It’s time for some fresh blood in Westeros. Deadline reports that four new faces have joined the cast of House of the Dragon for its second season, including a sibling, a witch, a sailor, and an uncle.
In order of most likely to least likely doomed:
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Simon Russell Beale (Thor: Love and Thunder’s Dionysus) is playing Ser Simon Strong, the castellan of Harrenhal, a place where—generally speaking—nice things simply fail to happen. He is the uncle of scheming Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), he of the foot fetish and the family murdering.
Gayle Rankin (Kindred) is Alys Rivers, who also lives at Harrenhal, and whose last name marks her as a bastard of the Riverlands. Deadline notes that in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, “Alys is a witch who has mystical visions and becomes a powerful figure within the Targaryen’s Green faction.” If you have (understandably) forgotten which color is which, the Greens are supporters of Alicent’s son Aegon (Ty Tennant, pictured above) as king. The Blacks are Team Rhaenyra.
Freddie Fox (The Great) appears as Ser Gwayne Hightower, the oddly previously unseen son of Otto (Rhys Ifans), brother of Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), and uncle to the current king and his siblings. “Gwayne” is fairly close to “Gawain,” a knight of the Round Table who was at least in some stories a decent guy—and those types don’t usually live long in Westeros.
And lastly (for now), Abubakar Salim (Raised by Wolves) is a Velaryon sailor named Alyn of Hull, who served in that ugly Stepstones conflict. If he survived that, one suspects he may be capable of surviving season two.
House of the Dragon‘s second season has eight instead of ten episodes, so maybe they’ll be able to afford better lighting. The premiere date has not yet been announced.
