Secrets can be a powerful political weapon to wield, especially on the brink of a civil war. No one knows this better than the White Worm.
Episode 9 of House of the Dragon puts the elusive White Worm front and center as the beginning of the Dance of the Dragons (the name for the imminent Targaryen civil war) foments. But who exactly is the White Worm? And why are they so important?
Ahead, we break down the identity of this character and the integral role they'll soon play. Beware, spoilers are ahead.
Who is the White Worm?
As previous episodes hinted, Mysaria is the ring master known as the White Worm, controlling the lucrative network of spies in King's Landing.
Mysaria was first introduced as a sex worker in Episode 1, with Prince Daemon as her main patron. After King Viserys names Princess Rhaenyra as his heir instead of Daemon, the prince flees King's Landing for Dragonstone. He brings Mysaria with him, intending to make her his second wife. In the process, he steals a dragon egg, claiming that the egg is for his and Mysaria's unborn child. When Princess Rhaenyra and Otto Hightower march onto Dragonstone to retrieve the egg, Daemon inadvertently puts Mysaria's life at risk. It's revealed that she, in fact, was not pregnant and that Daemon had flirted with her chance at surviving the conflict just to provoke his brother, the king. Mysaria is furious at Daemon's scheme and realizes that, if she wants liberation, she must take the matter into her own hands.
Mysaria returns in Episode 4. After Daemon and Rhaenyra's tryst at a pleasure house in King's Landing, Daemon wakes up hungover in a dwelling owned by Mysaria. She begrudingly takes care of him as he recovers, but she also has other intentions. The same boy who witnesses Daemon and Rhaenyra's nighttime rendezvous, and subsequently tells Otto of the affair, silently hands Mysaria the money he receives from Otto. This exchange indicates that Mysaria is the person pulling the strings when it comes to controlling the currency of secrets and gossip. In this episode, she also explains to Daemon that she no longer works in the sex trade. "I learned that the skin trade could only take me so far in this life," she says.
She again appears in Episode 8. Talya, the handmaid to Queen Alicent, is revealed to be one of Mysaria's working spies. Talya has been present for many damning events for the Hightowers at the Red Keep, including Prince Aegon's rape of a servant named Dyana and Alicent's subsequent cover-up of Aegon's treachery.
In Episode 9, Mysaria plays a central role in locating Aegon after the death of King Viserys. Bartering with Otto, she divulges his location on the condition that Otto shut down a fighting pit in which children are forced to fight to the death—a place Aegon is known to frequent. She also warns Otto that those in power only rule with the consent of the common folk, saying, "There is no power but what the people allow you to take."
In George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood, Mysaria becomes the unofficial mistress of whisperers to Rhaenyra, thus serving a significant role for Team Black.
Who is the actress who plays Mysaria?
Japanese British actress Sonoya Mizuno plays Mysaria in House of the Dragon. Mizuno previously starred in Ex Machina and held minor roles in Crazy Rich Asians,La La Land, and Beauty and the Beast.
