Who Might Become Rhaenyra’s New Dragonriders Now? (Spoiler: You’ve Already Seen Them All)

House of the Dragon season 2 took its time for lengthy discussions and all kinds of preparations for the approaching war, but its latest episode left no doubts that the Blacks are finally coming into the tricky game, garnering all possible forces to defend their right to the throne.

The final scenes of episode 5, titled Regent, sees Rhaenyra and her son Jacaerys coming up with a plan of perusing their whole home library in an attempt to find evidence of other Dragonseeds scattered all across Westeros.

However, they may still not know about at least three of the Targaryens’ potential family members walking around, ready to get involved in the whole mess as soon as the Blacks’ Queen demands so.

For starters, it might be a good idea for Rhaenyra to check her own land out in the first place. House of the Dragon’s second installment has already introduced Lord Corlys Velaryon’s bastard Addam of Hull, and though his presence in the entire show was so far brief enough not to count him as a potentially important character, George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood suggests otherwise.

According to the novel, Addam will indeed become one of several dragonriders hired by Jacaerys to eventually secure the Blacks’ positions, yet we still have to see whether the show will even stick to this idea after all.

Another potential challenger for claiming a dragon is blacksmith Hugh Hammer who we’ve also seen twice so far, though before joining Rhaenyra’s forces he needs to get out of King’s Landing first.

Since Aemond has now taken over the power and ordered to lock all the citizens up without giving them a choice of who to support in the war, it might take a while for Hugh to eventually get to Dragonstone, but Fire & Blood makes it clear that Hugh does succeed in this.

The character’s origin hasn’t been addressed in the series so far, but, even considering his silver-ish hair, he has all chances to be of half-Targaryen blood.

Lastly, Rhaenyra can surely count on Ulf the White who hasn’t yet reached Dragonstone either, but is determined enough to take the Blacks’ side no matter what. The character was introduced in season 2 episode 3 where he was seen revealing to his friends his half-royal origin and publicly recognizing Rhaenyra’s right to the throne.

In the book, Ulf does become one of Rhaenyra’s dragonriders, but then things change radically with him trying to claim the Iron Throne himself. As expected, the attempt was completely failed, but Ulf still has a chance to prove himself as a promising warrior in the second season’s remaining episodes.

House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6 will air on Max on July 21.