Spoiler alert: This story contains major spoilers for the season 2 finale of HBO's “House of the Dragon,” “The Queen Who Ever Was,” now streaming on Max.
For fans of “House of the Dragon” who watched the show but hadn’t read George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” there were certainly a lot of unanswered questions by the end of Season 2. But for those in attendance who had also read the source material on which the HBO series is based, there was at least one more big question that was at the forefront of their minds: Why didn’t Queen Rhaenyra’s son Jace die?
During the final episode of the show's second season, “The Queen That Was,” Prince Jace Velaryon (Harry Collett) works alongside his mother Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and wife Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia) to prepare three new dragon riders they have brought into the fold to join them in the coming war.
At the next plot point in the book, Jace leads these dragon seeds in Team Black against the Greens and their allies in a battle between dragons and ships, called the Battle of the Throat—and Jace dies in the process. But the conclusion of “House of the Dragon” is not over. no This battle, or any other battle, did not include Jesse dying.
Instead, the film ends with a montage of the Greens and Blacks, including Jace, all preparing for war. Alicent (Olivia Cooke) promises Rhaenyra that she has the go-ahead to retake King's Landing and the Iron Throne in three days, once Prince Regent Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) is away in battle.
With Jace dying during the Battle of Goulet in “Fire and Blood,” but not before leading his team to victory, many viewers familiar with the books thought we would see another season ending with one of Rhaenyra's sons dying on dragonback. Even Harry Collett – The actor who plays Jess! – I thought all season he was going to die.
That is, until the day of the final script reading for season two, when the House of the Dragon crew and showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal confronted the script.
“I thought this would be the end for me and Jess,” Colette said. diverse“And it was always that awkward moment when I would go to the script reading and be like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is the right time, and am I going to have to do this in front of everyone?’ But it got to the point where we read the last episode in the script reading, and it was just a surprise. I went to Ryan, and I said, ‘Man, I thought this was it? I thought I was going to die!’”
“I said to Ryan, ‘I thought this was my time.’ And he said, ‘Dude, I was going to call you!’ You get what’s called a ‘death call,’ so you don’t have to do it while you’re reading the script in front of everyone, which I think is really nice.”
“So I was nervous for no reason, but I'm grateful that I was able to last another full season,” Colette adds. “If I die, I die – and I'm grateful to be in this season anyway.”
But now that House of the Dragon has been renewed for a third season, and Condal and his team are working on the scripts for those episodes, has Collette received a “death call” warning him that the book's fate will return?
“We'll have to wait and see, won't we? The call of death is between me and myself only – if and when I receive it.”
See more from diverseInterview with Colette below.
I know some of the cast members have read Fire and Blood, while others have chosen not to. Have you read it? Do you know how Jess died?
Some of the cast members have read the books all the way through, while others haven't read them at all. I'm one of those people who read the book summaries every now and then. So I know what's going on, but the book is basically a bunch of rumors put together in one big book. So things can change, as they did in the show compared to the book.
But my reaction to Jess' fate in the books is that I'm quite happy with it. I feel like it's a heroic death. I didn't just get stabbed or poisoned. It was a death in battle, which I think everyone wants or hopes for.
How did you and Emma D'Arcy approach developing Jace's character in Season 2, as he takes on a more mature role after Locke's death, and now he's Have deeper conversations with Rhaenyra and offer his own ideas as her heir?
Obviously, Emma, Jace, and Rhaenyra and I spend more time together this season, just to show the details of their relationship as mother and son. And I love how Jace is more involved in politics this season. He came up with the dragon seed idea, and he’s come up with more ideas. Most of the Black Council just yells at Rhaenyra, and they don’t really work with her. With Jace, he’s in a position to talk to Rhaenyra on a deeper level that other people wouldn’t have the chance to do. The conversations I had with Emma were, “We’re in a fantasy show, but how do we make this as real as possible?” We discussed having these mother-son conversations where Rhaenyra is like, “Oh, no, you can’t go. You’re too young.” And that’s the classic 16-year-old attitude of, “Oh, you’re not old enough to do this.” Having these real conversations, apart from it being completely fantasy.
Jace wants revenge for what happened to his little brother Luke. He wants to be more involved. He wants to be a little devil, as I always say, because that's the only dominant father figure he's had for the last few years. We wanted to make sure that it felt very real. And I'm so happy that Jace isn't always in the corner leaning on his sword, but that he's actually doing something this season. It makes me proud of the character, because he has something to do with this whole journey — and that's what it should be.
By the end of the season, where does Jace stand regarding the situation with the dragon seeds and his feelings about being a bastard?
It's really embarrassing, because the dragon seed was his idea. But he thinks so, because he's a bastard, and he knows that – and it's clear from the conversation he had with Rhaenyra – the only thing that separates him from the other bastards is that he has a dragon. And now that these other bastards have come and taken the dragons, it threatens Jace in a way in terms of legitimacy. And it scares him because in his eyes his future is that he's going to sit on the throne, but what if he sits on the throne and everyone looks down on him, because he's the one who put a bunch of bastards on dragons?
I think he's constantly blaming himself for this. I feel like he knows it's a good thing that we have people working on these unknown dragons, and that they're going to do something. But the fact that he's in charge and that people might look down on him for it – he's just going to blame himself for it. And that's going to send his stress levels through the roof, on top of everything else he's dealing with right now.
Will we see more of Jace and Cregan Stark's friendship – a fan favorite from the book! – in season 3?
I would love to have more of Jace and Cregan, just because we only had one long scene together. I feel like there's so much more we could do with that. I really enjoyed doing that with Tom Taylor. But we'll have to wait and see. If I know anything, I can't tell you, unfortunately. But I hope so.
Have you noticed the Jess laughing memes popping up on social media this season? If so, what do you think of the trend?
It's funny to me when I see it, so I don't take anything negative from it.
There are also a lot of memes expressing Ewon Mitchell's meow, and a lot of memes comparing Jess and Emond's facial expressions this season. Do you have an opinion on which of you has the better look?
I think we're both great, to be honest. I think Ewan is rocking his look right now. As much as I hate Emond, I love Ewan a lot – so I'll give Ewan the win.
Speaking of looks, Jess's hair is completely different in season 2, going from short and straight to longer and curlier. And with the curls, the look is much stronger too. What led to this change?
It was so funny. In the first season, I was cast very quickly, and my hair was short and I didn’t have time to grow it out before I started filming — a wig was the only option. They didn’t have time to make me a wig either, so it was like pulling a wig out of the closet and putting it on me. To be honest, I couldn’t wear a wig very well in the first season. We had conversations early on once I got the wig on, like, “Okay, you need to start growing your hair out for season two.” So I didn’t cut my hair for about a year and a half. And my hair was really long, like a One Direction-Harry Styles hair. And I was like, I really wish they would use my hair now, because I’ve been through all this. I’ve literally tried seven types of shampoo.
This hair care is new to me; I've never done it before. So I was really hoping they would stick to their word and use it. They cut off most of the hair, which I was really happy about because the summer was really bad. And Rose, who works on the hair and makeup team, put together a mood board to show Ryan to show him. And it had a lot of pictures of Jon Snow on it, which I thought was really cool, because I think they were trying to make me look like Jon Snow when I was on the wall, which I thought was really cool.
But I'm so happy that we can use my real hair, and it saves me 45 minutes of makeup in the morning, which is great. So I'm never going to complain.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
