George R. R. Martin’s Secret House Of The Dragon Cameo Is Hidden In A Surprising Place

The final episode of House Of The Dragon Season 2 will air next week, but the show’s creators hid a special treat for eagle-eyed viewers in the penultimate episode of Season 2, which premiered over the weekend: a cameo from Game Of Thrones author George R. R. Martin, hidden in just about the last place one would think to look.

The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo takes place fairly early on in the episode, during a confrontation between Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and young Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes). The scene is set in the courtyard of Harrenhal, with a massive weirwood tree serving as the backdrop. But a closer look at the tree reveals that the face it bears is that of none other than George R. R. Martin. The story behind the enormous prop was shared in the most-recent episode of The House That Dragons Built, a companion series that tells the behind-the-scenes story of each episode’s creation.

“What’s lovely about the show is everything’s so character-based that even the tree is a character,” VFX producer Thomas Horton said of the huge prop-tree, which was sculpted specifically for the scene.

During a 2022 panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Martin said he won’t be making any cameo appearances in Game Of Thrones film projects until he finishes his current novel, The Winds Of Winter, which is still in progress. But showrunner Ryan Condal wanted to pay homage to the author of the books upon which both Game Of Thrones and House Of The Dragon are based, and decided using Martin’s likeness on the tree would be an excellent way to do so.

“Ryan wanted to do [the tree] as a bit of a tribute,” production designer Tim Clay explained.

Interestingly, weirwood trees may be a contributing factor to the strange behavior Daemon Targaryen has been exhibiting all season, since he first arrived at Harrenhal.

“We know that Harrenhal was built on a felled orchard of weirwood trees, and then the weirwoods were chopped up and used as lumber to build the castle, which possibly led to some of the experiences that people have there,” Condal said of the strange, magical trees.

In a previous episode, Daemon was seen chopping wood to assist with the dilapidated castle’s reconstruction. Over the course of his stay at Harrenhal, he’s experienced increasingly strange dreams and disturbing hallucinations. While it’s easy to chalk up his behavior to good old Targaryen madness, the fact that these odd visions only began appearing after he arrived at the weirwood-surrounded castle suggests the mystical trees could potentially be the cause of his troubles. Interestingly, Daemon experiences another vision immediately after his confrontation with Oscar Tully–a scene in which Daemon is the person standing closest to the sprawling weirwood tree.

This marks George R. R. Martin’s first cameo to make it into any Game Of Thrones show. He previously filmed a cameo for the pilot episode of the original television series, in which he played a Pentoshi merchant sporting a very large hat, but the footage ended up on the cutting room floor, and never made it into the show.

In the footage from the latest episode of The House That Dragons Built, Condal can be seen giving the author a tour of the Harrenhal courtyard. The two pose for a photo in front of the tree, suggesting that House Of The Dragon’s creators want to keep Martin involved with the series’ development–a stark contrast to the latter half of the original Game Of Thrones show, which Martin says showrunners inexplicably shut him out of.

“This is really cool, guys,” Martin can be heard saying to Condal and a group of other individuals responsible for creating the scene. “Thank you.”

House Of The Dragon’s Season 2 finale premieres on HBO and Max this Sunday, August 4, at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET.