See how George RR Martin draws tragic parallels between Baelor Breakspear and Oberyn Martell, reverberating fate & honor throughout the history of Westeros.
If you have ever found yourself buried deep in the lore of George RR Martin — A Song of Ice and Fire, or you just have a passing interest in Game of Thrones, you are probably familiar with the popular phrase “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
In Westeros, this is more than just a clever saying. How the George RR Martin whole story is built around it. George RR Martin has a penchant for retroactively playing out events of the past in the present, but often with a grimmer, more twisted result. But of all his books’ historical “rhymes,” there are none quite so heartbreaking or headache-inducing as the link between Prince Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen and Prince Oberyn “The Red Viper” Martell.
Almost a hundred years apart, these two men were the rockstars of their times. They were the top fighters, the coolest princes, the dudes everyone wanted to be. Yet, both of them died in virtually the same way: trial by combat against a giant, intimidating rival with a gory, skull-crushing ending, in a result that altered the destiny of the George RR Martin Seven Kingdoms for all time.
So let’s get down to the fascinating, tragic and completely brutal comparisons between the George RR Martin Dragon and the Viper.
Before discussing how they died, we need to talk about why what they died for hurt so much. “In a George RR Martin narrative tragedy it must hit home, so you make the audience fall in love with the character first.” Martin did this to perfection with both Baelor and Oberyn.
Baelor Targaryen as seen in The Hedge Knight is the very picture of the perfect prince. He was crown prince and Hand of the King, and also a legendary warrior. Not only was he a man of strength and power, but his character was so good that he was looked upon as a shining light of virtue and leadership in the land.
In addition, he was both the Hand of the King and the crown prince, and a fighter so famous that he was the subject of ballads. He wasn’t just strong; he was good. He was the kind of leader who made people feel safe. Had Baelor ascended the throne, the Targaryen rule might have persisted for an additional thousand years or so.
A century and change from there to the main series. Oberyn Martell was Baelor’s polar opposite in personality, but his equal in charisma. He’s the “Red Viper” – a second son who lives in the world, fighting in mercenary companies, learning poisons, and basically doing whatever he wants. He was dire, capricious, and that Shot-in-the-dark Really Cool, Just as Baelor stood for the best House Targaryen could offer, Oberyn stood for the prickly, fiery, indomitable soul of Dorne.
Both were what we call “Era Parents.” When they entered a room, they demanded respect. When they pulled out a gun, you knew something amazing was about to happen.
The similarities really start to emerge when you examine the causes of their deaths. Neither prince died in a grand war or a serendipitous mishap. They each took part in a judicial duel—a trial by combat to rescue someone who was being annihilated by the system.
Baelor Breakspear shocked the whole realm when he backed a hedge knight named Duncan the Tall (Dunk). Dunk was charged with attacking a royal prince (who actually deserved it), and Baelor saw that his own family was wrong. In an act of idealistic chivalry, Baelor practically staked his life on a nobody’s honor. He battled for the helpless against the mighty.
Oberyn Martell advances to champion Tyrion Lannister. However Oberyn’s motivation was slightly different, he craved the chance to kill Gregor Clegane (The Mountain) for the murder of his sister, Elia. But it’s the same: a scion of high-born nobility takes up his rapier in the ring, now defending a man whose fate has been decided by the crown.
Here again, we have a champion confronting a beast for a small fry, in both cases. And in both cases the story tricks us into thinking they’re going to win.
This is the part that makes everyone cringe. George RR Martin didn’t simply kill those characters — he dismembered them, in ways that are specific, graphic, and medically horrifying.
The “head-crush” is a very specific motif in Westeros. It is the beheading of a family or movement’s “head.”
The Hedge Knight tells the tale, and Baelor appears fine at the end of the fight. He’s sitting up, chatting, and instructs his maester to attend the other injured men first. But then, he complains about a headache. The horror is revealed when he removes the helmet.
His brother, Maekar, had clubbed him with a mace in the scramble. The blow had crushed the back of Baelor’s skull. The helmet was the only thing holding his head together. Baelor collapsed when the helmet was removed and the pressure relieved. The “red blood and pale bone” that is poured out here is one of the most memorable images in fantasy literature. Baelor was exhausted as a “walking ghost” – alive only thanks to his armor and force of will.
