This Might Be the Most Out-There ‘House of the Dragon’ Theory Yet
Long white hair does not a monster of legend make.
One of the most intriguing scenes of the entire House of the Dragon finale, “The Queen Who Ever Was,” was Prince Daemon’s vision-slash-dream-slash-weirwood resin trip, which sort of acts as the culminating moment of his whole Harrenhal arc.
Honestly, the vision was one of the best writing choices of this second season and a fundamental insight into Daemon’s character and his motivations.
Spoilers ahead for the final episode of the second season of House of the Dragon, “The Queen Who Ever Was”
Alys Rivers has been working to get inside Daemon’s head pretty much since the moment he and Caraxes landed in Harrenhal—is it because she wants to destroy the Targaryens who only bring suffering to her people? Because the nobles of the realm care very little for the smallfolk and war is always more catastrophic for the latter than it is for the former? Because she also knows of the big existential threat coming and that they technically need dragons to survive it? Could be all three, honestly.
Whatever it may be, her final act is bringing Daemon to Harrenhal’s ancient godswood, where he touches the weirwood sitting at the center of it—which, fun fact, was carved so that it would vaguely resemble George R.R. Martin’s face in a nice touch of metanarrativity—and is plunged into a vision not unlike the one Daenerys has in the House of the Undying back in A Clash of Kings.
In his vision, he catches glimpses of how the Dance of the Dragons is supposed to end—including his own fate as well—but he also sees Daenerys herself, with her newborn dragons, and the terrifying armies of the Night King marching South to plunge the world into an eternal winter. The vision is so scary to Daemon that it also plays a part in him returning to Rhaenyra’s side since he is now also convinced that only House Targaryen and its dragons can stand a chance against the White Walkers.
Visions are always edited in a jarring, confusing way when they’re shown on screen, in what is clearly visual shorthand for their cryptic nature. And so the way Daemon’s particular vision was edited has given rise to a theory that has to be one of the most out there I have ever seen in all my years in the ASOIAF fandom—that Daemon is actually the Night King.
So is Daemon the Night King?
The short answer, of course, is no. But the longer answer is also pretty simple—the Night King is canonically millennia older than Daemon. While he’s a borderline legendary figure, and so not much is actually known about him, the Night King is said to have lived during the Age of Heroes, the mythical time before the Andal invasion where many of the heroes of Westeros roamed the land—like Bran the Builder and Lann the Clever, the founders of Houses Stark and Lannister respectively. The Age of Heroes is also when the first, fearsome Long Night happened, where the world first faced the terrible threat of the Others.
That means that the Night King—and the person he was before, the infamous thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch—was kicking around Westeros way before the first Targaryens even set foot in Dragonstone. In fact, the Valyrian Freehold still had to rise—the true dawn of the dragonlords’ empire happened after Westeros had gone through the Long Night.
Besides, the vision of the Night King and his armies is enough to shock Daemon into action—finally giving up his own aspirations for the crown and rallying his new troops to Rhaenyra’s side so that they or their descendants might be ready to face them when they come, having left this whole Dance business behind them.
Daemon sees the Night King not because he’s somehow going to turn into him but because House of the Dragon has always been heavy on laying down bits of foreshadowing that tie it back to Game of Thrones. So of course, there couldn’t not be a callback to the great big existential threat that looms all over the story—however, underwhelming that threat actually ended up being!
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