This article is about how to “fix” HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, but “fix” is in quotes. Why? Because House of the Dragon isn’t broken. In fact, it’s running quite smoothly. The first season honored the legacy of Game of Thrones, was entertaining on its own merits, and was a ratings success for HBO. Kudos all around.
But it wasn’t perfect, which is great news for me because I love to complain and pick things apart. After the fifth episode of House of the Dragon aired, I wrote an article about how to “fix” the first half of season 1, again with the caveat that the show didn’t really need fixing but I was going to whine about it anyway; my recommendations mainly involved fine-tuning the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent and rethinking Criston Cole’s character arc, particularly the bit where he popped off at a wedding and murdered a guy (and then somehow got away with it). I stand by all of those complaints and by my proposed fixes.
Now that the whole season has aired, it’s time to take a closer look at the final five episodes. Good as they are, went what wrong and how could it have gone better?
What worked on House of the Dragon
But before we raze House of the Dragon, let’s talk a bit about what worked, just to demonstrate that we’re being critical in good faith. And happily, as with the first half, there was a lot that worked, starting with…
House of the Dragon successfully introduced a new cast
The first season of House of the Dragon featured a number of large time jumps, and we weren’t sure beforehand whether they would work out. Happily, we needn’t of worried. Whether skipping ahead by a few months or 10 years, House of the Dragon kept things compelling even as huge events happened offscreen and new actors came to take the place of old ones.
The biggest time jump happens between Episodes 5 and 6. We pick things up in “The Princess and the Queen” a full decade after “We Light The Way.” Actors Milly Alcock and Emily Carey are out as Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, replaced by Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke. Fans got attached Alcock and Carey’s takes on these characters, but D’Arcy and Cooke hit the ground running. Their versions of Rhaenyra and Alicent are older, wiser and more dangerous, but no less watchable. It was a remarkably smooth transition.
As Rhaenyra, Alicent and Daemon had children, the show introduced a whole slew of new younger characters. Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon, Aegon and Aemond Targaryen, Daemon’s twin girls Baela and Rhaena…all of them made an impact. And all of them were replaced by new actors when the show jumped forward once again between Episodes 7 and 8.
There were some things lost. For instance, we wish we could have gotten to know Harwin Strong and Laena Velaryon better before their deaths in Episode 6, but overall, the time jumps and character replacements worked very well. The production team deserves credit for pulling them off and HBO credit for letting them happen. They were a big risk and they paid off.
The momentum picks up in the back half of House of the Dragon season 1
The first half of House of the Dragon season 1 introduced us to the characters and got us invested in our lives. The second half puts them on a clear path to war. Most of the juiciest events happen during this stretch.
Episode 7, “Driftmark,” is a thrill: not only do we have the headstrong Aemond Targaryen lose an eye after stealing the biggest dragon in the world, we also have Alicent coming at Rhaenyra with a knife as the adults try (and fail) to work out what to do about it. Episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides” is the most emotional in the show’s run so far, as King Viserys I Targaryen tries to make peace within his family in his final days. And Episode 10, “The Black Queen,” turns the intensity up to 11 as Aemond (sort of) kills his nephew Lucerys, sparking off the war that we will see play out over the next few seasons. It’s just good stuff, there’s no other way to put it.
Okay, that’s enough praise. Let the complaining begin!
A lot of big events seemed to happen by accident
The back half of House of the Dragon is definitely where most of the plot momentum is. However, the show started developing a weird habit. Some of the biggest plot developments happen not because the characters make choices and act on them — the cornerstone of good drama — but because events conspired to move things forward with a minimum of input from the people who are supposed to be driving this car. It was odd, especially for a show as bold as House of the Dragon.
History’s most cringeworthy coup
This really kicks into high gear in the final two episodes of the season. For example, in Episode 9, “The Green Council,” King Viserys Targaryen’s Small Council has to decide what to do now that the king has died. In George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, the characters go around the table offering their rationales for why they should seat Viserys’ son Aegon on the Iron Throne rather than his daughter Rhaenyra, who the king had publicly named as his heir. It’ll prevent a war, one argues. Men inherit before women under the law, says another. Crowning Rhaenyra queen means that Daemon will be king consort and Daemon is awful, says Otto Hightower. And so on.
It’s great because we get a sense that all of these people know what the right thing to do is — honor the king’s wishes by coronating his daughter — but none of them want to do it, so they convince themselves that going against what the king explicitly wanted is the best course of action. And then Lyman Beesbury points out that they’re all a bunch of traitors, and Criston Cole murders him to: A) quiet a voice of dissent, and; B) shut up the voices of conscience in their own heads. It’s a wonderfully messy emotional climax to the scene.
The show sheds all of this. Instead it zeroes in on Alicent Hightower, who argues that they should crown Aegon not because she doesn’t want to seat a bastard on the throne, not because she has any will to power herself, not for any of the reasons mentioned in the book, but because she misinterpreted her husband’s final rambling words as him naming a new heir on his deathbed. It’s a deeply unsatisfying flattening of Alicent’s character. Meanwhile, the other people in the room aren’t given motivations at all; it’s assumed they want to seat Aegon on the throne and that’s that.
As for Lyman Beesbury, Criston doesn’t even kill him on purpose; it plays more like an accident, with the kingsguard knight shoving the elderly Master of Coin a bit too hard onto one of those little marbles they all use to take roll call during small council meetings.
In the book, both Criston and Alicent make choices to do wrong. On the show, they make whoopsie-daisies. It’s way less compelling than it should be.
“The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion”
The other big “oops my bad” moment comes in the finale, when Aemond Targaryen confronts his nephew Lucerys Velaryon at Storm’s End. Luke slashed out Aemond’s eye when they were younger, and Aemond has not gotten over it. Luke, having failed in his diplomatic mission to the Baratheon home base, gets on his dragon Arrax and tries to fly home. Aemond mounts the much larger Vhagar and follows.
In Fire & Blood, we only know that Vhagar chomps Luke and Arrax to bits. On the show, we learn that neither Aemond nor Luke meant for this to happen, but that the dragons acted on their own, got into a fight, and this was the result.
How to fix this
Not all accidents are created equal. In isolation, I don’t mind the additions to the Luke-Aemond scene. Sure, painting Vhagar as the real aggressor robs Aemond of some of his agency, but it’s not like Aemond is completely blameless. He still tried to take Luke’s eye and then followed his young nephew into that storm on his huge, ornery dragon; what did he think was going to happen?
Also, the show set this up earlier in the season by having Viserys ruminate about the nature of dragons and their riders. “The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion,” Viserys says, and he’s right. House of the Dragon is a story about a family of people who convince themselves that they’re awesome, badass, infallible, worthy…but they’re wrong, and they end up tearing down their own dynasty as they chase their delusions of grandeur. What happens with Aemond and Lucerys fits with this. Aemond thinks he’s strong enough to control Vhagar, but he isn’t, and the Seven Kingdoms will pay for his hubris.
So I like the Aemond-Lucerys twist. But it’s still an example of a whoopsie-daisy subbing in for a choice, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t come after two similar whoopsie-daisies the episode prior. The Aemond-Luke fight can stay, but “The Green Council” needs a re-write.
Basically, I think the small council scene in Episode 9 should stick closer to the book, with everybody pitching their justifications for why crowning Aegon is a good idea, Lyman Beesbury calling them all out as traitors, Criston Cole murdering Lyman on purpose, and everyone swearing over his dead body to see this thing through come hell or high water. Alicent’s misinterpretation of Viserys’ final words should be in the mix — it could be the idea that gets this justification-fest going — but it shouldn’t be the only reason anyone suggests. These characters are richer, and deserve better, than that.
Man, House of the Dragon Episode 9 is badly written
Most of the problems in the back half of the season have to do with Episode 9. “The Green Council” starts on the wrong foot and never recovers. It’s the only episode in the season I think is straight-up bad, which is unfortunate since it comes at such a pivotal point for the story.
We’ve already gone over how the first small council scene eschews all of the most interesting conflicts from Fire & Blood. In their place, it forces a conflict between Otto Hightower, who wants to assassinate Rhaenyra in an attempt to head off a potential war before it begins, and his daughter Alicent, who doesn’t.
From the start, this rings false. The suggestion to attack Dragonstone is very hard to believe coming from Otto, because it’s such a stupid, hare-brained plan. Even if such a thing were possible — and given how easily defensible Dragonstone is, that’s far from certain — killing Rhaenyra is at least as likely to start a war as prevent one, something the methodical Otto should know. In the book, killing Rhaenrya is suggested…by the hot-headed, perpetually drunk Aegon, who is promptly talked out of it by the cooler heads in the room. By putting this argument in Otto’s mouth, the writers do a real disservice to a character who is supposed to be intelligent and careful.
So why did they do it? We can’t know for sure, but my guess is that they wanted to drive home a point about Alicent stepping out of Otto’s shadow. It’s not a bad point, but they should have let it arise naturally rather than ham-handedly forcing it in.
How to turn a high stakes race for the crown into a low stakes scuffle
After Alicent and Otto clash, each of them draft different members of the Kingsguard to go looking for Aegon, who is MIA. Mysaria has caught wind that the greens are looking for Aegon and hides the future king away, hoping to swap information on his location for assurances that the crown will address problems plaguing the poorer areas of the city, assurances she kinda-sorta gets from Otto. Later in the same episode, Larys Strong burns down Mysaria’s manse in an attempt to destroy her spy network, although it’s not made clear that it’s her house specifically that’s on fire.
