Blink and you might’ve missed it in Sunday’s episode, but yet another Targaryen joined House of the Dragon. Not Dareon Targaryen. We already knew the young dragon rider was set to join season 3, even if he didn’t officially show up until episode 4. No, I’m talking about Maelor Targaryen—Aegon II and Heleana’s third child.
There’s a very quick moment in episode 4, when Alicent (Olivia Cooke) notices that her daughter Heleana (Phia Saban) is pregnant again. “Heleana?” she asks, looking at her stomach. That’s all she says before we move on to another character, with the audience left to guess what Alicent means. But if you’ve read George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, then you already know that Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Heleana were still expecting another child. You might’ve also recognised this because Martin publicly stated in a rant on his blog in 2024 how furious he was that the child was not included in season 2.
The writer’s dissatisfaction began with a shocking death in the season 2 premiere. Daemon (Matt Smith) sends two assassins, named Blood and Cheese, to sneak into the Red Keep and murder King Aegon II’s young heir, Jaehaerys, in retribution for Lucerys’s death. A son for a son, he called it. In the book, the scene plays out a bit differently. The assassins force Helaena to make an impossible choice: decide which of her two sons, Jaehaerys or Maelor, will die. So, Heleana chooses Maelor, only for the killers to murder Jaehaerys instead.
At the time, season 2 had only introduced Heleana’s first two children. They had to change how the scene played out, and that rubbed Martin the wrong way. “As I saw it, the Sophie’s Choice aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral,” Martin argued on his blog. “I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree.”
Martin later deleted the blog post, as well as his rant about how much he was disappointed by the season 2 finale. He is also much less involved in the show now than he was when House of Dragon first started. But in that same tirade, Martin did acknowledge that he had conversations with showrunner Ryan Condal about eventually including Maelor in season 3.
“Ryan had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler,” Martin said. “Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue on House of the Dragon, it made sense to save money wherever we could.”
Martin continued: “Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season 3, presumably after getting with child late in season 2. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.”
Yet, “[S]ometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made,” the author claimed. “The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon and Helaena would never appear.”
Whether to appease Martin or not, it now looks like Maelor will make his official debut in season 3. Targaryen toddler fans, rejoice.