5 ‘Game of Thrones’ References You May Have Missed in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3

Editors Note: The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, and A Song of Ice and FireHouse of the Dragon walks a fine line when it comes to tie-ins and references to Game of Thrones. The prequel series is built on the foundation of Thrones’ unparalleled domination of the TV industry in the 2010s, yet it also lives in the shadow of Thrones‘ infamously disappointing ending. House of the Dragon needs to stay canonically consistent with its predecessor, so it can’t simply retcon things or stick with the story of George R.R. Martin‘s novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Any reference to Game of Thrones is controversial to say the least, but so far, House of the Dragon Season 3 has walked this tightrope with perfect balance.

Of course, House of the Dragon‘s biggest connections to Game of Thrones is its revelation of House Targaryen’s prophecy of the White Walkers. This was the key to Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) story in Season 1, and it went even further in Season 2 by putting the elven ice warriors on screen in Daemon’s (Matt Smith) vision. This is the most controversial connection among fans and critics, and its efficacy won’t be clear until the story is over. In the meantime, this article is about the more subtle references — the ones that make the world of Westeros feel authentic and lived-in.

1

The Cats of the Red Keep

Image via HBO

House of the Dragon‘s best change from the book Fire & Blood came in Season 3, Episode 4, “Tumbleton.” In it, Corlys Velaryon (Steven Toussaint) leaves King’s Landing, furious that Rhaenyra won’t legitimize his sons at this time. He orders his elder son Alyn (Abubakar Salim) to go to Rhaenyra in his place — a move that could have easily blown up in his face. Instead, these two characters find heartwarming common ground between them, and Alyn gives his first bit of counsel to Rhaenyra. She complains that rats are overrunning the castle because Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) had all the rat-catchers executed. Alyn points out that on ships, a pet cat hunts the rats for them.

No more is said about the cats, yet they have begun appearing in the show already. Nearly 200 years later, they will be a common sight in the time of Game of Thrones. In Season 1, Arya Stark (Maisy Williams) chased and caught cats as part of her training to be a “water dancer.” Tommon Baratheon (Dean-Charles Chapman) loved cats and kept several as pets, which was an important sign of his gentle nature. We can even feel the cats’ presence in the franchise’s other spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, where Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) mentions keeping a pet cat.

Martin’s book Fire & Blood also indicated that cats became the rat-catchers of the Red Keep at this time, but it happened differently. There, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) ordered 100 cats be brought into the castle after Aegon’s stunt with the human rat-catchers. The show’s choice to change this even was brilliant — it allowed the rats to build up as a literal and symbolic nuisance, culminating in Rhaenyra’s return to the castle. It also gave Alyn an early victory as an advisor, and illustrated why he and Rhaenyra would get along.

2

The Butterflies of Naath

Image via HBO Max

HBO’s version of Westeros has managed to bring up the butterflies of Naath surprisingly often considering how irrelevant they are to the main plots. Naath is a small island far from Westeros, and is the home of Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) from Game of Thrones. It has never been successfully conquered by outsiders because it is full of venomous butterflies, and only the native inhabitants are immune. However, the Naathi people are sometimes captured by slavers, as Missandei was. At the end of Game of Thrones, Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) leads the Unsullied sailing towards Naath to protect its inhabitants, apparently unaware that he and his men will succumb to the butterflies venom.

House of the Dragon Season 3 made a curious reference to these butterflies in Episode 2, “Queen’s Landing.” In it, Helaena (Phia Saban) was in the Godswood studying bugs with a book open at her side. The camera lingered on the book, showing a large illustration of a butterfly with a description underneath. The text clearly describes Naath’s “butterfly fever,” while Helaena is studying a native Westerosi caterpillar.

This is a fun bit of worldbuilding to keep bringing up, though it may have its own hidden layers of venom. After House of the Dragon Season 2 aired, Martin made an infamous blog post about his disappointment in it, which was titled “Beware the Butterflies.” In it, Martin wrote that small changes to the story now could have massive “butterfly effects” on the story later on. He even used the phrase “toxic butterflies,” which is easy to connect to Naath. However, if the show intended some kind of jab here, it’s incredibly subtle.

3

The Game of Cyvasse

Image via HBO

Game of Thrones missed every opportunity to introduce viewers to the game Cyvasse, but House of the Dragon has not only filled in that gap — it did so with an incredible homage to the books. In Episode 5, “Unbowed and Unbent,” Ormund Hightower (James Norton) and Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evans Ainsworth) play the board game together with the air of two people who have played it quite a bit.

