5 Things You May Have Missed in the ‘House of the Dragon’ Teaser Trailer: Bran’s Dagger, Matt Smith, and the Real Iron Throne

While the story of House of the Dragon will be dominated by women jockeying for ultimate power, the teaser suggests that the Game of Thrones prequel will still be quite the showcase for Matt Smith’s Prince Daemon Targaryen. Daemon is not only one of George RR Martin’s favorite characters but arguably the juiciest role in all of Martin’s world. Known as “The Dragon Prince,” the reason why the nobility decided to go with making Viserys’s daughter Rhaenyra heir was because they were so damn afraid of Viserys’s brother Daemon being next in line. He’s a scoundrel, a seducer, a killer, and a schemer. Essentially, he’s the kind of character you want to watch on TV and steer clear of in real life.

Daemon quietly rules over the trailer. The teaser opens with him, torch in hand, descending into the bowels of what could be Dragonstone and the whole thing is narrated by him. There’s a split second shot of a red plumed knight pummeling a rival at a tournament in the teaser that might have been meant to mirror an illustration of Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel) from Martin’s Fire & Blood. However, the white hair under the red and black helmet identifies this formidable fighters as Prince Daemon.

Also noteworthy? Prince Daemon’s long-time mistress and spymaster Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) gets a gorgeous close up. Mysaria (or “Lady Misery, the White Worm”) doesn’t get a lot of good ink in Martin’s fictional history of Westeros, but that’s because the in-universe authors of Targaryen history would have reason to dislike the foreign-born upstart who basically went from sex worker to Daemon’s most trusted confidant. She’s basically like if Ros (Esmé Bianco) wasn’t killed by Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) and instead eventually usurped Varys as the spymaster of the realm.

So yeah, the House of the Dragon teaser confirms that we’re going to get the full Prince Daemon drama in the HBO series.

The coolest noble house we never got to meet in Game of Thrones is House Velaryon. The Velaryons, like the Targaryens, were Valyrians who fled their homeland before the Doom came and set up shop in Westeros. The most illustrious member of House Velaryon was Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint), nicknamed the Sea Snake. For, you see, while House Targaryen took to the skies on dragons, Corlys was a conqueror of the seas. His proficiency as an explorer made him one of the wealthiest and most powerful lords in the realm. His Valryian blood made him a natural match for the aforementioned Rhaenys Targaryen. Together, they had twin children, Laenor (Theo Nate as a teen, and John Macmillan as an adult) and Laena (Savannah Steyn). The House of the Dragon teaser not only shows the Velaryons arriving at court in full splendor, but also hints at the tension between the houses.

Because the shot of the Velaryons entering the court puts Laenor in the center, we have to assume that this is leading to the moment when a teenaged Laenor is married to Princess Rhaenyra. Sounds like a good plan, right? Bind the rival claimants’ lines to the throne via a marriage? And it would have been a good idea had Laenor not been totally gay. (At least that’s what’s heavily implied in Fire & Blood. It will be interesting how House of the Dragon deals with that and why what looks to be an older Laenor is fighting someone in a later tease.)

One of the most breathtaking sequences in the trailer follows an elegantly dressed Targaryen woman approaching the Iron Throne. Upon six rewatches of the trailer, I have convinced myself that this is likely Rhaenys walking slowly towards Viserys who is on the throne (though in shadow). In the long shot, someone with the physicality of Steve Toussaint hangs back. So — again, this is a guess! — I think we’re going to get a tense conversation about who deserves to sit on that (finally canonical) Iron Throne…

One major quibble George RR Martin fans have had with HBO’s Game of Thrones is how much the production team whiffed on the iconic Iron Throne itself. Martin’s throne wasn’t merely an impressive chair made of swords. It was intended to be a hulking monstrosity, full of spiky points that would easily scratch or stab whosoever dared claim the throne. Fan art has long depicted it as such, even if the HBO show Game of Thrones didn’t. It looks like House of the Dragon is trying to split the difference by showing us the Iron Throne we know, but bigger and better than ever before.

While still not perfect — that Iron Throne should be like 30 feet taller — it’s a far more acceptable interpretation of Martin’s vision in the books. HBO canon can easily attribute the change to one of the many renovations Robert Baratheon made to the throne room and GRRM diehards can enjoy a much more maniacal Iron Throne. As Martin (and Aegon the Conqueror) intended.

When I first watched the House of the Dragon trailer and saw Olivia Cooke’s Alicent Hightower all dressed in green, I thought, “Oh, yes! We’re getting the creation of the Blacks and Greens this season. House of the Dragon is going hard in Season 1!” Then, when I scanned Twitter for fan reactions, I realized that I had missed something huge in this scene.

Alicent Hightower is totally holding the same dagger that Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) will later use to slay the Night King.

Yup! That is the dagger that Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) gave an assassin to kill Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) with. It is the dagger that constantly popped up in old texts in the show and would up slitting Littlefinger’s own throat. This Valyrian steel dagger has lived a damn life, y’all! And it’s going to have a real dramatic cameo in House of the Dragon Season 1 on HBO.

Now why does Alicent have the dagger? I’m not sure. Her family is rich and powerful and — at this point in the story — she should be married to Viserys, making her a Targaryen queen. Maybe it was gifted to her by her husband or father. Why is Alicent running through a feast with the dagger? Again, I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it has to do with the explosive feud between her and stepdaughter Rhaenyra.

For most of its run, Game of Thrones was reluctant to play around with flashbacks and timelines. There was the Maggy the Frog (Johdi May) cold open establishing Cersei’s past, but for the most part, the show shied away from placing us in the midst of backstory…until Bran got his Three-Eyed Raven training. And then we learned about everyone‘s backstory through Bran’s magical powers. But over all, Game of Thrones treated time linearly, moving scene-to-scene, season-to-season in the order it would have unfolded in real time.

It looks like House of the Dragon isn’t going to do that. We already know that HBO has cast teen versions of Rhaenyra, Laenor, and Alicent (Emily Carey) as well as adult actors. The teaser trailer seems to confirm that House of the Dragon Season 1 will span about a decade in the lives of these nobles. That makes sense given the sheer scope of drama that unfolds over a long period of time for these characters. What’s interesting is we don’t know if House of the Dragon will have a simple flashback episode, start at the beginning of the saga in Episode 1, or play with timelines in a totally non-linear “Witcher Season 1-esque” manner. That’s something we’re going to have to wait until the show comes out to learn.

Either way, House of the Dragon wants its teaser trailer to show how damn ambitious it’s going to be. Not only is it following one of the most successful shows of all time hot on the heels of a divisive finale, but it’s also tackling an arguably more complex storyline. The Targaryen family tree from this era alone can give one a headache and it seems House of the Dragon is betting big that it can make this complex soap opera the world’s next big obsession.

Where to stream House of the Dragon