. When Rhaenyra seduces him—and let’s be clear, that’s what happens, she actively seduces him in a moment of weakness—he’s not just dealing with the shame of having broken his oath. He’s dealing with the impossibility of his situation. He loves Rhaenyra, she’s a princess and the heir to the throne, and there’s no possible outcome where their relationship can be anything but destructive to both of them.

Rhaenyra wants him to run away with her, to abandon everything, to become her secret lover. But Criston knows that’s not actually an option. If he runs, he’s a oath-breaker and a coward. If he stays and hides the relationship, he’s living a lie. If he stays and comes clean, he’s dishonoring the king and the Kingsguard. There’s literally no choice available to him that doesn’t involve some form of profound shame.

What makes this moment so crucial to understanding Criston’s character is that he chooses suicide over exile or hiding. He decides that the most honorable thing he can do is refuse to live as an oath-breaker. He’s going to kill himself rather than continue existing in a state of dishonor. And it’s Rhaenyra who talks him out of it, not by offering him a real solution, but by offering him the chance for vengeance. She says, essentially: if you can’t have me, help my family win the throne and then maybe, eventually, you’ll get your due.

This moment is pivotal. Criston Cole doesn’t become evil because of Rhaenyra rejecting him, though that’s certainly part of it. He becomes someone willing to compromise his principles because he’s been given permission to do so by the person he loves. If Rhaenyra had simply rejected him and left him to figure it out on his own, maybe he would have gone through with his suicide plan or found some other honorable way to deal with his shame. But instead, she gives him a path forward that’s built on revenge and the promise of future reward. And Criston, desperate for some way to make meaning out of his shame, takes it.

The Kingmaker: When a Sworn Sword Becomes a Political Player

After his betrayal of Rhaenyra—because that’s what it is, even though he framed it as self-preservation—Criston Cole finds a new role in the world. He becomes essential to Alicent’s plans. He’s the man who can command the Kingsguard, who can advise the king, who can use his military experience to shape strategy. Suddenly, a man who started out as nobody has genuine power and influence.

This is where Criston really becomes dangerous. He’s no longer just a knight serving the crown; he’s a political player, a kingmaker, a man whose opinion shapes policy. And here’s the thing about Criston Cole: he’s not actually that good at politics. He’s good at violence, he’s good at loyalty, but he’s not strategic in the way that someone like Otto Hightower is. His advice tends to be driven by his personal grievances rather than by what’s actually best for the realm.

The cruelty emerges not all at once but gradually, as Criston realizes that he has power and as he uses that power to hurt the people he feels have wronged him. He becomes increasingly cruel to Rhaenyra’s supporters. He commits war crimes in the name of defending the crown. He revels in violence in a way that feels personal rather than professional. And the show does a brilliant job of showing how his justified anger at Rhaenyra’s rejection transforms into this much broader, much more destructive rage that extends to everyone associated with her.

What’s particularly chilling about Criston’s arc is how he rationalizes his cruelty. He tells himself that he’s doing what’s necessary for the realm, that he’s being firm, that he’s protecting the king. But you can see underneath it all that he’s being driven by his wounded pride and his desire for revenge. He’s using his position of power to punish people for wrongs that, in many cases, they didn’t actually commit.

The Duality: Duty and Desire Pulling in Different Directions

One of the most interesting things about Criston Cole’s character is that he never fully commits to the idea that he’s become a bad person. He’s always trying to reconcile his actions with his self-image as an honorable knight. He tells himself that he’s serving the crown, protecting the realm, doing what’s necessary. But there’s a duality there that the show captures beautifully: Criston knows, on some level, that he’s become exactly the thing he always despised. He’s a man driven by personal desire rather than duty, except his personal desire is now wrapped up in the language of duty so thoroughly that even he can’t separate them anymore.

This is what makes Criston Cole so compelling. He’s neither a villain who owns his villainy nor a hero in denial. He’s something more complicated: a man who was capable of being good, who chose not to be, and who has spent every moment since trying to convince himself that he made the right choice. He’s trapped in a loop of self-justification and rationalization that only deepens his spiral into darkness.

The tragedy is that if anyone had told Criston Cole, early on, that this is who he would become, he would have been horrified. He would have insisted that he’d never do these things, never become this cruel, never abandon his principles. But he did, step by step, compromise by compromise, until the man he became was unrecognizable.

The Outsider Complex: Why Criston Always Needs Someone to Blame

A lot of Criston Cole’s behavior can be traced back to his original position as an outsider. He’s not a lord, not a nobleman, not someone born into power or prestige. He had to earn everything he achieved, which gives him a kind of bitterness toward people like Rhaenyra who were born with power and seem to take it for granted. There’s class resentment embedded in his character, a sense that the system is rigged against people like him, that the nobility will always win no matter what.

When Rhaenyra rejects him, it feels like confirmation of his worst fears: that no matter how much he achieves, he’ll never be enough for someone like her. He’s a knight, but not a noble knight. He’s accomplished, but his accomplishments don’t matter because he doesn’t have the right birth. This feeds into his willingness to support the Greens, because the Greens are, in many ways, more like him than Rhaenyra is. They’re people who have to fight for power and respect rather than people who are handed everything.

But here’s the thing: Criston’s class resentment, while real and understandable, is also something he uses to justify increasingly bad behavior. He tells himself that he’s fighting back against a corrupt system, but he’s really just using the system to take power from the people who hurt him. He becomes exactly what he resented when he was at the bottom: an abuser of power, someone who uses his position to hurt people, someone who treats people as less-than because of where they come from.

The Body Count: When Honor Becomes Brutality

As the show progresses and the war heats up, Criston Cole’s body count grows. And it’s notable that many of his victims are people who don’t strictly need to die for military or strategic reasons. They die because Criston wants them to die, because he wants to punish them, because he wants to prove something about his power and his will.

The scene where Criston kills a captured knight in what amounts to a street fight, violating the sacred traditions of chivalry, is a perfect encapsulation of how far he’s fallen. There was a time when Criston Cole would have died before violating those traditions. Now he’s smashing a man’s head repeatedly, not out of military necessity, but out of rage. And the other knights don’t stop him. They watch, and by watching, they implicitly accept his behavior as normal.

This is how institutional corruption happens. One person commits an atrocity, and if nobody stops them immediately, it becomes normalized. Criston commits increasingly brutal acts, and each time he gets away with it, the next act becomes easier. He’s not being constrained by his oath or his honor because those things have become flexible enough to accommodate whatever he wants to do.

The Inevitability of His Fall

By the end of Criston Cole’s arc, there’s a sense of inevitability about his trajectory. He was always heading toward this moment, from the instant he allowed himself to love Rhaenyra and allowed that love to be weaponized against her. He made choices that seemed reasonable at the time but that added up to a complete transformation of his character.

What’s fascinating is that Criston himself seems to know, on some level, how this ends. There’s a fatalism to his character in the later seasons, a sense that he’s chosen his path and is now committed to walking it to its conclusion. He’s not trying to be good anymore. He’s not trying to balance his duties with his desires. He’s just trying to win, to punish his enemies, to consolidate power, to prove that his choice to support the Greens was the right one.

The tragedy is that he’s probably right—the Greens almost certainly need him more than the Blacks do. Without Criston Cole’s military skill and his willingness to commit atrocities, the Green forces would probably have fallen much faster. He’s essential to keeping their side of the war going. But that essential quality comes at the cost of his soul, and the show doesn’t shy away from showing that cost.

Conclusion: The Compelling Villain We Love to Hate

Criston Cole is the most hated man in Westeros because he represents something deeply uncomfortable: the ordinariness of evil. He’s not a man who was born evil or who was shaped by obviously traumatic circumstances into becoming evil. He’s a decent person who made bad choices and then spent the rest of his life compounding those bad choices with worse ones. He’s someone we can understand, someone whose logic we can follow, someone whose pain we can sympathize with, even as we’re horrified by what he does with that pain.

The show’s genius is in never letting us completely hate Criston or completely sympathize with him. We’re always holding both feelings at the same time: the understanding that he’s become a monster, and the knowledge that he didn’t have to be. He had choices, and he chose wrong, and now he’s trapped in the consequences of those choices, using violence and power to try to make the pain go away.

That’s what makes him compelling television. He’s not a villain in the comic book sense, someone who wants to hurt people and enjoys it. He’s a villain in the Shakespearean sense, someone whose flaws lead him progressively toward his doom, someone whose every attempt to fix things makes them worse, someone whose tragedy is that he can see the cliff he’s falling off of but can’t quite manage to stop himself from falling. And that’s far more interesting, far more compelling, far more haunting than any simple villain could ever be.

Let’s be honest: Game of Thrones is not known for its healthy relationships. The show features some of the most dysfunctional, tragic, and outright dangerous couples ever committed to television. But that’s kind of the point, right? This is a show where betrayal, violence, and heartbreak are as common as feasts and swords. Still, scattered throughout eight seasons of medieval political intrigue and magical chaos, there are relationships that actually manage to be touching, compelling, or at the very least more functional than the disaster marriages that dominate the series. So let’s rank the major couples of Game of Thrones, from the ones that actually make you believe in love to the ones that make you want to lock your doors and check for poison.

