"There's no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin, and no war so bloody as a war between dragons."
Rhaenys Targaryen's words to her niece Queen Rhaenyra in the season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon proved to be tragically prophetic, as the courageous "Queen that Never Was" lost her life during episode 4's climactic Battle of Rook's Rest.
Lured into a trap by Aemond Targaryen and Criston Cole, Rhaenys and her dragon, Meleys, put up a hell of a fight, but Vhagar, the oldest and largest dragon alive, simply proved to be too powerful.
King Aegon and his dragon, Sunfye, were caught in the crossfire (or was it an intentional attempt by Aemond to claim his brother's throne?), and while Aegon did appear to survive (barely), Meleys suffered catastrophic injuries before plummeting to the ground in a fiery explosion.
With a last look into the eyes of her dragon, Rhaenys accepted her fate and took her hands off her harness, going out like the fearless warrior she lived as.
Eve Best was asked about her character's exit from the show during an interview with Variety, explaining why she felt Rhaenys decided to return to almost certain death when she had the opportunity to escape.
"The context of nuclear war was very, very helpful, because that’s the equivalent for us. And I knew that when she had proposed herself, that she knew she had to take that responsibility, if anyone was going to have that weight. It couldn’t be Rhaenyra. She had to do it. I think she knows that she has to sacrifice herself for the team. Another journalist described her as Lancelot, Rhaenyra’s Lancelot, in many ways. I felt like that was very apt. There’s such a deep reluctance. In the end of Season 1, she makes that conscious decision not to start a war, not to nuke everybody. Everyone ever since has been saying, 'Why didn’t you nuke them?' Everybody’s taking it personal, and she’s all the time looking at the bigger picture. All the time rising up, putting the personal aside, and rising above.
The point is, ultimately, whatever we feel, however attached and however devastated we may be, the bigger picture is we must not send dragons into war, we must not go nuclear at all costs. So for her then to say, 'I will be the one to do this,' she knows that there’s no living after that. The choice to go, that second return to plunge in with Vhagar — that’s an absolute kamikaze mission. To me, that was when she felt very samurai. It was that last stand of the noble warrior. She could have just about escaped, and they could have maybe left everybody to deal with it. But she turns because she knows that’s what she has to do, morally and spiritually."
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"The prequel series finds the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires—real and imagined—crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins almost 193 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when King Viserys Targaryen breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm."
House of the Dragon season 2 sees Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans reprise their respective roles. Additional returning cast includes Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham.
The directors for the new season are Alan Taylor (Episodes 1 & 4), Clare Kilner (Episodes 2 & 5), Geeta Patel (Episodes 3 & 8), Andrij Parekh (Episode 6), and Loni Peristere (Episode 7).