9 things House of the Dragon must do right to be a success
House of the Dragon, the first Game of Thrones successor show, premieres on August 21. So far, it looks incredibly promising, if author George R.R. Martin is to be believed. From everything we’ve seen and heard, showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik have done a great job adapting the story of the Dance of the Dragons from Martin’s book Fire And Blood.
Their job wasn’t easy, because the source material is not a novel where the story is recounted in a straightforward way. Rather, it is the work of a fictional maester chronicling the history of the Targaryen dynasty, writing centuries later about events that he did not witness, gathering his information from multiple sources that are often at odds with each other. Showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, along with their diverse writing room, had to agree on a “true” version of the events to put on display in this book.
The show is set some 200 years before Game of Thrones, so there’s no net to work with. There are lots of opportunities to misinterpret the ambiguous text and go terribly wrong, but there are just as many to make the story as great as can be, giving the characters the chance to speak for themselves. Here are some of the things House of the Dragon must do right to reach its full potential.
Explore Rhaenyra Targaryen’s psyche
Rhaenrya Targaryen is one of the main characters in this drama. The daughter of King Viserys I Targaryen, she expects to sit the Iron Throne after his death, but is contested by her younger half-brother Aegon II. Diving deep into Rhaenyra’s psyche is a must.
In Fire And Blood, all we know about Rhaenyra is that she fights for her right to the Iron Throne. In the show, we have a chance to truly explore her character. What drives her? What is her reason for pursuing her claim? Does she want the throne because it should be hers, or for other reasons?
But also: how does she feel about ruling? When she closes her eyes, what is it she wants most? Who does she love above everyone else? What are her greatest fears, and how did they come to be?
The show looks to be doing a good job on this front. We’ll spend the first several episode with Rhaenyra as a young woman before jumping forward in time to catch up with her as an adult. This means we’ll see many of the events that shape the characters into the people they become.
Establish Rhaenyra’s rivalry with Alicent Hightower
Let me say one thing about the Dance of the Dragons: there are no saints. But if we’re talking about factions, one actively fights to take away a person’s right, while the other fights back. In theory, the Blacks — that’s Rhaenrya Targaryen and her crew — have the moral high ground, although they’re also partly responsible for the atrocities of war. In theory, the audience watching in our day and age should support Rhaenyra, because supporting the Greens — that’s Rhaenrya’s half-brother and the people who support him — means believing that a woman should not inherit her father’s title and lands, which would be very Middle Ages of us.
That being said, the first season will be about more than Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne. People will start supporting factions probably even before a contender for the throne is even born. The real rivalry that needs to be established is not between Rhaenyra and Aegon, but between Rhaenrya and Alicent Hightower, her friend and eventual stepmother.
In Fire & Blood, it’s said that Alicent and Rhaenyra were on good terms before things went bad, but House of the Dragon will make them best friends, which is believable given that they both grew up in the Red Keep. Hopefully this means we will see how and why their contempt for each other runs so deep. It’s clear that Rhaenyra will be betrayed by her friend, but what will make Alicent become Rhaenyra’s fiercest foe? There has to be something there, because Alicent needs to be sympathetic too; we can’t have anyone be a black-and-white villain.
Show us how the present becomes history
The maester who “wrote” Fire & Blood drew on three sources when putting together his history of the Dance of the Dragons. Of these three, only one is pro-Rhaenyra: the testimony of Mushroom, the court fool. The problem with this source is that Mushroom focuses on salacious details as opposed to historically relevant ones. On the other hand, the other sources — Septon Eustace and Grand Maester Munkun — write their chronicles from a rather biased point of view; their accounts are basically Green propaganda, painting Rhaenyra as an almost cartoonish villain. It would be nice to have our sources narrate the story, maybe as they write down certain events, so we could see how certain things are distorted or simply inaccurate.
As for Mushroom, while he’s a fan favorite, there’s no guarantee he’ll show up. When asked about his presence in House of the Dragon, showrunner Ryan Condal simply said “no comment.” It would be particularly fun to have Mushroom narrate his own version of current events to the court or to the people. Or maybe he could even break the fourth wall and tell us how things went according to him.