'House of the Dragon' Season 2, episode 3 has a literal Daenerys Easter egg

Fans of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) are in for a treat with House of the Dragon Season 2, episode 3.

The episode sees Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) send her youngest children to the Vale for safety, with the hope that her sons Aegon and Viserys can travel even farther to Pentos later on. She asks Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) to accompany them, along with their fledgling dragons, Tyraxes and Stormcloud, and four very fragile dragon eggs.

Three of the eggs — one gold, one green, and one reddish-black — look very familiar, matching up with the colors of the eggs Daenerys receives from Illyrio Mopatis (Roger Allam) in the pilot of Game of Thrones. Could Rhaena be guarding these same eggs, over a century before they reach Daenerys?

The answer, according to episode 3 director Geeta Vasant Patel, is yes. "Those are Daenerys' eggs," Patel confirmed to Mashable. "All of us who work on this show are big Game of Thrones fans, so it was very exciting to shoot that scene."

At least three of these four eggs hatch, eventually. Credit: Screenshot: HBO

These being Daenerys' eggs does mark a bit of a change from House of the Dragon's source material, Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin. In the book, Martin highly implies that Daenerys' eggs made their way to Essos long before the Dance of the Dragons, during the reign of Jaehaerys I. The person responsible was noblewomen Elissa Farman, gifted sailor and lover of Princess Rhaena Targaryen (not to be confused with House of the Dragon's Rhaena). After Rhaena and Elissa's relationship soured, Elissa stole three dragon eggs from Dragonstone and sailed to Braavos. There, she sold the eggs to the Sealord of Braavos and used the gold to fund further sailing adventures.

Elissa's time in Braavos is where mention of those three eggs ends, but given the number of eggs and the fact that they end up in Essos, it's not hard to believe that these eggs could have been passed around for generations before finding their way to Daenerys. Like so much of Fire & Blood, though, there's enough historical ambiguity here to leave things uncertain and make space for House of the Dragon to play around.

Rhaena chaperoning Daenerys' eggs does create some interesting opportunities. For starters, it's not entirely out of keeping with the books. She does take three eggs with her to the Vale, where one of them hatches into her dragon, Morning. (Perhaps Morning will hatch from the fourth, silvery blue egg we see in House of the Dragon?) Adding a fourth egg to that nest isn't the wildest change in the world. The question becomes: How do these eggs make their way from the Vale to Essos? Will Rhaena, Aegon, and Viserys make their way to Pentos? Will someone steal them away, following in Elissa Farman's footsteps?

Thematically, Rhaena's proximity to Daenerys' eggs also makes sense. As Rhaenyra tells her, these eggs are the Targaryens' "hope for the future." Even if war with Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) goes horribly wrong (which it certainly does), these eggs represent a chance for the Targaryen dragonriding tradition to continue. It's comforting, then, to know that these eggs eventually make their way to Daenerys.

Rhaena's involvement here also points to how she and her twin sister Baela (Bethany Antonia) are taking on a bigger role this season. "The other part of [the egg scene] is Rhaena saying goodbye and giving up her family in order to be a leader," Patel explained.

And what better way to be a leader than to usher in the next generation of House Targaryen and their dragons?

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.