All men must die, and all men must occasionally crash out.
It’s not the official saying, but it feels like the theme of House of the Dragon Season 3 so far, which has had deaths aplenty from the very first episode, as well as more than a few incidents of characters losing their shit.
The greatest crash out so far? Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton), who in episode 4, goes from calmly indulging in some smelling salts to teaching his dining table a very serious lesson.
What happens with Ormund Hightower in Season 3, episode 4?
The Ormund we’re introduced to in episode 1 is cool, calm, and collected as he receives a note from Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) telling him to wait for Aemond to send word. In episode 4, he finally receives that word — and his reaction is slightly less chill.
“A raven just arrived from Harrenhal, my lord,” says his surly second-in-command (Joplin Sibtain). “It bears the Hightower seal.”
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Ormund opens the note and reads it with a completely blank face while Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) watches on nervously from the sidelines. By the time Ormund’s finished reading, he’s presumably seen something he doesn’t like, because he hisses across at a nearby servant, “Get out. Now.”
The servant scarpers, and not a moment too soon. Within seconds, Ormund goes from sitting still as a statue to slamming his hands onto the desk over and over, punctuating every slam with “Useless! Craven! Cunt!“
He then proceeds to draw his sword and drop the c-bomb three more times as as he slams the blade into the wood as hard as he possibly can.
Ormund Hightower’s crash out is surely made to be a meme.
The entire sequence is House of the Dragon comedy at its finest. The expression of apoplectic rage on Ormund’s face as he screams “CUNT!” for the third time while hammering his blade into the wood is surely destined for meme territory, particularly when it’s contrasted with him calmly sitting back down moments later and telling Daeron in a light, airy tone: “Your uncle Gwayne has sent word. It seems Aemond will not be joining us after all.”
A glorious scene to watch, which must have been even more fun to act.
It also says a lot about Ormund’s character: Beneath his carefully curated veneer of respectability and honor, there’s a pretty serious temper waiting to explode out.
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House of the Dragon
