House of the Dragon season 2 casting hints at return of [SPOILER]

Earlier this week, HBO revealed a group of new actors joining the cast of Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon for it’s second season: Gayle Rankin is Alys Rivers, Simon Russell Beale is Ser Simon Strong, Freddie Fox is Ser Gwayne Hightower, and Abubakar Salim is Alyn of Hull.

All of these characters have important roles to play, and I’m excited to see what the actors bring to them. However, one stands out: Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull.

Let me give you some background and then I’ll tell you what I mean. In George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, Alyn and Addam of Hull are brothers who grew up on Driftmark, the island where the powerful House Velaryon makes its seat. They are bastards. Their mother Marilda of Hull claimed that their real father was Laenor Velaryon, who you may remember as Rhaenrya Targaryen’s first husband on House of the Dragon. But many found that hard to believe given that it was an open secret that Laenor was a gay man. Still, Alyn and Addam have silver-blonde hair, so the possibility that they have a high-born father made sense. A more likely scenario was that their father was Corlys Velaryon, Laenor’s own dad.

Beware minor SPOILERS for House of the Dragon season 2 below

Alyn and Addam will play key roles throughout the remainder of the Dance of the Dragons, the civil war at the heart of House of the Dragon. Eventually — probably later in season 2 — Rhaenyra will find herself with a lot of dragons but not enough people to ride them. She and her advisors figure that if they can find dragonriders to fight for the blacks, their odds of defeating Aegon and his greens go way up.

So Rhaenyra puts out a call for dragonriders. Many people try to mount some of the riderless dragons on Dragonstone, Alyn and Addam of Hull among them. Addam successfully mounts the dragon Seasmoke, who used to be ridden by Laenor Velaryon. Alyn tries to mount a dragon but fails, although he still plays an important role in the story.

All of this sounds above board. But things get interesting when you consider that, in Fire & Blood, Alyn and Addam of Hull are both around 14 or 15 when the Dance of the Dragons begins. But actor Abubakar Salim is already 30 years old. Even if he’s going to play younger, there’s no way he’s passing for that young. It looks like HBO is going to age these characters up a bit.

What’s more, while HBO has revealed who’s playing Alyn, it hasn’t yet said anything about Addam. The network might yet announce an actor playing Addam of Hull…but the producers may have something else up their sleeve. It’s time to get conspiratorial.

House of the Dragon may cut Addam Velaryon, replace him with Laenor Velaryon

Earlier I mentioned that, in Fire & Blood, Addam of Hull ends up mounting the dragon Seasmoke, who used to be the mount of Rhaenyra’s first husband Laenor Velaryon. In the book, this presents no issue. Laenor Velaryon dies years earlier, killed by his lover Qarl Correy. When a dragon’s owner dies, they often eventually accept a new rider.

But the show threw us a curveball. Rather than Qarl murdering Laenor, the two of them ran away together in Episode 7, “Driftmark.” Seasmoke is riderless, but his rider is still out there, somewhere.

Pretty soon after fans got a load of this plot twist, some speculated that Laenor may come back in season 2 and play the role that Addam of Hull plays in the book. To me, this theory now seems more plausible than ever. Not only has HBO announced an actor for Alyn but kept mum about his brother Addam, but the actor for Alyn is much older than the character in the book, about the same age as actor John MacMillan, who played the adult version of Laenor on House of the Dragon. I suspect that HBO is setting up a new storyline where Laenor returns to Dragonstone after Rhaenyra puts out a call for dragonriders and ends up working with his bastard half-brother Alyn of Hull.

House of the Dragon, please don’t get rid of Addam of Hull

I could be wrong. In fact, I hope I am. Addam of Hull has one of the richest arcs in Fire & Blood, and I would hate to lose it in favor of something the writers on House of the Dragon cook up themselves, even if it ends up being good. In the book, Addam grapples with the meaning of his bastard birth. Rhaenyra has an interesting opinion of him that will have to change if he is, in fact, her gay ex-husband returned from living death in exile rather than a noble-hearted teenager with something to prove. To me, that goes beyond “we’re finessing the source material for a new medium” and into “we’re throwing out the source material and calling it adaptation.” I don’t like it.

That said, the first season of House of the Dragon was good enough that I’m willing to go along with the change, if a change it is, for now.

We’ll keep our ear to the ground for more. In the meantime, does this change sound like something you’d like to see?

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