House of the Dragon(s): Meet Caraxes the Blood Wyrm and Sunfyre the Golden

The upcoming Game of Thrones prequel is all about the Targaryens, which means lots of dragons. And HBO has already introduced us to two of them.

It’s been a couple of years in the making, but work is almost ready to begin on HBO’s House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones set over 100 years before the main saga. The show will tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, a brutal Targaryen civil war that tore Westeros apart. Brother fought brother and dragon fought dragon…there’s battle, romance, drama, scheming, fire and blood. If they do it right, this could be something special.

Information about the show is slowly trickling out, and we finally got our first look behind the curtain when HBO revealed some concept art:

Although the network didn’t identify the dragons in these images, we have some pretty good guesses. Let’s meet these toothy monsters. (Beware SPOILERS for Fire & Blood, the book of Targaryen history on which House of the Dragon is based.)

Meet Caraxes

Huge, red and lean, Caraxes the Blood Wyrm was already pretty experienced in war before the Dance of the Dragon begins. His first rider, Aemon Targaryen, used Caraxes against the Dornish fleet in the Fourth Dornish War. After Aemon died, Daemon Targaryen became Caraxes’ new rider (dragons usually only bond with one rider at a time), who rode him during the War of the Stepstones.

Daemon Targaryen rode Caraxes throughout the Dance, including in his final, spectacular battle. Pretty deep in to the conflict, Daemon and Caraxes fight Daemon’s nephew Prince Aemond Targaryen, who rides the dragon Vhagar, one of the three dragons that participated in Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros over a hundred years before. As such, Vhagar is huge, over twice the size of Caraxes, and Caraxes is considered pretty big as far as dragons go.

Daemon and Aemond battle above the God’s Eye lake near Harrenhal. It’s a pitched fight, with all four combatants going down after the dragons lock together. As they fall, Vhagar rips open Caraxes’ belly and tears off one of his wings, while Caraxes tears out Vhagar’s throat. Meanwhile, Daemon is said to have leapt from his saddle and onto Vhagar, where he shoves his sword through Aemond’s empty eye socket. If the show does this scene right, it could be absolutely f**king metal.

So Aemond is dead and Vhagar doesn’t survive hitting the water. Caraxes emerges from the lake later but dies on the shore. As for Daemon, his body was never found…

Meet Sunfyre

Sunfyre the Golden was said to be the most beautiful dragon ever to grace the sky, with gleaming gold scales that shone in the sunlight. Much younger than Caraxes, he was ridden by King Aegon II Targaryen, a leader of one of the two main factions battling for control of the Iron Throne in the Dance of the Dragons. The other was Aegon’s half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen.

Aegon rode Sunfyre in the Battle of Rook’s Rest, one of the first major battles of the war. Together with his brother Prince Aemond and Hand of the King Cristin Cole, Aegon lured Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, his first cousin (once removed), into a trap. Both Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys were formidable fighters, but it was two against one: Aegon rode Sunfyre and Aemond rode Vhagar. Rhaenys and Meleys died, and although Sunfyre survived the fight, he was wounded, and had to recover at Rook’s Rest for a time.

Eventually, Rook’s Rest was reconquered by Rhaenyra’s forces. After killing a lot of them, Sunfyre left and hid in caves and woods near a remote fishing village. Eventually, he recovered, reemerged, killed the dragon Grey Ghost and finally reunited with his rider Aegon II. The pair of them hid in a lair on Dragonstone, where Princess Rhaenyra had her stronghold, while Aegon amassed enough followers to take the island. He finally claimed it as his own when he and Sunfyre defeated Lady Baela Targaryen and her dragon Moondancer, although Sunfyre was wounded again, and this time he would not recover.

Although he could no longer fly, Sunfyre had one important job left to do: he brought one chapter of the Dance to a close when Aegon II fed him Rhaenyra Targaryen after she’d been taken captive. After that, he weakened, refused to eat, and died from his wounds. King Aegon wept upon his death.

There are a lot more dragons where that came from. Hopefully, HBO will give us a closer look soon.

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