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.
None of that “Targaryen madness” talk, please
If I hear one more mention of “Targaryen madness” or how “every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin,” I might go mad myself. This concept is incorrect anyway: in 300 years of Targaryen history in Westeros, there have been maybe a handful of people who could be considered “mad.” Others might have been cruel or ruthless, but the way HBO abuses this phrase, you’d think there’s a gene in Targaryen DNA that predisposes them to mental illness.
The show should really limit their usage of the term and the concept of madness altogether. The Green faction will surely bring up the madness card to discredit Rhaenyra, but we need to see it’s their propaganda, rather than the truth. It’s 2022 and we don’t deserve to have a woman in a position of power painted as mad; I still get war flashbacks to how Daenerys was treated in season 8 of Game of Thrones. Later in the story, Rhaenyra might become a bit paranoid, but that would be justified given how everyone on her side has either betrayed her or died (would you look at that, just like Daenerys). And then again, it’s the pro-Green sources that portray her like that in the first place.
Daemon Targaryen also isn’t mad, simply chaotic, despite what Otto Hightower would have you believe.
No jealousy needed, either
On a similar note, we need Rhaenyra not to be jealous, because that would instantly be flagged as “mad” behavior, even if it’s not.
There are several points in the narrative where she may come up, particularly after she gets married to her uncle Daemon Targaryen (Targaryen incest is in full effect on this show). She knows and loves Daemon for what he is, and always has. Fire & Blood even says at one point that Rhaenyra is happy for Mysaria, a long-time confidante of Daemon’s, to warm Daemon’s bed while they’re married. And yet Rhaenyra is supposedly very upset when Daemon spends time with Nettles, a young dragonseed we probably won’t see in the first season. Why the difference? The show will have to account for that, or change it. They might opt to show Rhaenyra as tolerating of her husband having affairs, or they might go the extra mile and give her no reason at all to be jealous.
To start, there would be no need for Rhaenrya to be jealous of Daemon’s first wife Rhea Royce, as he himself detests her company and the two barely spend any time together. Next Daemon marries Laena Velaryon, with whom Rhaenyra is said to have a “strong bond.” The show could use this ambiguity to write them as romantic as well. If Rhaenyra and Laena are more than platonic besties who grow “fond and more than fond” of each other, polyamory wouldn’t be so far-fetched. The two women and Daemon are described to be visiting constantly, loving each other’s company and flying together, even betrothing their children to each other to seal their strong connection.
Similarly, Mysaria ends up becoming Rhaenyra’s most trusted advisor, towards the end. Could they also be closer, behind closed doors, than our sources know? Lastly, for “the girl Nettles,” who is a young base-born child of putative Valyrian heritage, the show could choose to go with a popular fan interpretation: that she wasn’t Daemon’s lover, but his own bastard daughter. If they choose that path, Rhaenyra wouldn’t need to be jealous of her husband’s daughter.
Queerness appreciated
Rhaenyra could be an even more compelling character if consciously written as queer. I could write an entire essay about everything that points to Rhaenyra being bisexual in Fire & Blood, but you’ll never find explicit confirmation in the text. However, sexuality matters to Rhaenyra’s story; it’s a fundamental aspect in a way that it wasn’t in, say, Daenerys’ or Sansa’s stories. Acknowledging that queerness is part of that sexuality and incorporating it into the show would enrich her story. The show wouldn’t need write a whole arc for it, but simply show that Rhaenyra has the potential to be attracted to women as well as men. Just FYI, a queer character is in no way less queer if they end up in a seemingly straight relationship.
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.
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