And The Dance Begins
HBO's House of the Dragon is a triumphant return to the land of Westeros
I was decidedly late to the Game of Thrones party. Despite being a huge fan of fantasy mainstays like The Lord of the Rings and Skyrim, the fact of Thrones’ overwhelming popularity in a strange way made me less interested in the show— would I really enjoy something with this amount of mainstream appeal? And then, of course, there’s the fact that it took one of the most the drastic nosedives in quality of any show in history. I didn’t know too much about the show, but I knew that. Maybe it sounds here like my decision not to watch the show was a considered one, but really it just wasn’t available on the streaming platforms I had access to, and so I simply dismissed the show out of hand. After all, if the show was going to play to the lowest common denominator, and wouldn’t be able to stick the landing, why bother?
(Spoilers ahead)
That all changed my last semester of college. I lived in an apartment with four other guys, and our Saturday morning routine was pretty predictable— wake up around 10, recap Friday night, complain about how hungover we were, go get food, and then come back and watch youtube on our big TV for an hour or so, before starting on homework for the day. Most of the time, we’d watch podcast clips, music videos, and war documentaries, but one particular Saturday one of the guys said, “let’s watch the battle of the bastards.” After explaining it’s one of the battles from Thrones, I thought, Oh yeah, that super popular TV show I never got around to watching. Well, I’m sure it’ll be interesting, at least. But when Jon Snow gets up off his fallen horse… turns to see an entire cavalry charging… and calmly unsheathes his sword and flings away the scabbard, and turns to face the charge… you know, that scene… with goosebumps running up my arm and a chill down my spine, I realized— This here is… something special. No ordinary TV show could pull off something like this. Here I was, having never watched the show, but in the space of a few minutes, I was already emotionally invested in the battle. Jon Snow had won me over without speaking a single word. And then, of course, there’s the battle itself. It’s not above criticism— mainly due to Jon Snow’s plot armor— but to this day, it’s one of my favorite epic fantasy battles. I’ve never seen the brutality and total chaos of a medieval battle so well captured, from the bloody turmoil of the initial cavalry clash to the fact that by the end, the soldiers are fighting on top of piles of bodies.
So armed with a friend’s Amazon Prime account, my roommates and I jumped into the show. And damn, from the first episode, I was hooked. I expected a show that pandered and held its viewer’s hands, but I was thrilled to be wrong— here was a true masterpiece of a show, where every line of dialogue was important, well-written, engaging, and efficient, where 20+ well-written, three-dimensional, and interesting characters could tell a compelling story, in a richly textured and beautifully crafted world. Every night, I eagerly anticipated gathering my roommates for another installment in the story of the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, Targaryens, and others. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next, which characters would die, or what other surprises the writers had up their sleeves.
That is, for most of the show’s run.
The show runners, whose names I couldn’t be bothered to look up, were revealed to have pushed George R. R. Martin out of the creative process of the show at around the halfway mark. And from there, the series began to die a slow and painful death. I’ve been rewatching the show as I’ve been reading the books, and have come to the conclusion that the first four of the show’s eight seasons are its absolute best. Seasons 5 and 6 are still mostly great, although they’re decidedly more of a mixed bag. It’s not until season 7, though, that the cracks start to become obvious. During my first watch of the show, this was where I really started to notice a dip in quality. But given six previous seasons of development and plot, I was still emotionally invested in the characters, and kept watching. But it was the last season that really put the final nail in the coffin. Managing the astonishing feat of having each episode be worse then the last, the dumpster fire that is the last season destroyed years of character development and turned what was once in the running for best TV show of all time into show with the worst ending of all time. I knew that everyone hated the ending, but I really hoped that it would just be unsatisfying and not totally out of left field— I won’t spoil it, but the situation is decidedly closer to the latter. A once great artistic achievement rendered nothing but an afterthought, a joke.
