House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7 “The Red Sowing” ends with the thrilling reveal that Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) has managed the impossible: she’s found three new dragonriders amongst the smallfolk.
**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7, now streaming on Max**
Early in the episode, Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) joins her cause as Seasmoke’s new rider. This gives Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) the clever idea that Rhaenyra should reach out to the many Targaryen bastards in King’s Landing to see if any of them want to shoot their shot at dragon-riding. While many of these royal bastards perished attempting to claim a dragon, both Hugh the Hammer (Kieran Bew) and Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) manage to tame Vermithor and Silverwing, respectively.
While Ulf admits to friends that he’s not entirely sure his tall tale of being Prince Baelor’s bastard is true, Hugh the Hammer admits with absolute certainty to his wife Kat (Ellora Torchia) that his mother was a Targaryen. And that there’s good reason why he’s kept his lineage a secret for so long.
“I never knew my father. That much is true,” he says. “But I did know my mother. I hid it from you. And I’m sorry for that.”
“She worked…in a pleasure house. She was granted more freedom than most because of who she was. And because rich men paid more to fuck a woman with silver hair.”
At this point, it’s not wholly clear if Hugh’s mother was simply another Targaryen bastard, but by saying she had more freedom “because of who she was” suggests that she might actually have been a Targaryen herself! Hugh’s next words seemingly confirm this — and nail her down as one of the most infamous princesses from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.
“She used to tell me I was no different to her brother’s boys, Viserys and Daemon,” Hugh reveals. “But I was ashamed of her.”
If you’re a hard core fan of Martin’s world, you should know exactly who Hugh’s mother is supposed to be: Saera Targaryen! Even House of the Dragon star Kieran Bew, who was loathe to officially confirm or deny the connection, shared that there’s no one else Hugh’s mother could be.
“In truth, I don’t know if I’m allowed to confirm, but it can’t necessarily be anyone else,” Bew said, before sharing House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal essentially did confirm it’s Saera.
“He told me who my mum is and it immediately gave me a huge backstory, huge motivation. Because I scoured the book for information,” Bew said, before cautioning that Fire & Blood itself leaves the truth open for interpretation.
“But I learned quite a lot about her and her offspring and where I may fit within that. And it’s so much fuel for who he is and where he is and what you’ve been seeing of him so far. Like, to me, it’s just like the biggest gift. It was the best birthday present because I couldn’t believe it, you know?”
“I don’t know if that’s me confirming or denying,” he said with a laugh.
So who exactly is Saera Targaryen? Why is Hugh’s mother a huge deal? And in what way could it help explain why Vermithor yielded to Hugh and not any of the other would-be dragonlords?
Who is Hugh the Hammer’s Mother on House of the Dragon? Everything You Need to Know About Saera Targaryen
Based on Hugh’s description of his secret Targaryen sex worker mother, it’s rather obvious that he’s one of the bastard sons of Saera Targaryen. In Fire & Blood, we’re told that she was the ninth of King Jaehaerys “The Conciliator” and “Good” Queen Alysanne’s children. She was extremely beautiful and clever, but she was also arguably the biggest trouble of all their kids.
From an early age, Saera is said to have been a major mischief-maker. She’d play cruel pranks and was known to wish that she could be her parents’ oldest, or even only, child. She coveted attention and was happily disobedient. When she was young, Jaehaerys indulged her, which is important later on…
When Saera became a teenager, she very, very, very much liked the boys. Eventually, it became known that she and her close-knit clique of noble youths were essentially having sex parties. Saera suggested she could marry all three of the young men she’d been sleeping with, comparing herself to Aegon the Conqueror, which enraged her father. She was confined to her room, but snuck out and tried to steal a dragon. Then, she was put on house arrest, while one of her lovers died in a trial by combat against Jaehaerys. (Saera was wild and Daddy Jaehaerys was pissed off.)
For about a year or so, she suffered at the hands of septas. Think Cersei’s Walk of Shame, but repeated over and over. She was told that she would have to become a Silent Sister, one of the septas who deal with funerals in Westeros. Because that was clearly unappealing to someone like Saera, she ran away to Lys and became a prostitute. The move horrified Alysanne, who nonetheless secretly kept tabs on her daughter. Jaehaerys, however, disowned her.
Saera soon became something of an underworld queen in Lys before moving to Volantis. She was fabulously wealthy and, according to the books, bore at least three bastard sons. While her reputation was ruined, she seemed to enjoy her new life, with all its wealth and “freedoms.”
We’re told that as Jaehaerys drew closer to death, he mistook a young Alicent Hightower for Saera, suggesting he still longed for reconciliation with her.
Considering that Vermithor was Jaehaerys’s dragon, it’s interesting that he eventually chose Saera’s son, Hugh, as his new rider. Perhaps he not only was taken by Hugh’s courage, but the sense that he was Saera’s boy.
Anyway, by claiming Vermithor, Hugh is finally owning his lineage as Saera Targaryen’s son, making him heir to one of House Targaryen’s most fascinating figures. Which is something Decider will have more on from Kieran Bew in the days ahead…
