Making sense of House of the Dragon season 2’s side characters so far

polygon.com:

House of the Dragon is absolutely awash in characters, and they can be hard to keep track of even when you see them on screen constantly. But now that the second season has begun, the show’s world is expanding, which means we’re starting to see some new characters we don’t know how to fit into the world just yet. And while some of them aren’t in much of the show, a few others seem to be pretty important.

This kind of scope-widening is pretty typical for the second season of a TV show — after all, Game of Thrones season 2 was a massive expansion from the first. Of course, we’ll eventually find out a little bit more about each of these characters and how they fit into the Dance of Dragons, but for now, here’s a brief update on the new faces and what we know about them.

[Ed note: This post contains descriptions of characters from the first two episodes of House of the Dragon season 2, but does not have spoilers for anything later in the season.]

Hugh is the blacksmith who asked Aegon for extra money for the smiths in season 2’s first episode — just after Aegon heard the complaint from the farmer. While he may not have seemed like much of a character then, Hugh showed back up in episode 2, in a scene with his wife, where we get to see the plight of the common people in King’s Landing. While House of the Dragon is certainly making more room to give the audience insight into how the Dance of Dragons is affecting the small folk of Westeros, something about Hugh’s conspicuously silver hair tells us he has a little more to do in this story than just clue us in to the rabble’s discontent.

Addam is the sailor we see briefly in the first two episodes of the season. He meets with Corlys Velaryon, who thanks him for saving his life and pulling him from the sea after their fleet was ambushed. We also see Addam’s brother Alyn. But other than those two facts, his purpose remains far more mysterious than anyone else this season so far.