Readers of “Fire and Blood” feel attacked by Jacaerys’ premonition in “House of the Dragon”

One of the best things about watching a show or movie based on written material is that you already obsessed familiar with the fact that you can A) prove your skills by becoming both the annoying reader and the resident lore wiki and B) catch practically every hint of foreshadowing the showrunners drop.

And that is exactly what the readers of Fire and blood everywhere when they saw “A Son for a Son”, the second episode of the second season of House of the Dragon.

Big spoilers for the events of the dance described in Fire and blood and so for future seasons of House of the Dragon. And I mean GREAT! You have been warned.

Jacaerys Velaryon and the Battle of the Maw

During “A Son for a Son,” Jacaerys Velaryon has a scene with Baela Targaryen, who is both his fiancée and cousin/stepsister. This conversation, in which the two young royals discuss fathers and the wars to come, takes place shortly after Daemon has stormed away from Dragonstone on his dragon Caraxes—which is why his daughter Baela is working through her obviously significant daddy issues by practicing crossbow shooting.

As Jace approaches, there is a shot behind Baela’s shoulders where it looks as if He is the target of their bolts. Of course he isn’t, and Baela, who is also an excellent shot, aims at the post right next to him. But the shot seems to be a painfully clear premonition of how Jace will lose his life during the dance.

This will happen during the Battle of the Maw, a naval battle in which the Greens, with the help of the Triarchy, hoped to finally break the blockade of Velaryon. Princes Jace, Aegon and Viserys find themselves in the middle of the battle as they sail to Pentos, where Rhaenyra has decided to take them into care until she has secured the Iron Throne – and Jace and his dragon Vermax join the fight from the air.

Eventually, however, Vermax flew too low and fell into the sea, either after being shot or pulled down by a grappling hook. The dragon became entangled in a burning ship and was dragged into the waves – and when Jacaerys tried to free himself from it, it was shot by, you guessed it, crossbowmen from the city of Myr who had embarked on the Triarchy’s ships.

And even more red-hot premonitions!

It’s not the first time the series has allowed for some foreshadowing for those who already knew what would happen during the Dance of the Dragons – just remember how in Season 1, young Rhaenyra encounters a rather creepy old lady during her jaunt through King’s Landing with Daemon. The old woman asks if she wants to know how she wants to die, and the shot immediately after is that of some sort of dragon-shaped lamp emitting a tiny jet of fire – an echo of the much larger fire that will end her life when Aegon has her burned and then eaten by his dragon Sunfyre.

But Jace’s scene wasn’t the only one in the episode itself—a whole handful of characters had some kind of hint about how they would die for those who knew how to look for them.

Aemond finds a coin in his room while examining it for Blood and Cheese and holds it up for a better look. The coin rests directly over his remaining eye, the same one that Daemon will pierce with his sword Dark Sister during the fight that will end both of their lives. Helaena looks up during Jaehaerys’ funeral procession, the wind blowing in her face in a terrible parallel to her end – she jumps out of her bedroom window, torn by the loss of her child and the ongoing death of her family.

And that’s not all! In the trailer for the third episode of the second season, we see Aegon in armor and staring at himself in the mirror – probably before the Green Army marches out of King’s Landing to war. Half of his face is in shadow, and incidentally, the other half of his face is badly burned by Princess Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys in the Battle of Rook’s Rest.