the dragon house was at an intermediate point between the procedure and the search for a personality in the first season that justified its existence beyond Game of Thrones. Ten episodes were devoted to building the rivalry between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), the eldest daughter of King Viserys I (Paddy Considine), and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), the daughter of the Hand of the King, Otto Hightower ( Rhys Ifans). They were friends in an environment as restrictive as the palace and then progressively developed tension due to Viserys’ second marriage to Alicent and the birth of Rhaenyra’s male brother who could ruin her chances of being queen in a system until that time. patriarchal moment.
Never has GRR Martin’s literary universe seemed so tiny and claustrophobic as in the ten hours of the first season
Never had George RR Martin’s literary universe seemed so tiny and claustrophobic as in those ten hours, not even when David Benioff and DB Weiss had to tie up the characters of Game of Thrones in cardboard interiors because HBO still did not trust them with a large budget to unleash their imagination. As viewers, it was surprising to find a directly horrible photograph in the dragon house and such an intensive use of interiors that, rather than taking us to a Shakespearean theatrical tragedy, it could be read as a waste of Westeros. Regarding the characters, they moved between blurred relationships, stumbling evolutions and secondary characters without enough minutes.
This visit to the Wall serves as a declaration of intentions: we will finally see Westeros again.
HBO
However, Ryan Condal, the creator of this prequel along with GRRM, was able to reach an interesting point at the conclusion of that introductory first season: the contrast of the female characters. Both had reasons to want the Iron Throne: Rhaenyra was the firstborn and Alicent, who asked for the crown for Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), did so legitimized by her husband’s last words before dying (which, ironies of life , he misunderstood since Viserys was delusional and actually wanted his daughter to be his heir). With the death of Jacaerys (Harry Collett) when he met her uncle Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) riding their respective dragons, the Dance of Dragons could be started.
The footage is now distributed with the secondary ones and the episodes, which seek impact, have more dynamism
In the episodes provided to the press of the second season, the dragon house It is not only presented as a continuation of the civil war led by Rhaenyra and Alicent but also as a rectification. He openly corrects his mistakes. It can be seen in the first scene located at the Wall and where a son of Rhaenyra speaks with Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor): he forces us to remember how vast the continent of Westeros is at all levels. Needing support from the various houses, the black cloaks and green cloaks assume that there is life beyond the stone walls of Dragonstone or the Red Keep. It’s as if, suddenly, blinders had been removed from us.
Alicent has to make an effort to maintain a little power in the face of children who take advantage of the patriarchal system to ignore her at their convenience.
HBO
The script also becomes more generous: from focusing only on the wives of Viserys and Daemon (a character who always struggles to be as attractive on screen as it is felt he should be on the page), the weight of the plots is also distributed to the secondary ones. This, in addition to remembering the classic structure of Game of Thrones, gives dynamism to the episodes, especially when Alicent and Rhaenyra find themselves physically stuck in their rooms (the first due to her passive role, always trying to control the men in her life, and the other due to mourning the death of her son). . It can be interpreted almost as a gift to see Eve Best as Rhaenys or Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria taking advantage of this creative handout.
In a smart move by Ryan Condal, commoners are even given minutes to understand how King’s Landing suffers from the war.
In a very smart move on Condal’s part, minutes are even given to commoners without a say in royal matters. It is a novelty for this fictional universe that had never paid attention to the crowd of King’s Landing beyond the concept of a poor citizenry that both serves as cannon fodder and can rebel at a given moment due to the ineptitude of the monarch in power. And, as if Condal had better studied the DNA of its predecessor series, each episode reserves moments of impact. The first key murder of the season contains more tension than the entire chronological review of Alicent and Rhaenyra’s youth.
At times he even remembers Joffrey for his capricious attitude.
HBO
These impacts, for the record, are not as frontal as they should: they work to the extent that they are cruel or well produced but not necessarily because of the empathy or fascination generated by the characters. the dragon house, as I criticized Daemon, has a dissonance between how it is intuited that we should know the characters and how conventionally we process them on screen. The series also faces another obstacle that already seems insurmountable: the themes proposed by the creators are still a repetition of those already explored in Game of Thrones. In this sense, it does not contribute anything new, which should be asked of a production as ambitious at all levels as this one.
The series has an insurmountable obstacle: it repeats the themes explored in ‘The House of the Dragon’
But, after the implicit rectification that is the second season, now the viewer finally has good entertainment. Those who seek death, epicitytrauma, spectacle and situations so twisted that you have to throw your moral compass out the window, you are in luck.
