House of the Dragon tackles serious themes of power, betrayal, and morality through character-driven storytelling. With Ormund Hightower's actions, the show successfully evokes a sense of urgency and tension, setting the stage for an engaging narrative as it delves into the intricacies of Westeros' political landscape
, including his order to have one of his own men gelded. Much of the episode centers on the eponymous location, which Ormund successfully took control of in the previous installment.
He has established his own base in the seat of House Footly, while his soldiers have gone from door to door, forcing the residents to provide them with lodgings. That leads to an exchange between one soldier, named Garrick, and Kat, the wife of Hugh the Hammer, and her family. She’s living with her brother, Leo, and his wife, and Garrick makes his way into their home and then tries to force himself upon Kat before being fended off.
He ends up breaking the arm of Leo’s wife, something that is then taken up with Ormund himself. Surprisingly, the Lord of Hightower sides with the Tumbleton residents, ordering his men to break Garrick’s arm and to have himThe latter part of that is a particularly brutal punishment: gelded means to be castrated, and is a term usually applied to horses, where the gelding is typically done to make them calmer and easier to train.
Castration has been used in Westeros as punishment for rape, slavery, and various other crimes, whilehad various notable characters to whom it had been done, including Varys and the Unsullied soldiers, including Grey Worm. There is no record in George R.R. Martin’sof Ormund having soldiers castrated, but it did happen to one member of Team Green later on withHouse Of The Dragon Has Made Ormund Hightower Into Season 3’s Main Villain and audiences.
As horrifying as it is, in the world of Westerosi justice, it suggests he is on their side and will not tolerate abuse. That he is someone who can be trusted with power, who is fair and just, a position he’ll look to hold in contrast to how he paints Rhaenyra. But in reality, it’s just all part of his act, and the truth comes at the very end of the episode.
He has actually had Leo taken captive and forces Daeron to kill him, unveiling his grand plan to make the prince into the new king, despite him being younger than both Aegon and Aemond Targaryen. When it transpired that Aemond was not coming to Tumbleton to aid them, Ormund altered his scheme to one of total Hightower superiority.
While Daeron’s brothers were raised as Targaryens in King’s Landing, he was raised as a Hightower in Oldtown, with Ormund as his father figure. That’s supposed to make the prince something better, ostensibly more decent and proper, someone whom the Faith of the Seven and its Gods will look down more favorably upon. The reality is, ironically, that Ormund is the one forcing him away from that, under the name of justice.
The goal here is for Ormund to take that power for himself, and with Daeron, he gets the best of both worlds: someone he can control, whom he believes to be better than a Targaryen savage, but also who has the right name and, crucially, a dragon. It’s a combination with which the Lord of Hightower clearly envisages he can rule the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, turning him into a man with much grander ideas and ambitions than in the book.
‘s version of Ormund exists on the page. He doesn’t do a huge amount in, and we learn even less about him as a person. He leads an army, fights in a couple of battles, and that’s about it. There’s no real detail, but the show has effectively turned him into the main villain of Season 3.
With Aegon having fled and Aemond being MIA, he is the biggest opposition Rhaenyra currently faces after taking the Iron Throne. The combination of having a soldier gelded and then killing Leo shows exactly who she is up against. There’s something of the tactical nous and political maneuvering of Tywin Lannister here, but it’s combined with some of the sadistic cruelty of Ramsay Bolton .
That’s a potent mix, and should make for some explosive results when everything eventually comes to a head at Tumbleton.
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