Oberyn’s death is the violent, fast-paced rhyme to Baelor’s slow tragedy. We all know the scene. Oberyn has the Mountain pinned. He has won. But his arrogance gets the better of him. He wants a confession.
The Mountain trips him, punches his teeth out, gouges his eyes and then— in a moment sextillions of TV viewers will rerun in their heads that crushes his skull with his bare hands. The “sickening crunch” described in the books is a direct echo of the noise Baelor’s skull emitted when his helmet was taken off.
Both men were inches away from survival. Both men were the superior fighters. And both men were left broken on the tourney grounds.
If we investigate a little, there turns out to be an interesting “technical” reason why they both died, and it says a lot about what kind of men they were.
He raced late into the melee without any armor of his own. He had to borrow armor from his son, Prince Valarr. The problem? Valarr was smaller and slimmer than Baelor. The helmet was too tight.
A helmet must be padded and have some space in front to play the shock of the hit in medieval fights. The death of Baelor Toesdrinker was a tragic example of what can happen when armor is ill-fitting. That which should have protected him from harm, was what killed him, underscoring the need for accuracy and caution when making protective equipment.
Oberyn was known to fight without a helmet. He wanted to be quick, light, and to have everything in sight. This was his hubris. He thought his ability was sufficient protection. If Oberyn had been wearing a heavy helm like a regular knight, the Mountain would not have been able to gouge out his eyes and crush his skull so easily.
Baelor is one of the coolest lessons on how to read prophecies George RR Martin Game of Thrones can teach us.
In The Hedge Knight, Daeron the Drunkard has a “dragon dream.” He says to Dunk:
“I dreamed a great red dragon fell upon you, but you were living and the dragon was dead.”
Everyone is initially under the impression that Dunk is going to kill a prince in the fight. But that’s not what happens. Baelor (the “great red dragon”) dies from a blow to the head and collapses over Dunk, who is crying on the ground. The prophecy was fulfilled, but not as anyone expected.
Tragedy is the source of great wisdom that audiences can learn from in this tale. When Daenerys has visions, or Cersei hears prophecies, it is a signal to treat such pronouncements with a grain of salt and a generous helping to understand the “falling dragon” is not an actual monster that drops from the sky but it’s the fall of a great man. Baelor’s death is the key to understanding the magical logic of the whole George RR Martin series.
You might be thinking: “So a prince died 90 years ago, big deal. Where’s the relevance to the main storyline?”
But this is why we have the Mad King, thanks to Baelor Breakspear’s death.
Let’s see how the dominoes fall:
The succession to the throne would have been secure. There would be no Mad King Aerys, no Robert’s Baratheon, and no Ned Stark losing his head.
Baelor’s death was the “hammer blow” that shattered the foundations of House Targaryen. When we reach Oberyn’s death in the novels, we are simply witnessing the end of the house.
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Baelor Targaryen, by birth, looked very different from most Targaryens. His mother was Mariah Martell of Dorne the source of his Dornish heritage, he inherited her black hair and black eyes. It gave him a decidedly Doran look, and some quietly commented that Baelor was “more Martell than Targaryen.”
Particular, grotesque fate for the Martell line Martin has reserved, it seems like. It’s almost a “blood-rhyme.” The ones who have the blood of Dorne with fierce, proud, rebellious to keep ending up crushed by the likes of what the Iron Throne can put its enforcers, blunt force.
So the next time you see that gruesome scene of Oberyn Martell in Season 4, or The Hedge Knight, keep in mind that you’re not just watching a fight. You are watching a cycle of history repeating itself.
George RR Martin connected these two men across time to reveal to us that the “Game of Thrones” consumes even its best players. Baelor was the fire of the past, and Oberyn was the hope of the present. They both crumbled under the burden of their own decisions, and the cruelty of their world.
The death of Baelor broke the Targaryen dynasty, and that of Oberyn shattered the peace between the Lannisters and Dorne. They are the two “crushed crowns” of Westeros that testaments to how even the brightest stars can go out swiftly, violently.
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Stranger Things Season 5 is said to be an epic Hawkins finale. Cast details, a plot synopsis, release information and a heartfelt Duffer tribute. Learn more!
