Wait, Who is Daeron Targaryen Actually on ‘House of the Dragon’?

Why haven’t we seen Daeron yet on House of the Dragon?

Will the real Daeron Targaryen please stand up? House of the Dragon introduced a new member of the Targaryen family... kind of! He was part of a trick that may have, unfortunately, sealed his fate. Here’s what you need to know about Daeron Targaryen, the youngest son of Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) on House of the Dragon.

In Season 3, Episode 3 of the HBO series, Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) demands that Ormund Hightower hand over his ward named Daeron Targaryen—who happens to also be Daemon’s nephew. (If this show wasn’t already testing you with how similar the names are in this incestuous...) Who’s this now?? Aren’t there enough blonds?!

Daeron is Alicent Hightower and Viserys Targaryen’s youngest son. That also means he’s Aegon, Aemond, and Helaena’s little brother. He has a dragon. He has been living and studying in Oldtown and additionally working as Ormund’s squire and cupbearer. For a while, fans of Fire and Blood thought that the show had eliminated him from the adaptation entirely. But then a few sporadic mentions confirmed that he was just out of town. It’s kind of like how Francesca would randomly be in Bath for long stretches on Bridgerton.

In Episode 3, after surrendering to Daemon, Ormund produces a blonde, Targaryen-y looking kid and sends him off as a hostage. This sweet child, who honestly looks a lot like a miniature Helaena, is very scared when he arrives at King’s Landing. Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) tries to get information out of him about what Ormund knows and could be plotting, as well as Aegon’s whereabouts. She then takes the boy to Alicent, hoping that seeing his mother will help the situation. But she doesn’t recognize him at all.

Guess what? It’s not Daeron. Ormund bleached a random kid’s hair and sent him to pretend to be the littlest Green Targaryen. If it wasn’t already clear, James Norton’s character is clearly this season’s Big Bad. He’s up to stuff in a sneaky way that only characters in the Game of Thrones universe can be.

Sidebar: since when does Westeros have access to bleach? This is brand new information! I feel like that might have changed Robert’s Rebellion a bit. Anyone could have pretended to be Daenerys or her brother (also named Viserys) and challenged House Baratheon for the throne. It could have been even more of an Anastasia situation than it already was. Whatever! Maybe they lost all of the bleach–or natural hair lightening agents like lemon juice–when they lost all of the dragons.

Have we seen the real Daeron on House of the Dragon?

Theo Whiteman//HBO

I think that Daeron has shown up in Season 3 already in the background. If you go back to Ormund’s smarmy entrance (above), you can see a young teenager standing behind him. His hair is red-ish brown, not Targaryen blonde. Maybe he’s also getting a dye job. Maybe Alicent’s genes won in this singular instance. Maybe it’s a wig! But I definitely think that that’s Daeron hiding in plain sight.

Unfortunately, I do think that Ormund’s stunt puts him in a lot of danger. While her husband/uncle Daemon insisted that they’d have to kill the kid and eliminate him as a threat to the Throne, Rhaenyra was clearly hesitant to kill her half-brother/rival. Now that she’s been humiliated by Ormund like this, she might not be so forgiving.

Good luck to him, whenever we’re finally introduced to him for real! Ormund’s plan may have worked, but it was short term. What are they going to do next? Daeron is a claimant with a dragon, so... tick tock!