House of the Dragon director talks bringing Daenerys into the Game of Thrones prequel

The season finale of House of the Dragon contained a scene where Daemon Targaryen, who's been futzing around at the crumbling castle of Harrenhal all season, has a vision of things to come. Essentially, he sees some of the highlights from Game of Thrones, including the march of the White Walkers and Daenerys Targaryen with her three baby dragons. These things won't happen until over 100 years in Daemon's future. The point of the vision is to impress upon Daemon the importance of acting in such a way that they can come to pass. For him, that means supporting his wife, queen and niece Rhaenyra Targaryen in her quest to sit the Iron Throne.

Geeta Patel, who directed the finale, talked to Variety about including iconic images from Game of Thrones in this prequel series. "I was so honored that I would get to be part of executing that," she said. "When I received the script, all these beats of the visuals were listed, but there was space for direction. You have to figure out how all those things are going to flow together. You see Daenerys, but how do you see her? Do you see her face? What is she doing?"

"I thought the dragons coming out of her in shadow would be really interesting because it’s not about Daenerys, it’s about the story of history. We’re in Daemon’s point of view, so that vision had to tell the story to Daemon of the history of his people and that Rhaenyra needed to be on the throne. It’s very tempting to be like, “Let’s show Daenerys! Let’s zoom in on this!” But that’s not what it’s about. In fact, Daemon doesn’t know who she is. It has to make Daemon understand that he has to bend the knee to Rhaenyra willingly."

She also talked about filming the vision sequence. So far as I can tell, that wasn't really Emilia Clarke back as Daenerys, but it was really Matt Smith flailing around as Daemon fell into a pool of dragon's blood, which is foreshadowing that you'll pick up on if you've read George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood. "We had a huge stage, and created these stations. Each station was a moment of that vision," Patel explained. "For the drowning, I had wanted a tank, but we didn’t have enough money for an actual tank with water. When I got the storyboards done, somebody in the meeting was like, 'What if it’s dragon’s blood instead of water? That’s amazing!'"

"So we darkened the water into blood, and we ended up shooting it dry for wet — there’s no water actually. It’s just Matt Smith hanging from a rig with fans blowing on him so it looks like he’s underwater. It was really amazing executing all those moments. The roots of the tree that start the whole sequence of the vision, those were built and then brought to life as visual effects. I really wanted it to feel like an umbilical cord. They brought that to life so they were gooey and alive."

Rhaenyra and Alicent are "like a divorced couple that still loves each other"

Another big scene came at the end of the episode, where Alicent Hightower became the 3,000th person to travel between King's Landing and Dragonstone this year — the two places are at war, but whatever — to visit with her old pal Rhaenyra Targaryen, to whom she makes a deal: Alicent will open the gates of the King's Landing to Rhaneyra and ensure that she can take over the city with no bloodshed. Since that's not enough, Rhaenyra also makes Alicent promise to give up the head of her son Aegon, who is at war with Rhaenyra over the Iron Throne.

Look, I'm not gonna sit here and deny that I found this scene to be pretty hard to swallow. Is no one gonna mention that Rhaenyra's husband ordered the murder of Alicent's grandson earlier this season, and that he just renewed his commitment to Rhaenyra? But let's see what Patel has to say about it:

"We shot that scene at the end of Episode 8 pretty much at the end of the production season. There were two things that were really important: We wanted it to feel like Rhaenyra and Alicent were children again, because that is what that scene was really about. Olivia and Emma did a really great job of bringing that juvenile, fearful, innocent aspect to the scene, where they wrestled between what they know they’re supposed to do and what they’re feeling that’s irrational. The other thing is we wanted to make sure that the scene in Episode 3 was on their minds. They’re like a divorced couple that still loves each other. When you see an ex, it’s almost as if that fight you had, or what they did to you, is fresh in your mind and just happened five minutes ago. We wanted it to be that razor’s edge feeling when we entered this scene between the two of them. They really pushed and pulled each other in a way that I wasn’t sure how they were going to end it."

They ended it how they ended it, and we'll see where it goes from there when House of the Dragon returns for a third season in 2026 or thereabouts.

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