Shedding a toddler is tough for anybody, however shedding one based mostly on the actions of one other member of the family will be downright biblical. Throw in a dragon for good measure, and you may think about the sophisticated feelings Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra should navigate whereas nonetheless looking for her rightful place on the throne. What “Home of the Dragon” has all the time provided in distinction to and at the side of “Sport of Thrones” is its decades-long investigation of 1 household’s inner and exterior battle. It’s a extra intimate and particular narrative that permits for deeper emotional examinations, and that’s what D’Arcy clung to as they ready for the second season of the hit HBO TV sequence.
“I feel grief is a significant engine within the narrative this season,” D’Arcy stated in a current interview with Vogue. “That was a key space of investigation for me, as a result of grief manifests so in a different way in numerous individuals. I feel there’s one thing stunning in the best way that [writers] Ryan [Condal], Sara [Hess], and the group constructed this [season], in that so lots of the key characters are in fairly pronounced levels of grief once we meet them at the beginning of the primary [season], and never solely does grief dislocate an individual from their neighborhood, however it might probably additionally make individuals strangers to at least one one other — like a number of grieving individuals will be fairly profoundly modified.”
And D’Arcy isn’t solely talking of the grief Rhaenyra feels for her lifeless father or her murdered son, however for the residing household, like Alicent, who as soon as was her closest buddy however now feels solely like a brutal enemy.
“They’re form of haunting each other,” they stated. “There’s a whole lot of dying within the present, however these characters are additionally being haunted by the residing, by the lacking individuals of their lives.”
Carrying that grief in her efficiency wasn’t solely a matter of emotion however an aesthetic one as properly. D’Arcy stated to Vogue, “For Rhaenyra, there’s one thing fairly stunning about the best way her costuming this season feels extra conventional, in some methods. It’s as if it’s seeking to historic shapes, virtually like she’s carrying the garments of the earlier era. Within the context of getting simply misplaced her father, I discover that very transferring. It’s like she’s aligning herself with him, but additionally it’s a form of coupling with the previous. She spends a whole lot of time wanting on the historical past of her household this season, as if she’s in search of a clue to her personal future. She’s aligned with the previous Targaryen gods. There’s virtually a want for small-‘c’ conservatism on this conjuring of the lifeless.”