King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, is an amoral and depraved man-child without honor. So when she comes up with a grotesque idea, it must surely be too terrible for anyone with a shred of decency to entertain. Still in House of the Dragon“Rhaenyra the Cruel,” the measured Otto Hightower proposed something that horrified his otherwise unethical grandson. The (now ancient) Hand of the King turned the brutal murder of the little prince Jaehaerys into a funeral advance of propaganda against Rhaenyra. It was a monstrous and disgusting plan that turned his family's private pain into a public spectacle. And Otto was right to do so.
It's not an easy thing to admit, but not for the reason you might think. Defending the actions of Otto Hightower House of the Dragon it means you're also legitimizing Tywin Lannister to get ahead the red wedding game of thrones.
It is hard to imagine that anything could make Alicent's son Aegon recoil in horror. He grew up drinking and whoring his way through Flea Bottom, where he frequented the fighting kids, though some of those kids might have been his own unrecognized bastards. He's a complete coward, and sitting on the Iron Throne has only brought out the worst in him. However, his grandfather's ruse to turn the murder of little Jaehaerys into a PR opportunity House of the Dragon surprised the King. Even a despicable pig like Aegon recognized what anyone with an ethical bone or a beating heart would instantly: this was a truly repulsive suggestion, even for war.
But as Otto had told his daughter privately before the small council meeting, “Something good can still come out of this.” He wouldn't let Jaehaerys 'die in vain', even if it meant doing something Otto must have known in his soul was disgusting. I wouldn't just call Rhaenyra a “child killer” without evidence (totally indecent on its own). Otto Hightower wanted to make funerary progress to allow the people of King's Landing to physically look at a decapitated six-year-old boy so they could “see the works of this pretender to the throne.”
From there, word spread to the lords of Westeros, who would inevitably reassess their loyalty to the queen. But Otto Hightower was not going to leave anything to chance House of the Dragon. I was going to milk this unthinkable tragedy for every ounce of publicity I could. “The Kingdom must see the pain of the crown,” he said. “A grief that is best expressed through their gentler souls.” Those souls were his guilty daughter and Jaehaerys' sweet, traumatized, neurotypical mother, Queen Helaena. They would have to sit behind the boy's body as they were literally paraded around town.
Otto's objectionable idea was even worse in reality. We had to watch Jaehaerys, stitched back up, get stuck in a rut on the streets. We had to watch an overwhelmed Helaena suffer even more when she should have been left to grieve in private. And we had to listen to Rhaenyra, a grieving mother, falsely labeling manipulated little people as monsters. Aegon, miraculously, was right to find the mere suggestion of the propagandistic event so vile. However, Otto Hightower's reasoning for this House of the Dragon Funeral progress is entirely defensible. “Jaehaerys will do more for us now than a thousand knights in battle,” he told the green council, who finally agreed with him.
The Dance of Dragons is here. Now there is no facing. Jaehaerys' death will be just one of many to come. Many people will die, many of them little ones and children as innocent as the little prince. Why not turn the child's death into a spectacle if it saves lives? What better outcome could there be? Wouldn't reducing the pain and suffering of others be the kindest thing green people can do, especially if the only price is their own pain?
Saying something is “the lesser of two evils” doesn't mean something isn't bad, like Otto Hightower House of the Dragon funeral progress surely was. But “less” is a relative term, and his plan could reduce the total amount of evil in the world.
You don't have to like anything about Otto Hightower's lack of ethics House of the Dragon plan to recognize their merits. But the real dilemma begins when you do. Because when you admit that Otto had a point, you also have to admit that you're advocating that Tywin Lannister conspires with Walder Frey to pull off the Red Wedding two centuries later. game of thrones.
Inviting people into your home under a banner of peace and protection only to kill them is obviously reprehensible. It is the kind of unimaginable act it seems an obvious bridge too far (pun intended!), even when it's against people you're literally at war with. Tyrion will raise the same argument with his father when he learns what happened to the Twins. But Tywin Lannister will make the same kind of argument that Otto Hightower made long before him: “Tell me why it is nobler to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner,” Tywin will say.
is he right was game of thronesWas the Red Wedding, as clearly devious and cruel as it was, justified? If we accept that Otto had legitimate reasons for using his grandson's murder to save lives, we must not admit that Tywin will have legitimate reasons for killing a dozen men in a dishonorable way because he thinks it will save thousands from dying with honor ? What is the honor of the dead anyway? Also, Tywin didn't attack innocent victims at the Red Wedding. He only killed soldiers who were engaged in a war against him and his family, the family he was trying to protect. How is one good and the other not?
The answer is not obvious because there is an obvious distinction between exploiting a death that has already happened and committing literal murder. One is personally disgusting and exploitative, while the other is a war crime. However, the distinction between the two probably isn't big enough to make fans of the Seven Kingdoms comfortable. The only real lesson we can take comfort from is one that both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have left unchallenged: the only way to truly save lives in war is to never fight.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer for Nerdist. He's sick to his stomach for somehow defending Otto Hightower. You can follow it Twitter i Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
