“Mark my words, this is a black omen.”
“Tis an abomination.”
“I thought the dragons was gods.”
Criston Cole turned his side’s “victory” at Rook’s Rest into a public relations disaster. He thought marching the head of Meleys through the streets of King’s Landing would rouse the public to Aegon’s cause like the death of Prince Jaehaerys did. Instead the Green’s latest propaganda parade turned the people against them, because the smallfolk revere dragons as divine creatures. That’s an important part of House Targaryen’s mythology, something Game of Thrones never had the chance to fully explore. The Lord Commander’s ill-advised procession is also an ill-omen for what awaits the dragonriders on House of the Dragon.
The people of Westeros knew about dragons long before the Targaryen family relocated to Dragonstone roughly two hundred years before House of the Dragon. The dragonlords of Old Valyria conquered much of Essos atop their majestic beasts. Everyone in the world feared the power of dragons. But the Realm did not truly appreciate the unmatched strength of “fire made flesh” until Aegon the Conqueror and his two sisters arrived with fire and blood. As Tywin Lannister told Arya Stark on Game of Thrones, Aegon “changed the rules” of warfare.
Now, via the smallfolk’s reaction to Meleys’ death, House of the Dragon has deftly shown another reason House Targaryen was able to not just conqueror the Seven Kingdoms, but to earn the acceptance of Westeros’ people. It’s an important aspect of the family’s reign that Game of Thrones couldn’t delve into simply because no normal living person (a.k.a. not people like Melisandre) had ever seen a dragon before Daenerys briefly called Westeros home. People caught in the middle of a vicious war only had time to respond to dragons as weapons of mass destruction. They didn’t have a chance to love them like people two centuries earlier had.
The Realm is a land of old, noble families with histories going back thousands of years. They were also very insular. Until House Targaryen from Essos, no one had ever unified Westeros’ many kingdoms. For an insular continent to truly accept outsiders as their rulers, the people of the Realm had to believe in more than just the power of dragons. The people also had to believe in the magic and majesty of dragons as being more than just animals.
The reaction to Meleys’ smoking head showed just how much the people adored dragons. The smallfolk loved them just as much as they feared them. Those magical creatures offered protection. They made Westeros and those who lived there feel special. No one else in the world had dragons. Who could mess with Westeros with dragons around? And if only Westeros had them, Westeros must be special. Maybe even more special than the Valyrian Freehold had been, since dragons were plentiful then.
All of that adoration of dragons also made the Targaryens who rode them special, too. They were closer to gods among men than they were monarchs. Only, gods can’t die, something the people of Westeros knew could happen to dragons but didn’t fully appreciate until they saw a decapitated Meleys. The she-dragon wasn’t old. Vhagar bit her neck and killed her because Meleys wasn’t indestructible.
Coming face to face with that reality shattered everything people believed about both dragons and House Targaryen. Meleys’ death wasn’t proof of the Greens strength. It was proof of their vulnerability. All Cole accomplished was to display that what Hugh the blacksmith said is true: dragons are just “meat,” same as every other living thing.
Two sides of House Targaryen are fighting over their ancestor’s Iron Throne. It’s a throne Aegon created on the back of dragons. He used his creatures’ physical power and their exalted status in the world to raise his family up as gods. Now the inexperienced Hand of the King Criston Cole has smashed the mythology House Targaryen relies on to rule. He’s shown the smallfolk dragons aren’t as special as they thought. Neither are their riders who rule them.
What happens when people who considered their rulers specual gods who can keep them safe from everything suddenly realize the beings they put their faith can die the same as them? Both the Greens and the Blacks are about to find out.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist always happy to bash Criston Cole. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.