For more than eight years, Stranger Things Season 5 has been our shared time machine. It whisked us back to the warm flicker of neon arcade machines, the static on walkie-talkies and the spine-tingling excitement of ’80s horror. We’ve been picking apart the Duffer Brothers’ homages to Spielberg, King and Carpenter for years. But as we prepare to bid the series farewell in its fifth and final season of Stranger Things, the showrunners won’t be paying any more tributes to the pop culture that brought them up. They’re honoring the woman who actually raised them.
In a move that has melted hearts across the internet, Ross Duffer recently revealed that the role of “Miss Harris” in Season 5 will be played by none other than Hope Hynes Love—the Duffer Brothers’ real-life high school drama teacher.
In order to get a sense of why this casting is so powerful, we need to travel back in time to Durham, North Carolina, in the year 2000. Before they were Netflix royalty, Matt and Ross Duffer were just a couple of self-described “outcasts” scurrying the halls of Jordan High. They weren’t athletes, and by their own accounts, they were “awful actors.”
In the high school world where status is everything, the twins were outliers. Their obsession with film made them “weird.” They needed a sanctuary, and they found it in the drama department.
Enter Hope Hynes Love. She didn’t require them to be star performers. She operated on a philosophy of inclusivity, valuing enthusiasm over raw acting talent. As Ross shared in a vulnerable Instagram post,
“High school was rough for me and my brother. But Hope saw something in us we didn’t see in ourselves.”
Hope didn’t just give them a safe space, she gave them a career blueprint. She famously told her students that to make it in the arts, they needed to be a “tractor”—a versatile machine capable of doing the heavy lifting, regardless of the terrain. She taught them that a creator must be able to write, direct, edit, and understand every angle of production.
“Let’s give it up for all the teachers who are just crushing it. And for the love of God, let’s put the arts back in schools.”
—Ross said
She also indulged in what educators term “benevolent neglect.” When the brothers desired to make a documentary about the school musical, she released them. When that documentary was turned down by a film festival, she let them fail and that failure taught them how to cut, how to pace a story and how to have heart. She didn’t only instruct them in drama, she instructed them on how to survive the business.
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In Season 5, life will imitate art in the most poetic way possible. Duffer brother shared on Instagram as Deadline mentioned, Hope Hynes Love will portray Miss Harris, a teacher at Hawkins Elementary. But this is no walk-on cameo. The storyline drops her at the epicenter of the end of the world, shielding the most young and naïve characters (Mike and Nancy’s little sister, Holly) from the series’ biggest villain, Vecna.
There’s a whole profound metaphor to be had here. Two decades ago, Hope Hynes Love was the one who shielded Matt and Ross from the “monsters” that comprise adolescence – insecurity, doubt, and isolation.
Now, the brothers have written her into their world as a guardian against the monsters of the Upside Down. She is the thematic linchpin of the finale: the teacher as the ultimate guardian.
While the casting is a sweet gesture, it carries a serious message. The Duffer Brothers are using the massive platform of Stranger Things to scream one thing from the rooftops: Prioritize the arts in schools.
The multi-billion-dollar franchise we love today wouldn’t exist without a high school drama program in Durham. It wouldn’t exist without a teacher who saw potential in two quiet kids with a camcorder.
As we witness the last stand for Hawkins come to a head in 2025, look for Miss Harris. She is a reminder, though, that even though telekinesis is rad, the biggest superpower in the Stranger Things universe—and in real life—is a teacher who believes in you when you don’t believe in yourself.
Fandomfans is delivering every update on Stranger Things, its cast and producer/director Duffer Brothers’ decision to the fans of the amazing thriller series.
Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 recap: Explore shocking turns, Rue’s peril, and Nate’s cruel destiny. Read the turning point of the episode “The Ballad of Paladin”.
Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 “The Ballad of Paladin” is the type of episode where it feels like nothing is stable from the start and keeps getting worse. It’s a wedding episode, to be sure, but very quickly it gets a lot messier as it mixes the romantic with the tense and the violent, like only Euphoria can.
The series skip between timelines and story arcs, Jules’ past, Rue’s perilous detour, and a wedding that might as well have a giant “doomed” sign hanging above it, not only building tension, but flipping expectations at every turn. Rather than one big dramatic explosion, the episode has several smaller shocks that hit just as hard.
The ending is defined as just Euphoria type once again, even in moments like celebration are settled with brutality imagery which reaffirms that joy-filled moments aren’t without a price.
Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 starts not at the wedding location, not with Rue’s voiceover, but with Jules. Specifically, Jules of old in the four-year lapse between seasons two and three that the show keeps going back to with flashbacks.
We meet her at art school, sharing a cramped apartment that looks like it was made to house starving students. Enter her roommate, obviously more experienced in the ways of the world who introduces her to the concept of being a sugar baby. “It’s like dating, but you get paid.” And just like that, Jules is off.
What follows is a series of first dates, and it’s classic Euphoria: beautifully strange, slightly unsettling, and shot like a fashion spread from an alternate dimension where everyone’s got very particular kinks. One man, a 48-year-old lawyer named Rick, simply wants to see Jules in nylons. That’s it. That’s the entire date. Euphoria definitely will not let you eat in peace.
But the most crucial figure Jules encounters in all this is Ellis — a plastic surgeon who treats her not as a companion but as a case study. The dynamic is disarming in a slow, creeping way. He at one point pulls out some Saran Wrap and honestly, you almost don’t want to know. On their first date, he tells her that his wife knows about his extracurricular activities.
“You take the best parts of a person and marry them. Hopefully, you can tolerate the worst,” he says.
For the first time, we’re given a glimpse of Nate ahead of Cassie in her dress and it’s not a good look. He’s in the bathroom, crouched on the toilet, vomiting, attempting to calm himself with a paper bag. Just a bad hangover, a panic attack, or his body punishing him for the decisions he’s made?
But the message is clear: this is no mere nerves. Nate is coming apart at the seams, and there’s something about this day that just seems very, very off.
And then there’s Cassie, who manages to be dazzling and a few seconds from total emotional collapse simultaneously. She’s in a Wiederhoeft corset that is working overtime, and she’s telling Lexi — sweet, anxious Lexi in her Nana Jacqueline pink bridesmaid gown — that Nate didn’t come home the night before. Cassie’s eyes are already red. Her voice has that particular tremor that signals things are going to get really, really bad. But she smiles through it. Obviously.
The venue alone was stunning. Nate apparently dropped $50,000 on flowers — which, given that he’s currently being circled by a loan shark, is an insanely foolish financial decision, but also very on brand. There is an ice sculpture of the couple.
The flowers are everywhere. Natasha Newman-Thomas, the new costume designer, definitely went all out, as the costumes in this episode are absolutely amazing in that over-the-top Euphoria style that made the show so iconic in the first place.
Jules makes an appearance on Rue’s arm as her date in, maybe, the most see-through dress ever created, a frosty blue Acne Studios number from its spring 2023 collection. Her blonde wig is more than the cloth is covering. Nate’s mom looks at it, and says,
“I just can’t believe she had the nerve to show her face.”
Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 is basically a reunion of a high school group. The tension rises when they are all together in the same room with uncomfortable exchanges rather than huge conflict among them. While you keep thinking something will explode but when it finally does, it’s in the least expected place.
Then BB walks in pregnant and the energy immediately shifts. Her first step is to ask Maddy if she changed her number. It’s blunt, charged, and profoundly unsettling. “Awkward” is not even close to describing the silence that ensues.
Now, Maddy is dressed in a way that violates the laws of physics and fabric adhesive and she’s doing that thing where she’s obviously in pain but she’s holding it together wonderfully. Lexi is silently observing the whole thing, as Lexi always is.
The most interesting moment in Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 is between Jules and Cal—Nate’s father, who is still reeling from the fallout of last season. Following a sex crime perverted with someone right under 18, he took a plea deal and wound up on the sex offender registry. Now, he refers to it as a “modern scarlet letter,” which is saying a pretty heavy thing but Euphoria has never really pulled punches.
He also apologizes to Jules for taping their sex scene. His rationale? “I just wanted to jerk off to it.” Which is, in some odd way, both a confession and a non-apology. Classic Cal.
But here’s the fun part: from what Cal says, Jules figures out that the tape was never turned over to the police. So Nate must have gotten rid of it. It’s a long-standing frayed end from earlier seasons, and it is tied up here — perhaps a bit too neatly, sandwiched between champagne toasts and a loan shark yelling at someone at a wedding.
Naz, a Russian loan shark, is the real disruptor of the Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 who most certainly wasn’t invited, but comes anyway, because that’s exactly what people like him do. Middle of the reception, he finds Nate and loudly confronts him about the debt so that everyone knows how far in debt he is. And I mean it’s not small. A portion of that money, as we now know, was spent on a wedding — lobster on the tables and nearly $50,000 worth of flowers on show.
