A warning before going further: spoilers for House of the Dragon’s third season follow. That season worked hard to reposition Rhaenyra, played by Emma D’Arcy, as something closer to a villain than a hero. As war ravaged Westeros and the crown’s money dwindled, her closest allies turned on her and dragonfire fell on friend and foe alike.
Her choices did much of the damage. She killed the realm’s high priest, waged war in a citizen-heavy town, and stood by as one of her own dragonriders was pushed to the brink, all of which curdled sympathy for her cause. The season’s escalating cycle of war and betrayal culminated in a brutal battle over Tumbleton, a small village near King’s Landing, setting up the questions the next run will have to answer.
Drawing on the finale and on George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the likeliest throughline for season four is further treachery among the dragonriders. Ulf’s betrayal, born of wounded pride after Rhaenyra banned him from taverns and Daemon publicly humiliated him, showed how quickly loyalty can turn when it is built on ego rather than conviction. He used Silverwing to make his point, and Rhaenyra, the season made clear, is not making friends anywhere.
Hugh Hammer, played by Kieran Bew, looms as the most plausible next turncoat. He is close enough to Ulf to absorb the drunk’s grievances, yet carries himself with more dignity, and he once had something to fight for. When Daemon charged on Tumbleton, it cost the life of Hugh’s wife, Kat, raising the uneasy question of whether a man with nothing left to lose can be trusted.
Rhaenyra’s coldness extends even to her own family. Her treatment of Corlys Velaryon, played by Steve Toussaint, after the Lord of the Tides had served her cause is another thread the show has left dangling. Taken together, the pieces suggest a fourth season less about grand strategy than about the slow unraveling of a queen’s alliances, as the people closest to Rhaenyra weigh whether her cause is still worth their dragons.
