We're less than a fortnight away from the premiere of House of the Dragon season 3, and the show's marketing machine is officially firing on all cylinders. Today a slew of new interviews and press conference coverage dropped for the series, and it's a veritable feast for fans of the show — which should help tide us over until the season finally debuts.
Based on the most dramatic section of George R.R. Martin's fake history book Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon dramatizes the horrific Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. Unlike Game of Thrones, which had a notoriously happy ending, the tale of the Dance of the Dragons isn't shy about the fact that it's a tragedy. Hell, in the book, the chapter titles come with the subheading "The Dying of the Dragons," so you know this story is going to be brutal.
Showrunner Ryan Condal spoke about the chances House of the Dragon will feature a happy ending at a press conference attended by GamesRadar+. And if you like Martin's book, don't worry; Condal's promising a "very faithful adaptation" in regards to the show's endgame.
"I mean, I don't know. Do you, do we really expect happy endings in Westeros? I think this show goes to extremely dark places, places we've been, places we're yet to go," Condal said. "But I will say, one of the big challenges of adapting Fire & Blood is not making this an aimless, bleak death march, just because of the nature of the history. It's based on The Anarchy, which is this very dark period. This one family that tears itself apart over whether a woman should sit on the throne. That's this great period in British history and the islands acting on either side."
In terms of not just being aimlessly bleak, the HBO series faces a steeper challenge than Martin's novel. Fire & Blood is a fake history book, where a maester is sifting through various historical accounts and providing his own commentary on them. The story is told at somewhat of an arm's length, which makes the deaths of dozens of dragons and heroic (or horrible) characters land without the same sense of tragedy as, say, the Red Wedding or beheading of Ned Stark.
The same can't be said for House of the Dragon, which gets us much closer to the characters. Even the dragons have larger personalities than Daenerys Targaryen's three children, which makes saying goodbye to them rough. Fortunately, Condal is promising that regardless of how unhappy the ending for the series may be, it won't be totally hopeless either.
"I will say, you know, even, even the slimmest glimmers of light in the rain of the darkest storm, the single light through the cloud seems that much brighter," Condal continued. "Yeah, I think you know, we're crafting a very faithful adaptation of Fire & Blood and the history of Westeros at this point, but I acknowledge trying to leave people with some sense of, you know, hope and humanity, launching the Targaryens off into their next sort of chapter."
"And how much did they learn anything from this incredibly bleak and self-destructive part of their history? I don't think happy endings are on the menu, but I would say leaving the audience with something to hang their hat on at the end is something I'm taking very to heart, as we're now writing season four."
House of the Dragon season 3 premieres June 21 on HBO and HBO Max. It's going to be a dark, intense ride for the likes of Rhaenyra Targaryen, Alicent Hightower, and all the rest.
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