House Of The Dragon Season 3 Just Skipped One Of The Book's Biggest Battles

Dracarys! This article contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" Season 3 Episode 2.

Nothing comes easy in the Dance of the Dragons. Last week's Battle of the Gullet is depicted as a Pyrrhic victory (at best) for Emma D'Arcy's Rhaenyra Targaryen and her Blacks, but the tragic naval engagement is clearly ruinous enough that neither side can claim to come out on top. Elsewhere, our favorite one-eyed, incestuous prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) takes the stronghold of Harrenhal for himself, though not before getting brutally stabbed and left to an uncertain fate at the hands of the mysterious witch Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). Even Rhaenyra's long-delayed moment of triumph is undercut by a gut punch, as she takes King's Landing for herself ... but only after brutally executing Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) and ascending the Iron Throne with her hands (and steps) literally covered in blood.

But some victories come easier than others, apparently. When we catch up with Matt Smith's Daemon Targaryen early in Episode 2 of "House of the Dragon," he and his followers are celebrating the spoils of war. We learn that, thanks to the aid of the Stark army known as the Winter Wolves and their leader Roddy the Ruin (Tommy Flanagan), Team Black has won a convincing battle against the Lannisters. Putting together the context clues — i.e. listening to that banger of a victory song — book readers may be startled to realize that this is actually referencing one of the biggest and bloodiest conflicts in all of "Fire & Blood."

Yes, it appears that "House of the Dragon" Season 3 technically adapted the vaunted "Fishfeed" massacre (more formally known as the Battle by the Lakeshore). The only problem, however? It takes place entirely off-screen.

In Episode 2 of "House of the Dragon," the complicated realities of translating a book like "Fire & Blood" into live action soon come into sharp relief. Author George R.R. Martin was free to take a non-narrative approach and simply pepper in as many game-changing events throughout the story as he wished, without getting bogged down by details like rhythm and pacing. For a show like "House of the Dragon," however, showrunner Ryan Condal is forced to make some tough choices. After frontloading Season 3 with the two major sequences that should've been the climax of Season 2, it's plain to see why the creative team opted against adding a third one on top of it all and risk pummeling viewers with nonstop action in the early going — a logistical, reasonable, and likely budget-saving decision at once.

Still, it's certain to come as a shock to diehard fans looking forward to one of the most evocative, significant, and thrilling moments in all of "Fire & Blood." In the book, this calamitous battle fundamentally alters the course of the war for both sides. A massive Lannister army allied with the Greens and slowly marching in the Riverlands suddenly finds itself beset on all sides by enemies sworn to the Blacks — including Roddy and his Winter Wolves. Having reached the Gods Eye lake, a key location that will play a spoilery role in an epic fight to come, the Lannisters dig in and fight with their backs to the water ... and pay a grievous cost as their army is completely shattered.

In the show, well, none of this comes through for the casual viewer beyond a catchy song and dance.

For a show all about the costs of war, it's a curious choice for "House of the Dragon" to gloss over the one that proves this lesson most emphatically. Described in "Fire & Blood" as the "bloodiest land battle of the Dance of the Dragons," the Fishfeed is more or less equivalent to the decisive Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War. But forget the nerdy political and military ramifications of it all. The visuals of an entire army getting pushed back step by step into bloody waters and subsequently cut down feel as quintessentially "Game of Thrones" as anything in the Battle of the Gullet.

This can't help but feel like the biggest missed opportunity in the early season thus far, even if it's easy to understand why this had to be cut. In an ideal world, where Season 2 told its story to completion and Season 3 was allowed to play out as originally intended (as I explore further in my mixed review of "House of the Dragon"), the Fishfeed could've stood out as the first and most epic bit of spectacle to kick off the story this year. Showrunner Ryan Condal could've even changed the source material and included Daemon in the thick of the action (which, in "Fire & Blood," he isn't a part of whatsoever). This could've helped bring "House of the Dragon" closer to its predecessor series, emphasizing how every strategic decision has the power to win or lose a war.

Instead, we're once again left wondering about what could've been. Hopefully, this will only be a blip on the radar when it's all said and done. New episodes of "House of the Dragon" air on HBO every Sunday.