Has House of the Dragon cut its first major character?

House of the Dragon introduced us to a clutch of new characters in its latest episode, most of them children of ones we already know. King Viserys and Alicent Hightower now have three children together, in order of oldest to youngest: Aegon, Helaena and Aemond. Meanwhile, Princess Rhaenyra and Harwin Strong Laenor Velaryon also have three kids: Jacaerys, Lucerys and Joffrey.

All of these characters appear in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, but there’s one child missing: in Martin’s novel, Alicent and King Viserys have a fourth child, a son named Daeron Targaryen. He’s the youngest of their kids, but he’s born around the same time as Jacaerys, meaning he should be a growing boy by the time of “The Princess and the Queen.” So why wasn’t he in the new episode?

Well, we’re not sure, but my guess is that he has been cut. It’s also possible that he’s away — in the book, Daeron is sent to Oldtown to serve as squire and cupbearer to Lord Ormund Hightower — but I doubt it. For one, in the book, he only leaves King’s Landing for Oldtown at the age of 12, and he wouldn’t be that old yet, had they included him. For another, if he’s around, it’s weird that he doesn’t get mentioned once. When Alicent tells her eldest son Aegon that Rhaenyra will have to kill him if she comes to power, she throws in “and Aemond too.” You’d figure she would have mentioned her third son if he existed.

Is Daeron Targaryen cut from House of the Dragon?

Of Alicent’s sons, Daeron is probably the least important to the story, but he still has some important stuff to do, and I’ll be curious to see how the House of the Dragon writers plot around his absence, assuming he really is cut.

Daeron comes into play mostly later in the story, after the rivalry between Rhaenyra and Alicent breaks into a proper war. Daeron, who has a dragon named Tessarion, helps the greens (that’s the name for Alicent’s faction) fight some battles in the Reach before marching east to take on his half-sister Rhaenyra.

Without getting into spoilers, I can imagine them playing out Daeron’s story using some other characters; he’s not the only dragon-rider who gets mixed up in that part of the war. That said, in the book, Daeron is said to be the most charming, likable, and just all-around decent of his brothers, and considering that the greens are kind of looking like villains at the moment, it might have helped to have someone who wasn’t a complete tool in their ranks.

There is still a chance that Daeron is part of this story, but I doubt it. We’ll likely find out for sure very soon.

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