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Spoilers follow for both House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood.
A lot happened in House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 5, from unseen assassins creating a gruesome tableaux of corpses worthy of a Thomas Harris serial killer to Alicent and Helaena’s escape plan ending in a cliffhanger.
One of the most curious events in this episode is the disappearance of the dragon Vhagar, who apparently abandoned her ailing rider Aemond at Harrenhal to go on a countryside spree while he recovers from his stab wound in the care of the enigmatic Alys Rivers. But as Aemond, as out of it as he is, correctly noted, Vhagar would never just leave him.
Remember, young Aemond bonded with Vhagar — the oldest of all living dragons, the last of those who participated in Aegon’s Conquest — after his two older siblings had already claimed dragons of their own. As firmly established in Game of Thrones lore, a dragon is bound to its rider until the latter’s death. Only then can a dragon accept a new rider. But Aemond isn’t dead (well, not just yet, according to what his prescient sister Helaena foretold in the Season 2 finale and which he's still freaking out about).
The Bond Between Dragons & Riders
I was unable to find any existing examples in Game of Thrones lore where a dragon, no matter how mercurial, just ditched its rider when the going got tough. Arguably, the closest example is from House of the Dragon itself in one of its more notable deviations from its literary source material, George R.R. Martin’s Targaryen history book Fire & Blood. But that was a case of a human abandoning their dragon.
House of the Dragon: Season 1 saw dragonrider Laenor Velaryon fake his death and flee with his lover. In the book, Laenor was really killed, which meant his dragon Seasmoke was able to eventually bond with another rider, Addam of Hull. But by having Laenor live and Seasmoke still bond with Addam, House of the Dragon wrote their way around Martin’s rules of dragonriding. Since dragons and riders share a deep bond, wouldn’t Seasmoke have sensed that Laenor is still alive? Does abandonment equal death to a dragon? The show has left all that unanswered (unless Laenor died off screen, as some have speculated in order to explain this away).
Perhaps it’s a fool’s errand to try to discern the motivations of a dragon. As historian Archmaester Gyldayn observed (in George R. R. Martin's novella The Princess and the Queen):
“We shall not pretend to any understanding of the bond between dragon and dragonrider; wiser heads have pondered that mystery for centuries. We do know, however, that dragons are not horses, to be ridden by any man who throws a saddle on their back.”
But still, why did Vhagar leave Aemond? That abandonment has further shattered Aemond, whose psyche is now as wounded as his body. “Without her I’m nothing,” he despairs to Alys after seeing that his dragon is indeed gone, having fled in the night.
We know Vhagar is still alive, as she’s left a trail of clues behind her, so much so that the Blacks and the Greens both believe Aemond is just out there rampaging around (while Criston Cole and Ormund Hightower are left wondering when he’s going to show up and help them like he was supposed to do).
Fire & Blood saw Aemond and Vhagar attacking the riverlands together. As far as the show has thus far revealed, Vhagar is doing this of her own volition while Aemond has been in the throes of a fever at Harrenhal the whole time. Aemond’s wound and Alys nursing him back to health is an invention of the show.
Alys Rivers: The Witch Queen of Harrenhal
The most obvious reason why Vhagar left Aemond is that Alys somehow got the Targaryen prince to order his dragon to leave him for a while but he can’t remember doing that because of some trickery by Alys. Notably, Alys didn’t really answer Aemond when he asks her if he’s her prisoner. We know from Daemon’s time with Alys in Season 2 that she can manipulate even the most cunning of Targaryen men. Whether she’s a witch or simply knows how to take advantage of men in a weakened state remains unclear. It’s probably to her advantage for superstitious people to think she’s a witch even if she’s not.
However she does it, Alys is able, without an army or economic resources, to get what she wants from the most fearsome Targaryens. And what she apparently wants, as she flat-out told Daemon, is the haunted castle Harrenhal itself. (We are also reminded in this episode that Rhaenyra has promised the castle to various other allies.)
By breaking Aemond psychologically — we see him desperately clinging to her, even calling her mother — Alys is able to further manipulate him to get what she wants. Or maybe she really is a witch, one powerful enough to conjure a spell that could disrupt the bond between a rider and its dragon? However it happened, Alys has clearly been able to override Vhagar’s hold on Aemond long enough for her to break him down to his most vulnerable state and make him pliable in whatever her long game is.
While Fire & Blood readers know what’s in store for Aemond and Alys, maybe House of the Dragon will throw yet another curveball in how it adapts Martin’s material for the screen. We will hopefully know more before House of the Dragon’s penultimate season concludes in August.
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