Let’s break down the stunning trailer for House of the Dragon

Yesterday, HBO released a beautiful new trailer for House of the Dragon, its upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series. And now, we’re here to pore over it in way too much detail to see if we can pull out any juicy bits of information, or just to ooh and ahh. I’m easy.

I’ll tell you right away that my favorite thing about the trailer were those beautiful wide shots. We get some great landscapes and cityscapes here, including plenty of looks at King’s Landing as it was 200 years before Game of Thrones.

That domed building is the Dragonpit, which we visited in Game of Thrones when it was a ruin with no use. Here, it houses the royal dragons, of which there are many.

King’s Landing was an important location in Game of Thrones, but it will be the important location in House of the Dragon. It’s good to see a small council at it again, in this case pondering the notion of who should be the heir of King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine):

Another great wide shot; this looks like a joust from the pilot episode:

One candidate to succeed King Viserys is Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), his mercurial younger brother:

But the one Viserys chooses is his only surviving child Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Milly Alcock as a young woman and Emma D’Arcy as an adult. She’s seen here with Laenor Velaryon, to whom she is married off as part of a political union despite that the fact that they’re related and he’s gay. That might explain the glumness:

But don’t worry: Rhaenyra has other suitors. Here she looks down on a young knight named Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel):

These two enter into a relationship, although it probably won’t surprise you to hear that it doesn’t end well; this is a Game of Thrones sequel show, after all.

Much has been made of the new Iron Throne in this series. It’s basically the same one but, back in this day, there are a lot more blades shoved around the edges, giving it a more menacing look.

The people around it are dangerous, too. Here’s Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish) giving the business to Daemon, who has angered his brother the king. He does that a lot.

Again, I love these wide shots. Here, Daemon Targaryen confronts some of his many, many enemies on what I think is Dragonstone. I love the light through the mist in the air.

Two words: angry horse.

Here’s a glimpse of Rhaenyra as an adult, played by D’Arcy. Behind her is her former friend and current rival Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), who married her father and now has a son she would rather ascend the Iron Throne over Rhaenyra.

We also get a look at the grown-up version of one of Alicent’s sons by the king: Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell). I hope the show does well enough to have multiple seasons, cause Aemond gets up to some crazy s**t.

For a show called House of the Dragon, the trailer hasn’t shown us many dragons yet. Let’s change that: