SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max.
At last, Lord Ormund Hightower (James Norton) is no more. And he’s just one of countless casualties in the “House of the Dragon” Season 3 finale during the climactic fight between the Blacks and the Greens at Tumbleton.
After being stabbed in the ass by Northmen Roddy the Ruin (Tommy Flanagan), Ulf’s (Tom Bennett) dragon suddenly roars in from above and takes them both out in a giant ball of fire. While fans of George R. R. Martin’s book “Fire & Blood” will have expected Roddy’s involvement in Ormund’s death, the dragon was an added and bitterly ironic touch.
“I knew it was going to be a big, delicious death,” Norton tells Variety. “It happens a lot with this show where they push it to the extreme. When they realize where the boundary is, they pull it back a bit. So there was originally a version where Ormund gets impaled like 20 times!”
Norton joined the “House of the Dragon” family this season as the villainous Ormund, the head of House Hightower who is set on overtaking Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) by setting up his ward and cousin, Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), to become the next king of Westeros. Daeron betrays Ormund after being officially knighted by him earlier in the episode, and the two never get a proper goodbye.
