10 bits from Fire & Blood they should have kept in House of the Dragon

Set over one hundred years before Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the story of a Targaryen civil war that tears the Seven Kingdoms apart. The first season aired earlier this year on HBO, and by most any metric, it was a success. Viewership was high, critical response was good, and the fans enjoyed it.

Part of what fans in particular appreciated about the show was that it stuck fairly closely to the text of George R.R. Martin book Fire & Blood. In some cases it even improved on what was there. For instance, Martin himself has said that the show took the character of King Viserys I Targaryen, who doesn’t pop in any special way in the book, and turned him into an irresistibly compelling character. Watching the show after reading the book, it’s easy to agree with him.

That said, not every change was as successful, and in some cases the show chose to leave out things from Fire & Blood in a way that left us scratching our heads. Here are our picks for things that House of the Dragon should have kept from Fire & Blood…but didn’t.

1. Rhaenys Targaryen’s hair should be black

We’ll start with something simple: hair. There’s a lot of it on House of the Dragon, and most of it is bleached white silver-blonde. Not only do the Targaryens sport this signature hair hue, but the Velaryon family do too. At times it can almost get hard to tell one long-haired nuclear blonde character from the next.

And in one case, the producers made things even harder on audiences by taking a character who has dark hair in the books and making her white-blonde for the show. In Fire & Blood, we learn that Rhaenys Targaryen, cousin to King Viserys and wife to Corlys Velaryon, has black hair, at least in her younger years. When she gets older, her hair goes white, but it’s never the silver-blonde that of many other people in her family.

Generally speaking, Targaryens have that hot blonde hair, but Rhaenys inherited the dark hair of her Baratheon mother. I think if I were working with the wig department during season 1 of House of the Dragon, I would give Rhaenys dark hair for the first bunch of episodes, put some white streaks through it after the 10-year time jump between episodes 5 and 6, and then give her white (but not blonde) hair after the final time jump and leave it that way for the rest of the show. It could have helped Rhaenys stand out visually in this sea of platinum.

2. Highlight how different Baela and Rhaena Targaryen are from each other (starting with their hair)

Speaking of hair, I also have some notes for Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, the daughters of Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon. In the books, these two have very distinct personalities. Baela — that’s the one who has her own dragon — is the more willful and wild of the two; she likes riding (horses and dragons), fighting and boys. Rhaena, who is not able to successfully hatch her dragon egg) is a bit more reserved, and enjoys things like dancing and needlepoint. They have a bit of an Arya-Sansa thing going on, although they’re on much better terms.

After we pick up with the girls as young women in Episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides,” we really don’t get much of an idea of their personalities, unless we look really hard. I would have liked some scenes that highlighted the differences between them.

Also, concerning hair, in the books, it’s said that Baela cuts her hair short (otherwise it keeps getting in the way when she’s riding), while the more demure Rhaena keeps it long. But on the show, Baela wears her hair long and Rhaena wears it longer still. Their hairstyles look different, but I think the show should have kept their hairstyles from the books, if for no other reason than because the show already has a surfeit of characters with long silver-blonde hair. Giving Baela a close-cropped haircut would at least look different.