The fifth episode of House of the Dragon ’s second season was bound to be quieter and less action-packed—an emotional comedown after the showy conclusion to last week’s “The Red Dragon and the Gold.” There were no dragon flames or on-screen deaths in Episode 5; the climax involved not a three-way aerial dragon duel, but a conversation in a library room. The Game of Thrones franchise is at its best when it balances cinematic set pieces and political maneuvering, so as we all—characters and viewers alike—take a moment to breathe after the battle at Rook’s Rest, it’s a good week to focus on the latter.

On the military side, Team Black is in decent shape given its dragon advantage even after Meleys’s death. Even the blacks’ ostensible loss at Rook’s Rest is more like a mutually destructive draw, given the injuries to King Aegon II and Sunfyre. “Strange victory, if it was one,” Gwayne Hightower remarks on behalf of the greens.

(The show’s constant refrains this season that neither side truly wins a civil war, along with the regular reminders of dragon deaths—either literal or symbolic, via cups or figurines—have become excessively on the nose.) But the issue for Team Black is not merely that Rhaenyra is down two dragons after the deaths of Meleys and Arrax, or that Vhagar seems unbeatable, or that the greens currently control the Iron Throne. Her problems aren’t only about the flaws of the people around her, from Daemon’s defiance to Ser Alfre.