This week, HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon finally started filming on its third season. To mark the occasion, showrunner Ryan Condal spoke with Entertainment Weekly about season 3, hyping up things we already knew were on the way and giving us a bunch of new details, like that the series has officially cast Tom Flanagan as Roddy the Ruin and Dan Fogler as Ser Torrhen Manderly!
Condal also teased that the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons will get very bloody, very fast this season, as the armies of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her half-brother Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) take to the field. “I will say that the war this season goes very hot, very, very quickly,” he said. “I think the people that were waiting and waiting for all of the horrible, brutal, pitiless bloodshed will be getting it in copious amounts.”
Anyone who's read George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood should know exactly what Condal is referring to here: the Battle of the Gullet, a horrifically brutal naval battle that will happen right at the top of season 3. The Gullet was originally planned to cap off season 2, but had to be shifted back to the start of season 3 due to a number of reasons, including budget concerns and the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Instead of the battle itself, season 2 ended with Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) enlisting the Triarchy fleet of Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) to help him break Corlys Velaryon's (Steve Toussaint) blockade around King's Landing. Those fleets will clash, and if the show pulls it off, it should be one of the most memorable battles of the entire series. Condal and his team have been preparing for this moment for a while.
"In many ways, the Gullet has been on the minds of the production for about three years now and trying to figure out how we were going to mount it in a way that was both producible and exciting, thrilling," Condal explained. "The planning that has gone into this... basically all departments working in concert to really make a thing that nobody has ever done before."
In addition to serving as the series showrunner, Condal also wrote the script for the episode which will feature the Battle of the Gullet. When he says "a thing that nobody has ever done before" about the battle, I imagine he's referring to the idea of a bunch of ships clashing on the open sea while dragons tear through the sky overhead.
Sea battles have never been the strong suit of the Game of Thrones franchise; we only got a couple of small ones in the original series, like Euron Greyjoy raiding the fleet of his niece Yarra in season 7 and the infamous time Daenerys "kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" in season 8. There have absolutely been shows which have had far superior naval battles, like the Starz pirate drama Black Sails. Perhaps House of the Dragon can up the ante for Thrones at sea?
Condal told EW that Kevin de la Noy, a production manager who worked on James Cameron's Titanic, is an executive producer on House of the Dragon. His naval experience will be a huge boon to the series as it attempts to mount the best and most important sea battle in the franchise's history.
"He comes in having worked on one of the biggest naval sequences ever put to film," Condal said of de la Noy. "But, yeah, it's a stunning thing. I would like to think that this is 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."
I'll say this for Condal, he's certainly going hard to build up the hype. A lot of fans have been looking forward to the Battle of the Gullet for years, so hopefully that anticipation pays off. I can't help but arch an eyebrow at the idea it will be the "most complex sequence that's ever been done for television" — I imagine the original Thrones' climactic White Walker battle in "The Long Night" will give anything House of the Dragon does a good run for its money — but it's promising to hear Condal's enthusiasm for what's coming in season 3 regardless.
As for why the Gullet will be such a big deal, let's get into FULL SPOILERS for Fire & Blood.
A major death will happen in the Battle of the Gullet
Part of the reason the Gullet is such an anticipated moment is that it is classic Game of Thrones — meaning not everyone we love makes it out alive. The set up for the Gullet is thus: Rhaenyra Targaryen's two youngest sons, Aegon III and Viserys, are on their way to the Free Cities aboard a trading cog called the Gay Abandon. Before they can make safe harbor, the ship is taken by Sharako Lohar's pirate fleet, which is on its way to the Gullet...but young Aegon escapes on his small dragon Stormcloud. Stormcloud and Aegon barely make it to Dragonstone, alerting Rhaenyra that her other son is in mortal danger. Stormcloud dies from his wounds.
Jacaerys Velaryon and the new bastard dragonriders Hugh Hammer, Ulf White, Addam of Hull, and Nettles immediately set out to meet Lohar's fleet. By then, Lohar's fleet is engaging Corlys Velaryon's at the Gullet, and the battle turns into a horrible blood bath. Amidst it all, some of Lohar's ships manage to sneak south and sack the Velaryon home of Driftmark. It will never again return to its former glory after the Battle of the Gullet.
But the main event is the death of Jace and his dragon Vermithor, who are brought down by crossbows and scorpions to crash into the sea. It's said that Jace managed to cling to a piece of driftwood to stay above the water, before sailors shot him through with more crossbow quarrels and he was sank to the depths along with his dragon. The Dragonseeds manage to secure the victory for Queen Rhaenyra, but the cost is high. Neither the Sea Snake or the Triarchy will have a strong fleet for the rest of the war, and Queen Rhaenyra is forever changed by the loss of her eldest son.
Jace's death is the event which spurs Rhaenyra to eventually take King's Landing back from the Greens. So it's not only a shocking moment, but important to move the story forward into its next phase.
To top off all this heartache, young Viserys Targaryen is lost in the battle. Fire & Blood speculates about his possible fate, which is never made explicit. But considering that most of the Triarchy and Sea Snake's ships end up at the bottom of the ocean, he almost certainly perishes.
The Dance of the Dragons civil war is Martin's version of a Shakespearean tragedy in Westeros. House of the Dragon season 3 will remind us of that in a big way, as beloved characters start dropping like flies.
House of the Dragon season 3 is currently filming. We expect to be watching the Battle of the Gullet sometime in 2026.
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