House of the Dragon’s third episode saw the first battle sequence in the series which was extraordinary, to say the least. The third episode titled “The Second of His Name” sees a furious Daemon Targaryen solo battling the entire army of the Crabfeeder.
Longtime showrunner Ryan Condal revealed the importance of the battle and how they managed to pull it off amidst all the chaos happening.
The Iconic Battle In House of the Dragon
Game of Thrones was known for the epic scale of battles and the brutality (and reality) of war that the show portrayed gloriously. It is natural, of course, that the prequel to this great show had to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor.
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The battle that took place between Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen and the Crabfeeder was an iconic testament to the turn of things that the show will later delve into. The battle reminded fans of “The Battle of the Bastards” which was featured in season 6 of Game of Thrones. The battle of zig-zagging by Rickon Stark and the Claustrophobia of Jon Snow ended up in a final battle between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton.
Showrunner Ryan Condal gave his input regarding the process of creating the battle sequence and how Daemon had to lose in front of the men and not go all out like Bruce Willis.
“I wanted to create a memorable battle episode that’s something that we hadn’t seen before.” Since this was Daemon’s “coming out party as a warrior and a character, it was all designed in little moments that happen, throughout the course of the shoot.”
It was Miguel Sapochnik, the director of “The Battle of the Bastards” who took the conversation further by stating that in the end, it was important “to show Daemon fail before he succeeds.”
Matt Smith agreed with both the showrunner and the executive producer along with the lines of…
“size and scale and all that is irrelevant, really. It’s what you get right with it. A few of those things come together, and you think, ‘well, this could be exciting. You don’t want a Bruce Willis action hero thing going on. It’s got to be about him going in and losing.”
The series was praised for the first-ever battle sequence that it showcased in all of its glory. A thing that Game of Thrones created 18 episodes later since its inception (The Battle of Blackwater Bay).
A Metaphor For Daemon Targaryen In House of the Dragon
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Greg Yaitanes, who is the director of the episode elaborated on the highly difficult method that was used for the filming of the final battle between Daemon Targaryen and the Crabfeeder. Matt Smith was unknown to such a sequence before despite starring in numerous acting roles.
“It was great to have him put his trust in me and create a sequence that felt emotional all the way through.” And to top it all off, if you’d closely observe, in the entire 10-minute-long sequence, Smith doesn’t have even one line of dialogue, he only uses his physicality and expressions to emote Daemon’s frustration, pain, and agony which makes the entire sequence so much more intriguing and emotional.”
Matt Smith was praised highly for his acting skills since the actor had no dialogues throughout the entire episode and had to rely solely on his expressions and his body language to convey his emotions to the audience. The episode, which received an IMDB rating of 8.9/10, ended with Daemon Targaryen dragging the half-cut and lifeless body of the Crabfeeder through the ocean sand and thus, essentially ending the war of the Stepstones.
House of the Dragon will see the latest release of episode 4 on 11th September exclusively on HBO.
Source: Collider
