This week's new episode of House of the Dragon, "Smallfolk," marked a turning point for Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and Team Black. After the loss of her most experienced dragonrider, Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), Rhaenyra finds herself with a lack of dragonriders but a surplus of dragons slumbering in the caverns of Dragonstone. The previous episode, "Regent," ended with Rhaenyra and her son Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett) realizing that there could be records of Targaryens who married out of the family into other noble houses, and that their descendants could still have enough of the blood from Old Valyria to claim a dragon.
In Episode 206, we saw how that plan played out. Rhaenyra called forth her loyal Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Steffon Darklyn (Anthony Flanagan), and revealed that he's a distant relation of House Targaryen. Ser Steffon gladly accepted the honor of trying to tame a dragon, despite the fact that failing would mean almost certain death.
And fail he did. All seemed to be going well, until the dragon Seasmoke seemed to sense Ser Steffon's hesitation and decided the knight wasn't quite up to his standards. Steffon got toasted by Seasmoke's fiery breath in one of the first shocker moments of the episode.
If you're like Seasmoke, you may be wondering: how exactly is this guy related to House Targaryen? The dragon may not care much about the answer, but we do!
Is Ser Steffon Darklyn related to House Targaryen in the book?
When Rhaenyra summons Ser Steffon before her council, she says that his "grandmother's grandmother, Aeriana, was born a Targaryen princess." Aeriana married into House Darklyn, and over the years that Targaryen blood became thinner and thinner as the great house of Duskendale continued growing its family line. That gives us a pretty clear way to tell how Ser Steffon is related to the Targaryens in House of the Dragon: six generations back, a Targaryen princess married into the Darklyn family.
However, this is solely an invention of HBO's television series. It's never said anywhere in the source material from George R.R. Martin that Ser Steffon or House Darklyn is related to House Targaryen. Ser Steffon does still meet his end trying to mount the dragon Seasmoke, but he is one of several household knights pledged to Rhaenyra who offer to attempt to claim a dragon based solely on their loyalty and drive, rather than any familial relation to House Targaryen. Yes, you read that right; in the book it is not just Targaryen relations who try to mount dragons during this part of the Dance of the Dragons civil war, though Targaryen bastards, known as "Dragonseeds," do make up the bulk of the aspirants.
Looking through The World of Ice and Fire book and its related family tree for House Targaryen, there is no "Aeriana Targaryen" who married into House Darklyn at all. Moreover, the fact that it's Ser Steffon's "grandmother's grandmother" means that Aeriana Targaryen would have married into House Darklyn in the very earliest days of House Targaryen's reign; possibly even before Aegon's Conquest, during the years where the Targaryens mainly resided on their island stronghold of Dragonstone. The family tree is a little murkier that far back, since most of the maesters of the Seven Kingdoms only started keeping track once Aegon and his sister-wives landed on Westeros. Aeriana could well have been a close ancestor of Aegon I Targaryen, at least on House of the Dragon.
Next week, we'll meet a few other aspiring dragonriders during an event known as the Sowing of the Seeds. It should be an exciting episode! Catch it next Sunday night on HBO and Max.
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