Over the weekend, House of the Dragon stars Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) and Fabien Frankel (Criston Cole) stopped by MegaCon in Orlando, Florida to do a panel. Smith revealed that he's received the first six episodes for the second season of House of the Dragon. Production is due to start in March, so there'll soon be lots to talk about!
But there was a hiccup. Various people on Twitter/X have hinted at an incident where Frankel was disrespected, with one claiming that Smith and convention staff had to intervene to protect the actor. Those tweets come with a message about the importance of respect and of being able to distinguish the character from the actor.
What exactly happened? Well, I wasn't there, but Redditor clockworkzebra posted what sounds like a pretty clear-headed recap of the situation over on the House of the Dragon subreddit:
"Enough people were asking for specifics on the incident that I thought I would give the tl;dr: at the panel, someone who I’m almost certain had some kind of development disability at one point yelled at the stage. Fabien and Matt had just been asked how they prepared for the role, and the man yelled something like ‘by sleeping with Milly!’ This was probably directed solely at Fabien though it’s not 100% clear, given there’s been rumors about both men and her. Either way, inappropriate and the room got VERY quiet. Props to Matt and Fabien- though obviously they were uncomfortable, they recovered quickly. At some point, the same individual yelled something at Fabien again about looking forward to seeing him at Butcher’s Ball. At no point did he yell concrete threats and the actors were not in danger at any point. People were obviously visibly not happy with the man, and like I said, he pretty clearly had some level of disability on top of apparently having no boundaries. But that’s the whole thing."
Clockworkzebraf clarified that the heckler wasn't escorted out of the hall. "Generally, my experience has been they don't take assholes out unless they're really heckling or becoming threatening," they wrote. I'm sure the interruptions were disruptive, but Frankel and Smith apparently acquitted themselves well, and "one asshole didn’t entirely ruin the whole thing."
Obviously no one wants to speak on a panel in front of fans only to get shouted out, but lest we hold this up as an example of toxic fan culture run amok, which feels like a lazily nihilistic tack to take, it may help to remind ourselves that sometimes, interruptions can be traced off to one jerk being a jerk while everyone else is just trying to enjoy themselves. And if the jerk in question really was disabled in some way, allowances can probably be made.
In any case, we'll see more of both Smith and Frankel when the third season of House of the Dragon returns on HBO and Max sometime in 2026. And if you can't wait that long to return to Westeros, HBO has a brand new Game of Thrones prequel series coming this year:
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.