A new episode of House of the Dragon is dropping tomorrow, and fans are eager to see what’s next after last week’s episode featured a huge time jump and a few shocking deaths. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! In the sixth episode of the Game of Thrones spin-off, “The Princess and the Queen,” the time jump reveals that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) now has three children, but not with her husband, Laenor (John Macmillan). While it’s (mostly) a secret, it’s clear that the true father of her children is Ser Harwin “Breakbones” Strong (Ryan Corr). Sadly, just as fans started to become big fans of Breakbones, the character was murdered by his own brother, Larys (Matthew Needham). During a recent chat with The A.V. Club, Corr spoke about his short-lived time on the series and compared it to a Game of Thrones fan-favorite, Pedro Pascal‘s Oberyn Martell.
“That’s sort of the highest compliment you can receive, that it’s landing that way with audiences,” Corr said when the positive responses from fans were brought up. “I spoke with [showrunners] Miguel [Sapochnik] and Ryan [Condal] early on. I think it was Ryan that spoke to me about Pedro Pascal’s character in [Game Of Thrones], the Red Viper, and how he was there for a limited amount of time but his presence lingered, long after his death and throughout the series. Obviously, they’re very different characters, but they saw their impact as being similar.”
“I wanted to explore ideas of strength other than physical strength, you know?” Corr added about his character. “Strength in honor and strength in love for a family and happily sitting back in the world. And I had a pretty incredible father myself who was always there, he’s always said to me my whole life, me and my sister, he sort of said, ‘You know, my life is about you kids, period.’ And he’s very much lived that. And I always saw that as a really strong trait in him. And I guess I tried to bring ideas of that over.”
Last week’s episode saw another major death, Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell). In the episode, she chooses to end her life by way of her own dragon. In Fire & Blood, the book the show is based on, Laena dies during childbirth. Showrunner Ryan Condal recently explained why they changed her ending.
“Laena’s a valkyrie. She’s a dragon rider,” Condal told Variety when asked about the character’s demise. “We met that little girl back in Episode 2; that little girl went on a couple years later to claim the biggest dragon in the world. It felt like she wouldn’t want to go out the way that the history book said. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the season and the storytelling, we didn’t get to spend as much time as I think we would have preferred to with Laena. We had to keep the story moving. So we wanted to give her a memorable out that felt active and in her character. Even though we’re only with Nanna Blondell’s portrayal of her for a very brief time, within that moment, it tells you a lot about who Laena is and was.”
House of the Dragon releases new episodes on HBO and HBO Max on Sundays.
