House of the Dragon: Is the Blood and Cheese Scene in Season 2?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 1, “A Son for a Son.”

House of the Dragon‘s source novel, Fire & Blood, boasts a shocking event that ranks with Game of Thrones‘ infamous Red Wedding: the Blood and Cheese scene. So, is the Blood and Cheese scene in House of the Dragon Season 2, or did it get cut?

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Is Fire & Blood’s Blood and Cheese Scene in House of the Dragon Season 2?

Yes, the Blood and Cheese scene appears late in House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 1, “A Son for a Son.” As in series co-creator George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the set-up for the scene is that hired sword Blood and ratcatcher Cheese sneak into the Red Keep on Prince Daemon Targaryen’s orders. Daemon hires the unsavory pair to bump off Prince Aemond Targaryen as revenge for Aemond’s role in the death of Daemon’s stepson, Lucerys, in House of the Dragon Season 1.

Once inside the keep, Blood and Cheese encounter Queen Helaena Targaryen and her children, not Aemond. Reasoning that Daemon won’t care which Targaryen “son” they kill, they then murder Helaena’s six-year-old boy (and heir to the Iron Throne), Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen. Blood hacks off the poor kid’s head, although, mercifully, this happens off-screen. Still, the live-action version of the Blood and Cheese scene is undeniably grisly, even if topping the Red Wedding’s brutality and shock value wasn’t the crew’s goal.

That’s according to House of the Dragon Season 2 showrunner Ryan Condal, who downplayed comparisons with the Red Wedding in a recent interview. “[The Blood and Cheese scene] has its own place in the narrative, and certainly, it’s shocking and awful,” he told Games Radar+. “But it’s really more of a way of dramatizing how terrible war is and how quickly things can get out of control […] So we’re less interested in the shock value of it and more interested in the character experience through it, and then what happens to the characters as a result of it afterwards.”

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Is House of the Dragon’s Blood and Cheese Scene Different in the Book?

Yep – in several key ways. Notably, in Fire & Blood, Helaena is forced to choose between Jaehaerys and his younger brother, Maelor. She reluctantly offers up Maelor, only for Blood to lop off Jaehaerys’ head anyway. And before he does, Cheese cruelly taunts Maelor about Helaena’s willingness to sacrifice him over his sibling. None of this is in House of the Dragon Season 2’s version of the Blood and Cheese scene.

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Another major difference between the book and TV show is that Helaena doesn’t try to bargain with her own life in the latter. Instead, she presents Blood and Cheese with her gold necklace in an unsuccessful attempt to buy her family’s safety. Oh, and Fire & Blood describes the queen as screaming for help after Blood and Cheese’s exit; however, in House of the Dragon, she quietly flees with her surviving child in her arms.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is airing now on HBO and Max, with new episodes dropping Sundays.