Tier S: The Good Ones (Relatively Speaking)

Sam and Gilly take the top spot, and yes, I’m fully aware that they’re objectively the healthiest couple on the entire show. Their relationship is built on genuine affection, respect, and kindness—three things that are vanishingly rare in Westeros. Sam loves Gilly not because of politics or duty or lust, but because he sees her, really sees her, and cares about her wellbeing. Gilly loves Sam because he saved her from literal slavery and treats her like a person rather than an object. They have actual conversations. They support each other. They don’t scheme or betray or manipulate. In the context of Game of Thrones, this is basically a fairy tale. The fact that their relationship is so refreshingly normal in a sea of dysfunction actually says something important about how broken the world of Westeros is. These two could never survive on the political stage, which is partly why they’re so likeable. They’re good people in a world that punishes goodness.

Tormund and Brienne, or more accurately Tormund’s unrequited crush on Brienne, is surprisingly endearing. Tormund falls for her completely, honestly, and with genuine admiration for her as a warrior and a person. Brienne obviously doesn’t return his feelings, but the show treats his love with respect rather than mockery. It’s one-sided, sure, but it’s also kind of beautiful in its sincerity. And honestly, if Brienne were the type of person to fall for Tormund, it would actually be a pretty great match. They’re both warriors, both straightforward, both capable of genuine loyalty. The fact that it doesn’t work out is sad, but at least there’s no toxicity there, no games, just honest feelings that don’t align.

Davos and Shireen, while strictly paternal rather than romantic, deserves a mention here because their relationship is one of the most genuinely loving and uncomplicated on the show. Davos cares for Shireen with a pure, protective love that asks nothing of her except to be happy and safe. There’s no agenda, no manipulation, just a gruff old man and a smart young girl who adore each other. It’s heartbreaking because Shireen’s fate is tragic, but it’s also beautiful because what they had, however brief, was real and good.

Tier A: Pretty Good, Actually

Ned and Catelyn Stark make this tier because, despite everything, their marriage is actually based on respect and affection. Ned doesn’t love Catelyn the way he loved Lyanna—he’s honest about that (or he would be, if he ever actually talked about his feelings, which he doesn’t)—but he respects her, treats her as an equal in governing, and never cheats on her. Catelyn is fiercely loyal to her family and would do anything for her children. Yes, they have conflicts, and yes, their marriage is complicated by Ned’s secrets, but fundamentally they’re on the same team. They’re partners trying to raise their children right in a world that makes that increasingly impossible. By Game of Thrones standards, that’s actually quite lovely.

Margaery and her various suitors, while obviously opportunistic on Margaery’s part, are notable for being free of genuine animosity. Margaery married Renly knowing he didn’t love her romantically, married Joffrey while clearly unimpressed by him, and married Tommen while maintaining her political edge. She never seems to expect romance from these men; she seems to approach marriage as a transaction, which is honest in its own way. She’s not pining for love; she’s securing her position. And the men involved, despite their flaws, aren’t violent or cruel to her in the way many Westerosi husbands are to their wives. She got as good as she could possibly get in medieval Westeros.

Tier B: Complicated But Compelling

Jaime and Brienne occupy this weird space where they have genuine chemistry and affection for each other, but also enormous external obstacles and complicated personal histories. Jaime spends most of his arc being a narcissistic, privileged asshole who happens to be stunningly attractive and charming. Brienne is a woman trying to find honor and meaning in a world that constantly tells her she doesn’t belong. They develop respect for each other despite (or because of) their differences. There’s attraction there, definitely, but more importantly there’s genuine connection. The tragedy is that by the time Jaime seems to be genuinely changing, the show tears them apart in a way that feels unsatisfying to many viewers. But whatever their relationship was, it wasn’t boring, and it wasn’t entirely dysfunctional.

Jon and Daenerys are interesting because they’re so symmetrical—two people carrying impossible weights, trying to do right by their followers, both fundamentally decent despite the power they wield. Their romance happens quickly because the show is rushing through material, but there’s actual chemistry there. The problem is that they don’t really know each other, and when a crucial truth comes out, they can’t handle it maturely. But in those moments when they’re together, you can see why they appeal to each other. They understand the burden of leadership in a way few people do.