This might be interpreted as a change from the books — Cyvasse is described as a relatively new game in Westeros when it is first introduced in A Feast for Crows, so it’s doubtful that Ormund would have it nearly 200 years earlier. That’s an easy change to forgive, especially since it gave us this scene. Cyvasse is similar to chess, and in the books, Tyrion Lannister has many scheming conversations over the board, layered in double-meanings. Ormund and Daeron’s scene is a perfect parallel to Tyrion’s best Cyvasse scene, where he plays against “Young Griff,” a.k.a. Aegon VI Targaryen.

Aegon is one of the most consequential characters left out of HBO‘s Game of Thrones. He claims to be the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell, smuggled out of Westeros by Varys when King’s Landing fell and raised in secret to be the perfect king. Tyrion teases and manipulates the young man over Cyvasse until he loses his temper and sweeps all the pieces off the board. House of the Dragon inverted this scene with Ormund scattering the pieces. The finishing move was even the same — Daeron defeated Ormund with his dragon piece while Ormund was lecturing him about the limits of dragons’ power, just as Tyrion used the dragon to take down Young Griff.

4

Helaena and Tommen’s Window

Image via HBO

House of the Dragon has trained fans to keep a close eye on Helaena now that we know she has the gift of prophecy. The young queen has showed us or told us what’s going to happen on several occasions now, but prophecy is hard to interpret in Westeros, and it always leads seers astray somehow. Helaena may have misread the signs in Season 3, Episode 3, “Rhaenyra Triumphant.”

Rhaenyra ordered Helaena and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) confined to a chamber together as high-born prisoners. When she explained their imprisonment to them, Helaena said: “I don’t want to stay in this room,” gesturing with both hands to the floor. Her inflection and posture made it seem like she wasn’t protesting her imprisonment — she was saying that she specifically didn’t want to stay in this room. She was also standing by the window, which made the parallel to Tommen more clear.

Looking at this scene side-by-side with the scene of Tommen’s death in Game of Thrones Season 7, it’s very plausible that Helaena and Alicent are being held in the same chamber where Tommen will eventually jump from the window to his death. It may be that Helaena is seeing a vision of that future event, and she’s disturbed by it. In Martin’s work, seers often misunderstand who their visions are about, and Helaena may feel this urge to leap applies to someone she loves, or even herself.

5

The Braavosi Climate

Image via HBO

Finally, This week House of the Dragon once again brought up one of the biggest debates in the Game of Thrones fandom — the climate of Braavos. In Episode 5, “Unbowed and Unbent,” Aegon and Larys (Matthew Needham) were reunited with Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall), who survived the Battle of the Gullet. Larys explained his plan to smuggle Aegon overseas to Braavos, where they could hide from the war and live off of gold he had invested in the Iron Bank there. Tyland protested, saying that even Aegon wasn’t fit for war, “Neither would he tolerate the Braavosi heat! The monkeys alone…”

Tyland seems to be a little confused here. He traveled to Essos to negotiate with The Triarchy, which was an alliance of three of the Free Cities — Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh. The hot climate and monkey infestations he experienced might be common where they met in Tyrosh, but Game of Thrones fans already know that Braavos is much colder and further north. Tyland seems to be assuming that the conditions in all the Free Cities are similar, but that is far from the truth.

This is not the first time House of the Dragon has referenced the worldwide misinterpretations of Braavos, and the fan theories that surround it. Braavos was founded by escaped slaves from Valyria, and kept hidden in the northern fog for many years. It’s at roughly the same latitude as The Twins, slightly north of The Eyrie. By all accounts, this, combined with its marshy setting, should make it cold and inhospitable to agriculture.

This brings us to one of the most infamous theories in the fandom — “Lemongate.” Fans noted that in the books, Daenerys remembers spending much of her childhood in Braavos, in a house with a lemon tree outside her window. However, lemon trees would be unlikely to survive in Braavos, and fans speculate that Dany must have been lied to about where she actually was. While there could be practical explanations for this, Martin has repeatedly teased the mystery in blog posts, Q&As, and even in preview chapters from The Winds of Winter, telling fans that there is a mystery to Daenerys’ childhood memories which will be revealed later.

House of the Dragon already referenced Lemongate in Season 1, Episode 5, “We Light the Way.” There, Larys spoke to Alicent in the garden in double-meanings, remarkingthat a certain flower shouldn’t be able to grow in the King’s Landing climate, yet it is thriving. He was clearly speaking about Alicent being alone at court with no allies, but at the same time, there was a mural behind him with a lemon tree conspicously in frame. It’s nothing more than an Easter egg, but it proves that the writers and set designers are serious fans of these books.

Hopefully, House of the Dragon can remain this creative with its call-backs and references as the show approaches its grand climax. House of the Dragon Season 3 continues for three more weeks on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max. Martin’s books are available now in print, digital, and audiobook formats.

Release Date

August 21, 2022

Network

HBO

Showrunner

George R.R. Martin

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  Fabien Frankel

  Ser Criston Cole