With the first season of HBOâs Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon behind us, itâs time to start whiling away the days until season 2 comes out sometime in 2024. Whenever the showâs sophomore outing releases, itâs likely to look quite a bit different than season 1, which traced the history of House Targaryen over the course of nearly 30 years using time jumps.
As you might expect, some hard decisions had to be made in order to tell that decades-long story in a way that would fit comfortably within 10 episodes of TV. From interviews with various creatives, we know that there were several deleted scenes from House of the Dragon season 1. What might it have looked like if weâd gotten to see Daemon Targaryen comfort his children in the wake of their motherâs death, or young Rhaenyra Targaryen help her best friend Alicent prepare to marry her father?
Through interviews, snippets of footage, and social media posts, we can put together quite a bit of information about some of the deleted scenes from House of the Dragon season 1. Letâs start at the beginning with a scene cut from the series premiere, âThe Heirs of the Dragonâ:
The death of Baelon Targaryen
House of the Dragon came out of the gate swinging in its season premiere, letting viewers know that they were back in Westeros and things would get bloody and complicated. The most brutal moment is without a doubt the forced C-section death of Queen Aemma Arryn. As her labor to bring forth her son reaches a deadly impasse, King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) makes the decision to have the baby forcibly removed from Aemmaâs womb. However, young Baelon Targaryen doesnât long outlive her. On the show, we hear the newborn baby gurgling in a disconcerting way and then cut to his body on the funeral pyre besides Aemma.
Itâs a difficult, emotional moment, and it originally went on for longer. âWhat we shot was 10 times more brutal than what you saw. He was 10 times more devastated than what you saw,â Paddy Considine told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. âThere was a scene that didnât make the cut where Iâm sitting on the bed, thereâs blood on the bed, and Iâve got the dagger. And one of the maestersâŚthe thing he comes to tell me actually is that Baelon hasnât lived.â
"And so Viserys is hit with this double whack of devastation of his wife and then the kid, you know his son. Then there was this sense of likeâŚâhuh.â You know like that cruel twist of fate of like Iâm not surprised."
The deaths of Aemma and Baelon is already one of the most traumatic moments on House of the Dragon. Considine says that cutting the moment where King Viserys finds out about Baelonâs death âwas probably the right choice really.â The moment still packs plenty of emotion.