REVIEW: Recapping House of the Dragon’s first three episodes
The prequel to the hit tv show “Game of Thrones” has arrived on HBO. The show is helmed by Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik both of whom worked on “Game of Thrones”, the season consists of 10 episodes and takes place about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen. The show chronicles the Targaryen dynasty at the height of their power and follows the events that lead to the war of succession called the Dance of the Dragons.
House of the Dragon is adapted from the 2018 novel “Fire & Blood ” which is an in-universe chronicle of the Targaryen dynasty which starts at Aegon the conquer and his conquest of Westeros and ends with the aftermath of the dance of the dragons. The book is written in the form of a historical document, from the writings of Archmaester Gyldan, in-universe his work (which the book is based on) was recently found. The information in the book covers most of the important individuals, events, battles and deaths, and while most of this information is faithfully recorded by maesters of the past many of the more intimate reasons on why events happened, or the thought processes of many individuals is only speculated by the writers. The show will hopefully give a more in-depth look at the more mysterious parts of the characters’ motivations and help flesh more of the World of Ice and Fire universe.
It has been 100 years since Aegon conquered Westeros and the first episode starts with a flashback to the council of Harrenhal. The king at the time was King Jahaerys, the fourth Targaryen king known as the “Good King.” His reign was long, prosperous and peaceful with most of his life dedicated to passing laws and building most of Westeros infrastructure. While Jahaerys was an excellent king, his style of parenting and line of succession was not his best area of expertise, Jahaerys had nine children in total and the original plan for when he died was for the throne to go to his son Ameon. Ameon was killed in a battle and his brother Baleon was chosen as the next heir, unfortunately, he too would die and with his death the line of succession was thrown into a state of chaos.
Episode one: “Heirs of the Dragon”
The first episode is the same name as the chapter in the Fire & Blood book which this show is based on and is the strongest episode currently. We are treated to a flashback scene that shows us the past succession crisis and how it was resolved which unsurprisingly enough ended in a male being chosen over a female. This event and the narration that follows it are ominously hinted at to have done nothing but extended the eventual crisis that will later be known as the Dance of the Dragons, fast forward to ten years later we meet the main cast. King Visery’s family includes the love of his life Queen Aemma who is pregnant with what he thinks is a son, Rhaenrya the realms delight who is a headstrong and independent young woman who does not want to follow the rules her society demands of her. Daemon Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne and the king’s brother who is prideful, arrogant, violent and ambitious, Alicent Hightower the dutiful and anxious daughter of Otto Hightower hand of the king and her father, the conniving and ambitious number two of the kingdom. And finally, Corlys Velaryon, a rich and powerful lord whose wife Rhaeneys was passed over to be the queen of Westeros.
The episode fleshes out more of the character’s personalities and motivations compared to the book in which it was more ambiguous to their motivations, it also stays true to how characters are portrayed as with Viserys being a king who would rather wait out making decisions later rather than sooner. Rhaenrya and Alicent are given the same age in the show which gives them a closer relationship in the books and will only make their downfalls even more of a tragedy. While the episode is mostly slow and quiet the scenes with dragons are a real treat to watch, with 17 confirmed dragons in the show it will be cool seeing the better parts of the original series more often. It would not be a Game of Thrones series without some violence and there was violence, from knights getting their faces bashed in, to criminals being beheaded this episode featured a lot of death.
The death that would set the stage for everything was Aemmas, due to her labor going into breech. Viserys is given the difficult choice to save one life or lose both, his choice of choosing to save the baby at the cost of Aemmas life is tragic as both her and the baby end up dying and leaves him in a state of grief. This only alienates Rhaenrya and her father as she blames him and his obsession with having a male heir for her mother’s death. Daemon who was always nervous about his place as heir makes a cruel toast to his dead nephew proclaiming him the heir for a day causing his brother to disinherit him and create a rift between the two. Otto sees the death of the queen as an opportunity to advance his family’s power and order his daughter to comfort the king in his grief which sets the stage for future conflict. Viserys realizes his mistake of overlooking his daughter and decides to make her his heir while revealing the prophecy of ice and fire that all Targaryen kings are said to know about which ties into the main series.
