With the ending of House of the Dragon season 3, there is plenty that we can theorize about, including what is going to happen next in the fourth and final season. But one thing we do know is that showrunner Ryan Condal promises there will be a lot of new things to up the ante.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Condal said that it’s a "privilege" to be able to continue this story and that the final chapter will have so many “new” things that will make it a very “worthy” last season:
“It’s a great privilege to be able to tell a story, and to be able to control and write the ending, and to control when and where that happens. This is not a given in making television, certainly. So, we’re very excited to get back in, and we have new characters, and new dragons and new locations all to come, that I think are gonna make it a very worthy final season.”
I’m not sure how Condal plans to fit all these new things into the next season, given it's the last season. But there are some things we could theorize about regarding who/what might appear.
Who and what might appear in House of the Dragon season 4
With dragons, one major one that we have not seen yet from Fire & Blood is The Cannibal. This is a coal-black dragon that feasts on dead dragons as well as hatchlings and dragon eggs. As you can predict, this dragon is wild, and due to its volatile nature, no one has been able to claim it. We did have a sort of claimant with Sheepstealer in season 3, but even then, Rhaena could not control him.
The same could be said for another dragon that we have not seen, Grey Ghost. This is a wild dragon as well, but apparently, it’s so elusive that no one has been able to find it. I’d be pretty surprised if they somehow showed up in season 4. However, this could also be a case where Condal is planning on giving us new dragons that we haven’t heard of yet — or it could just be a hint to seeing more potential dragon eggs.
In an interview with IGN in June, Condal teased we haven’t seen all of the dragons expected to appear in the show just yet. When asked about The Cannibal and Grey Ghost specifically, he stated: “Look, there's a lot of runway left and it is called House of the Dragon. It is the Dance of the Dragons. I think there are more dragon cards to be turned over as time rolls on here.”
In addition to potential original dragons, there could also be some new original characters that Condal might be promising. A few key characters who are important in the book — like Nettles (Daemon’s supposed lover and rider of Sheepstealer) and Maelor Targaryen (Helaena’s son) — are not expected to appear, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new additions from the story the writers can pull from as well.
Locations are also a big one. A major battle that will occur is the Battle Above the Gods Eye, and while the famous lake next to Harrenhal has been referenced, we’ve never really dug deep into that area, and it will play a massive role in season 4.
Something else that we could get a deeper dive into is the dragon pit in King’s Landing. Helaena prophesied the storming of the pit in one of her dream sequences (the one time we ever got to see her on Dreamfyre). The public descends on the dragon, and Dreamfyre kills many of them. Now that Helaena is gone, could this still happen somehow? Something seems to be coming to the dragon pit.
Honestly, this makes me more curious about season 4 of the show and where it might go. We already had some interesting book diversions in the season 3 finale, so if the final season follows in the same footsteps, it’ll be an adventurous last hurrah for the legendary Targaryen family tree.
You can watch the complete third season of HBO’s House of the Dragon on HBO Max.
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