Nobody hosts a barbecue quite like Vermithor.
In House of the Dragon Season 2, episode 7, after finding out that Seasmoke's new rider is Addam of Hull, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) decides to double down on her dragonrider recruitment strategy and gather as many lowborn Targaryens as she can for her cause.
What happens next could probably be best described as a mixed result, but an undeniable win for Team Black's war effort.
The question is, did Rhaenyra know how it was going to all go down when she led those would-be dragonriders down into the cave to face Vermithor?
After sending out a call for anyone with possible Targaryen heritage to descend on Dragonstone for a chance at claiming a dragon, Rhaenyra gathers the respondees and makes a speech stressing the importance and danger of the task they'll undertake.
"Each of you has left behind a life to answer this call, a life to which you might never return," she says.
"If you survive, you will be transformed. No man or woman can face a dragon and be otherwise. Some of you may welcome the prospect of change — even death — given the alternatives. Privation, starvation, war. This is our purpose. To end those hardships. For you, for your kin, for all the realm. With these two dragons added to our number, the enemy will have no choice but to give way."
Once they get down into the cave, though, Vermithor quickly chooses violence. The large dragon torches and munches his way through most of the braised Targaryen bastards until Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) finally manages to claim, while Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) runs away and accidentally befriends Silverwing.
At this point the bloodshed stops, but Vermithor leaves a lot of dead and eaten lowfolk in his wake. So the question is, did Rhaenyra know that was going to happen? And is there any chance Rhaenyra wanted it to happen, so that she could dispatch any other Targaryen bastards who might try to threaten her son Jacaerys Velaryon's (Harry Collett) claim to the Iron Throne further down the line?
Well, it's difficult to imagine she didn't at least consider it might be a possibility. Rhaenyra witnessed firsthand what happened when Ser Steffon Darklyn (Anthony Flanagan) tried to recruit Seasmoke, after all, so she presumably realised Vermithor would likely kill anyone who tried to tame him that he didn't like.
Rhaenyra's speech, too — while kind of underselling the danger — still suggests that death might be on the cards for anyone unsuccessful in dragon recruitment.
Our best guess? Rhaenyra knows that some — maybe even most — of the people she gathered before Vermithor might die, but she's simply seeing it as a necessary sacrifice; her number one goal is the war effort and bolstering dragon numbers. Does she actually want to kill off the Targaryen bastards, though? We won't be able to say for sure until we see what's happened to survivors in the next episode, but this feels like a step too far to us. Rhaenyra can be firm, but so far she's always been a ruler who favours peace over cruelty, following her father Viserys' values. It seems unlikely she'd risk angering any smallfolk with unnecessary death.
New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
