Everyone who was a teenager in
House of the Dragon made a similar casting shake-up in Episode Six on Sunday night, replacing two of its leads after a massive time jump. Princess Rhaenyra went from Milly Alcock to Emma D'Arcy, while Queen Alicent changed from Emily Carey to Olivia Cooke.
As for Rhaenyra Targaryen, she grew up believing she would rule Westeros. But when the time came, her enemies and family stole the crown from her. She answered with fire and blood and was destroyed by them. So while Rhaenyra may have been the first woman to claim the Iron Throne, she never ruled the Seven Kingdoms.
Rhaenyra is played by two actors across House of the Dragon's first season - Milly Alcock (young) and Emma D'Arcy (older). Without further ado, get to know one of the most important players in House of the Dragon below, including what claim Rhaenyra really has for the Iron Throne.
The time has come at last. In House of the Dragon's sixth episode, fans said goodbye to Milly Alcock and Emily Carey and hello to Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke. The older pair replace the younger as Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, respectively, as time jumps forward 10 years in the latest episode.
Everyone who was a teenager in House of the Dragon Episode 5 has now been recast in Episode 6. Rhaenyra, Alicent, Laenor, and Laena are all being played by older actors to show they're all grown up now and ready for their own Game of Thrones.
Both Princess Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent were teenagers during the first few episodes, hence the switch to older actors.
The short answer is that it happened to accommodate the time jump, but that wasn't always the plan. Showrunner Ryan Condal explained to The Hollywood Reporter that the original plan was to begin House of the Dragon after the death of King Viserys, meaning Rhaenyra and Alicent would already be adults.
In the book, she's nine years older than Princess Rhaenyra, but in Dragon they're meant to be around the same age: 15 years old as of episode 1, then roughly 17 or 18 during episodes 3-5. Emily Carey, the actress who plays young Alicent, is 19 years old.
Emma D'Arcy plays one of the leading characters in the HBO series House of the Dragon. They was introduced as the older version of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in the sixth episode of the show's first season. D'Arcy replaced Milly Alcock who portrays the role of the younger princess.
Some dragon-like babies are born after incredibly complicated and anger-induced births, so it's possible that the fire of the dragon being released within both Rhaenyra and Syrax during the birth somehow impacted her daughter's physical characteristics.
Daemon shows his genuine care and attention to Rhaenyra several times before the two marry. This doesn't take away from the many destructive and inappropriate parts of their relationship, but the books imply that Daemon does love Rhaenyra.
Viserys II Targaryen was the tenth Targaryen king to sit the Iron Throne as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. He was the son of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen, the brother and Hand of King Aegon III Targaryen, and the father of King Aegon IV Targaryen, Queen Naerys Targaryen, and Prince Aemon "the Dragonknight".
Once she reached Dragonstone, Rhaenyra was betrayed by Ser Alfred Broome, whose men slew the remainder of her Queensguard. Her half-brother Aegon II then had her fed to his own dragon, Sunfyre, at Dragonstone.
In the pilot, Rhaenyra and Alicent were both meant to be 15, but in the second to last episode when Daemon returned, it was said it had been four years, so they were 19. Milly Alcock, Rhaenyra, is 22 in real life. She's being replaced by Emma D'Arcy who is 30.
The romance that has long been teased in “House of the Dragon” is finally official. The seventh episode of HBO's “Game of Thrones” prequel starts with a funeral and ends with the wedding of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and her uncle Daemon.
Princess Rhaenyra is Daenerys' distant ancestor in the Targaryen family tree. Princess Rhaenyra and Daenerys are distant relatives, living 200 years and about eight generations apart, as this thorough Targaryen family tree demonstrates.
So, let's agree that he is (give or take) 16 years older than Rhaenyra. This places him in his early 30s when we first see him meet his niece. Yes, his niece. His teenage niece who we immediately realise he has a bit of a thing for.
The Targaryen family tree gets a bit complicated due to the incestuous practice of marrying sister and brother, but Rhaenyra is something like Daenerys' great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) is the Mad King's daughter with his sister-wife Rhaella.
Mill Alcock will be leaving House of the Dragon after the show's fifth episode due to her character being recast to accommodate the show's latest time jump. As the show will be jumping ahead several years, HBO will be bringing in an older actress to play the character of Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Cooke said that she and D'Arcy” have “definitely” talked about Alicent and Rhaenyra being “each other's first love,” although by this point “too much has happened and too much time has passed to probably even recognize those fledgling feelings.”
While Rhaenyra did go on to sleep with Criston Cole — the big problem of the episode — Viserys (Paddy Considine) was made more cautious of Daemon. In confronting him, instead of denying that he had sex with Rhaenyra and telling the truth, he instead asks Rhaenyra's hand in marriage.
“We always knew it was necessary to move the story forward in the first season's story line,” the show's co-creator and co-showrunner wrote in an email to Vulture. “This is ultimately a generational conflict, so we had to cover a large swath of years in order to properly set the pieces on the board.”
Rhaenyra sleeps with Ser Criston Cole, Otto Hightower spills
The two have been great friends and Ser Criston is one of the few people Rhaenyra trusts so, can't say we didn't see this coming! The next morning, Otto tells Viserys that Rhaenyra was spotted outside of the Red Keep at a brothel with Daemon.