Fast forward to the announcement of House of the Dragon. I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this announcement, after the roller coaster that was watching Thrones. Also, this wasn’t the first attempt at a successor show; a show called Bloodmoon had been announced and began development but had died in pre-production. Would the bigwigs at HBO learn from their mistakes? The ending of Thrones is one of the most universally hated pieces of TV of all time, with petitions demanding a remake of the last season garnering signatures into the millions. With this sort of backlash, surely they’d have no choice but to listen to some feedback. Right? But on the other hand, the last season of Thrones costed a cool $15 million/episode, so would’ve had to be greenlit by a large group of people, and we all know how that went. So— I was a bit cynical. I figured, most likely we’d land in the middle, with a show that would be okay, but wouldn’t hold a candle to early Thrones. Whether it be an overemphasis on spectacle and violence, or trying to push the message™, any hopes I had for the show were tempered by pessimism leftover from Game of Thrones and the state of Hollywood in general.
But! Having just finished the first season… I’m thrilled to say House of the Dragon blew any expectations I had out of the water. It’s a decidedly triumphant return to the world of Westeros, with a new cast of characters to play the game of thrones but with the same high level of character development and human drama that was present in the original show at its peak. While it shares a world with Thrones, with a similar society and set pieces, this show tells a different sort of a story— whereas Game of Thrones followed a large cast of characters across a sweeping, epic story over a few years, House of the Dragon follows a relatively smaller cast with a more straightforward narrative over a few decades. While the decision to utilize time jumps and the occasional recast has met with a mixed reaction from fans, I thought it was mostly well executed, and speaks to the show’s ability to stand on its own two feet rather then needing to cling to a narrative structure from an entirely different show.
Well, where to begin here? I suppose a brief recap of the plot is a good a place to start as any. The show opens on the ninth year of the reign of Viserys Targaryen, a time of peace and plenty. Viserys is a good and kind man who wants to be a good king, and it’s interesting to see a king, y’know, rule, compared to a lot of what we got in Game of Thrones. Since Viserys only has one daughter, Rhaenyra, and no sons, his hot-headed, loose-cannon of a brother Daemon is heir apparent. I’ll skip over an exact rehash of the plot of the first episode, but suffice to say a series of events occur that end in Rhaenyra being named Princess of Dragonstone, heir to the Iron Throne. Over the next nine episodes Rhaenyra navigates a medieval world of politics, violence, sex, power, ambition— and dragons.
Given the end of the previous show, these showrunners knew they were going to be fighting an uphill battle with House of the Dragon. And to their credit, many aspects of the show and its rollout speak to a thoughtful, deliberate approach. Episodes premiered on a weekly basis, instead of dumping an entire season at once. Story is the focus here, instead of spectacle, so the few action scenes that are present here hit that much harder. Although the overarching story will be a Targaryen civil war (known after as The Dance of the Dragons), the writers choose to spend the first season telling the story of how the realm descended into war, as opposed to a hasty and/or clumsy attempt to give the necessary context in a single scene or episode.
The show also boasts actors and actresses bringing their A-game. From the youthful rebelliousness Milly Alcock brings to young Rhaenyra, to the stately determination Emma D’arcy brings to her older counterpart, Rhaenyra makes for a nuanced and compelling protagonist. Other favorites include married characters Rhaenys Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon, portrayed by Eve Best and Steve Toussaint. Not only are both actors great, but their onscreen chemistry enhances their depth of character. Even when they’re arguing, there’s a warmth to their interactions that really speaks to their acting skills. Also worth mentioning are the performances of Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke, as younger and older versions of Queen Alicent Hightower, one young and hopeful and another more cold and calculating— clearly, playing the game of thrones takes its toll. And of course, later on, a variety of actors and actresses portray the children of Rhaenyra and Alicent, but Ewen Mitchell takes the cake portraying the oldest version of renowned warrior and overall badass Prince Aemond Targaryen.
But I’d be remiss to leave out the two best performances the show has to offer— those of King Viserys and his brother Prince Daemon. In Daemon, played by Matt Smith, we see a character who at first seems to be simply the rogue prince, the ambitious, strong-willed, hot-headed thorn in his brother the king’s side. But as the story moves forward, Daemon proves to be more than meets the eye, with his softer side visible in his later relationships and a begrudging respect for his family. But god damn no one steals the show here like Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen. Although he has the best of intentions— being a good ruler and trying to keep his family together— the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions certainly applies here, as his actions often have the opposite effect to his stated goals, planting the seeds of brutal war to follow his reign. Viserys’ tragic story is in a way the backbone of this first season, and it’s heartbreaking to watch a good man succumb slowly but surely when the pressures of the world are placed on his shoulders. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the scene where Viserys sits the Iron Throne in the third-to-last episode, barely able to walk, in excruciating pain, to reaffirm his support for his daughter and her children one last time. George R. R. Martin himself likes Considine’s portrayal of Viserys over the version present in Fire and Blood, writing in his blog,
I am vastly impressed by the show’s version of King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine, who gives the character a tragic majesty that my book Viserys never quite achieved. Kudos to Paddy, Ryan and his writers, and Miguel and the other directors.
