House of the Dragon: Obscure Royal Tradition Shown in Season 2 Was Explained Years Ago
And it serves a much more important purpose than just being a source of entertainment during councils.
Having launched its second season tonight, House of the Dragon is back to screens with all of its highly anticipated gatherings of the feuding teams deciding what steps to take to eventually win the inevitable war.
The second installment’s episode 1 was quick to cut to the chase showing the Greens’ concern as the team’s leaders summon the first council, though its youngest participant unwillingly brought much more attention to a very specific detail that seems to have nothing to do with all the serious matters discussed at the gatherings.
Despite many fans’ genuine confusion, an explanation of the mysterious object was always there, since the beginning of House of the Dragon season 1.
The episode titled A Son for a Son that premiered last night shows the Greens reuniting in a council room as their leader, Aegon II, feels the need to take up actions before the Blacks attack first.
Arriving late to the meeting, Aegon brings his young son Prince Jaehaerys with him, claiming that the latter will also sit on the throne one day and thus needs to learn how to handle the King’s duties from a very young age.
Soon it becomes pretty clear that Jaehaerys is less than interested in his potential future reign, and the following scenes feature him playing with a weird round stone as if it were some kind of toy.
The episode’s next scenes give a closer look at the table where the characters are gathered and prove that every single one of them has such a stone, but many fans still got pretty bewildered by the overall idea of having those during a meeting.
This matter was actually addressed by House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal back in 2022 as he revealed that the stones were meant to represent every member of the Council and their presence at the meeting. According to Condal, it’s “a way of visualizing the set formality of the [s]mall [c]ouncil chamber.”
With every new member arriving to the meeting, each of them grabs a stone and keeps it nearby while those that are left in the center of the table symbolize some of the members’ absence, just like it was with Daemon who eventually didn’t show up at one of the councils in season 1 and whose stone remained untouched until the very end of the meeting.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter