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Why Baelor Targaryen Has Dark Hair & How It Sets Up Jon Snow Not Becoming King in Game of Thrones
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1, Episode 2, “Hard Salt Beef,” introduces a different kind of Targaryen. Whereas many who’ve filled the screen, especially in House of the Dragon, are somewhere from arrogant and power-mad to cruel and, well, just plain mad, Prince Baelor Targaryen is a little more like Daenerys before she got too high on the idea of “fire and blood”: kinder, more honorable, with nobler ideals for the type of Westeros they could create under their rule.
What also stands Baelor apart, though, is his dark hair, a departure from the typical silver-blonde Valyrian locks we’re used to seeing (and a break from the wigs or hair dye others have to use for actor Bertie Carvel). Baelor’s mother was a Dornishwoman, Myriah Martell, and he took after her in the hair department (his brother Maekar also appears in the show, and does have Valyrian locks).
Genetics and hair color in particular has been important in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon when it comes to bastards: it helped Ned Stark realize Joffrey Baratheon wasn’t King Robert’s trueborn son, and it’s a big clue to the realm that Rhaenyra Targaryen’s children with Laenor Velaryon were actually fathered by Harwin Strong. There’s no question over Baelor’s heritage, but it does link him to another “bastard”: Jon Snow, who was in truth a dark-haired Targaryen.
Dark Haired Targaryens Don’t Become King (Or Queen) In Westeros
Baelor is part of a trend in Westeros: dark-haired Targaryens who, for one reason or another, don’t become king or queen even when they have a great claim to the Iron Throne. He himself is heir during A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1’s timeline, but, as Game of Thrones history tells us, he doesn’t even up actually becoming king (and the same is true for his son, who also has brown hair). And he wasn’t the first, nor the last.
In the books, House of the Dragon‘s Rhaenys Targaryen has the black hair of her Targaryen mother, though this was changed for the TV show. She had a particularly strong claim as the only child of the heir to King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, Aemon; when Aemon died, however, and Jaehaerys had to choose a new heir, Rhaenys’ uncle Baelon was selected instead. After Baelon then died, Jaehaerys convened a Great Council (which is depicted at the very outside of HOTD) to pick his successor, where Rhaenys was overlooked in favor of Viserys on account of her sex (and the dark hair didn’t help).
Later down the line, there is also Prince Duncan Targaryen, another with dark hair who is heir to the throne. He actually ends up abdicating his position so that he can remain with the lowborn woman he loved and had controversially married. And then, of course, we get to Jon Snow himself: the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, he is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne but, as he may have mentioned once or twice, didn’t want it, and his hair color should’ve been a clue all along that he was never going to become king.
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms release Sundays at 10pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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