House of the Dragon Pays Its Darkest Homage to Game of Thrones in Episode 5

Despite being its prequel, House of the Dragon isn’t a very frequent user of Game of Thrones’ references since both shows’ storylines still have little to do with each other, but the former’s brand new episode has just given its viewers a major deja vu feeling that surely nobody would like to have ever again.

Though this time House of the Dragon was pretty much decent about the whole thing, its subtle nod to its predecessor’s most gruesome scene was still way worse than anything that the prequel has ever shown before.

Picking the story up right after a major battle on Rook’s Rest, the second season’s episode 5 titled Regent follows all the brutal repercussions that both teams now have to deal with, but even Aegon’s horrendous wounds don’t appear to be that gross here.

The episode is most likely the last one to feature Rhaenys’ deceased dragon Meleys as her head is being dragged all along King’s Landing for everyone to see the “traitor” dragon, while it’s still pretty visible that the dead creature’s body didn’t even have enough time to cool off and keeps emitting smoke.

The whole scene might not come as something truly shocking unless you’re a big fan of Game of Thrones where a very similar sequence turned out to be one of the most heartbreaking and repulsive plot twists that the entire show ever featured.

In season 3 episode 10, after the King of the North Robb Stark was brutally killed alongside his mother, wife and their unborn child, the Starks’ enemies also kill Robb’s direwolf Grey Wind, decapitate him and then stitch his head to Robb’s body to later on parade him across the city.

House of the Dragon’s scene is still much more merciful compared to what Game of Thrones did to Robb Stark and his direwolf, yet both sequences demonstrate the same idea suggesting that the Starks and their direwolves had the same tight bond as the Targaryens had with their dragons.

There’s still a major difference between them though: direwolves surely were a great help for the Starks when there was a need in taking political actions, but they still couldn’t rely on their animal friends and allies the same way that the Targaryens confide in their dragons.

Since those fantastic fire-spitting creatures are the main war tool that the Blacks and the Greens will use against each other, the whole demonstration of Meleys’ dead head is only another proof that dragons are just as mortal as their riders, and the next victim may easily cause huge problems for the Greens as well.