Warning: The following article contains spoilers from House of the Dragon.
House of the Dragon has done a fantastic job of adapting George R.R Martin’s Dance of the Dragons. Most of the characters have been done justice and the time skips thus far are well-handled, with gaps filled in tastefully and without the need for boatloads of additional exposition.
But those familiar with the source material may have noticed that one particular character has been sidelined, i.e., Daeron Targaryen, one of Viserys Targaryen’s and Alicent Hightower’s sons.
Spoilers ahead.
In the books, Viserys and Alicent had three sons and one daughter. Aegon, Aemond, Daeron, and Helaena. However, Daeron is yet to make an appearance in HBO’s adaptation, which some may consider bizarre considering the role that the King’s youngest son will have to play in the coming conflicts of the Thrones universe.
George R.R. Martin’s answer to the omission
Daeron’s absence was recently clarified by George R.R. Martin in a blog post on his website titled ‘Random Musings,’ wherein the author had nothing but high praise for how well the on-screen adaptation of his book has been handled so far.
“YES, Alicent gave Viserys four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son Daeron is down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season.”
While most of his feedback about the series was positive, he did lament a couple of plot points that the series decided to gloss over, given the fact that the network had only granted it ten episodes. Notably, he would’ve loved the series to have unpacked more details around Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin’s relationship, Daemon and Laena’s marriage, and the time they spent together in Pentos.
Daeron Targaryen‘s live-action fate
As R.R. Martin has reminded his readers, Viserys and Alicent did indeed have four children together, however, given the aforementioned time constraints, the showrunners deemed it necessary to sideline Daeron for the time being. At the current point in House of the Dragon’s run and Dance of the Dragons’ history, Daeron is off in Oldtown serving as cupbearer and quire to Lord Ormund Hightower, Alicent’s cousin.
Does that mean he will remain a character in the background forever and fans will never get to meet him? Thankfully, all the signs point to the contrary.
The bulk of House of the Dragon season one has used Kings Landing, Dragonstone, and Driftmark as its primary settings, and hasn’t spent as much time in other areas, like Oldtown, home of the Hightowers. In essence, it appears that the showrunners haven’t forgotten about Daeron, rather, they didn’t see him as an essential character to bring in just yet, seeing that a lot of the focus has been on Viserys and Rhaenyra’s arc.
With that in mind, it seems likely that we’ll be meeting Daeron either during the events of House of the Dragon season two or in the final two episodes of season one, depending on how the showrunners want to play things out.
House of the Dragon airs weekly, every Sunday, on HBO and HBO Max.
