This post contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “House of the Dragon.” Proceed accordingly.
Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides and master of Driftmark, managed to make it through “House of the Dragon” Season 3 mostly intact. (RIP that ring finger.) But after the events of the season — and particularly Sunday’s finale — series star Steve Toussaint tells TVLine, the Sea Snake might have a tough time mustering up the effort to be a fully locked-in member of #TeamBlack.
In the season-ending episode, Gwayne and Corlys worked together in a clandestine, last-minute, and ultimately unsuccessful parley with Daemon to try to stave off the Battle of Tumbleton. In the aftermath of the botched conflict, Corlys was the person who found a dazed Daemon and hauled him back toward King’s Landing.
“I don’t think he wants anything more to do with these people and their petty wars,” Toussaint says. “But now, of course, his children are embroiled in it.”
And therein lies the dragon-sized rub that may well shape the trajectory of Toussaint’s character in the HBO series’ upcoming fourth and final season: How much patience will Velaryon have with the regime that doesn’t seem to care much about him or his family outside of their use as weapons or strategists? Read on for what Toussaint has to say on the matter.
TVLINE | Tell me if I’m wrong here, but I feel like Corlys is one of the few people that came away from this season looking better than he did when he started. Thoughts on that?
STEVE TOUSSAINT | Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, I can see why that would be. I can see why you would think that, because one of the things about Corlys, what I liked about this season, is that he seems to have evolved. At the beginning, he apologizes to his son. He’s trying to make amends there, in honor of his deceased wife. And then by the time we get to Tumbleton, he’s just tired of war and the futility of it all. I like that he’s trying. So that scene with Gwayne and Daemon where he tries to posit a compromise, I think all of that indicates where he’s at, and that he’s trying to just avoid shedding of innocent blood.
TVLINE | It struck me, as Rhaenyra is devolving, and Daemon is just bloodthirsty, here comes Corlys as this voice of reason the middle of all of it, someone who has been in many battles and who is — like you said — tired of all of the bad things that can come with it.
Exactly. I think that’s interesting, because I hadn’t thought of the word “devolving,” but yeah, you’re right. The Rhaenyra that Corlys will encounter, when he goes back to King’s Landing is not the same one that he left. When you look at that last scene of the whole episode, of the whole season, when she closes the shutters on her dead sister, there is something in Emma [D’Arcy’s] eyes that just makes you go, “Oh, this person is becoming harder.” She may think that’s what you need to rule. As you said, Daemon is Daemon. But yeah, for Corlys, he’s still on a journey.