Overall, this was a great episode the costumes and set pieces really benefited from the increase in the budget for this show. The Red Keep feels alive with servants and guards walking around in different parts of the castle which the main series did not have, the acting was excellent, especially Milly Alcock and Emily Carey who play Rhaenrya and Alicent. Making their characters the same age was a better choice than the books as it gives their relationship a more tragic aspect once the series moves further along. The negatives in this episode were the focus certain characters had over others, while Daemon, Viserys and Rhaenrya are important characters we should have gotten more focus on others such as Otto as it would give viewers a slight understanding of why these characters are motivated to do what they do in the show. Episode one was a strong start to the series and any fans of Game of Thrones will be delighted to know that this show is committed to carrying on the original series’ legacy.
Episode two: “The Rouge Prince”
Episode two skips forward six months after the death of Queen Aemma and the threat of the Triarchy, the alliance of the free cities of Myr, Tyrosh and Lys, is causing the council to worry. Viserys has assured them that he is dealing with the problem, but his solutions are seen as weak, Rhaenrya suggest sending dragon riders to deal with the Triarchy, but she is instead shut down by both Otto and her father. Throughout the episode, we see that while she is the heir she is not treated as such by everyone else which only angers her more after Rhaeneys points this out to her. She decides to use more of her position as heir to choose the next king’s guard. She chooses Ser Cristin Cole against the wishes of Otto, by choosing Criston she starts on the path of establishing her position as heir and will not be swayed by those around her.
Viserys is suffering from wounds caused by the Iron Throne symbolizing that power is slowly killing him and that the throne is rejecting him, Otto and Mellos the Grand Maester urge him to remarry much to his reluctance. This episode gives us a glimpse of how everything is slowly falling apart, his councilors are upset with him over his lack of action in the stepstones to fight the Triarchy, he is being made to remarry not long after the death of his first wife and his brother has taken over Dragonstone which is the traditional seat for the heir which he no longer is. We see more of Alicent and Viserys spending more time together discussing the history of Valyria and see them becoming close, Rhaenrya does not know about Alicent and her father hanging out which will only serve to strain their relationship even further, and we then see how Daemons occupation of Dragonstone is affecting the image of stability that the realm is trying to keep in check.
Viserys lack of action is only causing him to look weak to the rest of Westeros and to their enemies and while he sees his brother as doing nothing but throwing a temper tantrum everyone else is not so sure. Daemon goes too far by stealing the dragon egg that was placed in the cradle of Baleon, Viserys son who died in the previous episode. His attempt to go to Dragonstone is thwarted by Otto who undermines him by agreeing to go in his stead making him look even weaker, we get to the highlight of the episode which is the confrontation between Daemon and Otto.
Daemon hates Otto because he sees him as someone who is preying on his brother’s insecurities and weakness to advance himself. He challenges Otto to take back the egg and is backed up by his weird but intimidating dragon, only when Rhaenrya shows up on dragonback and challenges him for the egg does he back down and leaves. Rhaenrya returns to the Red Keep and has a talk with her father basically telling him that is okay for him to remarry someone else and she accepts his decision to do so, the episode ends with a meeting with the small council where Viserys declares his intention to marry Alicent which angers Corlys as he wanted his daughter to marry Viserys as well as Rhaenrya who feels betrayed by her friend.
Another great episode seeing more of the dragons is always a delight and each one has its own designs to them to give them a more unique look onscreen. Viserys share more of his book counterpart’s intensiveness and would rather party and have fun than be an effective ruler. Daemon was shown in the first episode as being a ruthless leader who engages in violence and views himself as superior to everyone else. While his ambition to be king causes him to defy his brother he still loves his family when it is shown how he chooses to spare Rhaenryas life when it would have benefited him. Rhaenrya while being the official heir is consistently treated as just a stand-in until her father remarries and has a son and thus tries to pull her weight around when the society, she lives in does not respect her. This episode also puts more emphasis on the political side of Westeros which I feel the main series only briefly touched on, we see families plotting to increase their power like the Hightowers and Velaryons. some of the negatives this episode had are the same as with the first episode since we do not get more scenes with characters like Daemon and Ser Criston, it feels like we miss out on discovering more of what their characters are truly like. Episode two while a great episode misses out on fleshing out other characters in order to focus on a few select characters which seems to become a recurring aspect of the show.
Episode Three: “Second of his Name”
Another time skip, this time three years later, shows King Viserys has married Alicent and has given him a son Aegon while also being pregnant with their next child. Rhaenrya who does not want to be there is still upset that her father married her best friend and Alicent for betraying her, we see the lords and ladies of Westeros gathered for a hunt celebrating the second name day of Aegon. Here we see the lords politicking over the issue of who will be king, Hobert Hightower the older brother of Otto is pressuring him to have Aegon be named heir to the throne which explains his earlier schemes, instead of seeking power for himself, as the second son he is at the mercy of his older brother.
