House of the Dragon boss previews bleakness to come: 'It is not a feel-good story'

Game of Thrones was a once-in-a-generation TV phenomenon. Why was it so successful? There are a lot of reasons, but many pin it on the show's willingness to go where other shows won't and kill off important characters. From Ned Stark to Catelyn Stark to Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen, the show punched us in the gut over and over. That's why, when there was a moment of light peering through the clouds, it felt so uplifting. You had to trudge through the sludge to reach the higher ground, and you felt every moment of the journey.

HBO's prequel series House of the Dragon, about a brutal war between rival factions of the Targaryen dynasty, may be even more bleak. Without spoiling the details, neither side currently fighting for the Iron Throne — whether Rhaenyra Targaryen and her Blacks or Aegon Targaryen and his Greens — comes out unscathed. That may be the entire point of the show. “I read it as a cautionary tale,” showrunner Ryan Condal told Den of Geek. “‘Look what this great dynasty that should have ruled for thousands of years did to themselves.’ They went to war against each other, and they killed off all the dragons and ruined their own greatness. If our present-day historians could do a better job of warning us against the things that we’ve experienced that we’re in danger of repeating, maybe, maybe we’d have a brighter future ahead.”

We'll start to see the Greens and the Blacks fight each other in earnest in this upcoming second season, which premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 16. Both sides will do some heinous things to each other; at least one marquee event, the Blood and Cheese incident, will happen early in the season. “I remember reading [the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin] and just thinking wow, ‘George kind of outdid himself in his own George-ness’ in terms of finding the awful depths of certain characters,” Condal said of the moment.

"It is not a feel-good story. As with the original Game of Thrones, there are moments of true hope and humanity that shine through the bleakness. But it’s almost the bleakness that makes those things at work worthwhile."

House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal knows where the story ends

We may be waiting a while for those moments of true hope and humanity, although there are hints of it in the pages of Fire & Blood. Despite all the carnage to come, there is a way to end this show on something of a happy note, although we can't know exactly how Condal and his team are planning to wrap things up.

But apparently they have a better idea now that they've made season 2. “We know where it ends now. We know the big set pieces that we have to pull off to get there. We know the remaining new characters that we need to cast.” We still don't know how many seasons House of the Dragon will last, but it's good to know that Condal has an endpoint in mind.

In the meantime, we get to enjoy some of those set pieces. We know of at least one coming in the fourth episode of the new season: the Battle of Rook's Rest, which will up the ante on the many great battle scenes from Game of Thrones by adding lots of dragons into the mix.

Two major action scenes are on their way in House of the Dragon season 2

However, Condal makes it sound like there may be more than one huge battle sequence coming. “We can fit two Avengers films inside of our shoot schedule,” he said. “The battles are episodes unto themselves. We have two of the largest sequences that we’ve ever filmed on House of the Dragon. Both of them outstrip anything that we did in season one. They are episodes within episodes.”

Previously, the biggest battle the show has mounted was the fight between Daemon Targaryen and the Crabfeeder, which took up the last chunk of the third episode but couldn't be said to dominate it. It's unclear what major action scene beyond the Battle of Rook's Rest might feature in the second season of House of the Dragon. We suspected for a while that we might get the Battle of the Gullet, a fight at sea that again involves a lot of dragons, but we never saw much evidence of it on set.

We've also heard that "a major battle" was moved from the end of season 2 to the beginning of season 3. Perhaps that's the second major action scene Condal is talking about, or maybe he'll surprise us. We'll find out soon.

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