The one that started it all, long-form television at least, is back with a prequel. House of the Dragon, set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tips many hats to its hectically successful heir, starting with drawing a line between the unfolding events and the lovely Princess Daenerys Targaryen.
House of the Dragon
As the first episode, The Heirs of the Dragons, is all about establishing the different players in the House Targaryen, there is not as much action and unfortunately not as much dragon. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood (2018), the show focuses on the ruin of House Targaryen and the subsequent war of succession.
There is the kindly king Viserys (Paddy Considine), who worries about not having a son to inherit the Iron throne. Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), the firstborn, is accomplished, the realm’s delight, and would have been the perfect heir but for her gender. Viserys’ younger brother, Daemon (a glorious teeth-gnashing Matt Smith), is battle-hardened and ambitious. He is the heir presumptive, but has the throw of the coin fallen on the wrong side? His closest ally and lover is the dancer Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno).
Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the Hand of the King, is strongly opposed to Daemon. Otto’s daughter, Alicent (Olivia Cooke), is a good friend to Rhaenyra, apart from being the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaenys, the Queen that Never Was (she was passed over for Viserys) and her husband, Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint), the head of House Velaryon, seem to be biding their time.
Starting with the crowning of Viserys, The Heirs of the Dragon has Viserys convincing his councillors that the child his queen, Aemma (Sian Brooke), is carrying is a boy. Aemma tells her daughter, Rhaenyra, who would rather be fighting battles on her dragon Syrax, that for women, the battlefield is the childbed. Her words are prescient considering the difficult birth.
Tragedy, dashed ambitions, a surprise announcement, and a banishing, pepper The Heirs of the Dragon, tempered with the obligatory jousts, couplings, nudity, decapitations, profanity and soaring dragons. The costumes are exquisite, while the music (Ramin Djawadi returns) walks the tight rope between call back and new, and CGI acceptable.
One of the problems of House of the Dragon, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, is that we know how it ends. Just like we know Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, we know the fortunes of the House Targaryen end with mad King Aerys being killed by Jaime Lannister during the rebellion hatched by Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark and Jon Arryn.
When Game of Thrones came out in 2011, it hewed a fresh path for fantasy. House of the Dragon follows in its wake. Whether it will be able to carve a separate identity for itself, away from the gargantuan shadow of Game of Thrones, to become its own beastie, only time and the nine subsequent episodes will tell.
House of the Dragon streams on Disney+ Hotstar from August 22
