By Corey Plante Published Jun 19, 2026, 10:16 PM EDT Analysis How did that one major character really die?
The Legend of Vox Machina just made a major change to a Critical Role Campaign 3 character Taliesin Jaffe just answered one of Critical Role's biggest mysteries The Legend of Vox Machina season 4 sets the stage for an explosive finale House of the Dragon just solved on of the book's darkest mysteries Image: HBO House of the Dragon Sign in to your Polygon.com account In many ways, the Battle of the Gullet is when the Dance of Dragons shifts from a civil war into a full-on tragedy. Sure, there have been plenty of deaths already in House of the Dragon, like that of young Prince Lucerys Velaryon, who was killed by Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar. That incident fully ignited the war. The season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon however, opens with one of the biggest battles in Game of Thrones history — and it includes one of the franchise’s more heartbreaking deaths.
Spoilers for House of the Dragon’s season 3 premiere follow.
What’s interesting about House of the Dragon, more broadly speaking, is that, unlike the original Game of Thrones series, it’s not adapting a novel. The source material, Fire & Blood, is a fictional historical analysis written by the scholar Archmaester Gyldayn. He’s essentially an unreliable narrator, an old historian who collects various primary sources — many of which conflict with each other — to describe a version of history as he sees it.
The challenge of HBO’s House of the Dragon series is to take those conflicting historical accounts and turn them into a single, cohesive narrative. Like Game of Thrones before it, the story deviates from the source material in many ways, some small, and others more significant. When it comes to the Battle of the Gullet depicted in June 21’s season premiere, things become so much more tragic when you look at how the show depicted the death of Prince Jacaerys “Jace” Velaryon. Because the specifics are kind of a mystery in the source material even if all the broad strokes lead to the same conclusion.
Image: HBO Archmaester Gyldayn wrote Fire & Blood shortly before the events depicted in Game of Thrones, roughly 170 years after the Dance of Dragons. He cobbles together the historical record from the first-hand accounts of survivors of the battle and what previous historians wrote. The conflicting nature of these accounts confirms what we all know having watched it on-screen: the Battle of the Gullet was intensely chaotic.
Here’s what it does say: Jace attacked the Triarchy fleet atop Vermax. At some point, they flew too low, and the dragon was wounded. They may have crashed into or near a burning ship. Jace might have survived the crash, but was soon struck and killed by crossbowmen. Nobody really knows the specifics. His body was never recovered.
Because the show depicts these actions on-screen, things get a lot more personal. After locking his mother in her room at Dragonstone, Jace flew out to battle with his cousin-stepsister-betrothed Baela Targaryen and her dragon Moondancer. Almost immediately upon seeing the dragons enter the battle, the Triarchy’s naval commander, Sharako Lohar, calls for her crew to bring out the grapnel scorpion weapon. She fires a massive bolt attached to a long rope with an anchor at the end — and connects with Vermax on the first shot.
Baela is quick to intervene, severing the rope with Moondancer’s wing. After this incident, the two…