Dragon House
The start of House of the Dragon is just hours away, and with it, readers of George RR Martin’s Fire and Blood will finally understand the truth behind the brutal civil war the novel depicts. The new show begins with House Targaryen at its strongest, but the legitimacy of King Viserys’ decision to make his eldest daughter Rhaenyra his successor is quickly thrown into doubt.
The House of the Dragon is a HBO fantasy adventure series co-created by HOTD showrunners Ryan J. Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, who also directs many of the first season episodes. Paddy Considine plays King Viserys and Matt Smith plays Prince Daemon Targaryen. Still, a cast of excellent performers portray the royal family and their supporters (or enemies). Milly Alcock and Emily Carey play little Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower respectively, while Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy play their adult counterparts.
The plot takes place on the fictional continent of Westeros, centering on a war between two rival houses of the powerful Targaryen family. The series follows the life of King Viserys I Targaryen during the time of the noble House Targaryen. Viserys names his daughter Rhaenyra as his successor, placing her ahead of his brother Daemon after the loss of his wife in childbirth and the death of all his infant male descendants.
On the other hand, Viserys remarried and has three boys and a girl with Alicent Hightower. Viserys’ death sparks a civil war between the children of Rhaenyra and Viserys and Alicent. In a recent interview with ScreeningHOTD showrunners Condal and Sapochnik were asked when they started working on House of the Dragon, how they developed the characters, and how they simplified the complexity of George RR Martin’s books
Complexity Explained
Those who have read the books will know that there are so many character points of view that it may even be impossible to receive the whole truth. Asking a similar fact of the showrunners of HOTD, the first question that comes to mind is: does the narrative POV distill the story in its true form for this era? Here is their response:
Ryan Condal: That’s the plan. It’s such a complex story and takes place over such a long period of time. The first season in particular, because it is the story of this generational war. Young women have to marry, then have children, and then those children grow up. And then it’s finally them who climb on the dragons and go to fight.
Ryan Condal further talks about the intricate structure and how they intended to guide people as simply as possible, so they don’t “get lost”:
It just required a very specific and complex structure, so we wanted to guide people as simply as possible so they didn’t get lost. We have found a linear path through this very complex structure.
The “Rashomon” style is left to the book. The creator confirms that instead they tried to define the “objective truth of this real story” while hoping that fans of the book will be fascinated by the storyline of the series:
As fun as this Rashomon style of storytelling is, we left that up to the book and decided to try instead to define what we thought was the objective truth of this actual story, as we saw it. Some historians are right and some historians are wrong; sometimes they’re all right, sometimes they’re all wrong. I think that was the fun of the adaptation; get to really interact with the book as a companion piece. I think people who have read the book and watched the series will hopefully be enthralled. “It’s interesting how they shot this event”, or “George wrote this seemingly disposable little line, but there’s this big thing that happened, because historians didn’t see it or didn’t know what really happened.”
The importance of legacy and the question of succession has always been at the heart of Game of Thrones. However, it has become the center of much discussion thanks to House of the Dragon. House of the Dragon will trace the history of House Targaryen from its heyday under Viserys to the ashes and ruins from which we saw Daenerys emerge in the opening of Game of Thrones. Inevitably, the result will probably be a lot of violence that will be seen very soon.
