Content warning: this article includes an account of stillbirth and spoilers for the finale of House Of The Dragon.

For 10 episodes now, we’ve been left to ponder over how this premiere season of House Of The Dragon would wrap up. A Red Wedding-type massacre, maybe, or would we see further shocking betrayals? Perhaps Alicent and Rhaenyra might finally come to a mutual understanding, and live happily ever after as long-lost best friends?

Well, if you’ve been watching, you know that the latter is basically impossible (at this point in the series, at least).

Episode nine focused on Alicent’s plot to overthrow Rhaenyra’s rightful ascension to the Iron Throne and instead, make her own son, Aegon, King. It was a Rhaenyra and Daemon-less episode that clearly paved the way for a finale where we see the consequences of that betrayal play out in stomach-churning fashion for the Targaryen couple.

Though this finale is a fitting end to a tense series, it’s one that also highlights the fantasy universe’s obsession with female-centred suffering. 

While the series has arguably always been about the battle of the male ego – Otto Hightower, Daemon, Ser Criston Cole, Lord Corlys Velaryon, King Viserys and his brood of white-haired sons – it’s also focused on how women have had to live alongside and contend with that. Rhaenyra has had to do her “duty” as Queen but most interestingly, we’ve seen the evolution of Alicent from a quiet, subservient teenager to the tactical and calculating wife of King Viserys. Even so, Alicent’s life is one that revolves around keeping the men in her life happy. Just look at the lengths she has gone to in concealing Aegon’s sexual assaults, that uncomfortable foot scene with Lord Larys Strong and lest we forget, the incessant way her father uses her as a pawn for his own Hightower ascension plan.

I say all of this to underline the fact that throughout the 10 episodes, we have born witness to strong-willed women like Rhaenyra and Alicent having to fend off that male ego. While the series has given us everything we’ve wanted in the way of jaw dropping death scenes, love affairs, illegitimate children and dragons, it has also really been a season dedicated to the emotional, physical, and long-standing suffering of the women within it.

It’s also a season bookended by two chilling childbirth scenes. In the first episode, it was the horrific stillbirth scene of Queen Aemma and in the finale, it’s Rhaenyra’s painful labour scene that makes for almost unwatchable viewing. In this final episode, upon receiving the news from Princess Rhaenys that Aegon’s public coronation has just unfolded, Rhaenyra reaches down to find blood between her thighs.

The maester (not so helpfully) offers up the fact that it is far too early for the baby’s arrival and in a fit of rage – at the situation before her and the Iron Throne debacle that’s unfolding while she’s in labour – Rhaenyra bats away help from her nurses, quietly insisting that she will deliver this baby by herself. It’s a scene filled with piercing screeches, sweat, blood and is also interwoven with Daemon’s strategic plotting of how to conquer King’s Landing, rather than stand by the side of his wife. And although it’s a short bloody scene, it’s one that leaves this final episode feeling unexpectedly heavy and haunting.

We see no dialogue exchanged between the expectant parents because, it seems, there are bigger issues at hand. So, Rhaenyra quietly wraps up the body of her child and the episode continues, forcing us all to push that traumatic scene to the back of our minds.

It’s yet another example of a fact that many women watching – including myself – have attempted to push to the back of our minds throughout the series. Can women ever catch a break in this fantastical universe? While the showrunners had initially promised that House Of The Dragon would not contain as much sexual violence as Game Of Thrones, we conclude it acknowledging that this is a series that will still depict bloody, grotesque and triggering childbirth scenes. It may be a medieval-style show and so, childbirth is expectedly more dark and grim, but does this kind of birth trauma need to continually be used against its female characters? 

We’ve already had the childbirth-related deaths of Queen Aemma and Princess Laena Velaryon – so are we supposed to see the survival of Rhaenyra as a good thing? We’ve known Rhaenyra to be the heart of this series and this final episode underlines her as the analytical, well-meaning and quietly powerful Queen we know she can be. But did we need this scene to underline that? Absolutely not.

While the final episode is a nail-biting one that paves the way for an equally great second season, we can only hope that it will be one that becomes a little less obsessed with depicting suffering of its female characters. A fantastical dragon-filled universe that allows women to live, breathe and birth in respectful peace – is that really too much to ask for?

Pregnancy charity Tommy’s offers support and guidance for those who have experienced baby loss.

The final episode of House Of The Dragon airs on Sky Atlantic tonight at 9pm and is available to stream on Now, along with the rest of the series. 

Images: HBO