‘House of the Dragon’ Showrunner Teases the Possibility of Nettles Making an Appearance

The Big Picture

• House of the Dragon
  takes creative liberties with George R.R. Martin’s
  Fire & Blood
  , merging characters and expanding storylines.
• Showrunner Ryan Condal teases a new direction for Rhaena and Nettles’ story, keeping fans intrigued and engaged.
• House of the Dragon
  offers a fresh interpretation of Targaryen history, with multiple paths to explore and enjoy in the series.

From Lady Stoneheart to Young Griff, the creative team behind Game of Thrones took multiple liberties with their series adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Part of this is because the author hasn’t actually finished telling the story just yet, with two more books slated to close out the series whenever Martin gets around to it. Another reason some of these characters never made it onto TV screens was due to their stories being merged with other main players. This has seemingly been the case in the network’s Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, as fans have pointed out that the journey of Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), looks an awful lot like the one taken in Fire & Blood by Nettles – specifically when it comes to her bonding with the dragon known as Sheepstealer.

In the second season’s finale, Rhaena and Sheepstealer finally meet face-to-face, although audiences will have to wait quite a while to learn what happens next. Thankfully, showrunner and co-creator, Ryan Condal, gave those attending a press conference on Monday morning, like our very own Therese Lacson, a teaser of what’s to come in Rhaena – and Nettles’ – story.

“Given where we are in the storytelling, I think that’s a, ‘Please stay tuned and keep watching the story,’” Condal said to the attendees.

“I will say that we love Rhaena as a character, and we’ve really done a lot of legwork to set her up from the beginning as somebody in this Targaryen household who does not have a dragon. We saw that with Aemond’s story of how somebody that grows up in this family, even in a time of peace, when you don’t have a dragon, how it changes how you’re identified even within the family. And how desperate Rhaena is for that sort of self-identification as a dragon rider, and is willing to go to fairly dangerous lengths to try to see that realized.”

Ryan Condal and the Rest of the Team Are Having Fun With the Adaptation

Unlike the novels from A Song of Ice and Fire which strictly stick to a character-centered layout, Fire & Blood is instead told by Archmaester Gyldayn. Despite citing sources for his story, the Archmaester is still an unreliable narrator, as these tales come from a few different sources which tend to contradict one another. Condal says that this has been one of the enjoyable parts about creating House of the Dragon because the creative team has a bit more wiggle room to take the story where they’d like.

“So I think part of the fun of adapting
Fire & Blood
is how
we interpret the accepted history
that these three different historians sometimes argue about and wrote down, and we’re not trying to tell the objective truth. We’re providing the television version of one objective truth of this history, and anybody who reads the book is free to interpret it however they want to. But
there are a lot of paths to interpretation
through this. And I think the Rhaena story as we’re seeing it unfold is potentially one of those interesting interpretations that we have to offer, and I would just say that
we don’t do any of this stuff lightly or without thought
. Many of these things, we’ve planned many seasons in advance. So I would just say, you know, buckle up and take the ride with us. And hopefully you like the destination it’s going to.”

Season 2 of House of the Dragon is now streaming on Max in its entirety.

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