on Google Preferred Source Google News Link copied to clipboard By Aimee Hart Published Aug 2, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT House of the Dragon Things aren't looking too great for the Black council
The biggest D&D news and announcements from Gen Con 2026 4 wild details from The Mad King that completely change Game of Thrones canon For its 50th anniversary, Star Wars is retelling the original trilogy House of the Dragon just set the stage for Rhaenyra's biggest betrayal yet Image: HBO House of the Dragon Sign in to your Polygon.com account One of the best things about the TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood is the level of intrigue, scheming, and politicking on display. In the latest House of the Dragon episode, we see how Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) placement of Torrhen Manderly (Dan Fogler) as her Master of Coin makes him the target of the smallfolk’s wrath, and how Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) uses her body to appeal to Rhaenyra’s senses. Yet, the biggest schemer of House of the Dragon season 3, episode 7, is none other than Ormund Hightower (James Norton).
Ormund has played plenty of tricks this season, adapting some rather unsavory (and Dornish ) methods to pick and tear at Rhaenyra’s rule now that she’s claimed King’s Landing. For one thing, there's the butchering of the City Watch which led to seemingly all the remaining members resigning. With everyone in the city feeling unsafe, the love that Rhaenyra had earned is evaporating. And as proven by the ending of this week's episode, not even those close to Rhaenyra can be counted on. There's one major choice from last season that finally looks like it will come back to bite Rhaenyra in next week's season finale.
House of the Dragon season 3, episode 7 doesn't end on a major cliffhanger like last week, but it does put a few pivotal pieces into position as the show creeps toward another explosive season finale. So let's unpack the most important moments from the episode and what they all mean.
Ormund at the end of season 3 episode 4 urging Daeron to kill a prisoner. Image: HBO With the Blacks now ruling King’s Landing, the Greens have had to fight dirty. Their latest move, under Ormund's guidance, was to capture Tumbleton, a market town not too far from King’s Landing. With the townspeople effectively his hostages, Ormund correctly surmises that Rhaenyra won’t attack with her dragons and risk killing innocent smallfolk. This gives him and his army plenty of time to plan.
We’ve seen that Ormund has already been whittling away at Rhaenyra’s rule, but the ending of episode 7 shows he isn’t content to turn only commoners against the queen; he wants her dragonriders too. This makes sense, as the Greens are in a poor position when it comes to dragons — Vhagar and Aemond are missing, Sunfyre and Aegon are presumed dead, and Tessarion (who belongs to Daeron Targaryen) is still too young and small to put up much of a fight.
If Ormund wants to do well against the Blacks when they eventually come to retake Tumbleton, he’ll need to persuade some of Rhaenyra’s newly minted dragonriders to join his side. It’s not the perfect plan by any means, but Rhaenyra losing any dragonrider to her cause is a major loss if Vhagar, the most powerful and largest of all the dragons, turns up to try to retake King’s Landing.
Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) was never well-respected by anyone outside his drinking mates in King’s Landing — making him the perfect target for Ormund to appeal to. Because Ulf is clos…