The Future of House of the Dragon: Daeron, The Gullet, and When the Show Will End

This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2.

Ever since House of the Dragon’s first season, there’s been speculation as to how long the series would last. The source material for House of the Dragon isn’t as lengthy as it was for the series’ predecessor Game of Thrones, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t continue on if HBO really wanted it to. The creator of Westeros himself and writer of source material Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin, offered his two cents a couple years ago on his blog suggesting that the series should run for four seasons at 10 episodes each in order to adequately tell the story. Now it seems as though series showrunner Ryan Condal is planning to honor that vision, to an extent.

During a press conference following the conclusion of the show’s second season, Condal revealed that House of the Dragon would end with season 4, but wouldn’t definitively confirm how many episodes each of the final two seasons would contain. Condal did, however, say that he “had discussions with HBO about it,” and would “anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from season two on.” Based on season 2’s eight-episode count, that could suggest eight episodes will be the new norm.

With the series now at a presumed halfway point with the end of season 2, that begs the question of what to expect going into season 3, which thankfully Condal also had a few answers for. According to Condal, prep for season 3 is set to begin this fall with production looking to begin in early 2025.

To start, Condal says that Daeron Targaryen is set to appear in season 3. The youngest of Alicent’s sons has been mentioned repeatedly throughout season 2, though we have yet to see him appear in the series as he has been raised primarily in Oldtown as a ward of the Hightowers. Daeron’s dragon, Tessarion, was seen briefly flying overhead in the season 2 finale, but we have still yet to see him in person. Condal also says that season three of House of the Dragon is where “this war really comes to a big head.”

“If you look at season two, this is largely a metaphor for a nuclear conflict,” Condal argues. “If season two was the sort of the arming of the sides and the Cold War with moments of actual conflict and explosion, I think season three, really, you do start to see things boil over from here to kind of the end of the war. As always, with this show, there’s gonna be giant moments of spectacle, but also, you know, real moments of surprise and character nuance.”

One of the giant moments of spectacle that season three is looking to depict is maybe the “second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood,” according to Condal, The Battle of the Gullet. Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, The Battle of the Gullet is considered one of the bloodiest sea battles in all of Westeros’ history and involves the Triarchy sending ships to fight against the Velaryon blockade, something that the season 2 finale has set the show in the direction toward.

Condal says that “based on what we know now [The Battle of the Gullet] should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off, and we just wanted to have the time and the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans in the way it’s deserved.” He goes on to argue that battles like this are part of why the series has such a long wait between seasons. “The show is so complex,” he says, “that we’re really making multiple feature films every season. So I apologize for the wait, but I will just say if Rook’s Rest and the Red Sowing are any indication the team that we have together is [gonna] pull off a hell of a win with the Battle the Gullet in the future.”

Even though House of the Dragon may be coming to an end sooner rather than later, it seems like the series is doing its best to maintain George R.R. Martin’s vision while still carving its own path. There is still plenty to look forward to in the show’s final two seasons, and things look like they’ll only get more epic from here as the war progresses. It may be a long wait for the story to wrap up completely, but you can bet we’ll be waiting eagerly to see how the final chapters unfold.