'House of the Dragon': the story of the Targaryen princess who worked in a pleasure house and is the mother of a dragonseed

The red harvest has completely changed the game board of House of the Dragon. For the last episode, the wind has changed and blows in favor of Rhaenyra and the black faction, which has been reinforced after the plan to create an "army of bastards." If you haven't watched 2x07, continue reading at your own risk because there are spoilers.

Against the Dragon Keeper of Montedragon and her own son, Jace, who begs her not to open that door because riding dragons is the only thing that sets him apart from any other illegitimate child, Rhaenyra is determined to find riders for her dragons, and after the burning and massacre of dozens of bastards by Vermithor's fire, by the end of the episode her new army seems invincible.

And it was precisely thanks to Hugh, the new Vermithor rider, that the series has introduced one of the best stories from Fire and Blood, by distancing itself from the book by linking his origin with that of a Targaryen princess who has always fascinated readers of George R.R. Martin's work.

Who is Hugh's mother

"She worked in a pleasure house, but had more freedom than the others because of who she was. And because the rich paid more to be with a silver-haired woman," Hugh reveals to his wife Kat when he confesses that he had never talked about his past out of shame.

"She used to tell me that I was no different from the children of her brother (Rodrik), Viserys and Daemon, but I was ashamed of her," he explains.

Although in Fire and Blood the origin of Hugh is not explained, by referring to Viserys and Daemon as children of his mother's brother, the series suggests that she was not another Targaryen bastard like him, but a daughter of King Jaehaerys and Alysanne, and according to the book the story of one of these princesses fits perfectly with Hugh's story.

Kieran Bew is Hugh the Hammer

A troublesome princess

Saera Targaryen is the ninth of the children of The Conciliator and the Good Queen, an extremely beautiful and intelligent young woman, but also the most troublesome of all her children, who from a young age was described as "an evil child" for the cruel jokes she used to play on her sisters and members of the court.

When one of her court friends became pregnant before marriage, Jaehaerys asked his daughter if she had "given her maidenhead" to any of three men who always accompanied her: the heir of Maidenpool, the Lord of Griffin's Roost, and the heir of Hawks's Nest, to which Saera replied that "the three believed they had been the first".

Saera then declared that she was willing to marry, but could not decide which of the three would be the best option, so she suggested marrying all three, comparing herself to Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel. A comparison that enraged King Jaehaerys, who first ordered her confined to her chambers, from where she tried to escape with a dragon, and then sent her to Oldtown and handed her over to the Faith of the Seven Kingdoms.

Hugh and Vermithor

From nun to queen of the underworld

One year after remaining as a novice with the Silent Sisters, Saera fled to Lys and wearing the habits she became a prostitute in a pleasure house, which caused her father to disown her and say that she was no longer his daughter. Saera soon became a sort of queen of the underworld in Lys before moving to Volantis. She was fabulously rich and, according to the books, had at least three bastard children.

In Fire and Blood it is stated that as Jaehaerys neared death, he mistook the young Alicent Hightower (who cared for this king before Viserys) for Saera, suggesting that he died longing to reconcile with her.

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence