House of the Dragon: Caraxes is supposed to have “failed white boy rapper” energy
House of the Dragon sound supervisor Al Sirkett recently told Collider that Daemon Targaryen’s dragon Caraxes was described to him as having “failed white boy rapper” energy by the showrunners.
According to Sirkett, each dragon was initially described in human terms by showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal. The creators wanted the dragons on this show to have more personality than the ones on Game of Thrones, and they conveyed this by describing their personality traits.
“The descriptions that Ryan and Miguel gave for these characters, for these dragon characters, were never, ‘I want the dragon to be like this.’ They would describe them in human terms,” Sirkett said. “Caraxes was described by Miguel one meeting as the failed white boy rapper. Thinks he’s the coolest guy on the block. Just thinks he’s just full of it, he’s so fantastic and amazing, but he’s not. He’s a bit of an idiot. Nobody really likes him and none of the other dragons really want to hang out with him.”
How the dragons on House of the Dragon set themselves apart from those on Game of Thrones
This is a perfect way to describe Caraxes, because Daemon has this same energy. Daemon is the jaded annoying guy who thinks he’s the coolest person in the world because he’s a dragon-riding Targaryen. Daemon is obviously a bit more complex than that, but I think it’s great that the showrunners had these things in mind when they were developing Caraxes. It’s reassuring that Condal and Sapochnik were thinking about the dragons with this level of detail on this, because the Game of Thrones showrunners clearly were not. Daenerys’ dragons in the original show all pretty much looked and acted in the same way, but House of the Dragon’s team took care to make them their own characters. And Caraxes being a failed white rapper hits the nail on the head, in my opinion.
“And that was it, and [sound designer Paula Fairfield] came back and every little thing like the roar was just – but it wasn’t funny what the sounds that she was creating [were], but the textures that she used were slightly off-key and weren’t, I think, what people would have expected, but that’s what she brought to the game. And I think the whole team managed to do that to move us forward into something which was different from Game of Thrones.”
Other dragons have been given these human traits as well, as Condal once described Vhagar as being like an old cat. I’m eager to see how the personalities of the dragons we’ve met are expanded and how the newer dragons will be portrayed when the second season of House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and Max next year.
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