House of the Dragon season 2 includes the infamous Blood and Cheese scene from Fire & Blood, but the show’s version sadly left me feeling underwhelmed. There are many iconic moments from the Dance of the Dragons that I’ve long looked forward to since the show was first announced, but perhaps none more so than Blood and Cheese. Yes, that does technically mean looking “forward” to, erm, a child being beheaded. As grim as that is, the scene in Fire & Blood – even in a historical account – provoked a visceral reaction when I first read it back in 2018.
HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel doesn’t delay in getting to it. House of the Dragon season 2, episode 1’s ending follows Blood and Cheese as, on the orders (and payroll) of Daemon Targaryen, they sneak into the Red Keep to kill Aemond Targaryen. Instead, of course, they end up cutting the head off Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, son of King Aegon II. Is it brutal? Yes. Shocking? Sure. But for a few reasons, it just didn’t land the way I thought it would, leaving me a little bit deflated despite an otherwise mostly strong premiere.
How Blood & Cheese Is Different In House Of The Dragon Compared To The Book
The TV Show Makes Multiple Changes To The Story Of Jaehaerys’ Death
There are several differences between Blood and Cheese in the book and House of the Dragon season 2, right from Daemon Targaryen’s involvement. He’s behind the scheme in both, but in the source material it’s Mysaria who arranges everything, rather than her simply providing the basic information in the show and Daemon going to King’s Landing himself.
In the book, Helaena and Aegon’s third child, Maelor, is also present. He doesn’t appear to exist in the show yet (and certainly isn’t in the scene).
The book’s plan is also a bit more direct, with Blood and Cheese hired to kill one of Aegon’s children, rather than hired to kill Aemond (of course, it’s currently unknown whether Daemon did actually say to kill someone else if they couldn’t find him, and some book sources do speculate the King himself was the initial target). Even these, though, are relatively minor compared to what transpires once the killers are inside the Red Keep.
In the book, Helaena and Aegon’s third child, Maelor, is also present. He doesn’t appear to exist in the show yet (and certainly isn’t in the scene).
Alicent Hightower is in the room, bound and gagged, rather than being, ahem, busy elsewhere with Criston Cole.
Helaena pleads for some to kill her instead, but is forced to choose between her two sons, while threats of sexual violence are made against her daughter, Jaehaera.
Helaena chooses Maelor to die, either because he’s younger and won’t understand what’s going on, or because Jaehaerys is heir. Blood beheads Jaehaerys instead.
Why House Of The Dragon’s Version Blood & Cheese Is Disappointing
The Shocking Event Loses Some Of Its Impact In The TV Show
Making changes to Fire & Blood isn’t itself inherently a problem. Any book adaptation will have to be different in some ways, for a multitude of reasons, and even where it’s purely story-driven it can work. I can get why Laenor Velaryon was left alive; I liked how they turned Aemond and Vhagar killing Lucerys into a mistake. This isn’t just me complaining that “oh they changed the book, how dare they?!” like Martin’s work is completely sacrosanct, but more that the adaptation choices in this case didn’t land for me.
They’ve purposefully made Helaena an unknowable character; she’s “an enduring mystery,” and the character feels very removed from what’s going on.
Part of the problem goes further back than this episode, with two choices: one is omitting Maelor (although this episode could have still had him be part of it), and the other is with Helaena herself. With the former, it means there had to be a change to how the story plays out, but the latter is more egregious.
They’ve purposefully made Helaena an unknowable character; she’s “an enduring mystery,” and the character feels very removed from what’s going on. Sure, she seems nice, and is very innocent, but House of the Dragon didn’t do enough to make me really invest in her character.
Blood and Cheese should really make you feel the emotional impact on her. That’s where the most visceral response would come from – like with Robb and Catelyn Stark’s deaths at the Red Wedding – but we don’t really get a sense of that when, instead of a mother pleading to be killed in place of her kids, you just get her offering the would-be murderers a necklace. It all comes off rather cold and detached.
By removing a lot of the pain and anguish from forcing Helaena to choose which child dies, and even by making it a question of whether Daemon told them to do it or not, you’re stripping away the horror of the scene and, with it, the impact.
At the same time, I also felt HBO toned it down a bit too much. I’m not asking to see a kid’s head being cut off (honest), but in having Blood and Cheese more accidentally stumble upon Helaena an
d the kids, by removing a lot of the pain and anguish from forcing Helaena to choose which child dies, and even by making it a question of whether Daemon told them to do it or not, you’re stripping away the horror of the scene and, with it, the impact.
The same is true for the decision to end it – and even pair the confirmation that, yes, it was Jaehaerys who died – with Helaena walking in on Alicent and Criston Cole having sex. It immediately removes the attention away from the darkness of what’s just happened and onto their relationship, and it all comes off as being a bit too soap opera for my liking. Not to harp on about the Red Wedding too much, but think of how the credits silently rolled at the end of “The Rains of Castamere.” That’s what this should have done too.
It’s obviously still a terrible act (and the noise is awful), but those can make for great TV, like the Red Wedding or Shireen Baratheon’s death. Those are moments you can’t forget even if you want to. They’re horrific and haunting and that’s the point. You’re supposed to feel devastated, shocked, sickened by the cruelty of it. Blood and Cheese feels like you could well forget it, which I never thought would be the case.
I will admit there’s an element of expectations being too high, at least for me. This moment has been talked about for years, it’s something I’ve talked about and written about plenty. It was set up as the moment, the watercooler event. And that was perhaps a little unfair, given the lack of connection to the characters, but then I do think the show could’ve done more to make us care about them, or even just to feel the moment itself.
There’s nothing massively wrong with the scene, but it is lacking a bit of tension. I think part of that stems from Blood and Cheese seeming less like ruthless experts who’ll get in, get the job done, and get out, and more little bit bumbling and uncertain.
I didn’t feel a sense of dread leading up to it, that slightly “off” feeling that something isn’t right (and that’s not just because I knew it was coming, as the person I watched with – who didn’t know – never got that sense either.) Combined with the factors above, it just lessened the emotional impact of the scene, and it’s in that feeling where Game of Thrones’ greatest moments were made.
Narratively, I think Blood and Cheese does still work, and I’m looking forward to seeing how characters respond to it as season 2 continues. And in fairness, I think Alicent not being present could be an advantage (despite problems with how that was done on-screen), as the guilt and shame she’ll feel could be great for her own character arc. Plus, maybe it can be argued that it’s a good thing a scene of child murder was toned down.
Nonetheless, the bar was set high in terms of how these terrible scenes play out; this is war, and they’re the horrors of it. It’s not bad (and there’s a lot to like in the episode generally), and House of the Dragon didn’t need to clear that bar. It’s just disappointing that it didn’t even come close.
New episodes of House of the Dragon season 2 release on Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO and Max.