House of the Dragon’s intentions with Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) have been pretty obvious for weeks now — and controversial as they might have been, there was still hope that showrunner Ryan Condal would find an interesting new avenue for the character. Condal did away with a crucial Dragonseed from George R.R. Martin’s source material, the commoner known as Nettles, and folded her storyline into Rhaena’s. The Targaryen princess ends up filling the role that Nettles did in Fire & Blood, just not in a way that anyone expected. She tentatively tames the wild dragon called Sheepstealer and rides him into the Battle of the Gullet, but that victory immediately turns sour when Sheepstealer’s antics lead to the demise of Prince Jace (Harry Collett) and cause a rift in Team Black’s resolve.
Per Condal, Rhaena took on Nettles’ place in the narrative to keep House of the Dragon feeling like a family affair. “It felt more apt, as this is a family story… to involve one of the family members in the storyline,” the writer recently told IGN. There was also something appealing about “pairing a wild dragon with a lady of noble blood [who] then becomes somewhat feral herself” — and there was an interesting opportunity to mine something interesting out of Rhaena’s character. In a perfect world, this familial angst would also give Rhaena’s sister Baela (Bethany Antonia), who was engaged to Jace before his demise, a bit more to do.
