The third season of House of the Dragon lands on June 21 on HBO with the Battle of the Gullet, an event that showrunner Ryan Condal describes as the craziest episode ever made on television. The comparison with Helm's Deep from The Lord of the Rings is no coincidence: dragons, ships, and multiple fronts will clash at a decisive turning point for the civil war between Team Green and Team Black.
How to Build a Battle with Dragons and Visual Effects 🐉
To bring this naval massacre to life, the production team combined filming in real water tanks with scale models of ships and digital dragon animation. Each creature's flight required prior choreography with drones to calculate trajectories and shadows in real time. Lighting was adjusted so that dragon fire interacts believably with wood and water, a process that demanded months of rendering and simulated physics testing.
Spoiler: Dragons Don't Pay Port Taxes 💀
You'll see lord dragons flying over ships like pigeons in a square, but with much more pyrotechnics and less poop. The funny thing is that, with so much aerial and naval chaos, viewers will need a map, a family tree, and maybe a GPS to not get lost. At least, if the Greens lose, they can complain that the Blacks cheated by using the easy mode of war: dragons without a flight license.