Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of House of the Dragon.Episode 10 of House of the Dragon serves not only as a finale to the first season of the show but also as a beginning to the Dance of the Dragons, the civil war that will overtake Westeros for the next few years. In the tragic war to come, family will turn on family, and in the end, the world will have fewer Targaryens and fewer dragons. Season 1 of this series has chronicled the events leaving up to the war and has focused on several of the key players, including Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy/Milly Alcock), the heir to the Iron Throne, and her uncle and eventual husband Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith).
While Daemon and Rhaenyra have been circling each other for quite some time, the finale revealed a darker and more toxic aspect of their relationship when, arguing over how to proceed against Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), Daemon chokes Rhaenyra in order to get his point across. For some viewers, this can be seen as a betrayal of a character that many have named their favorite, but the episode and the season as a whole reveal to us why Daemon reacted this way.
Daemon Has Always Been a Chaotic Character
Since his first introduction, Daemon has always been associated with chaotic energy. Our introduction to him in the first episode involved him going through the city and cutting off hands and genitals of criminals to prepare for the tourney and then Rhaenyra finds him sitting on the Iron Throne later. We then see him during the tourney violently beating up competitors. He wages war on the Stepstones, and after the war drags on too long, he charges headlong into battle to either die or come out as the victor. He steals a dragon egg and claims Dragonstone despite Rhaenyra being named heir to the Iron Throne. He slices off Vaemond's head in the middle of the throne room for insulting Rhaenyra and her sons.
While he's not always violent, and we have seen Daemon's softer side, he has always been an agent of chaos. And when he learns of his brother's death in "The Black Queen," his first question is how did he die? From this point on, he is convinced that Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) killed Viserys, and is ready to seek out revenge.
Daemon Was Once the Heir to the Iron Throne... Kind Of
Although on paper, Daemon has been Viserys' (Paddy Considine) heir for all these years since Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke) couldn't give birth to a son, he was never really regarded as one seriously. Whether it was because Otto was whispering in his ear or his own belief that his brother was not ready to be the heir, Viserys' decision to name his daughter as heir must have stung. This is made worse in the finale when Rhaenyra mentions the Song of Ice and Fire Prophecy, and it's revealed that Viserys never told Daemon about the prophecy.
The scenes leading up to when Daemon chokes Rhaenyra show that the two characters are approaching the problem of the coup from two different angles. Daemon is eager for revenge and ready to attack King's Landing, while Rhaenyra is more cautious and when she meets Otto on the bridge at Dragonstone, it seems like she is considering their offer for a brief moment. When Otto delivers the page from a book that Rhaenyra tore in the first episode, showing Queen Nymeria of the Roynar, it's a message that Alicent has not forgotten their past. When Rhaenyra tells Daemon and her men to stand down, this is just another added frustration for Daemon.
Why Did Daemon Choke Rhaenyra?
After the scene with Otto, Rhaenyra continues to exercise caution, saying that her father told her that when dragons flew to war, everything burned. She chooses to advocate for unity and when she clears the room she reiterates to Daemon that her oath to protect the Seven Kingdoms due to the Song of Ice and Fire reaches beyond personal ambition. She says this to him because she believes that Viserys told Daemon about Aegon's dream, like he told Rhaenyra about it after he made her heir.
Not understanding this, Daemon grabs her by the neck and tells her that Viserys was a man who was a slave to his prophecies. We know this to be true since he believed himself to be a Dreamer and thought that his son would sit on the Iron Throne. This led him to push his wife to continue pregnancy, order her baby to be cut out of her, and hesitate about Rhaenyra as his heir. When he lets her go, Rhaenyra realizes he's been left out of the loop.
Viserys not sharing the prophecy with Daemon shows that although his brother was heir in name, he did not truly see it that way. After a day of losing his brother, losing a child, planning for war, and being told that peace means his children will be Aegon's cupbearers, Rhaenyra's talk of prophecies is not what he wants to hear about.
Do Daemon and Rhaenyra Reconcile at the End?
By the next scene, Daemon has gone to find Vermithor, his grandfather's dragon, leaving Rhaenyra in the council room where she gains the Velaryons' alliance and sends her sons to treat with the remaining lords of the Seven Kingdoms. When he returns to her, it is with the news that Luke (Elliot Grihault) is dead. The moment is sad and he even holds her hand. So is Daemon forgiven for his violence?
Perhaps not. This could lead to a rift between these two, but it might just prove that Daemon was right to prepare for war even as Rhaenyra was advocating for peace. While there's no explaining away Daemon's outburst, it's clear that the two of them will have to stand together on a unified front against the oncoming war.