Rhaenrya feels forgotten as she feels the rest of the realm would rather see her younger brother as an heir rather than her, she lashes out at important political allies because of this and is not really showing any qualities for being a queen. Alicent on the other hand is proving to act more like a queen being diplomatic and engaging with potential powerful allies. We meet Jason Lannister who tries his hand at courting Rhaenrya where he tells her he could build her a Dragonpit at Casterly Rock, but she shuts him down and realizes that her father is intending to marry her off. The two have an argument in a public political event which again only serves to undermine his rule, Rhaenrya is afraid that her father wishes to disinherit her and cart her off to be married and runs away from the hunt as a result.
She is followed by her sworn sword ser Criston and the two have a conversation where she admits to feeling like she has no freedom in her life and feels powerless in her position. Criston gives her his perspective as someone who came from a lower-class background that she is a princess, and many people would kill for the opportunity to be in her position. He reminds her that her power was what elevated him to the highest position someone like him could attain being a part of the prestigious Kingsgurad, Rhaenrya does not want to return to camp so they camp out in the woods where they are attacked by a boar. Ser Criston wounds the boar and Rhaenrya brutally kills it releasing all her pent-up rage over her father, brother and former friend.
Back at camp we see Viserys sitting alone drinking and just looking terrible this is reminiscent of King Robert from the original series, while both men were charismatic and can be the life of the party being king, is something they are not good at. The wounds that Viserys has obtained from the Iron throne have resulted in two of his fingers being amputated, being king is literally destroying him from the inside while everything else around him is falling apart. He is given advice by Lyonel Strong one of his councilors to marry Rhaenrya to Laenor Velaryon son of Corlys Velaryon to mend any issues caused by Viserys choosing to marry Alicent over his daughter. This was a nice bit of characterization as it gives us a look at someone who is not looking at their own interests and gives Viserys advice that is helpful.
We see Alicent and Viserys talk about he feels everything is going wrong when he reveals to her about his dream, he told his wife in the first episode how he feels his obsession with having a son has pushed Rhaenrya away. The next morning the men capture a deer, earlier in the episode it was stated by Otto that a white hart was spotted in the Kingswood. A white hart symbolizes royalty and everyone feels that killing this white deer it will only strengthen Aegon’s claim as king of the seven kingdoms. With the deer being brown it gives Viserys some relief that he made the right choice by choosing Rhaenrya as his heir. The white hart does appear for Rhaenrya and instead of letting Ser Criston kill it and bring it back to camp thus solidifying her claim she lets it go implying that she does not want to seek the throne, she does return to camp with the boar’s body earning her respect from some of the guests.
Later, we see Otto and Alicent discuss the future for who gets the throne Otto wants his grandson to inherit the throne while Alicent wants to support Rhaenrya which shows that despite them not being on good terms Alicent still cares about her friend. When she speaks to Viserys she does not push for her own son’s advancement but instead tells him to allow Rhaenrya to think she has a choice in who she wants to marry which he follows up with by later telling her she can choose her own husband.
She also convinces him to support his brother in his war in the Stepstones, we cut to the Stepstones where it is a losing battle against the Triarchy. Daemon is unsuccessful in killing the Crabfeeder and receives word that his brother is sending reinforcements, and this should be seen as a good thing he lashes out at the messenger. He is here to prove himself and getting help from his brother only complicates this, he then stages a ruse where he presents himself as surrendering to the enemy to get the Crabfeeder out of hiding and kill him. The plan works to a degree where he almost dies if not for the intervention of his Velaryon allies and another dragon rider, he chases down the Crabfeeder and returns triumphantly with his corpse thus winning the battle of the Stepstones.
This episode is slower than the last two and one that will probably be considered the weakest of the first season, it spent too much time at the royal hunt when we could have gotten more scenes with Daemon and the Stepstones. The villain of this episode the Crabfeeder should have gotten more screen time with maybe some speaking lines added to him to give him more characterization than then some generic diseased man who nails people to the shoreline. We get more insight on characters who in the book seem like a one-dimensional villain and find out that there is more to them like in the case of Otto. Alicent is slowly turning into her book counterpart when it comes to political schemes and will be interesting to see where this will take her. Rhaenrya is also growing as a character who is starting to understand the power she wields and is growing into a potential ruler while Viserys is starting to fall apart being king. Overall, this episode felt slower than the previous two, and more scenes with different characters could have helped it more.
