House of the Dragon debuted this year and left us with numerous questions. While we are leagues away from the next season, there’s enough time to speculate and theorize. The Game of Thrones prequel series sees the Targaryen dynasty at peak of its power. The first season took various time jumps and so some storylines were chopped off, but now that actors can actually speak about the fate of their characters, some questions are being answered for the fans. One question among them was about Princess Rhaenyra’s relationship with Ser Harwin Strong, who the show confirms is indeed the father of her three kids. In a new interview with the Game of Thrones podcast actor Ryan Corr explained the complexities of depicting their decade-long relationship.
House of Dragon does a good job of elaborating on Ser Criston Cole's (Fabien Frankel) and young Rhaenyra’s (Milly Alcock) relationship. He was willing to run away with her for the sake of their love and his honor, but the Princess had her duties, a dynamic which eventually lead to Ser Criston’s heartbreak, while Ser Harwin’s relationship with an older Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) was just dished out to us after a time jump. Before that, their interactions were limited to Ser Harwin finding the princess on her night out with Daemon and smirking at her when she killed a boar during the hunt. Elaborating on why their relationship works in the latter part of the series, Corr explained, “Harwin’s a man that’s lived a lot of his life in the shadows. I think that was a part of the understanding. I think, he was happy to.”
Harwin’s father was the Hand of the King, and while his relationship with the princess was spoken of in a hushed manner it had to be kept under wraps. The actor explained, “And so, trying to show those elements of the relationship with subtlety and within subtext was kind of the challenge.” He further explained, “You know, how do you show that Rhaenyra and Harwin care for each other this much and have a relationship that spans 10 years, through looks?” Adding:
In a world in which we’re not allowed to actually express that love. And so, I think, that's sort of became a part of the texture of that relationship that we were forming between Emma and I, and Milly and I. It's a tricky sort of precipice.
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While their relationship was the hidden part, their children weren’t. We saw Harwin doting on them as well as not shying away from turning a person black and blue in their defense. The actor revealed that co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik always spoke to him about the fact that they need these two sides for Harwin: "if he’s going to be this doting father, and this person of honor who’s there for his kids in this way, we also need to have the hunter, and the barbarian and the man who’s capable of danger and violence. And I think treading that precipice was what we tried to bring into him.”
All episodes of House of the Dragon are available on HBO Max. You can check out Corr's comments below:
