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[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the House of the Dragon season three finale.]
Exiting the penultimate season of House of the Dragon, several season one alums who started the series are no long with us: Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Harry Collett as Jacerys Targaryen, Fabien Frankel as Criston Cole, just to name a few. One original cast member, however, is very much still with us, even if it looked pretty touch-and-go for a while there: Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, played with royal gravitas by Steve Toussaint.
The Sea Snake started season three in the midst of the largest naval battle ever seen in the Game of Thrones universe. He survived that, despite a brief period where it appeared he’d been killed in action. Later, after Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) refused to legitimize his bastard sons, Corlys publicly calls out the queen’s hypocrisy with her own children, and somehow manages to keep his head on his shoulders. Later still, after waging a private war against the crown’s defectors, Corlys ends up in the hands of the Hightowers in Tumbleton — and he survives that only by the good grace of Gwayne (Freddie Fox) exchanging Corlys to Daemon (Matt Smith) as a peace offering.
