House of the Dragon turns a book horror into a King’s Landing bloodbath
Season 3, episode 5 gives George R.R. Martin’s corpse-feast nightmare a new setting, new victims and a nastier Team Green twist.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
House of the Dragon has served up another stomach-turning banquet, and this one comes with a major change from George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood.
According to Mashable, Season 3, episode 5 reveals that Ormund Hightower, played by James Norton, has been funding the killing of Gold Cloaks across King’s Landing. The episode initially points toward one culprit: Daemon Targaryen, played by Matt Smith, and Ser Luthor Largent, played by Tom Cullen, kill a man connected to the murders who says he acted alone.
That claim does not hold for long. By the end of the episode, nine more Gold Cloaks have been killed, including Luthor himself, Mashable reports.
Daemon then finds the bodies arranged around a long table in a grisly display. The dead Gold Cloaks are seated among candles and tankards, with their organs laid out across the scene. Above them, the words “a feast for traitors” have been written in blood, according to Mashable.
The show’s latest horror feast follows another grotesque food moment earlier in the season, when Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Emma D’Arcy, staged what Mashable described as a rat banquet two episodes before.
How the book version differs
The King’s Landing Gold Cloak massacre is not presented this way in Martin’s Fire and Blood, Mashable notes. The outlet reports that the killing spree involving the Gold Cloaks is a television-only addition, as are Ormund’s plans involving Daeron Targaryen, played by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth.
Martin’s book does include a corpse feast, but it appears in a different part of the war and under different circumstances. In Fire and Blood, Ser Criston Cole, played in the HBO series by Fabien Frankel, is marching south through the riverlands with his men when his scouts discover a staged banquet of dead soldiers.
As described by Mashable, pro-Rhaenyra forces create what the book calls a grotesque mock feast, using decaying bodies to frighten their enemies. Later, Criston’s men encounter another apparent corpse banquet. That second display turns out to be a trap: the “corpses” are living soldiers in disguise, and they kill a dozen scouts.
The HBO version changes the purpose and the politics of the scene. In the show, the dead Gold Cloaks are clearly dead, not soldiers waiting to spring an ambush. Mashable describes the sequence as psychological warfare rather than a battlefield trick.
The side responsible also appears to have shifted. In the book, the horror tableau is tied to forces backing Rhaenyra, often called Team Black by fans. In the series, Mashable says the imagery is moved toward Team Green, in keeping with Ormund’s darker portrayal on the show.
That adjustment also changes how other figures are framed. Mashable notes that the switch avoids making Criston’s major show opponents, Roddy the Ruin, played by Tommy Flanagan, and Ser Oscar Tully, played by Archie Barnes, look like the people behind the corpse display.
House of the Dragon Season 3 is streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, according to Mashable.
This story draws on original reporting from Mashable.