Liam Daniel/HBO
Sealed with a kiss.
Spoilers ahead for Season 2, episode 6 of “House of the Dragon.”
In this week’s episode of the “Game of Thrones” spinoff show “House of the Dragon,” Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) shares a steamy kiss with another woman: her advisor, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno).
This is a big deal because Rhaenyra is still married, so she’s cheating on her husband, Daemon (Matt Smith), who is also her uncle. To make matters more complicated, Mysaria is Daemon’s ex.
The kiss scene is also the show’s first official confirmation that Rhaenyra likes women as well as men.
So, to sum up: Rhaenyra made out with her uncle/husband’s ex-girlfriend. As one does!
This entire turn of events is a surprise, even to anyone who read the book.
“House of the Dragon” is based on “Fire & Blood” by George R.R. Martin. In the book, it’s not outright stated, but it’s hinted that Rhaenyra might like women, too – however, Mysaria is not the woman she’s romantically involved with (in the book, her lover is vaguely implied to be Laena, Daemon’s previous wife, who died before he married Rhaenyra).
Many fans of the show read romantic undertones into Rhaenyra’s fraught relationship with her former best friend turned stepmother, Alicent (Olivia Cooke).
But, Rhaenyra’s steamy kiss with another woman wasn’t with Laena or Alicent. It’s with Mysaria, which is a show-invention, and it’s a curveball.
“House of the Dragon” is set around 200 years before the events of “Game of Thrones.” The story follows Rhaenyra, who was meant to succeed her father, King Viserys (Paddy Considine), after he died in Season 1. However, it’s unusual for women to rule in Westeros, so her half-brother, Aegon (Tom Glynn Carney) usurped her throne, and his supporters claim that he’s the rightful monarch.
Both Rhaenyra and Aegon’s sides are now at war, and the bodies are piling up.
At the beginning of Season 1, Alicent started out as Rhaenyra’s friend when the girls were younger, and she later became her stepmother – awkward. Alicent is Aegon’s mother, so now she and Rhaenyra are on opposite sides of the war.
Although “House of the Dragon” has not stated or shown that Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship was ever romantic, many fans have read into it.
“All this happening in ‘House of the Dragon’ because of a failed homoerotic lesbian friendship damn,” one fan posted on X, formerly Twitter, referring to Rhaenyra and Alicent.
“’House of the Dragon’ really doesn’t make any sense if you don’t see Alicent as a repressed lesbian who has been in love with Rhaenyra since they were teenagers,” another fan remarked.
Other fans have acknowledged that “House of the Dragon” has not truly shown this.
“When I started watching House of the Dragon I was like ‘oh it’s cool this is about a lesbian’ with full confidence and it took a while for it to sink in that that’s not text,” another fan commented.
But, now the show has made it text – or at least, it showed Rhaenyra kissing another woman, just not Alicent.
This is new territory, and it’s unclear where the story will go from here, or how it might impact Rhaenyra’s crumbling relationship with her husband, Daemon, who she needs in order to win the war.
“House of the Dragon” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max.