House of the Dragon Season 3 is just a few months away, but a new casting has raised some questions about what’s going to happen to some of the Targaryen family members. Most of the main cast will be back for the HBO show’s third season, including Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, and Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen. There are also some notable new additions, including Tommy Flanagan as Roderick Dustin and James Norton as Ormund Hightower.
Among the newcomers to the cast, according to Redanian Intelligence (but not officially confirmed by HBO), is Pearl Clark. Intriguingly, the outlet notes that she’ll be portraying Jaehaera Targaryen, the only daughter of King Aegon II Targaryen and his wife, Queen Helaena Targaryen. Jaehaera has only appeared a few times in the show, most notably during the Blood and Cheese scene in House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 1, where her brother, Jaehaerys, was killed.
What The Jaehaera Targaryen Casting Means For House Of The Dragon Season 3
Previously, Jaehaera was played by Lulu Barker, who was four years old when Season 2 was released. That obviously makes sense, because the character is a toddler in the series, and yet Clark is 10 years old. This has, naturally, raised some questions about the timeline of Season 3 and how the TV show is approaching things, especially because we know it picks up immediately where the second season left off with the impending Battle of the Gullet. We’re talking days or weeks, not several years.
Redanian Intelligence reports that Jaehaera actually will once again be played by a toddler in Season 3, and that there will now be two actresses playing the character: the toddler version, continuing where Season 2 left off, and an older version who is around 10. That means there won’t be an immediate time jump, but one could still happen later in the season.
The first season of the show had several huge time skips, so it’s not without precedent, but it would be a massive book change. The Dance of the Dragons only spans a couple of years, so extending that out with a six or seven-year skip would be a deviation with ramifications on just about every part of the story.
It’s not impossible that’s what the plan is, but the scale of the changes it’d necessitate makes it seem unlikely. That leaves the other plausible option as a vision or dream sequence. That would actually make sense, given Jaehaera’s mother, Helaena, has been turned into a dreamer in the series, and has already had a number of prophetic moments in the first couple of seasons. It seems likely this is where it’s going, but it means getting into spoiler territory to look at why. The passage below contains major spoilers from Fire & Blood, the book the show is based on, so simply highlight the text to read on:
In Fire & Blood, Helaena takes her own life during the civil war, having been driven into depression and near madness after choosing between her two sons, Jaehaerys and Maelor, because of Blood and Cheese. Jaehaerys was killed there, but Maelor was also murdered later on, and it wasn’t long after that Helaena killed herself, jumping from a window onto spikes below. Fast-forward a few years later, and Jaehaera, who has been betrothed to the new king, Aegon III (son of Rhaenyra and Daemon), also takes her own life in the same way. She’s 10 years old when that happens, and given the age of the actress cast and the omission of Maelor, I think it’s pretty likely that Helaena is going to have a vision of Jaehaera’s suicide, and it ends up factoring into her own death.
Whatever the show does with Jaehaera in Season 3, it’s likely to be a departure from the book, and thus probably at least somewhat divisive. Still, Helaena’s visions have been interesting so far, and hopefully, it can pull it off and make the new casting work.
House of the Dragon Season 3 will debut in June on HBO and HBO Max. Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream now.
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