Meanwhile, the twin Kingsguard knights Arryk and Erryk Cargyll — who are working on Otto’s behalf — find Aegon first, but it doesn’t matter, because Criston Cole and Aemond Targaryen — working on Alicent’s behalf — were hot on their trail. We get a very low stakes fight between the two parties, Team Alicent wins, and Aegon is taken back to the Red Keep.
This whole section of the episode feels like wasted time. The perspective we most need is Aegon’s — he is going to be crowned king and we want to know how he feels about that — but the script instead treats us to conversations between Aemond and Criston on the one hand, and Mysaria and Otto on the other. They’re background conversations that fill us in on their characters, which is nice, but they don’t feel urgent at a time when urgency is needed. The king is dead and these characters are in a race against time to crown Aegon before Rhaenyra can find out and react. That’s intense, so why does everything drag so much?
The bit where the dragon comes through the floor
The episode recovers slightly once the silly Aegon hunt is concluded; the best scene is a brief conversation between Aegon and Alicent on the way to his coronation where we actually get a sense of what these characters mean to each other. The coronation is also interesting as we see Aegon warm up to the idea of ruling. But the writers don’t trust this moment to work by itself, so they throw a wrench into the works.
Another subplot this episode involves Rhaenys Targaryen, who has been under lockdown in the Red Keep since Viserys’ death. Eventually, a mutinous Erryk Cargyll — who knows what a lout Aegon is and would prefer that Rhaenyra become queen — lets her out of her room. The two escape into the city. Rhaenys makes her way to Aegon’s coronation at the Dragonpit, steals beneath, mounts her dragon Meleys, burrows up through the floor, stares down the greens, and flies away.
This sequence is bad for a number of reasons. Let’s count them down:
- Hypocritical framing. The episode portrays Rhaenys as both badass (she has cool armor, a cool dragon, and a bunch of hero shots) and merciful (she doesn’t kill the greens even though she could). But it pays no mind to the dozens (possibly hundreds) of innocent civilians she slaughters as she makes her entrance. At best, it sends a very mixed message to the audience, one that looks unintentional.
- Obliterating tension. The most interesting thing about this stretch of the story is how no one wants to come off as the bad guy. If the greens kill Rhaenyra, they’ve drawn first blood and her supporters will feel justified in retaliating. If Rhaenyra and her blacks strike first, the greens will feel the same way. But bodies are flying left and right in Episode 9, from the unfortunate Lord Caswell to Rhaenys’ massacre in the Dragonpit. Luke’s death in Episode 10 is important because he’s the first person to die on the battlefield in this war, and every death in Episode 9 reduce its impact. (Also, for those who have read ahead, Rhaenys’ destruction of the Dragonpit takes some of the air out of another scene that will go down here later on.)
- Improper focus. By the end of the season, Westeros has two crowned rulers: Rhaenyra Targaryen and her younger half-brother Aegon. But while Rhaenyra’s coronation in Episode 10 is given the space it needs to breathe — it’s a great scene — Aegon’s is interrupted by Rhaenys. Ultimately, Aegon’s coronation isn’t about Aegon at all, but about a character who will go on to support Rhaenyra. The show should be presenting both sides of this war in a way where viewers could plausibly favor one side, the other, both or neither; we should be fighting this war in our own minds as surely as the characters are fighting in on the screen. But scenes like this make it feel like House of the Dragon is really only writing about Aegon and his followers so it can get back to Rhaenyra and Daemon. That’s weak.
- How did Rhaenys not hurt her head coming up out of the floor? Like, for real?
Okay, that last one is a nitpick but you get my point.
How to fix this
Episode 9 needs a thorough rewrite. The easiest and best solution is to stick closer to the source material. We’ve already talked about how to rewrite the small council scene. What to do about Rhaenyra shouldn’t even come up at this time, to say nothing about a forced conflict between Alicent and Otto over whether to kill her. Right now, the greens should be more or less on the same page: they need to find Aegon, crown Aegon, and they’ll figure out the rest later.
The main conflict should come from Aegon himself, who doesn’t want to be king. In the book, there’s a scene where Criston Cole finds Aegon outside the Red Keep and has to talk him into accepting the crown. Criston is only successful when he tells the prince that Rhaenyra will surely have him killed if she takes the throne, something we know Alicent told her son when he was younger, so he’s primed to believe it.
