If you’ve caught up with the latest episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon—titled “The Red Sowing”—then you know Sunday’s finale is sure to be explosive.
The episode sowed the seeds of more war to come, while also confirming the two dragonseeds in Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) and Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) who will aid Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) in her cause. But in the larger picture of HBO’s future in Westeros, “The Red Sowing” planted the seeds for another project that is inevitably on the horizon: the Blackfyre Rebellion.
With the Dance of the Dragons being covered in House of the Dragon, and the Dunk and Egg novellas being adapted with the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series, there are three other major events within George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic waiting to be greenlit for adaptations. The first is Robert’s Rebellion, the second is Aegon’s Conquest, and the third is the First Blackfyre Rebellion—an event which takes place about 60 years after the period of time House of the Dragon is currently covering.
While there has been no indication a Blackfyre show is in the pipeline (yet), “The Red Sowing” laid a lot of the groundwork for the themes a project would be likely to cover: namely, the issue of Targaryen bastardy and the effects that can have on the legitimacy of trueborn Targaryen heirs and their claims.
In “The Red Sowing,” Rhaenyra seeks out dragonriders to give her side the edge in any fight with the Greens, and in particular, with Vhagar. This leads to a search for Targaryen bastards who may have the innate ability to bond with dragons. The focus on Targaryen bastardy is brought up by Jacaerys (Harry Collett), concerned about the effect it might have on his own claim. But while the legitimacy of Jacaerys’ claim to the throne is a major plot within the show itself, given both his physical characteristics and the knowledge of his true father—but it’s a subject that has already been covered and dealt with.
Clinton Liberty, Emma D’Arcy, Bethany Antonia, Phil Daniels, and Max Wrottesley.
Ollie Upton/HBOWhen looked at on a larger scale though, it’s almost certainly a seeding for the Blackfyre story to come somewhere down the line—a head-nod to the hardcore fans who obsessively read GRRM’s work to soak in every minute detail.
So, what exactly is the Blackfyre Rebellion? It’s an event that would take thousands of words to explain fully, but here’s a (mostly) concise summary of the what and the why.
The king is Aegon IV, also known as Aegon the Unworthy, and he’s a bad dude. Imagine the worst person imaginable having all of the power. Shouldn’t be too hard to imagine… Anyway, Aegon IV sowed his own seed pretty liberally across all of Westeros, siring bastards left, right and center. Anyone who’s watched Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon knows that bastard children aren’t held in the highest regard, so why does it matter that this Aegon has more natural children than you can shake a stick at?
Well, just before he died, he made a royal decree legitimizing all of his bastards, much in the same way Roose Bolton did for Ramsey in Game of Thrones, taking him from a Snow to a Bolton. While this doesn’t have much effect on Aegon’s bastards of common birth, it had a much greater impact on his bastards from highborn women—collectively known as the Great Bastards.
It's from these Great Bastards that issues arise, and House Blackfyre begins—a cadet branch of House Targaryen founded by Daemon Blackfyre, formerly Daemon Waters before his legitimization. But again, this shouldn’t matter too much, as a cadet branch can’t supersede the main branch of a House, so Targaryen’s would possess the stronger claims compared to any Blackfyre.
Kieran Bew and Vermithor.
Ollie Upton/HBOBy this point in time though, all of the dragons are dead, and they won’t be returning until Daenerys arrives over 100 years later. So, the only symbol of legitimacy left is a sword—the ancestral sword of House Targaryen, named Blackfyre (confused yet?)—which has passed from king to king since Aegon’s conquest.
Prior to the legitimization of his bastards, Aegon IV, in yet another example of him being the worst monarch you can imagine, gifted the sword to Daemon, and not his own heir, Daeron. This would become a major instigating factor behind the first rebellion, being seen by supporters of Daemon as a seal of legitimacy to his claim to the Iron Throne.
House of the Dragon wraps up Season 2 this weekend, with a third season already confirmed, but there’s still a fair chunk of story to be told around this era of Westeros—and regardless of what point showrunner Ryan Condel chooses to end the show, it seems fair to say, based on its success, that it won’t be leaving your screen anytime soon. Then factor in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms debuting in late 2025, with each season following one of the three Dunk and Egg novellas, we have a good idea on the shelf-life of that show.
None of this is to say a Blackfyre show won’t be announced in the near future though, as Warner Bros. looks to mine the IP created by GRRM for everything it’s worth… which is a lot. There’s almost nothing in pop culture that dominates the global zeitgeist quite like Game of Thrones-adjacent material, so while there may be concerns about over-saturation, it’s hard to not assume we’ll be seeing the Blackfyre story on HBO within the next few years.
