House of the Dragon Season 2: Is [Spoiler] Leaving?

Kimberly Roots
Updated ·2 min read
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One of House of the Dragon‘s most morally upright characters — if not the only one — might not be around much in Season 2.

HBO announced on Tuesday that production of the Game of Thrones spinoff was underway once more at Leavesden Studios in the United Kingdom. Along with that announcement came a rundown of the returning cast, which includes Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Eve Best, Steve Touissant and Matthew Needham.

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But Graham McTavish, who played Ser Harrold Westerling in the HBO drama’s first season, was not one of the names listed. What might’ve become of the do-right knight?

Ser Harrold’s absence, or limited involvement, in Season 2 would not come as a complete shock: In Season 1’s penultimate episode, after King Viserys’ death, he directly disobeyed Otto Hightower’s command to bring the Kingsguard’s knights to Dragonstone and kill Rhaenyra and her family in order to smooth Aegon Targaryen’s path to the Iron Throne. Ser Harrold angrily ripped off his white cape and stated that he recognized no authority but the king’s, “and until there is one, I have no place here.”

The knight did not appear, nor was he referenced, in the Season 1 finale. When TVLine chatted with him in November 2022, McTavish — who’ll next be seen reprising the role of Dougal MacKenzie in Outlander‘s upcoming Season 7 — mused about what might come next for his character.

“Harrold’s entire life had been about his devotion to that family, and really in particular to Rhaenyra. He would’ve known her since she was literally born, so it would have been a very, very difficult moment for him, but also one in the end he didn’t hesitate about,” he said at the time. “So when he leaves, I mean — hey, you know, in my mind, I imagined him sort of striding out, getting on his horse, riding out of town and really taking time to decompress, to actually think, you know, ‘What am I going to do next?’ Because I don’t think he has a plan. I don’t think Harrold would go home at night having an exit strategy if things went wrong. He would never have imagined that ever happening.”

Of course, given the wide and wild world of Westeros, there’s always the possibility that Ser Harrold won’t be a part of Season 2 but will pop up in potential later seasons of the fantasy drama, like Barristan Selmy (played by Ian McElhinney) did in Game of Thrones.

A rep for HBO had no comment for this story. TVLine has reached out to McTavish’s reps for comment.

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