House of the Dragon Season 2 is over, and the long wait for Season 3 — which will reportedly be going into production early next year — begins.
But with so many cliffhangers at the end of that abrupt finale, where do we go from here? What can we expect to see next?
From some more dragon claiming to a big naval battle, here are our predictions for House of the Dragon Season 3.
After spending the entirety of the Season 2 finale hiking cross-country, Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) finally found the wild dragon that's been snacking on sheep in the the Vale. We didn't see what happened next, but it's pretty obvious where this one will go in Season 3, isn't it? Poor old Rhaena has put the work in to find this dragon, so we're guessing next season will open with yet another scaly recruit for Team Black.
This one isn't really a prediction, because showrunner Ryan Condal himself has confirmed it. Talking about the show in a post-finale press conference, Condal confirmed that the Battle of the Gullet will take place in Season 3. "That event will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling of House of the Dragon," Condal said, implying it'll be one of the earlier episodes next season.
This battle revolves around the stretch of water that's been blockaded by Team Black throughout Season 2, leading to the shortage of food in King's Landing. The Gullet essentially covers the opening of Blackwater Bay, and it's where Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint) and his son Alyn (Abubaker Salim) are rowing to in the final montage. They'll be coming up against Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) and his new Triarchy friends when they get there.
As we learned back in episode 6, Alicent's (Olivia Cooke's) third son Daeron is everything his brothers aren't (not a complete psychopath, in other words). And now his dragon has taken to wing, too! The Hightowers of Oldtown haven't featured much in the show so far — excepting Alicent's brother Gwayne (Freddie Fox) — but it seems likely that Daeron will be a new character introduced in the show's third season. Who else is going to fight back those pesky Beesburys and rescue poor old Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) from his jail cell? Not Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), because he's allegedly heading off to Harrenhal. Which brings us to our next point...
There's got to be some kind of battle in the Riverlands, hasn't there? At this point it seems inevitable. Aemond is planning to head there on his dragon Vhagar to join Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), Daemon (Matt Smith) has amassed an army at Harrenhal, and other various factions are marching off to join them both as we speak.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this will be the clash between Daemon and Aemond the show is building towards — the God's Eye moment prophesised by Helaena (Phia Saban) and possibly glimpsed in Daemon's weirwood tree vision — but we're not so sure about that. In the previously mentioned press conference, Condal described the Battle of the Gullet as "maybe the second-most-anticipated" action event in Fire and Blood. If we're going to assume God's Eye is the first, then surely we won't get both of these battles in Season 3? It seems more likely that some kind of smaller skirmish will take place in the Riverlands in Season 3, but the God's Eye battle won't happen until Season 4.
At the end of Season 2, Alicent comes to Rhaenyra with a shocking proposal: Once Aemond leaves for Harrenhal, she'll let Rhaenyra enter King's Landing to claim the Iron Throne — and even let her kill her eldest son, Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Crney), as a means of ending the war. Obviously it's not going to be that simple though, is it? For one, Aegon is no longer in King's Landing — he's en route to Essos with Larys (Matthew Needham), who had the foresight to see things were about to go south quickly. Our bet? Either Alicent will cancel the arrangement when she realises Aegon is gone, or Rhaenyra will arrive and think she's been tricked. Maybe if she does enter King's Landing, though, Aemond will be forced to divert his attention away from Harrenhal and concentrate on winning back Westeros' capitol?
