Is Ser Gwayne Hightower Gay? What ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Actually Reveals

‘House of the Dragon‘ has never been shy about giving its side characters unexpected layers, and Ser Gwayne Hightower is quickly becoming one of the more talked about examples this season. Fans have spent two seasons wondering about the quiet, sharp tongued knight played by Freddie Fox, and season 3 finally started dropping hints that feel too pointed to ignore.

The internet noticed immediately, and the conversation around Gwayne’s sexuality has become one of the more persistent side discussions of this season. Here is what the show has actually said, what George R.R. Martin’s books say, and why the ambiguity might be the point.

What Season 3 Episode 6 Actually Shows

The clearest moment comes in season 3 episode 6, titled Faceless Men, when Gwayne finally arrives at Tumbleton after leaving Ser Criston Cole’s army. Ormund makes several snide comments directed at Gwayne that specifically hint he is gay, including a remark after Gwayne mentions being unable to sleep in a bed for weeks.

The tension between the cousins is immediate and pointed. Several veiled comments in their initial conversation seem to allude to Gwayne being gay, which represents a departure from the book that so far doesn’t carry much narrative weight either way.

That framing matters, since it suggests the show is planting this detail deliberately rather than treating it as a passing joke.

The dynamic escalates once Daeron Targaryen and Gwayne are left alone. Daeron escorts Gwayne back to his room, giving the two a chance to speak without Ormund’s presence looming over the conversation. Critics have picked up on the same subtext, with one review noting that Ormund’s insinuations make him at once the most outwardly homophobic and sexist character currently on the show.

Ormund Hightower’s Insinuations Explained

Ormund’s behavior toward his cousin has become a talking point of its own, largely because of how pointed and repeated the digs are. The comment about Gwayne not sleeping in a bed for weeks is not an isolated jab, it fits a pattern of Ormund needling Gwayne about his masculinity and his choices throughout their scenes together at Tumbleton.

Reviewers have leaned into just how uncomfortable this dynamic is meant to feel. One recap pointed out that the show seems to be using Ormund’s cruelty to characterize him rather than to make a definitive statement about Gwayne himself, since actor James Norton is so delightful in the role that audiences love to hate him despite the character’s ugliness.

It is worth remembering that Ormund and Gwayne’s relationship was already strained before any of this subtext appeared. The elder Hightower talks down to his cousin and treats him as beneath his station, so the insinuations about Gwayne’s sexuality read as one more tool Ormund uses to assert dominance rather than an organic reveal.

Fans on social media have run with the subtext far more explicitly than the show has, with some viewers pairing Gwayne with Ser Criston Cole in fan created content well before this episode aired. Whether the show intends to confirm anything definitively remains unclear, but the groundwork has clearly been laid.

Gwayne and Criston Cole in the Show and the Books

Much of the speculation around Gwayne traces back to his complicated relationship with Ser Criston Cole, which has been a defining thread of his television arc. On the show, Gwayne’s story has largely been that of the rational, straight man sidekick to the egotistical Hand of the King, Ser Criston Cole, with the pair sharing victories at Duskendale and the costly win at Rook’s Rest.

Their dynamic was not always friendly. According to the Wiki of Westeros, Gwayne once brandished his sword and confronted Cole over his relationship with Alicent, accusing him of breaking his Kingsguard vows, only for Cole to question whether anything men do matters in a war between dragons. That confrontation silenced Gwayne, and the two ultimately sat down together rather than coming to blows.

The books tell a very different story for this character entirely. In George R.R. Martin’s source material, Gwayne serves as second in command of the Goldcloaks after Rhaenyra takes King’s Landing, tasked with spying on his own commander, a suspected Black sympathizer. There is no romantic subtext attached to him in Fire and Blood, and his arc plays out in an entirely different setting than the show’s Tumbleton storyline.

It is also worth noting that the show has already made Gwayne one of its most significant book departures by keeping him alive well past the point where he dies at the First Battle of Tumbleton in Fire and Blood. Given how far the series has already strayed from the source material with this character, any sexuality subtext introduced now would be entirely a television invention rather than something pulled from Martin’s text.

Is Gwayne Hightower Actually Confirmed to Be Gay?

As of the most recent episode, ‘House of the Dragon’ has not given Gwayne an explicit confirmation either way. What exists so far is subtext delivered through another character’s mockery, which is a very different thing than the show stating anything directly about Gwayne himself.

That distinction has not stopped the theorizing. Since his introduction, fans have wondered and speculated about Freddie Fox’s portrayal, and this episode is the first time the show has given the audience concrete dialogue to point to rather than pure inference.

There is also the matter of tone to consider. The insinuations come from Ormund, a character the show has positioned as cruel and small minded, which complicates any reading of the moment as a straightforward reveal versus a reflection of Ormund’s own prejudices.

With several episodes still left in the season, there is room for the show to either confirm, complicate, or simply drop this thread entirely. Given how much time ‘House of the Dragon’ has spent building out Gwayne’s role beyond his book counterpart, it would not be surprising if this becomes a bigger piece of his story before the season ends.

Do you think ‘House of the Dragon’ is setting up a real answer for Gwayne, or is Ormund’s cruelty the whole point of this storyline?