The House of the Dragon is one of the recent television phenomena launched by HBO, a story that deals with the events that occurred long before everything we saw in Game of Thrones. It was three long years of waiting to return to content about dragons, family betrayals and the fight for the throne.
After the culmination of Game of Thrones, leaving it as the most successful series in history, non-compliant HBO sought to continue exploiting the sprawling fantasy world of George RR Martin. This is how they looked at “Fire and Blood”, a novel by the writer that serves as a complement to the main story. This would become the ideal plot to give rise to a list of spin-off prequels that have been promised. If you want to know more about its premiere, do not stop reading this ExpressVPN article.
What is The House of the Dragon about?
Having set the bar so high, It is unthinkable that The House of the Dragon can achieve the great success that Game of Thrones had. However, it can be said that it starts with an already established base that allows it to have greater acceptance by the public.
The series is divided into 10 chapters, and is located approximately 200 years before of everything that happened in Game of Thrones. It is based on the novel “Fire and Blood” written by George RR Martin, who was directly involved in the development of the plot.
The axis of the story focuses on the line of succession that the king must follow, who must choose between his firstborn daughter, Rhaenyra, or his brother, Daemon Targaryen, to inherit the iron throne. The problem is that a woman has never been able to succeed to the throne, a problem that would be the trigger for a civil war that would end up separating the kingdom, starting “the Dance of the Dragons”.
The particularity is in the way of telling the story, since the narration takes place in two time lines. Both the young and the adult version of the main characters are shown, thus evidencing the evolution of the events that ended up ending the Targaryen dynasty.
What is repeated in Game of Thrones and The House of the Dragon?
Beyond seeing the fantastic dragons again, bloody fights and family problems related to power, there are many kinships between Game of Thrones and The House of the Dragon. Both are characterized by being raw series, where sensitive issues such as incest are seen, which for history and fans is something normal.
However, there are many more details that have gradually been revealed and that are repeated in Game of Thrones and The House of the Dragon.
Jefferson Hall, the only one to repeat in both series (warning! spoilers!)
In the third episode of the prequel, a face may have been familiar to you, specifically the one that plays Jason Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock. The funny thing is that the same actor plays his twin brother in the series, Ser Tyland. Even so, most relevantly, Jefferson Hall also appeared in the first season of Game of Thrones.
So far, he is the only actor who has participated in the original series as in this adaptation. Specifically, he plays up to three characters: the two Lannister twins in House of the Dragon, and Lord Jon Arryn’s squire, Hugh of the Vale. You can learn more about the cast at this ExpressVPN article.
The latter, Ser Hugh del Valle, died at the hands of The Mountain in the fourth episode of the first season of Game of Thrones. For now, It’s time to see what fate holds for the Lannister twins during the course of history.
a familiar melody
After the series began with the first episode without a header or melodies, they wanted to surprise the public in its second chapter with their credit titles. In principle, they have succeeded, betting mainly on nostalgia.
“The Scoundrel Prince” is the second episode of The House of the Dragon, which has its own header, but with the particularity of having the original music of Game of Thrones. As with the original title animation, it comes with a physical, political, and emotional map of the entire series. This starts at the top of Valyrya, in Essos, and goes all the way to King’s Landing. Among this, the blood that falls like a waterfall and tarnishes the different emblems of the Targaryen family.
All this is a sign that the mechanical turns increase the violence little by little, which results in a river of blood that flows into the sea. The blood also represents the legacy of the Targaryens, who want to immortalize Aegon I’s conquest. All this in a header that has the same traits and tones as Game of Thrones, so the melody is not out of place.