She has a big responsibility ahead of her. In season 2, episode 3 of House of the Dragon, Rhaenrya Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) tasks her step-daughter Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) to attend to her sons Joffrey, Viserys II, and Aegon III while they make their way to Vale.
ICYMI in season 1, Daemon and Laenyra’s children, Rhaena and her twin Baela (Bethany Antonia), have a set of dragon eggs. However, only Baela bonds with her dragon Moonlander, while Rhaena’s egg doesn’t hatch—making her dragonless. Being a Targaryen and dragon-less is often looked down upon, and despite being named the “Dragon Twins,” her father sometimes disregards her in favor of Baela.
Related: A Complete Guide to All the Targaryens in House of the Dragon
This journey could spark a new beginning for Raena and a pivotal moment that changes Westeros’ history.
Does Rhaena Targaryen get a dragon?
Rhaena eventually gets a dragon as seen in the book Fire & Blood. She claims the dragon Morning which hatched during the Dance of the Dragons. Morning survives the Dance of the Dragons and accompanies her everywhere.
Morning could be hatched from one of the four eggs that Rhaenyra gives to Rhaena—three of which make an appearance at the pilot episode of Game of Thrones. After all, Rhaenyra tells Rhaena that the eggs are the Targaryens’ “hope for the future.”
“Those are Daenerys’ eggs,” episode director Geeta Vasant Patel told Mashable about the easter egg. “All of us who work on this show are big Game of Thrones fans, so it was very exciting to shoot that scene.” She also emphasized that Rhaena’s responsibilities hold weight to the family’s reign. Patel explained, “The other part of [the egg scene] is Rhaena saying goodbye and giving up her family in order to be a leader.”
In a conversation with Screen Rant, Patel talked about the characterization between Baela and Rhaena, since the two might have secret envies over each other. “I sat down with the actors who played Baela and Rhaena, and we did this improvisation exercise for a very long time where they both had to go back to who they were as kids. I pitched them the idea that Rhaena always straight A’s but never got a dragon, while Baela has never done anything right and has always been an iconoclast, and she got a dragon. That’s not fair.”
House of the Dragon airs on HBO every Sunday.
