House Of The Dragon Season 3 Giving Missing Book Character’s Storyline To Rhaena Clarified By Showrunner

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the House of the Dragon season 3 premiere.One of the Game of Thrones universe’s showrunners reveals his reasoning for a much-talked-about change from the source material.

HBO’s House of the Dragon returned for its third season last week, the premiere episode dropping on June 21. Audiences finally saw the adaptation of the long-awaited Battle of the Gullet, one of the most brutal clashes between the two Targaryen factions of the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. And, if there were any lingering doubts, the episode confirmed that the book character of Nettles has been merged with Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell).

House of the Dragon more or less faithfully adapts the Dragonseeds storyline from George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, wherein the Blacks recruit bastards of the Targaryen line after realizing that the dragons will accept them as riders. Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) ends up with three new riders to support her claim to the Iron Throne: Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew), and Ulf White (Tom Bennett).

However, in the book, there was one more Dragonseed: a young woman called Nettles, who bonded with the wild dragon Sheepstealer. It had been theorized for a while that in the TV show, Daemon’s (Matt Smith) daughter Rhaena would become Nettles. Rhaena was deeply frustrated as one of the few members of her family who did not have a dragon, and in House of the Dragon season 2’s ending, she pursues a wild dragon on foot in the Vale.

Image via Max

Those who were fans of the character of Nettles were bound to be disappointed. Now, in a new interview with IGN, showrunner Ryan Condal explains how he thinks the change serves the story. He believed that it would be more effective to have this storyline pertain to another member of the insular Targaryen family, and that it would be compelling to see Rhaena confront the consequences of getting her wish.

Check out his full comments below:

It just felt to us that because again, this story is told in point of view, that it felt more apt as this is a family story to where we had the opportunity to involve one of the family members in the storyline. And because Rhaena has been set up since season 1 as the member of this family who doesn’t have a dragon and basically her sole identity is the Targaryen kid who doesn’t have a dragon, it felt like that was a character that we had already set this long runway for that it could be very satisfying for the TV audience that didn’t have an experience with the book at all to see that character claim a dragon and then in a very, I think, Game of Thrones and Westerosian kind of way, to reap the consequences of having her wish come true. It’s a very monkey’s paw kind of moment for Rhaena. She gets her great wish and it becomes her greatest nightmare.

Rhaena is already dealing with these consequences: in the season 3 premiere, she joins the Battle of the Gullet with Sheepstealer, but as she has just bonded with him, she can’t really command the dragon, who has no idea what side they are on. This confusion partially leads to Rhaenyra’s eldest son Jace’s (Harry Collett) death. This is not the only change made to the Battle of the Gullet by House of the Dragon that has upset fans.

In this interview, Condal also explained why they decided Rhaeyra’s two youngest sons, both toddlers, should both be absent from the battle: It came down to the complications and potential dangers of having children involved with this set piece. The younger princes may ultimately be safely kept away for the rest of the show, being fostered by other nobles until the Dance of tbe Dragons comes to an end.

The story of the Dance of the Dragons is about the consequences of pride and power for the Targaryen family when they have the massively destructive potential of the dragons at hand. The team’s intent to show the repercussions of Rhaena’s whole identity being shaped by not having a dragon is at least interesting. However, changes to the source material are often passionately contested, and we will have to see if this one manages to earn the audience’s favor.

New episodes of House of the Dragon release on HBO and HBO Max on Sundays at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET.

Release Date

August 21, 2022

Network

HBO

Directors

Clare Kilner, Geeta Patel

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  Fabien Frankel

  Ser Criston Cole