House of the Dragon season 2: All the hidden details in the Black Trailer

Let fire reign! House of the Dragon season 2 has an official release date: June 16, 2024. In less than three months, we'll be back in Westeros watching rival factions of House Targaryen tear their family legacy to shreds because they can't agree on who gets to sit the Iron Throne. To mark this momentous event, HBO has released two separate trailers to stoke peoples' team spirit: are you for Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his "Greens," or for Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her "Blacks."

House of the Dragon may be a cautionary tale about how the quest for power can ruin things for everyone, but that's not going to stop people from backing their favorites. "All must choose," as the slate of shiny new posters says. Which side will you throw your fandom vote behind?

We've already dissected the Green Trailer, combing it for every easter egg we could find. Now it's time for Team Black. Watch the Black Trailer above, and then come along for the ride as we go through it shot by shot for every tiny hint we can find about what's to come in House of the Dragon season 2.

When last we saw Rhaenyra and her supporters, they were just receiving the news that her son, Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) was murdered by her half-brother Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell). The trailer picks up that thread right at the top and runs with it:

The funeral of Lucerys Velaryon

We begin with a funeral which is obviously for Lucerys Velaryon. We never got to see Rhaenyra and the rest of her family grieve the loss of Luke. Season 2 will give us all that chance to say goodbye. I'm already getting emotional thinking about it.

Let's run through the guest list: standing directly in front of the fire on the right hand side of the shot are sisters Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, played by Bethany Antonia and Phoebe Campbell respectively. The people beside them are Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) and her husband Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). All the way on the left side of the image is Rhaenyra, her son Jacaerys (Harry Collet), and her younger son Joffrey. We know this last group for a certainty because HBO has kindly released a bunch of glossy new press photos, which includes one of Rhaenyra, Jace and Joffrey that matches this scene:

Note that Jace is holding a set of clothing which looks very similar to the red and black doublets which Luke wore near the end of season 1. Maybe he's planning to toss them into the fire as a way of saying goodbye to his brother.

This is beyond interesting, for a few reasons. The first is that when last we saw Jace, he was flying off to the Eyrie and the North to make alliances with the Arryns and Starks. That Jace is at the funeral means it either takes place later in the season, or he flies back for it before continuing his trip; that would be a deviation from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, where Jace goes around making alliances totally oblivious to the fact that his younger brother had died.

The other thing that makes the funeral scene interesting is that Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), Rhaenyra's husband/uncle, seems to be absent. Unlike Jace, that lines up with the source book, where Daemon is off securing vengeance for Luke rather than hanging around while Rhaenyra is mourning. But vengeance or no, she'll at least get this chance to say goodbye to her son before things go truly off the rails.

Following the funeral, we get a beautiful wide shot of what appears to be Harrenhal — note the ruined towers — beside the lake known as the God's Eye:

This dragon looks like Syrax to me, judging by the color and unique tip of its tail. If so, my guess is that this is a scene of Rhaenyra going to Harrenhal after it's been captured by her husband Daemon. We'll talk more about his exploits in the ruined castle shortly.

Above, we get another shot of a dragon flying in the distance while two women watch from the parapets of Dragonstone. The platinum blonde one is Rhaenyra, but I'm not positive about the identity of the other. She doesn't look like a handmaid, so I'm banking on a noble from another great house.

And now we get our hearts broken:

This is the first shot of the trailer that made me gasp out loud. That distant castle looks a lot like the domed spire at Storm's End, which would make this beach Shipbreaker Bay. That would be where Luke's remains would have washed up — provided there are any remains after he was chomped to tiny bits by Vhagar. In Fire & Blood, it's rumored that the head of Luke's dragon, Arrax, was all that was found. We'll see how House of the Dragon handles it.

If that is indeed the location of this shot, that would mean we're most likely seeing Rhaenyra discover some proof that Luke is dead, maybe the aforementioned dragon head. She kneels on the beach over something while Syrax roars in dismay above her. Heavy.

"My father chose me, his first born child, to succeed him. He held to his decision until death. And yet Alicen't son sits my throne," Rhaenyra narrates. To drive home the insult, we get the above shot of Aegon II Targaryen casually plopping down onto the Iron Throne.

