How ‘House of the Dragon’ staged Daemon’s Harrenhal invasion

Home of the Dragon Season 2, episode 3, “The Burning Mill,” brings viewers again to considered one of Westeros’ most infamous castles: Harrenhal. And what a return it’s!

The episode sees Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) swoop into Harrenhal along with his dragon Caraxes, however that is removed from the triumphant conquest he envisioned. Castellan Simon Sturdy (Sir Simon Russell Beale) is all too prepared to show the fortress over to Workforce Black, no battle wanted. On prime of all that, Harrenhal is supremely spooky, its melted ruins exposing anybody inside to the weather.

“The Burning Mill” makes use of this spookiness to its fullest extent as Daemon first steps foot in Harrenhal. He prowls down lengthy, empty corridors and staircases. Rain and thunder crash in from above, bats burst from the rafters. Within the fingers of director Geeta Vasant Patel, the fortress turns into a maze that Daemon should wander alone, a solitude made all of the extra isolating following his argument with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) in episode 2. For each Patel and Smith, grounding Daemon’s Harrenhal entrance within the aftermath of that argument proved essential.

“Whenever you take a look at the scene for what it’s, it is very simple to only deal with it as if it is out of line with the timeline. What I needed to do is make it emotional and concurrent with what had occurred in episode 2,” Patel advised Mashable. “It isn’t nearly a person who involves Harrenhal and is strolling round scared. You’ll be able to put that anyplace within the season. Why [we see it] now’s that in episode 2, he is been tossed apart by Rhaenyra. He has by no means been this low.”

Rhaenyra’s presence lingers even on this scene. Lengthy earlier than Daemon experiences a imaginative and prescient of younger Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock), you’ll be able to hear her faint, disembodied voice calling to him as he seeks out Simon Sturdy.

Creating Daemon’s emotional vulnerability throughout the Harrenhal invasion began along with his flight into the fortress. “If you happen to’re simply grounded in actuality, this can be a man who’s on a ingesting binge in a automotive,” Patel stated. She labored with Home of the Dragon‘s VFX crew to make Caraxes’s actions extra reckless, like a “drunken dragon” mirroring his rider’s instability.

Daemon’s journey throughout the fortress itself is near-labyrinthine, highlighting each the size of Harrenhal and Daemon’s personal uncertainty. One level of inspiration Patel cited for each her and Smith was the scene in The Silence of the Lambs the place Clarice (Jodie Foster) makes her manner by means of Buffalo Invoice’s (Ted Levine) home. In each sequences, the digital camera follows our uneasy protagonist by means of an unfamiliar place, whipping from doorway to doorway as they ponder what’s subsequent. There is not any music, simply the eerie sounds of the setting.

Harrenhal’s creeping, scary loneliness serves as the right reflection for Daemon at this cut-off date. “This place represents what’s in his soul proper now,” Patel stated.

She continued: “As Daemon’s going from hall to hall, it is a metaphor for him pondering, ‘I do not know the place I’m in my life. I’ve by no means been right here earlier than. I am really scared for the primary time in my life, and I am indignant.'”

Daemon takes that anger out on a Sturdy soldier passing by — the one violence in his takeover of Harrenhal, and a second that wasn’t within the authentic script. “Within the script, the man was simply operating away. However as Matt and I have been working by means of it, we have been each pondering, ‘This does not really feel like Daemon, the place’s he is at within the story.’ Daemon must pummel that man and take every little thing out on him,” Patel stated.

Whereas the beatdown is a really Daemon transfer, Patel hinted {that a} keep in Harrenhal may be a serious catalyst for a change in Daemon. “One factor [Matt and I] spent essentially the most time on was the query of, ‘How will we keep Daemon, but in addition begin permitting a shift in him?'” Patel defined. “Since we labored on [the finale] collectively, we knew the place Daemon was going, and we needed to see the way it began in episode 3. Fortunately, we each set to work collectively on the bookends of his expertise at Harrenhal.”

New episodes of Home of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.