I Can’t Believe House of the Dragon Season 3 Might Include the Cut Targaryen That Pissed Off GRRM

House of the Dragon Season 3 might actually be introducing one book character that the series had appeared to have completely cut. And what’s more, it’s the character omission that angered George R.R. Martin so much that he posted a (now deleted) blog post about how it affects the show, highlighting his fractured relationship with showrunner Ryan Condal.

In the new House of the Dragon Season 3 trailer, there is what looks like a shot of Helaena Targaryen giving birth. We don’t know the exact circumstances, or if that is definitely what’s happening, but if it is, then it could mean the series is now bringing in Prince Maelor Targaryen, the third child of Helaena and King Aegon II Targaryen. This comes much later than his introduction in the book, where he is part of the Blood and Cheese scene, with his mother choosing between him and her eldest son, Jaehaerys.

Is House Of The Dragon Season 3 Really Including Prince Maelor Targaryen?

Again, we don’t know for certain that this scene means Maelor is being introduced. It’s possible, if awful, that Helaena’s baby dies during childbirth in this sequence, if it’s even real at all. She is a character who experiences visions and “dragon dreams,” and while the purpose of doing it isn’t clear, it could be her seeing something that only could happen, or indeed, could have been, perhaps a glimpse at what might’ve happened had Maelor been born.

If it is Maelor, for real, then that only raises more questions. If including him now, then why not have him be part of Blood and Cheese? That is one of the biggest moments involving the character in the book Fire & Blood. What we do know from Martin’s blog post is that there was no plan for Maelor in the Season 3 scripts he had seen, so it’s possible that the prince was added in after that had been published.

Warning: SPOILERS for Fire & Blood, and so potentially for House of the Dragon Season 3, from this point onwards.

Besides Blood and Cheese, Maelor only has one other story: his death. He and his sister, Jaehaera, are both sent away from King’s Landing for their own safety, with Maelor being taken to Oldtown by Ser Rickard Thorne, under the guise of being his son. On the way, they stop at the town of Bitterbridge, which is held by the Blacks. Their identities are found out, and after Thorne is killed, Maelor is brutally murdered by a mob. Not long after this, Helaena takes her own life.

Is House of the Dragon going to introduce a newborn child, just to have them killed, to serve the suicide of his mother? Even by the standards of the Game of Thrones franchise, I would find that very f**king grim. It’s worth keeping an open mind, obviously, because so much depends on context and how it’s written, so it’s absolutely possible this could all work out, but on the surface, at least, it would seem an odd choice to include Maelor at this juncture.

It’s also worth mentioning that there have been reports of a second actress playing Jaehaera in House of the Dragon Season 3. Rather than a replacement, this would be two versions of the character: one as a toddler like we’ve seen before, and then one around 10 years old. The common theory for this is that the older one would be seen in a vision from Helaena, perhaps witnessing her daughter’s death. That’s all unconfirmed, but if it were doing that, then it could be that the birth scene ties in with that vision, rather than being of Maelor. Either way, I still think it’s a strange tease, but we will see when the show returns.

House of the Dragon Season 3 premieres on Sunday, June 21st, 2026.

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