House of the Dragon boss confirms Daeron Targaryen exists, won't commit on Nettles

There are a lot of characters on House of the Dragon, and a lot of them have similar-sounding names. Just on the Green side of things, we have Alicent Hightower and her late husband Viserys, and their children Aegon, Aemond and Helaena, and their grandchildren Jaehaerya and Jaehaerys (deceased). On the Black side, we have Rhaenyra and her second cousin Rhaenys and her stepdaughter Rhaena, as well as her husband Daemon and step-daughter Baela. Also Rhaenyra and Daemon have young children named Viserys and Aegon, which are already the names of other characters. It can get confusing up in there.

And now there's another new character on the way: Daeron Targaryen, the youngest child of Alicent Hightower and the late King Viserys Targaryen. He hasn't appeared onscreen yet, and some fans were starting to give up hope that he exists. But in the newest episode, "Rhaenyra the Cruel," his grandfather Otto Hightower confirmed that Daeron is off studying in Oldtown, far from King's Landing. That lines up with what we learn from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood.

Speaking to Variety, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal confirmed that Daeron is around, but don't expect to see him onscreen this season: "Daeron has not been cast yet. I’ve said he’s a character in the show, but at this point in the story, he’s in Oldtown where he was warded off as a young child. So we don’t have a point-of-view character in that world yet and there is no dramatic reason to go there. This happened all the time in medieval times, particularly in the high nobility. You would take your youngest children and ward them off to other places, so they grow up away from court and learn things and have their own place and station in the world. We know he’s not yet a dragon rider, but he’s had a dragon born to him. So he will come to the narrative and have a role to play, just as he does in the book — we’re just not there yet in the storytelling."

At the end of the episode, Otto Hightower resolved to leave King's Landing for the Reach, where Oldtown is located. Might he be the point-of-view character through which we meet Daeron?

House of the Dragon showrunner isn't "ready to comment" about Nettles

So that's one character fans feared was cut from the show who actually isn't. That gives some hope that we may yet see Nettles, another characters fans fear will never appear.

Nettles comes into the story a little later, when Rhaenyra Targaryen is recruiting potential dragon riders to join her air force. At the least, she won't appear in season 2 — we would have heard something about her casting by now. But maybe she'll come in later? What does Ryan Condal think?

"With that character, I’m not ready to comment yet on anything that hasn’t been established in the show just yet."

Fine. We'll wait. But after Daeron's resurrection, anything's possible.

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