Rhaena Targaryen contains multitudes. The often-sidelined second daughter of Daemon Targaryen, played by Matt Smith, has become one of the most emotionally conflicted and compelling surviving children in House of the Dragon season 3.
She is also, quite literally, an amalgamation of characters. One of the season’s biggest and most controversial departures from George R.R. Martin’s source book, Fire and Blood, is the decision to blend Rhaena’s arc with that of a beloved rogue dragonrider named Nettles.
The change has divided book readers, but it finally hands Phoebe Campbell — who has played Rhaena for three seasons — a storyline worthy of her talents, pulling the neglected Targaryen daughter to the center of the drama.
It also raises thorny questions the series seems eager to explore, from Rhaena’s claim to a dragon of her own to the tangled Targaryen bloodlines that have always defined the family’s power and its downfall.