By the end of the fifth episode of House of the Dragon Season 3, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) finally comes to realize — in bloody fashion — the true motives of Ormund Hightower (James Norton).
“Daemon wants to reclaim his kingdom on behalf of his wife,” Smith said in HBO‘s behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Episode 5. “And so, suddenly, to be confronted with this other element of foe is quite interesting.”
Ormund’s desire is to ensure that the young prince Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), aka the half-brother of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), replaces her on the Iron Throne. That process was set into motion this week when Ormund added Daeron’s face to currency and killed members of the Gold Cloaks, who serve under Daemon.
Smith spoke about how Daemon and Luthor Largent’s relationship has “gone back a long way.” Luthor (Tom Cullen) is the commander of the City Watch who was brutally murdered at the end of the hour, leaving Daemon completely speechless.
“They’re his team of people,” Smith revealed about the dead soldiers. “He’s always had an affinity with the Gold Cloaks. Obviously, he’s been away, but he’s come back. He’s still their sort of commander-in-chief.”
Showrunner Ryan Condal explained: “Daemon is feeling rather impotent, to a degree. He’s able to play whack-a-mole and chase around these sort of faceless villains in the city, but he knows the real villain [Ormund] is 60 leagues away, in a place where he can’t yet reach him.”
Condal added that Rhaenyra and Daemon “don’t know how to wage combat” against Ormund, which is “exactly the design” of his tyrannical campaign.
“It’s to make them feel helpless and ineffectual and frustrated, and maybe goad them into making a mistake,” the showrunner said. “His design, at the end of the day, is to make sure that nobody wants to be a Gold Cloak, and people are afraid to mount a defense in Rhaenyra’s name.”
“Ormund’s relationship with Daeron is a fascinating one,” writer-producer Philippa Goslett chimed in. “You get the sense that he genuinely does love Daeron, but also needs to be able to control his every move.”
At the conclusion of Episode 5, “Both Rhaenyra and the audience finally understand Ormund’s true intent,” noted Goslett. “If Aegon [Tom Glynn-Carney] and Aemond [Ewan Mitchell] can’t be found, then he still has Daeron. He’s an incredibly dangerous man, and Ormund will do anything and everything to destabilize Rhaenyra’s reign.”
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