American TV series《House of the Dragon Season 2》Episode 4 plot introduction

Since 《House of the Dragon Season 2》 aired, it has attracted widespread attention and heated discussions, not only on social media platforms such as Douyin, Weibo, and Bilibili, but also in major media and forumsLively discussion.Among them, the plot introduction of the fourth episode of the American TV series House of the Dragon Season 2 has become the focus of many viewers' attention.Today, we will talk about this high-profile topic in detail.

Rhaenyra's actions last episode were clearly dangerous and wishful thinking, and as Allison pointed out at the end, war is inevitable.The good thing about E4 is that it shows how Rhaenyra's departure caused great chaos in the Black Order's council.The group is leaderless, and even the heir Xiaojie has become unbearable with Rhaenyra's actions (in fact, the actor's expression in the previous episode already showed the character's dissatisfaction).And it also shows that the creative team knows that Rhaenyra's round trip takes time, and it is not a group of characters playing teleport like in the later GOT.And it clearly shows the negative consequences of Rhaenyla's behavior on the Black Party's organization and decision-making.

There was no transitional scene in E3 between Rhaenyra's decision to go to King's Landing and her actual visit to King's Landing.The impact of Rhaenyra's departure on Dragonstone is not shown.Audiences who have just watched E3 will have a strong sense of post-GOT PTSD, as if Rhaenyra can teleport, as if the writing room thinks this is a positive action and is shaping a positive image of the character. Rhaenyra is ridiculously trying to achieve peace.Rush to King's Landing.E4 has initially reversed this impression. At least it clearly shows that the objective effect of Rhaenyra's decision is very poor, and it also reflects a tendency in Rhaenyra's decision-making: lack of confidence in the possibility of her own behavior when she believes that her purpose is correct.A clear understanding of the consequences.

Moreover, Rhaenyra's image transformation in E4 did indeed become clearer from the last shot of E3, as my review of the previous episode pointed out.The most obvious hint at the audio-visual level is that the scene where she returns to Dragonstone uses her character theme score (in contrast, the scene in E3 where she takes the boat to King's Landing uses elements of the character theme score, but there are obvious variations and the characterThe theme does not continue, but only appears briefly, and the orchestration also highlights danger and uneasiness).After she became convinced that she was the chosen one in words, she became decisive in her actions, but one thing that remained the same was that she habitually did not think about the possible consequences of her actions.After understanding the current situation in the king's territory, the Black Party had to eliminate dragons to deal with Cole's attack, and her first decision was to ride the dragon herself to fight Cole.And it is completely different from the paralysis in the first three episodes, extremely confident.

But as Xiaojie points out, this decision was blind.After Rhaenys proposed to fight on her own, Rhaenyra, who realized its rationality, even felt a little disappointed (of course, this proposal was not the most reasonable, after all, the Black Party did not consider the possibility that Cole's attack on Raven's Roost was a trap.But it is understandable that it was not taken into account, because except for Daemon's occupation of Harrenhal, the Black Party did lack active actions).It can be noted that from here the series clearly shows another dimension of Rhaenyra.Like Aegon II, Rhaenyra's education in governance is actually incomplete. In a sense, she is also a spoiled child. Although she may have more sense of responsibility and will try to listen to opinions, once she makes a decision, her decision will beVery thoughtless and taken for granted.In S1, in order to exaggerate her oppression by patriarchy, highlight the legitimacy of her inheritance rights, and the tragedy of the black-green struggle, this dimension of hers was not put on the table, but was only mentioned potentially.E3 ran away in anger, E4 had a private meeting with Damon Cole, and E5 refused to sign an open relationship contract with Coere and Lanino without noticing Cole's personality traits.What stands out in the first few episodes of S1 and even S2 are the understandable and sympathizing parts of her decisions (E3's marriage being used as a bargaining chip for zz, E4 and E5's resistance to their suppressed desires, E7's urgent need to find someone in the face of E6's unfavorable situation)An emotional patron who gave up his patron Velaryon on zz).Although adult Rhaenyra will pay more attention to responsibilities than young Rhaenyra after experiencing changes, she is also indecisive because of it. The end of E3 is an opportunity for a change in role.

