House of the Dragon's Biggest Book Change Is Wasting Its Best Character

House of the Dragon's second season has been an eventful one. Not only did the season begin with the brutal murder of Aegon II Targaryen's (Tom Glynn-Carney) eldest son, Jaehaerys, but it has also featured the demise of the Cargyll twins and Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best). Even Aegon himself suffered wounds during a dragon fight that left him bedridden and vulnerable. But despite all of the many highs it has hit over the course of its first six episodes, House of the Dragon Season 2 has struggled to give all of its characters their due.

No figure has suffered as much from the show's unevenness this season than Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). Ever since he and Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) had their tumultuous fight in the season's second episode, Daemon has been more or less left adrift by House of the Dragon. He's taken Harrenhal, sure, but the HBO series also dragged out Daemon's story in the Riverlands to a frustrating degree.

Worst of all, it has manufactured drama between Daemon, Rhaenyra, and Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) that isn't just unnecessary at this point in House of the Dragon's story but also has no grounding in the show's source material.

In Fire & Blood, the book upon which House of the Dragon is based, Daemon's amassing of power in the Riverlands isn't nearly as tedious as it has so far been rendered onscreen. While his taking of Harrenhal is just as anti-climactic on the page as it is in the show, it’s not long before multiple houses in the Riverlands use his presence as an excuse to declare their support for Rhaenyra. It's said to have taken a while for the Tullys to join the fray, but Daemon doesn't just sit around until then. In the book, he even uses the Battle of the Burning Mill between the Brackens and the Blackwoods, which is briefly depicted in House of the Dragon Season 2's third episode, to launch a surprise attack on the Brackens' seat, Stone Hedge, which destroys the Greens' chances of ever gaining any power or support in the Riverlands.

Notably, this all happens in Fire & Blood before Rhaenys falls at the Battle at Rook's Rest, which means House of the Dragon has seriously stretched out Daemon's campaign in the Riverlands. That might not be a problem if the series were doing so in favor of compelling interpersonal conflict, but it isn't. Instead, the series has made Daemon largely ineffectual all season — trapping him in a repetitive narrative cycle that has become increasingly tiresome. That is particularly true of the visions Daemon has experienced of his various family members this season and his conversations with Rankin's Alys, which reach their lowest point in this past Sunday's episode when Alys begins to espouse wisdom about the nature of power and what it takes to really rule that feels extremely out of character for her.

While it's been fun to see former House of the Dragon stars like Milly Alcock and Paddy Considine reprise their roles as Rhaenrya and Viserys for these visions, the sequences themselves have told us little about Daemon that we didn't already know. His conversations with Alys similarly haven't earned the sheer number of minutes they've been given. His apparent obliviousness to the fact that Alys is clearly responsible for his visions is baffling, and their relationship is only made even stranger when you consider that the book explicitly states Daemon proved to be “immune” to Alys' powers during his time at Harrenhal. House of the Dragon has, of course, frequently revealed certain "facts" as they're stated in Fire & Blood to be false, but most of the time, the show has done so in service of a more fascinating truth. That isn't the case with its treatment of Daemon this season.

At this point, with only two episodes remaining in its eight-installment run, it seems safe to assume that House of the Dragon Season 2 will climax with either a reconciliation between Rhaenyra and Daemon or a triumphant conclusion to his Riverlands campaign. Given the show's inevitable production and budget restraints, that may even be the best possible ending that House of the Dragon could have ever reached this season. The show's treatment of Daemon has been nonetheless disappointing.

Not only is the character himself perhaps the most fascinating and unpredictable figure in the show's central conflict, but Matt Smith is also one of House of the Dragon's most accomplished and commanding performers. It is, for those reasons, particularly disappointing that Daemon's storyline at Harrenhal seems destined to be looked back on in a few years as easily the weakest part of what has otherwise been a thrilling sophomore season for House of the Dragon.

New episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere Sunday nights on HBO and Max.