This past Sunday’s new episode of House of the Dragon, “Driftmark,” featured a scene where a bunch of kids got into a fight and then one slashed out the eye of another. It’s all fun and games until…well, you know.
Briefly, Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton) was returning to the castle of High Tide after successfully riding Vhagar, the largest and oldest dragon in the world. Rhaena Targaryen, the daughter of the woman who last rode Vhagar, was angry about it. She had brought her sister and her cousins, Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon, to confront whoever “stole” the dragon. Things got ugly, particularly after Aemond called the two Velaryon boys bastards and threatened them with a rock. That’s when young Lucerys, aka Luke (Harvey Sadler), went for the eye.
It was a brutal scene; a kid was maimed, for heaven’s sake. Happily, no children were harmed in the making of this program. In fact, the kids look like they’re having a good time in this behind-the-scenes video:
"Harvey Sadler and Leo Ashton behind the scenes. from HouseOfTheDragon"
The younger actors on House of the Dragon are getting replaced yet again
That’s great! One second, Ashton and Sadler are doing jumping jacks so they can be out of breath to play their physically taxed characters (Sadler doing some sweet scat singing on top of it), and then Aemond has Luke by the throat and is threatening him with death by fire. Movie magic, people!
Ashton and Sadler both did great jobs, as did all of the child actors. Unfortunately, we won’t see any of them again. The next episode of House of the Dragon skips forward once more in time; the younger characters will have grown up a bit and will be replaced by older actors. This will be the last time characters switch actors because of a time jump.
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