House of the Dragon, episode 6 recap: has Prince Joffrey been toppled by a new love-to-hate villain?

Blazing rows, blazing castles, killer bees on the loose…this week’s House of the Dragon had something for everyone.

But what it mostly had was heartache for our favourite anti-heroes. In Pentos, Daemon’s dream of starting over as a family man went up in smoke as his beloved Laena convinced her dragon, Vhagar, to put her out of her stillbirth agony.

In King’s Landing, meanwhile, the nest of vipers that is courtly life sank its fangs into Rhaenyra as she gave birth to an infant who bore an uncanny resemblance to her bodyguard – and not much to her husband Laenor.

So make note of your nearest exit in the event of fire, keep an eye out for tongue-less men with bee insignias – and read on as we delve into episode six, titled The Princess and the Queen.

A new monster in King’s Landing

Whether torturing prostitutes or behaving mean-spiritedly towards close family members, until now Game of Thrones’ Prince Joffrey has held the title of most unpleasant resident of the capital. But that honour is under threat. Enter Lord Larys, the velvet-voiced but oh-so-ruthless youngest son of the Hand of the King, Ser Lyonel.

Having previously tipped off Alicent to Rhaenyra’s lies regarding her “maidenhood” – and that night where she got frisky with both Daemon and Ser Criston – now the son of the Hand was pouring further poison in the ear of the Queen.

And not just poison. When she expressed frustration over the King’s reluctance to confront Ser Lyonel directly over the relationship between the Princess and Lyonel’s son (and Larys’s brother) Harwin – namely, that Harwin had likely fathered all of the Princess’s children – Larys took charge of the matter personally. He arranged for things to get toasty at Harrenhal when he put together his Brotherhood of the Bee, burning out their tongues so that they could not gossip.

Alicent hasn’t gone entirely over to the dark side (yet), and was shocked when news of the deaths of Lyonel and Harwin reached King’s Landing. Larys only smiled. “I feel certain you will reward me when the time is right,” he purred. Mega-villain status confirmed. Don’t be surprised if he’s the next Hand, either. All of which raises the question of what is his ultimate endgame? Does Larys crave power? Or is he simply so vile that he enjoys spreading mischief and misery?

Are we okay with the ‘evil cripple’ cliché?

The idea of physical or facial deformity representing an inner ugliness is a long-standing and unfortunate trope (see Rami Malek’s scarred Bond villain in No Time To Die). In an era of diverse casting and strong characters of every gender and persuasion, that caricature has remained bafflingly and doggedly persistent.

Last week we saw Larys with a crutch, so he has some manner of disability (in the books he is known as Larys Clubfoot). And they had to make him the most duplicitous character in the Seven Kingdoms? And also the only one without any redeeming virtues? (Daemon, if essentially evil, is also a rum fellow and probably good company.) There are shades of Shakespeare and Richard III here… but still, with a show as inventive as House of the Dragon, this feels like a nasty anachronism.

Daemon Targaryen, Family Guy

It is a credit to Matt Smith’s performance as Daemon that we have never been able to quite bring ourselves to hate the Targaryen prince. Not even when he was lopping off willies in King’s Landing and getting frisky with his niece (not at the same time – though would you put it past him?).

And now, here he was, living the life of a glamorous ex-pat in Pentos, with a wife – Laena – he genuinely loved and children on whom he doted. And then it went all Vhagar-shaped. Perhaps that was his curse: to never be happy according to the rules by which others live.

“I’ve reached the limit of my art,” said the physician helping deliver Laena’s child – never what you want to hear from your medieval doctor. The baby would not come – and so there was nothing for it but for Laena to drag herself to the cliff edge and plead with her dragon to put her out of her agony. Daemon witnessed it all and, yes, how we all felt for him. While monsters prowl King’s Landing, in Pentos, a wicked man has been rendered human.

There was also a chilling throwback. Remember when 12-year-old Laena spoke with Viserys about the giant dragon that had gone wild in the Stepstones many episodes ago? It was Vhagar – and here the beast was, giving her a mercy killing. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills.

The King lives!

Let’s be honest, many of us assumed King Viserys had coughed up his lost splodge of blood when he keeled over at the bloody wedding of Rhaenyra and Laenor in the last episode. But somehow he endured – and continued to vacillate. His refusal to directly confront Ser Lyonel over Harwin’s relationship with Rhaenyra exposed him once again as a weak ruler – and handed the impetus to the scheming Alicent. Who, in turn, handed it to Larys. And we all know how that worked out for everyone.

The show was telling us that mercy is not always merciful: had Viserys himself taken Lyonel to task, the burning of Harrenhal might have been avoided. Where a king hesitates, others will rush to fill the vacuum with bees, blood and lies.

What now for Rhaenyra?

How ironic that it should be questions over her “virtue” that would sunder her friendship with Alicent earlier in the series. Because now, rumours of that very nature had handed Rhaenyra’s mortal frenemy the upper hand in this game of thrones. With speculation about Rhaenyra and the (now late) Ser Harwin driving her from King’s Landing to Dragonstone, the Princess and heir was on the back foot.

But she had brought her husband, Laenor, with her – and if a bit of a wastrel, he enjoyed a good scrap. Was that the sound of war drums on the wind?

Are the kids alright?

“Am I a bastard?” Rhaenyra's eldest, Jacaerys, asks as his secret real father Harwin was packed off to Harrenhal after his dust-up with Ser Criston (who had turned into a proper sociopath). “You are a Targaryen,” replied his mother. But will that be enough to safeguard the throne for him? In King’s Landing it was Alicent and the Viserys’s eldest, Aegon, who was widely understood to be next-in-line, even though wasn’t cut out for the job – as we saw when he was caught behaving rudely out an open widow.

There was also the wrinkle of Aegon’s brother, Aemond, not having a dragon – a plight similarly suffered by Daemon and Laena’s daughter, Rhaena. She lacks a fire-breathing steed too – and it was surely no coincidence that the episode was drawing our attention to their parallel predicaments.

Uh oh – we’re going back to the Stepstones

Daemon’s scuttling of the Crabfeeder appeared to put to rest the matter of shipping lane piracy between the Seven Kingdoms and the Free Cities. But no, the Essos “Triarchy” was back making mischief along the trade routes – and this time they had the Dornish princes as allies.

Rhaenyra suggested that taking a firmer hand with Dorne in the past might have headed off the matter. Alicent pointed out that policing Dorne risked bankrupting the crown. Whoever was right, every indication is that we’ll be back in the Narrow Sea sooner rather than later.