House Of The Dragon Episode 8 FULL Breakdown and Game Of Thrones Easter Eggs
I will not see it ended on the account of this… Say it. Welcome back everyone it’s Charlie this will be my Full House of the Dragon Episode 8 video there’s a whole bunch of Easter eggs and references so we’ll break it all down if you’re brand new to the channel I’m doing videos for all the episodes be sure to subscribe to get them and careful for spoilers from the episode if you haven’t seen it yet we’ll just start at the beginning of the episode and work our way through shot by shot talking about Easter eggs
WTF moments starting with the episode title the lord of the tides which is a reference to the lord of House Velyaron and driftmark because in this episode corlys velaryon’s brother vaemond is challenging for his claim to driftmark he wants to assert his claim over rhaenyra’s son lucerys who corlys wanted to inherit in rhaenys choice who’s clearly baela that’s the whole reason why she took her to ward with her the past six years the only big additions that I could detect in the opening title sequence were the line between rhaenyra and Daemon to represent their marriage
which they did in last week’s episode and the new lines from her representing the children that they’ve had together since then and she’s pregnant with
takes place on driftmark with rhaenys sitting in for Corliss while he’s been fighting down in the stepstones but they did explain that they won back the stepsons in the previous conflict remember they were worried about a big war starting with Dorne potentially in the triarchy since then they explained that they’ve retaken the stepstones but the triarchy has resurged and then tried to take back the stepstones from Corlys Velaryon is how he got injured this is the older version of Baela we also meet older rhaena later in the episode remember they’re meant to be twins but
they style their hairs differently so it’s a little bit easier to tell them apart on screen did a real quick blink and you’ll miss it Brienne of Tarth reference when they reference Evenfall that’s actually the seat of house tarth. So eventually later in the timeline Brienne of Tarth is born and raised there when vaemond starts arguing with rainey’s about the succession she mentions no talk of crow which is another Feast for Crow’s reference they literally reference a feast for crows like someone actually said the words a feast four crows in a previous episode too obviously
the big conflict in this episode is him really not liking rhaenyra in the fact that her children are bastards in his petition with the Iron Throne the big problem with runera is that even though she doesn’t really care that much about drift Mark or its Holdings like she doesn’t want it for herself or her family or anything like that she’s not mad with power in that way she’s more worried that calling the legitimacy of her children into question will further cause questions on her legitimacy for the Iron Throne so she’s really worried about the Iron
Throne when Bayman says that it’s a queen who sits the Iron Throne these days not a king that’s a reference to alicent even though they transitioned directly to Dragonstone because technically rhaenyra is the current Heir and going to become Queen eventually even though the end of the episode makes you think that it’s going to end very differently there’s a lot of moments like that in this episode where you think things are a done deal like the best laid plans and obviously things go completely off the rails and none of those plans come to fruition. And
on Dragonstone Daemon climbs the rocks of the mountains into the caves where the dragons lay their eggs in syrax has laid a new clutch of dragon eggs which they referenced in a previous episode when rhaenyra was trying to betray jakiris to Helaena Targaryen they actually referenced that later in the episode too when they’re dancing together in front of viserys like oh they could have been king and queen when they were all younger rhaenyra said if syrax lays another clutch of dragon eggs then Aemond would have his choice of any of those eggs this time Daemon
grabs a new one it looks pretty fresh like it’s still smoking when he prys it out and it’s meant to be another callback to him trying to take a dragon egg in episode two obviously that was a big faint though like he hadn’t actually gotten this area pregnant but this time he has three legitimate very legitimate children with renira who by the laws of their house in the realm just in general are entitled to dragon eggs dragon eggs to their family are more precious than gold it’s like giving a child a nuclear weapon even though
he says that syrax has three new dragon eggs he only takes one of them that’s for their newest child who’s going to be named visenya their oldest is named aegon III the second is named viserys II after her father and the third is named visenya for aegon the conqueror’s sister wife vicenya so the idea is that Daemon wants to put this dragon egg in vicenya’s crib when she’s eventually born also him mentioning that syrax had three dragon eggs is another reference to Daenerys but daenerys’s dragon eggs actually probably came from dreamfyre Helaena’s Dragon because later
in the timeline there were three dragon eggs that were stolen from dreamfyre’s clutch in physically dreamfyre resembles Daenerys dragons in the map table room jacaerys is learning High Valyrian that sounds like he just started and he’s getting a history lesson from this maester about the path of aegon the conqueror during the conquest making first landfall at what eventually became King’s Landing that’s what he’s referencing when they talk about him felling the trees what happened was as the aegon and the Conqueror made landfall in the area that they just renamed to King’s Landing later after he
won the war of Conquest the city was sort of built up around that place but until then it was really just a military fort that they called aegon fort in fact after the high septon crowned aegon king of Westeros he went and ruled from the aegon fort for the rest of his life the actual red key like the big castle that you see in present day was actually built by maegor much later in the timeline near the fire you notice baby Joffrey no longer quite the baby with one of the servants I think the picture
