4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Aug 23, 2022 07:40 AM IST
The Iron Throne is up for grabs again, but this time, a far less compelling group of claimants are eyeing it. The House of the Dragon, the prequel series to Game of Thrones that dominated television discourse for almost a decade, takes a rather bumpy flight, well, at least going by the first episode.
The much-awaited prequel series begins with casual name-dropping of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) — the self-made queen and mother of dragons in Game of Thrones, who suddenly succumbed to the famous Targaryen madness and reduced King’s Landing to ashes, something the audience has never quite forgiven the much-condemned Season 8 for, and rightly so. House of the Dragon emphasises that the show is set 172 years before her birth, so subtext: stop expecting anyone from Game of Thrones to show up, thank you very much.
Nevertheless, unlike Game of Thrones, which was stuffed to the brim with several warring families, we focus on the Targaryens and their long rule, before they were overthrown, prior to the events of Game of Thrones. The premiere establishes the major players in the dysfunctional family — there’s the father-daughter duo Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), and Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey). Alicent can’t be trusted by the looks of it, but at present she’s a close friend to Rhaenyra, daughter of the king Viserys I. There’s Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen, who is just brimming with bad vibes. After 8 years of Game of Thrones, you always know when someone is going to cause trouble.
In the first few minutes, the characters ambitions are almost set in stone, preparing you for raging battles and treachery that is to come. Succession is the bane of everyone’s existence as usual in this rigid patriarchal society. Viserys I ascends the throne, instead of his sister, Rhaenys, who is later referred to as the Queen That Never Was. Viserys is a well-meaning and good-hearted king, yet these comforting characteristics don’t prevent him from taking a rather brutal decision during his wife’s gruelling labor, which proves that it all boils down to one thing — an heir to the throne. This scene is juxtaposed against a jousting tournament, just establishing that life is a gory game. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy at play, as neither his wife or his child survive, and so he honours Rhaenyra as the heir to the throne. There are references to familiar names and the prophecy to the ‘Endless Winter’ — something that GoT stewed over for eight years and it finally turned out to be the biggest disappointment in Season 8. So perhaps bringing up that festering wound wasn’t the brightest idea. Nevertheless, the episode ends on this note, and you already know that nothing is going to go well from here.
The House of the Dragons have a dragon-sized legacy to live up to, and they’ve captured the ingredients that Game of Thrones was known for — dragons, costumes, jousting, treachery, hints of orgies (not too much), and violence. However, something is missing. The Targaryens are interesting for sure, but pale in comparison to the Starks, the Lannisters from the original series, or even their own descendants. The dialogues seem far too expository at points, nothing quite as exquisite yet as Cersei Lannister’s (Lena Headey) ‘When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die’, and no one yet, as illuminating as Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister. Such were the characters that powered Game of Thrones even if they were forsaken by bad writing by Season 8, and while Rhaenyra shows hints of a slight spark, the fire is severely lacking in the premiere. Nevertheless, it’s still the premiere, we’ll see what’s to come next.
House Of The Dragon has moments of promise, but it still doesn’t quite has the sheen that Game of Thrones possessed in its premiere itself. Let’s see where it goes from here.
Milly Alcock and Emily Carey in House of the Dragon.