House of the Dragon Just Introduced a New Rival for Rhaenyra, and He’s Worse Than the Greens

Coming as Game of Thrones ’ true successor, House of the Dragon is full of betrayals and stabs in the back (many of which are literal too), but the second season’s latest episode has just hinted at a much bigger feud heating up between the Targaryens, and this time the Blacks and the Greens’ war has nothing to do with it.

A couple of episodes back, the series saw Daemon Targaryen’s dramatic departure from Dragonstone to eventually talk some other powerful houses into giving their backup to Rhaenyra, yet Daemon’s intentions have been horribly misinterpreted all this time.

In season 2 episode 5 titled Regent, Daemon is surprisingly more honest than he has ever been before, revealing that he’s still convinced in his right to sit on the Iron Throne, years after his brother Viserys proclaimed Daemon’s niece and later on wife Rhaenyra the true heiress.

The character’s confessions made it pretty clear that his voyages across Westeros were never meant to have searches for Rhaenyra’s support as its aim, but rather seeking his own allies to eventually form an army was always what Daemon had in mind.

Having spent years deluding everyone around with his seemingly firm beliefs that a woman on the throne was no worse idea than a King ruling the entire country, Daemon has finally unleashed his real thoughts about Rhaenyra.

With the entire history of Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationships kept in mind, his true intentions are likely to become an even bigger concern for the latter than her feud with the Greens.

There have surely been a lot of ambiguous acts from both sides trying to stab each other in the back, but in this case those actions can be somehow explained by their long-standing fight for the throne. Daemon, in his turn, has been openly cheering for Rhaenyra’s claim for the power, yet he’s also the one to be planning a coup against her.

The whole situation is aggravated by the fact that he’s Rhaenyra’s husband who seduced her while she was still a child, and all his attempts to get as close to Rhaenyra as possible throughout all those years were just for being able to get some more respect by operating under her name.

What Happens With Rhaenyra and Daemon in the Book?

House of the Dragon has yet some time to demonstrate what repercussions Daemon’s plans will have for Rhaenyra, but George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood does give an even more ambiguous update.

Suggesting that, despite her uncle-husband’s tricky actions against her own good, Rhaenyra will still be able to forgive him, the book makes it clear that those relationships full of toxicity and unhealthy attachment are likely to cause even more troubles for Rhaenyra, eventually turning her weakness into the real reason why she never succeeded as a queen.