House of the Dragon may be focused on the Targaryens, but it is now shedding much-needed light on the members of the family that have been living amongst the smallfolk. The dragonseeds, Targaryen bastards who answered Rhaenyra’s call for people of Targaryen blood, are now the Blacks’ best asset as The House of the Dragon Season 2 comes to its finale. But in telling the story of these characters, we’ve actually learned more than the source material Fire & Blood ever revealed.
Season 2 Episode 7 of the HBO series, “The Red Sowing revealed one key dragon rider who passed Rhaenyra’s test actually has a unique relationship with the Targaryen royal family — a relationship that was never confirmed in the book.
House of the Dragon focused on two dragonriders from the King’s Landing smallfolk in particular: Ulf the White, who would go on to claim the dragon Silverwing, and Hugh Hammer, who would go on to claim Vermithor. Ulf is still unclear about how he’s a Targaryen bastard himself, but right before Hugh leaves for Dragonstone, he tells his wife about his mother’s true identity. “I never knew my father. That much is true,” he said. “But I did know my mother. I hid it from you. And I’m sorry for that.”
He tells her that while his mother worked in a pleasure house, he isn’t the result of a Targaryen son’s wild night out on the town. In fact, his mother herself was a Targaryen, which is why she was granted more freedom. “She used to tell me,” he said, “I was no different to her brother’s boys Viserys… and Daemon.”
That confirms that Hugh is the son of Saera Targaryen, the daughter of King Jahaerys I, the king who ruled before Viserys. She was a mischievous child, which led to her sparking a scandal that drove King Jahaerys to completely disown her. She eventually found work in a pleasure house, just as Hugh described.
This means that Hugh is actually Rhaenyra’s uncle (just like her husband). He wasn’t really a royal bastard at all because Saera was at that point no longer part of the royal family. But as Rhaenyra has learned in this episode, Targaryen blood and its power over dragons isn’t restrained to those born “with honor.” With this new reveal, Hugh’s bond with Vermithor proves that no matter how often Jahaerys would say Saera wasn’t his daughter, she was still a Targaryen with all the privileges that came with that, title or not.
