Major House Stark Member Officially Revealed in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Trailer

House of the Dragon took the focus away from House Stark and put it on House Targaryen, but in Season 2 we’ll spend more time with the Lord of Winterfell during this time period, Cregan Stark. HBO released the trailer for the new season this weekend, along with a lot of casting news. They confirmed that Cregan Stark will be in the new season, played by actor Tom Taylor.

Taylor is best known for playing Jake in The Dark Tower film adaptation in 2019, though more recently starred in the Netflix original rom-com Love at First Sight. He takes on a fan-favorite role in House of the Dragon – assuming he can capture the character described in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire and Blood. Cregan Stark is in his early 20s at the time of this series, and has already endured some major tragedies. The stoic Warden of the North will resist getting entangled in the Targaryen civil war to the south, much like Ned Stark resisted traveling south in Game of Thrones.

For those unaware, Fire and Blood is a fictional history book that covers about 150 years – from the time the Targaryens conquered Westeros about 300 years before Game of Thrones until the end of the civil war known as the “Dance of the Dragons” – about 150 years before Game of Thrones. This means the in-world historian character writing the book is an unreliable narrator, and we don’t meet characters as intimately as we would in a traditional novel. Still, we know enough about Cregan to imagine how this introduction will go.

We are told in the book that Cregan was raised to become the Lord of Winterfell from birth, even if his early life was marred by tragedy. He lost his younger brother at the age of 11 and lost his father at the age of 13. Since Cregan was not yet a legal adult, he had to allow his ambitious uncle to rule as Regent for several more years. Finally, at the age of 18 Cregan overthrew his uncle and imprisoned him. At 20, Cregan married his childhood friend Lady Arra Norrey, but two years later she died in childbirth while having their first son.

Fans may be able to imagine how that loss, in particular, might make Cregan naturally sympathetic to Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) when choosing sides in this war. As you may recall, at the end of Season 1 Rhaenyra sent her own sons flying to great Houses to seek their support. The season ended spectacularly with Prince Lucerys’ (Elliot Grihault) fateful visit to Storm’s End, but at the same time Prince Jacaerys (Harry Collet) flew off to Winterfell. We haven’t seen how that meeting played out yet.

Jace’s time in Winterfell is one of the most interesting and mysterious portions of the book, clouded by the historical voice of Fire and Blood. Many fans are hoping to get some answers in the TV version and spend some time at their favorite northern castle. House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres in the Summer of 2024 on HBO and Max. Season 1 is streaming now on Max. Fire and Blood and all the other A Song of Ice and Fire books are available now in print, digital, and audiobook formats.