Daeron Targaryen is a major character in George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy novel Fire & Blood, on which Max‘s House of the Dragon is based. Despite his importance, he’s never made an appearance in the show, and his parents appear to have mostly forgotten about him.
He didn’t even get a mention in the first season and come season 2, his name finally gets dropped during a tense conversation between Alicent and her scheming father, Otto Hightower, as they plan their next move. “The Hightowers still have strength and you have a son there who will take more kindly to instruction. Daeron may yet help us in weeks to come,” Otto says.
While Daeron’s absence from the show has been a hot topic of conversation, the identity of his parents means he could have a major stake in the throne.
Who are Daeron Targaryen’s parents?
Daeron Targaryen is the fourth and youngest son of King Viserys I (Paddy Considine) and Lady Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). He played a significant role in the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, fighting for his half-brother Aegon II Targaryen. Daeron was a dragon rider, riding the dragon Tessarion, known as the Blue Queen. Because of this tenacity and bravery in the face of war, Daeron is often referred to as Daeron the Daring.
The thing is, if Aegon dies, the throne doesn’t pass onto Aemond, a fact that even Aemond forgets and the only reason the Greens have a claim to the throne is because of the King’s children. According to the lore established by the books, if Rhaenys were to slaughter the whole Greens faction at Aegon’s coronation then the claim would pass to Daeron, which would make for an interesting season 3 of House of the Dragon, to be sure.
But “Daeron has not been cast yet. I’ve said he’s a character in the show, but at this point in the story, he’s in Oldtown where he was warded off as a young child. So we don’t have a point-of-view character in that world yet and there is no dramatic reason to go there. This happened all the time in medieval times, particularly in the high nobility,” showrunner Ryan Condal explained to Variety in late June 2024.
“You would take your youngest children and ward them off to other places, so they grow up away from court and learn things and have their own place and station in the world. We know he’s not yet a dragon rider, but he’s had a dragon born to him. So he will come to the narrative and have a role to play, just as he does in the book—we’re just not there yet in the storytelling.”
House of the Dragon is available to stream on Max, with new episodes arriving each Sunday.
