This post contains major spoilers for House of the Dragon‘s season three premiere. If you want to avoid them until you watch the episode, check out our pre-season coverage instead. That includes learning everything you needed to know before The Battle of the Gullet.
In Westeros, the Battle of the Gullet is remembered as one of the deadliest, most consequential sea conflicts in the Realm’s history. Now House of the Dragon viewers know why. The series brought to life a deadly and destructive fight between two massive fleets. While HBO’s adaptation kept the broad strokes of the conflict between the Triarchy and Rhaenyra’s forces the same, it also had a lot of room to fill in many gaps. George R.R. Martin’s recorded history of the infamous fight in Fire & Blood only covers a couple of pages. But even then, House of the Dragon made some major changes to its version. Here’s what House of the Dragon kept the same about the Battle of the Gullet, what it changed, and an important development it omitted entirely.
What Stayed the Same in the Battle of the Gullet From the Book
The Lyseni Admiral Sharako Lohar did split up the Triarchy’s 90 ships during the surprise attack on the Velaryon fleet. Lohar sent some to the northern part of the waterway to hit the island of Driftmark (but not the neighboring Dragonstone). It was the seat of the Triarchy’s old nemesis, House Velaryon.
In the books, the Triarchy entered the harbor of the nearby Driftmark city Spicetown, setting both it and ships located there on fire. The show (in a deft bit of storytelling) focused on the Triarchy’s other main point of attack, as Lohar specifically went after Corlys Velaryon’s personal castle of treasures, High Tide, burning it to the ground. Ultimately, despite claiming many lives and many Velaryon ships, most Triarchy boats burned in a doomed effort to break the blockade.
In each Battle of the Gullet, Prince Jacaerys arrived on his dragon Vermax to turn the tide of the war, which the Triarchy waged in close proximity. Ships of the Three Sisters rammed and boarded the Velaryon fleet’s boats, making it harder for dragons to burn enemies since they were so close to Rhaenyra’s forces. The Triarchy was also well-prepared for dragons, as it had plenty of experience with the creatures thanks in part to wars in the Stepstones against Prince Daemon and his dragon Caraxes.. The show captured how the ships of the Three Sisters came equipped with plenty of archers, scorpion bolts, and grapnel hooks.
Like in the book (though there are differing, less convincing accounts from history), a grapnel hook took down Vermax. The most oft-repeated story is that a single grapnel tied to a ship’s mast tore through the young dragon’s belly, its own speed adding to the hook’s effectiveness. That caused the creature to crash into a ship where it got tangled up and drowned. House of the Dragon version of Vermax’s death was mostly the same, but instead of a whole ship dragging down the dragon, it was an anchor attached to the grapnel. It brought Vermax to the water where the dragon drowned.
HBO’s series also kept Jace’s death the same (after faking out readers by having him and Vermax escape a grapnel hit earlier). Archers killed Rhaenyra’s son and heir as Prince Jacaerys clung to a piece of wreckage.
The Changes That House of the Dragon Made to the Battle of the Gullet
The biggest change House of the Dragon made to the Battle of the Gullet—besides time, as the TV conflict did not last many hours into the night—was its dragon participants. While Prince Jace first answered the call in both versions, Baela was nowhere close when the fighting began. She never arrived with Moondancer and was never part of the Battle of the Gullet, let alone a reason for victory.
Sheepstealer was part of the fight, but not because Rhaena arrived on the wild dragon. Instead it was a young girl named Nettles who took to the skies that day. The show has cut her from its story. In the book, Nettles claimed the wild, sheep-eating dragon who lived on Dragonstone (and not the Vale, which is a whole thing) as part of the book’s very different Red Sowing. Nettles and Sheepstealer did not attack Jace or any other of Rhaenyra’s dragonriders, either. That was wholly a creation of HBO’s adaptation, which made Sheepstealer’s presence and indiscriminate attacks partly responsible for Jace’s death.
In George R.R. Martin’s history, Nettles and Sheepstealer came to Jace’s side along with Ulf the White on Silverwing, Hugh Hammer on Vermithor, and Addam of Hull on Seasmoke. On House of the Dragon, those three were instead far away at Dragonstone awaiting the arrival of Prince Regent Aemond, which Alicent told Rhaenyra was the Greens’ plan. (Aemond threatened to ruin Alicent’s doublecross when he decided to stay in King’s Landing before his mother manipulated him to leave.)
The appearance of four more dragons was too much for the Triarchy forces, which did ultimately break into chaos. (On the show, Corlys made that happen by luring Lohar away, leaving the Triarchy without its leader.) Before that the fleet had bravely stood up to the inexperienced Jace and Vermax. Once the five dragons brought fire and blood to the Gullet the battle was lost. The fact the Triarchy held out for as long as it did shows how formidable it really was. The Gullet was not a total victory for Rhaenyra’s side. It lost 1/3rd of its ships, a dragon, and its heir.
There’s also no indication from recorded history from Fire & Blood that anyone stopped Queen Rhaenyra from fighting, either. With five dragons ready to defend the Gullet for her, it seems unlikely she would have needed to put her own life at risk.
Lohar only died on HBO’s prequel. In the books, the Admiral survived alongside 28 of the 90 Triarchy ships that sailed into the Gullet. Of those, 25 surviving boats were Lyseni boats. Myr and Tyrosh did not respond well to that peculiar fact. The other two Free Cities accused Lohar of protecting his own men at the cost of their forces. That ultimately led to the dissolution of the Triarchy. Two years later, the three cities went to war with each other.
Tyland Lannister was also not with Lohar during the attack. The Greens’ Master of Ships wasn’t even on a boat he could then be tossed off of. He was in King’s Landing while the Battle of the Gullet took place. (To avoid spoilers, we won’t discuss the fate of Corlys from the book. The show clearly left that ambiguous during its battle.)
What the Show Omitted Entirely
In House of the Dragon‘s second season, Princess Rhaena ran away from her protectors in the Vale to pursue Sheepstealer. Rhaena was supposed to accompany her half-brothers—Rhaenyra and Daemon’s sons Aegon and Viserys—to Pentos. Just like in the books, the young princes were traveling their on the Gay Abandon.
In Fire & Blood, that boat and its Velaryon escorts ran right into the Triarchy fleet. Aegon, who’d never ridden his dragon Stormcloud before, barely escaped the sailors who fired heavily on him and Stormcloud. He made his way back to Dragonstone to warn of the fleet, but Stormcloud died. Aegon also never forgave himself for abandoning his brother. The Triarchy (ultimately Lohar) took the boy and his dragon egg captive.
Rhaenyra’s side thought Viserys died in the Battle of the Gullet since no one knew what ship he’d been on. The loss of two more sons only made Rhaenyra more protective of her two remaining boys, Joffrey and Aegon.
For now, we have no idea what House of the Dragon plans to do with little Aegon and Viserys. We do not know the fate of the Gay Abandon. But no matter what happens to that cog, Jace is gone. As is the Triarchy fleet and many of Corlys Velaryon’s men and ships. Because while House of the Dragon made big changes to the Battle of the Gullet, it was just as deadly as ever.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He would simply never fight a dragon. No chance. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!