House of the Dragon is in full-swing on HBO, having aired its second episode, “Rhaenyra the Cruel” – if you don’t want to be spoiled by an event that happens in that episode, please stop reading, right now. (I’m sure you’ve already been spoiled though. BETRAYAL!)
Near the end of the episode, an assassination plan involving Aegon Targaryen’s kingsguard, Ser Arryk Cargyll, comes to a violent conclusion. Arryk came to Dragonstone to kill Rhaenyra, but is foiled when he’s recognized by secondary-character-on-the-rise Mysaria, who gets word (we assume) to Arryk’s brother Ser Erryk Cargyll that the Green Faction twin is up to no-good.
Ser Erryk (sworn to protect Rhaenyra) and Ser Arryk (ordered to kill Rhaenyra) square off in her bedroom. The twins come into martial conflict as Erryk blocks Arryk’s attempts to get at Rhaenyra. Both take wounds. Rhaenyra’s maid Elinda flees to get help, she returns with Ser Lorent, a kingsguard tricked by Ser Arryk to swap out duties. He is unsure of whom to help or hinder in the fight between the twins.
Eventually, one twin stabs his brother, killing him. The victor does not long survive the death of his twin, instead asks for Rhaenyra to forgive him – referring to her as “Your Grace” – the title used when addressing the top royals, and then kills himself.
Ser Lorent: Okay, that was intense. Which twin was which?
The Showrunners: We tried to make it as hard as possible to tell.
Me: Uh, Ser Arryk won the fight, and then killed himself. You can tell.
THE FIGHT
Early on in the fight between the Cargyll twins, Ser Erryk, the twin defending Queen Rhaenyra, takes a wound to his right leg.
We know that this is Erryk, since immediately after the strike Arryk goes to attack Rhaenyra and Erryk rises up from the floor (Erryk had gone down from the hit, which gave Arryk the chance to try and get at Rhaenyra.) Erryk prevents Arryk from getting at Rhaenyra, and continues on with the fight.
Later on a second leg wound is shown, this time to one of the twin’s left leg.
Did Erryk take a second hit, or did the previously unwounded Arryk take a leg wound? For reasons I’ll get to in a moment, I’ll expound on why I think it is Arryk – but for now, we can just agree that only Erryk has taken a wound to his right thigh.
There are no other sword-inflicted leg wounds shown in the entire action sequence, just the two above.
After some scuttling about, with the camera changing positions to make it hard to track who is who, a real Three Card Monty situation, one of the twins is knocked to the ground, against the wall, with his brother on top pressing his advantage.
The knight on top is Erryk, we can see his right-thigh wound.
Can’t tell from my poor quality screenshots? I respect your skepticism. Trying to screenshot while watching this dark scene on my iPad, via YouTube, is a challenge.
But, during the fight, the knight on the floor (Arryk) sticks his fingers into the right-leg wound. So we know that the knight on top is Erryk. Because he’s the only two of the twins who has unambiguously taken a right thigh wound.
This causes Erryk to react in pain and is flung back away from Arryk, who is on the ground next to a chair against the wall.
In the picture above, Erryk is in the foreground, Arryk is in the background. Behind the viewer’s perspective is Rhaenyra and the unarmored kingsguard Ser Lorent, who had been retrieved as reinforcements by Elinda the maidservant. To the right of this photo would be the door that Arryk, Erryk, and Lorent had entered through.
For the rest of the fight, the two do not change their relative locations in the room.
Both knights rise, with Erryk (in the center of the room, away from the wall) rushing at his twin, who had risen up to a crouch. Erryk comes in swinging.
Arryk stabs Erryk in the gut. Erryk dies.
Behind Arryk, more men show up through the main door. (There is another door to the room, but it is locked during this entire event.)
We know this is Arryk and not Erryk, since there’s a clear series of events that shows that the knight with the right-thigh wound is the twin who gets gutted, and Erryk is the only twin with that wound.
So, the assassin who came to kill Rhaenyra, after killing his twin and with an imminent capture about to occur, asks for forgiveness, and implicitly calls Rhaenyra the rightful queen by addressing her as Your Grace. And then kills himself.
Ultimately, Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk both die, but it feels important to know who was alive at the end, asking for forgiveness. It’s a bit more tragic if it was Ser Arryk, and especially ironic that Rhaenyra thinks he is Ser Erryk (or at least, she addresses him as such, possibly hoping that her kingsguard has won.)
THE CONTROVERSY
The other day on my BlueSky account, I’d posted more or less the same details above in a thread – I didn’t have pictures though, but that’s not important. But on listening to a podcast covering the episode, the podcast hosts revealed that in the House That Dragons Built behind-the-scenes feature on HBO Max, the production team, in talking about the Arryk/Erryk fight, indicated that they had tried to make it nearly impossible to know which twin was which, even having the twins take identical wounds.
While they were stating this fact, the video showed the two leg wound shots I’d featured above. Where Erryk takes a hit to his right leg, and then presumably Arryk (since the production team says that both twins get wounds) takes a hit to his left leg.
Okay, those are “identical” wounds in that both twins take a thigh wound, but they are LITERALLY on opposite sides. Erryk’s is on the right, and Arryk’s would then be on the left. It’s not hard to tell which twin is which, and it’s clear at the conclusion of the fight that it is Arryk who is the victor between the twins, since Erryk is the one who gets killed.
Was there a shot where Arryk takes a hit to the right thigh, and it just didn’t end up in the final edit? Sometimes, these things happen in productions.
It might even have been the intent of the fight for Erryk to have been the one who survived, but that’s not the reality shown on screen. But, this is television and we have to accept that it’s a fabricated reality, so it’s not worth fighting over.
But, it’s fun to fight over things like this. Lets just keep it respectful.
Erryk: Remember. You’re family.
Arryk: Are they?
Erryk: The A Song of Ice and Fire Endlessly Online Family.
Arryk: Of course.
Erryk: Of Discourse.
Rhaenyra: Sweet words, but this entire show is how Family can be the worst.
Don’t take my word for it! Feel free to watch the Arryk/Erryk fight and tell me if I’m wrong. I watched the fight many times from the original episode but in the course of making this post, I relied on YouTube for the screenshots:
(Comments are always welcome. Super welcome! But if you want to talk spoilery Game of Thrones talk with me (also welcome) I’d invite you to visit my Safe Spoilers page on my backup blog. That way my non-book-reading friends won’t be shocked with foreknowledge.)
Images from HBO’s HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. I make no claims to the artwork, but some claims to the text here. So there.
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© Patrick Sponaugle 2024 Some Rights Reserved
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