'House of the Dragon' Hasn't Forgotten About This Key Targaryen

After weeks and weeks of palace intrigue and political manoeuvering, HBO's House of the Dragon is finally gearing up for civil war, with Queen Alicent eager to position her son Aegon as the next ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, in direct opposition to heir apparent Rhaenyra Targaryen. This conflict will have serious consequences for the next generation of each respective family line, with Aegon and Jacaerys already engaged in their own separate feud.

It turns out, we haven't even met all of the various offspring yet. And no, that's not a reference to Rhaenyra's current unborn child.

In a recent blog post, author George R.R. Martin acknowledged the existence of another Targaryen prince from Fire & Blood who has not appeared in the show, but whom he insists does still very exist in the world of House of the Dragon, albeit just off-screen: Daeron Targaryen.

Martin mentioned Daeron in passing while praising the cast of the show, but simultaneously bemoaning the constraints of adapting his sprawling works which mean that some elements simply haven't made it into House of the Dragon for the sake of time: "Do I wish we’d had more time to explore the relationship between Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin, the marriage of Daemon and Laena and their time in Pentos, the birth of various and sundry children (and YES, Alicent gave Viserys four children, three sons and a daughter, their youngest son Daeron is down in Oldtown, we just did not have the time to work him in this season), and everything else we had to skip? Sure."

Who Is Daeron Targaryen?

Daeron is the third and youngest son of Viserys Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, after Aegon and Aemond. In Fire & Blood, the fictional history on which House of the Dragon is based, Daeron is described as the "gentlest" of the three boys. Born shortly after Rhaenyra's eldest son, Daeron and Jacaerys shared a wetnurse as babies: it was King Viserys' hope that this would create a bond between the two princes (similar to his efforts to foster camaraderie between the boys in Episode 6).

Known as Daeron the Daring, he was a dragonrider like his brothers, but at the age of 12, he was sent by his mother to serve as cupbearer to her cousin Lord Ormund Hightower in Oldtown. This means that Martin's comment about Daeron being conveniently out-of-sight in Oldtown on the show actually matches up with what he wrote in the book.

However, when the Targaryen war of succession (commonly called the Dance of the Dragons) began, Daeron accompanied the Hightower army when it marched from Oldtown, riding on dragonback during battle. Whether we end up seeing Daeron in the on-screen adaptation of these events, however, is uncertain: had there been plans to include him in the civil war storyline, it is likely we would have been introduced to him by now.

Then again, there's always Season 2.

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