{"id":752918,"date":"2026-06-22T04:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/752918\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T04:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T04:34:09","slug":"house-of-the-dragon-jace-dies-in-battle-of-gullet-season-3-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/752918\/","title":{"rendered":"House of the Dragon: Jace Dies in Battle of Gullet Season 3 Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of \u201cHouse of the Dragon<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d is back, with another main character being killed in epic fashion. In the Season 3 premiere of the \u201cGame of Thrones,\u201d and Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D\u2019Arcy) loses yet another child. After her young son Lucerys died in the Season 1 finale, her eldest son Jace (Harry Collett) was killed in the Battle of the Gullet along with his dragon, Vermax.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe season premiere wastes no time jumping right back into the action as Rhaenyra\u2019s forces, aka the Blacks, are still at war with the Greens, the King\u2019s Landing loyalists under King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). Rhaenyra\u2019s army, led by her uncle and husband Daemon (Matt Smith), is gaining strength as they\u2019re joined by a grizzled pack of House Stark northmen known as the Winter Wolves. Plus, they have more dragonriders than the Greens after they bolstered their numbers with several dragonseeds, Targaryen bastards who can command the fire-breathing beasts. Skilled sailors Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and his bastard son Addam of Hull (Abubakar Salim) lead the Black\u2019s navy against the Triarchy, a group of pirates led by Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) who pledged fealty to the Greens. (Read Variety\u2019s interview with Loni Peristere, the episode\u2019s director.)<\/p>\n

\n\tOver in King\u2019s Landing, things aren\u2019t going so great. Aegon, who was burned and crippled in Season 2, fled with Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), leaving his cruel, one-eyed brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) to sit on the Iron Throne. After an extremely awkward mother-son kiss, Alicent convinces Aemond to fly to Harrenhal and hunt down Daemon. That leaves the Iron Throne empty for Rhaenyra to take it \u2014 a plan she had secretly hatched with Alicent last season. But before Rhaenyra can destroy the encroaching Triarchy ships then fly to King\u2019s Landing, her son Jace has her locked in her chambers at Dragonstone to protect her. Surely this will go well for him!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHBO<\/p>\n

\n\tJace, Daemon\u2019s daughter Baela (Bethany Antonia) and their dragons join the Battle of the Gullet, which is turning into full-scale carnage. Both sides are losing ships and suffering massive casualties. Lohar boards Corlys\u2019 ship and nearly kills him, but Addam saves his father\u2019s life and kills the pirate in a water-logged fight. High above, Jace and Baela are unexpectedly joined by Baela\u2019s sister Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), who has bonded with the rogue dragon Sheepstealer, and is unable to control the monster. Sheepstealer turns on the fellow dragons, causing them to fly out of combat and dodge its massive claws. Jace\u2019s dragon Vermax is then struck with a ballista bolt, dragging Jace into the water. As Vermax struggles to stay above water and begins to drown, Jace frees himself from his mount and reaches the surface. However, he\u2019s struck unceremoniously by three arrows from a nearby ship, killing him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was really hard to act dead \u2014 it\u2019s actually one of the hardest acting I\u2019ve ever done in my life,\u201d Collett says of his watery death scene. \u201cIt was really fun, but also really challenging trying to keep my eyes open in the water and staying afloat, while also not getting any up my nose. Otherwise, I\u2019d cough, and obviously I\u2019m not dead if I cough. So that was quite challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShowrunner Ryan Condal had to cut the Battle of the Gullet from Season 2 due to budget constraints, and the team goes all-out in the Season 3 premiere. Collett reveals that he was told back in Season 1 that his run on the show would last only two seasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI knew my fate already, and was taking the days as they come and enjoying myself and just being grateful to be on this show in the first place,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I read Season 2, normally Ryan calls you to tell you what is gonna happen this season. I didn\u2019t get a call, and I was like, \u2018Is he just waiting until like we get to the script read?\u2019 But, no, it got skipped in Season 2<\/a>, which I\u2019m very grateful for. It\u2019s great that it gets to be the first episode that people see for this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Jace dead, Rhaenyra has only her sons Joffrey, Aegon III and Viserys II remaining, though they\u2019re too young to join the war. With her navy decimated, she\u2019ll need all the help she can get to take King\u2019s Landing and begin to rule Westeros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d now streaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,57216],"class_list":["post-752918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-house-of-the-dragon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}