In the show: After he’s unceremoniously removed as Hand of the King by his grandson, King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), viewers barely see Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) until his death.
Otto tells his daughter, Alicent, that he’s returning to House Hightower’s seat in Oldtown, though she finds it odd that he doesn’t answer any of her letters.
Upon Rhaenyra’s return to King’s Landing, we discover that Otto never made it home. He was captured and imprisoned in the Red Keep’s dungeon by none other than Larys, Aegon’s master of whisperers.
Otto is brought before Rhaenyra, and Daemon urges her to execute Aegon’s former Hand as a traitor. “If you wish to rule,” he says, “show them you do not waver.”
Unfortunately, Rhaenyra was raised to be a lady, not a knight. She has never beheaded anyone — let alone the father of her childhood best friend. She panics and misses Otto’s neck on her first stroke, burying her sword in his shoulder blades. On her second stroke, Rhaenyra cuts off Otto’s head, choking back sobs.
In the book: When Rhaenyra takes the Iron Throne in “Fire & Blood,” it’s said that she set about “rewarding her friends and inflicting savage punishments on those who had served her half-brother.” Otto is simply listed as the first traitor to die under Rhaenyra’s rule, sans any grisly or personal details:
“Queen Alicent was fettered at wrist and ankle with golden chains, though her stepdaughter spared her life ‘for the sake of our father, who loved you once.’ Her own father was less fortunate. Ser Otto Hightower, who had served three kings as Hand, was the first traitor to be beheaded.”
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