It’s been almost a year since Game of Thrones’ prequel House of the Dragon premiered on HBO—bringing us back in time in Westerosi history, to when House Targaryen ruled from the Iron Throne with their dragons and their love for endogamy.
Season 2 of the show is currently right in the middle of production, with cast members we’ve come to know and love being spotted in Spain—where the city of Cáceres serves as the stand-in for the streets of King’s Landing—and other locations around Europe. Back in April we also got our first casting announcement for four new characters that are going to step onto the scene in the new episodes.
Not much has come out since then, except the odd picture of Olivia Cooke or Fabien Frankel with fans. Certainly no more casting announcements, something that has left fans familiar with the contents of Fire & Blood speculating about the fate of a certain character. And since there are few things I love more than theorizing and speculating about what is going to happen in every iteration of the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, here I am ready to break down all the possible scenarios.
**Beware of spoilers ahead for Fire & Blood and consequently for the upcoming season(s) of House of the Dragon.**
So who’s Addam of Hull in Fire & Blood?
As I’m sure most of you might have guessed, the character in question is Addam of Hull. Sure, Prince Daeron Targaryen—the fourth child of King Viserys and Queen Alicent—is yet to be announced as well, but I don’t have as many doubts about his presence in the show as I have about Addam’s. Daeron and his she-dragon Tessarion, after all, are fundamental to much of the fighting that happens during the Dance of the Dragons in the Southern part of Westeros, and there’s no other character on the side of the greens that can replace them.
The same can’t be said for Addam, so let’s break down who he is within what was told by the (very biased) narrator of Fire & Blood. Addam of Hull steps into the story of the Dance, together with his brother Alyn, during the so-called Sowing, a.k.a. the blacks calling on anyone who might want to try their hands at claiming one of the riderless dragons residing on Dragonstone to strengthen Rhaenyra’s side.
A vast majority of those who tried were “dragonseeds,” people with Valyrian blood because they were the children of this Targaryen prince or that Velaryon lord. Addam and Alyn of Hull were presented by their mother Marilda, who claimed they were both bastard sons of the late—since he’s very much described as dead in Fire & Blood—Laenor Velaryon. In-universe historians have always been pretty doubtful of this since Laenor’s sexual orientation was a well-known secret, and some believe Addam and Alyn had actually been fathered by Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake himself.
Be that as it may, both boys tried their hand at claiming a dragon. While Alyn was refused by the great Sheepstealer and barely escaped the ordeal with his life, Addam managed to bond with Seasmoke, the dragon Laenor had rode in the war against the Crabfeeder in the Stepstones.
After Addam’s success, Corlys petitioned Rhaenyra to legitimize both boys, which she did. Considering Lucerys’s end above Storm’s End, the now Addam Velaryon became Corlys’s heir and the future Lord of Driftmark. Rider and dragon fought in the Battle of the Gullet and were present as Rhaenyra took King’s Landing, before fighting and dying in the Second Battle of Tumbleton.
Now, the fact that Addam’s casting hasn’t been announced opens up a whole range of possibilities, leading fans to wonder if he even will be in the show at all. If he ends up being announced, then we can assume his storyline will go more or less like in Fire & Blood. If he doesn’t, however, there are at the very least three scenarios that could happen and have been more or less supported by hints throughout the first season of House of the Dragon.
One Hull brother rather than two
While Addam’s casting hasn’t been announced, that of his brother Alyn has. He will be played by British actor Abubakar Salim, who’s currently busy with principal photography for the show’s second season. After Addam’s death at Tumbleton, his younger brother Alyn takes up his role as the heir to Driftmark—ending up actually becoming Lord of the Tides and leading a life as adventurous as that of his official grandfather-slash-possible father Corlys Velaryon.
It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination then to think that maybe the showrunners of House of the Dragon plan to merge the two brothers into one character—maybe to make things easier for the audience in a world where everyone shares the same couple of names. Alyn could easily also be the one who claims Seasmoke, and the outcome of the Second Battle of Tumbleton only needs to be tweaked a little so that while the dragon perishes, the rider ends up surviving.
Rhaena becomes actually relevant to the story
In Fire & Blood, the second of Daemon Targaryen’s twin daughters with Laena Velaryon is sent to the Vale to be kept safe during the Dance, since she doesn’t have a dragon with which she can fight. The egg she had brought with her ends up hatching while she’s there, and by the end of the war, she has a little dragon named Morning—who will be one of the very few dragons that survive the Dance.
Still, it’s safe to say that her role in the canon material is very limited. House of the Dragon, however, has taken its time to show us Rhaena’s sorrow at being without a dragon as a child and has also sown some hints at her possibly claiming a dragon rather than hatching one—what with Laena telling her the story of how she claimed Vhagar while they’re living in Pentos and Daemon hinting at riderless dragons during the show’s final episode, with the camera lingering on Rhaena.
Without Addam in the show, it could be Rhaena who ends up claiming Seasmoke and flying him into battle alongside the rest of his family. It would draw a nice parallelism with her mother as well as her uncle, and it would make this character we have come to know and love more relevant in the grand scheme of the Dance.
I’m not happy at the perspective of Rhaena’s sharing Addam’s tragic death at Tumbleton, since she’s one of the few women who make it out of the Dance relatively unscathed and ends up leading a happy life, away from the machinations of the Iron Throne. Still, I guess the tweak of the “Alyn becomes Addam” scenario could work with Rhaena as well—she goes down with Seasmoke at Tumbleton but ends up surviving the battle.
Laenor returns?
Marilda of Hull might have claimed her sons to be the children of Laenor Velaryon, but it was always pretty widely accepted that they had actually been fathered by Corlys Velaryon. So if Addam of Hull isn’t in the show, what if another child of Corlys takes his place?
Laenor Velaryon, after all, didn’t die in House of the Dragon as he did in Fire & Blood and simply sailed off to Essos. The fact that he’s living might make things difficult for another person trying to claim his Seasmoke, since the bond between rider and dragon is described as incredibly profound and impossible to break. So there’s a possibility of him returning to help his family through the war.
Then again, out of these three scenarios, Laenor’s return is the one that presents the most problems. People definitely knew his face. He was a prominent member of the royal court for years, and there’s definitely someone who would be very much able to recognize him even if he kept his head shaven or dyed his hair to hide that signature Valyrian silver. And if people suddenly realized that Laenor was alive, what consequences would that have on Rhaenyra’s marriage with Daemon?
Not good ones, let me tell you. Her position is already weak as it is, even if the writers of House of the Dragon kind of refuse to accept it, what with the traditions of Westeros going against preferring a daughter over a son when it comes to succession, the rumours about her eldest children’s birth, and the fact she just up and left King’s Landing when she should have been glued to Viserys’ side to strengthen her position.
She definitely doesn’t need a massive “legitimacy of marriage is called into question”-size wrench thrown into her precarious situation—sure, the writing could do its best to explain the issue away, but it would still feel very disconnected from everything we’ve come to know about Westerosi politics. Think of the absolute field day the greens would have.
(featured image: HBO)
Published: Jun 28, 2023 05:24 pm