House of the Dragon Made Major Changes to the Battle of the Gullet Compared to the Book

Major book and TV show spoilers follow.

The Battle of the Gullet, which spans barely four pages in George R.R. Martin’s faux history book Fire & Blood, is a 25-minute action sequence in the Season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon. The battle is among the most devastating events in the Dance of the Dragons between the Blacks and the Greens, a massive naval assault that leaves thousands dead, including one major character and their dragon, as well as one key supporting character.

House of the Dragon made some major alterations to the literary Battle of the Gullet, adding characters who didn’t participate in it and leaving out some who played a significant role in the book’s version of events.

So let’s break down the key differences in how Fire & Blood and House of the Dragon’s “craziest episode of television ever made” depict the Battle of the Gullet, starting with:

The Death of Jacaerys Velaryon

In both Fire & Blood and House of the Dragon, the Battle of the Gullet culminates in the death of Queen Rhaenyra’s eldest heir to the throne, Prince Jacaerys "Jace" Velaryon.

We’ll get into specific alterations to the battle itself in the entries below, but Jace’s death on the show remains fairly close to how the book chronicles it, although the show invents the preceding sequence where Jace locks his mother inside her chambers so that he can fight in the battle instead of her.

In both the book and the show, Jace and his dragon Vermax are eventually brought down by enemy fire, with the dragon’s corpse sinking into the water while a floating Jace is slain by arrows fired at him by nearby boatsmen.

Notably, though, Jace’s body doesn’t disappear underwater as it does in the book, where his remains were never recovered.

In Fire & Blood, Jace’s death leaves Rhaenyra with nothing but anger and hatred to drive her forward. We’ll see if that’s how things also play out on the show.

Who Did and Didn’t Fight in The Battle of the Gullet?

These are the key characters in Fire & Blood who participate in the Battle of the Gullet: Jace Velaryon and his dragon Vermax; the dragonseeds Addam of Hull (riding Seasmoke), Hugh Hammer (on Vermithor), and Ulf White (on Silverwing); and Sharako Lohar, admiral of the Triarchy fleet. They also all appear in the show’s version of the battle.

However, there are two key characters missing from the battle sequence who were important inclusions in the book. Prince Aegon III and Prince Viserys II, Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon’s youngest boys, were aboard a ship called The Gay Abandon on their way to Pentos for fostering when their vessel got ensnared in the battle. Aegon had brought his dragon, Stormcloud, while Viserys carried his dragon egg.

In the ensuing chaos, Aegon flew off on Stormcloud, ultimately arriving on Dragonstone alive but with his dragon mortally wounded. Meanwhile, Viserys hid his dragon egg and disguised himself as a ship’s boy, but he was captured and eventually sent to Lohar. For years, the Targaryens thought Viserys was dead, but the boy had instead been passed around as property until Alyn Valyrion purchased his freedom and brought him home. The lost prince grows up to be King Viserys II (“The Broken King”), whose direct descendants include Egg, the Mad King, and Daenerys.

Obviously, none of this has played out (so far) in House of the Dragon. The show’s Aegon and Viserys are just toddlers – their other brother Maelor doesn’t even exist in the series – who were already sent to Pentos for safekeeping in the Season 2 finale. Neither character is anywhere near the Battle of the Gullet in the show, and Stormcloud is still a hatchling incapable of flight. Both Stormcloud and Joffrey Velaryon’s young dragon Tyraxes – along with four dragon eggs – have already been shipped to Lady Jeyne Arryn as part of the Blacks’ alliance with the Vale.

While it’s possible the series might do a riff on the lost prince plotline later, it seems unlikely given that House of the Dragon will end with Season 4. There’s simply only so much narrative real estate left to explore at this point. I recently spoke with House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal about the new season, including the decision to leave the young Targaryen princes out of the show’s Battle of the Gullet sequence.

“That was just one of the many challenges of making the show and telling a story that involves so many children, very young children, and particularly in our case where we had to compress history a little bit just to make Season 1 take place over 20 years instead of 30 years. So it just meant all of the children in the story are a little bit younger, especially the young, young children, are a little bit younger than they are even in the books. And the kids that we had for Aegon and Viserys, Rhaenyra's sons with Daemon, her youngest children are just not of an age where you can involve them with complex dramatic sequences, complex action. It's not safe, it's not practical. So it was just something that we had to dispense of rather early on in the process.”

Condal added, “It's not to say that those characters are out of the show or anything. We all realize what an important role they play as Rhaenyra's sons with Daemon and the heirs to their particular bloodline and where they sit in the history. So we haven't forgotten about any of that. It just requires changes and adaptations to make it safe and practical. When we are going to tell a story with those kids, to be able to do so in a way that we can actually do.”

