Watch Baela and Rhaenys argue in deleted scene from House of the Dragon

The first Game of Thrones Official Fan Convention took place this past weekend in Los Angeles, which means there’s been a lot of interesting reports to sift through today. While House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal wasn’t able to be at the convention in person — he’s busy prepping season 2 — he did join in virtually to discuss the Game of Thrones prequel series. He also unveiled a never-before-seen deleted scene from the show’s season finale, “The Black Queen.”

House of the Dragon has numerous deleted scenes which were left on the cutting room floor for one reason or another. The one Condal shows to the convention audience features Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia) and her grandmother Rhaenys (Eve Best) having a heated discussion in a corridor on Dragonstone. Watch it below:

Baela shows she’s made of fire and blood in House of the Dragon deleted scene

In the deleted scene, Rhaenys orders her granddaughter and ward Baela Targaryen to gather her sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) so that the three of them can flee to Driftmark, believing they’ll be safer there than they would be on Dragonstone with war afoot. Rhaenys has already lost an awful lot of family members and can’t bear to lose her granddaughters, too. But Baela rejects this idea.

“If war is coming it’s coming for all of us, we cannot hide from it,” Beala tells her grandmother. “I am a dragonrider like my mother, and father, and you! If the greens reached to usurp our queen’s throne, then they must be answered with fire and blood.”

Rhaenys smiles at Baela’s answer, a look of pride on her face. Baela asks if the older Targaryen thinks she jests, to which Rhaenys quietly answers: “No. I just saw my daughter for the first time in years.”

It’s a beautiful moment that adds to both Baela and Rhaenys’ characters. So why wasn’t it in the show?

Deleted Baela Targaryen scene was cut for time from House of the Dragon

Ryan Condal cited the need to adhere to a stricter runtime for the finale as the reason that this scene was cut, since House of the Dragon is released all over the world and in some locations HBO had less leeway on extending the episode length.

“We felt like the finale ended up being, as many of our episodes did, so long at the end,” Condal explained, according to Entertainment Weekly. “In certain cases, HBO was very open and willing to go along, particularly in episode 6 when we introduce all the new cast. In other cases, they were just like, ‘We need to hold to it,’ because they release the show all over the world and some people work commercials into the show.”

"If this was just airing on HBO Max and that’s the only place it every aired, I don’t think it would be as much of a concern or a discussion."

Condal also noted that scene “didn’t tell you anything more about where we were in that story” and concluded that ultimately the decision to drop it “was a pacing thing and a time thing.” Fair enough.

We should be able to see the rest of the deleted scenes when the physical release for House of the Dragon: The Complete First Season drops on December 20.

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h/t Wiki of Thrones