It’s been a long wait, but after two years, House of the Dragon is finally back on Max with its second season. While the show updates audiences on what the main characters have been up to since the events of the first season, the premiere of Season 2 introduced them to two new characters named “Blood and Cheese.”
Though they aren’t main players in the impending “Dance of Dragons”, they become the catalyst for the first major death of the second season. Actors Sam C. Wilson and Mark Stobbart, who play Blood and Cheese in House of the Dragon, respectively, talk about the secretive process of their hiring and how they were able to jumpstart the signature gruesome tone for the second season.
[SPOILERS AHEAD FOR HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S02E01]
Casting Blood and Cheese in HOTD
With Blood and Cheese behind one of the most important deaths in Fire & Blood, the showrunners wanted to ensure that anyone who read the books didn’t see it coming. According to Entertainment Weekly, they had to lie to Wilson and Stobbart during the audition process and were given different lines and names.
“I didn't have any inkling as to who it could be. I didn't know the world,” Stobbart tells EW, “There was a name... It was Borris and Charlie instead of Blood and Cheese." They also had no idea that they would be beheading the royal prince, and the scripts they practised instead just had them planning to kidnap the boy.
This also wasn’t part of the secrecy, but the role was said to have initially sought “decent comedy chops.” As shooting continued, the humour became a bit more toned down, and fans instead got the build-up to the beheading of a young child.
Blood and Cheese in the Books
Though the implication of a bunch of bumbling assassins killing a child is already pretty horrible enough, the scene from the books is actually a lot darker.
Originally, the two assassins Blood and Cheese snuck into the castle and held Alicent hostage and, they tied her up as they waited for Helaena to bring in her three children—Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor— to see their grandmother.
Once Helaena comes in, they snatch the children and force her to pick which son should die. After she offers herself, Cheese then threatens to have Blood rape Jaehaera. Forced to choose, Helaena decides to have the youngest Maelor killed, but Cheese then decides to have Blood kill Jaehaerys, and he whispers to Maelor that his mother wanted him killed.
It’s ultimately more devious in the books, which is kind of a relief that they decided to tone it down for the TV series; but in the books, Jaehaerys is killed in one swift stroke of a sword—in the series, audiences have to listen to the jagged sounds of the sawing of a child’s neck.
Pretty much on-brand for a property like Game of Thrones.
Fans don’t expect Blood and Cheese to show up again, but their actions have definitely led to huge consequences—officially sparking the war between the Greens and the Blacks. From this point, audiences can expect there to be a gathering of alliances, until the show builds up to the inevitable “Dance of Dragons”.
Catch House of the Dragon Sunday nights on Max.
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