Well-written dialogue, engaging storylines, and great characterization was a hallmark of early Thrones and is present in spades in this show as well. In particular, one aspect of this show that sets it apart from a lot of other modern entertainment is its treatment of its female characters. One of my favorite YouTubers, The Critical Drinker, sums it up nicely—
The world of House of the Dragon is not a forgiving one for any of its characters, and to its credit, it’s equally honest about the harsh reality of being a woman in a place like this. Girls are frequently married off to men they’ve never met while they’re still children. Marriages are political bargaining tools rather than acts of love. They’re not expected to inhabit positions of power and influence, because stuff like that’s never been done before. And when it comes to having children in a world with only the most rudimentary medical technology, each new pregnancy is basically a gamble that can just as easily end in death. The very first episode delivers an unflinching insight into what can happen when giving birth goes wrong, and it’s definitely not a one-off-circumstance… The point I’m making here is that rather than try to push some weak, superficial image of female empowerment by simply turning them into men who can fight and punch just as hard as guys twice their size, it takes a much more honest, believable, and ultimately effective approach. The women of house of the dragon are no physical match for their male counterparts but fuck me you absolutely respect them when you realize what they have to go through. Being mothers enhances their strength of character in this show, instead of holding them back like most of Hollywood seems to believe these days. Compare these genuinely strong and interesting characters to the flaccid, ridiculous, manufactured girl bosses of Rings of Power, and you begin to realize why one show gradually blossomed into a massive win, while the other was mocked and derided as a trashy insult to the source material.
The Drinker always has interesting things to say about modern movies and TV, and it’s nice to see him appreciate a well-crafted show instead of his usual schtick tearing apart crappy TV. His channel is well worth a sub in my opinion, and you can watch his video on House of the Dragon here.
While I loved the show from the jump, it’s not totally above criticism. The first and most obvious issue is the totally uneven aging. While I’ve mentioned a few times that some of the characters are recast to show them growing up, it’s remained unstated that most of the cast remains the same. Although the characters of King Viserys and Lord Lyonel Strong visibly age across episodes, other characters— most notably Daemon Targaryen, Otto Hightower, and Criston Cole— barely change in appearance, if at all. Given that the first season spans 20+ years, this really stretches the bounds of plausibility. Fortunately, however, as far as I know the rest of the story will take place in a much shorter time span, so this issue won’t continue to dog the show. Another issue I had was with a particular plot point, namely when Criston Cole beats Joffrey Lonmouth to death at Rhaenyra’s wedding. And then… no punishment seems to be handed down? In the next episode, he’s in the exact same position, still a member of the Kingsguard. Did he get in any trouble? How did he avoid losing his spot on the Kingsguard? By that particular episode, he’s firmly on team green, so he would’ve had Alicent’s support, which I suppose probably saved him, but we don’t know. We could turn to the book, but in Fire and Blood Joffrey dies during a tourney, falling to Ser Criston’s lance in a joust. So, we’re left to wonder. But fortunately, those are really the only specific criticisms I have. As far as less tangible issues, I thought that Helaena Targaryen was a bit underdeveloped, but given that she’s team green’s queen I imagine the next season will be able to improve on this. The time jump from episode five to six did feel a little jarring, but on reflection, I can’t help but wonder if that was always going to be the case when recasting two of the show’s leads. Plus, any issue I had with that episode was quickly put to rest after the show’s next episode, my personal favorite, Driftmark. So as far as criticisms of the show go, there’s not that much to point to. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the more deliberate approach the creative team is clearly bringing to the table, and just goes to show how much better an end result you get when you take the time to tell the story right.
