House of the Dragon star shares true thoughts on devastating episode four twist

SPOILER ALERT

House of the Dragon star Eve Best has shared her take on the tragic ending to episode four of the second season, where her character, Rhaenys Targaryen, is killed by the dragon Vhagar.

The gut-wrenching episode, which has become an all-time fan-favourite of the Game of Thrones spin-off, showed The Queen Who Never Was meet her untimely demise after fighting to defend Rhaenyra Targaryen’s (Emma D’Arcy) throne.

Considering Rhaenys was side-lined when her time to take to the throne came, with the people of Westeros opting to crown her brother Viserys as king instead, it’s no wonder she was so ardent about siding with Team Black and fighting for Rhaenyra.

As the army arrived, Rhaenys and Meleys were confronted by Team Green’s Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) and their monstrous dragon.Rather than back away from the fight, Rhaenys took them on and fought to the bitter end. Although she and Meleys managed to take down Aegon, the murderous Aemond then killed them both. 

It was one of the show’s most memorable and heart-crushing scenes yet.

Speaking to Vulture, Best reflected on the nature of the fight and what her character was thinking in those final moments. 

In particular, she addressed the different way the combatants made use of their dragons: Aegon and Aemon demanded they “dracarys” – kill with fire – while Rhaenys opted for “attack”, a subtler move.

“They’re just like boys with guns, they want to maximise the amount of carnage. And there’s something very… I don’t want to generalise, but it’s very male, whereas she’s very specifically going for the dragon: let’s take out the weaponry and don’t burn everybody else randomly,” Best said.

“There’s a ‘gritted-teeth-ness’ about it because these guys are her nephews, however appallingly badly they’ve behaved and however dangerous they are. There was a lot of reluctance and the knowledge that they’re effectively pushing the red button. The responsibility of that is so huge that it has to be a kamikaze mission because how can one live with it?

“She could have escaped, and she turns around. That’s pure, whatever she is: Arthurian knight, Lancelot, samurai. It’s the noble warrior, thinking: ‘No, I’m not just going to save myself, I’m going to finish this’.”

Part of the reason why the scene was so shocking for House of the Dragon fans was the relationship that Rhaenys had built with Meleys – as Best describes it, they were “umbilically linked”.

Seeing them both be killed, together, will have hit the fandom hard.

“Meleys being attacked was actually one of the hardest things of all, because Meleys by the end has become the only person – the only being – with whom Rhaenys can really connect,” Best explained.

“That moment of vulnerability with Meleys, that connection was so important, and seeing her being destroyed by Vhagar was hard. That’s it for Rhaenys. It’s not a giving up because that implies reluctance. It’s a surrender.

“Rhaenys has been holding it all together and holding everybody else together and holding it in, and always rising above it and always seeing the bigger picture. It was this unbelievable weight, and she could just let go in that moment. And their final moment felt intensely peaceful, like a relief.”

House of the Dragon season two is available on HBO and Max in the US and on Sky Atlantic and Now in the UK.