‘House of the Dragon’ star admits that many parallels are far from accidental

Warning: the following article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season one, episode seven, “Driftmark.“

Game of Thrones was known for having some of the most strategically duplicitous characters, and Matthew Needham’s Larys Strong keeps that tradition going in House of the Dragon. Larys, nicknamed “Clubfoot” for his foot abnormality, has been slinking in the background for a while, but recently he’s made some major moves that call to mind original GoT players, Varys (Conleth Hill) and Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen).

Needham spoke about the similarities between them in an interview with Entertainment Weekly and how this was all by design.

“That’s not an accident, is it? George R.R. Martin is an extraordinarily intelligent man. I don’t think he would make a mistake like that. That’s a very purposeful thing, so ignore it at your peril. I do think it’s a mixture of Varys and Littlefinger, but I also think they’re three remarkably different people. But they share a sort of murky underworld of the mind. [Varys actor] Conleth Hill is actually one of the reasons I’m an actor. I saw him in loads of plays growing up and just thought he was absolutely magic. So I owe Conleth Hill a lot, actually.”

Larys impacted the story in a big way when he stepped in to guide Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) during her father Otto Hightower’s (Rhys Ifans) absence. When she confided in him about how she felt like she was alone in the castle without her father’s support, Larys took it upon himself to have his brother Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr) and father Lionel (Gavin Spokes) killed. Harwin supported Rhaenyra and Lionel was Hand to the king, and after it was done the path was opened for Otto to return as Hand.

Larys has those same dreams of grandeur that Varys and Littlefinger had and plots with the best of them, using the cover of Harrenhal’s curse as a possible excuse for his family’s death, but he’s also decidedly different. He seeks a reward for his dubious actions, but there’s also a sense that he enjoys this kind of work more than his counterparts. Alicent never outright asks him to kill the Strongs, and after he does it he doesn’t show a shred of sympathy for them. That’s a new level of coldbloodedness.

Needham emphasized this by saying that while their actions are similar, at their core they’re all quite different.

“I don’t know if he’s doing something unique, I just think they’re three very unique people. But, of course, the “chaos is a ladder” way of life is something they share. Those are wonderful actors and performances, but I didn’t go and study them. I just felt like it’s its own beast. And it’s different writers. It might be in the same world, but it felt like a different show. I don’t think I would be doing anyone a favor by trying to replicate someone else’s performance, ’cause it’s been done beyond perfectly by those guys. I don’t think either of those guys burnt their family alive. I’m sure they did other horrible things, but he’s his own strange guy, I think. He’s on his own path.”

Larys wasn’t featured heavily in the books, and the show uses the character to answer some ongoing mysteries. There were rumors about other parties having killed Harwin and Lionel, including Daemon and Corlys Velaryon, but the show made the decision for it to be Larys, putting him on the same plateau as the other great plotters in the world of Westeros.

Episode seven saw the true descent into the Dance of Dragons with Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Alicent’s children going at it. In the House of the Dragon episode eight preview clip, Otto Hightower is looking to seize power and things are bound to get even bloodier.