Just as important as who’s been excluded from the show’s Battle of the Gullet are the characters that Ryan Condal included as participants.

Rhaena Replaces Nettles

In the book, there’s a mysterious dragonseed named Nettles (Netty for short) who has bonded with the wild dragon Sheepstealer. House of the Dragon has eliminated Nettles entirely, transferring her function in the original story to Daemon’s daughter, Rhaena Targaryen.

The Season 2 finale saw Rhaena – who was ordered to accompany young Aegon and Viserys to Pentos – pursue a dragon that’s been spotted in the Vale. The Season 3 premiere showed Rhaena finally bonding with the dragon known as Sheepstealer. (In the book, Rhaena’s dragon is Morning.) While Nettles and Sheepstealer did participate in the Battle of the Gullet in the book, they didn’t factor into Jace’s demise the way Rhaena and her dragon do in the show.

While Rhaena was able to bond with Sheepstealer enough to fly him, she can’t control the beast. There are shades of Aemond’s inability to prevent Vhagar from killing Lucerys Velaryon and Arrax at the end of Season 1 in how quickly Rhaena loses control of Sheepstealer. Her dragon doesn’t know whose side it is on, so it just attacks everyone and everything, burning friendly vessels and giving chase to Jace and Vermax.

Condal explained to me why House of the Dragon jettisoned Nettles in favor of giving Rhaena the function that character served in the book: “It just felt to us that because again, this story is told in point of view, that it felt more apt as this is a family story to where we had the opportunity to involve one of the family members in the storyline. And because Rhaena has been set up since Season 1 as the member of this family who doesn't have a dragon and basically her sole identity is the Targaryen kid who doesn't have a dragon, it felt like that was a character that we had already set this long runway for that it could be very satisfying for the TV audience that didn't have an experience with the book at all to see that character claim a dragon and then in a very, I think, Game of Thrones and Westerosian kind of way, to reap the consequences of having her wish come true. It's a very monkey's paw kind of moment for Rhaena. She gets her great wish and it becomes her greatest nightmare.”

Although the identity of this new dragonrider is not immediately clear to the other participants in the battle (Jace identifies her near the end), Rhaena understands that, because of her untamed dragon, she has inadvertently steered Jace and Vermax toward their doom.

Whether Queen Rhaenyra also discovers this – and what her response will be, since she’s the one who sought out dragonseeds for an advantage against the Greens and thus instilled such urgency in Rhaena to find one – remains to be seen.

The show also has Baela Targaryen (Rhaena’s sister and Jace’s betrothed) and her dragon Moondancer fight in the Battle of the Gullet, something they didn’t do in the book. Baela’s inclusion gives her a front row seat to Jace’s death and also makes her culpable in Jace's decision to lock his mother in her chambers and take her place in the battle. Neither will surely sit well with her stepmother, Queen Rhaenyra.

The Battle’s Biggest Winner AND Loser? The Seasnake

Fire & Blood’s Battle of the Gullet ends with the loss of one-third of the Velaryon fleet, although the Seasnake himself, Lord Corlys Velaryon, never fought in the battle in the book. In Fire & Blood, Corlys muses on the battle’s devastating aftermath: "If this be victory, I pray I never win another."

House of the Dragon includes Corlys in the battle where he and his bastard son, Alyn of Hull, fight valiantly alongside their crewmates. (In a nice touch to Corlys’ late wife Rhaenys, the ship he sails into battle on the show is called The Queen Who Never Was.)

The inclusion of the Seasnake in the battle (and the exclusion of the young Targaryen princes) gives Sharako Lohar a different motivation and fate than the book’s incarnation of the character. The show’s Lohar sees the battle as a chance for revenge against the Seasnake for all his years campaigning against the Stepstones. During the battle, Lohar’s forces also attack Corlys’ home island of Driftmark, setting the castle of High Tide ablaze.

Lohar’s blind vengeance against Corlys leads to a relentless pursuit that culminates in hand-to-hand combat. During the course of the fight, Corlys falls overboard while Lohar ends up pitted against Alyn. Alyn kills Lohar with a quick stab to the throat.

In Fire & Blood, Lohar survives the Battle of the Gullet, but eventually dies because of a courtesan called the Black Swan. Lohar’s participation in the Battle of the Gullet and the heavy losses endured in the book’s version sparked the Daughter’s War, an event which now seems unlikely to ever happen in the show.

While that conflict may not exist in the show’s continuity, House of the Dragon still depicts the Triarchy’s sacking of Spicetown and the destruction of all the treasures Corlys had accumulated over his many legendary voyages.

What did you think of House of the Dragon’s depiction of the Battle of the Gullet and its alterations? And how did the death of Jace make you feel? Let us know in the comments.