House of the Dragon Season 2 is set to ignite on June 16 in the 2024 TV schedule, and HBO has already guaranteed that fans can rest easy about the future of the show... even if it's much too early to rest easy about the state of the Targaryen family tree. The premium cable network renewed the first Game of Thrones spinoff days before Season 2 premieres. With the hours counting down until the return, some comments from Matt Smith have me thinking beyond the premiere for when arguably Fire & Blood's most iconic sequence will happen.
And don't worry – we won't get into spoilers for George R.R. Martin's fictional Targaryen history book until a later section here, and I'll note in BIG BOLD LETTERS before we do. Let's start with what the HOTD star said!
What Matt Smith Said That Got Me Thinking
Matt Smith of course plays Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince whose status as a wild card and fierce supporter of his wife/niece/queen Rhaenyra was part of the Greens' justification for Aegon usurping her in Season 1. The actor made a strong (and fun) argument for the Blacks ahead of Season 2, and then said this in an interview with The Guardian about Daemon's sword:
I nicked it last day on set. I’ve got that, but none of the armour – because it is really expensive. I’d have a red dot on my head if I’d left the studio with that. The snipers would have shot me.
It's hard to blame Matt Smith for seizing the opportunity to take Daemon's sword before leaving set. Even by House of the Dragon standards, Daemon has a remarkable weapon: he wields Dark Sister, one of the two Valyrian steel swords of House Targaryen. Unlike his nephew Aegon, who carries Blackfyre, he actually had his sword bestowed upon him by a king instead of handed over after a king's death. (According to Fire & Blood, Daemon's sword was given to him by King Jaehaerys.) But if Smith has Dark Sister now, what about Season 3? The actor said this about returning:
We go again... When I’m sitting on a dragon – which I’m ashamed to admit is not a real dragon – and there are wind and rain machines blowing at me for hours, you’ve got to think there are people doing jobs that are way fucking harder.
All in all, that's a lot to be optimistic about, right? Maybe not for Matt Smith as he faces filming dragon scenes in simulated rough weather, but those are some fun comments for fans looking ahead not only to Season 2, but Season 3. So, why do his comments make me a little nervous about a positively epic moment from George R.R. Martin's history book?
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR FIRE & BLOOD. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE FATES OF SEVERAL CHARACTERS, TURN BACK NOW.
The Iconic Fire & Blood Moment
Even show-only fans of House of the Dragon could guess by the end of Season 1 that all hell is about to be unleashed due to Aemond killing Lucerys. Deliberate or not, Luke's death is first blood in what is set to become a Targaryen civil war, and neither the Blacks nor the Greens are going to come out looking great. (With Blood and Cheese presumably happening early in Season 2, I can imagine some Team Black fans turning cloak over to Team Green.) It's going to get very, very, very ugly with a lot of death.
But all of the death and destruction are going to lead to a scene that I've been wanting to see on screen ever since I first read Fire & Blood back in 2018. That would be the – LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK FROM SPOILERS – final showdown between Daemon and Aemond. Not only is there some great dialogue between the uncle and nephew in George R.R. Martin's source material, but their battle on the backs of their dragons happens above the God's Eye lake with a setting sun, and...
Well, I feel like you should read at least the "Dying of the Dragons" chapter of George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood for the full impact of what happens, but how the two meet their ends is bound to be incredibly cool, whether you're Team Black or Team Green. (Admittedly, maybe a bit cooler for those of us on Team Black.) Even the description is fairly cinematic, and this is one plot point that I truly hope isn't changed too much from the book, unlike the change from Season 1 that still annoys me almost two years later.
But I don't need to see it anytime soon, and Matt Smith's comments made me think back to past bits of House of the Dragon news.
When Will The Daemon Vs. Aemond Battle Happen?
While I would say that Daemon and Caraxes killing Aemond and Vhagar before also perishing is arguably the climax of the Dance of the Dragons in Fire & Blood, there are still some huge events before the Dance actually ends that I don't think can be cut. Namely, the Storming of the Dragonpit and Prince Joffrey's death. This isn't a situation like Game of Thrones needing to end just because Dany died. Daemon vs. Aemond will presumably happen when there's still plenty of story left to be told.
Now, Matt Smith saying that he was able to nick Dark Sister from the set of Season 2 of course doesn't mean that the iconic fight above Harrenhal is going to happen before the end of the second season, but it reminded me of Daemon's death enough that I flashed back to the news that was reported back when it broke that Season 2 would be shorter than Season 1.
At the time in 2023, Deadline reported that while House of the Dragon's creative team had envisioned three or four seasons for the Dance, the plan as of the shortening of Season 2 was for four seasons. The previous year, George R.R. Martin had written on his blog that it is "going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish."
And Matt Smith's comments inspiring me to rethink Fire & Blood's chronology and revisit those reports from 2022 and 2023 lead me to wonder if Daemon vs. Aemond could actually happen at the end of Season 3 instead of Season 4. That would mean a final season without Daemon and Aemond, which would be a shame, but could also do justice to the rest of the Dance and perhaps explore the aftermath a bit without rushing through the remaining relevant parts of Fire & Blood to the end.
On the whole, I'm somewhat worried that House of the Dragon could deliver the epic final showdown between uncle and nephew too early, and leave too much story left to tell without the Dance's two biggest wildcards causing chaos in what's left of Westeros. At the same time, the Dance is really Rhaenyra's story more than either of those two, and I hope HOTD gives her swan song the attention and time that it deserves. So, at the end of all this speculation, my hope is for Daemon vs. Aemond no earlier than the Season 3 finale, but no later than very early Season 4.
On the whole, I do think it's very unlikely that we should be concerned about this happening in Season 2. After all, Nettles is key to Daemon deciding that he's lived too long and ready for his last stand, and Nettles wasn't on the list of new Fire & Blood characters arriving in Season 2. For now, fans can look forward to the Season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon on Sunday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, or stream the episode with a Max subscription after it airs live.
