Waging a war is easy. Remembering why is not

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So the Brackens hate the Blackwoods, and the Blackwoods hate the Brackens. It’s been this way for as long as anyone can remember. The start of it all, we are told, is lost in time. Does it matter that the Brackens pledged to Aegon and the Blackwoods to Rhaenyra? Probably not. Violence is cyclical, and the young men from each family arguing at the start of this week’s House of the Dragon were primed for conflict long before they were born. They’re doomed to a grim death, as are the countless countrymen that will join them, as the inertia of this particular cycle runs its course.

The opening vignette of this week’s House of the Dragon underlines how its characters are no longer the masters of their own destinies. War is easy to slide into and difficult to avoid, as it needs no justification to perpetuate itself. That doesn’t mean they’re willing to accept this, though. Continuing the stages-of-grief metaphor from last week, this week’s episode is about bargaining — culminating in a final conversation between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) where the two attempt exactly that. With a new status quo that has placed an ocean between them, the relationship that House of the Dragon is built on gets precious little screen time, even as it still drives their individual convictions. Once upon a time, these young women’s friendship had the potential to break the cycles set in course by men; now that potential is imperiled. Is there any way out?

As the twins Arryk and Erryk are buried, Rhaenys reminds Rhaenyra that she is not above getting lost in this cycle. She asks what caused the current conflict Westeros finds itself in. Was it the stolen throne? Or Lucerys’ death? Or Aemond’s lost eye? When the fight begins, will it even matter? “When the desire to kill and burn takes hold,” Rhaenys says, “all reason is forgotten.”

Or, as Ser Simon Strong, the castellan of Harrenhal, tells Daemon when he arrives to claim the very damp, hilariously uncontested stronghold: “Sin begets sin begets sin.”

Rhaenyra was supposed to be different. Her crown was taken from her because she would have been different, because she would have broken the chain of patriarchal rule and threatened the very power structure of Westeros. Thus, she makes one final, desperate gambit to break the loop, to pivot away from the war that the men of this world crave, the same kind of war they have waged for generations. She sneaks into King’s Landing to meet with Alicent during her prayers.

It’s a patently absurd mission, one that the viewer — who has just witnessed the dysfunction of Rhaenyra’s council, the bloodthirst of Aegon’s response, and Ser Simon Strong’s frank breakdown of the conflict that has forever spilled across the riverlands — would be right to be skeptical of. But perhaps a dream deserves a funeral, and Rhaenyra needs one last chance to mourn, reckless as it may be.

“We knew even [as children] that men trained for battle are eager to fight,” she tells Alicent, believing that they can still be different, that they can find peace. Alicent, however, still believes herself to be in the right, that Viserys changed his mind about his heir on his deathbed, and that it’s Rhaenyra’s actions that are plunging them into war. The conversation devolves into blame and deflection until the core misunderstanding that drove the pair apart is finally clarified: Alicent realizes King Viserys’ last words were about Aegon the Conqueror, and not his grandson Aegon.

Olivia Cooke plays the terrible moment of realization impeccably, as shock and comprehension make their way across her face before curdling into grim determination. They’re already pot committed; there’s nothing to be done. They too will slip into the tides of war, but unlike many of the men we saw before, they will know exactly why.

The Brackens hate the Blackwoods. The Blackwoods hate the Brackens.