Who are the most powerful characters in House of the Dragon?
Of course you've got your obvious ones like the rulers and dragon riders, but there's another MVP in Season 2 who seems to be getting more important by the day: Alys Rivers (Gayle Ranking), the witch messing with Daemon's (Matt Smith's) head in Harrenhal.
Up until recently her mystique has been confined to the castle walls, but in episode 6 Daemon finally asks for her help outright. A few days later Grover Tully, Lord of Riverrun and thorn in the side of Daemon's attempted Riverlands conquest, is dead.
So: did Alys kill him?
Lord of Riverrun, and the most important figure in swaying the allegiances of the ever-crucial Riverlands, Grover Tully, has been sick throughout Season 2. But in episode 6, we finally get word that he's passed away.
"Lord Grover is dead," Castellan Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale) tells Daemon at the episode's end. "He'd been ill, of course. Riverrun's maesters have been at their wits' end. Our own healer, Alys Rivers, volunteered her renowned skills — she plied her craft, but there was naught more to be done."
At this, Daemon smiles, as if he suspects there was more to it than that. So was there?
The short answer? Almost certainly yes. Lord Tully was a thorn in Daemon's side because his condition meant that Daemon was unable to approach him directly to ask for his allegiance.
Earlier in the episode, Daemon asks Alys Rivers for her counsel on how to keep the Riverlords in line. In response, she reminds him of how important Lord Tully is.
"Lord Tully is their Lord Paramount," she says. "Without him they will never raise their banners as one."
"Then I can do nothing," responds Daemon.
"You...no," replies Alys.
Moments later, when Daemon finally asks for her help directly, she tells him to do nothing for now.
"In three days' time," she says, "the winds will shift."
The implication? Alys accepted Daemon's request for help, travelled to Riverrun under the guise of trying to help heal Lord Tully, and then finished him off.
New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
