The case for changing everything about Westeros for House of the Dragon

Every Game of Thrones fan knows what the Iron Throne looks like: it sits at the end of the cavernous throne room in the Red Keep, a metal porcupine forged from the swords of the defeated enemies of Aegon the Conqueror.

But that’s not the only version of the Iron Throne that exists. In fact, it’s not even the one that A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin prefers. The author famously favors the rendition done by Marc Simonetti for The World of Ice and Fire:

“Marc has come closer here to capturing the Iron Throne as I picture it than any other artist to tackle it,” Martin once wrote on his Not a Blog. “This Iron Throne is massive. Ugly. Assymetric. It’s a throne made by blacksmiths hammering together half-melted, broken, twisted swords, wrenched from the hands of dead men or yielded up by defeated foes… a symbol of conquest… it has the steps I describe, and the height. From on top, the king dominates the throne room. And there are thousands of swords in it, not just a few…This Iron Throne is scary. And not at all a comfortable seat, just as Aegon intended.”

That said, Martin knows that the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones has become iconic, and is the first to admit that there isn’t a “real” Iron Throne in any case. (“I made it up. I said it was made of melted swords, but really, it was made of words, like all such fictional constructs.”)

And that brings me to a thought about the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon: are they required to stick to the exact aesthetic set by Game of Thrones, right down to the same sets and props? Or are they allowed to have their own interpretations of stuff like the Red Keep and the Iron Throne? Could we see Simonetti’s rendering of the throne brought to life on screen, all 25 spiky feet of it?

Personally, I really like the idea of House of the Dragon going its own way, at least in some respects. I keep coming back to the throne as an example, because the Simonetti version is just so striking. If HBO had been able to create that throne for Game of Thrones, I think they would have, but the producers didn’t have unlimited resources right out of the gate; they had to earn those. But House of the Dragon could prioritize giving us a scarier, more frightening version of the throne from the outset, in accordance with how it looks in the pages of George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.

The argument against this, of course, is that it would be inconsistent with Game of Thrones. House of the Dragon takes place in the same Westeros, doesn’t it, just a hundred-plus years before? The Iron Throne shouldn’t have changed in that time.

That’s true, but how about this: screw consistency. I think Hollywood has a habit of fetishizing consistency, particularly in the age of the massive shared universe. Marvel in particular is famous for making sure all the details in its movies (and now TV shows) line up just so, which gives them an admirable verisimilitude but also can lead to content that feels like it only exists to set up the next thing. To me, Marvel movies and shows often feel like less than the sum of their parts — I thought WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier both fell pray to this.

Game of Thrones, for all the criticism its ending received, didn’t suffer from this. It felt like a complete story. I’d like for House of the Dragon to follow in its footsteps; it already has an advantage in that its set over a century before the original series, but I can already see the producers and executives wondering how they tie everything back to Game of Thrones: let’s have a visit from time-traveling Bran, let’s have characters talk about how the Targaryens will never fall (wink, wink), let’s frame the Iron Throne in a way that recalls Game of Thrones, and then delight as fans tweet out side by side photos.

To me, all of that sounds like pandering, and pandering does nothing but distract the writers from telling the story as effectively as possible. So why not eliminate the temptation? You can’t fetishize the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones is you have an entirely different version, one that the show can imbue with its own meanings. Change the outfits, change the look of the towns and the landscapes…some would argue that casting a Black man to play Corlys Velaryon is changing things, although I’ve argued it’s not. Still, I like the show’s willingness to stretch and find ways to differentiate itself from what’s come before…or after, depending on how you think about it.

Obviously I don’t want everything to change. This new story is set in the same world and some consistency is expected and encouraged. House of the Dragon should feel like Game of Thrones; it should strike a similar tone, should have a similar taste. But I don’t want the producers falling into the trap of matching small details and mistaking it for storytelling.

Game of Thrones was a bold show that did things its own way. That is what House of the Dragon should take from it, and run with.