Spoiler warning: Major spoilers for the House of the Dragon season 3 premiere.
House of the Dragon is back for season 3, and the long-awaited Battle of the Gullet has already claimed major casualties.
Among them is Admiral Sharako Lohar, played by Abigail Thorn, whose time in Westeros came to a bloody end during the season premiere. The episode, titled “Sand and Smoke, Fire and Blood”, sees Lohar’s Triarchy fleet aligned with Aegon II Targaryen as the naval battle erupts.
The pirate commander, known for defying gender expectations and, iconically, having several wives, quickly became a scene-stealer after her introduction. For Thorn, saying goodbye to the character was bittersweet.
“It was just such a gift as an actor to get to plan and execute that kind of arc, and to be trusted to bring it home like that on the biggest show in the world. It’s so wonderful,” Thorn says.
In the premiere, Lohar’s fleet sits at the centre of the long-awaited battle. But despite her pact with the Greens, she has her own personal mission: killing Lord Corlys Velaryon, played by Steve Toussaint.
“She’s just a woman who kills people,” Thorn says of her character.
That fixation drives Lohar to break from her allies and pursue Corlys, leading to a brutal fight at sea. She gets her confrontation with the Sea Snake, but the encounter ends with Corlys falling into the water, his fate left unclear.
That is enough to send Corlys’ bastard son, Alyn of Hull, played by Abubakar Salim, after Lohar in a rage. Their fight ends with Alyn killing the admiral.
“It was pretty emotionally tough [filming that scene],” Thorn says. “It’s hard to be strangled to death 20 times a day, but I think I was really happy with the work that we did, and it’s a treat as an actor to get to plan and execute that kind of a scene.”
Thorn says one unexpected moment during filming helped define Lohar’s final seconds.
“What I loved about it was there is this wonderful lucky moment where as Abubakar lifted me out of the water, all the blood washed off her face, and she’s just so clean. In her final moments you see a woman being murdered, being strangled to death by a much bigger man, and she’s afraid,” she says.
For Thorn, choosing Lohar’s emotional state in that moment mattered.
“It’s the first time we ever see the character afraid of anything,” she says.
That fear marks a striking contrast to the commanding, chaotic and sexually forward pirate leader viewers had come to know.
“To play a woman who kicks ass is so refreshing”
Thorn says she took the show’s action demands seriously, training hard for Lohar’s fight sequences.
“I studied so hard and trained so hard for the action sequences,” she says.
She was supported by stunt performers whose credits included doubling for Captain America, Deadpool and Wonder Woman.
“Loni [Peristere, executive producer] would go on set and he’d say ‘You’re Linda Hamilton in Terminator. You’re Sigourney Weaver in Alien. You’re a superhero, let’s go,’” Thorn says.
“To play a woman who kicks ass is so refreshing.”
Thorn will also be seen in the 2026 science-fiction film Again Again, which recently had its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival. Her previous credits include Ladhood, Django and The Acolyte.
House of the Dragon has become notable for LGBTQ+ representation both on and off-screen. Lead actor Emma D’Arcy, who plays Rhaenyra Targaryen, is non-binary, while Thorn brings trans representation to the series through a character who challenges Westerosi gender norms.
Sharako Lohar stole the show last season when she propositioned Tyland Lannister, asking if he would father children with her wives.
The line clearly left an impression.
Thorn recalls a man approaching her and asking her to sign his book with “the line”.
“I was like ‘I know what line you mean, man.’ I write ‘I want you to fuck my wives’ in the book. And in my head I’m thinking, ‘I really hope that’s the line you meant.’”
With Lohar now gone, Thorn leaves behind one of House of the Dragon’s strangest, boldest and most memorable characters — a pirate commander who arrived like a storm and exited in blood, seawater and fire.
