House of the Dragon Episode 8 Review: Every wound festers

A missing eye, a rotten tooth, a paper-thin scar pale against the pale skin. So much of The Lord of the Tides is structured around the injuries house of the dragonThe cast of has evolved in their troubled lives. Even the titular incident, a succession crisis within House Velaryon, is triggered by Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint) suffering a grievous wound in battle. We never see the wound; In fact, Lord Corlys doesn’t appear on screen at all, but the knowledge of it sets in motion a struggle for power that takes one man’s life and once again puts the royal family at the other’s throat. Think of it like Laura Palmer’s absence twin peaksthe kind of void that an entire story creates, only in the negative space it leaves when it disappears.

This is one family that can’t stop hurting itself, and nobody has suffered more in that regard than King Viserys (Paddy Considine). As wrong as it may be to cling to hope for an impossible status quo, however deluded he is about his power to get the people he loves to accept peace, it is agonizing to belittle him in this way see, his body skeletal and sunken, covered with open sores, his mind bewildered by the opium tincture known as poppy milk. Even when he catches his breath, he’s as much a wound in the very fabric of the kingdom as Lord Corly’s.

The emotional wounds inflicted back and forth between the two courtly camps are as present as the physical ones. When Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) first sees Alicent (Olivia Cooke) returning to King’s Landing after a six-year absence, her hand immediately flies to the scar on her forearm, mirroring a later scene in which she and Alicent shake hands with seemingly unfeigned warmth. Alicent rubs Rhaenyra’s arm and wrist as if to apologise, and for the first moment since the time skip, it seems like a spark of the romantic spark that enlivened their childhood together might be reignited. Cooke and D’Arcy have an immediate chemistry strong enough that even knowing that this rapprochement is doomed cannot taint the power of the exchange. Their showdown in the Red Keep’s throne room is equally charged, and the entire court watches as they air their dirty laundry with increasing venom. Rhaenyra’s open indignation is captivating, D’Arcy’s hawkish, aris tocratic features perfectly match the towering disdain of a princess who has never had to play petty games and therefore finds repugnant the half-truths and subterfuges Alicent has conspired to give her sons her inheritance revoke .

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

At the royal dinner, which Viserys is eager to attend despite his rapidly deteriorating health, the king removes the gilded mask he wears at court to hide the open lesions eating through his cheek to the muscles. He begs his family not to see him as their king, but as husband, father and grandfather, and the social tactic he employs is the ghastly sight of his wounds, an inevitable reminder of his mortality. The wound and age makeup applied to Considine is truly impressive, avoiding the pitfalls of rubbery latex skin and unconvincing CGI. He looks like a medieval leper, buried in his huge four-poster bed behind the neglected study where he once happily toiled at his model of ancient Valyria, now covered in cobwebs.

This ancient possession is another structuring absence, source of the dragons royals covet and the bloodlines they cling to and use against one another to challenge claims of legitimacy. There is an etiquette to the practice, a reliance on invoking these absences without naming them. When Vaemond Velaryon (Wil Johnson), angered by the apparent lie about Rhaenyra’s sons’ parentage, dares to drop insinuations and level accusations, the dangers of finger-examining such a wound quickly become apparent .

Ironically, it is only after Vaemond’s death that we see him treated with tenderness. The arrogant, rough man is laid out for embalming by the silent sisters, the severed halves of his head reverently lined up like something out Hellraiser. We adore and remember our wounds because to admit that they are meaningless is to face our own powerlessness, our insignificance in the face of entropy. And as Viserys draws in what may be his last rattling, agonized breath, it’s hard not to believe that his life of pain will be just another wound his descendants and widow cannot stop becoming another absence into which they will project their own meaning.

It’s like the servant Diana who is presented shaking and tears at the beginning of the episode to Alicent, where she recounts her experience of being raped by Prince Aegon. Alicent offers her fake sweetness and comfort, then hush money. close this wound. Act like you don’t have it anymore. Except once it’s dealt, it’s too late. You can’t stop licking the hole where your tooth used to be. You can’t stop picking the scab. After this week, all of Westeros’ wounds seem about to be ripped open wide.