‘House of the Dragon’ leaves out a key detail about Rhaenyra and the Iron Throne from ‘Fire and Blood’

Team Black supporters, rejoice! Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) has the Iron Throne, and King’s Landing with it.

The momentous victory comes at the end of House of the Dragon Season 3, episode 2, when Rhaenyra, Daemon (Matt Smith), and the rest of Team Black’s dragonriders descend upon King’s Landing. Thanks to her many dragons and Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) help from the inside, it’s not long before Rhaenyra wins the world’s bloodiest game of musical chairs and sits atop the Iron Throne.

The entire Fall of King’s Landing sequence plays out similarly to how it does in George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, with a few exceptions, of course. Among the biggest is Rhaenyra’s first interaction with the Iron Throne during her coronation.

In the book, the Iron Throne slices and dices Rhaenyra when she sits on it for the first time. According to an eyewitness account from Septon Eustace, she leaves the throne room with blood running down her legs and palm. That can only mean one thing: The Iron Throne has rejected her, and her rule won’t last long.

In House of the Dragon, though, Rhaenyra leaves the Iron Throne cut-free. (She is, however, traumatized by having to behead Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), so it’s not a pleasant seating experience either way.) The omission of the cuts could come down to the show’s source material. Fire and Blood is written as a historical account, so everything we’re reading is filtered through biased, perhaps even unreliable sources. Septon Eustace is one such source. He supports Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) over Rhaenyra, and if anyone were going to embellish Rhaenyra’s coronation in a way that delegitimizes her rule, it would be someone like him.

By ignoring Eustace’s account, House of the Dragon firmly legitimizes Rhaenyra’s rule instead, a choice that tracks with the its very sympathetic portrayal of her. (House of the Dragon has previously brought up the idea of the Iron Throne rejecting rulers in the past, though, as the throne did cut Viserys (Paddy Considine) during his reign.)

However, the series also alludes to book Rhaenyra’s experience with the Iron Throne in a clever way. Her first moments on the Iron Throne are reflected in the pool of blood left over from Otto’s execution, hinting at the bloodshed that led her to this moment, as well as all the bloodshed to come. After all, we’re only on episode 2 of Season 3. There are so many more episodes left for things to go wrong; we don’t need a cut from the Iron Throne to let us know things are only going to go south from here.

House of the Dragon Season 3 is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes premiering Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.