As it currently stands, House of the Dragon has the potential to stand alongside early Game of Thrones, and stick the landing where Thrones certainly didn’t. But there are things going on behind the scenes that have the potential to turn into issues if not kept in check. First and foremost, the diversity casting. Now, before any keyboard warriors get any ideas, let me just say— I thought the casting worked. It certainly changed the tenor of the story a bit to make the Velaryons black, since Rhaenyra’s children are obviously not Laenor’s as opposed to what you’d expect from the books, where rumors of her children’s parentage are simply whispered behind closed doors. But hey, this further emphasizes Viserys’ willful blindness towards his daughter’s escapades and determination to put her on the throne no matter what. Additionally, Emma D’arcy, the actress who plays the older version of Rhaenyra, “identifies as non-binary.” Leaving aside the question of what exactly that means, it’s certainly quite trendy these days, and I can’t help but wonder if this helped her get the part. Thankfully, she’s a great actress and great for the part, so it’s water under the bridge at this point, but I could absolutely see a scenario where a much less talented actress ended up with the part because someone wanted to put ideology over storytelling. Another concern has come up regarding the writing team’s understanding of Daemon’s character. In interviews, one of the showrunners has expressed surprise at the fact that Daemon is a fan favorite. If I’m remembering right, the sentiment was something along the lines of, How could people like Daemon? He’s bad! He’s evil! This line of thinking misses the point. I don’t like the character of Daemon because he’s good, but because he’s interesting, which is far more important for TV. Looking towards the next season, I’m hoping that this doesn’t result in the watering down of Daemon’s character. The final thing I hope that HBO executives keep in mind with this show is its author’s creative input. I mentioned earlier that when George R. R. Martin left Game of Thrones, it spelled the beginning of the end for the show. Additionally, the higher ups ignored Marin when he said that it would take 12 seasons to tell the story of Thrones right, and they kneecapped it at 8, and look how that worked out. As for this show, Martin has said he thinks it’ll take four, 10-episode seasons to do the Dance of the Dragons justice, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. After the massive success of the show’s premier, it was renewed for a second season, which is a good sign, so here’s to hoping HBO learned its lesson.
Additionally, the success of House of the Dragon has renewed interest in adapting other shows that could take place in Westeros, to the point where HBO is throwing around the phrase World of Westeros in the same way Marvel/Disney uses the phrase Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s certainly two, big historical events that could make for great TV: the Targaryen dynasty’s ascent with Aegon’s conquest, and the Targaryen’s fall with Robert Baratheon’s rebellion. Even after the rule of Aegon the Conqueror, it could even be entertaining to see an adaptation of the next few rulers, Aenys the Weak and Maegor the Cruel (Jaehaerys the Conciliator came next, the tail end of whose reign House of the Dragon starts with). But given the state of the MCU post-endgame, it’s abundantly clear that any attempt to create a cinematic universe requires planning, care, and the ability to end the franchise when all the stories have been told. These sorts of concerns feel especially prescient given that the next show currently in development in this World of Westeros is called Snow, a sequel to Thrones starring Jon Snow. Other shows that may or may not be in development over at HBO include a show based on younger, actively seafaring Corlys Velaryon, called The Sea Snake. While I suppose it would be cool to see more of the world that Westeros is in (and I’d love to see the city of Asshai), there’s not a ready-made, specific story to tell here, a concern I have with both Snow and The Sea Snake. There’s a few other shows that may or may not be in development, but if rumor is to be believed none of them are Aegon’s conquest or Robert’s rebellion. But given how good House of the Dragon has been, I’m keeping an open mind as far as other shows set in or around Westeros.
There’s something special about the way the best of TV can draw you in and immerse you in a story. The best of TV will have you relating to and invested in its characters— whether you want to or not. When it comes to this show, although few can relate to being a ruling monarch, many can relate to crazy family dynamics (hopefully not this crazy). Few can relate to arranged marriages, but many can relate to pettiness and betrayal. Few can relate to medieval politics, but many can relate to wanting to please everyone. The relatability and realism both Game of Thrones (first ~6 seasons) and House of the Dragon bring to their story and characters is at the core of what make both great shows. It’s gonna be awhile until the next season… but still, it’s good to be back in Westeros.
great review