Warning: This article contains spoilers from the House of the Dragon season 2 finale.

House of the Dragon season 1 largely served as set up for the main power players within the Targaryen civil war and the various characters in their orbit. Season 2 was... similar. Fans did not hesitate to show their true feelings through memes and TikToks every time Matt Smith's Prince Daemon had yet another screen time-eating hallucinatory trip at Harrenhal. And though we got the largest dragon dogfight on a Game of Thrones series to date, the violent Battle of Rook's Rest in episode 4, the series wove in multiple other figures involved in the conflict, from Corlys Velaryon's surprise bastards, Alyn (Abubakar Salim) and Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), to the "dragonseeds" who now mount some of the riderless dragons in Queen Rhaenyra's stable.

If you're hoping to see more action on House of the Dragon, the season 2 finale sets up the pins so that season 3 can start knocking them down right at the jump. We just now have to wait awhile, if the series continues its pattern of releasing one season every two years. At the very least, we now know what's next on the docket, based on how this season concludes.

Note: The following analysis will only acknowledge the book, George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, to give added context to scenes in the season 2 finale. All other book spoilers will be left out.

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Before we dig into where we're going, let's take stock of where we are now.

After the Sowing of the Seeds, the event in which many Targaryen bastards of the smallfolk died trying to become dragonriders for Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), the Black Queen now presides over seven adult dragons: Daemon rides Caraxes, Prince Jacaerys (Harry Collett) rides Vermax, Lady Baela (Bethany Antonia) rides Moondancer, Addam of Hull rides Seasmoke, Hugh (Kieran Bew) rides Vermithor, Ulf (Tom Bennett) rides Silverwing, and Rhaenyra herself rides Syrax.

The queen's youngest sons, Joffrey and Aegon, also have dragons, Stormcloud and Tyraxes, but both children and their steeds are too young to wage battle. Still, the Blacks definitely have the advantage.

On Team Green, King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) mentions that his dragon Sunfyre is dead, which is a slight change from the book — though we'll hopefully see how true that assertion is later on. And despite her brother's best attempts at persuasion and threats, Queen Helaena (Phia Saban) refuses to ride her dragon Dreamfyre into battle. Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the acting prince regent, may have the largest dragon in the world, Vhagar, but even that she-beast cannot overpower all seven of Rhaenyra's dragons should they launch a joint assault.

So the Greens need a new strategy fast — and they have one.

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Without wading too deeply into book spoilers to preserve the experience for show-only viewers, the Battle of the Gullet is the next major scrimmage that plays out. This is assuming House of the Dragon maintains the timeline of Fire & Blood, but all signs point to that happening.

Ser Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) travels to Essos to secure a pact with the Triarchy's forces. The Greens need to disperse the blockade that the Velaryon fleet maintains around the Gullet, the stretch of water that's crucial to trade going in and out of King's Landing. They need the Triarchy to do so. Tyland is able to achieve an alliance after a playful tussle in the mud with their head commander, Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn), and now Sharako is leading the other commanders in their ships towards the Gullet.

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Of the characters who play a big part in the Battle of the Gullet in the book, a young woman named Nettles is among them. She's described as a brown-skinned, foul-mouthed orphan girl who joins Team Black as another of Rhaenyra's dragonriders. Instead of bonding with a dragon like the others, she finds a wild one by the name of Sheepstealer and feeds the beast a sheep carcass every day until it becomes accustomed to her.

Nettles has not been mentioned in the show thus far, and yet Lady Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) seems to be getting her big story points. Having fled the convoy that departed the Eyrie for Essos, Rhaena hopelessly wanders the endless fields of the Vale in search of food and water. She eventually sees a dragon soaring in the sky and tracks it down to its resting place. Rhaena tried, failed, and nearly lost her life the last time she tried to bond with a dragon. The show seems to suggest that she will have better luck this time.

