The “Game of Thrones” prequel saved the biggest character cameo for last.
A large swath of fans have not been into Prince Daemon’s Harrenhal arc on this season of House of the Dragon. Every time he experiences some trippy vision instead of moving the action forward, it threatens to wake the dragon among viewers — or at least wake the memes. However, these sequences did give us the thrill of seeing Milly Alcock and Paddy Considine again as Rhaenyra and Viserys — and the show saved its biggest character cameo for last.
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“All your life you sought to command your own fate, but today you are ready,” Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) tells Daemon (Matt Smith) before he lays his palm against the trunk of the mystical tree. He’s immediately connected to the current Three-Eyed Raven, who is not played by Max von Sydow or Struan Rodger, the previous actors behind the character on Thrones. The Three-Eyed Raven gives Daemon a vision that’s presumably meant to be very similar (if not exact) to the one Aegon the Conqueror experienced.
Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen… titles, titles, titles… appears in a vision Daemon has when he touches the weirwood tree at Harrenhal. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke does not return, since the character is only seen from the back, but Dany’s arrival nonetheless might’ve answered a longstanding burning question from the original series..
Daemon sees the White Walkers marching in the North. He sees the corpses of dead dragons, no doubt a result from the bloodshed to come in the current civil war, the Dance of the Dragons. The Rogue Prince then sees the red comet that pierced the skies above Westeros and Essos during the events of the Game of Thrones season 2 premiere. What follows are visions of flames coating the three dragon eggs that will one day hatch into Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion; and, finally, the silver-haired Khaleesi herself.
Thrones fans will remember the Prince That Was Promised as a prophesied savior. The red priestesses and those who follow the religion of the Lord of Light believed this individual to be a reincarnation of Azor Ahai, a legendary warrior who forged the flaming sword known as Lightbringer and used it to defeat a great darkness.
Daemon observes the back of Dany, sitting on the ground in the nude as the heads of her three newly hatched baby dragons poke their heads out from around her body. Why is this moment so important, other than for the thrill of seeing the last remaining Targaryen in the timeline of Game of Thrones again? It seems to suggest that Daenerys is indeed “the Prince That Was Promised.”
House of the Dragon added to the lore in season 1 when King Viserys told a young Rhaenyra about Aegon the Conqueror’s vision that convinced him to unite Westeros under Targaryen rule. He called the vision “A Song of Ice and Fire,” the name of author George R.R. Martin’s book series that inspired the HBO dramas. It predicted the arrival of a great winter coming from the North to swallow everything, but Aegon was convinced that if a Targaryen, with the power of dragon fire at their back, sat the Iron Throne, they could safeguard their future.
There’s been some debate amongst characters across the two shows. Could this Prince That Was Promised be Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon? With his dying breath, Viserys seemed to believe his daughter to be such a savior, even if his wife Alicent (Olivia Cooke) misinterpreted his words. Could it be Kit Harington’s Jon Snow, whose true identity is Aegon Targaryen? He could be considered a physical embodiment of the “Song of Ice and Fire” as the orphaned child of Eddard Stark’s sister Lyanna (the ice) and Rhaegar Targaryen (the fire).
“From my blood come the prince that was promised, and his will be the song of ice and fire.” So says the prophesy.
According to this vision, the Prince That Was Promised is more likely the Mother of Dragons herself, the woman who returned fire-breathing drakes to the world of men by reviving petrified eggs, united the Dothraki, freed countless slaves across Essos, and maintains a miraculous immunity to fire. As we learned from Missandai (Nathalie Emmanuel) on Game of Thrones, the prophesy is written in High Valyrian, and the word for “prince” in that language is gender neutral. So Aegon’s vision could very well refer to a princess instead of a prince.
Kinvara, that red priestess who popped up in Myrene on Game of Thrones season 6, will be so happy that she’s now vindicated in her claims.
Daemon’s vision ends with him appearing once again before the Iron Throne, only this time it’s Rhaenyra seated upon it, wearing her father’s crown. This feels less connected to the vision of the White Walkers and Dany, and more like potential foreshadowing of things to come in the near future. If anything, it does help convince Daemon that backstabbing his wife/niece isn’t a good idea, and instead he should give back power in the Riverlands to Rhaenyra.
