Editor’s Notice: The next comprises spoilers for Home of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7.
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- In
Home of the Dragon
Season 2, Hugh the Hammer would possibly seem to be only a blacksmith, however he performs an important function within the civil battle. - Hugh is probably Saera Targaryen’s son and his lineage as a dragonseed grants him the power to mount a dragon in the course of the confict.
- Regardless of his lowborn standing, Hugh’s bravery and ambition make him a big participant within the battle.
Nicely, that was bloody. Within the closest House of the Dragon has come to staging a Westerosi starvation video games, this week’s installment of Ryan Condal’s prequel collection sees Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) make good on Mysaria’s (Sonoya Mizuno) suggestion that she search for new dragonriders among the many bastards of Home Targaryen by internet hosting an all-you-can-eat smallfolk buffet for Dragonstone’s unclaimed mounts. Impressed by Seasmoke’s hilarious claiming of Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) in final week’s launch, Home of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7, “The Crimson Sowing,” as an alternative revolves round makes an attempt to say Vermithor, Westeros’s second-largest dragon generally known as the Bronze Fury. And whereas many are burnt and eaten for his or her efforts, one lowly blacksmith is ready to stand as much as the dragon and survive–Hugh the Hammer.
Performed by actor Kieran Bew, Hugh has appeared intermittently all through House of the Dragon Season 2 as a King’s Touchdown smith and struggling father. He first reveals his face on the court docket of King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) as a petitioner, the place he asks for superior funds in order that he would possibly higher present for his household, and simply final week he stole meals from Rhaenyra’s presents to King’s Touchdown moments earlier than the riot that threatened the Dowager Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke). Hugh violently grabs a sack of greens from a commoner in an effort to assist feed his ailing daughter, who has spent a lot of Season 2 hovering on the point of loss of life, underscoring the character’s grounded nature in distinction to a few of Westeros’s largest gamers. But, as House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7 proves, this smith’s private historical past ties him on to Home of the Dragon’s civil battle.
Hugh the Hammer Is a Commoner With Unusual Blood in ‘Home of the Dragon’
In each Home of the Dragon and the prequel novel on which it is primarily based, Hearth and Blood, Hugh the Hammer seems as a lowborn blacksmith of bizarre stature. Identified for his towering top and nearly inhuman power, Hugh’s palms are stated to be so sturdy he can bend metal bars. Within the e book, Hugh will get his moniker from his favourite weapon, resembling King Robert Baratheon from Game of Thrones for his most well-liked methodology of killing enemies with a battle hammer, however Home of the Dragon Season 2 additionally makes a number of modifications to the character’s private life. Hugh’s spouse (Ellora Torchia) and daughter, for instance, aren’t talked about in George R.R. Martin’s supply materials, whereas their inclusion within the present supplies Hugh with a extra tragic aspect that turns him right into a sympathetic, well-rounded commoner as an alternative of a purely intimidating warrior.
Home of the Dragon Season 2 takes different liberties with its portrayal of Hugh the Hammer too. In Martin’s e book, Hugh lives on the traditional Targaryen seat of Dragonstone as an alternative of working in King’s Touchdown, a visit Hugh does not take till this week’s episode of Home of the Dragon. Whereas the Targaryens have dominated the island since Aenar the Exile fled the ruins of Previous Valyria and established the household’s stronghold in Westeros, there are many branches in the Targaryen family tree, and a few additionally took benefit of their standing on the island to provide loads of illegitimate heirs with the locals. These couplings outdoors the Targaryens’ custom of marriages throughout the household produced bastards known as dragonseeds, or commoners with the blood of the dragon pulsing by means of their veins, and Home of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7 solidifies Hugh the Hammer as an important member of their ranks.
How Is Hugh Ready To Declare Vermithor in Home of the Dragon Season 2?
Whereas House of the Dragon Season 2 chooses to not have Hugh begin out on Dragonstone, Episode 7 does lastly affirm the blacksmith’s Targaryen origins. After Rhaenyra duties Mysaria’s spy community in King’s Touchdown with placing out her name for lowborn dragonriders, Hugh reveals the reality to his spouse, who makes an attempt to discourage him from answering Rhaenyra’s summons out of concern that she’ll be widowed. As an alternative, Hugh reiterates his conviction by admitting that his mom was a lady with silver hair who labored in a pleasure home, closely implying her id as Saera Targaryen, the ninthborn baby of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. This heritage not solely reaffirms that Hugh has been hiding his significance in plain sight, but in addition that King’s Touchdown’s most underpaid blacksmith is a crucial descendant of the blood of the dragon.
Out of a want to tell apart himself from his omnipotent kinfolk, Hugh goes on to clarify that he turned a blacksmith as a result of he wished to construct his legacy along with his personal palms, and it is this identical private drive that permits him to say Vermithor on this week’s launch. Because the unlucky barbecuing of House of the Dragon’s Ser Steffon Darklyn proved in final week’s episode, blood will not be at all times sufficient to ensure a Targaryen will bond with Westeros’s battle machines. As different dragonseeds are torched and devoured, Hugh’s altruism and bravado are in the end what enable him to face out from the Crimson Sowing’s dismembered crowd. His daring problem to the dragon distracts Vermithor from feasting on an harmless girl, permitting Hugh to match the Bronze Fury’s sheer ferocity and cement his bond with another dragon who had all however been misplaced to Westerosi historical past.
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Hugh Has a Main Position To Play within the Targaryen Civil Conflict To Come
Sarcastically, Hugh’s claiming of Vermithor possesses a symbolic significance past his personal elevated standing. Because the lifelong mount of King Jaehaerys, Hugh’s reclamation of his lineage additionally seizes a significant image of legitimacy from the identical man who as soon as banished Saera Targaryen from Westeros for her sturdy sexual appetites. Not solely does this reversal welcome her descendant again into Home of the Dragon’s privileged world, however Hugh’s claiming of Vermithor establishes the blacksmith as one in all Rhaenyra’s most vital allies. Rivaled solely in dimension by Aemond’s (Ewan Mitchell) Vhagar, the ultimate scene of House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7 demonstrates the facility of Hugh and Vermithor’s pairing by serving to to repel the Prince Regent’s counterattack on Dragonstone, lastly delivering Rhaenyra one in all her most notorious warriors in time for Westeros’s civil battle to start in earnest.
With full-blooded Targaryens long-established as Westeros’s true dragonlords, the power to say a dragon could be spectacular for anybody, however Hugh’s achievement is very distinctive due to his unlikely heritage. Because the long-lost bastard of a Targaryen princess disgraced by the identical patriarchal system which oppresses House of the Dragon’s Rhaenyra and Alicent, Hugh’s mounting of the dragon of an outdated king demonstrates the facility of his earnest character and hidden parentage. With Season 2, Episode 7’s revelation that Hugh’s daughter succumbed to her illness earlier than her father might declare Vermithor, Home of the Dragon’s latest rider has extra motive to hate the Greens than ever because the Blacks lastly start sending their dragons off to battle, although followers should look forward to subsequent week’s finale to see simply how a lot fireplace Hugh is ready to muster from his {powerful} blood.
Home of the Dragon is at the moment streaming on Max within the U.S. New episodes air each Sunday.
