SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Season 3, Episode 3 of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max.
Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen got a slap in the face from her hand of the queen, Corlys Velaryon, on tonight’s episode of “House of the Dragon,” when the Sea Snake publicly called out Rhaenyra’s sons (his grandsons) as “bastards” in the halls of her newly reclaimed Red Keep in King’s Landing.
Until now, Corlys (Steve Toussaint) has never wavered from acknowledging Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) three oldest boys — the “sons” of his presumed-dead son, Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillan) — as his biological family, despite the lack of resemblance and the many credible rumors of Rhaenyra’s long affair with Ser Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr). But when Rhaenyra refused his request to acknowledge his own bastards, Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Alyn (Abubakar Salim), as legitimate Velaryons during Season 3, Episode 3, he snapped.
“It’s one of the things that he does without thinking,” Toussaint tells Variety. “Looking at the scene in the script, I remember thinking, ‘OK, well, the last time someone said that to her, it was his brother, and he died within seconds.’ So this is a very dangerous thing to do, but I feel like he’s completely at the end of his tether. In that moment, he doesn’t care, which, again, is why he raises his voice. It’s not like he sort of just goes, ‘I know what’s going on.’ He screamed it out. He doesn’t care. And it’s very defiant: I dare you to prove me wrong, because the world has suspected this anyway, and I’ve kept a secret. It’s not careless abandoned, that’s not quite what it is. I think it’s like, do your worst. I don’t care. There’s nothing you can do that will make the truth any different to what it is.”
