This article was originally published on October 24, 2022. We’re updating it as events unfold in House of the Dragon’s second season.
Get ready to see a lot of this table. Photo: HBO
For any viewers who thought House of the Dragon lacked action in its first season, rest assured: There’s potential for battle after battle that could blow Blackwater, Hardhome, and the Long Night out of the water — plus enough character deaths to make Game of Thrones seem downright merciful.
George R.R. Martin has said it will take four ten-episode seasons to fully tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, and while Warner Bros. might not have committed to a 40-episode run yet, we’ll assume GRRM is right. Due to the nature of adaptation, not everything in source material Fire & Blood or A World of Ice & Fire will make it into the show, and there will likely be some new scenes, characters, or plotlines that aren’t in the books. (For example, Rhaenys’s dramatic escape from the Dragonpit in episode nine was a show-only invention.) All that said, here’s an overview of what to expect in the rest of season two (and beyond) on House of the Dragon.
And, oh yeah: spoiler warning. We’re going to essentially spoil the entire show. (Though Joffrey Baratheon openly talked about who won the Dance of the Dragons back in a season three episode of Game of Thrones, so how much are we spoiling, really?)
The Dance Moves Already Made in Season Two
Here’s how it went down in the books.
The War Kicks off With Some Child Murder
Season one of House of the Dragon ends with Aemond killing Lucerys while he attempts to flee Storm’s End in the rain. Daemon doesn’t take kindly to the killing of his stepson, so he calls in a favor from Mysaria, the White Worm. She hires a butcher and a ratcatcher (known as Blood and Cheese, respectively) to sneak into the Red Keep and the chambers of King Aegon’s sister-wife, Helaena. This is where things go a bit differently (and with even more brutality) in the source material: The killers hold her children, Jaehaerys and his younger brother, Maelor (who does not exist in House of the Dragon, at least yet), at knifepoint and force Helanea to choose which will die. She agonizes but eventually says Maelor rather than have them both killed. Instead, Blood and Cheese kill Jaehaerys and then flee, leaving Helaena distraught.
In a very Westeros version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, child-murder begets child-murder, and so King Aegon retaliates by sending Ser Arryk Cargyll to Dragonstone to impersonate his identical twin brother Ser Erryk and kill Rhaenyra’s children or the queen herself; maybe both. However, Erryk spots Arryk and the twins die fighting each other.
Jaehaerys will, uh, not be the only child who dies in the Dance, so if the kid-death isn’t really your thing, the rest of House of the Dragon might not be for you. But, hey! The good news is that there should be no more graphic birth sequences.
The Dance Moves Already Made in Season Two
Here’s how it went down in the books.
The War Kicks off With Some Child Murder
Season one of House of the Dragon ends with Aemond killing Lucerys while he attempts to flee Storm’s End in the rain. Daemon doesn’t take kindly to the killing of his stepson, so he calls in a favor from Mysaria, the White Worm. She hires a butcher and a ratcatcher (known as Blood and Cheese, respectively) to sneak into the Red Keep and the chambers of King Aegon’s sister-wife, Helaena. This is where things go a bit differently (and with even more brutality) in the source material: The killers hold her children, Jaehaerys and his younger brother, Maelor (who does not exist in House of the Dragon, at least yet), at knifepoint and force Helanea to choose which will die. She agonizes but eventually says Maelor rather than have them both killed. Instead, Blood and Cheese kill Jaehaerys and then flee, leaving Helaena distraught.
In a very Westeros version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, child-murder begets child-murder, and so King Aegon retaliates by sending Ser Arryk Cargyll to Dragonstone to impersonate his identical twin brother Ser Erryk and kill Rhaenyra’s children or the queen herself; maybe both. However, Erryk spots Arryk and the twins die fighting each other.
Jaehaerys will, uh, not be the only child who dies in the Dance, so if the kid-death isn’t really your thing, the rest of House of the Dragon might not be for you. But, hey! The good news is that there should be no more graphic birth sequences.
