Spoilers follow for House of the Dragon episode seven, “Driftmark.â€
There are a few general truisms in the Song of Ice and Fire universe: Winter is coming, weddings are not a fun time, and to be anyone but the family in charge is a truly fruitless gig. House of the Dragon has cycled through these themes briskly thanks to those time jumps: King Viserys warns Rhaenyra of a war and winter to come in the premiere; Ser Criston Cole murders Ser Joffrey Lonmouth at Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding. And with the latest episode, “Driftmark,†it’s clear no one in this kingdom is having less fun right now than the Velaryons, a house that is rich, powerful, and spends the entirety of the episode named for their ancestral seat absolutely miserable. More money, more incest-caused problems!
Despite the long line of disappeared or collapsed houses in George R. R. Martin’s lore (remember House Reyne of Castamere?), the Velaryons didn’t start out as has-beens. True, House of the Dragon begins with dragonrider Princess Rhaenys, eldest grandchild of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and a Velaryon by marriage to Lord Corlys, being passed over for rule because of her gender, with the Iron Throne going to her younger cousin, Prince Viserys, and Rhaenys becoming the “Queen Who Never Was.†Admittedly, a bummer! But House Velaryon has a gigantic naval fleet, commands dragons, and wields power through a seat on the King’s Small Council thanks to Corlys’s position as Master of Ships. Steve Toussaint plays Corlys with equal amounts swagger and righteousness and Eve Best gives Rhaenys a sly bemusement (especially when she’s rolling her eyes at Princess Rhaenyra’s impetuousness), and if Corlys and Rhaenys saw me from across a Westerosi pub, well, you know, yada, yada, yada.
But the Velaryons have long been driven by resentment over the Great Council refusing Rhaenys’s claim to throne, and that bitterness has infected both their ambition and their parenting. When Corlys suggests in “The Rogue Prince†that Viserys marry his daughter Laena to “unite the two great surviving Valyrian houses,†House of the Dragon delivers welcome dark humor in revealing that Laena is 12 years old, a child next to the obviously uncomfortable Viserys.
The Velaryons, though, only see the logic of joining their house with the Targaryens through marriage — not the potential impact it could have on their daughter — and so when Viserys comes back to them years later, figurative crown in hand, to ask that their son Laenor marry Rhaenyra and save her from potential scandal, there’s no real chance the Velaryons will turn down his proposal. One of their children was already denied a closer link to the crown, and because House of the Dragon is all about storytelling via “The patriarchy is bad, do you get it?â€, Rhaenys’s concerns about whether this marriage will be good for Laenor are ignored by Corlys as the head of their house. He brushes off Laenor’s homosexuality (“He will outgrow itâ€), dismisses Rhaenys’s insistence that time has cooled her dejection over losing the Iron Throne (“I myself have put the business behind me, Corlysâ€), declines her suggestion they pass Driftmark to Laena’s daughters instead of Laenor’s very much not biological sons (“History does not remember blood. It remembers namesâ€), and is unmoved by his wife’s pondering of when enough will be enough (“To what end, Corlys? Wealth? Power? Pride?â€). Acquiring some leverage over the Targaryens is a lure the Sea Snake can’t leave unbitten, and it only leads to thankless returns for the Velaryons.
Because ten years later, both Velaryon children are married to Targaryens, and both seem trapped by that choice. Just as Rhaenys worried, Laenor is “in danger†this close to Rhaenyra and Alicent’s endless fighting, which has only amped up in the decade Rhaenyra birthed three sons who look nothing like Laenor and lack the distinctive silver hair of Old Valyria. (Is the silver hair only passed on the male side, and that’s why Alicent’s lack of Valyrian blood doesn’t affect her children’s tresses? If so, why didn’t Jon Snow on Game of Thrones have silver hair passed down by daddy Rhaegar Targaryen? Genetics are weird.) Laenor might spend most of his time getting drunk and messing around, but doing all that so close to Alicent and her ever-watchful allies, Ser Criston Cole and Larys Strong? Seems foolish!
Then there’s Laena, whose flirting with Daemon — her father’s ally in victory during the War for the Stepstones — at Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding led to marriage and two daughters, Rhaena and Baela. Their relationship doesn’t seem loveless in episode six, but much like her father supersedes her mother in family decision-making, Laena’s desire to return to Driftmark to raise their children is shot down by Daemon. He’d rather they stay in Pentos, and so they do, until Laena and their third baby die during childbirth.
All of this leads us to “Driftmark,†during which the Velaryons really go through it because the Targaryens are absolute jerks. On the same day as Laena’s burial, amid her brother Laenor’s immense grief, Laena’s widower and Laenor’s wife have the nerve to get down — the insult of the Velaryons’ children-in-law using the family’s ancestral beach as their latest incest destination! Then later, Prince Aemond Targaryen steals Laena’s dragon and attacks Rhaena and Baela before losing an eye to a slash from his cousin, Prince Lucerys. At the resulting PTA meeting from hell, Daemon provides no comfort to his two daughters or any comment on how Aemond stole his dead wife’s dragon. Just look at his smug amusement at what his children went through; this man has no capacity to offer emotional support!
Rhaena and Baela go to their grandparents, Corlys and Rhaenys, and all four can only watch as the messiness between the greens (Alicent, Criston, Larys) and blacks (Rhaenyra, Daemon) explodes, resulting in Laenor’s faked (but very real-seeming, to his family) death. Remember that NBC show The Slap? It’s kind of like that! And things only get worse because “Driftmark†ends with Daemon and Rhaenyra getting married, a Targaryen/Targaryen bond that essentially cuts the Velaryons out of future power. The “pursuit of legacy†for which Corlys rejected Rhaenys’s suggestion that Driftmark pass through Laena’s line — an echo of how that Great Council disenfranchised Rhaenys all those years ago — seems pretty futile now.
Is this a subtle chastisement from House of the Dragon about attempting to rise above your station? Or a commentary on the risk one accepts when they make a move for the crown? Probably a bit of both; think of how on Game of Thrones, both obviously nefarious characters who wanted power (Petyr Baelish, Cersei Lannister) and less outright evil ones (Margaery Tyrell) reached dead ends. Then there’s the whole Targaryen-incest wildcard; you can’t keep these crazy kids away from each other, even if you’re also a family from Old Valyria with equally striking silver hair and terrifying dragons of your own. (Rhaenyra’s description of the Velaryons as “of the sea†compared with the Targaryens being “made of fire†practically dripped with contempt.) House Velaryon’s words are “The Old, the True, the Brave,†but those qualities — noble as they may be — don’t quite have a home in Westeros.