"I mean to fight this war...and win it," Rhaenyra tells a group of people gathered around a dinner table:

This is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot; at first I thought Rhaenyra was talking to Daemon and her other advisors, largely thanks to the cross-cut to Daemon after she stops talking. But if you look closely, that guy with the white hair has a beard; it's not Daemon. More, there's a person with dark dreadlocks on the left, Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), and Rhaenyra is flanked by Jace and Baela. These are not her seasoned advisors: they're her young relatives and the Dragonseeds, peasants who tamed wild dragons in order to join Rhaenyra's cause. This is our first real shot of them all assembled. Presumably Rhaenyra is giving this speech to them after they join up, to make sure they're all on the same page.

But whether Daemon is there or not, we know he supports the cause:

Next, we see a dark window, beyond which a dragon flies in a stormy night:

Thanks to other shots in both this trailer and the Green Trailer, we can guess this is probably Daemon and his dragon Caraxes sneaking up on the castle of Harrenhal.

While he's taking castles, Rhaenyra is busy doing her own dragonrider stuff. Here she is approaching a group of dragonkeepers, while a dragon that looks like Syrax looms in the background:

We also saw an image of dragonkeepers with these same sticks in the Green Trailer, where they were trying to herd Laenor Velaryon's dragon Seasmoke. Perhaps Rhaenyra and Syrax are helping with that?

From there, we're off to the North!

Cregan Stark and the North will appear in House of the Dragon season 2

Yes, that's right! We're heading back to Winterfell, one of the most iconic locations from Game of Thrones. We get a beautiful shot of a column of riders, many wearing black cloaks of the Night's Watch, traveling through a snowy wood.

"The realm will soon tear itself apart, if men do not remember the oaths sworn to King Viserys, and to his rightful heir," Jace Velaryon narrates, while he and Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor) walk along the Wall. Cregan is a young warrior and the Warden of the North, the ancestor of Eddard, Sansa and all the rest of the Starks we know and love from Game of Thrones. It's beyond exciting to think of the Starks coming back — and to see the Wall, which doesn't appear it all during the Dance of the Dragons section in Martin's book. But hey, if Cregan takes Jace around to tour the North, why not stop at the edge of the world for a visit?

As Jace says "rightful heir," the camera shifts to Rhaenyra:

And then a quick shot of another newcomer: Alicent's older brother Gwayne Hightower, played by Freddie Fox:

Gwayne actually did appear briefly in season 1; he fought in the tourney during the series premiere, where he was unhorsed in the joust by Daemon Targaryen. But Gwayne is getting recast and given a proper arc this season, so expect to see more of him.

We'll also be seeing more dragons! Here's Rhaenyra and Syrax soaring through the sky:

And an explosion that throws bodies flying:

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on here, but there are bits of fire in the background. It's from some battle or other, and we know that at least one enormous battle is slated to happen in the forests outside of Rook's Rest this season. Perhaps this carnage is from that set piece?

Just because it's the Black Trailer doesn't mean we don't see anyone from Team Green. Here's Aemond, walking down a hall with his face half in shadow:

And then Aemond's grandfather Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) with his co-conspirator Tyland Lannister (Jeffrey Hall) in the Red Keep:

When last we saw Corlys Velaryon in season 2, he was recovering from some serious wounds taken during a campaign in the Stepstones. He's still recovering, as evidenced by the cane:

This is a beautiful port — so beautiful I'm inclined to think it's not on the dour isle of Dragonstone, but Corlys' home of Driftmark. At the very least, that ship in the background belongs to House Velaryon, since it has blue sails. We get a better look at the Seasnake's house colors in the next shot, where he's wearing a beautiful doublet emblazoned with his seahorse crest:

"The Hightowers are marching. You must crush this beast at its head," Corlys tells Rhaenyra. She obviously thinks that's a good idea, if trailer crosscuts can be believed:

Now we head back to Harrenhal where we learn a lot more about Daemon's approach to taking this storied castle:

Daemon will infiltrate Harrenhal in House of the Dragon season 2

This is Daemon Targaryen, sneaking up the steps of Harrenhal with his Valyrion steel sword Darksister in hand while a storm rages outside. We know it's him, because in the very next shot we see him wearing this same armor while water drips from his helm and lightning flashes outside:

Combined with scenes from the Green Trailer where we see Caraxes alighting on the ruined towers of the castle, this paints a pretty good picture of what we might expect from Daemon at Harrenhal. In Fire & Blood, Daemon lands Caraxes on top of Kingspyre Tower at Harrenhal, which inspires the elderly castellan Simon Strong to immediately strike his banners and surrender. Harrenhal then becomes a major base of operations for the Blacks.

All of this lines up with what we see in the trailer, where Daemon goes alone to Harrenhal with Caraxes. Later we see him walk into a room wearing this same armor:

I'm betting the people in that room are those left holding Harrenhal while its lord, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), is off in King's Landing ogling Alicent's feet.

Speaking of King's Landing, we also get some more intriguing shots of the goings-on there, like this one:

The Green Trailer features a prominent funeral which is almost certainly related to Blood and Cheese's infiltration of the Red Keep. The shot above is probably the beginning of that funeral procession. Both Alicent and her daughter Helaena Targaryen (Phia Sabban) are wearing veils of mourning.

Aegon looks out of sorts too. The person walking away from him looks like Otto Hightower, so no doubt he's getting some compassionate, grandfatherly advice. That's what Otto's all about, right?

"Our terms are very simple. Denounce the false king and bend the knee to the queen, or your house burns." Daemon isn't messing around. This is interesting: he's sitting astride his dragon Caraxes here, and the background appears to be the Riverlands. However, I don't think this is related to Harrenhal, because we already saw Daemon sneaking in there at night. So what great lord is he telling this to? A Tully? A Bracken or Blackwood?

Whoever they are, they better take him at his word because war is being joined. The next very quick and blurry shot shows a cavalry charge of riders loyal to King Aegon; you can tell because of the green-and-gold dragon tabard:

Another cavalry charge:

This is a farily quick shot, but we can tell a few things. For one, this is a forested region. We heard an awful lot about House of the Dragon filming the Battle of Rook's Rest at Bourne Woods in Surrey, England. That looks pretty similar to this setting, so I'm guessing that's the battle we're seeing here.

As for the riders, the one in the rear looks like Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). It's hard to be certain about the one in front, but my money is on Gwayne Hightower, who will be featuring in that battle as well.

Now for someone I didn't expect to see anywhere near Rook's Rest:

Yup, that's Daemon's daughter Baela Targaryen riding her dragon Moondancer! Here we get our best look yet at the beautiful young dragon in all its glory:

It's entirely possible that this scene with Baela is not at Rook's Rest, but somewhere else. She never goes there in Fire & Blood. But when you put these shots together with the footage of Moondancer from the Green Trailer, it does look like Moondancer is flying over a forest very similar to the one we see Criston and company charging through. I'm reserving judgment for now, but if House of the Dragon has Baela participate in the Battle of Rook's Rest, in light of certain other events which are going to happen there, it could be devastating.

Next, Rhaenyra gazes off-screen. What thoughts weigh on the queen's mind?

We don't know, but Rhaenys Targaryen is always good for some words of wisdom:

"When the desire to kill and burn takes hold, and reason is forgotten, we will not even remember what began the war in the first place," says the Queen That Never Was. Whether she's saying this to Rhaenyra or someone else, we can't tell from this shot alone. But it's sound advice that everyone involved in this conflict could probably use.

That includes Aegon, who we see clubbing in the head of someone off-screen in the following shot:

My guess is that the person getting beat up there is Blood, a mercenary involved in a particularly heinous crime we'll witness during the opening episodes of House of the Dragon season 2. In Fire & Blood, he doesn't make a clean escape, instead getting captured and tortured. Note that Aegon is standing in a cell here; the person he's beating with that club is a prisoner. Let's just say he'd have a very good reason for wanting to hurt Blood.

From prison cells to the skies, it's Aemond on his mighty dragon Vhagar:

After the aforementioned shot of Daemon Targaryen barging into the room in Harrenhal that we looked at earlier, we get a very intriguing scene with Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor). Or perhaps it's Ser Erryk Cargyll (Elliot Tittensor). It's hard to tell with twins:

That sounds like a joke, but the physical similarity between Arryk and Erryk becomes an actual plot point in Fire & Blood that leads to an extremely emotional confrontation. Arryk is sworn to King Aegon, Erryk to Queen Rhaenyra. There's a good chance that what we're seeing above is these two cross blades. It's hard to be sure though, since the person the Cargyll knight is swinging at is off-screen.

"We fight for our queen," someone bellows, as Rhaenyra walks onto a balcony at Dragonstone to watch the sunset:

This leads into one last shot of Rhaenyra for the road. She looks up at the camera, while we hear her say, "I fear what I've begun." As well she should: the Dance of the Dragons will be horrific for all involved:

As Rhaenyra's voice fades, Caraxes roars into the stormy night:

That dragon looks stunning. I imagine he's roaring over the sky of Harrenhal, but no matter where you are when you hear it, it's the sort of sound that makes even the most hardened warriors tremble. We'll be hearing a lot more of it soon enough.

House of the Dragon season 2 premieres June 16 on HBO and Max.

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