'House of the Dragon': Why Daemon Saw Young Rhaenyra In His Vision

WARNING! SPOILERS for House of the Dragon 2x03, 'The Burning Mill'.

Episode 2x03 of House of the Dragon saw both the Blacks and the Greens make their first moves towards genuine warfare. While Team Green's Ser Criston Cole set out to gather men from allied houses for the battles to come, the Blacks Prince Daemon Targaryen claimed the castle of Harrenhal, hoping to use it as a garrison for Rhaenyra's forces.

While Daemon unexpectedly finds himself very welcome at Harrenhal, due to House Strong's denouncing of their kin-slaying Lord Larys, his first night in the apparently cursed castle soon takes an unsettling turn thanks to an eerie vision he experiences.

The Vision

When the door of his chosen bedchamber rattles in the middle of the night, Daemon is immediately on alert, believing he is under attack. Setting off in search of his attacker, Daemon is instead drawn to a room with a crackling fireplace (odd, as Harrenhal's Castellan earlier explained that the hearths are notoriously difficult to light), where he experiences a vision of a younger Rhaenyra, reattaching the head of the decapitated Prince Jaehaerys.

"Always coming and going, aren't you? And I have to clean up afterwards.."

After leaving the room, Daemon encounters Alys Rivers, a supposed Bastard of House Strong rumoured by some to actually be a centuries-old Witch, who creepily predicts that Daemon will die in Harrenhal.

In the books, some Targaryens experience prophetic/symbolic visions known as Dragon Dreams. It is uncertain whether Daemon's vision was his own Dragon Dream, or manipulated by Alys. In either case, some fans have questioned why Daemon saw Rhaenyra as a teenage Princess, rather than the adult Queen Rhaenyra to whom he is married.

A complicated relationship

Prince Daemon Targaryen is a complicated character. Though many around him assume he is only out for his own best interests, his true intentions and wants are often unclear, sometimes, it seems, even to himself. Daemon's relationship with his niece/eventual wife, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, is just as complicated.

Rhaenyra becomes the symbol of Daemon's loss in status after King Viserys displaces him as Heir in favor of her. While he is clearly frustrated by this in House of the Dragon's early episodes, he cannot deny his continuing affection for and attraction to Rhaenyra. While he is willing to fight or even kill Otto Hightower when the Then-Hand of the King comes to Dragonstone to retrieve the Dragon egg that Daemon had stolen, he cannot bring himself to harm Rhaenyra when she arrives with the same goal in mind.

A few episodes later, when Daemon takes Rhaenyra on a night out in King's Landing, he does not go through with taking her maidenhood, though he is happy to let Viserys believe that he had.

The reason for this, most fans assume, is that Daemon's feelings for Rhaenyra are genuine, even if he cannot express them in the most healthy of ways. And if he does truly care for her, he may be forced to face some unfortunate truths.

Daemon's vision is a manifestation of his subconscious guilt

Many interpret the fact that Daemon saw the younger Rhaenyra, and her actions reattaching Jaehaerys's head, hints at a deep seated, subconscious guilt over the adverse affect he has had on her life. Rhaenyra does clean up Daemon's messes. She has been doing so since Daemon's own bad behaviour forced Viserys to name her as heir over him. She continues to do so now due to Daemon's role in Prince Jaehaerys's death, whether the death was intentional or not.

Daemon has always seen value in military victory, so it is possible that he will use the acts of winning men, territory, and battles for her in the coming war as his way of making things up to her and assuaging his guilt.

Unfortunately, if the prediction of Alys Rivers proves true, it may just end up killing him.