Everyone Is Wondering What’s With the Surprising Fate of One ‘House of the Dragon’ Character

During the final montage of House of the Dragon’s season two finale, “The Queen Who Ever Was”—set to a magnificent score by the ever-incredible Ramon Djawadi, might I add—we are treated to a supercut of all the show’s main characters moving across that massive chessboard that is Westeros.

Spoilers ahead for the finale of the second season of House of the Dragon, “The Queen Who Ever Was.” Be warned.

We see armies marching—the Winter Wolves descending from the North, the Lannister host reaching the Trident, the Hightower army moving up from the Reach while Tessarion flies overhead in her first-ever show appearance—and leaders gearing up for the fight or seemingly escaping it, from Daemon overlooking his rivermen to Aegon and Larys stowed away in a cart full of oranges. There are, of course, Rhaenyra and Alicent—the first framed in a way that makes her seem crushed by the years of history of her House and the second finally free, surrounded only by sea and sky.

Among all these scenes, though, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it one that has had fans all over the internet puzzled—and that’s Otto Hightower, former Hand of the King and game of thrones player extraordinaire, being roused from sleep into what seems like a pretty dark and cramped cell. Something that had everyone everywhere wondering when exactly Otto ended up locked away, and maybe most importantly, who did the capturing.

So what happened to Otto Hightower?

The answer is still unclear at the moment since the show is very likely to explain it—and use it as a significant plot point—come season three. But we can definitely speculate, which is something that the HotD fandom knows very well how to do.

The last time we saw Otto Hightower was when his grandson Aegon stripped him of his title as Hand of the King and sent him back to Oldtown—before the events of Rook’s Rest, that is, right at the beginning of the season. When Otto’s children Alicent and Gwayne meet again at the Red Keep, Gwayne mentions off-handedly that he has not crossed his father on the road—which wasn’t exactly cause os suspicion back then since the Roseroad is long and this is a Middle Ages-type setting we’re talking about, meaning that there could be a thousand and one reasons why father and son didn’t meet during their respective journeys.

But now that we were told that Otto ended up captured, it’s clear something must have happened to him on his journey South. And that brings us back to that initial question—what exactly did happen?

While the dungeon Otto is being currently held in definitely looks like the black cells of the Red Keep—or maybe it’s just the similarity between this brief scene and the ones that showed Ned Stark’s captivity before his execution in Game of Thrones—it’s highly unlikely that he would have been a prisoner in the capital all this time without either Alicent or Aemond catching wind of it. 

The most likely option could be that he’s currently being held prisoner at the Honeyholt, the seat of House Beesbury which is coincidentally located halfway between Highgarden and Oldtown. Considering that Lyman Beesbury was brutally murdered by Ser Criston Cole back in season 1 when he suggested that Rhaenyra should be declared queen after Viserys’s death, it makes sense for his House to have it out for Otto. Besides, with the Hightower army—and Daeron and Tessarion—marching up from Oldtown, chances are the two could meet, in what would be a good way to introduce us to a new but pretty key character like Daeron Targaryen.

Otto’s captivity could also be all part of Larys Strong’s scheming, maybe in an effort to clear the field of his “competition” so that he can become even more indispensable to Aegon or maybe because of the insult Aemond threw at him when he ordered him to actually summon Otto back to King’s Landing—where he said that of course Otto was the only possible choice for Hand of the King rather than a “fool” like Larys. It’s another valid theory, even though that would mean that Otto could very well be anywhere—since Larys definitely wouldn’t have him sent to a Daemon-occupied Harrenhal. Maybe the Free Cities? That could mean Otto could reunite with his other grandson Aegon, presuming the Free Cities is where he and Larys are going.

But I suppose we will get all our answers in two years’ time when season three releases.