House of the Dragon Season 3 War Breakdown Explained

A deep dive into the Battle of the Gullet, dragon politics, betrayals, and shifting power in the Targaryen civil war as Season 3 begins.

House of the Dragon season three opens with Westeros on the brink of collapse. There are still sixteen dragons alive at this point, but there will be no dragons remaining by the time of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This sorrowful extinction is the result of the horrific civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. This is a two-year war that tears House Targaryen apart.

Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and King Aegon II are in the middle of the conflict. Now their struggle is one of the worst fights in its history, the Battle of the Gullet. The episode starts in the thick of the fight, smack in the middle of the fiercest maritime battle in Fire & Blood. But before the violence begins, the story steps back to examine the people relevant to the dispute.

Rhaena Targaryen, daughter of Daemon and Laena Velaryon, attempts to tame the wild dragon Sheepstealer in the Vale of Arryn. Rhaena has always felt out of place without a dragon, but her sister Baela has bonded with Moondancer. This is even though she was born with the egg that could hatch, but never did.

Things get more problematic for Rhaena when she is ordered to take Aegon III, Viserys II, and Joffrey, Rhaenyra’s three younger children, to Pentos for their safety.

But she never completes her task. No, she goes for Sheepstealer, seeking to obtain herself a dragon. This is a major departure from the book and has me thinking that Rhaena's story and the dragonseed Nettles' story might intersect. Through regular sacrifices and patience, Nettles gains the sheepstealer’s confidence, and they build a friendship.

Meanwhile, Rhaenyra’s crew continues to hire dragonseeds, half-blood Valyrians who can bond with dragons. It helps the war effort. She now has a lot more dragons than Aegon because of the “Sowing of the Seeds”. Now she has 10 dragons against Aegon's four. But the Greens have a tremendous advantage, for Prince Aemond rides Vhagar, the largest and most destructive dragon in the universe.

Things are less stable in King's Landing. Prince Aemond kills Grand Maester Orwyle, believing that Orwyle had lied to him about King Aegon II's disappearance. Meanwhile, Larys Strong is stirring things up behind the scenes, sending Harrenhal’s money to the Iron Bank of Braavos in secret. Seems his long-term strategy is to wear both sides down in the conflict and then have Aegon look like the hero of Westeros again.

Meanwhile, Aegon is secretly smuggled out of the city as he recovers from his injuries at Rook's Rest. He still bases his claim to legitimacy on the crown of Aegon the Conqueror he wears. Whether he survives or not is still up in the air.

Elsewhere, Alicent Hightower makes a bold political move by speaking with Rhaenyra about preventing further slaughter.

She offers to let them into King's Landing and says they should surrender what she believes is Aegon's head, but she does not know the king is not where she believes he is. She is doing this because she fears Aemond’s growing influence and her family’s near-complete loss of authority.

But then she leverages Aemond’s need to be liked to get her way, making her internal conflict all the more confusing. Aemond’s psychological manipulation of others, which he believes is love, is disturbing and shows that he is emotionally unstable underlying his frigid veneer. This moment influences how he makes decisions and takes him to Harrenhal to face Daemon.

The Battle of the Gullet descends into anarchy as things go from bad to worse. The Triarchy’s navy launches a massive assault on the armies of Corlys Velaryon, dragging up old debates from the War of the Stepstones. The battle escalates into a savage confrontation of ships, dragons, and political revenge, and many distinct storylines end up in disaster.

Jacaerys is immensely important as Rhaenyra's son, but dies a horrible death. His dragon, Vermax, enters the fray and is slain by Triarchy forces. The loss devastates Rhaenyra’s group; she has no dragon or strong successor left. What happened following the Battle of the Gullet affects the whole conflict. The fate of Corlys Velaryon after being hurled into the sea remains unknown, and both sides have suffered severe strategic losses.

The Triarchy’s grip on the battle begins to falter after a horrific loss, whole fleets being annihilated and towns set alight. Rhaenyra’s plot to retake King’s Landing is still up in the air as the show closes. The death of Jacaerys and the commotion in the Gullet could galvanize her, or it could break her alliance at a bad moment. But at the same time, Alicent's poor peace plan and Aemond's increasing ambition mean the Dance of the Dragons is far from ended, and is only getting worse.