book that he’s reading from is another picture book about aegon the conqueror when she mentions that she’s going to be deposed that’s also a reference to what happens at the end of the episode with the idea that alicent thinks that aegon II has been named air in the greens this is their faction in the dance of the dragons is basically going to pull a coup in next week’s episode and try to name aegon II the official King when they arrive back at the red keep they’re greeted by Lord Caswell if you remember he was the
person that greeted rhaenyra on the stairs when she had just given birth to baby Joffrey asking her if she needed any help anything at all just let me know in the future that was a reference to the eventual coming of the dance of the dragons like he’ll probably declare for the blacks that’s another really interesting thing in the episode too based on what color you see people wearing in the episode that basically lets you know who they’re going to declare for when the battle lines are actually drawn so for instance rhaenys is wearing black the
entire episode during the episode she basically declares her support for renero the same is true for a lot of The Other Side characters too in the background that don’t have a lot of speaking lines in the episode they also take note that alicent has swapped in a bunch of symbols of the faith of the seven for all the Targaryen heraldry she’s also wearing the seven-pointed star around her neck on a chain the reason for that is because her family has this long history with the faith of the seven remember they’re from Old Town and before
aegon’s Conquest the faith of the seven was centered in Old Town so for thousands of years their family was very close to the faith of the seven itself and she’s always believed in the faith but it sounds like she’s become way more devout in her older age it’s also a reference to what happened with tommen later during the events of the main show too when the faith of the seven basically kind of took over Tom and kind of co-opted him and they replaced a lot of heraldry around the red keep with symbols of of the
faith itself it’s just meant to show you the growing influence of the faith of the seven in the realm that’ll become a bigger thing during the events of this show which I’ll talk about in future Seasons because I think some of it won’t be paid off till like Season Two Season three they also reference during the small council meeting that a lot of the members of the faith are requesting more funds from the crown that’s going to become a big problem in the future like they’re just kind of seeding a lot of this faith of
the seven plot in the background now they pay off the reference about the queen sitting the Iron Throne when we see alicent sitting at the head of the small council because of what’s happened with viserys him becoming so infirm when Thailand Lannister mentions jacarus’s Dragon that’s Vermax who’s gotten much bigger since the last episode but he’s still relatively small compared to the other dragons the other members of the small council also make reference to him being a bastard without actually coming out and saying it out loud clearly the members of the small council want to
declare for vaman like they don’t want to have anything to do with rhaenyra’s children I’ll talk about this more in a second too because it has a lot to do with the way that alicent is taking all this and playing the Game of Thrones so to speak because it seems that she really does not like playing the game of Thrones whereas her father Otto Hightower is really trying to push her around the board so to speak the way that he pushed her around when she was younger like why don’t you go spend some more time
with viserys when rhaenyra goes to see her father they show the ancient valyria model has cobwebs all over it this book is probably another history book about ancient Valeria just showing you that it’s been a long time since he’s actually worked on his model because his condition has gotten so much worse he’s almost like a living corpse at this point which is why I was really surprised that he died at the end of this episode and not an episode nine like I was expecting like one more episode out of him he’s been kind of like
the Sean Bean of the show so you’re just kind of waiting for him to die like when is it going to happen because the actual conflict that dance of the Dragons doesn’t really start till his actual death they use their conversation to set up a lot of what happens at the end of the episode too where he confuses alicent with rhaenyra and just confuses the two different versions of aegon so alicent thinks that he’s really talking about aegon II when he was actually thinking that he was talking to rhaenyra about aegon’s prophecy of A Song
of Ice and Fire where aegon saw up at the North they’re careful to highlight the fact that he’s got got so much milk of the poppy in his tea like his quote unquote tea is addling his brain so to speak but that’s because he’s in a constant state of pain like they’re very careful to show you how much pain he experiences just trying to walk around or even speak to someone is also meant to be a mirror for alicent with the moon tea later with the servant girl who’s gotten pregnant with aegon the seconds bastard
which is also meant to be a callback to rhaenyra’s Moon Tea in the earlier episode when the grand maester prepared the same thing for her and if it wasn’t clear alicent is genuinely sympathetic to her plight she totally believes her like oh yeah my son definitely forced himself on this girl poor girl that’s why she gives her that lump of gold in the moon tea just to let her know oh we’re not going to have you killed but you definitely have to leave the red keep but isn’t it ironic that she’s now facing the same
situation that she had been so upset at rhaenyra for previously aegon II Breaking All the Rules but because she wants to uphold the status quo this whole question of the bastards and who becomes the next king she’s kind of forced to live with it which is why she kicks around aegon II so much like you’re no son of mine you’re such a terrible person it’s also a call back to Cersei and Joffrey with the way that Cersei loved Joffrey but he was a terrible person and she had trouble controlling him the big difference with aegon
II is that he clearly wants nothing to do with being King it’s like he’s pulling a Jon Snow here I don’t want it him sleeping with the servant girls and being drunk most of the time is also right out of the books too like he was very fond of drink that only got worse when he got older and he really really loved getting with the servant girls and I love the irony of the moment when Helaena walks in asking what happened to the servant girl that she just had to get rid of because of the
bastard child what happened to her she was supposed to get the children ready that’s a reference to her legitimate children that she had with aegon II remember alicent betrothed them previously and since then she’s had three children with him it’s jaeherys, jaehera and maelor maybe we’ll see them in season two they’re also meant to be very young and she makes some jokes about being married to him later in the episode too after he makes a bunch of jokes at jakaris about still being a virgin. Rhaenyra and alicent have their big reunion scene and they just
show you the things are are still pretty tense between them even though they cooled off quite a bit there’s just a little acrimonious at this point early in the episode but it does seem for a brief hot second that they actually might mend their fences until the end of the episode when she first walks in too they’re careful to focus the camera on her scar that’s left over from the valyrian dagger like oh the last time we met as they focus on the scar the boys go back to the yard and see the old practice
damage all the fun that they used to get up to they talk about Criston Cole’s Morning Star the one that he’s currently fighting with Aemond practicing with that’s the same weapon that he fought Daemon with during the tourney at the beginning of the series and obviously all the children are older in this episode so we have the much older version of aemond who seems like now he loves violence and I think that’s why he tells Kristen Cole that he doesn’t care about tourneys because when vaman walks in he perks up or any time he thinks
that a fight is about to break out he perks up later in the episode in fact at the dinner table later when they avert a conflict early on he seems really crestfall and like oh I was hoping for a fight that’s mostly foreshadowing for what he’ll be like during the actual conflict later I don’t think he’s a total madman or anything like that I think that he just loves violence now like he’s become very twisted in the years since the last episode back in the godswood rhaenyra and rhaenys betrothed all their children together although they
don’t seal the deal to the actual meeting later like rainey’s declaring it in front of the king is her basically saying oh yes I agree to all your terms we also finally see the older version of rhaena in the way that rhaenys talks about it it sounds like rhaena stayed on Dragonstone with Daemon because that’s her father so only Bayla has been on driftmark these past six years as rainey’s Ward the fact she’s wearing black here early in the episode is also meant to foreshadow her eventually declaring her support for rhaenyra really interesting to note
that rhaenys still thinks that rhaenyra was responsible for laner’s death and when she denies it in the episode like I had nothing to do with your son’s death she’s not lying because later is still alive we’ll see if she ever learns the truth in the future you can let me know in the comments if you think that rhaenyra will eventually tell her no no your son’s actually alive there’s always the possibility that laner Aaron could come back in the future pretending to be somebody different and just helping them during the actual battles but the whole
idea is that jakaris is going to marry rhaena and lucerys will marry Baela so that rhaenys will get all the things that she originally wanted viserys continues to confuse rhaenyra with alicent further setting up the confusion at the end of the episode the other interesting moment here too is rhaenyra basically telling viserys that she doesn’t want the Iron Throne like I’m tired of all the drama she pulls a Jon Snow I don’t want it this episode was full of people saying that they did not want the Iron Throne also the smoke coming from the model
of ancient valyria as he’s being treated for his wounds in the Bell tolling is foreshadowing for his death like they would light the smoke and ring the bell to mark his passing in the naming of the new King which it sounds like will happen in next week’s episode also love the way they transitioned to the overhead shot of the iron throne in what’s happening because of the whole Battle of the succession that’s happening on the show right now there’s so many metaphors in this shot too like there’s so much that you could take out of
this particular scene the way that they filmed it during the petition vaman May takes all these references to the histories of both House Targaryen and house velaryon I talked a lot about those histories in my previous videos so I’ll link those Below in the description he also keeps talking about Bloodlines and the purity of his blood for those of you wondering why Daemon was laughing during the funeral scene in the previous episode that’s also the reason why he was laughing because during vaman’s speech a lot of what he was saying was about being pure of
blood so Daemon was laughing about him trying to secretly knock rhaenyra’s children being bastards and now he’s just doing it in a much more open way when he says he could cut his veins and show them his blood that’s obviously foreshadowing for Daemon doing exactly that ending the matter and when viserys walks in to preside over the meeting not on the Milk of the poppy like clear of mind you need to take note of the way that alicent reacts to a lot of this because she seems so worried about what’s going to happen to him
