The Season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon is now streaming, and while "Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood" was most notable for the Battle of the Gullet and another major death, there was another talking point that you may have missed if you took your eyes off the screen for half a second.
When we catch up with the Dragonseeds, Ulf the White, Hugh Hammer and Addam of Hull, they are waiting to spring an ambush on Aemond Targaryen and his dragon Vhagar on the supposedly haunted Isle of Faces near Harrenhal.
The three men are rightfully nervous, and as time drags on and Aemond doesn't show, they consider disobeying Rhaenyra's orders and leaving the island. As they argue, Hugh spots a strange-looking creature with antlers and goat legs watching them, before turning and walking back into the forest.
We only see the creature for a single, very brief shot, but it's almost certainly one of the mysterious Green Men.
Very little is known about these beings, but George R.R. Martin did reveal that they were assigned to protect the woods and the Children of the Forest following the war with the First Men. The Green Men are only mentioned once or twice in Martin's works, so we don't know if we'll see them again in House of the Dragon.
"The prequel series finds the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires—real and imagined—crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins almost 193 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when King Viserys Targaryen breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm."
House of the Dragon season 3 sees Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans reprise their respective roles. Additional returning cast includes Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham.
Season 3 directors include Loni Peristere (episodes 1,6), Clare Kilner (episodes 2,3,4), Nina Lopez-Corrado (episodes 5,7), and Andrij Parekh (episode 8).