Warning: Spoilers ahead for the “House of the Dragon” season three premiere and the book “Fire & Blood.”
“House of the Dragon” season three opens with Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) face-to-face with a wild dragon.
For many characters, this encounter would spell their end. In the “Game of Thrones” universe, dragons are vicious, volatile, and don’t typically take well to strangers — especially a dragon like Sheepstealer, who’s spent his life isolated from humans, feral and riderless.
Instead of suffering a fiery death, however, Rhaena manages to bond with Sheepstealer. She climbs on his scaly back and becomes a dragonrider for the first time in her life.
In season two, as Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) seeks new dragonriders to join her army, Rhaena is put forth as a potential option. After all, Rhaena’s sister, Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia), her mother, Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell), and father, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Damon), all successfully claimed dragons of their own (Moondancer, Vhagar, and Caraxes, respectively).
Alas, Rhaenyra says, the last time her stepdaughter tried to claim a dragon, Rhaena nearly died in the attempt.
Rhaena’s bond with Sheepstealer will come as quite a shock to her family members — just as it surely will to book readers. In George R. R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” the original inspiration for HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” Sheepstealer is claimed by a mysterious character named Nettles. Meanwhile, Rhaena meets a very different fate.
Here’s what happens to Nettles in the book, and how Rhaena’s story was changed for the show.
Nettles bonds with Sheepstealer in an unconventional way
Before the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, it was accepted wisdom in Westeros that only trueborn Targaryens could be dragonriders.
That changes when Rhaenyra recruits new dragonriders to strengthen her army. In the book, the plan is credited to her son Jacaerys (Harry Collett), the Prince of Dragonstone; he issues a call for bastards with Targaryen blood, known as “dragonseeds,” promising riches and knighthood to anyone who claims a dragon.
Seasmoke, Vermithor, and Silverwing — older dragons who’d previously been claimed by other riders — bond with Addam of Hull, Hugh Hammer, and Ulf the White, respectively.
Sheepstealer, one of three wild dragons living on Dragonstone, poses a greater challenge. The “vicious, ill-tempered beast” kills many hopefuls and burns many more, including Addam’s brother, Alyn, though he survives.
The teenager Nettles, described as “cunning and persistent,” takes an unconventional approach. Knowing that Sheepstealer has a taste for mutton, she kills a fresh sheep each morning and delivers it to the wild dragon, “until Sheepstealer learned to accept and expect her.”
It’s unclear whether Nettles has any Targaryen ancestry, since she’s “a bastard of uncertain birth” who grew up on the streets of Spicetown and Hull. Whoever she is, she becomes Sheepstealer’s first and last rider.
In the book, Nettles allies with Rhaenyra and forms a close relationship with Daemon
Shortly after claiming Sheepstealer, Nettles pledges her dragon to Rhaenyra and fights for the future queen in the Battle of the Gullet, alongside Jacaerys and the other dragonseeds.
While Ulf and Hugh seem to enjoy the bloodshed and relish their newfound power, Nettles does not.
“She had flown with the others, fought as bravely, burned and killed as they had, but her face was black with smoke and streaked with tears when she returned to Dragonstone,” the book reads.
The dragonriders help Rhaenyra seize the Iron Throne from her half-brother. Later, Queen Rhaenyra sends her husband Daemon to find and kill her other half-brother, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell). Rhaenyra also sends Nettles to join Daemon’s mission. Since Aemond’s dragon Vhagar is the biggest and fiercest in the world, they will most likely need both Caraxes and Sheepstealer to bring her down.
Using Maidenpool as their base, Daemon and Nettles spend months hunting Aemond to no avail. During this time, the two grow strangely close. The fictional historians in “Fire & Blood” speculate that Daemon and Nettles fell in love; the maester of Maidenpool says they had dinner together every night, and Daemon “doted upon the brown girl as a man might dote upon his daughter.” (Interestingly, the character who replaces Nettles in the show is literally Daemon’s daughter.)
Before long, Rhaenyra is betrayed by Ulf and Hugh. Despite pledging fealty to the queen, it seems the dragonseeds have no loyalty toward Rhaenyra — only ambition for themselves.
Shaken and paranoid, Rhaenyra sends word to Maidenpool that Nettles has been judged guilty of treason and must be executed. Instead of capturing the girl, however, Maidenpool’s maester shows Daemon the letter.
The next morning, Daemon helps Nettles escape on Sheepstealer, and they share a sorrowful goodbye: “Her cheeks were stained with tears,” the maester says. After she flies away, neither Nettles nor Sheepstealer is ever seen again.
Instead of returning to Dragonstone, as Rhaenyra requested in her letter, Daemon flies to Harrenhal. He tells the Lord of Maidenpool, “If my nephew Aemond dares face me, he shall find me there, alone.”
Rhaena doesn’t claim a dragon in the book until much later
In the show, Rhaena is tasked with escorting Rhaenyra’s three youngest sons to the Vale and protecting them from the war. She is also entrusted with three dragon eggs. Rhaenyra tells her stepdaughter, “Should all come to ruin here, you will bear our hope for the future.”
Still, Rhaena is hurt by the assignment. She knows that she’s seen as less valuable to her family because she’s not a dragonrider. Instead of escorting Rhaenyra’s sons to their second safe location, she runs away and seeks Sheepstealer instead.
In the book, however, Rhaena’s path to becoming a dragonrider plays out differently. Although she is still desperate for a dragon, her own having died as a hatchling, she is committed to her charge. The book says she “prayed nightly” for one of the eggs to hatch.
Rhaena remains in the Vale throughout the war, even after Rhaenyra’s son Joffrey returns to his mother’s side. Eventually, Rhaenyra is forced to flee King’s Landing, and King Aegon II emerges from hiding to retake the Iron Throne.
Still, the war does not end. Lady Jeyne Arryn assembles an army to march on King’s Landing from the Vale, and Rhaena joins them — firepower in hand. One of her eggs had finally hatched, and Rhaena named the dragon Morning.
Eammon Jacobs contributed to a previous version of this story.
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