“We wanted to create this very colorful character,” Condal said. “The Triarchy has a long history of these very colorful seafaring pirate types. Even though it was a minor character in the book, if we were going to make such a big deal out of the Greens cutting a deal with their sworn enemy, you wanted to have a character to hang your hat on. It’s not just Tyland. It’s going to be Tyland and his relationship with Sharako and her fleet.”
Condal also provided some insight into the admiral’s gender identity, saying “Sharako was always envisioned as a female character, period. One-hundred percent.” Lohar is played by a woman – Abigail Thorn, who recently became the first out trans performer in Star Wars history when she portrayed Eurus in The Acolyte. Any ambiguity regarding Lohar’s identity arises only from the Triarchy representatives introducing her to Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) as “he.” According to Condal, that confusion is the Triarchy’s alone.
“The fun of it is that this character is being interpreted by a modern audience looking into the story and seeing her in a very clear way. Then you have the way that these very backwards Medieval people interpret the presence of this character who is the most powerful military person in the Triarchy, who runs this massive fleet. Though she is a woman, she needs to present herself and be perceived in a certain way in order to lead this very large company of otherwise mostly men,” he says.
Though Lohar was updated significantly for House of the Dragon, the character does seem to borrow a bit from another unrelated figure presented in Fire & Blood. A Tyroshi sea captain known as Racallio Ryndoon operated in roughly the same historical as Lohar and he shares some of her traits. Like Lohar, Ryndoon had many wives and was described as “curious” and “flamboyant” but nevertheless beloved by his men. He was also known to occasionally dress as a woman.
