(House of the Dragon spoilers will be found below.)
The second season premiere of House of the Dragon culminated in the Blood and Cheese scene while also creating quite a stir with the debut of Queen Alicent and Ser Criston Cole’s messy, compromising position. And while Criston is goofing off instead of acting like Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, two other knights are actually doing their jobs. They would be Sers Arryk and Erryk, those twins who were highlighted last season by my colleague Jessica Toomer as an example of how this show has such a grand time with names:
(Side note: Perhaps this moment ^^^ was the deciding factor that made Erryk join Team Black? Food for thought.)
Of course, celebrating names like Arryk and Erryk is much easier than attempting to make sure that “Jaecaerys,” “Jaehaerys,” and “Jaehaera” along with “Rhaenyra,” “Rhaenys,” and “Rhaena” are treated distinctively as well as spelled correctly. Still, they must be kept separate for story purposes, so what would be the key defining difference between Sers Arryk and Erryk, and who portrays them on the Game of Thrones prequel?
In the first season of House of the Dragon, the twins were seen together while serving King Viserys in unity. However, the second season sees them separated both physically and idealistically. Arryk has stayed to support King Aegon II Targaryen and Team Green at King’s Landing, and Erryk took the side of Queen Rhaenyra and Team Black at Dragonstone as seen below.
George R.R. Martin doesn’t spend too terribly much time with the twins in his Fire and Blood book (other than a pivotal moment), but to be fair, most details are sparing (and unreliable) in that entire faux-historical account, and the HBO series does (and will) find them worthy of eventful airtime this season.
For that reason and others, it’s worth noting that Ser Arryk and Erryk are not portrayed by a single actor doing double duty but two real-life identical twins, Luke (as Arryk) and Elliott (as Erryk) Tittensor. They aren’t new on the Hollywood block but have mainly appeared in across-the-pond productions. Both Elliott and Luke previously portrayed Carl Gallagher in over 100 episodes of the original (U.K.) version of Shameless with Elliott taking over the role when Luke departed for U.K. soap opera Emmerdale Farm. Here’s a photo with Luke on the left and Elliott (with his tats, apparently including dragons) on the right.
HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ airs and streams new episodes on Sunday nights.