Tier C: Messy But Memorable

Robb and Jeyne (or Robb and Talisa in the show) are almost too heartbreaking to rank. Robb loves Jeyne, she loves him, and their romance is genuinely touching. The tragedy is that this love destroys everything. Robb’s military campaign, his position as King in the North, his family’s future—all of it sacrificed for love. It’s noble in a way, genuinely romantic, but it’s also catastrophically stupid. Their relationship shows how love and politics cannot coexist in Westeros without one destroying the other. It’s tragic because they’re right to love each other; the world is just wrong.

Theon and Yara, while never romantic, have one of the most complicated and genuinely moving sibling relationships on the show. They start as rivals, move through periods of distance and misunderstanding, and ultimately develop a fierce protectiveness for each other. Yara fights for Theon’s life and honor even after he’s been tortured and broken. That’s loyalty, and it’s one of the few relationships that feels truly unshakeable.

Tier D: Toxic But Fascinating

Cersei and Jaime are siblings, which is already a problem, but they’re also two people so damaged that their relationship becomes mutually destructive. Jaime loves Cersei, or he loves the idea of her, or he loves what she represents—it’s hard to say. Cersei loves Jaime as much as she loves anyone, which is to say she loves him in the way a wounded animal loves its mate. They’re codependent, incestuous, and ultimately unable to help each other. But they’re also weirdly compelling to watch because there’s genuine affection mixed with genuine harm. This is not a healthy relationship, and the show never pretends it is.

Stannis and Selyse are a couple that highlights how love can be twisted by ambition and faith. Selyse is devoted to Stannis, probably loves him in her own way, but she’s also willing to support his increasingly dark choices in the name of their cause. Stannis cares for Selyse but is ultimately willing to sacrifice her children for victory. It’s a relationship built on shared belief rather than mutual respect, and it’s deeply unsettling.

Tier E: Absolutely Cursed

Robert and Cersei are the template for toxic royal marriages. Robert drinks constantly because he’s miserable, Cersei despises him because he’s miserable and treats her as a brood mare, and neither of them has any affection or respect for the other. Robert doesn’t even bother to be faithful, and Cersei doesn’t bother to pretend to care. They’re stuck with each other out of duty and political necessity, and it makes them both worse. This is a marriage where both people would be better off if they just admitted they hate each other.

Joffrey and Cersei (in a twisted, borderline-incestuous way) represent psychological damage at its most visible. Cersei is desperate to control her son because she’s terrified of powerlessness, and Joffrey is a spoiled, violent sociopath who reflects his mother’s worst qualities back at her. Their relationship has echoes of something unhealthier than standard mother-son dynamics, and the show never quite explores it, but it’s definitely there.

Joffrey and Sansa are almost too toxic to watch. Joffrey is cruel, sadistic, and violent, and Sansa is his complete victim. There’s no relationship here, only abuse. Joffrey doesn’t love Sansa; he’s obsessed with controlling her and punishing her. Sansa doesn’t love Joffrey; she’s terrified of him. This is domination and cruelty, not romance, and it’s important that the show presents it that way.

Ramsay and Sansa continue that pattern of abuse in a horrifying way. Ramsay is a violent sociopath who gets off on power over others, and Sansa is trapped with him after surviving Joffrey. Unlike Joffrey, Ramsay doesn’t pretend there’s love here. He’s just a sadist who has a sadist’s obsession with his victim. This relationship is presented without any romanticization, and that’s the right call.

Khal Drogo and Daenerys start with rape and gradually become something more complex, which is one of the most interesting—and most controversial—narrative choices the show makes. Drogo doesn’t begin by respecting Daenerys; he begins by ownership. But over time, he develops genuine affection for her, and she develops affection for him. It’s a complicated dynamic that the show handles imperfectly, and it’s definitely not healthy in any real-world context. But within the show’s logic, it represents a kind of healing and mutual respect that develops despite traumatic origins. Still, the fact that their relationship needed rape to begin makes it tier E material.

The Final Word

Game of Thrones isn’t a show about romance, which is partly why the good relationships stand out so sharply. Sam and Gilly’s genuine affection is so refreshing precisely because the world around them is so full of betrayal and cruelty. The show uses romance as a tool to explore power, loyalty, ambition, and the fundamental incompatibility between love and the game of thrones. Some couples burn bright and burn out. Some are built on mutual ambition. Some are just two people making the best of an awful situation. But almost none of them are actually, straightforwardly good. And maybe that’s the real message: in a world as broken as Westeros, a couple that actually loves each other and treats each other with respect is a fantasy more fantastical than dragons.