When she becomes decisive, the negative impact of E2 and E3's indecisiveness will naturally be eliminated, but it may also introduce negative dimensions that are not easily noticeable at present.However, as my review of the last episode pointed out, it remains to be seen whether this dimension can be well presented in the historical relationship of Westeros.

Larisse's temptation

The second season of HOTD was the most successful in its presentation of Aegon II.The creation of this character is obviously imitated by Kendall Roy in Succession (the degree of completion is still not as good as Kendall): I am not good at it, but I feel that I am good at it.He was ignored in his own imperial meeting and kept in the dark by his brothers and the prime minister he appointed.Aemond was humiliated in Valyrian in front of him, and even his own mother disliked him and told him not to cause trouble.This resulted in his tragedy. Out of rebellion against others' contempt, he threw himself into a tragic battle that he was not prepared to deal with regardless of the consequences.

The real note of note at Aegon II's council was Larys the Bendfoot.The conversation between Larris and Allison in E4 seemed lengthy at first, as if it was a boring replay of last season's “Dragon Foot”, but it actually contained a lot of potential narrative and character building details. This is why E4 made me feel a little better..

First, at the royal council, Larys, like everyone else, noticed that Cole and Aemond's secret alliance was trying to sideline Aegon (this alliance was hinted at in S1E9 and S2E1).And Laris, who had just been appointed as the intelligence chief by Aegon in E3, smelled danger and opportunity.Note that in S1E9, Lalris and Colemund were not on the same line.He came to visit Allison, apparently to inquire about the relationship between Allison and Cole. In fact, with his intelligence capabilities, he should have known about the relationship between Cole and Allison. His real purpose was actually to inquire about the relationship between Cole and Allison.The relationship is used as a guise to confirm whether Allison played any role in Cole and Emond's actions (in S1E9, Cole Emond's group helped Allison instead of Otto).Pay attention to his conversation with Allison, where he asks Allison about the purpose of re-reading history while constantly hinting that Allison herself holds the secret relationship between her and Cole.Because Allison revealed her doubts about Aegon's rise to power during her previous conversation with the maester, it is very likely that Larisse has this information.

But from his perspective, he didn't necessarily know that Allison's suspicion came from the meeting with Rhaenyra. Instead, he guessed that Allison might be trying to sideline Aegon because Aegon was too useless.So while he asked Allison if she was concerned about Cole's extremely dangerous march (to create psychological pressure and observe Allison's reaction to Cole's actions), he also asked Viserys if Viserys decided to change his mind about using Aegon because of reading history.Change to Rhaenyra (this is what Alison said in S1E9).In the end, he even directly asked Allison if she was beginning to doubt Viserys's decision again.It is not difficult to find that Bendfoot is really concerned about whether Allison has any other motives for reading history books. He changed his mind and decided to promote Aemond to replace the obviously useless Aegon in some form.After finding out that Alison was nervous about answering questions about Cole and was still talking about Rhaenyra and Aegon (meaning she does care about Cole but may not know it).Some people analyzed that Crooked Foot came to inquire about Allison because he learned about the secret meeting between Allison and Rhaenyra, so he deliberately came to inquire about Allison's regret.I don't agree with this analysis, and while I can't rule out this possibility, it's unlikely.

eymond and cole

Aemond was relatively invisible in the first three episodes, but he started to show his fangs in this episode.I now kind of understand why the writers room didn’t highlight Aemond’s transformation in the first episode.After accidentally killing Xiaolu, he just remained noncommittal.I thought the first episode showed that Emond made mistakes and deliberately showed toughness, but it didn't.Now I understand.In fact, in E2 and E3, Aemond had not decided to be completely tough (in the conversation with the Madam) until he was humiliated by Aegon in the previous episode. From that time on, he resolutely implemented the tough line of making mistakes.In this episode, Aegon was publicly humiliated at the council and made plans with Cole.

Aemond's plan may have started with the highest goal being to ambush Rhaenyra.Attack Raven's Roost, forcing Rhaenyra to demonstrate the Black Party's tough response.But even if Rhaenyra does not arrive in person, she can still ambush other important dragon masters of the Black Party. With Vhagar in his possession, he has a great chance of winning, which will give him great military exploits and further evade Aegon.