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In another moment engineered for the show that doesn't contradict anything in the historical record documented in Fire & Blood, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) travels in secret to meet with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone. Desperate to end the war bloodshed and abscond into obscurity, the dowager queen tells her former childhood friend that Aemond is taking Vhagar and his forces to claim Harrenhal from Daemon. When he does that, Alicent proposes that Rhaenyra swoop in to conquer King's Landing, which Alicent and Queen Helaena will happily allow her to do.

Alicent offers this in good faith, even though she knows it means Rhaenyra must now behead her son Aegon for usurping the Iron Throne in the first place. She urges Rhaenyra to come to King's Landing in three days time to see whether she's lying for herself, which leads to the obvious wrinkle in this plan.

Even if Alicent and Helaena were to roll out the red carpet for Rhaenyra, Aegon will not be there. Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) quietly flees King's Landing undercover with the now-maimed Aegon. Not only will this likely be a problem should Rhaenyra call for his head, but it means one of the most strategic players in the game of thrones is in sole possession of the king that the Greens are fighting so hard for.

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For whatever reason, very few members of Team Green actually listen to Helaena, even though the queen's track record for predicting terrible events before the season 2 finale was a clean four for four. Episode 8 now confirms in a very direct way that Helaena is a dragon dreamer, the rare breed of Targaryen with the mystical power of prophetic visions. She's essentially the Bran Stark of House of the Dragon, so adept in her abilities that she appears to Daemon in the midst of his weirwood tree vision, telling him to take a backseat and play his part in the story being told.

Helaena goes on to give Aemond quite the foreboding psychic reading: he will soon be swallowed by the Gods Eye and never seen again. The Gods Eye is the famous lake located in the Riverlands. The cursed castle of Harrenhal sits at its northern tip. Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), the other mystical woman on House of the Dragon, gave Daemon a very similar fortune. While standing before the weirwood tree at night during the Rogue Prince's first stay at Harrenhal, the witch bluntly informs Daemon, "You will die in this place."

Aemond and Daemon's arcs have long run parallel to each other. "They're both the second son," Mitchell previously explained to Entertainment Weekly. "They're both princes who stand to inherit nothing. They recognize that what they want in life and the reputation they want ultimately have to be built by them. It's the duty of the second son to fight the war, and so maybe if those two characters were to enter a room together, I'm sure that any household appliance will become a deadly weapon." The question is, when will this inevitable collision happen? (Again, no book spoilers.)

And thirdly, amid Helaena's prophetic declarations to Aemond, she says something about her other brother. Aegon, she says, will be king again, but that he sits a wooden throne. Given how irreparably injured he is, a wooden wheelchair seems like a good bet. But then there's the vision Daemon received of Rhaenyra seated on the Iron Throne, suggesting she will be the queen, not Aegon. Helaena was involved in that prophesy, as well. So which one is right? All we'll say is, Helaena always seems to be spot on with her visions. These apparently conflicting predictions don't feel like an error.

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Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) is not having a great year. His spoiled grandson fired him as Hand of the King, after which he vowed to travel to Oldtown, the seat of House Hightower and be with his other grandson Daeron. (More on that in a bit.) However, after remaining absent for the vast majority of the season, Otto pops up one more time in a very brief scene: he's crouched on the floor of some kind of jail cell. He looks up, disoriented. Someone holding a candle light approaches his cell off screen. Whatever happened to Otto here is not mentioned in Fire & Blood in this timeline, so it's anyone's guess.

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Until this season of House of the Dragon, you might not have known that Alicent has four children instead of three, assuming you didn't read Martin's book. Aside from Aegon, Aemond, and Helaena, there's also Daeron Targaryen. He's mentioned for the first time directly in episode 2, "Rhaenyra the Cruel." From there on, we learn he's a young 16-year-old who's been warding with the head of House Hightower in Oldtown, Lord Ormund.

Described as "stalwart," "clever," "kind," and equally skilled at the lute and sword, Daeron rides the dragon Tessarion, who can be spotted in the final moments of the season 2 finale flying overhead as the Hightower army begins their march. Daeron is a character fans have been watching out for, given how season 1 didn't even acknowledge him. By all accounts, he will finally make his introduction in season 3, adding his dragon to the ranks of the Greens.