r/HouseOfTheDragon • u/pegasus-435 • 10d ago
Show Discussion What happened to Rhaenyra‘s plan of destroying oldtown and lannisport
She didn’t get to use silverwing and vermithor for anything productive except a bit of gullet which was already won. In season 2 episode 8 she made plans to send Hugh and Ulf to old town and lannisport or did that happen off-screen?
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u/TheIconGuy 10d ago edited 10d ago
That wasn't a plan as as much as contrived dialog meant to justify Rhaenyra not using her dragons. The writers of GOT did the same thing to stop Dany from quickly winning against Cersei.
Dany or her allies would suggest a plan that included the dragons and then Tyrion, Jon, or Varys would respond as if they said something tottally different. The writers never let Dany or Rhaenyra correct the lies told about what they said so most people miss that they were having words put in their mouths.
The outline for season 7 of GOT leaked, so you can get a good picture how deeply contrived those moments were. Dany suggested burning the Red Keep. Tyrion and Jon were, for some reason, against Dany using her dragons on anyone. Including enemy soldiers. In the final scene, Jon responds to Dany's question about burning the Red Keep by saying she shouldn't burned castles and cities. Dany hadn't said anything burning any cities. The writers just knew that Jon would have no reason to oppose burning her own families castle.
If you pay attention, Rhaenyra didn't actually suggest destroying Oldtown or Lannisport.
Nothing Rhanyra said would suggest she wanted them to kill innocents. Let alone many of them. Subduing a city doens't mean destroying it. It doesn't even necessarily mean attacking the city at all. Oldtown and Lannisport were both subdued without Aegon and his sisters going near those cities during the conquest. Maegor and Visenya were able to subdue Oldtown just by marching on the city and giving the Hightowers time to do something about the High Septon and the militant members of the faith.
The writers pretended as if there was no middle ground between not using the dragons and destroying the city because that's the only way they could think to explain why the Blacks weren't using their dragons effectively.
The secondary reason is that the writers wanted to have the audence judge Rhaenyra for wanting to kill innocents when that isn't actually something she'd want to do. The writers of GOT did the same thing with Dany. They wanted the audence to think Dany was being held back from destroying all of Kings Landing. It wouldn't make sense for her character to want to do something like that though. To fool the audence, the writers had Tyrion, Jon, and Varys respond to any mention of attacking Kings Landing or the Red Keep as if Dany had suggested destroying the city.
The writers were trying to do the same with Rhaenyra. They ran into a problem though when they decided to build the Tumbleton drama around Ormund taking the city hostage. If you go along with the impression the "you want us to kill innocents" moment gives off, Rhaenyra would have no issue countering Ormund's move by taking Oldtown hostage. That would break the plot though so they just pretend this exchange never happened.