House of the Dragon Season 2 Trailers Tease the Book’s Most Traumatic Moment 

Combining George R.R. Martin’s expansive imagination with Warner Bros. Discovery’s equally expansive marketing budget has turned out to be one of pop culture’s great cheat codes.

HBO has announced the official release date for House of the Dragon season 2 (June 16, 2024) and it’s done so in particularly grand fashion. That’s because the announcement was accompanied not just by one trailer but by two. In honor of the show’s plot about the Dance of the Dragons civil war fought between two Targaryen factions, HBO is inviting viewers to choose the trailer experience that most closely corresponds to their “side.”

First up is the “Green Trailer” for those who are inclined to support Aegon II’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) claim to the Iron Throne.

Then there is the “Black Trailer” for supporters of Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) on Dragonstone, Viserys I’s eldest daughter and the would-be first female monarch of the Seven Kingdoms.

Regardless of which side you prefer, both trailers are full of juicy details and worth watching in full (and preferably on ye olde DenofGeek.com so we get the reader engagement numbers).

The Green trailer features ominous voiceovers from Aegon II and his many supporters at court: his mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), his grandfather and Hand Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), and his Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). The clip also includes striking imagery of Seven-Pointed Stars covering the Red Keep, some Green soldiers preparing anti-dragon weaponry, and a skirmish in the Riverlands.

The Black trailer is accompanied by dispatches from Rhaenyra’s team: her uncle/love Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), her eldest son Jacaerys (Harry Collett), her father-in-law Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), and her mother-in-law Rhaenys (Eve Best). The images here are equally juicy as we get to see plenty of dragons and Jace’s meeting with potential Northern supporters at the Wall.

The best part about taking in both trailers, however, is realizing that they each tease a major moment that is sure to occur early in the season from multiple perspectives. How major a moment are we talking here? Imagine if, before Game of Thrones season 3, HBO released two trailers that featured no fewer than three shots from The Red Wedding. The moment in question is known among fans as “Blood and Cheese.” Meet us after the spoiler warning if you want to see the images in question and learn more about the event.

This following contains information from the book Fire & Blood that will ultimately spoil House of the Dragon season 2.

If you recall, House of the Dragon season 1 ended with Aemond Targaryen’s ancient dragon Vhagar getting a little too rowdy and killing Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys and his dragon Arrax. Naturally, such a horrifying act from the Greens deserves an equally horrifying response from the Blacks. That response comes shortly after Lucerys’ death.

“Blood” and “Cheese” are the code names used by two assassins living in King’s Landing. All that is known about them is that Blood was a butcher while Cheese was a rat catcher familiar with the tunnels of the Red Keep. Daemon, who knows many Flea Bottom scumbags from his time as the Commander of the City Watch, hires the pair to pull off a grim task. That task is to kill one of King Aegon’s two sons in retaliation for Lucerys’s death.

Blood and Cheese, however, take things a bit further than mere assassination. They enter the chamber of Aegon’s sister-wife Helaena (Phia Saban) and force her to choose which child should be murdered. After much begging and pleading, Helaena finally chooses the two-year-old Maelor. Blood and Cheese then slice off her six-year-old son’s Jaehaerys’s head instead and makes sure to taunt Maelor with the knowledge that his mother chose him first.

So uh, yeah … it’s bad. But now that we know this information we can identify some screenshots from the trailer that indicate just how bad it will be. There are two moments in the Green trailer. Look what we have here, just a couple of dudes traveling through a darkened tunnel:

And this sure looks like a lot of blood on a child’s blanket:

Interestingly, it’s the Black trailer that seemingly covers the funeral of young Jaehaerys:

As you might imagine, poor Helaena never recovers from this tragedy. She was already a little dour and spooky due to her precognitive “dreaming” ability and this even pushes her over the edge to madness.

While HBO got creative in encouraging viewers to pick their side for House of the Dragon season 2, these Blood and Cheese bits remind us that there is no “Team Black” or “Team Green.” There is only “Team Death.”

House of the Dragon season 2 premieres Sunday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.