Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers
She is from Scotland and is an actor. Sheila on the Netflix show GLOW (2017–2019) is what she’s known for. She also played Emily Dodson on the 2020 season of Perry Mason on HBO. In 2017, she was in The Greatest Showman. In 2018, she was in Her Smell. In 2019, she was in Blow the Man Down and The Climb. Rankin has been cast as Alys Rivers on the second season of the HBO show House of the Dragon.
Contents
Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers
At Harrenhal, Alys Rivers worked as a wet nurse and shared a bed with Prince Aemond Targaryen. She was a jerk from House Strong. Some people thought she was a witch queen because she was said to be able to see into the future.
How She Looks Like and Her Appearance
Alys had dark hair that was long. People say she looked younger than her age. Aemond Targaryen said that Alys could see ghosts in storm clouds, water pools, and fires. Septon Eustace thought Alys was a simple slattern.
Where She Came From in the House of the Dragons
The Grand Maester Munkun and the Septon Eustace say that Alys was a jerk who was born from Lord Lyonel Strong‘s relationship with an unknown woman when he was young. Eustace says Alys was a woods witch, while Munkun says she was a service wench who liked medicines.
However, the naive Mushroom says that Alys is from a different generation and that she was a wet nurse for Lyonel’s kids Harwin and Larys and maybe even for Lyonel himself. Mushroom wrote that Alys was a witch who soaked in the blood of maidens to stay young.
Even though Eustace and Munkun thought Mushroom’s claims were crazy, they both agreed that Alys looked very young for her age. By the time the Dance of the Dragons started, she had to be at least forty years old.
All of Alys’s children died before they were born, but she worked as a wet nurse at Harrenhal and took care of many kids.
Alys Rivers in The Dance of the Dragons
During the Dance of the Dragons, Alys was at least forty years old, even though she looked younger. She lived through Prince Daemon Targaryen and the blacks’ attack on Harrenhal.
Once the Greens took back Harrenhal, Prince Aemond Targaryen told the castle guards to kill the last members of House Strong. The dragonrider didn’t kill Alys, though. Instead, he took the older woman as a prise for his war.
When Alys heard that the greens had lost the Battle by the Lakeshore, she stopped an angry Aemond from killing the squire who brought the news to Harrenhal. Muskrat says that Alys used drugs to attract Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and Hand of the King, along with Aemond. Eustace doesn’t agree with this.
While Criston marched south along the God’s Eye, Aemond and Vhagar set fire to the riverlands. When Lady Sabitha Frey took the undefended Harrenhal, she only found Alys inside. The wet nurse told her she was pregnant with Aemond’s child. When the prince went back to Harrenhal and chased Sabitha away, Alys and Aemond were able to escape.
Prince Aemond brought Alys, who was pregnant, with him when he went back to Harrenhal to talk to Prince Daemon and Caraxes. In her dreams, Aemond had seen Alys telling Daemon where to find him. She told Daemon this. He kissed Alys one last time before leaving her on the ground.
Vhagar and Caraxes then jumped together with their dragon riders into the sky above the Gods Eye. From the top of Kingspyre Tower in Harrenhal, Alys, who was expecting, watched the Battle Above the Gods Eye. Both Aemond and Daemon were killed in their fight in 130 AD.
Alys Rivers | Witch Queen
During the Hour of the Wolf in 131 AD, Larys Strong, Lord of Harrenhal, was put to death.
In 132 AD, when Aegon III was king, a group of broken men and dangerous criminals began to meet at Harrenhal, where a witch queen was in charge. Hand of the King Ser Tyland Lannister told Ser Regis Groves of the Kingsguard and Ser Damon Darry to take back the castle. They led a hundred men from King’s Landing and Castle Darry to Harrenhal.
It turned out that the supposed witch queen was Alys, who said she was married to Prince Aemond Targaryen. She showed them a young boy and said that he was their real son and should be king instead of Aegon III Targaryen.
Regis died quickly after making fun of Alys. Some say she used magic to blow up his head, while others say crossbowmen or slingers killed him. Then Alys’s thugs rode in from Harrenhal and beat up the faithful men. Damon led the 32 people who were still alive back to Castle Darry.
The next day, Alys sent a soldier who had been taken to Darry as a messenger. The person who lived said that twelve other prisoners had been tortured and killed, and that Alys had cursed him so that he would die if anyone laughed at his story.
He said Alys told him that any man who went near Harrenhal without giving in to its people would die. He also said he saw a dragon inside, which was not true. One person laughed at the messenger’s story, even though Damon said no one would. The messenger then quickly choked to death. Some people said they saw the marks of a woman’s fingers on his throat.
Tyland was upset about Regis’s death back in King’s Landing. But Lord Unwin Peake didn’t believe Damon’s stories about dragons and magic, and the other regents agreed with Unwin that criminals were to blame. The regents of Aegon decided that they would need to get a bigger army together to take back Harrenhal, but the Winter Fever in 133 AC messed up their plans.