House Of The Dragon Season 2 Episode 2: Did Arryk Or Erryk Win The Fight?
Contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" Season 2 Episode 2 — "Rhaenyra the Cruel"
"Game of Thrones" fans probably remember "Cleganebowl," the long-awaited showdown between the equally terrifying Clegane brothers that ended up coming to pass at the end of the show's (largely reviled) eighth season. "House of the Dragon," the original series' first major spin-off and prequel, just featured its own version, except that the brothers in question are identical twins on and off-screen and impossible to tell apart. So who "wins" the battle: Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) or Ser Erryk Cargyll (Elliott Tittensor)?
As showrunner Ryan Condal told Decider's Meghan O'Keefe during a roundtable discussion, "That is Erryk at the end, who's the last survivor, who falls. Erryk is the one that falls on his sword at the end, yeah. So, you know, Arryk is dead. The infiltrator is dead and then Erryk falls on the sword. So when he says, 'Your Grace,' to the queen, that's when she knows who it is." This does clear some things up, certainly; after the brothers have a deadly fight in the royal chambers of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy), Erryk kills his own brother Arryk and then takes his own life. Though Erryk "wins," he ultimately loses in the long run.
So what's the easiest way to remember who's who according to Condal? It has to do with their allegiances and their actors. "So, the way to remember is that Arryk, 'A,' goes with Aegon and Erryk, 'E,' is played by Elliott Tittensor," he told the outlet.
In real life, Elliott and Luke Tittensor are completely identical — and it's hard to tell them apart
As Ryan Condal revealed, Luke and Elliott Tittensor worked extremely hard on the fight, which they performed without stand-ins or stunt performers. "Look, they're amazing actors and performers," Condal said. "They did that entire thing themselves. They studied that choreography. They learned it from Rowley [Irlam], the stunt coordinator," Condal said. "They did that whole fight on their own and it's so incredible and moving."
Still, Condal admitted that he had his own problems telling the twins apart — especially when they filmed Season 1 of the show, where Elliott Grihault played Luke Velaryon, making things particularly baffling: "So you'd start saying 'Elliot,' and 'Luke,' and 'What?' And 'Are we talking about the character or the actor or whatever?'" Apparently, Condal isn't the only ones the twins routinely fool in real life. "They told us their own mother confuses them and they've tricked their own mother by changing their beard or whatever," he said.
Though Elliott does have a major identifying characteristic that can help tell them apart in real life, as Condal noted, it's pretty tough when they're filming. "They're very hard to tell apart," Condal mused. "Elliott has tattoos all over his arms, which is great when they're not in costume. But the minute they put the costume on, you then can't tell them apart."
Why were these twins even fighting each other in the first place?
It's only the second episode of the sophomore season of "House of the Dragon," and the bloodshed is already ramping up as Team Green and Team Black keep trying to get revenge for their fallen loved ones. After the brutal murder of young Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen in the season premiere, "A Son for a Son," Team Green — led by Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and her son King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) — are out for blood, but ultimately, it's Alicent's secret lover Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel) who engineers a plot to try and kill Rhaenyra.
See, Criston and Alicent were in flagrante delicto, so to speak, when Prince Jaehaerys was beheaded in front of his mother Queen Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban), leaving both Criston and Alicent devastated. Clearly, Criston feels like, as he didn't adequately protect the young prince — which, to be fair, he didn't — he has to get even right away, and sends Ser Arryk, who's on Team Green, to impersonate his twin brother and kill Rhaenyra in her own chambers.
Luckily for Rhaenyra, Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), the spymaster who's set to leave Dragonstone for Myr, sees Arryk arrive on the shores of Rhaenyra's royal stronghold and, we can only imagine, gets to Ser Erryk just in time for him to confront his brother. What happens next is the deadliest "Parent Trap" setup in television history, and after killing his own kin, Erryk, who tells his brother that they were "born together" during their fight, falls on his own sword after apologizing to his queen. It's a brutal sequence — and thanks to Ryan Condal, we now know precisely what happened.