The cast and crew of House of the Dragon are filming the third season as we speak. Season 3 will kick off with a massive battle scene originally planned to serve as the climax to season 2: the Battle of the Gullet. I won't give away explicit spoilers, but it's a gigantic naval battle fought between a fleet led by Corlys Velaryon, who's loyal to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen; and Sharako Lohar, a pirate captain working for King Aegon II Targaryen, Rhaenyra's rival for the Iron Throne. Things get serious. Dragons are involved and characters die, at least if the producers follow the battle as described in George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood.
Game of Thrones raised the bar for medieval battle scenes on TV, but it never had a huge ship-to-ship navel battle to rival anything on land. The third season of House of the Dragon is looking to change that. Showrunner Ryan Condal has called the Battle of the Gullet "probably the most complex sequence that's ever been done for television, not necessarily the most expensive or the longest shoot or anything like that, but just based on the number of moving pieces, the amount of different disciplines, media that have to be blended together to achieve success because you're talking about sea and ships and dragons and action." In another franchise, I might dismiss that as tall talk. But in this one, I think it's very possible.
In season 2, we got to know Corlys' sons Addam and Alyn of Hull. Addam has become a dragonrider in service to Queen Rhaenyra while Alyn serves his father as a seaman. Alyn is played by Abubakar Salim, who tweeted out a little preview of the outfit he'll wearing into battle at sea:
I don't know if armor on a boat is the best idea — if you fall overboard you're going straight to the bottom of the bay — but it does look nice. The armor bears the seahorse sigil of Houes Velaryon.
The Queensguard suits up
In other news, House of the Dragon supporting player Max Wrottesley, who plays Ser Lorent Marbrand, a member of Rhaenyra Targaryen's Queensguard, posted his own photo from the set on his Instagram Stories:
Everyone's got their armor on. These photos are indicators of filming on House of the Dragon season 3 flying forward. We'll keep an eye out for anything interesting. Expect the third season of House of the Dragon to air on HBO and Max sometime in 2026.
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