9 things House of the Dragon must do right to be a success
No oversimplifications
The source material is fairly complex. It’s not just about the events and the characters, but also the way the past hangs over the present. It’s not enough to remember who is who, you need to be conscious of where they come from and what happened in the decades prior. It would be easy to disregard certain details, to pretend some characters don’t exist, are not related to one another, or combine them. But it would mean simplifying things that were conceived in a certain way, and the story would lose nuance. The audience can take complex, so give us complex!
Side characters are important, too
This story spans decades, so we are going to meet a large number of characters: council members, knights of the Kingsguard, lords and ladies of great and small houses…they come and go, but George R.R. Martin rarely writes unnecessary characters. Each and every one of them serves a purpose within the plot, even if that purpose is to make a point and then die. Sers Arryk and Erryk Cargyll, Lord Lyman Beesbury, Prince Maelor, Lord Roderick Dustin, Lady Samantha Tarly, Lady Alysanne Blackwood…they all contribute something to the story. The format gives the writers enough breathing room to properly introduce and develop each character, and I hope that they do.
Vindicating Daenerys’s ending
This one might not happen, but let me have a clown moment: imagine if, when the time comes, House of the Dragon ends with a nod to Daenerys Targaryen being queen. We know how Rhaenyra’s story goes in Fire And Blood. The majority of fans were left with a sour taste in their mouth after the ending of Game of Thrones, particularly because of Daenerys’s storyline; they might not be happy with how House of the Dragon will end either, but maybe one thing could soften that blow: the hope of a brighter future.
Game of Thrones is not A Song of Ice and Fire canon — Martin has said that “a lot” will be different about the ending to his book series — and House of the Dragon, could ignore it, if the producers wanted to. A few years down the line, HBO might even let them undo something that Game of Thrones did in 2019… perhaps, and especially, if the Snow project meets the green light.
In my utopian world, House of the Dragon would end with Daenerys sitting on the Iron Throne, perhaps telling the story of the Dance of the Dragons to somebody…perhaps a daughter she named Rhaenyra? I recognize the supreme unlikeliness of something like this happening (although Emilia Clarke would deserve to have a cameo in this show if she wanted it; perhaps she could even get the Emmy she was robbed of for all those years). Something easier to achieve would be having a maester writing down the final words of this story, sometime after 300 AC, and dedicating the book to Queen Daenerys, or interacting with somebody and making it known that Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, is the ruling queen of Westeros. It might only be one line, but it would make all the difference for millions of fans.
Next. George R.R. Martin close to wrapping major storylines in The Winds of Winter. dark
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