The Meaning of Daemon's Visions: House of the Dragon

I wanted to shed some light on the point of Daemon’s visions and why they are being “dragged out,” because I’ve seen in Facebook groups that A LOT of people think Daemon’s visions are extending across too many episodes—people are “tired of it” and “don’t see the point.”

There is a point, though, and it can’t be rushed.

Daemon’s arrogance has spiraled downward to the point where he is no longer loyal to Rhaenyra as his queen, and while he doesn’t oppose her, he’s on a path to that point. If Daemon is going to return to Rhaenyra and be loyal to her, he cannot simply change his mind and reaccept his position as a prince or king CONSORT; Daemon HAS to grow as a person—a character, which means facing demons—his true self and his past mistakes, not the continuation of avoiding/denying them, because the latter is what led to where he is now, insisting he be called “your grace/my king” and demanding people bend the knee to HIM.

In each vision, Daemon is forced to face a different part of his past, and in even the first one where we see young Rhaenyra sewing Jahaerys’s neck, Daemon is overcome with emotion, which surprises him, as well as us, the audience.

In his visions, he’s had to confront himself and the harm he inflicted in his past with young Rhaenyra, Laena (and by extension in the second Laena hallucination, his daughters), his part in influencing and actually being similar to his nemesis Aemond, and his past in failing Viserys in the latter’s greatest time of need.

The vision with his mother is like a counter to the rest, where his mom represents his worst self, feeding his egotistical desire to be king. However, he seems horrified at the end of it when he realizes who she is, which, again, is really a representation of his own psyche—the need to be accepted and respected as he never received this from his mother, because she died when he was so young. So, his shift to a look of horror has multiple meanings here, only one of them the incest that’s inappropriate for even a Targaryen.

After all of this, in episode 6, we see Daemon break down crying while NOT in a vision after Ser Simon leaves his side. We also see in this episode that he lets his guard down to ask Alys for help with the River lords, which is unusual, as Alys highlights in her response.

As he experiences visions over several episodes, Daemon still exhibits his normal recklessness, which gives us an opportunity to see his struggle of change as he clings to his old arrogant self (ordering Blackwood to attack the Brackens and brackens to bend the knee) and how that behavior intersects with the honest reflection the visions are inducing against his will (facing inner demons will always be met with resistance before acceptance), which brings us moments like his response to the River lords condemning him in the middle of the night in where Daemon failed to maintain his initial attitude of pretentious superiority but instead shifts to shame and a sense of confusion (about his feelings) and helplessness (as he questions his actions, which is new to him). He seemed to feel “small” in that moment.

We cannot get real character development and see change at work in realistic way, which shows the struggle with honestly facing himself, if the show covered the visions over one or two episodes. Maybe even three. It has to be a process, and this process is vital to Daemon’s character arc to which his relationship with Rhaenyra as his queen and wife depends.

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