Warning: this article contains spoilersThe Battle of the Gullet has claimed Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.The season three premiere of House of the Dragon, now streaming on OSN+ in the Middle East, ends with Harry Collett’s character killed after flying into battle on his dragon, Vermax. Jace joins the fight after stopping Rhaenyra Targaryen from entering the conflict herself, leaving her forces to face the Triarchy at sea.Collett, who has played Rhaenyra’s eldest son since the first season, finds the moment to be bittersweet.“I’m just grateful to have even been in this show in the first place,” Collett tells The National. “I’ve met friends for life. It’s about the time I have on this job, and that has been the time of a lifetime.”Jace’s final sequence is one of the premiere’s most impactful moments. After Vermax is brought down during the battle, Jace falls into the water and resurfaces among the wreckage before being struck by arrows.Collett says filming the critically acclaimed scene was harder than he expected.“It was crazy,” he says. “I basically felt like I was in the water tank the entire time, but I wasn’t.The final sequence was harder to film than expected, says Collett. Photo: HBOInfo“Jace has never really stepped out of the castle, so to be able to do that and do the battle scenes was actually really sick. It was a lot. It was harder than I expected as well to even keep my eyes open in the water. All the little things that you’d think would be easy are just not, and the waves are so strong as well.”He adds: “It was very challenging, but in the best way possible. I had a lot of fun.”Throughout filming, Collett, 22, says music helped him find the energy of the role. His playlist, he says, was “a mixture of old soul and mostly house music”.“I’d even play it on set sometimes, and I'd get told off,” he says. “I love it. It gives me adrenaline listening to it. That’s why I’m a raver.”The death comes after Jace increasingly pushes back against Rhaenyra’s decisions, while also trying to prove himself as her heir. Collett says that tension, which comes to a head in the episode, should not be read as a lack of faith.While Jace betrays his mother's trust in the episode, his disobedience is not meant as a rebuke. Photo: HBOInfo“He knows his mother can rule,” Collett says. “He’s just being a grumpy teenager. He does have good ideas, but he’s also being a protective son, which I think is really nice.”That protectiveness shapes his final act. Jace keeps Rhaenyra away from the battle and flies in her place, a choice that leaves her without her eldest son and named heir.“I think we have a great mother-son relationship in the show, which you don’t get to see a lot,” Collett says. “I think it’s lovely that he’s looking after her, because it does matter to the rest of the line in the future.”Jace’s death leaves Rhaenyra facing another major loss in the Targaryen civil war. Her younger son, Lucerys, was killed by Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar at the end of season one, an event that helped push the conflict beyond the point of negotiation.Collett joined House of the Dragon after the first season's time jump in 2022, as the series moved further into the rivalry between Rhaenyra and Aegon II. Much of Jace’s story has been shaped by questions of succession, family loyalty and rumours around his parentage.The scale of the series, Collett says, was clearest on the Dragonstone sets.Collett was in awe of the sets built for the show's third season. Photo: HBOInfo“I’m sick of that room, because Jace is in it all the time, but that painted table room is still astonishing now,” he says. “It looks exactly how it does on screen. The ceilings are really high, the table glows, obviously not by fire but by light.“The first time I walked in there and I saw it, and you’ve got all the set designers spraying everything to make it look like we’re in a cave, that was my wow.”Watching the finished episodes after the visual effects have been added gives him another version of that. While filming, the sets are there in front of him, but the dragons, battles and scale of the world only fully arrive later. “We don’t get to see and hear that,” he says. “That’s why I watch it, because I get to see the aftermath.”With Jace’s story now over, Collett will keep watching House of the Dragon from the other side of the screen, waiting to see how the world he helped imagine finally comes together.House of the Dragon season three continues weekly on OSN+