Otto Hightower’s Banishment and the Rise of Cole Explained

The season opener ended with tragedy, as ​​Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, the son of Aegon and his wife/sister Helaena, was brutally murdered at the request of Daemon Targaryen as revenge for Aegon’s brother Aemond killing Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys. The intended target was Aemond, but when the hired hitmen couldn’t find him, they were given the instruction to kill “a son for a son,” meaning Jaehaerys was decapitated while his mother fled in horror with his twin sister, Jaehaera. This rightfully put Aegon on a rampage, because his son and heir was brutalized in one of the cruelest moments of the entire world of George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones.”

Otto Hightower makes the brilliant decision to honor the slain prince with a parade in the streets, followed by a cart carrying Helaena and Alicent. “The realm must see the sorrow of the crown, a sorrow best expressed through its most gentle selves,” he says. It’s brilliant because the exploitative sight would paint Rhaenyra as a monster. Otto’s keen, strategic advice is a great success. The poor baby’s head moves separately from the body on the parade and it is beyond upsetting. Rhaenyra loses allies immediately, and Team Green earns overwhelming sympathy.

But Aegon sees this plan as weak, and wants “to spill blood, not ink.” He bludgeons one of the killers to death, Blood the butcher, with his own instrument. Not to give Aegon a pass or anything … but I get it. The man decapitated a baby, mercy is not something many would believe he deserved. Before he dies, Blood gives up the identity of his partner as a ratcatcher, but didn’t know his name.

So, Aegon kills all of the ratcatchers and hangs their bodies on display outside the kingdom, angering the citizens and undoing the gains Otto’s plan had given him. And then it gets worse because Aegon is a foolish braggart who cares only about instant gratification and petty victories instead of looking toward the future.