Another week, another unhinged episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon Season 2. Ageon has gone to war, and Ser Criston remains one of the worst people to ever serve the Kingsguard.
With every new episode comes to wave of jokes and tweets about the craziest moments in the series, and there are a bunch of standout moments that got a lot of great reactions from HOTD fans online.
So, what is everyone online saying about the show? More importantly, what do they meme?
House of the Dragon Memes are In: Criston Cole Is The WORST
Ser Criston started out as a pretty likeable character in the series. He was a strapping young knight that both Rhaenyra and Alicent had crushes on, but quickly turned into a "whiny incel" in fans' eyes after Rhaenyra rejected his proposal to elope.
Now fully in his "villain era", aka House of the Dragon's second season, Cole's character is undergoing some massive changes. Though he appears comfortable in his role as head of the Kingsguard, he managed to colossally slip up in the previous episode. While he was supposed to be guarding Helaena’s room, he snuck away to bed Queen Alicent, inadvertently letting Blood and Cheese sneak in—and we all know how that ended.
In the second episode, Rhaenyra the Cruel, Cole spends a lot of his time denying his mistakes, even going so far as to project his frustrations on Ser Arryk, who he forces to go to Dragonstone and pretend to be his own brother. The plot fails, but somehow Criston manages to keep failing upward as Aegon then entrusts to him the role of Hand of the King after a tiff with Otto Hightower.
Otto Hightower is a Ruthless PR Manager
It’s no secret that Otto Hightower is a ruthless politician, but he’s only as good as the rest of the people in his court, and with idiots like Aegon and Criston, there’s always bound to be some big messes for Otto to clean up.
Fans have admitted that it was kind of clever that Otto would have the idea to parade around the dead body of a child to gain sympathy for the queen; but after he scolds Aegon for losing that goodwill over having the ratcatchers killed, he loses the position of Hand of the King to Cole, and is now seeking to return to Oldtown.
No doubt Otto will still come back, but as of now, it looks like he’s going to have to wait and see what Aegon and his new hand are up to.
Queen Rhaenyra Continues to Slay
Rhaenyra may have only had the one line in the first episode, but the second episode of House of the Dragon has her going right back into Queen mode, realizing the PR nightmare of being blamed for the death of an innocent child could lose her potential allies.
Regardless, fans online have been steadfast in their support for Rhaenyra, and have even argued that "Rhaenyra the Cruel" is still a great nickname for someone who used to go by "The Realm’s Delight" in her youth.
They even spotted some kind of tension between Rhaenyra and the White Worm Mysaria.
Of course, there’s also the case of Rhaenyra handling the acts of her husband Daemon, who was responsible for the death of Helaena’s child in the first place. She has a huge confrontation with Daemon about him still wanting his inheritance, which urges him to leave, but fans suspect that he’s going to come back with a significant alliance that would once again earn him the favour of the Queen.
Speaking of Daemon…
Daemon and His Mischief
Fans caught a glimpse of Daemon wearing his infamous "crime hoodie" in the previous episode, and as expected, the second episode explores all the consequences of his "Son for a Son" mentality—Aegon wants war, Rhaenyra could lose allies, and a bunch of innocent workers got hanged in front of the Red Keep.
Despite Daemon’s penchant for mischief, a lot of fans are quick to point out that he’s still ultimately controlled by Rhaenyra, and he can only look smug for a second before Rhaenyra figures out what he’s done and he has to defend his actions.
Poor Aemond, Naked in a Brothel
The original target of Blood and Cheese in the previous episode, Aemond, survived only because he decided to leave home for the night...and hang out in a brothel.
As it turns out, he has regrets about the death of Luce, but some fans have been poking fun at how it's all too little too late––it was kind of his fault for chasing a young child with a giant old dragon and not expecting any casualties.
The Highlights of A Strong Episode
Though most of the memes and reactions focused on character-building moments from main players, plenty of underrated moments also caught fans' attention.
For one, Jaehaerys’ death is said to be a huge blow to Helaena, but no one is really wondering about her other child who narrowly escaped the same fate. There’s also the scene of Aegon smashing up his father Viserys’ model of old Valyria, as if it were a LEGO City set he obsesses over instead of, you know, running his kingdom.
And of course there's the situation with the twins, Ser Arryk and Erryk. Though the fanbase was on Erryk’s side for being loyal to Rhaenyra, it still wasn’t a pretty sight to see him commit House of the Dragon's equivalent to seppuku after killing his twin.
With House of the Dragon having no shortage of drama, fans can expect all kinds of memes and reactions to come out every week as the story progresses.
While the drama surrounding the show is pretty great, the fandom absolutely relishes being able to gossip and joke about the events online right after the latest episode––and so do we.
Catch new episodes of House of the Dragon Sunday nights on Max.
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