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Spoilers below.
The House of the Dragon season 2 finale did something that most season finales rarely do: It introduced a new character. Sharako Lohar, a powerful admiral for the Triarchy, appears in the opening minutes of “The Queen Who Ever Was” when Tyland Lannister arrives on a faraway island, aiming to win the Triarchy’s massive ship fleet over to the Green Team’s cause.
Lannister is told that in order to form the alliance, he must first impress the admiral, which is no easy feat. She immediately challenges him to a mud wrestling match, stating that she will not commit to sharing her fleet unless he bests her in the brawl. Eventually, Lannister pushes her around enough in the ring, and soon, it’s not just the fleet that he’s won; Lohar also announces that she’d like him to have her children. But they don’t go to bed in typical Game of Thrones fashion. Instead, she clarifies that she’d like him to sleep with her many wives.
Director Geeta Vasant Patel told ELLE.com that writer Sara Hess described Lohar as “bonkers” in the episode’s script. Patel and openly trans actor Abigail Thorn, who portrays Lohar on screen, spent many hours doing character work to establish her immediately in a short amount of time. Lohar will likely be around for the final two seasons of House of the Dragon, so here’s what to know about the bawdy and formidable new character.
Sharako Lohar is a male character in the book.
In our first brushes with Lohar, she’s a proud, quirky, and tough sailor that forces everyone to prove their worth to be in her presence, which is in line with the character portrayed in George R.R. Martin’s source material. The only change? In the book, Lohar is a man.
In Lannister’s initial meeting with the Triarchy council in the finale, Lohar is repeatedly referred to as a man, even though the HotD creative team and Thorn refer to her with she/her pronouns. In the official House of the Dragon podcast, showrunner Ryan Condal confirms that she is misgendered by her peers due to her leadership position. “This is a woman in a man’s role as a fleet commander and this is a highly patriarchal society,” Condal explained. “All these salty sea dogs she’s surrounded with, all these men, their brains cannot process the idea that they’re saluting a woman who’s leading this massive fleet of ships at the end. So, she presents herself as a masculine character in the classic sense and then they sort of just accept it. And that’s why they all follow her.”
Additionally, on Instagram, Thorn wrote that Lohar is “a woman who goes beyond society’s understanding of what she ought to be. In the episode we see her commanders don’t understand her but she doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks!”
Lohar will be an important piece of the impending Battle of the Gullet.
Near the end of the finale, we see the fleets from both the blacks and greens’ armies and allies setting sail toward the impending war, and book readers will know that the blockade set in motion by the House Velaryon will end in the bloodiest sea battle in Game of Thrones history. When the fleets meet, the devastating Battle of the Gullet will commence and Lohar will lead ships from Tyroshi, Myrish, and Lyseni communities into battle. Dragons also enter the mix, and the battle results in heavy losses for both sides. In the lore, Lohar later faced criticism for placing his own house’s ships (Lyseni) above the other houses, which lost their fleet almost in entirety during the battle while 25 Lyseni ships survived.
Following the sea battle in the book, Lohar ultimately meets his end after the Targaryen civil war. Likely stemming from the bad blood in the aftermath of the Battle of the Gullet, Lohar is murdered via an alleged political move by Myr, which sparks the war between the cities of Myr, Tyrosh, and Lys.
Abigail Thorn as Lohar (left) and Jefferson Hall as Tyland Lannister (right).
Abigail Thorn rose to fame on YouTube.
Prior to her turn on HBO, Thorn was most prominently known as the face of Philosophy Tube, an educational YouTube channel that launched in 2013 with the mission to “give away a philosophy degree for free.” Thorn created the channel in response to higher education tuition fees nearly tripling in 2012, which made university less accessible to the masses. The first video covered philosopher Rene Descartes in a straight-to-camera style, and has since evolved into theatrical productions with costumes and makeup. The channel hit one million subscribers in 2021. The channel served as an entry point into acting for Thorn: prior to House of the Dragon, she appeared in the BBC series Ladhood, the film Django, and the Star Wars series The Acolyte.
Thorn came out as a trans woman in a video titled “Coming Out As Trans—A Little Public Statement” in January 2021. Since then, she has advocated for trans rights, telling London Pride in June 2024 that “until we have full equality with cisgender people in this country…we will continue taking to the streets and disrupting the Capitol as often as we can.”
Radhika Menon is a freelance entertainment writer, with a focus on TV and film. Her writing can be found on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Bustle, and more.