Could Nettles be Rhaena in House of the Dragon Season 2?

There was some disappointing news for fans as House of the Dragon rumors suggested that Rhaena would end up riding Sheepstealer. This means Nettles’s plot is taken out. However, is there a way around this situation.

We have to remember that Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin is just a reiteration of three different accounts of the Targaryen Civil War. Nothing is really taken as fact, and this does open the door for some interpretations by the show. The problem is Nettles’s character means so much more in the world of House of the Dragon because she is the only commoner who rides a dragon.

If we take the story of Fire & Blood, the idea of Rhaena being Nettles doesn’t work. However, for the sake of the TV series, there is a way that it could end up working.

Nettles could be an alias for Rhaena in House of the Dragon

There is no way that Daemon would want Team Green to know that his daughters are fighting. However, he won’t be able to force them to back down. They have their mother’s courage. So, he would likely want to find a way to protect them. What better way than to have one fight by his side.

This would be a weakness for him, so he could set up an alias for Rhaena. She could take on the alias of Nettles.

Very little is known about Nettles in the books, anyway. While she has dark hair, she does have dark skin. It was always noted that she came from somewhere outside of Westeros, but nobody knew who her father was. She was born from a prostitute at the Docksides. The series could find a way to cover up Rhaena’s hair color and give her a backstory that would lead to people not being interested in who she is and where she comes from.

In the books, there were rumors that Dameon and Nettles had an affair. It leads to Rhaenyra’s descent into madness a little as she loses trust in everyone around her. This could still come up. With Daemon spending time with Nettles—because she is his daughter—there could be a rumor that they are having an affair. Maybe Rhaenyra doesn’t even know that Daemon has taken Rhaena with him and given her this identity, so she ends up believing the rumor. Or maybe she knows the full truth and this doesn’t lead to her distrusting her husband.

Either way, there are ways to explain the idea of an affair.

This explanation loses a lot of meaning

Of course, this does end up leading to a lot of meaning in Nettles’s character being lost. She is the only commoner to train a dragon and ride one. This is a huge plot point as it opens up a lot of myth and lore about dragonriders and where Nettles could have come from.

It also loses some of Rhaena’s story. She doesn’t have a dragon until an egg miraculously hatches. It’s a huge moment for the Tragaryens, and Rhaena ends up becoming the last dragonrider until Daenerys. This storyline could still end up happening with “Nettles” releasing Sheepstealer and getting Morning. This still takes away the meaning of Nettles getting Sheepstealer, though.