This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3.Power resides where men believe it resides. This famous nugget of wisdom, spoken between Lord Varys and the Imp of Casterly Rock, is virtually a thesis statement for Game of Thrones and the larger George R.R. Martin universe. However, it also speaks to one of the most turbulent, and occasionally blood-soaked, political struggles that persisted throughout Europe’s actual medieval period: the balance for control between church and state.That tenuous see-saw action has played a major role in both Game of Thrones and its prequel series House of the Dragon, but never more so than in the latter’s season 3 finale. For it was in this climactic hour that Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, took a step that her literary counterpart would never dare: she ordered Alyn of Hull to essentially assassinate the ranking septon who served in King’s Landing. In effect, she’s burned the bridge between the secular world of Targaryen kings and queens and the ecclesial one presided over by powerful priests.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});It’s an stunning murder that even Alyn hesitates committing. As the holy man in question warns, “I am the High Septon of the Faith. To harm me is to declare war on the Starry Sept, to damn your soul to the deepest of the Seven Hells!” Yet Alyn reluctantly takes Rhaenyra’s command to heart, as she soothes his doubts by telling him he is the blood of Old Valyria, and thus unburdened by the rules that govern men or the Seven-Faced Gods. It’s part and parcel for the entire power trip Rhaenyra is on in the finale, complete by announcing to thousands of gathered King’s Landing smallfolk and royal attendants that she is a savior-like figure foretold by her father and Aegon the Conqueror; “the Prince That Was Promised” who will redeem Westeros from the threat of monstrous evils far to the North and beyond the Wall!For the record, none of this happens in the book, so the ramifications for what it would mean for Rhaenyra and Westeros are profound. But before folks start drawing their pitchforks and torches for showrunner Ryan Condal and the House of the Dragon writing team, know that like the best shocks and twists in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga and Fire & Blood, the latter of which serves as the inspiration for House of the Dragon, this development has real-world precedent. Aye, the series seems to be adapting to its own purposes one of the most infamous scandals in English history whereupon a 12th century king ordered the murder of his former best friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury.A Kingsman Kills God’s ManThe king and archbishop in question were Henry of House Plantagenet, a.k.a. Henry II, and Thomas Becket, and they were in fact once thick as thieves before Henry handpicked his drinking buddy to be the most authoritative voice of God on Earth, at least this side of the English Channel. There is a special irony in this for fans of George R.R. Martin as well, because Henry II was the son of essentially Rhaneyra’s real-life counterpart, the Empress Matilda. She was the first woman who attempted to assert her right to rule as Queen of England after being selected for the job by her father Henry I—a succession that English lords, including her cousin Stephen of Blois, sought to deny and usurp.So the murder of an archbishop came a little later in the actual English history that roots Game of Thrones lore, but its addition to the Dance of the Dragons gets back to the essential question Varys and Tyrion Lannister mused over in Game of Thrones: Where does power reside, with a king, a priest, or the people often asked to do the killing for either?In the case of Henry II and Thomas Becket, at a glance it initially went to the secular world. After years of Becket growing openly antagonistic of the crown’s brute exercises of power, the Archbishop of Canterbury excommunicated three of the king’s men who crowned Henry’s eldest son, also named Henry, as the Young King. Henry II would officially co-rule with his son, but by coronating this living junior, the elder king defiantly usurped the Archbishop of Canterbury’s authority and privilege to annoint English monarchs.So after his men were excommunicated (and thus condemned to Hell), Henry II uttered on Christmas Day a statement that everyone in the room interpreted as a command to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, although the most famous version of the declaration—“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”—is an apocryphal bit of poetry passed down to us from the 18th century. Whatever he said, four knights picked up the general drift and made haste to Canterbury.On Dec. 29, 1170, Becket was hacked to death on the grand floor of his cathedral by four knights while making his prayers, the crown of his head literally severed from his face.A quick overview cannot undersell how seismic a scandal this was, with the King of England seemingly ordering the slaughter of a man English lords and peasants alike viewed as the voice of God. The fallout drifted all the way to Rome where Pope Alexander openly flirted with excommunicating Henry, thereby condemning his soul to hellfire eternal. Instead Henry allegedly atoned for his deed by humbling himself before the eyes of God and men. He walked in shameful barefoot penance before the power of the Church, and the witness of his peasantry, at Canterbury Cathedral. This included being flogged by local monks.Meanwhile the four knights who seemed to be carrying out his will were excommunicated. They traveled all the way to Rome to plead their case to the Pope, and in an attempt to save their souls were ordered to spend at least 14 years in exile in the Holy Lands during the period when the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem still stood. We are told none of them lived to return home to England.Fallout for House of the Dragon’s DanceAll of which should figure prominently into House of the Dragon season 4, despite some question marks that remain around exactly what occurred in the finale.For the record, in Fire & Blood, the powerful septon who denied Rhaneyra’s coronation until Aegon II’s body was found is Septon Eustace, a crucial figure in Martin’s literary Dance of the Dragons. Indeed, Septon Eustace not only denied Rhaenyra the full vestige of her power on the page, but lived to tell the tale! He became one of the key chroniclers who provided a biased historical record of this civil war’s events, putting in ink Team Green’s version of events. Yet the literary Rhaenyra would not bring herself to kill Eustace, probably because she did not have proof Aegon II was dead or alive at this point in the Dance.In the show’s defense, though, they seem to be notably embracing Martin’s dreaded “butterfly effect” when it comes to book changes. Unlike the text, in the show Rhaenyra and the whole realm have discovered Aegon II and his crippled dragon Sunfyre are alive. So it is mayhaps believable that Septon Eustace would openly defy Rhaenyra’s legitimacy to her face if he knew the male claimant whom he previously crowned still lived.However I am not 100 percent sure that this was Eustace whom Rhaenyra ordered murdered. In fact, he might literally be an analogue for Pope Alexander instead of merely Thomas Becket!“Killing the High Septon is insane,” co-producer/writer Ti Mikkel said in the post-show wrap up of House of the Dragon season 3. “You know, she’s killed the Pope.”I’m not exactly sure how that works in Westeros since during the period the series is set, the High Septon lives in Oldtown—a bit like the Pope being distant from English monarchs while living in Rome. So the politics of the event in the show are a bit looser and more frustratingly opaque than actual history or how Martin pens his plot twists.Nevertheless, there is a grand opportunity here since Game of Thrones, set roughly 200 years after the events of House of the Dragon, also went beyond its literary source material when it featured another power-hungry ruler, Cersei Lannister, orchestrating the murder of the High Septon, a religious fanatic modeled after Girolamo Savonarola in a period when the High Septon was living in King’s Landing. Yet as was the original show’s wont after it surpassed the narrative of Martin’s books, the political ramifications of murdering a Pope-like figure and blowing up King’s Landing’s version of the Sistine Chapel to boot was hand-waved away. Cersei should have faced open rebellion in the streets of King’s Landing after killing the smallfolks’ religious shepherd. But it was never mentioned again.My hunch is House of the Dragon is going the other direction. When word spreads that Alyn of Hull rid Rhaenyra of this turbulent priest, the fallout among the denizens of King’s Landing will be intense, especially when coupled with news that one of her Dragonseeds reportedly burned civilians at Tumbleton. Granted, that wasn’t on Rhaenyra’s orders, but rumors and whispers have a way of ignoring little things like facts.This action should deeply undermine Rhaenyra’s position next season, although frankly I’m not sure how Alyn of Hull will ever be able to fulfill his literary destiny when whoever the next High Septon is will demand his head on a spike—or at least his exile like the murderers of Thomas Becket.… Also, to chase one more butterfly to its end, how did the North not enshrine into stone their chosen queen revealing the Targaryens were sent here to defend the Wall from a great evil? Henry II’s maybe-culpability in Becket’s martyrdom was so great that we still misquote him about it nearly a thousand years later. One would think the North would definitely remember by the time of Game of Thrones that on the day she killed “the Pope,” Rhaenyra warned something’s coming and must be stopped…The post House of the Dragon’s Most Shocking Book Change Has Infamous Real History Roots appeared first on Den of Geek.