Season 2 of “House of the Dragon” surpasses the gruesome assassinations from the book

House of the Dragon has always been about how the smallest decisions can have unforeseen consequences, but rarely has that theme been as clear as in the season two premiere. In the show’s first episode back from hiatus, Daemon Targaryen decides to take matters into his own hands, with a plot twist that probably could have used a little more planning (classic Daemon). But while the book’s version of these events is appropriately brutal, the show’s approach is calmer, more humane, and arguably a little more terrifying.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 1.]

In the book version of the story, the assassins at the center of this episode’s action are called Blood and Cheese. And while they don’t get those silly names in the show, they’re given a level of horror and humanity that the book doesn’t give them time for. The book versions are bogeymen, terrifying fiends who kill a handmaiden and a handful of guards, and seem deliciously cruel in the way they murder Prince Jaehaerys—tricking Queen Helaena into naming her younger son for death first before killing her firstborn instead.

And while these versions of the characters are significantly more disgusting, the show’s approach feels much more thematically fitting. Instead of the murderous ghosts of the book slipping into the Queen Mother’s chambers and leaving a pile of corpses behind, House of the DragonThe killers of simply move through the castle unnoticed, a pair of hired henchmen of low status and intelligence, virtually invisible to the royal families who own the halls. When they come to difficult places or difficult decisions in the castle’s tunnels, they panic, bicker, and stumble around. The Blood and Cheese of the series are not gifted killers, just amoral men sent to do something too heinous for anyone to believe possible.

Added to this is the sense of desperation that the couple’s meeting with Daemon seems to have instilled in them. According to showrunner Ryan Condal, the team wanted the scene to play out like a “robbery gone wrong,” and as the scene progresses, we can feel their anxiety mounting, becoming more reckless, cruel, and hasty in the process. While the show cleverly keeps Daemon’s final words a secret, the couple’s fear of what Daemon will do to them if they fail is palpable.

“We know who Daemon is. I don’t think he necessarily ordered the death of a child,” Condal said in a roundtable discussion. “But he clearly said: If it is not Aemond, do not leave the castle empty-handed.”

When they can’t find their original target, it’s only logical that the two settle for the first king’s son they can find. It’s the kind of hasty decision that only these two beasts can make. And in a scene that’s both grotesque and funny, the two assassins find that they can’t even tell the two sleeping children apart in their beds, and are left to guess their way through Helaena’s answer. The whole thing is a ridiculous farce by two people who are barely competent enough to pull any of this off.

All of this contributes to the show’s fantastic slip of assumptions. While the audience may know that Aemond’s murder of Lucerys Velaryon in the skies above Storm’s End was a random result of not understanding his own dragon’s power, to Daemon it seems like an act of clear and deliberate aggression. He probably didn’t expect the assassins to get away with a little prince’s head, but he thinks that releasing two assassins with not entirely clear orders in the Red Keep is nothing more than a mild escalation.

These are the kind of spiraling, misguided decisions that House of the Dragon builds its beautiful, flawed, and deeply human story. Sure, the show is elevated to the heights of fantasy, but at its core, it’s still a story of broken, angry, and flawed characters making rash decisions and then having to deal with the consequences — only those consequences often involve dragons and war.

All of this is, of course, in keeping with Martin’s vision. It’s the same style of storytelling that he constantly uses in A Song of Ice and Fire, but while the original game of Thrones Although the series often had to limit the humanity of its story due to its enormous scope, it is always exciting to see how effectively House of the Dragon goes in the opposite direction and expands Martin’s written story in Fire & Blood and turning these quasi-mythical historical figures into flesh-and-blood people and incredible characters, right down to the lousy murderers who don’t even need their silly little names.