Beware the Age of the Dragonseeds. That’s the biggest takeaway from this week’s ‘Regent’ episode of House of the Dragon which nicely sets up the ascension of new characters into what will be a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners war of dragonfire, bone and blood.

Cersei Lannister once said, “When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die”. That point is driven home when Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Jacaerys (Harry Collett) discuss their strategy moving forward as they discuss dragon seeds and who else could they get to ride a dragon in the coming wars.
Apparently, a dragon needs to be ridden by a person of dragon blood, and they must stare death in the face for the privilege to do so. It seemed that before the Targaryens decided to keep it all in the family, members of the line had dragon blood in their veins as they occasionally married into various noble houses.

This eureka sets up all sorts of great possibilities for more carnage. More dragon riders patrolling the sky on their magical WMDs. We are almost weightless with anticipation. We can hardly wait.
Episode five begins with both Lord Corlys and Queen Rhaenyra mourning the death of Rhaenys, the Queen That Never Was.

Cut to Kings Landing where Ser Criston Cole along with Ser Gwayne Hightower are parading the still-smoldering Meleys’ head through the streets while the town crier bleats: “behold the traitor dragon Meleys!’. Silly rabbit. Tricks are for kids. Who knew that dragons were capable of such a thing?
However, the dead dragon death march doesn’t have the desired effect on the smallfolk. Nah. They aren’t awed by the grisly spectacle; instead they see it as a bad omen. Bad juju, a harbinger of things to come.

“Don’t they realize we won the battle?” Ser Criston Cole whines. Poor, dense Criston. He can’t seem to catch a break.

However, it is a pyrrhic victory for the Greens. Nine hundred men were lost. One splendid golden dragon, as Cole claims that Sunfyre was ‘long in dying’. And one king, badly burned, aye, like a bloody steak, cooked rare.

The scalded body of King Aegon II is toted home in a more ignominious fashion in a makeshift gurney – a wooden produce crate – while we see the rat catchers’ maggot-infested, rotting bodies still hanging from the Red Keep.

Inside, the Grand Maester and his goons peel the Valyrian steel – apparently not flame retardant – off Aegon the Barbecued’s body.

The maesters seem to be licking their chops with glee at the prospect of putting leeches on his skin, bloodletting and experimenting with other forms of gruesome experimental medicine. You can see the Queen Dowager Alicent squirming as she hears the wet squelching sound of the maesters peeling the armour from Aegon’s scorched body.

Queen Alicent must now regret her snarky tone in last week’s episode when she asked the petulant Aegon II: ‘do you think simply wearing the crown imbues you with wisdom?

In the meantime, the power-hungry Aemond, King Aegon II’s one-eyed brother suggests that there is a need to name a regent. He does this while the badly injured king – the man he tried to nuke – hangs in limbo, hovering between life and death. With a family like this, who needs enemies?

Cut to Dragonstone where Mysaria shows that she is no mere mistress of whisperers, but a purveyor of great info: bread is scarce in King’s Landing, and the people are seeing black omens. Later, Mysaria sends an emissary to do some recon in the name of Rhaenyra, maybe offer up some royal sabotage, or print propaganda pamphlets to plant seeds of discord behind enemy lines.

While Rhaenyra’s Painted Table council whines that Cole is running riot through the Riverlands, she puts Sir Alfred Broome in his place when he says the ‘gentler sex is not privy to strategies of battle and the execution thereof’. She asks him deadpan: ‘how many battles has he seen in the decades of peace over which her father presided? That shuts him up.

In the meantime, Daemon is slowly growing mad in Harrenhal while trying to raise an army in his name. He is still having visions, and there is a tasteless sex scene with his…mother. He sees his dead wife, Laena, who asks him about the welfare of his daughters. One doesn’t know if all these visions are a result of Harrenhal’s cursed vibe, or Alys Rivers’ concoctions, but apparently, Daemon is a real ‘bellyas’. Word to the wise: If I were Daemon, I would flatly refuse any suspect beverage or meal of stewed peas whipped up by the witchy Alys Rivers.

DAEMON IS GOING MAD
Actor Matt Smith is in great form as the devilish Daemon delivers arguably the best lines in this week’s episode.

“I did not think they would be so eager to die,” Daemon says in quiet awe while seated on a rock, dressed in full dragon armour. This happens after the stubborn Brackens choose death when faced with the prospect of joining their bitter enemies, the Blackwoods on Team Black. Pluck you and the dragon you rode in on, the Brackens say and turn their backs.

