House of the Dragon is, famously, playing by the rules of the game of thrones: You win, or you die. People trapped in this power struggle know the odds are stacked, even for the most winning hand. And so we get all kinds of leaders, albeit mostly blondes — virtuous or cruel, thoughtful or unthinking, Green or Black. And yet, few have stood as tall as Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes), who, even at his youthful age, towered over Daemon Targaryen in their latest showdown. It is the sort of leadership that House of the Dragon doesn’t often specialize in, at least not as deliciously virtuously: That of toned down, silent confidence.
“I wanted to play that scene as subtle as I could,” says Barnes of filming the showdown between him and Daemon. “He has to be confident — he’s in front of all his rivermen. He’s taken on the role of a lord now. And I think he knows and understands that he can’t be this small little boy little more, as young as he is. He kind of has to step up and take this role, and take action.”
It’s straightforward on its face; in his first taste of balancing power and its responsibilities, Oscar Tully masterfully sets Daemon up, taunts him, and forces his hand. But even for a Game of Thrones character, the glow-up is pretty drastic.
It’s hard to come by something even close to “justice” as far as House of the Dragon is concerned, let alone leaders who feel calm. The show is much more concerned with having leaders who feel human, than ones who feel fair. Rhaenyra is as close as Dragon comes, and even she is, more often than not, unnerved and unsure of herself. This is by design; she’s a queen who’s being usurped, but also who wasn’t ready for this level of conflict this early. And yet, Oscar Tully was in a similar boat, as Barnes notes — and the young actor was able to find his own entry point into the mindset.
“This is the first time I’ve played a role where I wasn’t just like, little scared boy,” Barnes said, describing a handful of past roles — like a frightened child whose father was killed in The Batman — as a host of “tiny, vulnerable, innocent” kids. “I wasn’t really comparing Oscar to any other characters or actors that I know, because I couldn’t really think of any similar.”
And it’s true; even among the wider Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon specimens, Oscar’s ensnarement of Daemon in the scene packs a punch. On the one hand, it’s delicious watching him get the upper hand to a bully like Daemon Targaryen, who’s been behaving abominably all while wrestling his own demons. On the other, the bloodthirst — even when borne from a sense of justice — feels representative of how all power on this show compromises you, even when it doesn’t corrupt. And it’s Barnes who had to play the moment with sturdiness and heft, even if until now his character had been mushy and malleable.
Putting on Oscar’s armor — with all its Tully scales and sheer heft — certainly helped get him into character, but ultimately the transition had to come from him. And so, without any clear analogues to draw from for comparison, Barnes did just that. “We discussed and talked about how over time, Oscar Tully understands what he has to do, and how he needs to take action into his own hands, and he kind of flips the switch from going from that vulnerable little boy into that kind of powerful figure.”
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