Abigail Thorn’s Admiral Lohar Is A Great House of the Dragon Adaption Choice

This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 8.

All adaptations involve making choices but House of the Dragon has more choices to make than most. The Game of Thrones prequel is based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which is presented as being “written” by Archmaester Gyldayn, who seeks to incorporate various unreliable historical sources into a coherent text about the Targaryen dynasty.

The events of the Dance of the Dragons civil war are therefore up for interpretation and House of the Dragon has gotten quite good at interpreting them in a logically and dramatically-satisfying fashion. Sometimes, however, the show decides to go a step further and presents its own spin on seemingly settled history. The latest and greatest example of this comes with the season 2 finale’s introduction of Sharako Lohar.

As described by Archmaester Gyldayn, Fire & Blood‘s version of this Lysene admiral is fairly straightforward. Though he occupies an important role in history as the Triarchy’s fleet commander during a major naval battle, Lohar is really just some dude. The text doesn’t have much to say about his appearance, personality, or preferences. That all changes with House of the Dragon season 2 episode 8 “The Queen Who Ever Was,” which not only swaps the Lyseni’s gender but immediately makes her one of the most compelling characters in the show’s roster thus far. In speaking to journalists as part of a post-finale press conference, Condal answered Den of Geek‘s query about why the show opted to inject some life into Lohar.

“We wanted to create this very colorful character,” Condal said. “The Triarchy has a long history of these very colorful seafaring pirate types. Even though it was a minor character in the book, if we were going to make such a big deal out of the Greens cutting a deal with their sworn enemy, you wanted to have a character to hang your hat on. It’s not just Tyland. It’s going to be Tyland and his relationship with Sharako and her fleet.”

Condal also provided some insight into the admiral’s gender identity, saying “Sharako was always envisioned as a female character, period. One-hundred percent.” Lohar is played by a woman – Abigail Thorn, who recently became the first out trans performer in Star Wars history when she portrayed Eurus in The Acolyte. Any ambiguity regarding Lohar’s identity arises only from the Triarchy representatives introducing her to Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) as “he.” According to Condal, that confusion is the Triarchy’s alone.

“The fun of it is that this character is being interpreted by a modern audience looking into the story and seeing her in a very clear way. Then you have the way that these very backwards Medieval people interpret the presence of this character who is the most powerful military person in the Triarchy, who runs this massive fleet. Though she is a woman, she needs to present herself and be perceived in a certain way in order to lead this very large company of otherwise mostly men,” he says.

Though Lohar was updated significantly for House of the Dragon, the character does seem to borrow a bit from another unrelated figure presented in Fire & Blood. A Tyroshi sea captain known as Racallio Ryndoon operated in roughly the same historical as Lohar and he shares some of her traits. Like Lohar, Ryndoon had many wives and was described as “curious” and “flamboyant” but nevertheless beloved by his men. He was also known to occasionally dress as a woman.

The people in Game of Thrones’ world don’t have the vocabulary to recognize someone as transgender or gender non-conforming but they do know a badass when they see one all the same. If nothing else, Lohar has already earned a place in the Game of Thrones canon by engaging in everyone’s favorite pastime: bullying a Lannister.