Surprisingly, Daemon shows restraint, and doesn’t bother to ‘dracarys’ them because after all, dead men can’t fight, pillage or kill. Instead, he gives Willem Blackwood carte blanche to persuade the Brackens by any means necessary, a deadly euphemism which triggers a wave of sexual violence and kidnapping. It is instructive that Daemon’s addled mind sees this as an effective military-recruitment strategy: serve me under duress or I visit atrocities on your good house and rape your daughters.

By the time the River Lords come calling in the dead hours of the night (the hour of the wolf between 3 and 5 am) to rebuke Daemon’s lack of temperance, he already knows what’s coming. His new bestie, Alys Rivers, has used her witch powers and already spilled the beans about the shedding of the blood of Bracken innocents, screams that came to her in the — get this — wind. Told you this girl’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.

Yup, she’s a witch and that must make Daemon want to bed her even more, especially after she makes some cryptic remark about Daemon’s mother. These bloody Targaryens are a real piece of work!

Interestingly, the sexual violence Daemon has rubberstamped is being executed in the name of his wife, Queen Rhaenyra, who is going to become apopletic when she hears this bit of news.

Later, suspecting treachery, Rhaenyra sends one of her favourite dissenters, Ser Alfred Broome, to check on her husband and his naked ambition to seize the Iron Throne for himself. This is a weird choice given that Broome was the one who suggested that she take credit for Prince Jaehaerys’ decapitation. Still, Rhaenyra sends him to gauge the intentions of Viserys’ true heir, or so Daemon calls himself. Maybe she wants Ser Broome dead. We shall see.

Rhaenyra intends to name a disconsolate Lord Corlys as her new Hand, but he would rather very much prefer to sail away on the sea and forget his troubles. His granddaughter, Baela, who has her grandmother’s steely resolve and intelligence, chides him, and reminds him of his honour and how her mother and his wife preferred to die by glorious dragonfire than live diminished lives.

DRAGONSEEDS
Rhaenyra, a dragonrider herself, seems increasingly desperate to get into the thick of things as she’s trying to convince Jace that she should fly into battle. She reaches for some poor syllogism, suggesting that even a dragon smaller than Vhagar (her own Syrax) is faster and has advantages against her in battle.

“It is I who must fight,” Rhaenyra insists.

Jace reminds her that Vhagar just munched on Melys like a three piece KFC meal deal.

Meleys fought two dragons and one of them was slain, Rhaenyra reasons.

Desperate to dissuade his mother from any foolish actions, Jace name drops two new dragons, Vermathor and Silver Wing, who chill out in the smoking caverns of the Dragonmont. Vermithor is a huge bronze dragon dwarfed in size by only Balerion and Vhagar. In the book, Vermithor bent his neck to a blacksmith’s bastard called Hugh Hammer.

Speaking of bastards, in this episode, we see the blacksmith Hugh Hammer, who has that striking golden Targaryen hair, trying to leave the city with his sick daughter and wife, only to find the gates locked by Aemond, the new Regent. We have also met Addam and Alyn of Hull, two shipwrights in the Velaryon army and also Lord Corlys’ bastard children, so they have dragon blood coursing through their veins. Will they bond with dragons as well?

We have already met another dragon seed, the double-dealing Ulf the White who witnessed the hanging of the ratcatchers after the murder of Jaecaerys. He was also in the bar running his mouth about his royal lineage when Aegon II took his new Kingsguard knights out for a boozy night out. It was that same night that Aegon II would belittle Aemond for the last time.

During this episode, Prince Aemond edges closer to the seat of power, and takes control of the Small Council and one of his first orders is to ‘cut down the [expletive deleted] rat catchers’. Later, Aegon II’s sister-wife sees him eyeing the Iron Throne longingly, and asks him if it was worth it, her words dripping with unspoken accusations. He gives her a stone-faced look, perhaps remembering the indignities Aegon II visited upon him in his childhood, but he doesn’t answer. Let it go, Aemond, let it go.

What’s next? A face off between Aemond and Daemon? More dragonriders and fearsome dragons duking it out over the skies of Westeros?

Bring it on, I say. After all, dragons aren’t gods, they’re just meat. So good God, let’s eat.