S1 has laid the groundwork for seizing power with Aegon, but what really made him decide was when E3 was publicly humiliated. At this time, he could no longer show any vulnerability, and he was also willing to be really ruthless (compare to the manslaughter of Xiaolu).

Cole has already joined forces with Emond

Cole hugged Aemond's lap and successfully lifted Gawain Hightower, who was supervising the army.However, I don’t know if he will change after personally experiencing the tragedy of the Battle of Crow Roost Castle. This information is not enough to analyze at the moment.

Daemon Harrenhal's line is a detailed expansion of the fantasy line that was seriously ignored in GOT.The blood that appears and disappears on his hands when he wakes up, and the visitor is Vision Lannar, all indicate that Daemon will not only fall into hallucinations while sleeping at Harrenhal, but also see hallucinations when awake.But in general, Damon's dream lines are relatively mediocre, and they are just routine dream presentations.Not talking about movies, the execution of dream scenes in TV series such as David Lynch's Twin Peaks and HBO's own The Sopranos and The Last of Us are better than this.

The key issue is that Damon's dreams are too easy to interpret, and at the same time, whether they can actually evoke emotional changes in the audience.《Watching the World》 Lindelof writes an entire episode about dreams. Although one can notice the characters in the dream and the people the protagonist meets in real life, the encounters of the protagonist in the dream cannot be reduced to the character's real life at all.Interpretation, every interpretation has bugs.But at the same time, these dreams are scary and weird enough in plot and audiovisual aspects.These dreams and fantasies of Daemon Harrenhal are too easy to explain. The scene of meeting Rhaenyra and Lannar shows that he subconsciously cannot fully accept his mentality and behavior in getting along with his two wives.And mistaking his own figure for Aemond also shows that he seems to be aware of the similarities between himself and Aemond.This is actually paving the way for Damon's final battle.

Battle of Crow's Roost

The hardware production level of Battle of Crow Roost is high enough.There are no obvious special effects problems in the performance of Halong in broad daylight, except for one or two shots, and the process itself is ups and downs.This is not common in theatrical movies.

Of course, the show's adaptation has key differences from the source material.

In the original book, Rhaenys died in a 1V2 battle, but in the play, it looked like a 1V2, but actually experienced two 1V1s.It was a big advantage for Aegon, but for Aemond, Vhagar took advantage of the cover of smoke and re-selected his fighting position and was attacked by surprise.The reason for the adaptation is not difficult to understand, because the episode here clearly presents Aemond’s purpose.He didn't expect Aegon to really come to the battlefield, so since he did come, he would just fake the accident and plan to kill Aegon by parricide.In fact, after S1 clearly showed that Aemond had been bullied by Aegon for a long time, I guessed that the series might show Aegon's serious injury in Raven's Roost as the result of Aemond's intentional guidance. I just thought that Aemond was watching the fight between tigers and tigers.In the end, a sneak attack was made at a critical moment and the three dragons fell together according to the original work.In the episode, after the three dragons fell together, the Red Queen and Vhagar were duel again.

Rhaenys's determination is still presented, concisely enough and tenable.During the Black Party meeting, Rhaenys noticed that Rhaenyra went to King's Landing to follow her advice (the sea snakes were surprised to hear Rhaenyra went to King's Landing but Rhaenys was not).When Rhaenyra decided to go out on her own, Rhaenys was not as surprised as the Sea Serpents. She obviously realized that Rhaenyra had personally confirmed that her proposed settlement with Allison would definitely not work.Then Rhaenys's initiative to fight has multiple meanings.First, Rhaenyra’s participation in battle is risky.Second, Rhaenys returned the favor.Third, Rhaenys practices what she preaches.If peace is impossible, then implement it decisively and end the war quickly.So in Raven Roost Castle, Rhaenys actually had the opportunity to evacuate the battlefield directly, but she still chose to face it head-on, which was regarded as implementing her own philosophy: choose peace, but since war is not possible, she will not avoid it.

The above is the complete plot introduction of the fourth episode of the American TV series《House of the Dragon Season 2》.If you are interested in our website, we will also provide more detailed plot introduction, analysis and character analysis later. You can learn more by following our website.