Warning: This article contains SPOILERS. Daeron Targaryen finally enters the action in House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 3, “Rhaenyra Triumphant,” or at least, so we’re led to believe. After Daemon Targaryen convinces Ormund Hightower to surrender and march his host back home, the Rogue Prince takes Daeron to King’s Landing as a prisoner, since he is in the line of succession for the Iron Throne. However, it later transpires that it’s an imposter, and Ormund has taken the town of Tumbleton and still has the real Targaryen prince.
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The fake Daeron twist is an addition to House of the Dragon that does not come from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, and creates a sense of unpredictability in the narrative. It’s what allows Ormund to begin his Tumbleton plan, which will bear fruit later in the third season, but does also raise one big question that fans can’t quite look past. No, it’s not where did fake Daeron get such an impressive bleach and dye job in Westeros, but about his dragon, Tessarion.
Daemon seemingly ignores the dragon during his meeting with Ormund, leaving it with Ormund, which is weird enough, but fans have also pointed out it should’ve clued him in that something was up (while also birthing what should be HOTD‘s next great meme):
House Of The Dragon’s Tessarion Plot Hole Explained
The issue with Tessarion is twofold. Firstly, the dragon has no reaction when Daeron is taken away by Daemon. Given the close bond between dragons and their riders, then it’s reasonable to expect that she would do something in response to the situation to signify that. Given she doesn’t, then it would serve as a clue to this boy instead being “Faeron.”
However, I do think that can be explained away quite easily. Daemon is very overconfident in his meeting with Ormund, and understandably so. Rhaenyra has taken the Iron Throne, a lot of the threats have been removed or have vanished, and he now thinks he’s dealt the Hightowers a major blow and taken that chess piece off the board as well. Given that he is the one in the position of power, he’d have no reason to suspect anything, and so simply accepts Daeron as presented, too busy gloating to pay attention to what a dragon may or may not be doing.
Leaving Tessarion behind is a bigger plot hole. Daemon more than anyone has been keenly aware of how many dragons are on each side of the civil war, and it would not make any sense whatsoever for him to simply leave one with the Hightower host. Even if it is a dragon that’s seemingly contained and had its rider taken away, it’s still, well, a dragon!
Again, there is a plausible explanation to this: it’s fair to think Daemon would want to keep rider and dragon separate to prevent any kind of escape, and there were dragonkeepers present with Tessarion (since one returns to King’s Landing at the end of the episode). It might simply be that Daemon had instructed Tessarion to be brought to King’s Landing by the dragonkeepers, but the issue is we don’t get anything to tell us that, and so it creates a logic gap that could have quite easily been filled with one or two lines of dialogue.
It’s by no means ruinous, but is one part of what is arguably the series’ best episode to date that could have been more tightly plotted. Particularly when doing something like the Daeron twist, which was always likely to be divisive and cause some issues, there’s a greater need to be watertight in its presentation, rather than leaving a plot hole you could fly a dragon through.
New episodes of House of the Dragon Season 3 release on Sundays at 9 pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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