and the pain that he’s in if he didn’t realize alicent was also the final caretaker for King jaeherys before visares so during his final days alicent watched over King jaeherys the same way that she’s is watching over King viserys so watching him waste away is really painful for her having to relive a lot of the memories of what it was like watching King jiharis waste away so they do want you to sympathize with a lot of her wanting to give him that milk of the poppy even though it does addle his brain and cause a
lot of confusion in the worst possible way at the end of the episode The Crown falling off his head and Daemon picking it up is more of a callback to previous episodes with him wanting the throne for himself but he’s clearly very sad about what’s happened to his brother rhaenys’ speech about the succession over driftmark is her basically agreeing to all of rhaenyra’s terms like oh and by the way they’re all going to get married when you look at everybody’s reactions to a lot of this before things go off the rails aegon II smiles a
little bit that’s because he feels like things are settled and he doesn’t have to worry about becoming King likes oh thank god it doesn’t have to be me obviously he spoke too soon because it sounds like they’re going to force him to put the crown on in next week’s episode drag him kicking and screaming to the Iron Throne love the way that daemon eggs him on and the way they pay off this moment about taking his tongue oh he can keep his tongue and like I said you look at eamon’s reaction he seems enthralled by
the sight of all this violence like oh this is amazing let’s do more of this big big red flags coming from aemond in this episode the scene of both of the women in frame of the Iron Throne the blacks versus The Greens the succession all reference to the coming dance the dragons and the conflict starting in next week’s episode then the scene of rhaenys watching The Silent sisters prepare vaemond’s body I think it’s just a way to honor him and honor all the dead people that she’s known like she references all the dead people she’s
lost to the maester then I love this dinner scene so when viserys walks in sitting between the women even though it starts kind of tense for a while in the episode you think like it all might be okay viserys is getting everything that he wanted everybody is making nice making peace with each other the cane that he’s using there looks like it has a little dragon head on it and then if things actually went off the rails it was really mostly the kid’s fault like fighting the way that you would expect kids to fight aegon
making fun of jacares for being a virgin then Helaena making fun of aegon for being a bad husband but near analysis seemed like they temporarily set aside their differences and it almost works like for a little while rhaenyra is planning on coming back and spending time with her like they used to when they were younger when they were best friends it even sounds like they were almost leveraged at one point too when she says she’s going to return to the red keep on Dragon back that’s obviously herd thinking that she’s going to just come back
really fast on her own but really it’s a reference to her coming to the red keep on Dragon back with fire like I will come back and it will be War they make another pink dread joke when they serve the pig to aemond he makes another strong boy’s joke to jakaris and luceris inside No 2 Helaena’s comments when she says beware the Beast beneath the boards that’s not a dragon dream because like when she was younger she spoke all in Prophecy she still has Dragon dreams but the Beast beneath the boars is just a reference
to aegon sleeping with all the servants like beware of aegon trying to sleep with you but the Beast beneath the boards is literally like the beast within aegon’s pants when Daemon diffuses the tension at the end of the episode before the kids break into all-out fight and you see this seen between him and Eamonn that’s also a reference to them later in the godswood but that won’t happen until like season three maybe so I’ll just wait to talk about that till later but eventually they will go at each other on Dragon back mysaria comes back
into the story remember she’s kind of like a version of Varys she has little birds and it turns out the woman who informed alicent about what happened with aegon in his bastard and the servant girl is working for messeria so when she says oh it sounds like things were busy at the red keep today it’s just to let you know that missary knows everything that’s been going on this entire time she’ll have much more influence on the actual plot in future Seasons then at the end of the episode obviously he speaks to alicent about aegon’s
prophecy about the long night believing that she’s rhaenyra and she being someone who is hardcore about duty and honor that’s why she got so pissed off at rhaenyra when they were younger believes that he’s forcing her to unite The Realm by naming aegon II to the iron throne and she thinks that she’s going to honor his wishes like do right by him by completing that so that’s what she means when she says I understand what you mean and I will do it she thinks that she’s honoring his memory doing the right thing when really he
was talking about aegon the conqueror and she just confused it thinking that he was talking about aegon II also love the way they end this shot on the valyrian dagger like ooh this is not going to end well which is also a callback to the conflict in episode 7 with her attacking rhaenyra with the Valyrian dagger then he dies the king is dead along live the king his dying last words are my love and that’s him greeting his original wife aemma remember he confused alicent for aemma in last week’s episode too she was the love
of his life so it’s like he’s greeting her seeing her again in death it was a great episode if you spotted any other Easter eggs or references in the episode that I didn’t talk about in the video just write down below in the comments in my episode 9 trailer video we’ll post next so make sure you enable alerts for my channel so you don’t miss that but basically this is the actual start of the real dance of the Dragons everyone click here for that episode 9 trailer video I’ll update the link as soon as I
post that and click here for all my other house of the dragon videos thank you so much for watching everyone stay safe and I’ll see you guys in the next one!
