House of the Dragon set photos suggest another book change

The cast and crew of House of the Dragon are deep into filming on season 3, which promises to have some majorly impressive sequences. First up is the Battle of the Gullet, a ship-to-ship battle that will also involve dragons, because of course it will. This battle was actually originally planned to serve as the climax of season 2, but it got bumped to the beginning of season 3 after Warner Bros. Discovery reduced the show's episode order. Now, cast and crew members are talking up this navel battle like it's going to be the most epic thing ever put to TV, and we hope it will.

Without getting into major spoilers, the Battle of the Gullet is fought between the Velaryon fleet, owned and operated by Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint); and a pirate fleet captained by Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn). Remember that, at the end of season 2, Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) convinced Lohar to fight for King Aegon II Targaryen, while Corlys Velaryon is loyal to Aegon's rival Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy). Corlys set sail from Driftmark on his flagship the Sea Snake, renamed the Queen Who Ever Was, in the season 2 finale, just as Tyland and Sharako set sail from Essos. Get ready for smoke on the water.

So we promised you a potential change from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, from which this story is adapted. Here it is: just today, the House of the Dragon fan account House the Dragons posted images of what appears to be the wreckage of the Queen Who Ever Was strewn about on a beach. You can see the ship's masthead, carved to look like Corlys' late wife Rhaenys Targaryen, in the picture in the upper left-hand corner:

The rub here is that, in the book, Corlys' flagship is not destroyed, although the Velaryon fleet does suffer heavy losses. In fact, years later, when Corlys dies, he is buried at sea aboard the ship, which is sunk into the waters off the coast of Dragonstone.

So far as changes House of the Dragon has made to Fire & Blood go, this one is pretty minor. It's not a ridiculous prospect for a ship to be lost in a battle at sea, and we know the Velaryon fleet takes a pounding in the Battle of the Gullet. And I highly suspect that House of the Dragon will end before it gets to the point in the timeline where Corlys dies of natural causes, so they won't have to worry about making that make sense.

Still, in my opinion, the show has been way too liberal with changing things from the book, something that's also annoyed George R.R. Martin himself. If they were only changing relatively small things like the fate of Corlys' ship, I probably wouldn't mind, but they've made major deviations, and the overall effect is of a show that isn't concerned with sticking close to the source material.

It's also possible that the ship is merely dissembled on the beach and we're just looking at props before they're put together. But again, considering how much about the book the show has changed, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they went in this direction. We'll find out for sure when House of the Dragon season 3 airs on HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2026.

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.