This conversation should be in the show. It would be great for both characters. Aegon would articulate good reasons why he shouldn’t be king (instead of just screaming in the streets as on the show) and Criston would bend the truth to change his mind, betraying his enduring anti-Rhaenyra bias. It would both tell us who these characters are and push the story forward.
And then there’s Rhaenys. I’m on board with Erryk Cargyll freeing her from her room and escaping the castle with her. But in this rewritten version of the episode, Rhaenys didn’t come here by dragon; Meleys is safe back on Dragonstone or Driftmark, so both she and Erryk have to flee King’s Landing by boat. That means she can’t murder a bunch of people at Aegon’ coronation, which is for the best.
Instead, Rhaenys should insist to Erryk that they steal Viserys’ crown, knowing that Rhaenyra will need a symbol of legitimacy if she hopes to win people over to her side. Remember: in the episode, Erryk sees Alicent put the crown on Viserys’ body, so he knows where it is. Also, Alicent could mention that they intend to crown Aegon with the Conqueror’s crown during her conversation with Rhaenys before her escape, so Rhaenyrs will know it’s just lying around somewhere. This could provide something important for Rhaenys to do other than ruin the climax.
As for Mysaria, this isn’t the time to slacken the pace of the story with a conversation about how she wants to put an end to child fight clubs, although I think she should be involved. My idea is for Daemon to visit her in Episode 8, after he beheads Vaemond but before the family dinner with Viserys. Daemon knows that his brother will soon die, suspects the greens will try to take the throne when he does, and wants Mysaria to use her spy network to keep him abreast of things. In return, he’ll get her a seat on Rhaenyra’s council when they take power. Mysaria agrees and spies on the greens throughout Episode 9. She’s able to get a message off to Dragonstone before Aegon’s coronation, alerting the blacks to what the greens intend earlier than they would otherwise find out.
Upon getting this message, Rhaenyra goes into premature labor, as she does in Episode 10 of the original show. Basically, I think the first act of Episode 10 should be copy-pasted into the end of Episode 9, which has space to fill now that we’ve cut out the stupid Aegon hunt and Dragonpit massacre. The rewritten episode should end with Aegon being coronated in the Dragonpit (sans interruption) and Rhaenyra being coronated on Dragonstone. The scenes can be cross-cut. Westeros has two rulers now: the game is on.
In Episode 10, as the greens wonder how Rhaenyra could have learned about their plans and crowned herself so quickly, Larys talks to Alicent about Mysaria, foot stuff happens, and Larys burns down Mysaria’s manse. We could even go inside the manse and watch Mysaria try to get out of this situation, which would be an improvement on Episode 9, where we’re not even sure that it’s her house on fire. I see no value in making Episode 9 all about the greens and Episode 10 all about the blacks, as the show does. Both sides are at war now; we want to see them react to each other.
Rhaenyra and Daemon should have killed Laenor Velaryon for real
By now, I’ve broken down all the big problems I have with the back half of House of the Dragon season 1. Basically, if you fix Episode 9, everything more or less works.
That said, I do have one other point I want to hit on: Laenor Velaryon’s “death” in Episode 7, “Driftmark.” This is one of the better episodes of the season, but I didn’t like this fakeout at the end. We’re led to believe that Rhaenyra and Daemon conspire to kill Rhaenyra’s husband Laenor Velaryon, who is a good man but who cannot provide Rhaenyra with trueborn children, something that has caused her a lot of grief at court these past 10 years. Also, Rhaenyra and Daemon really really want to be together and Rhaenyra’s marriage is making it difficult, so Laenor has to go.
It’s a cruel, selfish choice, but also a thrilling one that suggests that these characters, while passionate about being together, are wrong for each other, something that will be borne out over the rest of the story; we get a preview of it in Episode 10 when Daemon strangles Rhaenyra in cold anger before releasing his grip. No marriage should start with a murder, but that feels about right for Rhaenyra and Daemon.
Instead, the show reveals that Rhaenyra and Daemon didn’t really kill Laenor, but rather helped him fake his own death. This raises questions that get harder to answer the more you think about them. (So Daemon had to kill some rando? Laenor’s parents can’t tell that’s not their son’s body? How long does it take a head to crisp beyond recognition like that? What happens to Laenor’s dragon Seasmoke now? etc.) But the main problem is that it sets up a daring, exciting turn for Rhaenyra and Daemon and then chickens out.
I imagine the writers didn’t want us to see Rhaenyra and Daemon as overly cruel and heartless, but I think that misreads what kind of show this is. There are no heroes in this story, only deeply flawed people who occasionally do the right thing if you catch them on a good day. I think the show should lean into that. If they do, I suspect the audience will be more fascinated, not less.
And I think that’s about all the notes I have for right now. Anything else you think should be tweaked? Or did I go way too far? Feel free to discuss.
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