Events quickly get out of hand when the couple that Nate wiped out their children’s college fund overhears the confrontation. The wife doesn’t hold back, she faces Cassie and in a blunt manner tells Nate that he used her. It’s dirty, public and you can’t look away.
“Is everything okay?” Lexi asks, trying to cut through the chaos.
“Of course!” Cassie says, a tearful expression on her face that she doesn’t bother to hide. “It’s our wedding day.” “What a strange question to ask on the best day of my life.”
And it’s worth saying Sydney Sweeney has been fantastic this season. The strain of holding it together while she is so obviously breaking down, Cassie is really difficult to watch. She owns the character who wanted something so intensely that nothing can stop her now. On her wedding day, the world crawled in front of all who knew her as it meant to be the best day ever for her life.
Just as the wedding gets into full throwback mode, Rue is whisked off on a completely different adventure. Bishop, one of Alamo’s boys hauls her off mid-function for a jaunt to Laurie’s. It’s a pickup, technically, but with Laurie, nothing is ever that straightforward. Rue has to leave Jules at the wedding to go, which adds yet another subtle source of tension to a day that is already on shaky ground.
Rue receives a phone call from Fez while he’s in jail on the road. We only get her side but that’s enough. Amid all the chaos, the pause feels somehow unexpectedly warm. Fez jokes about busting out using parkour, and Rue can’t help but smile, obviously just glad to hear his voice. It’s fast, almost ephemeral, but it hits and it reminds you what actually matters to her under all the noise.
The Laurie subplot Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 is pulling some clever stuff. There’s an earlier scene with Laurie and some family members that strongly suggests they’re plotting to grab Rue when she makes an appearance. You’re watching the whole scene at Laurie’s with that threat hanging over you. And then, it doesn’t happen. Bishop poisons Laurie’s parrot — the titular Paladin as revenge for Laurie releasing a pig in one of Alamo’s strip clubs (yes, this is the show we’re watching).
A deal gets struck: Laurie’s product will be tested to ensure it does not have a lethal fentanyl amount. Everyone leaves. Paladin dies quietly, off camera, while Laurie falls asleep in front of the TV.
The subversion is effective. Levinson has this way of ratcheting up tension toward a certain explosion, and then he redirects it and here it somehow really works. But then Rue is stopped by the DEA as she’s coming home. So.
After the wedding, after all the tears and the popping of champagne bottles and the public threats, Nate carries Cassie across the threshold of their new home. It’s sort of romantic for about three seconds. Then they see Naz and one of his cohorts waiting inside.
What happens next is brutal, and primarily seen through Cassie’s eyes. Nate is pummeled down the stairs, his head smashing against the cold iron hand rail. Cassie is pushed away, her nose broken. And this is where everyone is going to be talking about Nate having his pinky toe removed.
There’s an element that makes a film adaptation scene ridiculous, which is a weird thing to say about a man having part of his toe lopped off. But Cassie occupies the foreground of the frame the whole time as she complains about her day being ruined, and there’s something about the way that’s visually composed, the violence taking place behind her, her sorrow right up front that strays towards the ridiculous. Not that kind of way. In a very conscious Euphoria style.
It’s a beautiful scene. Genuinely so. And it ends with Cassie crying her eyes out, Nate bleeding, Maddy driving home on her own, and the Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 abruptly cuts to Laurie’s deceased parrot.
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“The Ballad of Paladin” is a far superior that has no business being what it is, among all its many plates spinning at once. That the Wedding. Jules’ backstory. Rue fetching drugs. The gang war. The parrot. It’s a continual divided focus, yet the show brilliantly holds your interest the whole time.
The cleverest thing it does is to upend expectations without playing dirty. You wait for the wedding to be disaster, the old patterns to explode right there on the banquet hall and now, the real trouble brews away from it all. Which seems more honest for some reason than if it had been a public scene.
Cassie and Nate are damaged human beings and never going to complete each other, and Euphoria Season 3 Episode 3 lets that be known. The flowers were beautiful, though. Let’s give credit where credit is due.
Now we only have to wait and see what happens when Laurie wakes up and discovers Paladin is dead. I’ve a feeling the DEA pulling Rue over is going to be the least of everybody’s problems.
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