Aemond's Purge Is Larys's Harvest: How Absolute Rule Builds Its Own Blind Spot
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THEORY ASSESSMENT
The episode ground truth confirms every element of Aemond's consolidation — Alicent's removal, Criston's dispatch, Larys's rebuke, Otto's summons, and the stripped-down second council — making this one of the most directly evidenced theories in the catalog.
STORY CONTEXT
He killed his own family, speaks in riddles, and always seems three steps ahead, so what does Larys actually want? This thread hunts for his endgame, debating whether he's a chaos agent, a secret Targaryen loyalist, or playing a game only he understands.
WHY THIS MATTERS
If this reading is correct, the show has constructed a tragedy in which Aemond's genuine political competence and Larys's parallel game are not competing forces but mutually reinforcing ones. Aemond builds the architecture of absolute rule, and Larys harvests the vacancies that architecture requires, meaning the more effectively Aemond consolidates, the more completely he seals himself against the correction that could save him. The Triarchy betrayal is not something that happens to Aemond's plan; it is what his plan was always building toward.
Other Theories for S2E06
Mysaria Weaponizes Hunger Against the Greens
Mysaria is running a coordinated two-stage operation that inverts the political meaning of Rhaenyra's own blockade: her agents seed the taverns of Flea Bottom with messaging that Aemond feasts while commoners starve, then food boats arrive under Rhaenyra's banner to ensure relief is credited to the Blacks.
Seasmoke Runs a Two-Condition Screen the Crown Cannot Pass
Seasmoke's selection logic requires both Velaryon blood and the absence of presumptive claiming: a dual criterion that operates entirely outside royal authority.
Aemond's Coldness Is Childhood Wound, Not Politics
Aemond does not know that his removal of Alicent is a personal sentence.
Alys Rivers Killed Grover Tully on Purpose
Alys Rivers orchestrated Grover Tully's death to manufacture a political outcome she had already promised Daemon as prophecy, converting herself from counselor to hidden architect of the Riverlands campaign.
Dragon Seeds Will Undermine Rhaenyra's Legitimacy
Rhaenyra's dragon seed program will succeed militarily while simultaneously destroying the ideological premise of her claim.
Rhaena Is Being Handed Sheepstealer
Lady Jeyne Arryn's 'alas, still wild' is an invitation, not a warning, and Rhaena is the intended recipient.
Aegon Remembers Everything and Fears Aemond
Aegon is performing amnesia about Rook's Rest because he remembers enough to know Aemond tried to kill him, and saying so while bedridden and surrounded by Aemond's allies would finish the job.
Otto Hightower Is Deliberately Staying Away
Otto Hightower's silence across every channel simultaneously is not absence but strategy: he has privately concluded that the Green cause under Aemond is unrecoverable, and he is preserving his distance from that failure so he can negotiate or reattach himself to whatever outcome survives.