House of the Dragon is a follow-up show to Game of Thrones, taking place over 100 years in its past. It will tell the story of the Dance of the Dragons, a brutal Targaryen civil war that tore Westeros apart. Dragon will fight dragon. Blood will fight blood. Uncle and niece will get far too close for comfort. It’s definitely a Game of Thrones story.
The showrunners on Game of Thrones were David Benioff and Dan Weiss. The showrunner on House of the Dragon is Ryan Condal, a friend of George R.R. Martin’s who previously managed the sci-fi show Colony. He seems like a good fit, in part because of how much he loves the story. “I’ve been a superfan of [A Song of Ice and Fire] for 20 years,” he said on a recent episode of his podcast, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of.
This podcast, which he hosts with David Mandel, is all about movie and TV memorabilia, because that’s the kind of nerd Condal is. Naturally, he’s very much into the props being made for House of the Dragon. “We were talking about dragon eggs the other day, and ‘What are those supposed to look like?'”
The Valyrian steel blades Dark Sister and Blackfyre play an important role in the Dance of the Dragons
In particular, he focused on a couple of the weapons being made for the show, which he’s taking very seriously:
"I love swords, and particularly with this show, there are a couple of swords that are very famous to this period in history, that I really wanted to have a hand in. And I’m kind of proud to say that I was able to bring in a very specific designer who kind of does this stuff professionally, does museum recreations of existing historical swords, and is going to do a couple of the most important swords for us on the show, and that process has been so cool and fun. He’s underway and doing designs and is actually now making them."
Which swords is he talking about? More than likely, it’s Blackfyre and Dark Sister, a pair of Valyrian steel swords wielded by Aegon the Conquerer and his sister Visenya respectively when they took over Westeros over 100 years before the Dance.
By the time of the Dance, Blackfyre had passed down to Aegon II Targaryen, one of two main claimants to the Iron Throne. Possessing such an important sword helps him seem like the legitimate candidate in opposition to his rival and half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Meanwhile, Daemon Targaryen possesses Dark Sister, and he’s on Rhaenyra’s side. Daemon will use Dark Sister to spectacular effect during a climatic battle where he fights his nephew Aemond “One-Eye” Targaryen on dragonback. It should be good watching.
We’re still a ways off from House of the Dragon making it to screen. Expect it in 2022. But we’re pretty close to the start of filming, and I expect to see some interesting stuff once that starts.
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