The following story contains major spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 Episode 1, “A Son for a Son.”
A quick recap: House of the Dragon, at its core, is a telling of the events depicted in Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which is basically a textbook of Westeros history told by what are essentially unreliable historians and narrators from this world. Some of House of the Dragon has directly lined up with what’s in the book, and some has not. Which may factor into the way things don’t quite match up between the “Blood and Cheese” moment’s telling in the book and the show.
House of the Dragon aims to tell the story of the escalation and eventual civil war—titled “The Dance of the Dragons”—between the different factions of the Targaryen family amidst a struggle for the throne. Things reached a new tense high at the end of Season 1, when Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), while antagonizing his cousin Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), lost control of his dragon, Vhagar, who took a big chomp out of Lucerys on his own dragon Arrax, killing them both.
This news destroyed Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), who demanded revenge, saying “I want Aemond,” once she saw confirmation of Luke’s death on the ground. Her husband, Daemon (who, played by Matt Smith, is also her uncle, and perhaps the most morally gray character in the show), then went into action, hiring an assassin nicknamed “Blood” to take Aemond out inside the grounds of King’s Landing. When Blood asks what to do if they can’t find Aemond… we don’t hear Daemon’s answer.
Blood then gets an accomplice on his side, a large rat catcher man named “Cheese,” who knows his way around the royal grounds. They can’t find Aemond—but eventually find their way to the royal quarters, where Queen Helaena (Phia Saban) is with her two sleeping twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. They ask her which one is the boy, and Helaena answers unconvincingly; the two men guess correctly, however, and murder Jaehaerys in his sleep. The camera pans away in this moment, but we’re spared none of the brutality—it’s some of the most harrowing audio in the history of Westeros.
How was the “Blood and Cheese” moment different in George R. R. Martin’s book, compared to the House of the Dragon show?
HBO
Fire & Blood, which provides the text and inspiration for House of the Dragon, is different from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series in one key way: while the latter is written in the form of traditional novels, the former is essentially a textbook of Westeros history. That leaves open the possibility of some major differences in how things are depicted in the book and on-screen in HBO’s latest signature fantasy show.
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The “Blood and Cheese” moment plays out significantly different in Fire & Blood. It’s described there that Blood and Cheese found Helaena with not only her twins, but her second son, Maelor, as well. It’s described that the same series of events played out: the two men told her to pick which one she wanted them to kill, and, while the text explicitly states that she doesn’t know why, exactly, she said what she said, she chose aloud for the men to kill Maelor. “Perhaps she thought the boy was too young to understand,” it says. “Or perhaps it was because the older boy, Jaehaerys, was King Aegon’s firstborn son and heir, next in line to the Iron Throne.”
Cheese then said to Maelor: “You hear that, little boy? Your momma wants you dead,” before killing Jaehaerys with one strike, very different from the repeated stabbings that we hear in the show.
While both scenarios are horrific, the way things play out in the book are even more depraved—and even more of an indescribable horror for Queen Helaena to recover from.
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