How the Triarchy Became ‘House of the Dragon’s’ Most Dangerous Wildcard
Few forces in ‘House of the Dragon’ carry as much historical weight as the Triarchy, the pirate alliance from Essos that refuses to stay on the margins of Westerosi history. The alliance is made up of the Free Cities of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, and while their kind of coalition has come and gone throughout Essos over the centuries, the Triarchy’s prolonged involvement in the Stepstones and the Dance of the Dragons gave it an outsized impact on the fate of Westeros. For viewers just now piecing together how a band of pirates ended up in the middle of a Targaryen civil war, the answer lies in decades of blood, economics, and very personal grudges.
The alliance was established roughly seven years before the events of ‘House of the Dragon,’ with its original purpose being to unite the three cities against Volantis during conflicts in the Disputed Lands. Following that victory, the coalition expanded its influence and began asserting control over crucial maritime routes, which eventually brought the Triarchy into direct conflict with Corlys Velaryon and Daemon Targaryen. Their campaign across the Stepstones wasn’t just a military skirmish. It was a prolonged, brutal proxy war that forged reputations and planted the seeds of resentment that would bloom violently generations later.
The Triarchy’s original goal was to invade the Stepstones and purge them of dangers, opening up free and safe trade. This was all well and good for the Seven Kingdoms until the tolls became painfully high, at which point Corlys Velaryon took issue. His decision to recruit Daemon Targaryen and wage an unsanctioned war against the alliance set in motion a feud that the Greens would eventually exploit during the Dance of the Dragons. In the Season 2 finale, Tyland Lannister visited the Triarchy on behalf of the Greens, successfully forming an alliance by offering them gold and dominion over the Stepstones.
That deal delivered one of the most explosive openings in the show’s history. ‘House of the Dragon’ returned for its third season by kicking off the Battle of the Gullet, described as the single most devastating naval battle in Westeros’ history. The clash saw a fleet of Triarchy pirates ambush the Sea Snake’s blockade in the waterway through which nearly all trade to King’s Landing passes. What looked like a calculated military operation quickly became something far more personal, as Triarchy admiral Sharako Lohar, played by Abigail Thorn, made clear her intentions had little to do with Green politics and everything to do with vengeance.
Speaking about the character, Thorn described Sharako as simply “a woman who kills people,” noting that her personal motivation in the battle was to kill Lord Corlys Velaryon by any means necessary, despite any pact she had made with the Greens. That fixation cost her everything. Abubakar Salim, who plays Alyn of Hull, described the moment he drowned Lohar as going into “a dark place,” noting that what began as choreographed fighting turned into “primal exhaustion,” ending with Alyn stabbing her in the neck.
In George R.R. Martin’s ‘Fire and Blood,’ Lohar actually survives, and the seeds of the Triarchy’s dissolution are planted not by death but by suspicion, as most of the ships that returned home were Lysene, leading Myr and Tyrosh to accuse Lohar of holding back his own fleet. That distrust eventually ignites the Daughters’ War, a civil conflict that destroys the alliance from within. Martin himself notes that this conflict falls outside the primary scope of the Dance of the Dragons narrative, so viewers should probably temper expectations about seeing it fully dramatized in future episodes.
The Triarchy may be fading as a force by the time ‘House of the Dragon’ ends, but its fingerprints are all over the war’s most decisive moments. With Lohar gone and the alliance fracturing, the question now is how much of the pirate coalition’s collapse ‘House of the Dragon’ chooses to show, and whether you think the show made the right call by killing off Sharako Lohar so early.
