How Jaehaerys' Death on 'House of the Dragon' Differs from the Book

The House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere begins relatively slowly, with everyone still mourning the death of Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault)—but it ends with the brutal death of Queen Helaena’s (Phia Saban) eldest son, Jaehaerys. The little boy had been a minor presence on the show thus far, but his murder will have far-reaching implications for the war between the Greens and the Blacks.

As with many things in HOTD, however, the death of Jaeherys plays out somewhat differently in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which serves as the inspiration for HOTD. For starters, the show sees Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) demanding the death of Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) as revenge for Lucerys, but in the book “a son for a son” is clearly Daemon Targaryen's (Matt Smith) idea.

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Keep reading for a further breakdown of how the show’s depiction of the murder differed from the book.

Jaehaerys Targaryen’s Death in the Show

Rhaenyra spends much of the premiere episode looking for hard proof of Lucerys’ death. After she finds part of his dragon’s wing washed up on a beach with scraps of Lucerys’ clothing, she flys Syrax back to Dragonstone and tells her council, “I want Aemond Targaryen.” (As you’ll recall, Aemond chased Lucerys away from Storm’s End on dragonback in the Season 1 finale, although he seemed as surprised as anyone when his dragon, Vhagar, launched the attack that killed his nephew.)

Following Rhaenyra’s declaration, Daemon secretly travels to King’s Landing, where he reconnects with an old pal from the City Watch who hates the Hightowers. Acting on a tip from Mysaria (aka the White Worm) (Sonoya Mizuno), Daemon enlists a ratcatcher with knowledge of the Red Keep’s many tunnels and secret passages to team up with the City Watch guy. Their mission? Enter the castle and kill Aemond. When the ratcatcher asks what they should do if they can’t find Aemond, Daemon says nothing but gives them a pointed look.

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Inside the castle, the watchman and the ratcatcher (who are known as Blood and Cheese, respectively, in the book but are unnamed in the show) find Helaena in a room with her twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Blood and Cheese command Helaena to tell them which one of the twins is the boy, which she does. Blood initially thinks she’s lying, but Cheese realizes she’s telling the truth, and they proceed to brutally murder Jaehaerys as Helaena runs away with her daughter, Jaehaera.

Helaena then runs into her mother Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) bedchamber, where the dowager queen is having an illicit tryst with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). When Alicent asks what’s happened, Helaena replies, “They killed the boy.”

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Jaehaerys Targaryen's Death in the Book

While Martin writes that Aemond earned the “undying enmity” of Rhaenyra because of Lucerys’ death, it’s Daemon who comes up with the idea of murder as vengeance. In the book, he’s actually at Harrenhal when Rhaenyra finds out her son is dead, and he sends a raven back to Dragonstone that reads, “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged.”

Daemon goes to King’s Landing and connects with Mysaria’s suggested assassins: Blood, who in the book is no longer in the City Watch after getting kicked out for beating a woman to death, and Cheese, a ratcatcher with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Red Keep’s tunnels. The book doesn’t establish which royal they were after, noting only that some people thought they might have been trying to kill Aegon Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) (even though the Kingsguard would have made that impossible).

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The first royal the duo come upon is Alicent, who they tie up as she awaits her nightly visit from her grandchildren and their mother, Helaena. In the book, Helaena and Aegon have three children: the twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera and a son named Maelor who has not appeared on the show.

When Helaena arrives to find Alicent bound and gagged, Cheese tells her that he and Blood are debt collectors, repeating Daemon’s line about “an eye for an eye, a son for a son.” They tell her to choose which son will die, and she names Maelor. Blood instead kills Jaehaerys after telling Maelor, “You hear that, little boy? Your momma wants you dead.”

The duo then escape the Red Keep with Jaehaerys’ head. Blood is eventually caught and executed, but Cheese eludes capture. Helaena, meanwhile, gives Maelor to Alicent to raise, as she can no longer look at him without remembering that she’d named him to die.

It remains to be seen how the show will deal with the aftermath of Jaehaerys’ murder, but it’s clear from the look on Alicent’s face in the final scene that she means war — and the Dance of the Dragons is about to start in earnest.

Next, What Will Happen on 'House of the Dragon' Season 2, According to the Books